Search Forum Home   Discussions  General  First ever Lion...  First ever Lions game, late March 1998    3/6/2008 1:41:53 PM ozrules 8 posts First ever Lions game, late March 1998 Can you believe it's just a week or 2 away from the 10 year anniversary of the Lions' first game? Wanna know more? Well, after a few aborted attempts to get a team going, in February I went along to the Pasadena (later , Los Angeles, at Plugger's request) Crows training with Paul Koch and his kids, Neil and Evan. I'd been running an ad in the Reader, and putting up flyers at Mesa College, and a few drunks at the now defunct Downunder Bar, had been crawling to training. The Crows were as slick and keen as I was stupid and naive. We mutually agreed upon a game to be played a few weeks hence in San Diego. Things were great. As I started everything, I made sure it all revolved around me, and training was just out the door from work, a few minutes away from my place at Standley Park, University City. Sunday mornings we were getting 18 to training, and having brilliant 9 a side games. I made sure I played full forward on double amputee seppos who'd never played before, and had a ball kicking goals. Geez, I thought we had a chance. So we had to look for a field. Let me tell you, America is NOT the land of limited government. In Aussie, you could snag a field anywhere for a workplace game, no fuss. Here, in San Diego, we were smashing our heads against a wall of stupidity and regulations. I was always trying to get them to realise the scope of the whole thing, that one day teams of cash heavy fools would travel to deposit loads of tax dollars into the city system. No vision. Game time was creeping up. We tried the uni's. UCSD were willing to rent us a field for a few hundred an hour, oh, and we needed a million dollar insurance rider!!!!!!!!!! Now, what you don't know, is that our very own Paul Koch got that rolling, and that is how the blanket USAFL coverage started. With no ability to delegate, and supreme confidence in my skills, I was the sucker calling people up, making goal posts and basically getting nothing done (I had been appointed President a few weeks before) while Paul and Wayne Calliss actually did stuff. We had no outfit, so Paul got us some Lions t-shirts to wear for our first game. The Brisbane Lions were like absentee fathers. As I called around to rally the troops, excuses were like assholes, most everybody had 'em. My head started to ache, much like my ribs which had been broken a few weeks before at training, by Ed, with a full on head down spear tackle. Game day. Rain. In SoCal, that's cause for panic in the armageddon sense. So, I got to Priuss field nice and early to set up. Normally the site of 200 12 yo girls would hit me with a giddy rush, but a friggin' soccer tournament?? I demanded to see the man in charge, or woman, or Republican. As I was about to insert my permit into his nearest opening, he pulled out a replica of mine!! UC bloody SD, one of the foremost medical schools in the country, where a 4.0 GPA won't even get you in, had double booked us!! So, who do you think won when I suggested they bugger off?? Let me tell you, soccer Mom's are a force to be reckoned with, and they know as many bad word as me. While I was in a fit of meaningless rage, which would have made Basil Fawlty proud, Wayne or Paul suggested we snag another field. They were easy to find, as they were all covered in signs that said, "ball games strictly prohibited". To me, that meant , "take me, I'm yours". So, that's how Muir Field became the site of the first ever game of footy on the West Coast! Players. The Lions. 15 bodies. One was a 15 yo who was Evan's 15 yo friend. Two non-english speaking Japanese exchange students. No Aussies who had played senior footy in the previous decade!! Molly, who Melbourne had wanted when he was 16, but who joined the Navy, was injured and immobile. Publican Steve Brownsea, who had played country footy, was hoarding some of his profits as weight. To make it even better, a goal post fell on him during set up, and split his skull open. He was bandaged and slated to remain comatose in the goal square. I hadn't plyed in 19 years, and even then I'd only played about 20 games, coz I was a hockey player! We had the Lthaert brotheres, seppo's I'd conned into thinking all they had to do was show up and we'd win. Our gun player was Longhair! Get the picture? Crows. 24 big able bodied machines, doing drills at the speed of light, pumping the ball into each other was missile passes, loud voices and a snarling atitude. Aussies, plus star Irish gaelic players, 2 professional english soccer players, and a huge slab of middle America ruckman. Well, I'd never thought of things like captains or coaches, so I sent myself out to the toss, and came back and yelled at everyone, in a way that would have made a Tourette's sufferer proud. To make it all the more bizarre, we had a Kiwi umpire! Siren, me at CHF. Ball up (what, you thought a kiwi could bounce the bloody thing?), tap, Crows ruck to Crows rover , kick, marked in square, goal. Ball up, tap to rover, kick, mark in square, goal. Ball up, tap to rover, mark in square, goal. One minute 12 seconds elapsed off the clock. Being an astute coach, I was starting to see a pattern emerge. They were good, we were.... the Lions! Well, you thought the next passage of play would be repeated, you were wrong! No, Tommo, our Rising Son, was introduced to a hip n shoulder that dislocated his shoulder. Not so hip. As we had no-one on the bench, we formed a barrier around him, put his offending appendage back into place, told him to stop bloody screaming, and get back into the game. Things were starting to go well, and they only finished the quarter with 8 goals. Fussy, who then played for the Crows, had hair, fitness and talent, but not the baggage that now makes him sought after as Jabba the Hutt's body double, was having a ball up forward kicking three. I made some positional changes. I threw myself onto the ball. literally, it was mine, and I felt like going home in a huff. No, seriously, I felt like I wanted a kick, so I wenr to RR. Immobile Molly went to FB, as he could still outmark everyone, and HP off. Wayne joined Brownsea in the goalsquare, to keep talking to him, and keep him conscious, until the paramedics arrived. I yelled obscenities at everyone, and we were off. We used soccer tactics to slow the game and the bloodletting down, keeping them to a goal every four minutes. By luck, there smallest, untalented seppo received a HP on their backline. I took a guess that like all seppo's, he couldn't do a thing on his left side, and ran straight at his right, and ruthlessly wrapped his 5 fot 4 body up with my 6 foot, and smash plowed him into the ground so I got a free kick, for holding the ball, while he was left holding his balls. Gee, you can bet I was poular with the Crows' boys as I lined up directly in front from 25 out, for the Lion's first shot at goals. Rain had stopped, no wind, but a column of 8 Crows players on either side of me promising to do WWF things to me made it very hard to concentrate. Let me just say that I kicked the Lions very first point, and a few minutes later was bent double on the ground, as a Crow knew I had dodgy ribs, and tried to put them back in place at 100 mph with is fist. Half time saw me yelling some more, and the sun came out. Sadly, so did the Crows after the break, who were back to kicking a goal every 4 minutes. We were so bad, even Jim Cooper kicked 3 goals! (Hi, Jim!) Three Q time, and I refused an offer of Crows players crossing over to us.But, future coach, Rooter, went ahead and suited up for us. the Crows were so used to nothing happening up our end, that when we accidentally got a kick up forward, Paul Koch was lurking alone, and he had the honor of kicking the first Lions goal, our only for the match!! Yeah, all worth it! Final score Crows 24..11 153, Lions 1.3. 9 How good was that! Afterwards we all went down to the Downunder Bar. Brownsea was obviously still badly injured, because he gave me a free beer! I swapped a Lions t-shirt for a Los Angeles Crows baseball cap. I still have the t-shirt I played in that first game, the cap, and the ball. How much could I get for those on E-Bay? After a horrendous flogging, I did the only sane thing, and arranged a game in LA for the Easter weekend. Growing up, I played in teams that won by 30 goals, lost by 30 goals, same in hockey, 18-1, or 0-10. The only disappointing thing was the guys who never had the guts to show up again. But, I am happy to report, that with who were left, and those who were to come, we let'em know, the Lions go hard and show no mercy EVERY game, because that is how you honor yourselves and honor your opponents. Hell, 2 National titles, I guess it works. As a footnote, Little did I know, that that would be the last game I would ever play fully mobile. My back went out a week before the next game, and I would never be able to bend to pick up a ball again, or have feeling in my arms when I raised 'em over my head. Of course, I kept playing for 4 years! GO LIONS  3/24/2008 12:17:57 PM stiegs5 6 posts Re: First ever Lions game, late March 1998 You're a legend Bill!  Page 1 of 1   Discussions  General  First ever Lion... Flat View Tree View Oldest To Newest Newest To Oldest