Neville makes A-grade

by ANTHONY & MICHAEL MADIGAN

BIG Neville "Copper" Thomson drove trains for a crust and on weekends played B-grade footy for the Warnertown Wombats. One night after training, he told the coach that he couldn't play the next match because he was working on the Saturday and wouldn't be knocking off until 1 o'clock in the afternoon, which was about halfway through the B-grade.

So the Wombats, struggling for numbers, named Neville on the bench in the A-grade. In those days there was no interchange rule - only two reserves - and if a player came off, he couldn't go back on.

Twenty minutes into the first quarter a Warnertown player got injured and had to come off. Neville got excited and was thinking that this was his big chance to prove himself worthy of A-grade selection. But the coach overlooked Neville in favour of the other reserve. That didn't bother Neville, he knew the other bloke was a better player and, besides, he would get his chance sooner or later.

At half-time Warnertown was 27 goals down and Neville was still warming the bench. Ten minutes into the third quarter another player got injured and headed towards the bench, leaving the Wombats down to 17 fit men. Neville, who could see what was happening, ripped off his warm-up jacket and started stretching his big hamstrings.

The big fella was about to charge out onto the playing arena when the coach said, "Neville, put your jacket back on mate. We're in enough shit without you going out there and making it any worse!"

From Bush Legends: South Australian Country Footy Stories by Anthony Madigan and Michael Madigan.

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