The poem ends with a footballer falling "back to Earth"-a "guernseyed Icarus". In his poem "The High Mark", Bruce Dawe sees the specky as an expression of the human aspiration to fly. Songs such as Mike Brady's " Up There Cazaly" (1979) also celebrate the popular spectator phenomenon. Alex Jesaulenko's famous specky in the 1970 VFL Grand Final gave rise to the catchphrase " Jesaulenko, You Beauty!". The phrase "the big men fly" is invariably used to describe speckies and ruckmen contesting a ball-up, and has even spawned a play of the same name, written by Alan Hopgood and first staged in 1963. The specky has been widely celebrated in Australian popular culture. Statue by Robert Hitchcock outside Fremantle Oval of South Fremantle's John Gerovich taking a "specky" over East Fremantle's Ray French in the 1956 WANFL preliminary final As a result, the AFL relaxed this interpretation again in 2018. Many players use their arms and hands to balance naturally while in the air to gain greater height without pushing their opponent.
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The intention was that players would use vertical leap only, however it did not increase the frequency of spectacular marks and resulted in many more frustrating free kicks. The AFL Rules Committee in 2007 effectively disallowed this type of spectacular mark altogether with a polarizing adjustment of the " hands on the back" rule. Sometimes, however, umpires would interpret in favour of the marking player if the interference was minor and deemed to be part of the jumping action. According to the strict interpretation of the rules, this is in fact illegal interference. In the 1980s it became common for exponents of the spectacular mark to achieve extra elevation by levering or propping the hands or arms off the shoulders of opponents. In 1904, "unintentional interference" paved the way for forwards to climb up opposition players' backs to take spectacular marks. It wasn't until the push in the back rule was introduced in 1897 that high flyers were protected from being pushed in mid air. In South Australia Harold Oliver was considered the best exponent of the high flying mark prior to World War I. Dick Lee pulled down consistent high marks in the early 1900s. What a thrill the game would become as a spectacle if all players tried out this new idea." Albert Thurgood was a later exponent at the turn of the century. gave spectators many thrilling moments with his phenomenal leaps skyward. An 1886 match report captured the excitement his aerial skills were generating: "Mr Pearson.
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Essendon's Charlie "Commotion" Pearson was a prominent high flyer of this period. Spectacular marks became more common in the 1880s, a time in which the game's style of play opened up and teams adopted positional structures resembling those in use today. Occasional high marks were recorded as early as 1862 a Melbourne Football Club player was praised for leaping "wonderfully high into the air" to mark the ball. Up until the early 1870s, Australian football was typically played low to the ground in congested rugby-style packs, and as such marks were generally taken on the chest.