Donnybrook 2007

NORM BEDFORD WINS?

It was a big day with small numbers.
It was cold, wet, muggy, overcast and the town seemed bereft of Saturday morning shoppers.
Four of us stood around the fine old train station located in the centre of town, handing cherries to each other and talking about the weather, and the whether.
Whether it would rain.
Whether anyone would show to spit in the Great Donnybrook Spat.
They did.
One bloke brought his grumbling kids: "He made us come."
"I want a ticket to New Zealand and I don't care which one of you wins it. Now get up there and spit."
They spat, not at dad, not in his direction, but they were aiming at him.
Then dad spat.
None of them got anywhere near the mark, a mark that wasn't there, but we knew where it would be if it was.
Then Campbell Brown showed and blew the pip a mile. Well, not quite a mile, he claimed it was a mile, but it was more like 6 metres.
So we gave him a t-shirt.
That's him below.


It rained some more.
We ate what we could.
Giovanni from Mandurah turned up and made Campbell look like a mug.
Neither of them could make it to the Big Spat in Manjimup the following week, so we asked them to leave the premises.
We had $100 in our pockets and we were not giving it to anyone who refused to play along.
Finally, Norm Bedford, sent to town by his wife to buy a loaf of bread, was called over from outside the bakery by Donnybrook's Man of the Moment, Angelo Logiudice.
Norm stepped up, puckered up, spat up, and we knew then and there we had a winner.

Turns out Norm is a professional cricketer and while in Manjimup he will also take a shot at the Chuck The Cherry competition.
His spit?
Good question: 8.8 metres.
Not bad.
On a windy day, it might just be enough.