General manager of list management Tim Harrington reflects on the recent Reclink Cup - one of his great passions away from the game

THE IDEA of the day is that there’s the music community of Melbourne, which is a very vibrant and flourishing community, raising money for Reclink, specifically for the Reclink services Australia-wide. 

It used to be reasonably Melbourne-centric, but now it extends Australia-wide, right up to the Northern Territory as well.  What started out as a couple of pubs playing each other in a social game has grown and grown over the years.

The game attracted a crowd of between 10 and 12,00 at Elsternwick Park, and it’s had consistently large crowds over the years - probably about that amount of people over the last ten years or so that I’ve been involved.

So, it’s two social teams.  One’s called the Megahertz, made up of community radio station personnel, primarily Triple R and PBS.  They’re volunteers - nobody gets paid to be on those radio stations - so you have to be an on air announcer to be in the team.  I’m an assistant coach of the Megahertz team.

We played the Rock Dogs - the criteria for that team is that you have to be a participating member of one of the bands around Melbourne. The Rock Dogs have an advantage in that they actually have their own team, which plays reasonably consistently amongst themselves during the year. 

That means they have their own mini season, whereas the Megahertz just come together for the day.

There’s always a theme to the year. This year’s theme was Nick Cave and ‘Do You Love Me?’ 

In previous years, there’s been a Kiss theme, so that a few of the umpires were in full Kiss regalia, which was always very interesting when you were getting free kicks paid by Ace Frehley and Gene Simmons. 

There’s always a very heavy accent on the way that the crowd participates, too, whether that’s through throwing money into the blanket that gets taken around at half time, whether that’s the spectators coming onto the field for the line up before the game for the national anthem, or for kick-to-kick at all breaks. 

There are bands that play at half time and after the game, so spectators are always on the ground participating in that as well. 

There’s also always participation so far as streakers go. There are always a lot of streakers. 

This year, one of the streakers actually got involved in the play, grabbed the ball and had three bounces up the wing. He was chased by players from both teams - he was very, very quick, actually. 

Another streaker actually slipped, because he had no boots on, naturally, so he slipped and that brought a groan from the crowd.  There was a streaker who was a setup. 

He allowed himself to get caught by someone who was dressed like a policeman - a bobby - so there were two bobbies chasing this streaker while the play was going on on the field. 

They were like Keystone Cops, running with very high knee actions, and they actually caught the streaker, and bent him over and spanked him on his bottom.  There was a picture of that in the paper, actually - it was quite funny.

So, it’s not necessarily about the footy - it’s about trying to entertain the crowd through footy or through stuff that happens on the field. 

The play was interrupted at one stage - one of the Rock Dogs had ordered a pizza - and the pizza was delivered onto the field by the pizza delivery person. 

Those sorts of things keep the crowd amused. 

But probably the highlight for me this year was that You Am I played straight after the final siren, so Tim Rogers goes from playing full forward for the Rock Dogs to straight off the field, straps the guitar on, and does a thirty to forty minute set of You Am I songs. 

Each year, depending what the theme is, there’s a theme that revolves around the band, and of course this year it was Nick Cave and ‘Do You Love Me?’, so the umpires were dressed like Nick Cave.  

But also, each band that appeared on the day had to play a Nick Cave song.  You Am I’s last song for the day was a Nick Cave song called ‘There She Goes, My Beautiful World’, which is one of my favourite Nick Cave songs, back by The Ravelles, one of the bands for the day. 

It’s a great all round day, and it raises anywhere between $60 000 and $100 000 for Reclink in one day. 

People who come are very generous in giving their money, and everyone donates all their time and produce for the day. 

So, all the beers and the pies are donated, and people just get into the spirit of giving money over, which is all profit for Reclink, so it’s a really successful day. 

The coaches generally get rotated a fair bit.  This year Paul Kelly - singer-songwriter Paul Kelly - coached the Rock Dogs, and this year a guy called Vince Peach coached the Megahertz. 

Generally they try and give Triple R and PBS a look in as to who coaches their team.  The Rock Dogs’ patron was Robert Murphy, from the Western Bulldogs. 
As for me, assistant coach is my title! 

There’s not really much actual coaching. 

The speeches before the game are hysterical, and they’re very relaxed about the way they prepare for the game, with what they put into their bodies. But Murphy is actually called ‘patron’. 

The Rock Dogs won easily, but the main point of the day was the money raised.