Dempsey shows shades of Norm McDonald in Bombers win

Dreamtime at the “G” has always been one of my favourite games of the year, so I was in a state of turmoil to realise that a few weeks ago the good wife and I had promised to have an overnighter with the grand kids on that particular night.  Pretending it didn’t matter that much [Read more]

Mosquito fleet helps Bombers soar

The “refugee” from Jersey rang me up earlier in the week to see if I was free to go and see the Dons take on Brisbane. Not a lot was on for me, so the answer was a quick yes.  Now I don’t have a lot of love for the Emptyhead Stadium behind Spencer Street  [Read more]

One Bloody Point

I’m very confused, is it April 26 or August 26?  I look out the window and winter has arrived.  Just four days ago I was basking in glorious sunshine, today it’s  cold hard rain. Hey, but there is an upside.  Last year I bought myself a  GoreTex down coat , so today is the inaugural [Read more]

Expectations Overturned

First game of footy for me this season and you couldn’t wish for a better day.  After a cool foggy morning, the sun burst through just before eleven o’clock and we were treated to a first class day, warm  with just a hint of a zephyr, love that word zephyr.  And what a picture the [Read more]

The Danihers

  by Rod Oaten It’s a long bow to draw the Port Fairy Folk Festival with the Essendon Football Club via the Danihers but seeing Anthony at the recent Festival, as I have for the last four or five years, sparked  up the grey matter and the writing bug. I’ve been a regular at PFFF [Read more]

2012 Australian Open: Day 2

It’s that time again to get the racquet out of the wardrobe and dream about how good you were in your youth. The Australian Open is here again in all its glory, and after a  previous week of winter weather  a ferocious sun is out, ready to burn spectators and players to a crisp.  I [Read more]

Humble Pie not the preferred Dons menu

Never a sympathetic word was spoken about the Carlton Football Club whilst growing up in my Don household.  Of course there were a few other clubs that weren’t loved  too, but somehow Carlton was always top of the heap. One incident that sparks the memory in particular, was the Harry Casper/John Coleman ” event”  just [Read more]

Borough Sting Scorpions

What a proud footy club the Borough is. One of only two stand alone clubs in the VFL, the other being Frankston, providing you don’t count Geelong and Collingwood, This year they are making every week a winning week. Undefeated at the end of the home and away, which is a first for the club.  [Read more]

A Good Weekend of Footy

Two games of footy, one local and one AFL, the weather is great, what more could you want on a weekend?  With all the necessary jobs done on the Saturday morning it was on the bike for a short ride  to one of my favourite grounds, the Brunswick Street Oval, home of the Fitzroy Football [Read more]

Footy grounds of yore

The older you get the more your mind drifts back to earlier times, not that they were all good, as some would  have you make out, but when it comes to sport and football in particular, all the memories are good. Footy grounds, especially the eleven suburban grounds of the old VFL, bring back happy [Read more]

The tradition continues

Father/Son/Grandson bonding day at the “G” for the Essendon v Collingwood game. It actually started about 30 years ago and the first time we got together was at Victoria Park. The grandson for reasons that still puzzle me, decided to barrack for the Magpies, Dad and I, Don tragics.   When these “blockbusters” were staged at [Read more]

Lorne Footy Club: Mind the Water

Lorne’s Stribling Reserve would have to be one of the most spectacular sporting arenas in Australia.  Standing high on the western side of the oval you overlook Louttit Bay and the Southern Ocean. But this has not always been the home ground for the Lorne Football and Netball clubs known as the Dolphins and the [Read more]

This week I could stand to watch

After the debacle against Hawthorn a couple of weeks ago and facing the undefeated Geelong the following weekend ,the Partner and I decided to take in the sea air on the coast for a few days.  She a born again Geelong supporter was supremely confident, me a Don tragic, was looking forward to the cricket [Read more]

Hawks leave Dons in their wake

You would reckon that when you are playing a side without their centre half forward and their full forward you would be in with a bit of a show, especially as both of these players are out and out champions. And so it was with these thoughts in mind I put on the old Essendon [Read more]

Racist takes a bath

The recent spate of ugly racism from footy supporters  brings back a couple of memories from earlier days.    As a very young Essendon fan who regularly followed the Dons with his parents , I would hear racist remarks about one of our great footballers  Norm McDonald in the late forties and early fifties.  We would [Read more]

Big Numbers Favour the Dees

So it’s The Dons v The Dees at the G. It’s got a good ring about it, and I’m looking forward to a great game of footy. A couple of things have me slightly disturbed, it’s a night game which I’m not overly excited about and Essendon are coming off a rest weekend. Luckily it’s [Read more]

A Long Journey Begins with a Scarf

I was a bit disappointed that family commitments  stopped  me joining the Long Walk to the G on Saturday night.  I have joined all the other Walks and have huge admiration for that great man Michael Long.   Some weeks before hand we had agreed to  baby sit grandchild Josh at his home on Saturday night, [Read more]

Ammos: MHSOB v Fitzroy

Now here is a dilemma that wouldn’t be faced by too many footy followers. Two teams you support play each other in a normal home and home round of footy.  It could only happen in the wonderful world of the “Ammos”, but on this weekend it happened to me. The history of these two clubs [Read more]

Essendon, West Coast and Lionel

Once upon a time, a mate of mine and I created the “Let the Eagles Fly at Yarraville Action Faction” for the” Coodabeen Champions”, at that stage broadcasting on 3RRR.  We got a few honourable mentions for our entries  and even had a victory one week.  I would still like to see the Yarraville VFA [Read more]

Dining Out All Round

This game scares “all the heck” out of me. To think that the Essendon Football Club, a  great club with over one hundred and forty years  of history could be defeated by this new creation of the AFL, is unthinkable.  But there we are, the Dons are to play the Gold Coast Meter Maids at [Read more]