By Phil Jarratt
From my room on the top floor of the Manly Pacific Novotel I can see clear across town, from a yacht anchored in placid Cabbage Tree Bay right along the ridge of North Head past the spire of old St Patricks College to the skyscrapers and the cranes building new ones, all the way to Manly Oval and the skyline of old mansions running along the top of Sydney Road, and on to the People’s Palace, whose deco façade is more the Manly I grew up with, as is the smell of hamburgers on the hot plate rising up from the fast food joints way below.
And from my dunny window, standing on my tippy-toes, I can even see the tiny lines of swell collapsing on the low tide bank of Mid-Steyne, just a stone’s throw from where the Vissla Sydney Surf Pro is underway. Welcome to GOAT Town.
There are a couple of hundred great surfers in town, ranging from young guns trying to qualify for the WSL championship tour – or maybe even just make the top 100 to have a shot at the big game one day – to heroes of the day before yesterday, discarded at the top level, now trying to claw their way back. Many of them are big names on their home beach, or state, or even country, but the qualifying tour has a way of grinding everyone down to mind-numbing anonymity, a bunch of automatons just trying to squeeze through the next round, and the round after that.
Not that it matters, because all Manly cares about this week is just one competitor, the one who happens to be the greatest of all time.
And yet nobody pays much attention as a nattily-attired middle-aged bald man emerges from the lift into the lobby of the Novotel early on Wednesday morning. No one notices the stylish woven shirt, the un-creased, not-too-tight chinos or the Euro-style lace-up casuals. No one notices a damn thing until a posse of minders jumps to attention and ushers Kelly Slater out of the door, a record only-six-minutes behind schedule.
Kelly’s been on the road so long he could be forgiven for not knowing what stop he’s at, what streetscape is going to confront him as he pushes through the double-glazed doors into the soft morning rain. But not here, not this time. Whether it’s heaven or hell for him is a question that only he could refuse to answer, but the greatest of all time has woken up in GOAT Town. It’s all over every billboard in town, it’s all over the doors he’s just walking through. Manly has gone Kelly crazy.
And not just in the normal, sensible, autograph-my-boobs-please-Kelly kind of way. Four days out from a crucial NSW election, one that the pundits say will set the trend for the Federal to follow in May, Slater has become political capital. The state government is not dead and buried, particularly after some race-related idiocy from the leader of the opposition, but it’s a bit on the nose, and has been quick to claim credit for saving the Vissla Sydney Surf Pro by chucking buckets of money at it, and for securing Slater’s blessed presence at it. Which, it must be said, is a masterstroke. James Griffin, the local Liberal MP, dressed trendily and about half Kelly’s age, has already been sniffing around the lobby, maybe hoping for a magic dusting, but that bird has flown as the Slater procession heads down the Steyne to his first obligation.
As it turns out, your columnist is in a similar procession about 200 metres ahead, chaperoning the great Mark Richards to the same obligation, which puts me in an ideal position to watch how Kelly’s day begins: in a packed and sweaty marquee above the sand where the speakers have to do battle with the beach announcers calling the heats in barely do-able high tide conditions. Here Kelly is to present MR with Surfing NSW’s Midget Farrelly Lifetime Achievement Award, in the presence of Midget’s widow Beverlie and daughter Johanna, not to mention a baying flock of media. But Kelly seems relaxed as he enters the fray, sharing some gracious chatter with the Farrelly womenfolk, beaming smiles at Jenny and Mark Richards, whom he seems genuinely chuffed to be honouring.
Nice words about Midget, nice words about MR, media calls inside, media calls outside – wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, and he’s gone.
Later in the day he surfs his round two heat in front of the biggest crowd seen at Manly for a surf contest since Midget won the world title back in ’64. Okay, maybe a bit of poetic license here, but it’s big, right? And GOAT barely gets out of second gear as he gives the kids a lesson in strategy with a pair of fives. Enough’s enough. Long road ahead. Then he signs autographs in the rain and sows up the evening news with a half hour press conference.
The next day Slater plays 18 holes of golf before appearing for his low-tide, onshore wind heat in the round of 48, where he is unceremoniously bundled out of the event by a couple of young Brazilians who can punt out of nothing. But Kelly’s week is far from over. He’s under contract and for the next few days he’s all over the Sydney Pro, working the room at dinner parties, calling heats from the webcast truck, even surfing an exhibition heat with Joey Johns. He was even on the beach to congratulate Narrabeen youngster Jordy Lawler after he’d beaten Jadson Andre for the title.
He probably didn’t sway the election result, but whatever they paid him to be in Manly, it wasn’t enough.
