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Once you're bitten you stay bit
The Age
Robert Murphy | May 22, 2008
"These boots are made for walkin', and that's just what they'll do. One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you."
LIFE and football are an endless series of firsts. First steps and first words are major landmarks for us all, and as a footballer there is of course your first game, your first kick and your first attempt at negotiating the new interchange rule.
Some of these firsts are more exciting than others, but there is a first that may just overshadow them all — for footballers, anyway.
Being given your first pair of football boots is a checkpoint in life that is burnt into the memory of thousands of young kids every year. Until then, football is a game played by the big boys on the telly and the rough-looking kids in the playground.
You are not a total stranger to the game; you've kicked the ball around with your mates and had a laugh; it's been a good change-up between games of cricket and basketball at lunchtime.
But the obsession with the oval ball which will one day ravage you hasn't really taken hold. The pivotal event football addiction preys on is the moment when Mum and Dad decide it's time for your first pair of footy boots — the clearest indication yet that you will be allowed to play an actual game on a Saturday.
Although only nine at the time, I decided from that moment on that I was a professional footballer, no matter what anyone else said. School became little more than a necessary rest period in between training and games to help the body recover.
Primary school was effectively one long ice bath from 9am til 3.30pm. Come Saturday morning at 8.45, I was always fresh and ready to go.
My first boots arrived on the eve of the 1991 junior footy season. Fresh in the memory was Peter Daicos's stellar season the year before, and although basketball was my first love, I was being swayed by the pro-football arguments raised by my brother and father, and the exploits of my new hero Daicos.
I sat on the kitchen floor with shoebox in hand to savour this milestone in life, almost too scared to remove the lid. I had no idea how much the contents would shape my life in the years to come.
I never told Mum or Dad, but the boots they had picked out for me weren't exactly the ones I had coveted in the shop window. And they were definitely different from what the other kids would have cradled on their own kitchen floors.
My new boots were, to be frank, different.
They were black in colour, of course, but higher on the ankle than any boots I'd seen. They also sported a steel cap on the toe. You could say they set my life on its course; how funny to think an interest in all things retro could be traced back to a pair of boots with studs so long they could penetrate a concrete floor.
Kids just want to blend in, and I was no different. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some trepidation as I got out of the car the following morning to meet my teammates in the driving rain, but it didn't matter — I was smitten.
This week, almost 17 years after that day, I sat on my kitchen floor and opened another shoebox, revealing my latest pair of boots. No ankle-high numbers this time — or for that matter a steel cap — but just like my first pair, these new ones were black in colour and a little retro.
As I sat at my locker yesterday getting ready for training, I caught myself looking down and reminiscing about all the boots I'd worn over the years. Conservatively, I would say I've gone through two pairs a year for the last 17 years — so for the mathematicians out there, that's a grand total of 34 pairs.
There have been favourites, of course, and more than a couple I'd rather forget. But none hold such a place in my heart as those first pair of clogs.
My latest pair I've lovingly nicknamed "34", and I hope they go onto to become one of my all-time favourites. But sitting there I was again reminded how little has changed in those 17 years spent trying to get a kick.
Just like that day back in juniors, when the other kids looked at me differently because of my strange boots, it appears history is repeating itself. It's not the height of the ankle this time, rather the colour, or specifically lack of.
But just like that nine-year-old boy with his cherished first pair, I'm smitten with them. All I need now is Dad to rub in some Dubbin, and I'll be ready to run around with the big boys on telly.
Once you're bitten you stay bit
The Age
Robert Murphy | May 22, 2008
"These boots are made for walkin', and that's just what they'll do. One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you."
LIFE and football are an endless series of firsts. First steps and first words are major landmarks for us all, and as a footballer there is of course your first game, your first kick and your first attempt at negotiating the new interchange rule.
Some of these firsts are more exciting than others, but there is a first that may just overshadow them all — for footballers, anyway.
Being given your first pair of football boots is a checkpoint in life that is burnt into the memory of thousands of young kids every year. Until then, football is a game played by the big boys on the telly and the rough-looking kids in the playground.
You are not a total stranger to the game; you've kicked the ball around with your mates and had a laugh; it's been a good change-up between games of cricket and basketball at lunchtime.
But the obsession with the oval ball which will one day ravage you hasn't really taken hold. The pivotal event football addiction preys on is the moment when Mum and Dad decide it's time for your first pair of footy boots — the clearest indication yet that you will be allowed to play an actual game on a Saturday.
Although only nine at the time, I decided from that moment on that I was a professional footballer, no matter what anyone else said. School became little more than a necessary rest period in between training and games to help the body recover.
Primary school was effectively one long ice bath from 9am til 3.30pm. Come Saturday morning at 8.45, I was always fresh and ready to go.
My first boots arrived on the eve of the 1991 junior footy season. Fresh in the memory was Peter Daicos's stellar season the year before, and although basketball was my first love, I was being swayed by the pro-football arguments raised by my brother and father, and the exploits of my new hero Daicos.
I sat on the kitchen floor with shoebox in hand to savour this milestone in life, almost too scared to remove the lid. I had no idea how much the contents would shape my life in the years to come.
I never told Mum or Dad, but the boots they had picked out for me weren't exactly the ones I had coveted in the shop window. And they were definitely different from what the other kids would have cradled on their own kitchen floors.
My new boots were, to be frank, different.
They were black in colour, of course, but higher on the ankle than any boots I'd seen. They also sported a steel cap on the toe. You could say they set my life on its course; how funny to think an interest in all things retro could be traced back to a pair of boots with studs so long they could penetrate a concrete floor.
Kids just want to blend in, and I was no different. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some trepidation as I got out of the car the following morning to meet my teammates in the driving rain, but it didn't matter — I was smitten.
This week, almost 17 years after that day, I sat on my kitchen floor and opened another shoebox, revealing my latest pair of boots. No ankle-high numbers this time — or for that matter a steel cap — but just like my first pair, these new ones were black in colour and a little retro.
As I sat at my locker yesterday getting ready for training, I caught myself looking down and reminiscing about all the boots I'd worn over the years. Conservatively, I would say I've gone through two pairs a year for the last 17 years — so for the mathematicians out there, that's a grand total of 34 pairs.
There have been favourites, of course, and more than a couple I'd rather forget. But none hold such a place in my heart as those first pair of clogs.
My latest pair I've lovingly nicknamed "34", and I hope they go onto to become one of my all-time favourites. But sitting there I was again reminded how little has changed in those 17 years spent trying to get a kick.
Just like that day back in juniors, when the other kids looked at me differently because of my strange boots, it appears history is repeating itself. It's not the height of the ankle this time, rather the colour, or specifically lack of.
But just like that nine-year-old boy with his cherished first pair, I'm smitten with them. All I need now is Dad to rub in some Dubbin, and I'll be ready to run around with the big boys on telly.
