Just prior to Christmas 1999, Banyule’s third grade was playing Olympic on the ground next to the Northland Shopping Centre. It was a ground where I had once witnessed a woman traversing the oval pushing a shopping cart. This could under normal circumstances be quite natural except for the fact that we were in the middle of playing a match and no amount of reasoning with her could persuade her to go around the oval instead of across it. It was the shortest route home. The sight of thirteen irate cricketers plus two umpires had little affect. In fact the tirade of abuse that streamed from her mouth was quite amazing. So it should not have been too much of a surprise when a shoplifter carrying an armful of little girls clothes came running straight through our pre-Christmas game pursued by a woman, calling him a ‘thieving bastard’. Overtaking the woman was another man, followed by four security guards who were a long way behind. The thief panicked as the first man got closer and dumped the clothes onto a shopping trolley that was lying on the periphery of the oval. The Good Samaritan picked up the clothes and returned them to the woman who had stopped at the fence. Our last sighting of the thief was of him weaving his way through the cypresses near Olympic Park with the gap between him and the security guards ever increasing.