Felt like absolute crap last night. Another sleepless night caused by pre-Convention nerves and a stomach that was rocked by a few too many malt sandwiches. I knew I shouldn’t have broken team rules and had a few on the night before FBTCIII - the Founding Fathers will have my nads for dinner if I’m not up to the Bantering task ahead.

Got out of bed at 6am and thought I’d take the opportunity to have Chez Crullers in tip-top shape for the impending arrival of Boydy. After putting out the weeks-old rubbish and locking away the porno collection - I didn’t want to have to face the prospect of catching Boydy in the act should temptation ever get the better of him - I trotted down to Coles to get decorations. 20 blue and white balloons and 50 metres of blue and white crepe paper later and I was set to go to town on the lounge room and make the big fella feel right at home.

Having done the job on the lounge room and decorated the lobby of Chez Crullers in blue and white, I stepped out to pick up the paper and get the goss on last night’s game and the late scratchings for the big games this weekend. I anxiously checked the clock and at about eleven the phone rang. The voice sounded familiar but a little scratchy - obviously from a mobile and probably under the flight path of a low-flying 747. It could’ve been anywhere in the Greater Sydney area.

“Leachy?”

“Nup.”

“Arma?”

“Getting closer...It’s WALDO.”

Ahhhh, WALDO. Obviously the poor transmission from the mobile filtered out the effect of the ever-present caps lock key on the voicebox. I knew the boys wouldn’t be far. After a few introductory KISS trivia questions from WALDO, Arma and Boydy piped up with the first Banter of what I knew would be a big weekend of Bantering. The lads were on their way and had no trouble finding the Chez - the only apartment block in Redfern decked out in the Hewlett Packard colours. The interior decorating went down a treat with Boydy, but it wasn’t the first surprise a Banterer had teed up for the weekend, nor would it be the last.

Arma’s much-talked-about commemorative item was a treat - a coffee mug with the distinctive FBT logo and the proud banner across the top, “FBT Convention III - Sydney, August 7 & 8, 1998”. (He had the dates wrong, but God bless him his heart was in the right place.)

Boydy had left the CSIRO forensic kit at home, so he had to take my word that boiled Sydney water was safe - once he’d given it the once over for remnants of dead dogs floating around, we settled in for a cuppa. In keeping with tradition, Arma had served up the highest quality FBT merchandise, carefully hand-crafted in Bangkok’s finest of sweatshops.

With a couple of hours to kill before official commencement of proceedings, Boydy and me did our best to engage in non-footy banter. Five minutes later it was straight onto the prospects of Hewlett-Packard playing at Homebush. We had the Gregory’s out and Boydy quickly figured that it’d be less travel time for him to go from Newcastle to see Hewlett Packard play at the new Olympic facility than it would to travel from Wheelers Hill to the Shocklands. Boydy vowed that if Hewlett Packard made the trek north in his wake, he’d be the Ken Williams of Homebush. A generation of Melbourne kids would grow up wondering “Who is that idiot behind the goals every week at the Hewlett Packard games? Gee he knows nothing about footy!”

Afternoon

We hopped into a cab and made our way over to Chez Leachy. After a few surly grunts from the cabbie when Crullers gave directions, Boydy turned around from the front seat and wisely counseled “I think the NCNN theory will have to wait, Crullers”. Boydy was eager to get the show that the Great Man was privileged to witness when he stayed at Leachy’s for the Great Man Derby. Sadly, it was not to be. In fact there were no shows at all at Chez Leachy that day - no other Banterers had pestered Leachy for accommodation so we didn’t have to witness the sight of a Founding Father beating off with a stick.

Boydy and I hopped out of a cab at Leichhardt town hall - the sight of the national flag sitting side by side with the flag representing the indigenous peoples of our land set Crullers off on a fearful spray...It was a roll call of the who’s who of great Aboriginals to play the game - Jimmy “Jailbird” Krakouer, Maurice “Lightfingers” Riolo, Polly “Travelodge” Farmer. All champion footballers, all success stories off the field. Thankfully the One Nation Banter Team had turned to other matters by the time we arrived at Chez Leachy, otherwise we would have never been able to put the FBT’s most proudly politically-incorrect member back in his box.

Leachy was in character the moment he answered the door - munching away on take-away chicken stir-fry with a couple of dollops of MSG splashed down the front of his Les Norton tee-shirt. He served us up a couple of Cadbury’s “Legends”, the footy equivalent of “Fantales”. Boydy expressed some concern that Leachy and Crullers seemed to be up to no good, the two of them sneaking away to Leachy’s bedroom every now and then with a few giggles emanating from behind the locked door. Little did he know that the two pranksters of the FBT were secretly hatching perhaps their finest coup, “Leachy’s bag of tricks”...

The three of us then made our way to the unofficial Sydney watering hole of the FBT, the Royal in Leichhardt. Boydy was pig-biting mad when the penny dropped that he wouldn’t be getting a show at this Royal Hotel. He could at least console himself with the Champagne Banter that spilled over at the Royal when he and the other Founding Fathers popped the cork on FBTCIII.

As the three Founding Fathers, WALDO and Yours Crully settled in for some ales, Channel Rex dished up the Carlton v Melbourne clash from the Gee. The volume was down on the idiot box, but there was plenty of noise coming from the table full of idiots.

Early on the talk centred on an FBT team of “much-maligned” players - Crullers regretted not having a pen and paper or the trusty dictaphone handy, because even if the footy wasn’t great on the set, the Banter was brilliant from the Royal. The quintet of boisterous Banterers were at once thrilled and disappointed when Punchy turned up just before half time. Thrilled that one of their number had managed to get off the leash, disappointed when he revealed that he’d been ferrying Punchy Junior to soccer - of all sports! Talk about neglect. Don’t worry Punchy, a report has already been drafted and will be on the desk of the CEO of Community Services NSW as we Banter.

Boydy went about setting a new precedent in FBT Convention stupidity when he took up WALDO’s challenge of going out at half time and getting the locks clipped a la half of the Hewlett Packard team. Boydy was up to the challenge and soon we had our very own Curly look-alike. (Curly from the Three Stooges that is, not Curly “Rod” Austin.)

It was a marvelous afternoon of Banter, punctuated at half time by Leachy’s first presentation from the Bag of Tricks. We gathered around the pool table at the Royal, scene of Leachy and WALDO’s whipping of two hopeless jokes on the pool table during FBTCII.V.

With a beaming smile on his face reminiscent of Bruce just before Jacko is about to drape the Brownlow around another unworthy winner’s neck, Leachy pulled out of the Bag of Tricks a magnificent tee-shirt for WALDO. Leachy had plastered over a white tee-shirt in huge George Michael-style “Choose Life” font a massive “7/0”, there for all to see. An absolute treat of a tee-shirt, one which WALDO would wear with pride during FBTCIII and a chick-magnet to boot.

But the tee-shirt presentations didn’t end there.

After half time, the enigma of the FBT, Ockers, popped his head in the door. Out came the Bag of Tricks again, this time the tee-shirt had a huge “?” on the front and a loose cannon on the back. True to his FBT cyberspace form, it seemed that as soon as Ockers appeared at the Royal he was gone, off to a prior dinner engagement.

Things were going along swimmingly at the Royal by about 4pm when Arma laid down the challenge to Boydy - “Take my mobile and get alFie on the blower within 2 hours”. Boydy spent the next 90 minutes huddled in a corner with the mobile, no doubt racking up a huge bill on BHP’s account. But at 5:30 Boydy had his man - “I’ve got alFie on the line fellas...the Fairies went down by 12...goals.” Each Banterer took it in turn to get a few words of wisdom from the 1998 Norwich Rising Star of the FBT, with yours Crully last on the line. It was a cherished moment for all concerned. alFie only gave himself two votes in the Fairies’ losing team, but the FBT gave him three big ones for his contribution to the Convention.

Evening

We then made our way to the Lord Nelson hotel in the Rocks.

At this stage the ales had me well and truly on the way, so the memory’s a bit hazy from here on. Punchy kept the Banter lively at times when it could have died in the arse with his footy trivial pursuit cards. Leachy, the FBT’s walking footy trivia encyclopaedia, once again impressed all with a dazzling display of knowledge of the minutia of footy trivia.

As soon as the stomach started churning, we all headed down to Philip’s Foote for a meal. Leachy opened up the Bag of Tricks again and pulled out quite possibly the finest FBT merchandise ever produced to date - a selection of FBT placemats resplendent with the exposed buttocks of one Benjamin Boyd. Boydy’s butt became the most talked-about item amongst non-FBT-ers at the restaurant. Punters marveled at how Leachy had used computer trickery to alter the size of Boydy’s gluteus maximus - everyone was astonished that the same pair of buttocks could, with a bit of technological magic, look like Bruce Reid, Ian Botham or Greg Ritchie.

Testing the restaurant manager’s patience, the FBT then burst into song, giving the Saint’s FBT theme song a solid working before being pulled into line - “That’s the last song from you blokes tonight, alright?” The Aussie Boys Choir we ain’t. As we chowed down into our steaks, the FBT’s very own “Mr now you see him, now you don’t, now you see him again”, Ockers, mysteriously re-appeared. Obviously he’d shaken off the tag that was his prior dinner engagement.

Leachy then delved into the Bag of Tricks for one final foray. Each Banterer was presented with a medal commemorating their particular achievements in what has been another special year of Banter.

The Computer Training Institute award for the technological behemoth of the FBT was awarded to WALDO, whose medal came complete with caps lock key. The reverse WALDO went to Arma, who was awarded the Bill Gates medal for his outstanding efforts in pushing the FBT through various technological frontiers, in particular with his outstanding work in website maintenance. Boydy snaffled the Leyland Brothers award, a beautiful NRMA roadmap to drape around the neck - he’ll be travelling across the countryside next year to watch his beloved Hewlett Packard play.

But the most cherished award was presented to Punchy, who, in a scene probably not known by most outside Sydney FBT circles, produced the goofiest comment in footy banter this year when he confused Adelaide’s James Thiessen for Peter Vardy. Punchy, we salute you, 1998 Vardy Medallist.

After dinner the battle for the most coveted prize - the Matty Nicks medal for outstanding Chick Magnetry - was on in earnest. As the reigning medal holder, I knew the others would be hot on my tail and the scragging tactics from Arma and his cohorts would be more desperate than ever seen before. We moved on to the Orient Hotel - if a bloke couldn’t pick up a chick there, he’d never pick up a chick.

Leachy, Ockers and Punchy made the hard yards early - so desperate to catch the eyes of the judges were they that they even resorted to doing the “Time Warp” on the dancefloor of the Orient. Leachy and Punchy confused the patrons around them when they started singing “Let’s switch to KZ FM” during the chorus.

But it seemed to work for Leachy, who managed to strike a bit of form with a couple of German tourists. When he discovered they knew shit all about the NCNN theory, he ditched them and gave off the hospital handpass to Ockers, who was like shit to a blanket.

I must confess I was extremely underwhelmed at the talent on offer, so I was prepared to bide my time and wait for the right opportunity to present itself - there was no way I was going to have a repeat of “BeergogglesGate” that nearly ruined FBTCII for me.

With every Banterer down on his luck at the Orient, the crew made their way through heavy traffic to the most Godforsaken nightclub in the Banter universe, Jackson’s on George. A few Banterers were lucky enough to be admitted into the ground floor bar straight away, the rest of us dregs were ushered into the basement bar. After a while we were reunited, but the talent was thin and the atmosphere was “Kev city” as Leachy would say - jeans and joggers all the way. The anaesthetic of two dozen schooners soon wore off and we were out of their.

Arma pulled a soft-cock and went straight home, Punchy had disappeared after doing the Time Warp, while the rest of us did the team thing and hailed a cab to head back to the Royal. With five Banterers and only four seats available in the cab, it was going to be difficult. WALDO did his best - “I’ll give you an extra $10 if you let another passenger in...Make it an extra $20 then...” - but as the second last Banterer in and having Boydy’s ample posterior looming down on me from above, I’m glad our cabbie chose not to take WALDO up on his offer.

Boydy and me got a separate cab back to the Royal - the Banterers had their cabbies working in sync and we arrived en masse. WALDO plonked himself down at a table with a “mature aged” mother and daughter couple, the latter obviously less mature aged than the former but still pretty bloody mature aged in her own right.

Ockers tried to do the lunch cut but WALDO well and truly had front position and maintained it all night - that is, until it came down to the business end of the evening. Alas, all our man came up with was an exchange of email addresses, but still it was enough to earn him the Matty Nicks medal for FBTCIII.

Leachy, Boydy and me settled in for some serious pool playing in the back bar, with Leachy and me ready to renew old acquaintances with some of our Eye-talian friends. Although it could’ve got heated in the clinches, cool heads prevailed and there was no blood letting.

The other boys took their turns to say goodnight, leaving the true stayers of the FBT - Boydy and me - to wave the flag. We left the Royal at stumps at around 4:30. On the trek home down Leichhardt’s main drag, I again spotted the Abo flag on top of the Town Hall. Determined to souvenir it for myself, I battled complete inebriation and my own pre-existing physical limitations to climb up the Town Hall. Unfortunately, I don’t think that both feet ever made it off the ground at the same time - that flag will still be blowin’ in the wind ready for some other pissed footy lover to make the big effort.

After the early start and the big day’s Banter activities, it was little wonder I dozed off in the cab on the way home - luckily Boydy had the presence of mind to write down directions earlier in the day so he had no trouble showing the cabbie the way home.

Sunday, 9 August 1998

Morning

Somehow when we got home I managed to set the alarm for 11am, but by jiminy when it went off I had the mother of all hangovers. Pulled out the trusty FBTCIII Commemorative mug, but the black coffee didn’t do much to cure the queasiness. Popped a couple of party pies in the microwave and they steadied the ship a bit, but I was still well below 50%. Boydy lapped up the Chez Crullers hospitality and wolfed down a couple of party pies and a sausage roll before the arrival of Arma, Leachy and WALDO.

Afternoon

The sight of five Banterers walking through the corridors of the Chez Crullers building was, in the words of Leachy, like a scene from ‘Reservoir Dogs’. On the way to the ground we passed a BP station where they’d set up a promotional Paddle Pop handball comp. Boydy had the photo taken with Paddle Pop Lion while his fellow Banterers handballed away at the target. The announcer didn’t believe me when I told him Arma’s name was “Vincent Cattogio” - “I don’t think that’s his real name” - but had no trouble accepting that Boydy’s name was “Large”. Fortunately for the good people at Streets none of the Banterers were in good handball form, so they only had to give out a few ice creams. As they say, fortune favours the fortunate. On arrival at the ground prospects were looking grim - Boydy and Ockers without tickets and the mail from the most despicable piece of scum ever to crawl out of a cesspool (ie an SCG ticket scalper) was that tickets were $30 a pop - “It’s been sold out for weeks mate”.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Arma gave the nod for the ticket switcheroo. “Are you right to take the tickets back out, Crullers?”

“Not a problem.”

Arma, Leachy, WALDO and me went inside - it must’ve been an anxious wait for Boydy and Ockers outside, because by the time we’d made it into the O’Reilly Stand and I was on my way back out the teams were well and truly into their warm-ups. I made my way to the gate with Arma’s and Leachy’s tickets tucked away. The beanhead “manning” the gate asked me “Can I ask why you want to leave?”

“Look mate, I’ve just had a call that my dad’s just been taken to hospital and I’d like to leave.” Sure, it was scripted, but it was vintage Crullers.

“Ohhh...sorry - ok.”

With that I was out the gate and never looked back - I passed over the spare tickets to Boydy and Ockers and we were in the ground.

We hot-footed into the FBT Reserve of the O’Reilly Stand and lapped up what has in dispatches been described as “a great game”, “a cliffhanger”, “a timeless classic” or “the most boring piece of shit game of footy I’ve ever seen”.

I’d made the crucial mistake of listening to Meteorologist Boydy’s forecast that “it looks like a pearler out there, Crullers” when we were about to leave the Chez. By quarter time I had nipples sticking out like a puppy’s nose in a brown paper bag. At quarter time and half time we put the old “no pies at the SCG theory” to the test - the results were a resounding answer in the affirmative. But what SCG catering lacks in pies, it more than makes up for in Chardonnay. Arma came back at half time empty-handed as far as the Four’n’Twenty delicacies were concerned, but picked up a nice little drop for Boydy in a lovely green and white plastic egg cup-shaped conveyance. Boydy sipped like he’d never sipped before at the footy and loved it.

But back to the footy on the field...

I thought the match was a cracker - some agreed, most seemed to disagree. The phrases “arm-wrestle”, “Titanic struggle”, “ding-dong duel” and “fierce contest” were variously bandied about. The Swans had their necks in front most of the game, but for all of the game Arma stole the show with his witty play on “the O’Loughlin”. That is, instead of handing someone a ‘red card’, he’d give them “the O’Loughlin”. For example, “What do you mean a 15 minute wait on the pies? Mate, I’m giving you an O’Loughlin!” He’s a funny old man.

Arma must have O’Loughlined O’Loughlin himself a dozen times - “Just look at the spectator! Hanging off the pack, waiting for someone to shoot the ball out. Look at that second effort! Oh the silky skills! Didn’t he just make a contest out of that one?! He’s just AWESOME!!!”

All afternoon Arma was at his broken record best whenever Magic Mick was within coo-ee of the pill.

So you can imagine Arma’s disgust when the winning goal was kicked by...Well you’ve all seen the tv footage, but I should just relive the moment when we had half a dozen Banterers (and assorted neighbours in the FBT Reserve) completely doubled over with laughter and one very stern Arma looking like his world had just caved in.

The Swans were in trouble when Leachy’s favourite player, Woosher Worsfold, calmly slotted through a goal to put them ahead for the first time in the match, late in the final quarter. In fact, had it been a different world, we may have been slapping Leachy on the back and saying “Who’s the useless thug, now?”

But fate has a way of conjuring up the most unlikely of heroes, and none was more unlikely than the Awesome One, Magic Michael O’Loughlin.

He’d had a quiet one, but with the scores tied and seemingly only a few minutes to go, it was time for the champ to step up to the plate, grab the game by the scruff of the neck and slot home the sealer. The excitement at the Chardonnaydome built steadily as the ball went into the Swans forward line. Leapin’ Leo Barry had a snap from around fifty but didn’t connect properly. The ball headed in the Yeah-yeah direction and for a second we all thought the Big Man (Plugger that is, not Boydy) would swoop and go for the kill. The atmosphere was electric - you could cut the air with a knife. As Ammo would say - “You paid for the whole of your seat [well, some Banterers had], but you only need the edge of it”.

Plugger knew he was hot, so he palmed the ball out to - guess who - Magic Mick, standing alone at the edge of the pack. He had time and space and the Sydney crowd went bananas knowing that any score would just about do. But being the true champ he is, he slotted it through the big uprights and that, my friends, was the ball game.

Meanwhile the six non-Arma Banterers and the Punchy family went ape. For our beloved Founding Father it was the cruelest possible result - his beloved Sippers had won, but only through the now-legendary deeds of the O’Loughlin. Arma was a lonely figure, a shattered man amongst a sea of delirious sippers.

And so from that moment a new FBT trophy has been struck from the Chardonnay cup from which Boydy sipped that day. There could be only one winner...

Arma, we salute you, reigning title holder of the “Awesome Michael O’Loughlin Perpetual Trophy for Ironic Punishment Metered Out at the Match of the Convention”.

Evening

After the excitement of the big game, could FBTCIII get any better? Well possibly, but it didn’t. Arma, Boydy, Leachy WALDO and me trudged back to the nearby Bat’n’Ball Hotel for a few quiet ones - or, in my case, a couple of quiet ones. I was absolutely knackered and had to wear a couple of barbs because of my complete inability to keep up. At least I wasn’t as messed up as young Korg, who took great delight in some of the witty Banter that was going on at our table but was completely incapable of contributing himself. This feral jeans and joggers wearing Eagles supporter (well, that doesn’t really narrow the field that much) plonked himself on the floor next to our table and, with an idiot grin, giggled along with the Banterers whenever some champagne Banter drifted his way.

At one stage Korg pulled out a small jar of Nescafe from somewhere and WALDO had to put him in his place before he started spiking our beer. One of his mates sitting up at the bar fell off his stool and went arse over tit, spilling his schooner over the floor, so it seemed time for the Banterers to disperse. As we left, Korg followed us out the door, so we picked up the pace, hailed a couple of cabs and made sure we locked the doors behind us. Arma and Leachy went back to their respective abodes - well, I presume they did unless there’s something going on the rest of us aren’t aware of - and Boydy and WALDO stopped off at Chez Crullers to get their bags and head off to the airport.

And so ended a memorable couple of days - in fact, it was less than 36 hours - of the best Footy Banter the Conventionites are ever likely to be privy to again.

For those who missed it, get your tickets early for the next Convention, FBTCIV - the End of Season Trip.