About 150 students waited in the amphitheatre. There was a lot of chatter. John Harms was grinning and talking to the lecturer. Harms, as the guest star, was about to offer his career to the students.
The lecturer, a woman who wrote a novel about infanticide, gave Harms a solid introduction.
‘For those who don’t know,’ the lecturer said, ‘John Harms is the most successful sport writer in Australia. He is the sport journalist that all others aspire to. He has sold more books than dozens of writers including me.
‘For decades he has been the most knowledgeable commentator in the business. He reminds me of Peter Landy crossed with Peter Russo and Russell Morris, the footballer, not the singer. He is prominent on ABC radio and television.
‘There is much you can learn from him.’
Two young women sitting near me asked each other who he was. The women, wannabe television journalists, looked at each other and shrugged, then they started chatting. I asked them to shush. They glared at me but kept quiet.
I knew who Harms was. I wanted to listen and hopefully learn something. He wrote about footy for The Australian. He’d published books. I thought he took his writing seriously, but didn’t take footy seriously.
Harms said hello with a big grin, big hair and a pleasant, steady voice. The class shut up. He wore the expression of a man about to laugh at his own joke. It seemed clear that he didn’t take himself too seriously.
He was a natural at talking.
It was 2004. The class, Creative Writing, was one I enjoyed. After finishing uni, I wanted to write, creatively, for a living.
Harms asked for a show of hands, wanting to know how many students wrote regularly outside of assessment. He nodded at the show of hands then asked how many students liked sport.
He grinned at the number of hands in the air. ‘I like writing about sport,’ he said. ‘I’m not saying you need to write about sport to be successful but it will help.’ He laughed.
The class was silent. Harms asked if anyone had read his books. The class was silent. I was too timid to say I’d read his column in the Australian.
‘Writing about sport doesn’t have to be serious,’ he said. ‘There are enough serious journalists out there. Often it’s the people in the outer who are more interesting than what happens on the field.’
Harms asked the class if we thought sport writing was formulaic. He was pleased that the show of hands was increasing.
‘You will get paid for writing if you can make people laugh,’ Harms said. ‘If you can do that you will be successful.’
There were people in the class, not limited to women, who weren’t paying attention. They were reading or texting or chatting softly. Creative Writing might’ve been an elective they weren’t interested in. Certainly they had no interest in sport. They probably still don’t. I can’t imagine a life so empty.
Someone down the front asked Harms how he got his break. Those who were chatting stopped to listen. Everyone student wanted a break.
Harms took a breath then explained how he’d been writing without luck for years. It was another writer, Gideon Haigh, who inadvertently helped him turn professional.
Haigh, for those who don’t know, is a very serious man. He doesn’t laugh for free. He is an excellent writer, particularly about cricket. None of the students seemed to know who Haigh was, but I had read his book, The Cricket War, a few times.
One day, while waiting for a meeting with his publisher, Haigh was apparently laughing in reception. It was a rare sound, one the publisher had never heard emanate Haigh.
The publisher asked Haigh if he was laughing. Haigh nodded. The publisher asked him why.
Haigh gave the publisher a story written by Harms. The publisher gave Harms a job. If Harms could make Haigh laugh, he could make everyone laugh.
And that was Harms’s mantra during the lecture, make people laugh.
It was simple advice, yet I wrote those three words into my exercise book, then put the pen down as Harms described his method.
‘When I go to the footy, I write three or four sentences on a ticket or footy record and base my story on that,’ Harms said. ‘I like to sit in the crowd, among the punters and listen to the banter.’
I had been doing something similar but preferred the Bon Scott method, carrying a small notebook and pen with me everywhere I go, so I won’t lose the record.
‘I have the story in my mind before I sit down to write,’ Harms said.
At the end of the lecture, Harms held up a prop, a paperback version of his books, Loose Men Everywhere and Confessions of a Mug Punter.
‘I just happen to have a box of these with me,’ Harms said. ‘If I’ve inspired you, come and buy a book for $20 bucks.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll even autograph it for you.’
I’m not sure how many books Harms sold, but I bought one. We had a chat about Geelong. I offered sympathy for all those grand final defeats, and confessed my pain at the 1998 grand final.
‘No woman ever hurt me like North Melbourne did,’ I said.
‘Oh, they will,’ Harms said.
We laughed.
A few days later, I was chatting to Stevo, a mate who follows Carlton. I told him John Harms had been a guest lecturer and I bought his book.
‘John Harms,’ Stevo said. ‘That would’ve been awesome. He played in three premierships for Carlton.’
A couple of years later, another mate paid me a neat compliment after I actually wrote something that made him smirk.
‘Have you ever heard of John Harms?’ he asked.
‘I have, and he didn’t play in three premierships for Carlton,’ I said.
‘You write like a poor man’s John Harms.’
My mate was just being kind.
Years later, Harms would be a key figure in the development of the footy almanac, a website for the fans. The Footy Almanac is one of the best footy blogs in the country. It’s the type of blog that accepts anything, from anyone, including people like me.
You can find the website here www.footyalmanac.com.au
Postscript:
John, I hope this story is an accurate reflection of the lecture you gave. It is based purely on my memory. My memory apologises if any of the information contained in this story is incorrect. I might’ve made up the lecturer’s introduction.
