Sleepy Brain: Nerfball

Interview by Symon Brando

Sleepy Brain: Nerfball
Wayne & Shandeece in happier times

The now-defunct sport of Nerfball always suffered image problems. The fact that it was played with a kid’s soft toy didn’t help. A Nerf ball is a round foam ball, designed in the 1970s for kids to play with indoors – without smashing any of mum and dad’s valuables. Undeterred by their detractors, a group of sensitive young men, dissatisfied with the rough-and-tumble world of Australian Rules Football, decided to relive their childhood and invent a similar game to footy – but played indoors and using a Nerf ball. Despite the odds, the new sport took off like wildfire in the mid-1980s, attracting crowds of up to 10 at the Australian Nerfball League’s Mecca, Bento Stadium, in the southeast Melbourne suburb of Bentleigh.

But as the new millenium dawned, the popularity of Nerfball dwindled. By the early 1990s, crowds were down to 1 or 2, and on many occasions, no one bothered to turn up. The Australian Nerfball League’s dreams of taking Nerfball from Bentleigh to the world seemed in tatters. But all that changed in 1996, when the ANL recruited ex-footballers and rugby players to Nerfball, offering a level of physicality the previous generation of bohemian art wankers could not achieve.

Suddenly Nerfball was Big Business again, and the ANL was in the thick of all sorts of bizarre marketing schemes. But none matched the sheer brazenness of one particular inititative that soon grabbed international headlines. SLEEPY BRAIN recalls that very strange time in 1997 when star Nerfballer Wayne Mammone, one of the ANL’s new breed of tough c***s, was so keen to help his debt-ridden club, the Bentleigh Drongoes, he accepted a lucrative sponsorship deal: he changed his name by deed poll to “Ancel” for the season (Ancel is a local condom manufacturer). The resultant negative publicity was enough to destroy Mammone’s career and eventually crush the ANL’s flimsy existence…and suddenly Nerfball was no more.

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AS REPORTED
“Nerfball reached a new level of grubbiness with the announcement that Drongoes outfielder Wayne Mammone has sold his name for the rest of the season – to a condom manufacturer.”
– The Bentleigh Prattler, 1997
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Wayne, how did the Ancel deal come about?

It was weird. I remember the exact details: I was just chilling at home, packing a bong and watching a video of Shirl’s Neighbourhood, when the phone rang. It was the Drongoes chairman, Bugger MacKenzie. Bugger said Ancel wanted to sponsor the club, and were looking to get a high-profile player involved.

You’d just won the Browneye Medal for the League’s Best and Toughest Player. I guess that made you pretty high profile.

Yeah – Bugger flashed the Browneye at Ancel and they said, “That’s the man for us. Get Mammone”. And the club was pretty hard up – Bugger was giving me the old sob story about how it might fold and all that, so I just said, “Yeah, mate. I’ll do it. Anything to get the Drongoes out of a tight spot”. I said it without knowing what the deal was or anything; Bugger came over straight away with a contract and I signed, without even reading it.

Do you regret being so impulsive?

Of course. I mean, I had no idea how big this thing would be or how it would affect me and my woman, Shandy. Then Bugger told me what they wanted: I had to change my name by deed poll to “Ancel” for the rest of the season, and I had to get a fake tattoo of a condom on my forehead.

The media had a field day, didn’t they?

Yeah, the bastards. It was Wham Newton who started all the jokes: on the Nerfy Show, he was making all them cracks about how I’d changed my name to “Dickhead” or “Wanker”, and then before you know it, the bloody opposition crowds at every match I played in starting chanting “Dickhead” every time I touched the ball. It was bloody embarrassing – even the Drongo fans got in on it. If I got a goal, they’d scream out, “Wank you very much!” They were only trying to help, but it really put me off my stroke. It was ridiculous, really.

That’s right. Who wanks with a condom on, anyway?

Yeah. If anything, I thought I’d get a rep as a ladies’ man, but I guess it backfired. Disappointing.

Sleepy Brain: Nerfball
Shandeeece and the Bike That Ate Wham Newton

Can you tell me what really happened with that motorcycle incident involving Newton & Shandy? At the time there were suggestions the two of them were having an affair.

Look, you can print this: I’ll kill that bastard if I ever see him again. Shandeeece only ran him over. He got off lightly. He used to say on air that he would give Shandy one because obviously I was too busy wanking. And Shandy, she’s a bloody good woman and if I’m going through a bad patch she’d always defend me. When Newton wouldn’t let up, she found out where he lived. When she saw him leave the house, she got on her bike and rammed him. Ended up breaking the bastard’s leg. He deserved it. He didn’t press charges, either, so I reckon he knew he had it coming.

The hype surrounding your name change just snowballed after that, didn’t it?

Too bloody right it did. I couldn’t move without having a camera shoved into my face. I had to have escorts, bodyguards. It was overseas too, on BBC, CNN. Every time I went to do a Nerfy clinic at a school, the kids would give me the “wanker sign” and put their tongues in the side of their cheek, you know, do that bloody sound as if they were giving someone a head job. And rocking up to the supermarket and seeing your head on a pack of condoms was pretty weird. I reckon my ugly mug is enough to stop anyone doing the business!

The ANL collapsed at the end of that season, largely due to the bad publicity you generated. Do you ever regret your part in causing the downfall of a major Australian institution?

Nah. Nerfball was always a game for pansies. I just played it because they offered me outrageous wages at the time, oh I don’t know, something like a six-pack a week. But my first love was always racing yabbies. But you know, there weren’t no league for that at the time, so Nerfy it was.

What are you up to these days?

I’m a male prostitute; I had about 1000 cases of condoms at home so it seemed logical. Anyway, Shandeece left me, and there was nothing for ex-Nerfballers, no job opportunities. Nothing. No one wanted to know us. I’m still sponsored by Ancel, actually. They always stood by me, and I’m really grateful to them.

So, a return to sport of some form won’t be on the cards, then?

Nah. Prostitution’s where I’m at these days. It’s the world’s oldest profession, you know. Much older than Nerfball.

..:: THE END