THE THRILLER IN MANILA 

Oiled up dwarves. Modern crucifixions. Bizarre faith healing practices. Women boxers. The threat of imminent unseemly violence. Liquor that tastes like cough mixture and sweat, and blinds you. Dangerous female impersonators wearing Texas Chainsaw mascara. Self flagellation. Gambling for human tissue. It’s always difficult for a Bintang to go on tour and leave these home pleasures behind in his apartment.

But life on the road is part and parcel of Asian AFL football and an integral part of life as a Bintang. Even Max Webster Eddy, voted “Most Likely to Have his Kidney Stolen on Tour” agrees. “I agree”, says Max. Thanks mate.

Cheers.

The challenge of the Thriller in Manila was not at all underestimated by the assembled Bintangs. Fitness was down, it couldn’t be denied. It was only now that Smouch had left that the Bintangs realised the tremendous role model that he had been on the training track, demanding others by his example, urging all to leave their last drop of sweat on the Astroturf, to struggle on, to never cry “hold, enough, for the love of all that’s holy, enough, please, make it stop, I beg of you, enough.”

Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

There were also major late scratchings, putting pressure even on the immense reserves of talent that the Bintangs hold. Paul Hansen missed his flight as he engaged in the time consuming task of explaining to the police why (2 weeks before the presidential election), he had 25 kilos of voter cards all already filled out in the name of one particular President-Vice President combination.  Liam the Hammer of Vengeance was a tragic victim of mistaken identity: when jogging through the sculpture park of Melbourne’s Flagstaff Gardens, he was painted by the Melbourne City Council.  Chris Elstoft was in no condition to play after receiving an anonymous letter stating that Ted Whitten faked his cancer for cheap sympathy and was actually alive and well on the Gold Coast, living under an assumed name. Determined Dave Smith, the only player to date to have died from Bintangs related causes (Medistra Hospital November 2007) was slowly clawing his way back to his full robust fitness. Boy Sabar, of course, is largely lost to us now as he trains full time for the London Olympics, eyeing Silver in the 2 metre “getting into a lift while ten people are trying to get out” event.

After a week of “will he”, won’t he” journalist talk keeping major celebrity deaths from the front page, John Eddy, goal kicking legend of the Bali Masters, declined to play. The announcement triggered off riots similar to the announcement of the OJ Simpson verdict with 50-something bank managers battling suburban footballers in streets throughout Asia. Lots of looting and barricades. Fires. Gushing hydrants.

It seems essentially that umpire turned footballer turned umpire John Webster Eddy was the Lord of Misrule. One day a year, in the old Medieval days, the Lord of the Castle would name a servant as the Lord of Misrule to function as a kind of funhouse mirror Lord for a day. He would wear a funny crown and raiment and give joke orders to the Lord and Lady for the amusement of all.  That one day, the rules of hierarchy were turned upside down and a social pressure valve released.

This is the guiding principle behind the joy of office retreats. The boss learns to trust, falls backwards and is caught by underlings. The tea lady and the driver have musical talent and cruelly conduct a talentless collection of managers murdering some easy listening song to the derision of others. God, I love office retreats. I would sooner eat a rat than miss an office retreat. Everyone else has gotten tired and bored and locked themselves in their hotel room and I am still out there in the crepuscular hotel gloom practicing Active Listening on gardeners and addressing core issues through 360 degree feedback on kaki lima victims.

I think the Bintangs should have one.

But all in its time. There are the Manila Eagles to be dealt with.

FIRST QUARTER

The Bintangs burst out of the box on the gleaming Manila Polo Ground pitch, displaying the benefit of years of specialized polo ground training. From the first bounce, Simon McKenna was providing so much dash into the forward line, Max Webster Eddy so much steady support in contests, I would be surprised if any of the Bintangs were thinking of them as the twin Judases who wore the blue of the Bali Geckoes against their very own teammates and friends only a week earlier.

However it was the nontreacherous Muzza who was putting the goals through. He had two up in four minutes. The Muzz was leading well and marking everything like he had 12 fingers. (Given that Muzz actually has 16 fingers and something that looks like a big toe growing from the base of his left palm, this is simply not good enough. Lift your game, Muzz.)

There was no game lifting required from Butcher and Bandy, both picking up kicks and goals at will. Butcher, a mere seven days earlier, had made an AFL Premiership player his Starcebitch. The poor Eagle assigned to be another scalp in Buffalo Butcher’s Chamber of Horrors had no idea what was to befall him as he prepared himself before the match putting the lotion on its skin.

Bandy had arrived 7 days earlier to acclimatize to the different longitude. At Cebu Airport, he was given a complimentary hyperbaric chamber to decompress in for about 10 hours as part of Cebu Pacific’s stern commitment to their passengers well being.

The decompression was probably a good thing given the ongoing debate Bandy found himself in with the umpire regarding the act of playing on. Although he was in this weird wired Asian swallowing-all-tacky-Americana-whole country, he found that it was most definitely not Burger King out here. You can’t have it your way. He could however pick up an A Grade speccie, a long bomb goal and about 10 possessions for the quarter so what you lose on the swings, you get back on the roundabouts as they say in the other America.

Matt Jolly pulled off a polished mark and goal. Jerry then dobbed a goal that was most memorable except for those on the end of his extended arm as he charged into melee, who are still not getting perfect scores on the ‘how many fingers am I holding up?” test that the doctor gives you on these type of occasions.

What a quarter. 7.1.43 to 0.0. Go ANZ. Go Bintangs.

Can I make one observation:  Very few people barrack for the umpires. Jedi does.

OK two observations:  Jedi has been in no way proven to be even slightly involved in the Snowtown bodies in the bank serial killing case.

SECOND QUARTER

In caliche,

In the Bali game a week earlier, Guru had proven to be the type of player that every team would trade bigtime for. A man who can play back or forward equally well and who is able at will to launch a 60 metre drop punt under pressure. This week though, it was hoped that he would take on board Tim Hakfoort’s canny advice that it is best that a 60 metre punt goes at least some centimetres forward rather than 60 metres straight up in the air. With this tactical breakthrough under his wing, the Eagles were struggling to silence their hoodoo Guru.

The United States have elected a black President. Ben Clanchy kicked another career goal.

Getting back now to the general run of the game, we see Dave “the Bitcher” Edwards dispensing the misery that traditionally comes to those entrusted to defending against him. Two more individual goals were the salt rubbed into already gaping wounds and Dave then passed one to Max Webster Eddy who dobbed his own sausage roll. Roger had been racking up copious possessions in all parts of the polo field, in ground play and plucking it out of the air with dexterity, and now felt it fitting to culminate this play with his own Swiss roll (as they are known to people of his ethnicity).

Few suspected that the time of the Emo was upon us. Once upon a time, Craig was thrown out of Mrs. Agalides’ class for making that farting sound by applying pressure to his hand under the elbows. Shamed and ostracized, Craig was sent from the room holding back tears and a blush and made to stand outside. It was there on that fateful day that Craig resolved never to buckle no matter how great the pressure. It was his finding Emo moment. He wiped away the tears, summoned the courage and stuck his mouth on the window to blow the flatulence noise much to the amusement and more importantly the respect of his classmates. Damn the consequences. Although Emo’s university career finished soon after that, the same never say die spirit continued on the Manila pitch. Emo executed a superb twist and shout manouevre to put through his first goal.

Then dark tragedy struck…

Roger flew through the air in for a mark only to have his legs clipped. Filipino spectators crossed themselves and invoked saints as he flew horizontally and crashed onto his back expelling every breath of air from his body. Roger swallowed his tongue. He did not move.

Bintangs and Eagles alike rushed to his aid but he was flat lining. The closest decent hospital was Darwin Central (where Diggler had a discount card from repeated prison tatt removal). But how to get airless Roge there? What hope lay for the crumpled Swissman who had given so much?

Roger’s experience of the whole thing only came out later. As his team mates attended to him, Roger felt himself walking towards a white light. A peaceful beckoning white light that had his aunt Brunhilde from Interlachen standing next to it. He was no longer in the Bintangs jumper but rather the lederhosen that he used to wear when he was a child yodeling around the mountains of Graubünden. But as he reached for his aunt’s kind cow-udder-smelling hand, he realised that it was not his time. He had more to do in this game. He saw Bandy lifting him up, he saw MJ telling him to stay down. Roger was seeing things differently than before as he peacefully floated above the scene. He realised that Bandy wanted to move his long unconscious body around because Bandy had never been allowed to play with his sister’s dolls when he was growing up and so now Chris searches for replacements, male and female, to manipulate into different positions according to Chris’ will.

The Bintangs saw Roger jolt and splutter. And then mutter. “What’s he saying?” Muzz stuck his ear close to Roger’s mouth and heard it all: “He’s singing the last verse of the Bintangs club song. The verse no one knows”.

The crowd wept, relieved and thankful. Roger was carried to the sidelines and the quarter wound down with the score 14.15.89 to 0.0.

THIRD QUARTER

In the French Revolution, actors played an enormous part in inciting the people to rise up over the entrenched tyrannical aristocracy. There were no TV sound bites, most newspapers could not be read by the illiterate revolutionaries and so a convincing impassioned speechifier would go far in inciting the rabble to heady acts of violence. Actors know how to speak.

Just such an enraged crowd was outside the office of the Ministers of State, hurling abuse but not yet game enough to charge the bayonets of the gendarmerie. Hearing this, actor revolutionaries performing the Voyages of Odysseus in a nearby theatre leapt from the stage in costume to join and incite the throng. Some of the actors were in their costume armour which suited the mood. Another though was dressed as Polyphemus the Cyclops. He was in a white costume with one enormous eye as a headpiece. So be it. When the crowd saw him like that, first one and then all started screaming that he was a secret policemen and proceeded to beat him to a pulp.

Paraphrased from Simon Schama’s  “Fall of the Bastille”

Why, by the beard of Odin, would a secret policeman of all people turn up to an enraged revolutionary brouhaha dressed all in white with one big eye. I’ve seen Jedi all in white with only one functioning eye but he has his reasons. Who there watching in burning Paris could believe for a second that a secret policeman would present to a rabid crowd in such garb? How utterly without sense. What were they thinking?

They weren’t thinking, that’s the whole point. One yelling rabble rouser incited the whole pack mentality to overcome all reason, all compunction, all basic human restraint.

It was this healthy attitude that Dave Edwards was trying to inspire in the team in his half time address. The Bitcher was giving the Picture.

It is a new more brutal era that is upon the Bintangs. Atavistic. Remorseless. There’s no turning back.  There’s no turning the other cheek. It is the Season of the Butcher, the Dawn of the Jolly. The Just for Recreation’s Sake to Pass the Time Away Stephens era is ended, some even say he was a Dead Man Walking ever since early 2007 when his idols of aggression, North Melbourne players Aaron Edwards and Shannon Grant were put under arrest for brawling  at a concert. Cool. A Lionel Richie concert. Decidedly uncool.

With the team inspired to fever pitch by the blood thirsty address by coach and captain, the newly conscious Roger Federer weighed in with his view. Apparently the aggression, the commitment, the striving for the ball are all well and good, but they are merely the framework for what really matters which is trust, camaraderie and especially the deep self knowledge we can obtain of who we really are as Bintangs and beyond our Bintanginess.

Roger started on a speech on how we can think of ourselves as buckets at a house fire but if a bucket has a hole in it…but the Bintangs were already on the field and in position (eight minutes before the ball was to be bounced).

Lawrence Oates, who accompanied Scott of the Antarctic every step of the journey, at one point simply said “I am just going outside and may be some time” He was never seen again. It would have been easy for the Eagles to have dropped their bundle at this stage, to have given up and walked off into the wasteland. To their credit, they came back with twice as much in this half. They were no pack of Manila folders.

Still, the Bintangs weren’t stationery either.

Manila started going for the big marks, frequently in vain and always Matt Jolly lay in wait for the crumbs, heading off with the ball well before the Eagles had landed. Who can stop this man? Matt has scored off more faulty hangers than Ari Pratanto, 20 year veteran at the Customs Department of Soekarno Hatta Airport.

Bandy, not to be outdone by Roger swallowing his tongue, crunched into a pack and swallowed someone else’s tongue. Matt Gulbis had chewed his way out of the facemask of the Hannibal Lecter travel suit that stops him attacking anything wearing or made of leather on the plane. The horse tranks had worn off. He was starting to let loose on the pitch. Someone said they were missing a pen but they were ignored.

Lofty got in on the action with a supreme lead to have him lining up for the big sticks well within range. He was so excited and he just couldn’t hide it. He was about to lose control and he thought he liked it. Unfortunately, there’s a reason why players have it drummed into them not to play for the camera. Lofty’s bizarre errant shot won’t make play of the day but there have been some detailed discussions with “Manila’s funniest home videos”.

Bintangs centre domination continued and a sharply directed tap by Il Occupacione Italiano was immediately sharked by MJ and a long slowly descending pass wafted towards a pack of three lone Bintangs who shall remain nameless. (But not for long. They were Emo, Guru and Lofty.) Even Diggler was in range but he chose instead in the time allotted to run a chook raffle on who would get the ball. However, in an unexpected but moving tribute to the Fallen, all three proximate ‘Tangs moonwalked backwards allowing the ball to bounce in the middle while each uttered a high pitched “wooooh” of surprise. Guru added that he was Bad and that he knows it and shows it. Somewhat debatable. This was one of the more baffling passages of play for the day and the Manila Eagles strangely had no prior game plan for it. Eagles backs eventually rushed into the void and the ball careened off various body parts until Emo decided to put the foot back into football and kicked a goal.

Guru was ready to take another of his superb pack marks when a Philippine Eagle shouted “Muzza” at the top of his voice, causing Guru’s chest to turn immediately to rubber with the predictable effect on the football’s passage. Why a Manila Eagle would call out “Muzza” is anyone’s guess. Why Guru would be so possessed with fear at the name of Muzza so as to spill a chest mark is obvious to all: well above all soft tissue injuries, hamstrings and sprains, the major cause of Bintangs seeking medical treatment is Repressed Memory Syndrome from having shared a room on tour with Muz.

All day Simon McKenna had been living in a powder keg and giving off sparks and he put through yet another of his Peter Daicos tribute goals. Though profoundly impressed by this new scion of the McKenna footy pantheon, all eyes were on the Swiss horizon to see whether the man explaining to his Eagles defender at length how every moment must be made to count and was so precious, like an individual snow flake falling on the Edelweiss, could return to his prefatality form. Oh yes he could. Shouting “Berne, baby, Berne. Swissgoal Inferno”, Roger unleashed what can only be described as the greatest forward onslaught in the history of Swiss Philippines AFL football. He weaved, he stole, he passed, he goaled, he pointed, he sent his broken body in for pack mark of the day and the Bintangs’ Swiss account earned so much credit that Hakfoort received a telegram of congratulations from Imelda Marcos at three quarter time.

By then, the score was 17.8.110 to 0.2.2

THE FOURTH QUARTER

The Barrel is the Bintangs’ own Manhattan project, with critical research on this kick being performed under a cloak of darkness, hidden even from non Masonic Bintangs. Every time Hak flicks the lights off at training, Matt Gulbis galvanises into action pinging off protobarrel after protobarrel in the need-to-know-basis dark. It had been rolled out in limited form against the Geckoes a week earlier and had been instrumental in Simon McKenna and Max Webster Eddy changing sides this week though neither has any French or Italian ancestry. With no available Kurds to fully test this new weapon on, Matt turned his eyes to Manila and rubbed his hands together making that “Moo hoo ha haa Moo hoo ha haa” laughing sound that they make in movies.  Those in the know awaited the test at ground zero with apprehension and yes, fear. With minutes to go, Matt did a sliding on his knees chest mark well within range of goals yielding a golden opportunity to roll out the Barrel but he declined. For whose sake? For Manila’s? For his?. Intercepted correspondence between Benjamin Netanyahu and Matt Gulbis has them agreeing that the fear of a weapon’s use can be as powerful as the weapon itself.

There was much afoot though before that fateful moment. Michael Bourke had been putting in all day and came into his own this quarter. Mick, one of the 6 Westerners (5 since a recent celebrity death) white enough to appear in an Indonesian luxury product advertisement, nonetheless proved that he has thick red puma blood coursing through his veins. He was playing against an opponent who was much taller and had more Chins than a Chinese phone book yet his opponent may as well have been a passport, SMick found him that easy to lose.

Chris Bandy, the hardest working man in show business, made the quarter his own with a choice smother and recover, and no less than three goals, one of which came from a drop kick and another from an act of selflessness by the Butcher. Needless to say, he wound up being dragged when he dropped a mark later on.

Diggler usually starts his games the way the directors of the “Saw” franchise start their movies, however the spinechilling terror was absent in this particular Tale from the Dirkside. Diggler had learnt much of conserving energy until it was absolutely necessary when he was back on the sheep station, listening to the School of the Air Radio and waiting for those rare opportunities to see a stranger from off the station when his parents called in the Flying Doctor to see what was wrong with him. Today Dirk was missing the silence of the lambs. He did kick a goal though and dedicated it to Snowy the quiet Merino.

This was a hell of a game for the Bintangs, one of the best ever on foreign soil. Every player had a shot at goal. Every player held their own and more. A scoreline of 22.11.143 to 1.3.9 speaks loudly and clearly. They know we’re coming. On the day after the Bintangs brought home the Thriller in Manila, sales of the album “Thriller” reached a 25 year high. Coincidence? I think not.

Goals:  Bandy 4, McKenna 3, Butcher 3, Roger 2, Emo 2, Muzza 2, Jolly 2, Clanchy, Max, Diggler, Jerry

Best: (Unofficial): Roger, Bandy, MJ, McKenna, Butcher, Sick Mick