The Essence of Matt Suckling

Bug Briginshaw is a bushwalker and plant scientist, who loves summer and hunkers down in Melbourne for the footy season in winter.

We were walking home from the pub along Pigdon St on a wet winter evening. In the distance, for no more than a fleeting moment, we caught the silhouette of an animal flit across the street into the dark cover of Princes Hill Primary’s yard. It was too large to be a cat, and yet too sleek in its movement to be a dog. We must have seen the bare outline of this creature for no more than a second, but both of us knew immediately that it was a fox. We didn’t have time to see its upturned snout, cuneate ears, brush tail, nor its distinctly rust-coloured fur. It had the essence of a fox, and that was enough for us to know.

I could not help but think immediately of footy, as is my tedious wont. It is difficult to explain how, but I know the distinctive shapes and motions of footy players so intimately that a faint outline at the Etihad jogging back into position is immediately recognisable as Dale Morris. And without catching sight of the guernsey number, and purely from some unique and essential set of contours that he alone possesses, I know with an unconscious certainty that the man streaking out of our defensive fifty is Matt Suckling. This may sound absurd (or more correctly, this will sound absurd), but I know the essence of Matt Suckling.

 

University of Tasmania

Bert Spinks tells stories for a living. He is Tasmania’s official unofficial historian, and one of the world’s great craft beer storytellers, as well as a bushwalking guide. Over the summer, he’ll be profiling Tasmanian football grounds. See more at his website.

In 1940 a group of young servicemen convened at Brighton before being deployed. They were the C Company, 2/3 Machine Gun Battalion. Many of them would be taken as prisoners of war in New Guinea.

One of them was Ray Miles, a country lad from the bush around Mole Creek, who became a reclusive trapper and fisherman in the mountains after his experiences in the

Another was Eden “Denny” Love, who was a successful rugby player working as a veterinarian in Launceston. His footballing disposition that occurred by dint of his being born in New South Wales.

There was also Desmond Howard Jackson. Left physically fragile by the labour at Hintok Mountain camp, Des returned to Tasmania after the war and picked up a footy again, playing for the University of Tasmania team. He was a key forward, and earned the nickname ‘Demon’.

The UTas team – now known by the unlikely moniker of the ‘Rainbows’ – was officially registered in 1936. Taking the train to Claremont to take on the team from the Cadbury chocolate factory, or freezing their bits off on the double-decker bus to Sandy Bay, the University team struggled to even get uniforms together, but soon created a great footballing legacy in the south of the state.

The Rampant Rainbows will be out on the park again in 2015.

Des Jackson’s jumper is still kept in the clubrooms, framed.

TCA Ground

Bert Spinks tells stories for a living. He is Tasmania’s official unofficial historian, and one of the world’s great craft beer storytellers, as well as a bushwalking guide. Over the summer, he’ll be profiling Tasmanian football grounds. See more at his website.

The TCA Ground is steeped in Tasmanian sporting lore. A classic English village ground surrounded by dry eucalypt bushland on the Domain hill above Hobart, the TCA Ground hosted cricket games as early as 1870. Tennis, cycling, baseball, sumo wrestling and bloody quoits have all taken place on the oval.

It’s also been the home ground for a number of Hobart footy clubs, including the gloriously-named Cananore Canaries.

The Canaries first pulled on their charming black-and-gold guernseys in1901. After the Tasmanian Football League resumed activities after World War II, Cananore underwent a transition into becoming part of the new Hobart Football Club.

The name ‘Cananore’ was derived from a misspelt plaque in a family home, known to many of the Canary faithful. Cannanore (now Kannur) is a port town in Kerala, south-western India. They say that one of the founding members had been based at British military headquarters in the town, and it was this that inspired the choice of the name.

It must have been quite a sight, seeing the boys dash onto this picturesque field in their garish strips, and hearing the punters cheer “Carn!” to a team whose name was taken from a place nearly 10,000 kilometres away.

The Canaries won 11 TFL Premierships and 10 State flags. Their stars throughout the four decades in which they existed included the local hero Horrie Gorringe and former Collingwood Brownlow medallist Albert Collier.

Mathinna

Bert Spinks tells stories for a living. He is Tasmania’s official unofficial historian, and one of the world’s great craft beer storytellers, as well as a bushwalking guide. Over the summer, he’ll be profiling Tasmanian country football grounds. See more at his website.

Mathinna’s footballing history is confusing. In the town’s pub these days is a flag strung up for the 1964 F.D.F.A premiership; however, a Fingal Valley historian reckons their team only played in two reserves Grand Finals, winning one in 1965.

Locals also tell that the Mathinna mob was nicknamed ‘the Kill-and-Burns’, in honour of an infamous murder case in the bush behind the town in 1913 – surely one of the nastiest nicknames in all of football history.

Silverware and mascots aside, it is the case that the Fingal Valley Football Association started in Mathinna in the late 1800s, when the town was at the peak of gold fever. At this time, Mathinna was the third-largest town in Tasmania. In between their endeavours for colour, three teams’ worth of blokes played footy here. From those games, the F.D.F.A competition was spawned.

Of course, the town’s population has diminished since the golden days. In 1968, the club folded due to lack of participants; Campbell Town took their place in the comp. Today only 250 people live in Mathinna and not much footy is played on the field here; only two paintless wooden goal posts at the northern end survive. The F.D.F.A wound up in 1992.