Welcome to the Penultimate Week! We are now down to four and the news this week has been focussed on the selection of a team that will never play together. The All-Australian team is not something that particularly interests me (Especially when there are no Blues in it) and the discussion and debate over it [Read more]
Velocity Sports Grand Final Breakfast (with J. Brown, A. Lynch and M. Williams)
September 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Off Season Odyssey – Part 18: Running In Cathy Freeman’s Steps
September 18, 2012 by 7 Comments
It’s grey when I get to Canberra. I’ve been to dot-towns all over the country, found teammates and ex-teammates underground and in cities, yet not one of them lives here. Not that I know of. I wonder what that says about us – me and the Grey City? I have a kick with [Read more]
Conflicting Interests
September 18, 2012 by 14 Comments
Darren ‘Smokie’ Dawson questions the credentials of the All-Australian selection committee.
Champagne Football: Myth and Bubbles
September 18, 2012 by 4 Comments
By Phil Dimitriadis Champagne is the alcoholic drink commonly associated with upper class tastes. It appears absurdly paradoxical that many fans that utter this expression would probably do so with while drinking beer or soft drinks. The only time we see champagne after a game of football is when it is poured into the premiership [Read more]
crio’s Q: Cattle or Trainer?
September 17, 2012 by 3 Comments
How good the trainer? or You gotta have the cattle. $3m for Malthouse. Lyon engineers Freo resurgence. Gai set to dominate Spring. Coaches/trainers/managers forge big reputations. They are big news and command big incomes. But how can you rate them? Alan Joyce (not Qantas’!) is a dual Premiership coach. Hirdy’s side missed the finals. Is [Read more]
Grand Final Heartache
September 14, 2012 by 6 Comments
I’m now actually pleased that Richmond never makes the finals – it has probably saved me two or three heart attacks. Coaching my first basketball Grand Final was more nerve racking than watching Collingwood throw away another premiership in the dying seconds. I didn’t sleep at all the night after the game and two days [Read more]
Trains,Pains and Silver Linings
September 13, 2012 by 2 Comments
By Paul Spinks Seagulls fight over a discarded hamburger as I leave Bon Beach station with a Sunday hangover on the 10.45AM Frankston to Southern Cross. The train is already late and proceeds to travel at a pace mimicking tempo footy …slow and measured. I’m on my way home via the noon V-Line to South [Read more]
AFL Round 23 – Brisbane v Dogs: 5km into town, 10 goals out of touch
September 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The last hurrah for season 2012 for the Western Bulldogs was much like most weekends before hand, started with a little promise and hope in the air and finished with nothing but despondency, anger, even thoughts of surrender. But last Sunday was not like most match days for this weary traveller and footy tragic. Sure [Read more]
My time with Sid – a comment on commentators
August 22, 2012 by 4 Comments
In a sporting world overflowing with hyperbole one word seems to have remained untouched. There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of doyens out there. When we lose one therefore it seems an ideal moment to hop off the tread-well and let the mind go back in time for a change. I first encountered [Read more]
Would you prefer gold or a flag?
August 22, 2012 by 5 Comments
Now that we are in the hiatus between the London Olympics and the main sporting event, AFL finals, my mind has wandered. Julia met the medal winning troops as they exited the plane and then skipped off when the non medal winners appeared (some politicians would turn up to the opening of a letter to [Read more]
Olympics – Glory off the dais
August 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
If you look close enough in the aftermath of the 2012 Summer Olympics, you’ll notice many athletes returning home feeling enormous pride and satisfaction with their performances in London, even though they never got near a dais, a medal ceremony or even a final.
Dummy spitters
August 14, 2012 by 6 Comments
By Anson Cameron To gamble your life on a millimeter and a moment is foolhardy brave. But, being an Olympic hurdler, that’s what you’re called to do. You train ten thousand hours to shed a second and gain a hair’s-breadth so when the gun goes you can shape space and time marginally better than the [Read more]
Olympic objectivity, deliberate or otherwise
August 14, 2012 by 7 Comments
The Olympics can draw out many emotions, but to me this year, I actually found them to be… ‘strangely refreshing’. I took a bit longer than normal to get warmed up for the games this time. Perhaps it was because I went to Sydney and to the Vancouver Winter games, whereas this was always just [Read more]
Sid Waddell
August 13, 2012 by 2 Comments
John Harms, P.J. Flynn and all lovers of fine sports commentary mourn the passing of Sid Waddell, son of a coal-miner, Cambridge history graduate, novelist and lover of language. Darts will never be the same. Here is a tribute: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2187467/Sid-Waddell-dies-Tribute.html?ito=feeds-newsxml and from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/12/sid-waddell
Quadrennial Introspection; the Olympics we had to have
August 13, 2012 by 10 Comments
Whilst it might have been nice to see a few more Aussies fulfil their life’s dream, I can’t help think London 2012 was the Olympic version of the ‘recession we had to have’. It’s about time we hit the reset button on our approach, as we re-evaluate funding priorities, what constitutes success and sport’s role in Australian [Read more]
Ee bah gum!
August 7, 2012 by 1 Comment
To its residents, Yorkshire is known as ‘God’s Own County’. And were it a country in its own right, the white rose county would be riding high in the Olympic medal table. Four Yorkshire athletes, including Sheffield’s Jessica Ennis, have won gold at London 2012 so far, prompting Twitter users to celebrate how the county [Read more]
The View from Shepparton – Olympics Special
August 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Tried to find the source of the quote, “Getting old is not for the faint hearted” but apart from finding a qualification, “neither is the alternative” , the best that I could come up with is “as the old man said”. Not very satisfactory I must confess. And what is the link with sport?.I have [Read more]
The secrets of Olympians
August 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Sometime during the past 12 months, I fell in love with PostSecret. PostSecret is a website updated each Sunday with a series of postcards which have been sent to the site that week, each containing the sender’s anonymous secret. I love the site because it can make you laugh, take pause, and even re-think one’s [Read more]
Hindsight….it’s a beautiful thing
August 1, 2012 by 4 Comments
By Neil Anderson Whenever I check the Almanac’s website for the latest offerings and before I have a go at writing myself, the first thing I see written in bold lettering is, ‘Write From The Heart’. This credo is evident in most pieces and none more-so than articles by JT Harms. I have finished reading [Read more]
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