True Stories: Boys and Balls
Director Sue Thompson
ABC, Sunday, September 25, 8.30pm
Reviewed by Frank Enright

In Boys and Balls, Sue Thompson set out to be quite cruel about men's fixation with balls but ended up producing an ironic film that's not without understanding and even affection for the ball handlers. The publicity blurb accurately describes it as an “enjoyable documentary leg-puller, done in deadpan style”. Could it be otherwise with Rampaging Roy Slaven and H.G. Nelson anchoring the show?

The film, first screened at the Sydney Film Festival earlier this year, interviews leading sports personalities from the major football codes in an attempt to come to grips with the supposed male preoccupation.

Merv Hughes fiddles with his ball throughout; basketballing Andrew and Lindsay Gaze demonstrate a father and son bonding born of the game; singer/songwriter Paul Kelly, caught padding up, compares the time he shared a taxi with his hero Don Bradman with the more famous mobile cohabitation between Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce.

Boys and Balls is littered with deep and insightful one-liners. From the great Ron Barassi: “It's only 10 or 20,000 years since we've come out of the caves; it will take us another couple of million years before we're completely cerebral.”

Rampaging Roy explains our deep dislike for umpires: “I just thought they were sad, unfit, blokes who couldn't play the game so they decided to try to be part of it in some pathetic way, i.e., wear white and blow a whistle ... Anyone who becomes an umpire is in serious need of psychological assessment. It's a cry for help.”

H.G. Nelson, ever contemplating the big questions facing us here in Asia, says: “Sure the world's buggered in many ways, there's no ozone left, the Sea of Japan's dead, thank you very much Russians; when you're at the game you can just throw all that away and just live for now”.

Illustrated by magical old sporting moments captured by the roving eye, Boys and Balls is great viewing, especially for all those, like Roy and H.G., for whom “too much sport is barely enough”.

This article was posted on the Green Left Weekly Home Page.
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