Somewhere between last week’s snow, and this week’s constant rain, the hard, grey weather that floods or buries roads, God put his finger over our oval, leaving a blue sky that lasted six hours, and whispered “Bloody oath. Play.” There was no wind, no mud. Just cold air and sun getting in our eyes. Our [Read more]
There’ll be plenty of beers after the game
June 22, 2011 by 3 Comments
by Glenn Harris You know I remember it like one of those things from your childhood that is ingrained into your brain and will never leave you. It was a few months before my 43rd birthday. I was tired, bruised and on my way home. As we drove down the long straights [Read more]
Sat’dy arvo footy – June 25th
June 22, 2011 by 2 Comments
by Chris Riordan It’s not just AFL players who anxiously awaited tribunal calls this week. There have also been some celebrated, even unfortunate cases in suburban and country comps. The comical one was down on the peninsula where a player got a week for dropping his dacks and saluting the crowd! Less amusing [Read more]
Saints March In, Coober Pedy Style
June 22, 2011 by 4 Comments
Will the Coober Pedy Saints march in with their first win of 2011? They look smart in their red, black and white strip. At least as smart as St Kilda look half the time. It’s the eighth round of the Far North Football League (FNFL) season so it’s been a piss-poor start. Hornridge, the [Read more]
The Most Beautiful Kicks
June 21, 2011 by 38 Comments
by Matt Zurbo The most beautiful kick I’ve ever seen on a football oval was a torpedo by Andrew Levi. The third most beautiful kick I’ve seen was a goal in a VFA/VFL Grand Final by Ian Rickman. His Williamstown were 42 points down at the start of the last quarter, then, [Read more]
THE WRAP – ROUND XIII
June 20, 2011 by 11 Comments
WHERE LIFE IMITATES SPORT What a round it’s been in Footy Eddie. The Team of The Mighty West drove another nail into The Coffin of South Australia as they overhauled and eventually ran away from them on Friday night. The Leafblowers were roaring in the Leafy East as their heroes demolished The Little Rays of [Read more]
A Magic Moment
June 20, 2011 by 18 Comments
It was 1979, early Spring. A skinny little kid stood on the half forward flank waiting for the opposition’s full back to kick the ball back in. The mud grabbed at his boots but wasn’t so wet that it made him feel grounded. The early Spring sun was ridding the ground of the rank smelling, [Read more]
Foggy Fearon Footy
June 19, 2011 by 17 Comments
Last week Margaret McCarthy wrote in the Almanac about the joys of learning kick-to-kick with a group of blokes in Williamstown each Sunday morning. The thick fog at the Fearon Reserve on Sunday 12 June did not deter these early rising stars. In fact, they seemed to revel in the relatively unique conditions. (For country [Read more]
Grass Roots Footy Man “Rocket” Rod Gillett farewelled from the desert.
June 17, 2011 by 5 Comments
Haje Halabi, June 14,2011. “Rocket” Rod Gillett has been a much-loved member of the Australian football community in Abu Dhabi. This week friends gathered at his favourite oasis in the desert, Coopers Bar, to farewell him, as he will be soon venturing to Vietnam with his lovely wife Jessie and son Jeremy. There was a [Read more]
THE PRE WRAP – ROUND XIII
June 17, 2011 by 15 Comments
FOR THE PHILOSOPHICAL MARNGROOK FAN What a seven weeks it’s been in Footy Eddie. Barcelona took the Championship Trophy at Wembley, driving the Northern Scum into the turf. The Spanish dominance continued at Roland Garros when another Brit bit the dust as RRRRRaffallll dismembered Andy Murray. Red Bull went from strength to strength in spite [Read more]
Male identity crises and other truths
June 17, 2011 by 20 Comments
The world has changed. Back in the good old days, if you’d forgotten where you were, or who you were, all you needed to do was buy a beer and listen to the sports conversation around the bar. If the bloke behind the jump poured you a XXXX you knew you could look outside to [Read more]
John Greening Incident
June 16, 2011 by 11 Comments
Getting close to 39 years since the infamous felling of John Greening at Moorabin. A lot of water has passed under the bridge, and a lot has not/can not, be said about the episode. Now I recall a fair bit of that period, but can someone remind me re Jimmy O’Dea’s tribunal hearing. In those days [Read more]
Where Loyalty Starts
June 15, 2011 by 15 Comments
by Matt Zurbo What the hell is a GC? I tried explaining it to my nephew. He’s looking for a team to barrack for. Red and yellow are simple and bold. Good stuff. He’s young. A new life for a new club, I thought. But GC? “It’s a co-orperate emblem,” I said. “Hm, you [Read more]
One Hundred Years Ago: Round 7, 5th June, 1911
June 15, 2011 by 4 Comments
Monday the 5th of June 1911 was the 46th birthday of King George V, necessitating the footballers of the Victorian Football League to drag their weary bones out of bed and play a second round of football games in the space of three days. It goes without saying that there was no AFLPA back in [Read more]
MID SEASON REVIEW – WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER…BEGINS
June 13, 2011 by 2 Comments
Brendan Schwab’s proposal for the creation of two divisions in the AFL, with promotion and relegation, though unlikely to gain much support, was nonetheless motivated by the very reasonable concern that an 18 team competition will produce too many meaningless matches in the latter half of the season. A quick mid-season report on the [Read more]
Bombers on Strike
June 13, 2011 by 3 Comments
Looking back at Australian Bureau of Statistics, (ABS), data on strikes and industrial action I looked at the figures for Victoria. In 1970 there were 447 industrial disputes in Victoria. These involved around 333,000 workers, and saw just over 510, 800 working days lost. Missing from these statistics were the actions of a group of [Read more]
The AFL Record 2011 Short Story Competition
June 13, 2011 by 1 Comment
THE AFL RECORD IS CALLING ALL BUDDING WRITERS The AFL Record has teamed up with Virgin Australia, the official airline of the AFL, to encourage aspiring writers to try their hand at short story writing with an AFL theme. The AFL Record 2011 Short Story Competition, which will run for eight weeks through the [Read more]
The crumbs that fall from the AFL table
June 11, 2011 by 11 Comments
So there we have it! $1.25 billon dollars are to be paid for the TV rights for AFL football: a record. Now the debate will be about how this amount is to be divided between clubs, players, administrators and the like. Who deserves this money: the poor clubs, champion players, or draftees and [Read more]
Stephanie Holt Discussion
June 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Almanacker Stephanie Holt discusses women in footy, and how she got involved with The Footy Almanac, at the Overland webite. http://web.overland.org.au/2011/06/stephanie-holt-on-football-and-gender/
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