A fat, jolly man named Kris has promised AFLNT a Christmas gift

“EXCUSE me squire, I’m looking for Aldo Rossetto and Arch Wilkey, who I enjoyed a cold beer with a few years back,” a portly man, who introduced as Kris, bellowed to the Morris On Monday column.A brief chat about the great Territory players of yesteryear followed.Then he was gone – whisked away on the winds of the world with a pledge to make Darwin’s new $300 million stadium happen, with a gift the AFLNT would receive in the mail very soon.

This portly figure – who introduced himself to the Morris On Monday column as Kris – pledged to send AFLNT a present in the mail very soon. The gift could help make its dream $300 million stadium in Darwin a reality.

CHRISTMAS in 2020 has arrived with its share of sadness on some sides and big slices of relief for those in the north country after a year of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

In Australian football terms, the Territory’s magnificent defence against a virus that has devastated the world, would rival anything St Mary’s and the Darwin Buffaloes did in their heyday as kings of the Northern Territory Football League.

Those positives and negatives of COVID were dominating my thoughts this week when a strange and somewhat eerie scraping noise on the third-floor roof at TIO Stadium woke me from any immediate concerns.

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It was while I wrapping up Nightcliff’s win over Southern Districts at league headquarters on Saturday night, a five-goal triumph even their coach Chris Baksh would have smiled at.

The noise reminded me of a heavy metal chest being pulled over a steel floor, or fingernails being run over the old blackboards us older folks remember only too well.

After summarising the noise as a brief gust of wind, or Nightcliff hard man Dominic Brew pushing a few weights in the bowels of the stadium, I returned to my keyboard.

But curiosity got the better of me as it always does at Christmas time. A throwback to when my sister Sally swears she saw – and still does – a sleigh-like object light up the South Gippsland sky when we were both very young.

A search of the far wing where functions are sometimes held provided me with nothing, until I turned to my left and was about to exit via the stairs to the ground below.

The voice that erupted near my right ear sounded familiar and his choice of red as a main colour made me think it might have been well-known Waratah fan and a premiership player with the red and whites in 1977, one Garry Smart.

Waratah veterans showing off past guernseys. Scott Broadcroft, Peter Ivanoff, Garry Smart, Hank McPhee and Bob Haines back in the old dressing rooms. Picture: Dani Gawlik

But when the portly gentleman standing in front of me then proceeded to introduce himself as Kris, with an emphasis on the ‘K’ as the first letter in his name, I knew Smarty was out of the question.

“Excuse me squire, I’m looking for Aldo Rossetto and Arch Wilkey, who I enjoyed a cold beer with a few years back,” he bellowed.

A quick glance at his mode of transport, with banana-like wings on both sides and a giant crimson sack within, gave me a few clues on his identity.

So it was with some trepidation I told him four-time Buffaloes premiership coach and dual St Mary’s premiership coach Rossetto and Waratah icon Wilkey were no longer with us.

“Well what about Tony Shaw, Ray Norman, Darryl Window or that big fella from Katherine with the same surname as Ned Kelly, they still coaching and playing?” Kris yelled.

It was only when I reminded him those great servants of the game were now in their twilight years and a new generation in Chris Baksh, Anthony Vallejo, Shannon Motlop and Ryan Ayres were in charge, that he dropped his tone to one a lot more friendly.

“That Motlop, he any relation to Mark Motlop who played some good footy with Nightcliff up until a couple of years ago and young Ayres, wasn’t he the kid with a left-foot kick that could make it from the middle of the ground to the goalsquare?” Kris said.

When I congratulated him on his great knowledge of the NTFL, I was also quick to remind him a team from the Tiwi Islands now played in the competition.

And women’s football was at the top of the pops with footy-hungry Territorians.

Kris said he had read somewhere of a $300 million stadium being built in Darwin as soon as 2032, though he reckoned those two blokes running the show, Bowden and Totham, should focus on cutting that timetable in half and aiming for 2025.

Then he was gone, whisked away on the winds of the world with a pledge to make the new stadium happen with a gift the AFLNT would receive in the mail very soon.