Jeremy O'Wheel- Feet on Fire

The Narooma Footbag Jam is an event I think epitomises Australia. Not just the Australian Footbag scene, but general attitudes through the country. The event has been held in January the last three years in Narooma, a small coastal town in New South Wales. Alongside playing footbag, there are barbeques, visits to the beach, beers and sometimes trips in boats. It’s obviously important for activities to start with a B. In reality, it’s a group of mates getting together doing something they enjoy and having a good time.

A few years ago I started talking with some of the other players about doing some kind of jam down the coast. Ulladulla was my proposed location, as it’s about 3 hours from both Sydney and Canberra. People said it was a nice idea, but it didn’t get a lot further than that.

It wasn’t until Nathan Cope arrived on the scene that things got moving. I played with Nathan for the first time at the end of 2006. We both started playing Footbag a lot earlier than that, grew up just one hour apart, then both dropped out of Footbag. Neither of us had met up until that time in 2006. We went together to a footbag jam the Sydney guys held in mid 2007 while Phil Morrison was visiting from New Zealand.

The idea of a coastal get together gathered a bit more momentum there, and after further talks on the forum, the idea of early January seemed the best. The first Narooma jam was held in 2008. We had a good gathering of some of Australia’s best players. Nathan was there, the reason we chose Narooma was because it was his home town. I was there too, I had been staying at my parents place in Bega, just one hour away, so my mum gave me a lift. Caroline Birch was there. At the time she was a Queenslander. She was on a roadtrip with her sister Kylie, bound for Melbourne. At the time the three of us had only met a few times, but over the last few years we have been the centre of Canberra’s Footbag scene.

Footbag Pioneers- The first Narooma Jam- Jeremy, Ian, Caroline, Copey, Daniel, Dan

Dan Ednie arrived by overnight bus from Melbourne. The Premier Motor Service doesn’t provide the most comfortable of journeys and the early morning arrival is not all that pleasant. He was the only guest from Melbourne at the inaugural gathering. Jeremy O’Wheel flew from Hobart and drove with Ian Pritchard from Sydney.

Dan Ednie in action, 2008

That year we all stayed in a house in Dalmeny. It was a friend of Nathan’s. Dalmeny is slightly to the north of Narooma. We kicked a few times at the Narooma Plaza, the shopping hub of Narooma. The main issue with our kicking area was they were raffling off a boat at the shopping centre. The place where we kicked was exactly where they decided to show off the boat that you could win.

We had a few trips to the beach that year. The swell was quite big and the water quite cold, so only a few of us braved the adventure. The big swell prevented us from getting a visit to Montague Island, which was unfortunate.

That year we got a write up in the Narooma News, the local paper. The article had a couple of pictures and some information about Footbag, but midway through the article they must have got confused with Futsal and said we were training for the upcoming National Futsal Championships in Canberra.

Everyone seemed to have a good time, we all agreed to return again the next year.

2008′s event had been held early in the month, just after the New Year, as that worked best for everyone’s travel plans. The next year we moved the event to the Australia Day weekend.

Andrew Grant stretches for a point in beach four square

We probably had our best field, with even a couple of international guests in attendance. The Canberra Connection all turned out, with Caroline, Copey and myself all in attendance. I stayed in the YHA, as I got a free room through my work at the Canberra YHA. Ian returned with his girlfriend Kayleigh in tow. They were camped in the campground. Max and Benoite came all the way from France via Belgium and Sydney and had with them Winnipeg’s own Andrew Grant. Only a few months before he had managed a second place in the Shred 30 at the World Championships.

Leon Schreuder and Oliver Adams came up from Melbourne. They made a roadtrip out of it and slept in Leon’s panel van. Jeremy O’Wheel made another return and that was our crew for 2009. For a footbag event, there is not so much Footbag played. Windy conditions gave us trouble on one of the days, excessive heat on another. Andrew and I managed to get in a few waves during our stay, which was good fun.

Up close with some local wildlife

Leon ready to reel in a big one.

Despite the international turn out, that year we didn’t actually feature in the local news at all. The final day was a perfect day, on Australia Day we got our pictures taken inside Australia Rock, a giant rock with a hole in shaped like Australia, then had a BBQ and drank a few beers. The weekend was just the beginning of a week long trip for Andrew and myself.

Andrew Grant considers citizenship

In 2009 we did manage to get out to Montague Island. We were lucky as it seemed it would not happen. It was not the swell this time, but fires quite far away. Mr Cope is the area manager of the National Parks and could get us onto a boat for free, the issue was potential boat drivers were away fighting the fire. On the last day we managed to get out there, but we had come at the wrong time of year, penguin season was over.

This year’s event was the first visit to the ‘oom for Ausfootbag president Dyalan Govender. He was due to pick me up in Canberra, but made some rookie errors giving himself a drive three times as long as necessary. This year we rented out a small unit right in town. Everyone was staying different combinations of days, so this one worked out quite well. We arrived to find Caroline, Copey and Jeremy already in town. This year we were fairly even with boys and girls with Francisca, Kelly and Kayleigh all coming to hang out as well.

Jeremy tests the new surface at the Narooma Plaza photo by Francisca Borquez

This year we got to have another trip on a boat, the BBQ boat. Although rain looked like it would spoil our day, we ended up having quite a good day out. A number of fish were caught, though I don’t think any were suitable to eat. We played once again in the plaza, which had been recently resurfaced.

Dyalan Govender, Daniel Boyle, Nathan Cope on the BBQ Boat photo by Jeremy O'Wheel

Group photo, 2010

This time we did get some newspaper coverage, with my picture adorning the back page of the Narooma News along with an accompanying article. There were not so many discussions as to next year, as it was obvious where we’ll all be come late January.

Any players considering a visit to Australia, I honestly couldn’t recommend anything more than coming for a visit to the Narooma Jam, it is very laid back and a lot of fun. I think it is the perfect experience of Australia and the Australian Footbag scene. If you’re going to come over, why not stick around for Nationals a few months later?