Baz

Before Gerry, there was Barry.

When I joined the Brunswick Trugo Club, I became part of Gerry Strachan's team. But Barry was the first to take me under his wing and offer me pointers and encouragement. At that point, about two years ago, he was still fit enough to play the game, though it strained him. Mostly, he sat on the bench behind me and scrutinised my swing. He barked advice while smoking ("Fuck, you hit it too hard, mate!"), in a hoarse, gravelly voice that sounded like a sea lion. This past year, the effort of playing trugo was too much for him, but he attended the games and played cards with the others on practise days.

Left to right: Gerry Strachan, me, and Barry Smith.

The competitive season over for now, I don't usually go to the clubhouse unless there is a special reason to. But a local community group had rented the facilities for a small event yesterday, and a few of us had been asked to help represent the club and explain the game to those attending. It was then I learned Barry had passed away about two weeks ago.

Somehow, I'd missed getting the message from the other players, and therefore the memorial service. That disappointed me, but it was an honest oversight. We'll miss Barry, but his mallet, labelled "BS" in block letters (Barry Smith), remains on the rack among the many others in the equipment room. He'll stay close.

The Film

Polaroid 250 Land Camera

There are two vegetable drawers in our refrigerator, and one of them is crammed with nothing but film. I brought it with me when I moved to Melbourne almost 4 years ago. I've been paring it down slowly. Film is expensive here, and a large portion of my stash is Polaroid, which isn't made anymore, so I tell myself these pictures need to count. But the expiration dates have now long since passed, and every day I don't use it the film chemistry weakens a little bit more. At this point, each picture is a gamble.

But that's okay, because the results can be interesting. Two days ago I pulled out one of my beloved Polaroid cameras-- a heavy, black-and-silver 250 Land model from the late 60s that, when collapsed, is shaped like a Claymore mine.  I noticed it still had half a cartridge of colour 669 pack film in it, probably loaded sometime back in 2006, or perhaps even earlier. I took it with me to trugo practice that afternoon and snapped a picture of Champ nosing around in the garden area behind the clubhouse.

When I pulled on the tab, I heard the familiar dull whistle of the film moving between the metal rollers; it's akin to the sound of a silk necktie slipping briskly through your fingers. A fraction of a second before coming free of the camera body, I could detect the faint pop of the developer pod bursting and, immediately after, a whiff of the photochemistry that would begin to reveal an image; it's a cool, drowsy scent of something undefinably appealing I wish I could eat. I have the same fondness for the smell of gasoline.

© Peter Sackett

60 seconds later, I got this-- or at least something like it. I scanned the print and gave it a crude tweak in iPhoto to see what colours I could rescue, but clearly, red and magenta called it quits a long time ago. The print itself was even more blue than this. But hey, not bad considering that Polaroid would have classified the film as garbage.

I'm told the cross is a joke and that no one is actually buried there. The tripods are for tomatoes, which will be planted in the next week or so.

I'm not going to be nearly as stingy with this film as I have been. True, they're not making this exact stuff anymore, but Fuji now manufactures instant pack film that fits these cameras, so there's really no excuse for keeping it in the fridge. Time to use it.

The Cage Fight

 (© Peter Sackett)

A few weeks ago, while hanging out with the old folks at the Brunswick Trugo Club, I met a photojournalist named Paul Jeffers. He'd taken an interest in the game much the same way I had-- having noticed its oddness and vulnerability-- and decided to start documenting the sport and its players. Before long, we were sharing ideas for other subjects we thought might make good stories. My experience as a supernumerary in La Boheme was one that I came up with. One of Paul's was to follow a 24-year-old Samoan cagefighter named Mikey Ventou'ua as he prepared for his first professional match.
Cagefighting ranks mighty low on my list of interests, varied as they may be. Conversely, it ranks very high on my list of things I don't care a lick about. But I do like a change of pace, and the design writing schtick is feeling pretty stale these days. Sure, I said, let's see what happens.

At ringside with beer.

We met Mikey briefly at his friend's barber shop in Glenroy, about 20 minutes north of the Melbourne CBD. Mikey is short and bright-eyed, and muscly in a way that reminds one of balloon animals. He was getting his hair cut in preparation for the fight; according to Mikey, this was a ritual. Considering this was the eve of his first bout, though, I wasn't sure how fixed a tradition this could have been; maybe he just looked forward to it becoming one. The next night Paul and I, having obtained media passes, drove to down to Geelong to watch the match, which was being held at the local arena.

The place swarmed with people who looked like extras borrowed from "Strictly Ballroom" and "The Road Warrior"-- among the ladies, cheetah-print stretch pants appeared in more-than-average numbers, even for Australia; scrawny, sunburned men with Red Bull baseball caps aggressively sucked cigarettes from pinched fingers; and among all, there were mongrel assortments of tattoos, infected-looking ear and neck piercings, and hair chopped and shaved into mangey patchworks.

Good day for Mikey; bad day for my hair.

Paul and I were concerned that we weren't going to enjoy this at all. We'd agreed that neither one of us liked blood, and there was going to be plenty of it on the floor. As it turned out, we both had a great time. It wasn't that we liked the fighting, but that we had such freedom to roam where we wanted. Cage fighting is just catching on here, and with our media passes, were able to hang out in the back room where the fighters were having their knuckles taped, walk out with their entourage in clouds of artificial fog when their names were announced, and circle the ring freely without getting the least bit of harassment. In the United States it would have been a different story-- we'd be confined to a more limited circuit. Paul was able to get some great shots, and I was close enough that I could hear sweat flying and the splitting of skin. We were both able to focus completely on the action without interruption, and that was a pleasure.

Photos by Paul Jeffers unless otherwise noted.

The Premiers

They even spelled my name correctly.

The big news in trugo? Well, the competitive season has just come to a close and the motley crew from Brunswick won the championship. (That's my team, by the way.)

I'd refrained from writing more about trugo during the season. This blog is still too brief to support more cute reports about ring-chasing dogs and cranky, chain-smoking pensioners, so I held off. Things weren't looking too rosy for Brunswick anyway. Of seven teams in total, ours was fourth or fifth on the ladder, depending on the week. Only twice during the entire season did we have a complete team (eight players) present on a game day, requiring first-half players to play again the second half, and giving us a severe point handicap nearly every match [players who compete twice in the same game can score no more than 16 points out of a possible 24 their second time up].

I'd been performing fairly well for a first-seasoner, but then I ducked out of three games to fly back to the United States in September. Team captain Gerald Strachan's son Patrick plays extremely well, but due to his work schedule he'd been available only half the time. Doc is a hypochondriac and spent half the season in physicians' waiting rooms, and Gerald himself had a hernia operation and other similar internal maintenance to take care of. And at least a couple of times, certain folks just forgot to show up.

But as soon as the finals began, we started winning. Big. Weaker players suddenly found their swing and grew confident. Gerald healed. Doc became more interested in playing than in worrying. And Percy decided, apparently, that having a few beers at the pub before the game might help him limber up a little. Before we knew it, we'd beaten top dogs Port Melbourne by a healthy margin and claimed the title.

We got our Soviet-looking trophies last Thursday during a small, post-sandwich-and-coffee ceremony at South Melbourne. I'm not sure I'll be able to play next season, so this is a great way to end my first.

New Mallet / New High Score

After a two-week hiatus due to Easter and holiday closures, I played trugo this afternoon with the gang at the Brunswick Trugo Club. My first round was shockingly bad. I scored 13 out of a possible 24 points, leading me to reconsider my choice of mallet. I pulled two more from the rack to see how they performed; one was very short and heavy, the other long and heavy with a slightly crooked handle. But both had a striking face at least a centimetre wider than the mallet I'd been using. The long-handled one improved my game immediately, and I finished the afternoon with a game against Helen in which I scored 20 points. Helen scored a new personal best of 21.

Bad hit: Champ the Trugo Dog pursues an errant ring.

Champ the Trugo Dog was supervising play again today, but his enthusiasm flagged a little bit early, perhaps because his owner, Gerry, wasn't feeling well himself. He'd managed to pull a rib muscle this past weekend and figures he'll be out of action for the next few days. 

Brunswick Trugo Club

For months I'd wondered about the Brunswick Trugo Club. I'd seen signs pointing the way, but never bothered to discover where they led. Given the large immigrant population in my neigbourhood, I thought it might have been the name of a private association of ethnic Italians.

Headed for the trugo club? Not this way, you're not.

Nope. Trugo is a sport invented by Melbourne rail workers in 1924. Last week, I called Gerald Strachan, the president of the Brunswick Trugo Club, to ask if I could come by to see the place and learn about the game.

"You're absolutely welcome to," he said. "The season ends soon, but we meet on Tuesdays at 11AM, and we also have a hit on Sunday afternoons."

The clubhouse and grounds are are at the back of a small public park nearby, tucked into a verdant corner and enclosed by a high chain link fence. I arrived thirty minutes early, but Gerald and some of his clubmates (about eight people well into their retirement years) were already setting up. The game is relatively simple. Players hit a dense rubber disk with a heavy, double-ended wooden mallet, the striking surfaces of which are cushioned with swatches of rubber from either recycled crepe shoe soles or thongs (flip flops). The disk has a hole in the middle, and is about the size and density of a hockey puck. It's an industrial product, once used on train couplers as a cushioning device. The object of the game is to hit the disk hard and accurately enough to have it roll between two posts at the end of a 90-foot green.

A trugo match at the Brunswick club in 2008.

Gerald demonstrated the correct stance and swing-- back to target with feet planted on either side of the disk for a vigorous backwards swing through the legs. Then he handed me a mallet and, before I realised it, I was playing a game against another club member. My first hit rolled dead centre.

"That always happens with beginners on the first few strokes," Gerald remarked. "Then it all goes to hell."

So true. Whereas my first four disks rolled smoothly and briskly between the yellow posts, the next four, then eight, wobbled crazily off course and veered out of bounds. An ill-timed soak at my end of the court from a malfunctioning sprinkler didn't help my accuracy, either. My fouls were retrieved eagerly by Champ, Gerald's 7-year-old Jack Russell terrier. Champ is a trugo fanatic and a daredevil. He routinely positions himself at midfield, in the direct path of the hard rubber puck (which, should it skip high at the receiving end, could knock your teeth out) prepared to pluck it off the green if it's a bad shot.

"He only takes them if you muck up the hit," Gerald explained. Champ was having a ball.

Things improved dramatically at halftime, when my opponent and I switched ends. Now I had the dry end of the court and he had the wet one. Suddenly, my game got better and nearly every one of my hits scored a point.

I have no idea what the final score was, but everyone was having a good time and no one seemed to care. I went inside the clubhouse to make myself a cup of coffee, then returned to the courtside bench where the others sat in the sun, smoking heavily and barking friendly gibes at another pair finishing their match. ["That was a shocker, Lois! You're miserable!"]

Trugo is a threatened species. Only six clubs exist, and it's a game played almost exclusively by pensioners. Public awareness is a serious problem; very few Melburnians know of the game, so recruits are scarce. When a club member dies, there is usually no one to take their place. The Footscray Trugo Club, which had been Melbourne's oldest, closed in 2009 for lack of players. The smoking probably doesn't help, either.

I don't want to see trugo disappear, so I'll do my part. I've got my eye on the start of the competitive season in August.