crio’s Q: It’s luncheon season

“It’s luncheon season”.
Greg Baum’s hilarious snippets* from Flipper Phillips’s “Bradman address” reminded me that it is sometimes the less obvious speakers who offer the best insights or yarns.
This is the circuit on which Kerry O’Keefe cut his teeth and where Fev’s gone looking for supplementary income. Cheese and “Crackers Keenan”.
Almanackers are renowned lunchers. Cast your votes.
I’m looking for recommendations (and “prefer others”) for the frantic months ahead.

*Greg Baum, “An appetite for anecdotes” “The Age” Sport, 1/09/12, p20

Comments

  1. Greg Ritchie is not always everyone’s cup of tea, but his Lion Of Lahore after-dinner speech is a classic. It’s the story of a Pakistani umpire protecting him because Ritchie has promised to give his Australian cap to the umpire’s son.

  2. Damien Fleming really impressed me at the annual Footscray Cricket Club lunch last summer. Hugely entertaining.

  3. Andrew Starkie says

    Ham, cheese, pesto and salad roll x 2.

    Seven days a week. Standard.

    Call me old fashioned.

  4. I’m surprised to hear a wrap for Fat Cat – his appalling “parody” act put me off for good. He would, though, have some great stories and experiences. Sometimes these guys need an interviewer to lead them.
    I saw Hawk once and he was terrible – again, it was just a lack of sensitivity to his audience which directed questions would have avoided.
    Warnie probably falls in to this category.

    I bet Bumble is a beauty!
    Saw Athers briefly once and he has some really interesting tales of “making it”.

  5. Went to an AFL club’s lady’s lunch a couple of years ago a prominent former West Australian footballer who played a handful of VFL games spoke. Charming and sophisticated as always, he regaled the audience of a football trip to Hong Kong where it was his job to procure the services of some ‘working girls’. Not satisfied with offending the vast majority of the room, he closed the anecdote by saying having remembered where he was, he should specify they didn’t want any Asians.

    Am led to believe he surrendered his speaking fee that day.

  6. It must be tough trying to make a whole career out of punching Keogh!

  7. Andrew Starkie says

    trust you to be at a ladys lunch

  8. The best sports meal speech that I have heard was at the Australian Society for Sports History dinner in Canberra in 1991. The speaker was John Landy. It was both serious and at times funny. I can’t remember any particular anecdote but at the end of it I went away thinking that John Landy was both one of the most intelligent and one of the most decent sportspersons that Australia has produced. I still feel that way.

  9. Yes, Crio. It was only Fat Cat’s Lion of Lahore speech that amused me.

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