Footy scribe pulled no punches to entertain

“THE electrifying situation had Mt Riddle move a foot closer for a better look”.
Just one of Jimmy Young’s clever turns of phrase which made his football reports a ‘must-read’ for Mountain Views readers in the ’80s and ’90s.
He was talking about a match between Healesville and Seville. “Seville were the gun side and we were creeping up on them,” he recalled last week.
He had a unique flair for capturing the excitement of the game on paper. “ … Garbo goaled with a perpendicular torpedo and the straight-kicking Bloods were eating oranges with a sniff of victory in their mud-filled nostrils”.
“You had to close the gates with a crow-bar,” was a favourite when a game attracted a big crowd at Queen’s Park.
Jimmy was a master of the nick-name … “Cat Fish Wandin”, “Crazy-horse Hay”, and if a player didn’t have one, he’d make one up!
There were lots of “ball-tearers”, “reverse-swinging left-foot torpedos” and more than a few teams got “an absolute pizzling” as Jimmy told it.
He called the game as he saw it and didn’t pull any punches if players weren’t putting in.
He had the respect of the players to be able to pull it off.
He was coaching the Healesville under-17s when he took on the job of writing the weekly football report for Mountain Views around ’79, ’80.
He wrote on and off for 20 years and became a multi-media football commentator when he and his good mate and league stalwart Juby Wandin teamed up to compare the footy show on VYV99.1 and call the games.
“I used to write it up on Sunday morning from a few scribbled notes on the footy record, quarter by quarter scores and a few names. I’m lucky I had a terrific retentive memory,” he said.
“It’s a bit of imagination more than anything. Living in the moment, it’s easy to write when you’re there and it’s happening.
“I remember writing one match that the most interesting event of the day was the girls in the canteen’s sales of chocolate doughnuts.”
The ‘copy’ would arrive at the back door of Mountain Views at about 11am, hand-written, mostly readable, always compelling, and more often than not amusing. The next morning it was on the streets and in demand.
Country football is infectious, Jimmy said reflecting on his foray into football journalism … “local football in a local paper is a must.”