Specky

An Australian rules footballer Matthew Clarke leaps high over an opponent to take a spectacular mark on a wet day at Carrara Oval in Queensland.

A specky (spekkie or screamer) is a slang term for a type of mark in Australian rules football. Short for "spectacular", a speckie involves a player jumping up on the back of another player in order to take the mark, or catch. Many of the winners of the annual Mark of the Year competition could be considered "speckies". A notable example was Gary Ablett's 1994 leap, which was labelled "Mark of the Century".

The movement of other players beneath a marking can cause the flyer to lose balance in mid air and land or fall awkwardly, enhancing the spectacular nature of the mark. In the 1980s, some exponents of the spectacular mark achieved elevation by levering or propping the hands or arms off the shoulders of opponents. If the player being launched off is an opposition player then this is illegal interference, however umpires may interpret in favour of spectacular play if the interference is minor and deemed to be part of the jumping action.

Notable Exponents

Great players known for their ability to take "speckies" include:

Gary Ablett
Trevor Barker
Roy Cazaly
Alex Jesaulenko, who took the Mark of the Century for the Twentieth Century in the 1970 AFL Grand Final.
Peter Knights
Paul Vanderhaar
Tony Modra
Warwick Capper
Shaun Smith

Current players that regularly exhibit spectacular marking include Chris Tarrant, Jeff White, Russell Robertson, Brett Burton and Kayne Pettifer.

Specky in Popular Culture

There are also a series of football-related children's novels by ex-player Garry Lyon and children's author, Felice Arena named after their protagonist, "Specky Magee". This character is named after the slang term.

In Australian slang, stepladder describes the player over which another play marks to take a specky. Graeme "Jerker" Jenkins was Jesaulenko's famous stepladder. Strong fullbacks Gary Pert, Michael Martyn, Chris Langford and Matthew Scarlett have been stepladders for speckies on multiple occasions.

External Links

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.