The Numbers Game – Collingwood 2011

Well, it’s Good Friday and there’s only so much a man can take of Sandy Roberts, Peter Mitchell, Jennifer Keyte, Deeksy and even the old legend, the now dottery Dan (“number 12 please Mr”) Webb on the Good Friday Appeal, so I took up Peter and Mals’ best numbers challenge from late in the week [Read more]

Round 5: Easter Blog

One round of football will blur into the next with a leisurely spread of fixtures up to May Day. Saints fans will be relieved but unconvinced about their win up in Brisbane. Lions fans will console themselves with the effort, but still face the reality of a 0-4 start. The unpredictable Port have the chance for consecutive [Read more]

My Friend Gary

Prep can be a tough gig when you have a thermos of fried rice rather than a Vegemite sandwich. Sure, I got a knowing nod from the Wong sisters, and the insatiable competitive beast that was Andrew Sun, who, even at the ripe old age of five, had the age-old Chinese tradition of comparison perfected. “My [Read more]

Sav Rocca – my childhood hero

Unable to sleep in bed at 2:30am is a good time for me to be having a nice scan of the sports section in the Herald Sun website. A familiar face catches my eye. It is the face of my childhood hero, Sav Rocca. Growing up and watching Collingwood, Sav was my everything. Being too [Read more]

The Pre-Wrap: Round V

FOR THE PHILOSOPHICAL MARNGROOK FAN What a week it’s been in Footy Eddie.  Lots of hype around the place.  The Dawes ruling was one that caught our eye.  Down at the old BGS – and remember, so dogged in defeat, that’s where they learn to play the game – they call that one ‘the look [Read more]

Saturday night footy

  The years click over, but the leathery crack of a good pack mark still makes me horny. It’s only reserves now, but so what? They can hurt you, and try to hurt you, but don’t know how to be a bastard with their bodies when the ball’s in the air. I lead with my [Read more]

LET’S JUST CALL IT ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL, OR SOCCER FOR SHORT!

The final session of Gaelic football for kids in Abu Dhabi last Sunday involved a match against the parents at the British School – delicious irony in that given the history between the Irish and the English. But that’s another story. The kids call it “Gaelic”, but the parents call it football, after all, its [Read more]

Eagles soar a long way from home

Sallese Gibson Online at http://sallesegibson.wordpress.com/ It’s February in Toronto – outside, it’s snowing and the temperature is sitting at a chilly -10 °C. But that doesn’t stop the Toronto Eagles. It’s pre-season training as usual, no matter the weather. While it may be a completely unknown concept to most locals, the Eagles are determined to [Read more]

SANFL Trumps AFL

I went to two? football matches in Adelaide on the weekend. One was great football and the other was Port Adelaide v  Crows. Give me a SANFL game any time. Last Friday night at Norwood we witnessed not only a great game of football but football in all its glory. A crowd of over 8,000 [Read more]

KICK TO KICK

Let’s try and get to ten in a row without hitting the ground.  OK!  One. Two. Three.  Use your opposite side.  Guide the ball down with your left hand.  Head over the ball.  Better.  Six.  Seven.  Take the ball in your hands.  Nine. Ten.  Good! Keep going! It’s Tuesday before Easter at Mum and Dad’s [Read more]

The Beginnings of Obsession

By Holly Fahey (almost 15) Yesterday I attended, along with Paul, Jacob and Joel, a Thommo’s Team 13 clinic in Brunswick Street. After much resentment towards going (“I’m too old”, “I do have a life you know, dad”) I decided on Sunday evening that I would go, just so I could get the signatures of [Read more]

Last recruit

It’s that time of the year in bush footy. No matter what the code, presidents and committees, sponsors and hangers-on, club men who have worked hard all summer are trying to put the finishing touches on their team lists. They’re selling hope.

Off Season?? Game On!!

Damn the torpedos and hoist the mainsail, I’ve got an idea.  I know we should be gearing up for season proper, honing our Richmond jokes, Arelditing one eye shut and devising an app to decode Razor Ray Chamberlin, but think on this. I have enjoyed the off-season more than any self respecting football purist has [Read more]

Don’t worry Chappy, there’s no chance of that!

By Sasha Lennon I read this morning that Geelong star Paul Chapman says he’s still hurting from the 2008 Grand Final loss to Hawthorn, so much so that he has vowed “never again” will the Cats lose to the Hawks on that biggest of days. Well let me be the first one to offer you [Read more]

Fitzy and the kid

What the hell was Mike Fitzpatrick thinking? He was a mountain. Tough, no thug, just honest tough. A damn good sort of strong to be. Carl Dietrich would make the headlines, Don Scott punch out his own teammates at training. Neil Balme was crazier than any of them. He’d do more damage than the lot [Read more]

Scoreboard Pressure, the website

Almanackers Les Everett and Vin Maskell have never met but they share an affinity for photographing and philosophising about scoreboards. scoreboardpressure.com is a fledgling website inspired by Australian Rules football scoreboards. The blog celebrates the fact that while all footy scoreboards have the same basic function, they can differ from ground to ground, and from [Read more]

THE WRAP – ROUND IV

WHERE LIFE IMITATES FOOTBALL What a round it’s been in Footy Eddie.  It was yet another Cakewalk for The Good Old Collingwoods on Friday night as TRP delivered the coup de grâce to The Gallant Tigers.  The Bombers & The Blues gave us, arguably, the best draw of  the season so far, in match chock-a-block [Read more]

The View From Shepparton- Rd 4

Friday night. In the unreal world of  our household decide that a combination of the delayed telecast plus the certainty of a one sided match means that I spend the evening with my daughter and her triplet girls aged 12 watching the first half of a new Blu-ray recording of Les Miserable’s. Son in law [Read more]

The Return of Football

  My niece wants me to take her to the football. I’m not so sure. We’re Bulldogs supporters. The whole family is Bulldogs, apart from a couple of irritating Tigers fans who are always trying to rub something in. She comes over in a red-white-and-blue scarf even though it’s twenty-five degrees outside. It’s the first [Read more]

A Sherrin among the pucks

By Sallese Gibson Scores are tied.  Less than two minutes of play remain. You can feel the tension in the air as the players jostle for best position. Play resumes and two opponents sprint towards each other.  You can hear the thud, like a thunder clap, as their bodies collide and they fall to the [Read more]