So they’re seriously considering a dedicated Collingwood channel. I don’t doubt this idea is manna from heaven for many. People will suddenly realise what’s been missing from their lives all these years. Myself? My reaction is rather more like Alex in his maximum security ward in A Clockwork Orange: strapped to a gurney, eyes [Read more]
Comparing Chris Judd with Gary Ablett
March 22, 2012 by 19 Comments
BOTH have controversially changed clubs while at the peak of their powers, both are undoubtedly in the top handful of players in the modern era and both are ‘follically challenged’. Of course, I am talking about Chris Judd and Gary Ablett. There is often debate over who is the better player, but for me it is [Read more]
Thinking outside the oval
March 21, 2012 by 10 Comments
by Peter Baulderstone Football (and that’s a broader family than AFL) has lost two of its broadest thinkers and most compassionate administrators – one to cancer, and the other to political correctness. One loss cannot be remedied, but the other should be. We all get lost in the adoration and fandom of professional sport, and [Read more]
1980 – A Personal Footy Almanac
March 21, 2012 by 16 Comments
by Sam Steele Introduction Thirty-two years on, it’s sobering to realise that half Richmond’s current fan base have no direct memories of our last Premiership. The optimistic ones talk about our next Flag, but with all the belief of world-weary office workers, mouthing their idle Monday-morning pipedream of one day winning Tattslotto. As one [Read more]
The Dark Months
March 21, 2012 by 8 Comments
by Jamie Simmons Is it March 24th yet? Anyone? No! How about now? Forgive me Almanackers if the largely incoherent ramblings that follow appear to mark my early descent into madness. I am normally a proud man (well, as proud as a man who walks to the shop in Star Wars themed slippers can [Read more]
Jim Stynes and the triumph of idealism
March 20, 2012 by 8 Comments
by Jonathan Rivett The problem with writing about someone you have never met is that your presumptions could so easily be wrong. Maybe what I’m about to say about Jim Stynes, who died on the morning of Tuesday the 20th of March, is incorrect. Maybe he was not much different from those who came [Read more]
There’s nothing like a prediction to get people talking
March 20, 2012 by 2 Comments
by Andrew Weiss So the NAB Cup has finished and everyone is looking forward to the start of the season kicking off on Saturday night with a real blockbuster to start the year off, that being the Coathanger clash (well that’s what I am calling it) where the new boys in town the Giants [Read more]
Comeback shelved
March 20, 2012 by 3 Comments
by Craig Dodson A lazy Sunday afternoon sitting on the couch next to my 38 week pregnant wife Sophie and I’m looking for a distraction to take our mind off the waiting game of juniors impending arrival. Lets go for a kick I suggest, a tough challenge for a pregnant lady who is currently [Read more]
RIP Jim Stynes 1966-2012
March 20, 2012 by 20 Comments
Jim Stynes has finally succumbed to cancer. It is a loss the whole football and broader community will feel. If you wish to leave any thoughts, please do so below. Martin Flanagan has paid eloquent tribute over at The Age. http://www.theage.com.au/afl/melbourne-demons/more-than-a-great-sportsman-20120320-1vgjg.html
A Tough Year Awaits GWS
March 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment
After watching GWS play against Richmond last Saturday at Manuka I am convinced that GWS will struggle to win a single game this year. In reaching the above conclusion I have drawn upon the experiences of the Gold Coast Suns in their first year. I note that Gold Coast recorded three wins against my pre-season [Read more]
Bombers take the Top End
March 19, 2012 by 9 Comments
If Spain played the ‘beautiful game’ with the round ball to win the World Cup, the Tiwi Bombers played it last Saturday night with the oval ball to win the Northern Territory Football League premiership for the first time. Not that it was perfect footy. The Bomber defence took nearly half the game to get [Read more]
WHY GWS WILL WIN THE PREMIERSHIP
March 19, 2012 by 8 Comments
THE OPTIMIST’S GUIDE TO SEASON 2012. PART TEN. By Alex Wadelton WHY GWS WILL WIN THE PREMIERSHIP The Greater Western Sydney coaching staff are the most experienced in the league. Kevin Sheedy has four flags as coach, Mark Williams has one. That equals five. So, they are also the team with the coaches who have [Read more]
History starts somewhere
March 19, 2012 by 21 Comments
We’re about to hit the footy season and for a writer that means lots of footy writing. When I’m at my desk, immediately to my left on the bookshelves sit a number of reference books. These include the two volumes of The Shorter Oxford Dictionary (surely one of the great publications), Roget’s, various books of [Read more]
Practice? Are we talking about practice?
March 19, 2012 by 3 Comments
It’s been an extremely slow news week, we don’t give a stuff about the NAB Cup grand final or the Herald Sun are putting all their important stories behind the pay wall. The back page of today’s (Thursday) Herald Sun features a story announcing that Jack Watts isn’t playing in the VFL this week and [Read more]
Keeping Up Appearances
March 19, 2012 by 4 Comments
Scene 1: A group of Club Recruiters are meeting with an AFL Manager to discuss emerging issues and trends in the game. Recruiter 1: It’s always been as much an art as a science this recruiting business. You look at what’s available in the local comps. Look at your clubs place on the ladder. No [Read more]
A Good Time To Reflect
March 19, 2012 by 25 Comments
Football is a pretty reliable mirror. The many ways we express our passion for the game reveal us. The industry that has grown around the game also tells us much by the way it chooses to operate. All manner of issues regarding indigenous footballers have arisen lately. In the case of Liam Jurrah, the [Read more]
Giant Break
March 18, 2012 by 4 Comments
It’s been my lucky week. I work as a casual relief teacher in NSW and the ACT and I’ve endured my fair share of visiting speakers and sports clinics. This week I happened to be in a school that the GWS Giants were coming to and I had a grade that was attending their talk. [Read more]
Traralgon and District Art Society and wondering about the future.
March 18, 2012 by 2 Comments
On the Friday of the last pre-season game of St.Kilda and Collingwood, I found myself journeying again with my Art Society. We had Heather, a Collingwood supporter and our organisational inspiration, a retired lawyer, life model and Rotary organiser extraordinaire, Lilian, our Glen Eira Artists Society President, designer, painter and life drawing organiser, our Treasurer [Read more]
Gambling Review
March 16, 2012 by 10 Comments
The Footy Show is a WYSIWYG affair. It’s jocular and jovial, often irreverent, and sometimes controversial. It also has segments and moments, however, where it takes on a serious air. I don’t watch it religiously anymore, but decided to tune in last night to see what I thought would be one of those serious moments: [Read more]
Creeping wowserism: the AFL is making a rod for its own back
On Saturday 10 March 2012 the Stansbury Cricket Club won their ninth consecutive Lower Yorke Peninsula Cricket Association A grade premiership. The next day the team celebrated at a local hotel, in an area that was not open to the general public. They were joined by a teammate who had been unable to play in [Read more]