My hopes were so high. I’d even mapped out Mum’s next birthday. Fancy dinner. Big screen. And a long awaited repeat screening of her winning the Miss Footy trivia competition on World of Sport forty five years ago.

The story is now a foundation stone of family lore. Yes, Dad was a World of Sport winner too (WOS Handball, 1970, Bertocchi ham) but that’s footnote stuff. Mum was The Face in the Crowd. Mum went from a-could-care-less home and away knitter who turned up out of marital obligation to a home schooled, Footy Trivia Sensation, battling for five weeks in a row against another trivia titan, Lynn Grinlington. I wrote a piece for Good Weekend about it. Mum won a trip for two to Hong Kong and Japan.

In researching for another documentary, one on Harry Beitzel’s Galahs tour to Ireland in 1967, I asked Lisa Savage, a TV archivist to have one last look for Miss Footy 1969 footage. My expectations were low. I had asked before, and World of Sport tapes were generally either torched or taped over in the Great Tape Apocalypse of 1956-1990. But then Lisa did another search. Her email  had me out of my seat and whooping with excitement:

“Tapes labelled Miss Footy and the dates are Sept and October 1969 so I’m 99% sure you are in luck!”

The downloads arrived. They took an eternity to crawl across the screen. They were labelled Miss Footy 1969. It simply couldn’t not be her.

It is her. One second of her. She’s the one in the white knitted jumper in three quarter profile at 38:19:02 on the timecode. Sandwiched between some wild extravagances in late sixties eye wear. There’s no audio, no trivia, no wild celebrations as she answers ‘Checker Hughes’ to win the trip for two . It’s the promo reel from The Sporting Globe’s ‘Head in the Crowd’ series. Nice to have, but no Welcome Stranger.

Here is the GW article.

Here are head shots of other contestants.

Miss Footy

On the subject of missing footage, I am also attempting to find Super 8 footage shot on Galahs tour of Ireland in 1967. Certainly, there was footage shot by Melbourne Team of the Century half back flanker, the late Don Williams. If you have any leads. let me know.