I liken Paul Soldatich to Kimchi- Korean pickled cabbage.
Lap it up, or put it down as an offensive distraction to the main meal-game.
They’re both very much an acquired taste.
I remember a Scottish bloke from Footscray Yarraville saying, “How do you put up with this clown every week, he’d do my head in.” [delivered in a broad Glaswegian accent].
A burly fireman from Broadmeadows coined him, John Revolta, after having to listen to an afternoon’s worth of Soldatich antics like.
“ I’d get more out of a barefoot bowler than what you’ve given me today Dad.”
“I’m sick and tired of carrying these division 8 standard bowlers every week. I’ve aged 10 years since I started skipping at this club.”
Giulio, his father, won City of Melbourne’s Most Improved Award only to leave the club the following season and go on to win Princess Park’s Singles Championship in his first year there. Paul was taken aback, he’d been bowling for ten years and had never won a Singles title. And here was his father winning a club championship after ‘bowling for five minutes’.
I recall bowling socially at a Country Club along the coast while living in Northern NSW. I don’t think you could come across a more boring and insipid bunch in Bowls World. ‘Bad Boys’ like Micky would never be accepted as members in these sorts of clubs.
I didn’t enjoy their company and subsequently, I didn’t enjoy my bowls.
I’ll pay homage to Groucho Marx- ‘I don’t want to belong to any club that doesn’t have someone like Paul Soldatich as a member.‘
There was no one remotely like him I wouldn’t want to play bowls at a club that didn’t have someone like a Paul Soldatich pestering his opponents and entertaining me!
That period came to mind recently as I spent an afternoon bowling with a bloke whose banal on green banter principally consisted of, “ You need to take a little more grass. No, you didn’t take enough grass with that one. That was nearly a perfect bowl, now that you’ve got your grass right.” By the end of the game, I was bored shitless listening to this bloke‘s post-delivery banter. I was screaming out for a Soldatich like outburst.
“Who put that short shit bowl there. I was right on target to kiss that kitty. Dad, was that your short shit bowl I ran into?”
“That was absolute crap, it looks like I’m going to have to carry you lot again today.”
Once you’ve bowled against them or had them playing on an adjoining rink, you won’t forget them in a hurry.
Many an opponent has been disconcerted with Paul Soldatich’s on green antics.
I remember Peter Purvis from Kew Heights seeing Paul swagger into Toorak Bowls Club, closely followed by his father and let out, “Oh, not these two again.”
Apparently they’d terrorized his rinks in previous tournaments.
Paul, the son, is a grandstanding, self-confessed loud mouth. Whereas Giulio, the father, chooses his words carefully albeit in a self-assured manner.
Paul’s on green outbursts are a quasi slapstick routine while father plays the straight man.
‘Dad, that was absolute crap. If you want to play third to me you’ve got to come into the head.’
While recently accepting prize money for best Second Game winners at Toorak’s Les Bartlett Triples day, Paul humbly apologized to the gathering for his on green antics.
The backdated wannabe Sharpie was uncharacteristically deferential. Paul probably thought Des Tuddenham, the event’s sponsor, was going to ‘ clip him behind the ear’ and withhold his share of the prize money for his antics-bad behaviour.
There something Byronesque about watching him chase his bowl into the head.
Yeah, I’m a fan, but he’s still a pain in the arse though.
Truth be known, I wouldn’t want to join a bowls club that didn’t have him as a member.
I left the last one because Paul and his father had walked out.
This is the third club where we’ve been members together.
Groucho Marx’s line rings true.
Yes, Paul and Kimchi are very much an acquired taste!
