It was my dad’s false teeth that made my first football game so memorable. I ran onto the field to stand beside my 10-year old opponent.

“G’day,” I said, believing manners important.

“Mmm,” he said. Six inches taller than me with the lazy air of my older brother’s loutish friends. And then he did it. He lifted his false teeth out of his mouth, and balanced them casually on the very tip of his tongue.

Panic rose. My dad was the only person in the world who wore false teeth: this was a fact. I was playing against my father.