Almanac Bonkbans and (General) Social Responsibility: No Sex Please, We’re…..Eagles.

 

 

The Barnaby Joyce affair has caused Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to issue an ultimatum regarding relationships and conduct among ministerial staff. It was suggested that Barnaby could simply return to the backbench and carry on as normal – and now he has.

 

But it was crazy while it kicked along – and still is.

 

The whole commotion rekindled memories of the ultimatum Ron Barassi instilled upon his return to Melbourne football club in the seventies. Hailed as the messiah and on a five-year plan, Barassi demanded players have a job and be clean-shaven. That immediately sent Garry “Bull” Baker and Peter Giles to the barber and in search of employment!

 

But before that, during the sixties, Tasmania football legend and New Norfolk Eagles coach Trevor Leo tried to instill similar sanctions on his players in the Derwent Valley. Leo in an attempt to get some consistency into his senior team issued a pre-game drink and sex ban following Thursday night training.

 

Like the Turnbull ultimatum it was always going to be hard to monitor and even harder to enforce. But, the following week the Eagles toppled ladder leader and premiership favourites Sandy Bay. Pleased with the result Leo, an inquisitive mathematics professor, addressed his his players in search of the reasons for the turn around.

 

One of the first to contribute was Centre-Half-Back Alan “Trapper” Besier who conceded he had locked the bathroom door. These days “Trapper” may have contemplated going back to the reserves.

 

 

Comments

  1. G’day Gary, sorry but i’m a pedant.

    Ron Barassi returned to Melbourne in 1981.

    In the seventies he firstly coached Carlton, then North Melbourne.

    Glen!

  2. Daryl – As a kid growing up in the 60’s I recall reading (in the Tuesday pink bible?) that boxing trainers would instruct their fighters to tie a string around their “appendage” on the night before a fight. So that if they became “enlarged” while asleep they would wake up before losing the pent-up vitality in their “vital fluids”.
    True or apocryphal?
    Malcolm should have required it of Barnaby any night he was claiming “travel” allowance.

  3. I had high hopes for Malcolm when he cared about republicanism and the environment, but now he only functions as contraception, and a particularly unappealing and, I’d be sure, ineffective one at that.

    Nice job Daryl. Thanks for that.

  4. Daryl Sharpen says

    Peter – a good many years ago Jack Arnol had a smart pacer down here on the island called No Clues. Jack used your described method with a leather string to great effect. Apocryphal? Fact in the Tassy trotting game. BTW Jack incurred the wrath of TCB stewards in Victoria in 1973 receiving a 12 month disqualification when driving that very horse in Melbourne. Those were the days. Re the ‘pink bible’; I miss it dearly.

  5. Apocryphal, PB ? Maybe, maybe not.

    If RDB did enforce a no-sex before play edict at North, Brent Crosswell certainly didn’t abide by it

Leave a Comment

*