The sporting legacy, let’s talk about that for a minute.
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Muhammed Ali is almost-unanimously considered the best boxer of all-time and Jackie Robinson will always be heralded as the hero that helped spark the end of racial segregation in baseball, while Billie Jean King’s fight for sexual equality in tennis is world-renowned.
On the flip side, because it does work both ways, Lance Armstrong will never shake his tag as a cheat and Tiger Woods will always be remembered as much for his off-course indiscretions as his prowess on it – although he has just returned to headlines for a positive reason thanks to his Tour Championship win.
As you can see the greatest of sporting legacies are usually served after being cooked up using a similar recipe – ability combined with hard work, commitment, longevity, hardship, resilience and then ultimately success, which is often unprecedented.
Naturally, commitment to a bigger picture or a higher cause and making a tangible difference to the world, like in a couple of the above examples, can be a huge factor too.
But what about the legacy of, say, I don’t know… the Cowra Eagles Rugby Union Club?
What will Cowra be remembered for, what legacy will they leave, what will people talk about in 10, 20, 50 or even 100 years when they’re asked of the Reddies?
Cowra’s a proud Central West Rugby Union club, they’re tough and uncompromising, they’ve had their fair share of success and probably more than anything they’re renowned around the region as being a club full of bloody good blokes.
Is that the taste that will be left in peoples’ mouths for years to come though?
No.
Not for me anyway.
For me the Eagles’ legacy will forever be made up of a few humble ingredients that, when put together earlier this year, changed the central west sporting landscape forever.
I mean that literally, because those ingredients were pulled beef, sausage, bacon, egg, onion, cheese and rich, rich gravy, all served on a soft, buttered, white bun.
Before you say it, I’ll clarify that I’m not genuinely comparing the impact of Cowra’s pulled beef sandwich with the lot to the likes of Robinson and King’s – I’m not that stupid – but I needed a light-hearted way to highlight how good it was and the standing it holds within #CanteenChat, and that’s all I could think of.
I probably haven’t pulled that segue off at all, realistically.
Even so, in this context for me Cowra’s lasting legacy will be that sandwich, served up on a crisp winter’s day in August, a day the Eagles also hosted Northern Suburbs’ Intrust Super Shute Shield clash with Eastwood.
I’m not sure why I mentioned the rugby then because, as now Young Witness editor Pete Guthrie said after eating the Eagles’ canteen ladies’ masterpiece – “I forgot there was footy on”.
Ladles and jellyspoons, not only will that glorious, mouth-watering sandwich live on in the memories of the food-loving sports fan, it’s also the inaugural winner of #CanteenChat.
And I didn’t even get to eat it, which I’m absolutely filthy about.
I’d spoken to Cowra president Ian Robertson a number of times early into the #CanteenChat quest and he continually assured me his club would produce something worth 11 out of 10 Mignons.
The Eagles were the ones that started this whole thing midway through 2017, after all, and Robbo told me they desperately wanted to maintain their standing as the region’s best.
In the end they did just that, with Guthrie awarding the masterpiece that better-than-perfect score.
I’m not entirely sure Pete’s palate is quite as sophisticated as mine and I do wish I could’ve been the judge, but there’s almost not doubt I’d have given it the same score, maybe even higher.
So, congratulations to the Eagles on winning #CanteenChat’s golden spoon – a trophy that doesn’t exist and probably never will but is undoubtedly the highest honour a club in this area can receive.
I did mean to spray paint a wooden spoon on Sunday but I forgot, give me a break.
They’ve finished the best of more than a dozen canteens that seven of us across Fairfax Media’s western publications visited, that group reviewing more than two dozen delicacies.
We awarded two other perfect scores too, with just one meal receiving a rating of less than six Mignons out of 10, that was Bathurst Bushrangers’ bacon and egg roll that Nick McGrath gave a one.
Don’t take that to heart Bushies, because we all know it was delicious. That rating was more to do with his inability to eat a bacon and egg roll without spilling it all over himself, and his camera.
He had the nerve to question the fact the yolk was runny too, unbelievably.
Lift McGrath, because you know as well as anyone that a yolk in a bacon and egg roll must be runny, it’s not worth eating if it’s not.
Let’s also talk about the #CanteenChat concept for a minute.
We’ve created a monster – a barbecued, gravy-soaked monster.
I’m really not overstating that either because at virtually every ground I and the rest of this year’s judges – Pete Guthrie, McGrath, the Central Western Daily’s Max Stainkamph, the Western Advocate’s Alex Grant and the Daily Liberal’s Nick Guthrie and Landy Ruming – have collectively been asked more about food than sport.
I was constantly given suggestions of what to eat from the canteen, and an assurance that it will rate highly on the Mignon scale. I know for a fact McGrath was often quizzed, particularly by Forbes and Trundle forward Jarrod Hall, about the quality of canteens too.
We’re here to give the people what they want and if that means taking one for the team by eating plenty every weekend then, well, we’ll bear that burden.
Particularly when it also gives us a chance to give those canteens a free plug, and all the volunteers that run them kudos they deserve but don’t often get.
Whether that’s the people manning the barbecues, running the canteen window, hauling drinks, picking up or dropping off meat, they’re all incredibly valuable to their respective clubs and they deserve a pat on the back.
Even with all this I’ll maintain, as I said when this whole thing started back in June of last year, if a canteen anywhere can give me a devon sandwich with tomato sauce, they’ll win by default.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – all hail devon, the king of luncheon meats. Devon, my dear friends, is the hero canteens need, and the one they deserve right now.
Bon appétit.
#CANTEENCHAT FULL LEADERBOARD
- 11/10 – Cowra Eagles’ pulled beef sandwich with the lot
- 10/10 – Narromine Gorillas’ chicken and mushroom pie; Cowra Eagles’ steak sandwich with the lot
- 9.5/10 – Warren Pony Club’s chicken and cous cous
- 9/10 – Dubbo CYMS’ calamari and chips; Dubbo CYMS’ chicken tender roll; Gilgandra’s steak sandwich; Parkes Spacemen’s Spacie Burger; Bathurst Bushrangers’ chicken burger
- 8.5/10 – Parkes Spacemen’s seafood basket; Dubbo CYMS’ fish and chips; Dubbo Kangaroos’ steak sandwich; Bathurst Bulldogs’ hot dog and caramel slice
- 8/10 – Forbes’ Magpies $4 worth of chips; Forbes Platypi’s steak sandwich; Dubbo CYMS’ chicken box; Cowra Magpies’ steak sandwich; Molong Magpies’ hot dog; Orange Hawks’ chicken burger
- 7.5/10 – Orange Emus’ steak sandwich; Orange Hockey Incorporate’s sausage sandwich; Orange Hawks’ steak sandwich and chips
- 7/10 – Cargo Blue Heelers’ steak sandwich; Cargo Blue Heelers’ sausage sandwich
- 6/10 – Orange Tigers’ bacon and egg rolls; Bathurst Panthers’ sausage sandwich and chips
- 1/10 – Bathurst Bushrangers’ bacon and egg roll