A treasure rescued from a Victoria Park grandstand roof changed my life

When I was 13 my younger cousin Victor gave me a Ross Faulkner football. It wasn’t new but it was special, for it had been purloined from the roof of a grandstand at Victoria Park. Apparently in the 1970s there were quite a few footballs up there.

Back then, a Ross Faulkner footy was a proper VFL ball, equal to a Sherrin. The decision on which ball to use on match day rested with the home-team captain. Up until then the only footys I’d owned were those brown plastic ones that were sold at petrol stations and toy shops. To be physically in possession of the genuine item, just like the one the champions used, was like holding a Willy Wonka golden ticket. It was my ticket into a culture I craved to be part of but lacked the confidence to identify with.

Victor’s father, my uncle Stan, had migrated to Melbourne as a teenager from Northern Greece in the early 1950s, a decade before my parents made the same journey. Living in South Melbourne, he inevitably became a footy fan, passionately following the Swans. He could speak English and was my most “Aussie” relative. My parents had no interest in sport, or seemingly any interests apart from working to survive. Most people living in our narrow North Fitzroy street were the same. When a doctor moved in, in 1972, I remember Dad shaking his head in disbelief and saying (in Greek), “With all his education, he chooses to live here?”

Australia’s story of Greek migration generally follows a happy narrative of seamless assimilation, yet the reality was not always so simple. From the outset my parents were outsiders, having stepped off the boat with no money and no language. In time – about a decade after arriving – Mum would be able to speak English pretty well thanks to her job working at a plant nursery, whereas dad never made the effort. He’d say Kew Injection instead of Kew Junction, and Ridic when he meant Ridiculous. They rarely had the luxury of “discretionary spending”, however when there was spare change they’d buy me a pack of footy cards.

The electronic babysitter was always on at home and early Sunday morning was my favourite time, watching the footy replays. When I did eventually get to go to a game it wasn’t the transformative experience I’d anticipated as apart from not being able to see much, I really missed the commentary that was a pivotal accompaniment to the black-and-white pictures on the telly. Mike Williamson and Butch Gale’s work in the media box was as important as the players’ work on the ground.

Victor’s brother started playing for Collingwood Under-19s in 1977. Back then, when the Magpies Reserves and Senior sides were playing away from home, the under-19s played at Victoria Park. It was always an exciting day going to watch the under-19s, as spectators were free to explore any part of the Magpie realm, from climbing into the scoreboard to standing in the clubrooms before the game listening to the coach address his players. Once, when Victor and I were in the Collingwood rooms, he pointed to a pie-warmer and warned me never to heat up food in it as he’d heard the players used it to warm their jock-straps. The thought that superstars like Rene Kink or Peter Moore heated their undies in that contraption was a bit gross but still amazing.

Football history abounds with celebrated moments and agonising What If’s? – think of Wayne Harmes in 1979 or Stephen Milne in 2010 – and life’s no different. Were it not for some questionable kicking at Victoria Park – after all, it’s not that easy to accidentally roost a football onto a grandstand roof – and my scavenging 10-year-old cousin with no fear of heights, I’d never have received that footy. Perhaps time has inflated the import of Victor’s gesture, and that I would have got “there” anyway, but I can still feel the elation of holding that ball and the sense of belonging it instilled in me as if it was yesterday.

For my father (1936-2021), Stan (1936-2023) and Victor (1967-2022).

Jim Pavlidis is an Age artist who has been illustrating for the masthead for more than three decades. His art is included in Home Ground at the Swan Hill Regional Gallery, August 5 to October 1.