Who wins the Melbourne Cup?

Here is the Melbourne Cup field. No doubt you have form guides scattered around the study (lounge room, loo, kitchen bench). Thought you might like to start the discussion. Mount a case for your selection:   1 11113-66-101 AMERICAIN(15) Gerald Mosse 58.0 Alain de Royer Dupre 2 2-01794-1311 JUKEBOX JURY(6) Neil Callan 57.0 Mark Johnston [Read more]

Can the Cats win without Stevie J?

Everything points to this Grand Final being a cracker. Even the weather. As the Friday dawn is breaking over the People’s Republic of Northcote I can see small patches of blue sky. The morning paper tells me that Beams is out for Collingwood and young Fasolo is in, and that there is no change in [Read more]

Out: Cohen. In: Katrina

One lazy afternoon, in a marquee on the banks of the Brisbane River, in a spot which would have been three metres under water last January, I sat with the battered and the downtrodden at the feet of Michael Leunig. We had been drawn to him in our individual and collective downtrodden-ness because his topic [Read more]

The Footy Almanac 2011

(Cover art by Jim Pavlidis) We’d love you to offer your support as a member of the Almanac community by purchasing your copy of The Footy Almanac 2011. It will be available from Friday November 11. This year the book is $30 (collected), or $35 (posted). In 2011, however, we invite a slightly different approach [Read more]

G. Ablett senior

It is Gary Ablett senior’s 50th birthday on Saturday.

Cats in control

Friday. I am having lunch with an Eagles fan who is such an Eagles fan he is known as West Coast Dave (a fine contributor to these pages I might add). He is down from Canberra and is in a preliminary final mood. A Group 1 theoriser (with a masters degree in sports psyche which [Read more]

The spectrum of turnovers

I am in the process of editing this year’s Footy Almanac. This is a truly joyous role. I am always struck by the originality of the writing (there are well-worn cliches as well, don’t worry).   In Brian Matthews review of Freo v St Kilda (which so reminds me of his lovely footy essays in [Read more]

Dawdling Sri Lankans still a chance

I have played in cricket teams which lacked direction. Ones where you sat around the dressing room comparing hangovers, and talking about Friday’s play in the Test match. Then wandered out to bat. Or sauntered out to field. No chat. No plans. No sense of where we were on the ladder. But not many of [Read more]

Visigoths ransack Tigerland

IF THE footy gods do pen the story of every season, they have started this one brilliantly. You can have your “Best of times, worst of times”. Dickens reads like a Funniest Home Videos auto-cue by comparison. Richmond’s performance last Thursday night has provided the perfect opening. We have started with a complication, a question, yet again [Read more]

Adam Goodes

A test of a sporting moment is whether you remember it. By that I mean you don’t half-remember it, but really remember it. Moments which you don’t have to go into the record books to check; moments where the details of time and place are superfluous. Moments so powerful they form the basis for your [Read more]

Cats victorious

“Victory,” said my mad-Catter brother, Mick, substantial piece of Lygon Street Special (no pineapple) in hand, at about 1.30 Saturday morning, “is not as important as defeat.” Crumbs, I thought to myself. That’s so 2006. We won it in `07, and `09, and we’ve just had a ripper win over the arch-rivals, Hawthorn, and we’re [Read more]

More complications?

Friday night: Geelong v Collingwood. A weary season is pushing towards the inevitable conclusion. I have speculated, in an article during the week, about the possibility of complications to the narrative. Some commenters have agreed, but the wise and the cynical have restated the season’s direction, and expressed general boredom. But wait. Is that the [Read more]

In praise of the Red Lions and varsity footy

The Red Lions play in two grand finals tomorrow following a brekkie where Derek Humphrey-Smith will be the guest speaker.

September? Let the narrative be complicated.

August 29 and there is a hint of green on the birch and the possums have eaten every pink blossom off the peach tree. This has the potential to be a superb September, a writer’s treat. Sport always gives us stories, many of them wonderful, but this September promises a stack of possible complications. I [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Sloppy Knights give Broncos an easy Monday night

When I hear the words Brisbane and rugby league together my mind first turns to the great BRL competition of the 1970s. That was another time. A decade later, many Queenslanders fell instantly in love with the Brisbane Broncos, marketed brilliantly as an incarnation of all things Queensland. But many didn’t. The dissenters could see [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – The Form Slump

    The once-mighty (often mighty, actually, when you consider the 11 premierships in a row) Dragons are in a slump. The reigning premiers played the very sharp Melbourne Storm outfit on Friday night, in far-off Melbourne town. The slump is about to get deeper. Those close to me would argue that of all the [Read more]

WBA v Man U

I’m not sure where you’re reading this, probably in Reservoir, or Tooleybuc, or Tearabagapart, but if you are from one of those little Lanchy villages in the north-west of England (where third grade Australian cricketers have passed themselves off as batting all-rounders for rent, a job washing soot from window sills, and a pint or [Read more]

Sean Gorman: Legends

Legends, which is a book of profiles of the Indigenous Team of the Century is a very important book. It is written by Sean Gorman who interviewed the players and has written these biographical essays on their terms. The book celebrates the game and the Indigenous players but it does not ignore the political realities [Read more]

The double torp

I think I saw one of the great goals on Sunday evening. It came as Theo and Anna were trashing the bathroom. The details (of both incidents) remain a little sketchy. The thing I am most confident of is that Anna (two years old next week) tipped about 12.7 litres of water on to the [Read more]

My illusion

The Geelong Football Club has had two rather large wins over the past two weeks, both at Kardinia Park. You could say of the first, against Melbourne, the oldest of rivals, that it had quite an impact. And of the second, against the Gold Coast, that Guy McKenna was lucky to keep his job. (Which [Read more]