[AusRace] After prawns - Darts and the Jesuit

[Tony Moffat]

There are 10 pages of typewriting here and not a horse, horserace or betting
anecdote in any of it.
It was good typing it while it rained today and now the woodshed beckons
Cheers

Tony

When I was 11 Dad got promoted and moved to a new town, a territory to him,
and I went to the catholic primary school. It was small, and packed with
children,
there were 57 in one room, three classes, 9 in the form after mine, 19 in
mine
and the rest in the form before, fecundity or what.  It went to high school,
Leaving,
but changes were coming, years 11 and 12, science outside the scriptures,
and really
the numbers thinned noticeably as the forms progressed, nobody did the
Leaving
for the two years I was there. The natural curve was to transfer to the
central school,
the pagan public school system, and a lot did that, me included, but in a
year or more.

There were 54 of us during this week of sporting how-to revelation. 3 did
not
attend, but I saw them under the sale yard bridge, yabbying, and two of
those never
returned. 

There was a priest who taught us, for a week or so, about sports and the
dynamics of running and throwing, falling, jumping, catching, and hitting
a ball, and kicking the thing too. That was great, those lessons, and we,
the whole room took them, although there were no course notes, no
text book, no references, just the words of a studious man to listen to.

I have always thought that the cut shot in cricket defies the laws of
physics, then what would I know, I have never played a cut shot, but we
got to see one, in slow motion, in the class room and after school we got
to see the shot again and again, I don't think the priest understood how
interested we were and had become.

 His explanation of the physics of the games, a lot of them, were
fascinating and I have not seen or read about it since. He was unafraid to
involve Newton, the gravity guy, in his explanations and demonstrations.
Funnily, I tackled him 4 times, you know, ran with him then ducked in and
took his legs out, so they wouldn't work, wouldn't support him, and all
the while he talked and explained the dynamics in that.

 I don't mean to rant, but it was interesting. I could use the information
from
him in a presentation for a school bursary, a scholarship, in a few years, I
did too,
wrote, then spoke when selected for it, almost word for word what that
priest said about the tackle, the dynamics in a front on tackle, my weight
against yours, speed and energy, and the transference of energy through
mass at speed.

 I stood at the judges desk, those deciding if I got the bursary, and used
a writing pad as a playing field, a whistle as me, a Parker pen as the
opposing player,
a bottle of ink as the opposition team, and a wooden ruler as our advancing,
slanted
line, and explained that if the 5/8th stood a little wider, with a break
away a little closer,
the attacking team had 5, or 9 more options to generate a move, provided the
front rowers
caught the pass. I smiled at this point, but nobody else did, they being all
forwards I reckoned, and
I did not mention their inabilities again. I was tested on scenarios, which
seemed to become
an endless question of what, and how, and I got the point across that it was
me, us, that had to
stand, retain, and deliver the ball to enable a maul to continue on up the
field. In my case, as answers, 
I just maintained a drone of tackle, tackle, tackle, pretty much what I did
in a game anyway, stop the ball, stop the ball carrier.

This may have won it for me, that scholarship, which is formalized by the
passing of a medal, in a case, from the chair person to me.
He dropped it, that case, really he made a charade of that, looked at me and
laughed. Not me though.

But the field demonstration with the Priest went on for several days.
 I got him front on as well as tackling from behind, all the while he was
commentating on what he was doing, what was happening between him and I,
the energy transference taking place, and up to this point I just figured
that stopping the legs was stopping the runner. 

The  running of the lines was always going to be interesting.

He explained that for every sideways step you lose half a step up field.
 At training and in the game I was tasked to make 9 yard gains, repeatedly,
and knowing what he said I am
pretty sure I always ran straight, ran at the other team, often, with that
count in my head 8, 9,10,11,12 as each foot fall occurred knowing, hoping
I had the 9 needed to fulfil my job. It is true that I counted out aloud,
as an energy focusing prompt more often, when in possession of the footy
so that I got called 'The Count', and that was a sledge, terrifying.
Actually you
don't get called lots of names in schoolboy rugby.

LLike a tennis player in the modern era who used his
hand pointed like a cobra to focus himself, I said numbers for the same
end.

That cricket lesson, the late cut, the French, the drive, the pull, got
repeated and really got a lot of us interested in the game. I thought it
was just put bat on ball and ignore the bullying, and there is a bit of
it, even at school level. In effect, I didn't get to play the cut, before,
or at any time, never tried it really, and I played so little cricket I
perhaps was never going to do anything else other than slog the ball, in
line with the pitch, or across the line, anticipating the bounce and
swotting the pill way out there.

David, in my class, was so energized by the words and actions of the
Priest that he became a good batter, and played senior cricket although this
was several years from now, and went
several innings without getting bowled, or out any other way. David was so
deliberate with his actions, lunging forward, moving his feet, seeing the
ball for a long time before the bounce and the take after that. It is said
he went 6 innings and was not dismissed. The score line was good, not
extraordinary, but better because he was 14 years of age at this stage and
playing
strokes all over the place. He went away to school, on a cricket
scholarship, and continued his good practice and reasonable scores there
as well. He became a student, a medical type situation, and study there
interfered with playing cricket here. I'm not sure how he got on in later
life, in other teams. He was often two or more paces in front of his
crease, down the pitch, then some balls he stayed put, the bowler was
perplexed, and then he changed his grip on the bat, top hand became bottom
hand and in the time between the ball leaving the bowlers hand and the
ball arriving where he was he had gone from off to on, changed legs,
cricketspeakwise,
and belted the hated thing out through covers, out where there was nobody
for a fair way. He stood facing the bowler too, not side on, golfer like,
and had no back lift, he seemed cocked and ready with the bat back.

A young teen can hear, and learn, all the swear words ever required in an
afternoon of playing cricket well.

 He was short on sixes, never had
many 4's, and ran everything else, to the chagrin of his partner in the
center, never opened the batting, that was pre-ordained as the son of the
President or something, and came in at 4 or 5 in the order and really ran
out of partners, the tail did not wag much. Did he get a century? He says
so then he said he didn't know. He got out this once when he hooked a ball
into a fielders armpit, caught, and anyway, they said, they removed the
bail while he tended to the afflicted fielder, and left the field with
him, caught, and stumped. His Captain, some of the fielders, and the
President asked for an adjournment, there was a brief discussion and
agreement
 and he was re-instated, in the
interest of fair play. In the interlude, the several minutes of all of
this, David had packed up and was leaving, or had left. 
Back to swotting the books, he said. He had been caught, solid, he reckoned
and had other things to do now.

David got to be the Association best player, off his batting mainly, he was
a
so-so bowler, he just had a few ends so the quicks could get off and have a
smoke really
and his fielding was enthusiastic,  and in the context of the team,
stunningly athletic.
He never won an award for the Club, although as  I said he was demonstrably
their best
player if runs made and bowling averages and fielding dexterity are the
scores to determine
this. No, that son of the President got it, for breaking a cycle of ducks, 5
consecutive, and
really just set the field for a hook, then feed him, is all it took. Another
got it after returning
from surgery, but died from that before the presentation dinner, and still
David came third for the year
although the winner was worthy, he had played 5 games and painted the
grandstand in his retirement,
it was Newtown blue though, and strangely looked the same color as the
railway station roof, where he had worked, painted mostly.

Let me tell you some more, and there is a lot, about the Jesuit.

At the football ground club room, in the grand stand,  there is a dart
board,
and two darts, and I think the current correct procedure was to bring your
darts if darts are to be utilised, otherwise throw those two darts at the
board, in the general direction of the board, or at least at the wall on
which the board resides, then shout and yowl when one of your darts,
un-aimed, encounters a triple something, a double of something else, or a
bull, and maintain that is what you were aiming for, just that. Nobody in
their right mind would occupy the bench seat below, or within 12 feet of
that board, this was a no-go zone socially, and solely on the fact that
those two darts, one of them, might land in your eyeball, with a shouted
assertion from the thrower that, no, he wasn't aiming there.

I haven't played a lot of darts, but my acquaintance, the Jesuit Priest,
appears to have graduated, with dishonor, from the School of Darts,
wherever that may be. I think those Jesuits recruited their men from those
in the real world, drinkers, smokers, soldiers, sailors, bombardiers, powder
monkeys,
 anywhere other than the normal run of entry to the law of the
cloth, a latin tuition and work on Sunday mostly.

This priest knew darts, knew a lot about a lot actually,  most un-priestly
in that aspect. 

 When, or if, you look at a dartboard you see the 20 segment on top,
either side there is 5 left, and 1 right, and outside these are 12 on the
left and 18 on the right. If you throw your three darts, and you are
average you may get a 20 with one, and likely a 5 or one with the other,
the third dart is iffy, if you aimed at the bull you at least increased
the possibility of hitting the board, within the metal ringed scoring area
and likely a one or 5, again. Summing that, and to maximise or promote
your scoring ability, you might have a 20 plus a 5 plus a five which
equals 30, and you take your thirty off your score, which commences at 501
ordinarily.

It is a weird anomaly occasionally seen around a dart board, that
subtracting after summing your score.

Players who are dunces, in maths mainly, but you are a dunce really if you
fail the
lot, but maths idiots have an inate ability to multiply, add and subtract
their dart scores, way above and over their demonstrated activity, ability,
in the
class room. People, boys, men, who can't add two numbers in a class, are now
capable of summing the product of triple 20, triple 5 and a 16. The
summing is the hard part, the easier part is tripling, and the easiest of
all is subtracting that score from your previous score, then getting it
correct and announcing it right..

Forget the maths text, and teaching, let's play darts at school, you are
going to learn stuff real fast. Then strangely, or weirdly as I said before,
 the same class room maths avoiders will work out, in their head,
subconsciously,
 that a triple 14, a 6 and a double 5 will win them
 the game and can hardly wait for their turn at darts. Any one of them are
genius at that, and continue to be even though their darts are awry, they
can adjust and re-calculate their requirement mid turn. It's amazing, truly.

So, back to the board, you are standing there with your first dart of your
turn and looking at 20, double 20 if within the metal fence at the top,
triple 20 if in the metal segment, half way down, and narrowing.
Professionals, those who are old enough to dart and drink I mean, may have
the expertise to triple 20, to the dart persons poem of 180, but you don't
and nor will you until you are in your 40's and play 9 games twice a week
until you reach that milestone. The dart leaves your hand flat but falls
after that, it appears as a parabola, it may be that too but at the end of
its flight the dart tip is angling down to a lesser or greater extent than
when it left you and your paw. It is better, way better, for the dart tip
to be heading to a portion of the board that is expanding, in width for
starters, to counter any off target impulse you gave the dart shaft at its
release. With this information you should aim at 19, bottom left, about
7.00pm if that helps non-dart savvy people, and there are a few of us. The
19
segment has as its borders the 3 and 7, and outside them is 16 on the
left and 17 on the right. Immediately you can see that your scoring will
be enhanced, if your aim isn't, say you got the  19, plus a 7 plus a
seven, using the your scoring ability as discussed elsewhere. You now have
a score of 33. Only 33, only 3 better, but that matters, and that matters
a lot as the game progresses. Importantly your dart is falling into the
expanding segment, the slice is widening as it runs from the bull to the
outer ring and with your dart tip angled as it is you would hope that your
aim would improve. It does, it may, it should, it might.

There was a discussion, him to me, about the actions of the wings, the
feathers
on the end of the dart away from the tip, to clarify. They were there to
stabilize
and balance the weight of the dart proper. Its centre of gravity is about
where
you grasp it, perhaps a little forward, and the feathers provide down force
firstly,
counter balancing the gravity of the tip end. Your point of aiming on the
board is
a little, a lot for some, above your line of sight, the apogee of flight I
called it, wrongly.
When the dart leaves your hand its flight is governed by its weight and the
impetus you
gave it, it's directional path is obviously imparted by you, the feathers
ensure it stays
on the narrow and straight and it should not turn, spin, because that undoes
some of the
action of the feathers. There is more, lots of it, about the parallax effect
for starters, about
the dart flight properties when it is better, aimly, for the dart to be
moving sideways as well
as forwards, how releasing a little back from the line is beneficial for
those of us, nearly all
of us, who stand open to the board, and for the others who turn side on,
close over, there is a trick or three to help them too.

 He was a bombardier and he knew stuff.

Your normal strategy, at the start, was to think and go for triple 20. But
you don't have the expertise for that, 2 games a week for 25 years is what
I was told was the minimum training required to logically think you could
get there, or that, by design. Instead the 19 play is where you are right
now, abilitywise, and missing the 20 segment, as expected let's face it,
puts your dart in the low scoring 5 or one zone. Players with skill, and
thinking they can place their dart two thirds of the time, are still
better in the 19 segment, a triple, a double or a single with one of those
two is still geographically easier with the falling tip, the expanding
segment, the ability level of you in actuality. The tip is likely to
encounter the metal enclosure of a double or triple with it falling off
and in any event the largest, widest then, segment is still available to
snag your dart and a 57 is more likely than a double in the 20 segment.

Truly awful darters, me and my mates, should aim for the bull probably
because this increases our chances of (a)hitting the board , (b) accruing
a score, promoting yourself as a dead eye when, not if, it happens. The
next level along, still awful but better, should try for the 14 segment
and the numbers around that, as the average score arising is perhaps
better, by a little than elsewhere, or the 16 segment for much the same
reasons. 

Your best average is 19, you can nearly be assured of averaging that with
three darts, and missing the 19 of course. The 'average' double on the board
is 21, double 1 is 2, double 2 is 4 type of thing. The 'average' treble is
31.5. The double area occupies about 10% of the board area and there is a
no go zone outside that, no score is possible there and this has to be a
factor. The treble area is about 5% of the  total board area with the
added advantage of the metal fence able to correct and direct your dart to
the inside, or the outside and outside scores points no matter where. The
average single point score is 10.5 and there are strategies available to
harness those scores of 11 or more which is advantageous to your game plan
and your now exposed and somewhat inability to get that damn dart to
behave as you want.

The dart board big numbers are always between smaller numbers, in a
sequence. Trying for a 20 and getting a one means a difference of 19, a
tragedy, and your game strategy should always be to avoid these and those
disparities. Utilising 19, 16, 14 or a number greater than 10.5 will help
you there.

All of this from a catholic priest while driving home after serving mass
at an outlying village, there were 11 parishioners, and a friendly dog and
some chirping crickets, and him and me in his Valiant. Fascinating bloke,
a man of the world, who came to the priesthood late, after the Royal Air
Force 
and via Hungary where he had been a tractor mechanic .

 Mum said later he had a struggle to get a frock because he had a child or
children. Even more fascinating.

The priest continued with a strategy for ending the game, you must end on
a double, as in you have 22 points left, a double eleven wins it, you hit
14, you have 8 points lefts, a double 4 wins it, you hit 4, you have 4
points left, a double 2 wins it and you do it with the throw of your third
dart. If you don't peg out, all that happens mostly is a challenge for a
new game. Let the other player throw first, give yourself something to
beat, other than yourself. But back to the end of the game, it is
important to stay live, that's what he said, don't bust with any of your
darts, just score with all of them, reducing you required 'get' all the
time, make every dart count, or actually, deduct, from your holding total.
The goal is always score more than 40 with each row of three, this will
take you further towards a winning completion than the other average
thrower, which has been scored out over thousands of games as 29 point
something, three darts aggregating 29 points is the average that the
average player scores, and you are average but scoring 40, by pre
planning, and if in a game of 8 rows (throws of three he means) your
opponent is lodged somewhere near 230 points, and you are a minimum of 88
points in advance of him or her, just by scoring in the 19 segment for
starters. Once your score reduces to less than 100 you can strategise even
more with single 16's or 14's and even the easy hit singles, 9 or less,
will allow you to double down quickly to zero and a win. All the while you
are mentally calculating your remainder, trebling and subtracting,
doubling and the same, and the easier single deduction and who can't take
9 or something less away from a number. You are too dangerous for darts if
you can't deduct, multiply, add and divide as required, meaning you are
too young if you haven't got those skills yet. Darts will sharpen your
mental acuity. There you have it, a lesson in life.

At that time we, my parents and me, don't have a dart board, but the Club
does, it has
several roads or tracks leading from a line on the floor towards the wall
with the
board at the required height, I'll find that out for you, and illuminated
with a shadowless and bright large capacity globe shielded by a strong
metal hood sitting on the end of a flexible stem. Strangely, the hood has
dents in it, presumably from the errant, ill-aimed, or more likely, the
disgusted throwing of remaining darts from a player who went bust, and
it's not their fault.

 He and I, the priest and me, had curried prawns for tea, a popular
delight even though it is 470 miles from the ocean here, and he had a
brandy and I had a tonic and my dart tuition started and went for several
hours. My shoulder, the left because I am left shouldered, was feeling it
and I got beat by a better player on the night, that's all. He, the
priest, did the triple 20 (one 'undred and eigh  tee) but mostly me and
him concentrated on the 19 quadrant and even in this shortened lesson it
was obvious to me that my score was enhanced as a result, I had no prior
competition to compare it to, it just seemed to me that the numbers
accumulated.

 It was up to me to mentally score each of us, his doubles, trebles and 19
and my single spot 19 and occasional 17, because of the aiming inability I
brought to the line. There is a mental workout in this sport, I told you
about that earlier, aggregating, deducting, formulating a double down
towards a finish. Mum was playing cards, and Dad was counting money and I
was playing darts with a disciple of God, you'd have to lose, right. He
thought it was funny, and even more, he was glad nobody had approached him
for a blessing, themselves, or their cards, or the skinny they had for the
pokies. Chrissy was going to come to tea but didn't when darts were
mentioned, no thank q she said, she said q too.

 Me, at 13, being in the club was permitted for the purpose of a meal, and
then staying for recreation is allowed, although not by the licensing
laws. Kids, people my age, play carpet bowls, ping pong, do craft, watch
drama, watch pictures, all under the roof, with air conditioning, although
essentially they may be on or in licensed premises. There are no bars, no
poker machines, no other adults really in the area, the dart boards occupy
the wall which forms the back drop to the beer room and there is no access
from where I was to a beer area direct. Why am I going to great lengths to
defend my presence in a beer hall building, well, because the priest
thought it unnecessary to walk out the side door, along the footpath, and
in through the front door, past the entry and welcome area, down a hall,
through a room full of poker machines to reach a bar where he could buy a
drink of alcohol, then reverse the walk of shame to get back for his turn
at darts, and in the meantime I told him I had hit one 'undred and
eight-ee and what, you don't believe me and when I replayed my go I got 7,
a five and one, although nearly a double one on the last of three
darts, so it was feasible. He mumbled something about confession, and I
saw the funny side of that.

Towards the end of his tenure in town we began to talk techniques of
snooker and billiards.

 It never progressed beyond talk though, there was a billiard table at the
Club, there may have been more than one, but that table seemed to be the
private ownership of  group of men who had the sole rights to its use, and
if one of us juniors so much as removed the cloth covering it when it was
not being played well this led to words and re-crimination and they were
welcome to it, truly.

 I have played pool in the pub and that has no bearing to anything on the
big table, with its size and angles and drift and bounce, kiss and push,
jump and cringe.

Friend Bracer grandparents had a full sized table and it stood in the garage
for
a few years when that side of their house was modified, I think repaired,
certainly painted and then they decided to re-furbish the table. It might
have been based on stone, polished flat I was told, it started pretty flat
and even and was improved from that. The wooden exposure pieces were
French polished and the cloth, the baize, the green and grey was renewed.
Bracer said his Granny bought that cloth, heavy wound stuff it was
when she was in the UK burying her sister and it was sold to her as the
right stuff, but it wasn't,  it was too thin or the wrong weave and there
was 70 pounds lost right there. But the shop who sold it to her heard about
that, from the other side of the world and wrote to her, Granny, and
replaced it with the right cloth, best billiards good feeling story ever
that one. It might have been expensive. All of this was done when the
table was moved back inside, through the wall of the garage and into the
room especially for it. There were lights down low, bright lights, and
pool cue racks and a scoring bar with moveable things that allowed you to
score, and cheat, and a wide space all around the edge, it was a big room.
I saw it finished whilst staying nearby and it looked pretty
business-like. It has been told to me since that the flooring cracked and
broke under one corner leg and the table was left suspended over the abyss
for a while until the builder returned to repair everything. The floor was
inadequate I believe, not strong to hold the table which is reported to
hold several tons of rock, wood, cloth and polish. I have never played it,
nor has Bracer as he is not allowed and when he  saw it last it was waiting
to
be repaired and was the repository for books, magazines and clothes
awaiting ironing, and that green baize, the first lot, folded and waiting
on a new use somewhere I imagine.

The priest's time in town came to an end. He wasn't sure where he would be
in the next week, he didn't care much either, every where he went I bet
there would be people who would be amazed and happy that this new father
was not going to preach to or at them, not do the hard or loud talking to
keep them on the religious straight and narrow. He was a hippie by any
definition, truly, except his white collar gave him away, that and his
tailored suit and long pointed shoes, sensible beard growth. Otherwise he
wore boardies when down at the pool, or skiing on the river, and he was
fit, fit looking. He fasted, didn't eat, two days a week.

He was good, great compared to us, at tennis.
 He used my racquet, full sized Slazenger and I used Mum wooden Dottie, 8
tenths full size.
Either way, both implements got broken strings and he, the priest, re strung
them, there is a machine in the sports store,
 unused because no user is known but they did have several packets of
strings, ovals, not the clear nylon rounders, and those racquets fairly
twanged and hummed after that.

 He was big on the serve, bullets they were but other kids in town were
developing that style of game,
 not me because I was kind of thankful if I got it in after getting it over
the net.
 His control was good too, his forehand was almost never down the line, he
went that extra body yard to get to the other side of the ball,
 to slam it angled back at you and you watched as it passed in front, and
bounced out of reach
 when the standard reply was for you to backhand a return off his drive.
 Angle and spin he said several times, he wasn't big on top spin, but he had
it and it was only the saggy daggy balls we had that held him back.
 There was an audible thwack, louder than any others, other persons, when he
struck the ball 
and it seemed to be struck well, spinning back at you, seemingly growing and
narrowing with the impetus he had imparted, 
and it came back over the net about a foot up then dived, bounced and
flattened. 
Or he went that extra yard as I said, and that ball trajectory curved at you
then in the last bit it turned away. 


I was going to work after school, some days later, riding down the ramp
and driveway of the motel where I cut through from my back gate to the
main road then up to the wood yard from there. Tickles, my football coach,
called me over from his F100 driving past, he is the local constable
otherwise. He asked if I had heard about the new football coach and I
asked what do you mean and he said, you know, the priest who has been
telling all and sundry how football goes, when to tackle, how to tackle,
when to pass off, run straight, run oblique, you know. I ignored that and
said that the priest was an interesting bloke, with footy knowledge, and
it's a pity you don't go to church sometime. I had to do 20 pushups at
training, for weeks, until he was delayed, dealing with murderers, they
said. I am sure Tickles does know more about footy than anybody, anybody
else I know. He maintained that my bike paint was 'reckless' and the
chrome tones of my handlebars and back rack were different therefore
'recklessly endangered other road users' and 'culpably contributed to
sickening other persons, including oneself, and my gold fish'. Tough, or
what, and don't laugh, ever, because that converts to pushups. 


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