Through green eyes: 1989

Canberra Raiders history

Moderator: GH Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
greeneyed
Don Furner
Posts: 145091
Joined: January 7, 2005, 4:21 pm

Through green eyes: 1989

Post by greeneyed »

Through green eyes: 1989



I was sitting in my lounge room in the depths of southern Canberra. It was a Friday night and I was watching the game. Which game I can’t remember. It was an ordinary Friday night but I always watched the game. It was cold, as you’d expect.

The previous week, my father had been visiting me and we had watched the Friday night game together. It was the days before Channel 10 went to the wall and left the rugby league rights as an orphan.

But before that, they were running a competition. It involved choosing the best try of the season and matching your choices to the choices of the Channel 10 commentators – Rex Mossop, Graeme Hughes and Peter Sterling. There were five to choose from. What you needed to do was to rank the tries, from first to fifth.

I drove my father crazy. I taped the tries under contention and I replayed them over and over on the VCR. I was going to enter this competition and I wanted to get it right. I asked my father what he thought, but he got sick of it quickly. I ended up choosing two entries. One with my favourite Raiders try running first, the other with the try I expected the commentators would choose. I duly posted them in. Honestly, I posted them in. These were the days before the internet and internet polls were even thought of.

That next week, I was sitting by myself watching the game. As half time finished, the commentators announced that they would be drawing the winner of the competition during the half time break. They announced the order of merit that the commentators had agreed upon. I had picked it!

I rang home. I wanted to tell my Dad that all the pain had been worth it, and that I had at least chosen the right order. He was out, but I was talking to my brother. I was happy just to have got it right.

Then while I’m on the phone, Peter Sterling says that of the 80,000 entries, there are only five correct entries. He rolls a barrel on the field and announces……. I am the winner! I am yelling down the phone and jumping up and down. I had won a car!

In those days I drove a Holden Sunbird. It was the definition of a “lemon”. The heating leaked water, jets of water. As you turned the corner, a jet of water sprayed either the driver's or passenger's feet. I got used to just pulling my feet back on the corners and filling up the radiator before every trip. Still it was metallic blue.

Image

But now I had won a Nissan Pulsar Q. It was red. It went very fast, faster because it was red. I thought it was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Image

I decided that Peter Sterling was the best footballer ever. He drew out my name.

Everyone told me how lucky I was. Strangers rang me that night to wish me luck. Some even rang me and abused me for winning. I told them that it was not luck, but a matter of skill. I hadn’t watched years of football for nothing.

I had my Pulsar delivered two weeks before the Grand Final.

It was an exciting time, as my team, the Canberra Raiders were storming through the semifinals, after finishing in equal fifth. And so it was that I drove myself and my friends to the 1989 Grand Final in my new car. My parents were visiting, but there was nothing stopping me from heading up to Sydney for the match.

The game is well known. The course of it has gone down in the annals of rugby league history. At the end of the game, I had to keep telling my friends that we have just witnessed the best Grand Final ever, they could hardly comprehend it. Eventually we left the Sydney Football Stadium, and I could barely remember what the new car looked like, and we could hardly find it.

We drove home to Canberra, straight to the Mawson Leagues Club, where the Raiders would be returning. I was so glad I was a member, as there were thousands and thousands in the car park waiting for the team. You could not get in unless you were already a member. We got back well before the team, even though they flew. What a night. “We are the Champions” was blaring out in the club over and over. And then the team arrived. It was bedlam. After midnight we followed the team over to the Queanbeyan Leagues Club… it was the more of the same ecstasy. It was all the better because it was the first.

I got home at about 5.30am. My parents had decorated the whole apartment in green, blue, gold and white for me… I got the tape out and watched it with them as dawn broke. I could hardly believe how good 1989 could be.
Image
Begbie
Laurie Daley
Posts: 14381
Joined: February 25, 2008, 3:02 pm
Favourite Player: Smash Williams

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by Begbie »

What a great story. :D You have repaid Rugby League, for winning that car, with your tireless service to the Greenhouse.

I went to school with a bloke who kicked a goal from the sideline at a Raiders match and also won a car.

(who promptly sold it and bought a second hand RX7)
GreenSoul
Gary Belcher
Posts: 6070
Joined: December 7, 2007, 12:48 pm
Favourite Player: Big Mal
Location: Sydney

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by GreenSoul »

lol **** that's awesome. I want to win a car.
User avatar
*Loz*
Brett Mullins
Posts: 1448
Joined: April 21, 2005, 4:38 pm

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by *Loz* »

Great story!

Best Raiders/footy related prize I ever won was in 1995 and I won the Raiders Kids Club (run by the now defunct 'Raider Magazine') comp where you and another kid got to lead the Raiders onto the field. It was v Knights on a Friday night and was televised. I was PO'ed cos Stuart was captain instead of Daley and I'd never met Daley... To this day, I still haven't...

It was sleating that night and I was sh*tscared I'd slip over in front of the entire stadium. I managed to stay upright. My dad, who got to escort me to the tunnel, had the best night of his life talking at Blocker Roach. Was the only time I ever felt pity for the poor bloke, he didn't know how to get away...

Mum and Dad had set the video on timer, recorded the game and then broke the seal when we got home. Feck knows where the Loz v Knights video is these days, but least I still have the jersey I scored as part of the prize. It still fits :)

There was only one thing that tarnished my moment of glory and that was the one time I had my name in lights, it was mispelled. I was devo.

Oh and we won that match too.
Image
Raiders Member #3044
User avatar
greeneyed
Don Furner
Posts: 145091
Joined: January 7, 2005, 4:21 pm

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by greeneyed »

Loz, that's a great story!
Image
User avatar
Raidersrawesome
Mal Meninga
Posts: 47752
Joined: February 24, 2008, 7:47 am
Favourite Player: Captain Croker
Location: Gold Coast

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by Raidersrawesome »

89 was a great year , didnt win anything but finished year 12 , that was a good enough prize.

Nice read GE
Walt Flanigan
Jason Croker
Posts: 4380
Joined: July 4, 2006, 12:36 pm

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by Walt Flanigan »

I graduated from 2nd Grade in 89. The Grand Final win was just the sweetner.
User avatar
CJ42
Laurie Daley
Posts: 12768
Joined: April 12, 2011, 5:13 pm

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by CJ42 »

I was 2 and a half at the time of the 89 grand final but I reckon it's one of my earliest memories, alll the rellos huddled around the tv and getting right into it!
Image
GreenSoul
Gary Belcher
Posts: 6070
Joined: December 7, 2007, 12:48 pm
Favourite Player: Big Mal
Location: Sydney

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by GreenSoul »

I thought your daughter dated Doogz.
User avatar
greeneyed
Don Furner
Posts: 145091
Joined: January 7, 2005, 4:21 pm

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by greeneyed »

That's someone else.
Image
GreenSoul
Gary Belcher
Posts: 6070
Joined: December 7, 2007, 12:48 pm
Favourite Player: Big Mal
Location: Sydney

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by GreenSoul »

Well, that's awkward.
david231280
Ruben Wiki
Posts: 5716
Joined: August 19, 2006, 11:56 am
Favourite Player: Past - Laurie Daley
Current - Jarrod Croker
Location: Ettalong, Sunny Central Coast, NSW
Contact:

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by david231280 »

I was excepting to read another blow by blow description of the 89 Grand Final (which i could read 1000 times over and over again) but what I have just read by GE and Loz was something better.
Great work guys
User avatar
Horace Dove-Edwin
Dean Lance
Posts: 892
Joined: June 21, 2008, 10:20 pm
Favourite Player: Chicka Ferguson

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by Horace Dove-Edwin »

Hey GE, if you can remember what were the 5 tries?
User avatar
greeneyed
Don Furner
Posts: 145091
Joined: January 7, 2005, 4:21 pm

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by greeneyed »

I couldn't remember now! It's 22 years ago!
Image
User avatar
Horace Dove-Edwin
Dean Lance
Posts: 892
Joined: June 21, 2008, 10:20 pm
Favourite Player: Chicka Ferguson

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by Horace Dove-Edwin »

Fair enough.

The best I could remember from 1989 was our semi v Penrith.
Paul Martin scored after the ball went through about 15 sets of hands.
Started on the right about 40 out all the way to Chicka's wing then it came back to Martin who put on that huge right foot step to beat the rushing defenders.

The memories.
User avatar
greeneyed
Don Furner
Posts: 145091
Joined: January 7, 2005, 4:21 pm

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by greeneyed »

Yeah, those tries would have been from the regular season, as I recall. If you want a discussion about the best Raiders tries from 1989, that's a different thing! Some sensational ones in the finals in 1989.
Image
Begbie
Laurie Daley
Posts: 14381
Joined: February 25, 2008, 3:02 pm
Favourite Player: Smash Williams

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by Begbie »

greeneyed wrote:Yeah, those tries would have been from the regular season, as I recall. If you want a discussion about the best Raiders tries from 1989, that's a different thing! Some sensational ones in the finals in 1989.
You may not remember this one from 89 but i do. On the last, Sulli puts up a bomb which lands about 10 to the left of the upright, and pretty much on the tryline. Lots go up, a bandaged Daley manages to double-hand-bat the scraps backwards to shimmering Ferguson. Fertgo proceeds to do an old run-DMC Rap Dance in towards the tryline and ends up burrowing through with the help of Dean Lance like a battering ram in from behind. Does this one ring a bell?
User avatar
Raidersrawesome
Mal Meninga
Posts: 47752
Joined: February 24, 2008, 7:47 am
Favourite Player: Captain Croker
Location: Gold Coast

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by Raidersrawesome »

Begbie wrote:
greeneyed wrote:Yeah, those tries would have been from the regular season, as I recall. If you want a discussion about the best Raiders tries from 1989, that's a different thing! Some sensational ones in the finals in 1989.
You may not remember this one from 89 but i do. On the last, Sulli puts up a bomb which lands about 10 to the left of the upright, and pretty much on the tryline. Lots go up, a bandaged Daley manages to double-hand-bat the scraps backwards to shimmering Ferguson. Fertgo proceeds to do an old run-DMC Rap Dance in towards the tryline and ends up burrowing through with the help of Dean Lance like a battering ram in from behind. Does this one ring a bell?

Nah , what game was that :lol:
User avatar
greeneyed
Don Furner
Posts: 145091
Joined: January 7, 2005, 4:21 pm

Re: Through green eyes: 1989

Post by greeneyed »

Can vaguely remember that one.
Image
Post Reply