Snouts and Entrails

It sounded like a wonderful idea the first time I heard it, your 2010 Victorian Mixed Squad would hold an information session to try and attract more gay men into the sport of netball. Because let's be honest, they are terribly under-represented. And we would call it, Sausage-Fest 2010.

So I turned up to the Box Hill Indoor Sports Centre on a very chilly Friday evening, and the fact that I was wearing assless chaps was not making it any warmer. But it turns out that Sausage-Fest 2010 wasn't a cultural watershed for the SLAG (Super Lesbian And Gay) Community at all, it was a money-grab for the Mixed Squad.

And what a money-grab it was. We showed up to Box Hill with 10kgs of original sausages (more snout, less entrail) and 10kgs of the always popular continental sausage (less snout, more entrail). The barbeque had already been fired up by our master chefs for the evening, George ColambarMoss, Matt Eston and Gary "ThisWouldBeEasierIfBecHadANickname" Mehigan or Becigan, whatever, the first two worked great...

The signs went up, the frozen onions joined the snags on the barbeque, Mossy was dealing out slices of bread in a fashion that definitely made me think she was a card shark at some point in her life, or there was a lot of spare time during her former career at Holden. We were serenaded by a lovely man who owned his own harmonica, no rental for this guy. And that's when the call came through...

Es got a call from Northcote Indoor, who apparently had received an offer that was more attractive than our very generous, we'll use your courts for free and not steal too much electricity to run our video cameras, and they bumped us. What an outrage!

However it soon became obvious that we could bribe Box Hill ownership into a loan of their courts on a Saturday morning, in exchange for a couple of sausages, not too burnt. Now all Esther had to do was to let Angry Dave know about the change. But as it turns out, Angry Dave was having the weekend off and long-shower-taking-very-agreeable-Dave was in charge. Or more specifically, long-shower-taking-very-agreeable-Dave was there, but Interstate-Living-America-Visiting-Kate was in charge.

So first of all it took Esther 20 minutes to reach Dave on his mobile, because he is "having a shower". Now listen up Queenslanders, we don't all live next door to a great big rain-forest with water everywhere, there's no 20 minute showers down here. In fact, apart from every single beach session for the year, most of us can hardly remember what rain looks like.

Then when he finally called back, well I can't do that justice, let's go to the transcript. But just before we go to the transcript, it's a little confusing because Esther is EB for Esther Bester and Dave is also EB but that's just short for Eee Bee, so we'll do his side of the conversation in slanty writing...

EB: Hello
EB: mmmm-hmmmm
EB: We've just heard from Northcote, they've cancelled our court in the morning.
EB: ooh that's nice
EB: What?
EB: sorry, what?
EB: Northcote have cancelled, but we can have a court at Box Hill for the same time slot
EB: yep, right there
EB: Right there at Box Hill?
EB: mmmm-yes....yes
EB: Right. See you in the morning.

Ends call, goes inside and boils her mobile phone until it feels clean again.

We sizzle away for the rest of the evening. Then have a fairly so-so training session at Box Hill, the highlight being my audition tape to try and take Dan Ryan's commentary job at Channel 10. Think of the money they could save on wooden boxes for him to stand on.

Then we were back the very next Friday, I had sewn the ass back into my chaps by then, so they got another run, mainly because they still smelled a lot like sausages, which apparently isn't as big of a turn-on in the gay community as you might think. Angry Dave was present and accounted for, and he had good reason to be angry after making Joel Selwood the captain of his decimated Supercoach squad.

By the end of the night we were completely out of snouts and entrails and we had made several hundred dollars to put towards the costs up in Queensland. Special thanks to all concerned who helped out with the cooking, the sourcing of materials, those who stood next to a cold lifeless barbie while I limped over to Bunnings for more gas, and especially those who ate all that they could.