It’s a lifetime ago.

July 1969, I was in Grade 3 and my Mum and Dad had taken me and my best mate at the time, Terence Symons, to see a Saints game at Moorabbin. I had grown up in a mad Saints family. Mum had grown up in Elwood and her brothers would take their young sister to the Junction Oval as part of the faithful gathering. On Dad’s side, his nephew, (our cousin), played for the Saints in the 50s and early 60s – Brian Walsh, though he had retired by this time. Dad and his family were all staunch North supporters having grown up there, still, we would have no choice in which team we would follow. The one thing we could brag about to our school friends was that our cousin played for the Saints. No one could take that away from us.

It was a cold wet day at Moorabbin and my Mum had made sure she took her favourite, very special umbrella (a good luck charm) because there was no doubt it would be needed later on.

In those days, spectators could jump the fence at quarter-time and three-quarter time to gather around the players, rugged up in their red white and black piped black dressing gowns, to listen to what the coach had to say. Exactly the same as you can do in the VFL these days. To Terence and me, the players were giants, they were just enormous men.

I can’t recall whether it was quarter-time or three-quarter time, but Terence and I decided to jump the fence and chase some autographs in our new autograph books. The fancy show off way to jump a cyclone fence was to anchor your right hand at the bottom of the fence and twist the rest of your body over the top, landing on your feet. It usually worked seamlessly. Today was different. It went wrong.

I fell into the concrete spoon drain that ran around the ground at the bottom of the fence. My head hit the concrete above my left eye. At this stage I didn’t realise the skin above my eyebrow had been cut and was now bleeding. But those autographs weren’t going to get themselves, we ran out on to the oval chasing whichever player we could get to. I opened my book and blood dripped onto the pages…never mind, get the signatures, worry about that stuff later.

We must’ve entered the oval very late, or perhaps hesitated due to the injury, but we got to Cowboy Neale. This was pay dirt. This towering figure on the ground ready for the start of the quarter with two Grade 3 boys at his side begging for his signature. We got it. We had got the treasure we sought, or part of it. It was the best feeling ever, it was simply a fantastic feat…and all the more sweet as it was captured with injury.

The last words Cowboy said to us were: “OK Boys, come on, you better get off now, the game’s about to start.”

These days such a sight, two young boys on the ground as play is about to commence, is unimaginable, but it happened. It is the absolute truth and I will never forget it.

Once we returned to where my parents were, the fun started. My Mum took me off to some building at the ground and I had a couple of stitches put in above my eyebrow by none other than the club doctor – what an honour, I thought. This is the bloke who actually deals with our heroes…it was fantastic but hurt!!

My Mum would, for the rest of her life, recall leaving her umbrella somewhere at the Moorabbin ground and it was lost forever despite her numerous calls to the lost and found office. Her favourite, her lucky charm, gone.

When I occasionally visit Moorabbin, I swear that when the South Westerly cuts across the ground, I hear it carrying Cowboy’s words, telling Terence me to get off the ground. The game’s about to begin.

God Bless all the Saints, past and present for incredible memories of a lifetime. When it’s in your blood, it’s in your blood.