Above: Prominent Scorpions forward Rian McGough shoots on goal on Sunday.
BAG over his shoulder and father-guardian Angelo at his side, Brendan Fevola was crossing from one side of Frankston Oval to the other when a man stopped kicking the football with his kids.
“Sorry for the things they said today,” the man, turning to Fevola, said in a sheepish manner.
“No worries mate … it happens every week,” Fevola replied.
A minute later, he walked into the social rooms of the Frankston Dolphins Football Club – to turned heads and finger pointing.
In the previous two hours, Fevola had sunk the bottom of the ladder Dolphins deeper into the nearby bay with an amazing 11-goal performance for the Casey Scorpions.
Carlton’s Eddie Betts once remarked pre a Blues game that Fev had asked him if he had bought tickets for the show.
“What show?” Betts inquired. “The show I’m going to put on today,” Fevola remarked.
There was a sizeable – and very noisy – crowd at Frankston on Sunday, but if they had known the show Fev was going to put on, it would have been shoulder to shoulder standing.
It started just minutes after the game began – and ended just minutes before the siren put Frankston out of its misery.
In between the first and final sirens, there were 11 of the best.
From when he lined up from 50m out into the breeze at the seven-minute mark of the first stanza, Fevola didn’t look like missing. His second goal 30 seconds after the first, signalled he was in for a big one.
Fevola and his opponent fell to the ground, Fev was quicker to his feet (yes, that’s true) and then goaled with a soccer kick from the outside of his right boot.
And all this despite the drum beating, a trumpet blowing and a big man with a bigger voice screaming virtually non-stop.
Oh sure, the men in white, oops orange, copped it, with comments like “give us a go, m…..” and “you’re a disgrace ump, you’re off to Kooweerup next week”, however, mostly it was only one person they had in their sights … Fev. But it seemed the harder they hit the drum, the louder the trumpet blew and the voice screamed, the better Fev played. And the more goals he kicked.
From all accounts, the drum, the trumpet and the booming voice are like a Sunday session at Frankston Oval. Same spot, same time, whenever the Dolphins are at home.
However, they would rarely, if ever, get a target like Fev.
Most of their Fevola directed comments were funny – or so they thought – some were risque. And, as a female Frankston supporter noted, a little “too close for comfort.”
There were regular snipes at Fevola’s drinking and betting habits – in particular, his liking for the pokies.
“Where’s Fev?” one yelled. “He’s at the Berwick TAB,” another replied. And, as Fevola came off for a breather, a “gee Fev, you’ve made it big with Casey and Cranbourne (geography obviously not being his strong point, as Fevola plays part-time with Narre Warren), why don’t you make it in the AFL?”
To which Fev replied: “Been there, done that d……d.”
“At least have a beer with us after the game,” the supporter yelled in an almost “sorry mate” fashion.
“I will,” Fev said as he ran back onto the ground.
A Casey fan remarked Fev should just laugh, not say nothing and “get on with it.” However, Fevola, like us all, is human. And, after all, one can only take so much. And it is the human Fevola which draws people to him like a magnet.
He stops for kids, he signs their books and bits of paper, and he poses for photographs taken via mobile phones – for kids from all clubs.
This all sounds as if Sunday was all about Fevola and the Frankston fans. And guess what? It was.
Fevola – who was only a goal shy of beating the Dolphins on his own – did have help. Plenty of it, so much in fact, that coach Brad Gotch said “team effort” when asked who were his best players – apart from Fev, of course.
Ben Waite and Lynden Dunn kicked four each … while everybody else, to use footy speak, “just done his job.”
Casey and Frankston have byes this weekend.
