{"id":6888,"date":"2025-03-13T13:28:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T03:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=6888"},"modified":"2025-03-13T13:29:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T03:29:28","slug":"the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=6888","title":{"rendered":"THE SEASON"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m not just an observer any more. I\u2019m realising that I care about the team.<\/em><\/p>\n

A very different book about teenage boys.
\nYesterday evening, I loaned my library copy (yes, I know; bad) to a trusted and fast-reading friend, and she texted me her thoughts the next morning: ‘Total unashamed grandma doting with football as the side dish”. I couldn’t have said it better.<\/p>\n

It’s Melbourne in autumn and winter, footy season, when a collective madness takes over a large portion of the population. While her youngest grandson trains and plays with his under-16 team, Garner sets herself the task of observing. With her\u00a0 trademark sharp, shrewd and tender gaze she takes in the coach, the boys, their families, passers-by, joggers and dog walkers, the weather, the sky, her mood, the traffic to and from the ground. By the end of the season, she’s not just a watcher; she’s all in.<\/p>\n

Garner has described The Season<\/em> as ‘a nanna’s book about football’, and her grandmotherliness extends to all the boys. She glories in their strong young bodies growing fitter, musclier, manlier as the season progresses. She admires their grace and grit, their comradeship and competitiveness. She sympathises with their disappointments and stuff-ups. There are some down times – illness, tiredness, self-doubt, foul weather – but she sticks it out and as the team nears the finals, her involvement (does this count as a spoiler?) starts to build…<\/p>\n

And it took me back to nine seasons of soccer. Late afternoon training sessions and early morning games in freezing Central Victorian winter. Over the years my car-load of boys got bigger and hairier and stronger and louder and more skilful each season. Their conversations were hilarious; the smell of them – feet! muddy uniforms! sweat mixed with Lynx deodorant! – intense. I used to buy a bag of hot donuts for the ride home, and that smell, too, is linked with those times.<\/p>\n

I was a mama, not a nanna, and perhaps my doting was not quite as absolute as Garner’s, but I just loved<\/em> those boys. This is a joy of a book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not just an observer any more. I\u2019m realising that I care about the team. A very different book about teenage boys. Yesterday evening, I loaned my library copy (yes, I know; bad) to a trusted and fast-reading friend, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6888"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6893,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888\/revisions\/6893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}