Spectacular mark

A spectacular mark (often called a specky, speckie or speccy for short, alternatively known as a screamer or a hanger) is a term for a type of mark in Australian rules football. The typical spectacular mark involves a player jumping up on the back of another player in order to take the mark, or catch.

The spectacular mark has become a much celebrated aspect of the sport. Many of the winners of the Australian Football League's annual Mark of the Year competition could be considered 'speckies', and commentators will often call an individual specky "a contender" in reference to this competition and the mark's likeliness to win it.

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. 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. 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. Essendon's Charlie "Commotion" Pearson was a prominent high flyer of this period. An 1886 match report captured the excitement his aerial skills were generating: "Mr Pearson ... gave spectators many thrilling moments with his phenomenal leaps skyward. 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. Dick Lee pulled down consistent high marks in the early 1900s.

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. This prevented potential serious injury. In 1904, "unintentional interference" paved the way for forwards to climb up opposition players' backs to take spectacular marks.

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