You Play, You Pay, for those who didn’t play it at Camberwell Grammar in the mid to late eighties, is a violent shoe kicking game. Basically, you line up, loosen the laces and kick your school shoe as far as you can. The kid who kicks his or her shoe the least distance, may then be chased down by the mob, much like a caribou being dragged to earth by a pack of wild dogs. For a period, we did allow kicking, but only with the non-shoed foot (we are not animals).

It was routinely banned, and yet remains the greatest lunchtime creation in the history of the school.

In my latest book for kids, ‘Stuff Happens: Jack’, the central character, Jack, is injured in a game of ‘You Play, You Pay’. Last week, I was promoting the book on Kids WB on GO!, when co-host Shane Crawford suggested we have a game of You Play You Pay in an alley at the back of the Channel 9 studios.

This was a big moment for You Play, You Pay.  To date, it’s most well known devotee has been Andy Lee, a former Camberwell Grammar student and half of Hamish & Andy. But Crawf changes all that. Crawf is a Brownlow Medallist. Crawf brings a sporting credibility and respectability to You Play You Pay that’s absolutely vital if we’re serious about getting recognised as an Olympic sport. Which, as of now, we are.

The book is part of a series set at Monvale Primary School. Other instalments have been written by Will Kotsakis (‘Sean’), Andrew Daddo (‘Ned’) and Phillip Gwynne (‘Michael’).

‘He missed the 2008 premiership team by about this much … ‘

Stuff Happens: Jack

Penguin Books, 2014

I invented it, even though it was Dan who named it ‘You Play, You Pay’. We were at the EBO, which is what we kids call the E. B. Watson Oval when we don’t want to say ‘E. B. Watson Oval’, which is always, because who has the time for saying E. B. Watson Oval? The EBO is across the road from the school. It’s where we sometimes go for PE, or for sport practice. read more…

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