Field Theory by Hadyn Green

Sitting in the cold wind on Sunday, eating a sausage on a stick and drinking a watery Steinlager, watching the Phoenix play the Mariners, I realised why it is that people enjoy football. Football is all about the denial of orgasm.

I was talking to a friend the other day and complained that I had missed the Phoenix's early goal against the Fury, and how the first game I had attended had been dull with no scores in the second half. He said, "it's not about the goals". I thought this was weird at the time, even though I've heard it before from football fans. Surely the point of the game is to score more times than the opposition.

However, it seems that fans like watching the players pass the ball around and almost score more than they like watching goals. A nil-all draw is fascinating or artistry while a four to nothing romp is merely fun.

And you can hear it in the crowd. They are enjoying the act too much; they really don't want the 30 seconds of enjoyment they get from a goal. They want to keep putting it off and putting it off. Each time there's a shot on goal the crowd's roar grows in anticipation, dies away with a moan and then is replaced with contented clapping.

This is what football fans crave, being constantly brought to the edge of celebration and then having that cruelly denied to them. I imagine this is why the sport is popular in Catholic countries.

The strangest and most interesting encounters often have the smallest and most innocuous starts. Back in June I received a message through Flickr from a user called Truts1.

For a couple of years now I've been collecting old rugby programs and annuals. I've put some of the more interesting images from them on Flickr, including this one. This is what Truts1, whose name is Anton Truter, saw when he went in search of images from the 1965 Springbok tour of New Zealand. And so he emailed:

Hello...
Sorry to bother .....Hadyn I have been researching info for my fathers 70th and came across your photos on flickr. Do you or your family have any connection to the 1965 test where South Africa Played New Zealand...my father Trix Truter played in the test....and was looking for old photos of the game....

Kind Regards

Anton Truter

I have to say that at first I was wary; such is the state of the internet that unsolicited emails from anonymous community members can lead to adverse outcomes. But I (correctly) assumed that Anton was sincere, but sadly I had to reply to him that all I had was the pre-tour guide, and the only photo of his father, JC "Trix" Truter was a profile headshot.

Of course even looking at the profiles from the 1960s is like archaeology. Just from the page Trix is on there are five other Springboks, one is a doctor, Trix is an electrician, and none of the photos look like they were taken for the official program. Brynard, the doctor, looks like he's just come off the field and Nomis' image looks like a Facebook photo taken at the beginning of a party.

This is what the rugby world was like pre-professionalism. There were no cookie-cutters. The "rugby schools" existed as did the "jobs for the boys" but so did the truck-driving players, the farmers whose idea of off-season training was, well, farming. And this how the game is still played at the non-professional levels.

Caleb Borchers wrote about a recent experience with the American rugby team.

…the week of a test against Georgia this summer, three Eagles had to travel 3.5 hours to Aspen. Why? So that they could bale hay for another player that was rehabbing. This allowed the fourth player to play instead of doing work back home at the farm.

A far cry from having 747s painted with your image.

A few days after Anton's email I was on a lunch break and on a whim popped into the antique bookstore on Lambton Quay where I usually purchase the programs. Sitting on the top of a pile of old pamphlets, annuals and books documenting various All Black World Cup failures (not to mention more than a few copies of Boots ‘n' All) was this: A Pictorial of the 1965 Springbok Tour.

I couldn't believe it. It seemed a little too fated. Of all the people Anton could've contacted, he happened upon the one who found exactly what he was after. Of all the gin joints and so on.

I took the book home and uploaded all the images from the book that were of Trix (the captions are the original captions from the book and make for interesting reading). Then I emailed Anton and waited.

Anton is based in London so I waited a couple of days before emailing to make sure he got them and that they were indeed of his father. His response almost broke my heart.

I am actually sitting here crying with joy at these photographs, my father celebrating his 70th only has one or two photos of his rugby playing days and these are a miracle.

It turns out Anton had been searching for four months for any images from that tour. On the off chance I contacted the National Library but the best they had were the cartoons (albeit they have cool one that was drafted 'just in case the All Blacks lost the last test) and a few pictures from the game against the New Zealand Maori. In one book I had discovered more photos of Anton's father playing for his country that he had ever seen before.

The search for images from that time was fascinating. I'm not going to go so far as to say that it was a Golden Age of the sport, far from it. Two years after the 1965 tour, New Zealand would refuse to send a team to South Africa because of the ban on Māori players. And captions like this one imply a little about the "what goes on tour" attitude.

But the photographs make the players look like human beings. In this photo, not only are they wearing beautiful sweaters, but you can see individual attitudes (including Trix on the right with apparent sea-sickness)

These aren't the professionals we know today with media managers and pre-memorised sound bites on what to say about the opposition. These were, well, they were electricians and farmers and pilots and sand contractors (whatever that is). You ask a farmer what he thinks and he's liable to tell you (and chances are you'll disagree).

So I sent my birthday wishes to Trix and the book (after scanning it for posterity). And yesterday I received a bigger thank you than I could have ever expected.

His party was thrown by the Natal Club (the Sharks) who he played for over many years, and his birthday happened to coincide with the lead-up to their game against touring British and Irish Lions this year. So part of the package was a commemorative jersey (yes the stripes are stitched together not printed).

Also included was a CD with photos that other guests had brought along, other guests who also happened to be Springboks. They are frankly amazing. Some are wonderfully candid photos of the team having time off:

Others are stunning rugby action shots:

And of course the man himself:

And I really don't know anything about him. I don't know his history, his political views, I don't have a clue what his views about the 1980's Springbok tour are. Nothing. All I know about him is what I have read in the books, seen in the photos and heard from his son. He was a wing three-quarters, in the old language, and on the '65 tour he was a reserve wing. He played against all of the provincial teams, and started on the bench in at least one of the tests against the All Blacks. Trix must've been pretty quick because a lot of the photos show him charging the ball down, and the grounds don't look like the fast tracks we have today.

And he raised a very generous son. I got one more thing as a thank you.

It's a bit like a voluminous green tent on me (it's XXL); South African's are pretty big so maybe they assume that everyone must be as big as they are. But it's the perfect size to wear over a sweatshirt for cold games. So last night a group of us went to the Caketin in the freezing rain and wind to watch Wellington play Southland (real rugby weather). The game was terrible.

Trix played Wellington in 1965, but it was daytime and at Athletic Park. The Springboks lost and Wellington was presented with the traditional Springbok head. Hopefully Trix didn't mind that I wore his jersey to another Wellington win.

So one team didn't really show up and it was a bit of a blow-out. And while I loved it (fucking luuurrrved it) it was a wee bit annoying. Were the All Blacks actually better than they were previously?

We kicked less, so that was good. We didn't lose a lineout against a team which isn't too shabby in that area. And we made sure they didn't cross the bloody try line, we even got in a bit of light rucking. But we still have this situation where the ball gets to the wing and finds…forwards?

The backs crowd the midfield and we have almost equal groups of forwards on either side. I know Tony Woodcock likes sea gulling out on the wing, but this seems to be a bad tactic if we, with all due respect to Tony, actually want to score more tries.

Tom and Thommo had good games, although with Thompson it's not always easy to tell if he's doing good things or just running about. And Aled de Malmanche fulfilled a dream and actually got game time in a test match. It was just a minute, but still, the big fella must be stoked.

Oh and I have to officially take back every bad thing I said about Cory Jane and reiterate every bad thing I said about James O'Connor (and there were a fair few on Saturday night)

We now have a few weeks of bitching and contemplating which fresh meat we should send north and whether Steve Hansen will remain with the team. You just know that when Hansen slammed his fist down on the bench when the second try went over that in his head he was yelling "Fuck you New Zealand!"

Of course I wasn't watching the game live. There was a Roller Derby on for goodness sake! (and I was MCing under the pseudonym Fu ManFlu due to a cold I couldn't shake).

If the rugby was a one-sided affair the Derby was anything but. The crowd was feral, the skaters were angry, and the refs had their hands full with nearly every skater being sent to the box at some point.

After the first few jams (each bout is two 30min halves, each half has multiple jams that can go for a maximum of 2mins) Smash Malice had built a healthy lead on the backs of their jammers who were slicing through the pack at will.

Roles were quickly being asserted. Each team had its enforcers and its leaders and its mavericks. Wax Assassin and Suffer Jet for example were causing lots of strife in the pack both as jammers and blockers with their willingness to stretch the rules and put in big hits.

The teams went into the break with Malice leading by over 20 points and looking to cruise to victory. But as Lux Vengeance, captain for Brutal Pageant would say at the end, unless a team is up by 50 or more, don't count out the comeback.

With five minutes to go Pageant had come back even and going in to the last jam they lead by two points. The jam started with Tuff Bikkies (Malice) and Goldie Scorn (Pageant) lined up as jammers. Bikkies managed to smash through the pack to get the lead position. The crowd went beyond wild.

Scorn was right on her wheels, though, and nipped in front to slow Bikkies right down as time expired. But the jam goes until the two minutes were up so it was a free-for-all. Malice became malicious and Pageant became brutal. You score points for passing opposition players so having skaters in the box (maximum of two) was almost an advantage at that point and it was almost a revolving door. Skaters were flying everywhere and referees were getting close to ejecting skaters altogether.

But the dancing had started on the Brutal Pageant benches. They had survived and as the final whistle went it was just a formality to wait for the official score (194-188). But this was just the best of three. The next bout, Civil Offence is in three weeks (tickets are already on sale) and Malice will be ready for that. In fact an anonymous source told me that former Derby star Sneaky Darky is readying herself for a comeback, so watch that space.

But no one on Brutal Pageant were thinking that far ahead they just wanted to enjoy the moment.

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Speaking of teams pipped in the dying minutes, I went to the Phoenix on Sunday. A wonderful lazy Sunday, so lazy in fact that I missed the first goal because I was enjoying strolling in the afternoon sunshine.

I have to say that the last match I went to was dull and I left at halftime. But this day game seemed much more lively and the attraction of somebody called Fowler seemed to make it much more interesting. Fowler has been doing so well for the Fury (in their awful lime green uniforms) that he was the subject of a special press release this week.

North Queensland Fury FC marquee player Robbie Fowler has achieved what no other player has in the Hyundai A-League with a hat trick of Solo Goals of the Week.

Fox Sport's Simon Hill summed up [Fowler's hat-trick] as a defining moment in the Hyundai A-League.

Goodness!

The first half was a slew of missed opportunities for the Phoenix including a complete sitter for Daniel. Less than a metre from the open goal the cross went through his legs. Up in the media box one of the reporters said, "I bet Fowler scores in the 90th minute just to be annoying". Hello Commentator's Curse.

Still it was a nice sunny day and the Yellow Fever were in full voice. Kids were all over the place and yelling what they thought would be good things to yell to please their parents. And Mike would like to petition the A-League organisers for more afternoon games because the light is nicer:

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The Richter City Roller Derby's next bout is on October 10 at the Wellington Basketball Association Courts. They run on volunteers so if you want to help out, go to the site and drop them a line. That includes anyone who wants to become fresh meat.

All photos copyright to Michael Roseingrave and Jed Soane. Full photo galleries are here and here

I felt sorry for the man who had, unwisely, chosen the seat between me and the screen. Through no fault of his own the gentleman was subjected to some incredibly loud swear words. Some of which were created especially for certain situations in the third Tri-Nations clash between the Springboks and All Blacks.

Sadly all of my yelling was to no avail and we lost. Well to be fair, it really was a game of quarters and we lost the first three. In the end the All Blacks were one clever kick from winning. Yes, yes, yes, I agree, they never should've been in the situation where they needed to do some crazy cross-field league-style kick and hope that Rokocoko or some lanky forward could reach up and snag it.

Thinking about it this morning, we only lost by a margin equal to that stupid penalty on Kieran Read. And it was the penalty that was stupid, not the shoulder hit, the shoulder hit was awesome. It's almost like Wayne Barnes has something against New Zealand (for the conspiracy theorists amongst you, I don't believe it). In the meantime the spear tackle on Ma'a Nonu went uncalled (though it did go to the SANZAR judiciary.

On the plus side, Andrew Hore's useless lineouts mean that I don't have to pretend that I've forgot that he killed that seal. But Steve Hansen better start acting at least a little contrite at the press conferences. Rolling your eyes at questions about how bad your lineouts are is not the way to keep your job.

As Tracey Nelson points out, Hansen's lineouts and scrums aren't getting it done (when did I scrum get so bad?), Wayne Smith's backline is still wonky and only Graham Henry's defence seems to be working. In fact the only lineout we won in the first half was a brilliant fake to Ross, who pretended to fall. The rugby equivalent of a trick play.

So is there an accurate lineout thrower available that we can call up? De Malmanche is, from what I have heard, more of a strength player than a thrower. Corey Flynn maybe? Of course that'll be a question for the end of year tour, no point in bringing in a new kid this week.

But what happens after the Tri-Nations? The All Blacks go back into the Air New Zealand Cup? Frankly I hope not. I know that they should be playing but look how exciting it is without them. For all the bitching about how the Cup is going well and that the bottom teams shouldn't be relegated this season because they are doing well, no one seems to mention that it might just be because twenty or so of the best players are on international duty.

Think Canterbury are good now? Wait until they get their All Blacks back.

"Ha! They've trapped you!" she laughed. "You showed a vague interest and now they've got you!" I went to protest but she was right, I had been caught.

It was the second time I had spoken to Scheisse Minelli, from Auckland's Pirate City Roller Derby (home of the famous "take it off and go in your undies" game-ender). The first time was a few weeks ago when Scheisse had just returned from a trip to Las Vegas where she, Lucy in Disguise, and Lux Vengence (from Wellington) had attended RollerCon.

It was a brave hotelier who signed up to provide accommodation for RollerCon. Even in Vegas 1,500 Derby Girls in one hotel, crazy. "You'd get into the elevator and you'd see the girl next to you had tattoos so you'd just ask ‘who do you skate for?'"

How Roller Derby is organised in New Zealand is interesting. Scheisse is right, they trap people. But it's hard not to be. Beyond the "Derby Widows" who volunteer so they can hang out with their partners, fans will get asked if they want to help out with organising and – BAM – they're in. Beyond that, though, it's the camaraderie.

You can always tell a Roller Girl. They're not the tough-looking cigarette-smoking switchblade-flicking rockabilly punks of their alter egos; though they may look like that. Usually they are laughing and horsing around with friends. Because Roller Derby isn't about making enemies and being the toughest skater (at least off the track it isn't), it's about a community driven sport, with tight networks and friendships.

I don't know if they know it but the Derby Girls are mirroring every other developing sport in New Zealand. Teams where the players swap in and out to make up numbers, players across the leagues and across the country know each other and socialise together, bigger areas (like Auckland) support new start-ups (like Christchurch), they run on volunteers and donations. This is where New Zealand's two-degrees pays off.

As Thigh Voltage said on Twitter:

Less than 6 months ago I went to watch Richter City Roller Derby play and thought it was the most exciting thing i'd ever seen. In a weeks time I GET TO PLAY FOR THEM. Holy shit. Thats pretty exciting.

Pirate City have started their season with an exhibition bout: School of Hard Blocks. Yes, that does mean Roller Girls dressed in skimpy school uniforms. But "exhibition" doesn't mean it was slower or softer in any way. Scheisse boasted about her brand new figure-8 bruise she got after landing on someone's skate.

Part way through the conversation I realised I was actually talking to Hannah; and Hannah referred to Scheisse like Jack does to Tyler Durden. But again that's how it works, on the track they are tough competitors who will smash their way through to get the win, off the track they are themselves again, hanging out with their friends.

Schiesse lives with Lucy in Disguise (formerly Miss Evelle) and it helps with their combinations when skating together, but doesn't hinder them when they have to smash each other either. And then it's a family thing too. Kids come to support mums and end up holding up signs between rounds: "I get to go along and scream and be rude and nobody tells me off!" (in the States they have leagues for kids too).

And now there's social media. Facebook and Twitter let the skaters connect, gain fans and trash talk better than any other sport previously has when it started.

How did I get trapped? I'm going to be MCing the next Richter City bout. I stupidly went to training without a name and the girls thought that "Keith Quim" would be good, you know you're in when they give you a dirty pun name. However, instead of that slightly disturbing mental image, I'm going to be Bullet Surprise.

If you want to go and see some Derby:

• The Christchurch Rollergirls will be in action tomorrow today (12th Sept), 6pm at Cowles Stadium, tickets on sale at Cosmic Corner ($12). "Virgin Evil and the Silent Assassins are combining forces as the ‘School Assassination Squad' against the Cell Block Brawlers and the Filthy Habits as the ‘Hellbound Harlots' for this exhibition match."
• Wellington's Richter City kick off their season with Skate of Emergency on the 19th of September. " Don't miss the thrills and spills of this nail biting battle between the backside kicking beauty queens, Brutal Pageant, and their ruthless leopard print rivals, Smash Malice."
• Auckland's Pirate City has its first bout is on Oct 3rd and then an exhibition at Armageddon over Labour Weekend before the big Halloween Havoc match against Richter City.