After years of crisis, Saturday after Saturday of hoping, Fitzroy Football club finally died. For our mob it ended at the M.C.G with that game against Richmond. The last game on TV against Freemantle just didn’t seem real somehow. Almost 12 months on I still can’t believe that game couldn’t have been moved to Melbourne. [Read more]
One Hundred Years Ago: Round 5, 27th May, 1911
June 2, 2011 by 12 Comments
On the Friday evening prior to Round 5, a joint conference of VFL and VFA representatives had met to discuss the control of football in Victoria. They produced the startling recommendation that the two organisations should amalgamate into one controlling body, appointing a board with equal representation for both parties. This offered the prospect that [Read more]
The Final Game
June 2, 2011 by 1 Comment
If you could die peacefullyon a footy ground, where would it be? Centre circle, goal square, back pocket? And wouldn’t it be handy if there was a cemetery, with headstones a bit like goalposts, just behind the scoreboard? While visiting the Oakleigh ground this week Vin Maskell met an old Devils’ supporter. More details at [Read more]
Round 11 midweek grab
June 2, 2011 by 3 Comments
We had dinner with Sara and Sophie last Sunday night; that was pleasant – these are fine women. Baked chicken and olives, lettuce wedges, a dessert of cooked apple, nuts and yoghurt. Red wine, green tea. A lovely night. May comes to a close – above average rain and the coldest sequence of autumn days [Read more]
Dave Nadel’s Dream Response
June 2, 2011 by 4 Comments
I prefer the idea of the existing comp divided into two geographical conferences. I have been arguing this for a while although the model I argued was based on sixteen teams which would have allowed for 22 rounds with each team playing members of their own conference twice and the other conference once. Twenty teams [Read more]
NackiLeaks Expose’ – John Harms Dream (Extended and Unauthorised Version)
June 2, 2011 by 3 Comments
DRAFT MEDIA RELEASE (Embargoed until after Geelong go through season undefeated) Mr John Harms, the newly appointed Marketing Director of the Competition formerly known as the AFL, took pleasure in announcing today that “a great Australian company in James Hardie Industries will become the League’s major corporate sponsor from 2012 onwards.” Mr Harms said that [Read more]
The 38 special
June 2, 2011 by 21 Comments
by Ben Birchall As a Blue Bagger, I’m sure I’m not alone in my…I’ll say it…love for Jeffy Garlett. Not only do I admire his flash, skill and tackling, I love the fact that he doesn’t look like he should be out there. It’s a fear that Brad Fisher shared in the small paper (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/jeff-garlett-didnt-look-for-trouble-it-found-him/story-e6frf9jf-1226034947318 [Read more]
Unfamiliar territory
June 1, 2011 by 2 Comments
There’s something strange in the footy air at the moment, and it’s not wet woollen jumpers left for too long in the sports bag. Like all Magpie fans I’m often accused of being one-eyed. Fair enough … I am. For the most part. I have to admit that over the years I’ve had a grudging [Read more]
The Bye
June 1, 2011 by 4 Comments
by Tony Robb As we approach to middle of the year I think it’s prudent to assess the success and failure of the league newcomer. The Bye. Coached by Adrian Anderson the new kids on the block have flown under the radar avoiding much of the scrutiny that is been applied to several coaches [Read more]
The Harms Dream
May 31, 2011 by 24 Comments
Gigs piece on the fixture, and its idiosyncrasies, injustices, inconsistencies, and conceptual weirdness, and his suggestion of a draw based on a Declaration of What is Good and Fair, and Inalienable in Football, is noble to say the least. Which, as commenters have noted almost universally in the words that follow, means that it is [Read more]
My best ever Geelong team – part 2
May 29, 2011 by 6 Comments
THE FORWARD LINE I have chosen Paul Couch for the half-forward flank. Couch played in the high-scoring Geelong teams of the Blight era, mainly in the centre, but at times as a creative half-forward. Couch had great vision, wonderful evasive skills and a deadly accurate left foot kick. He played 259 games for Geelong and [Read more]
Rotunda In The West- ‘Talking Footy’
May 29, 2011 by 6 Comments
‘Talking Footy’ down at the Whitten Oval Foyer was a wonderful event and one in which I encourage fellow Almanackers to attend to next time. Guests included the Footy Almanac’s own John Harms, Western Bulldogs star Daniel Giansiracusa and respected footy poet Tom Petsinis, in which all three provided a enthralling conservation about footy. And [Read more]
A religious experience amongst the football faithful
May 29, 2011 by 4 Comments
by David Brewster I was never much of a churchgoer, but I can pretty much pin the last vestige of my belief in prayer down to 1981. After my ‘Pies had lost their fourth grand final in five years, it was quite clear that the bloke upstairs either didn’t exist or wasn’t a Collingwood supporter. [Read more]
‘Comment Wally May’
May 29, 2011 by 6 Comments
by Bernard Whimpress Wally May has died, aged 84. The man with the concise comment became an Adelaide television hero on a Sunday sports show of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and inspired a phrase which passed into popular idiom whenever authoritative comment was sought. I interviewed May when I was editor of the [Read more]
Losing Away
May 29, 2011 by 4 Comments
After being in front heading into the last, both seniors and reserves got rolled by good, tough rural teams. We’ll be pushing to make the five, damn it. If we were over-achieving, it would be fine, but it’s just not fun when we’re better than this. Or maybe we’re not. I’ve never met a scoreboard [Read more]
I trained them hard
May 27, 2011 by 2 Comments
Jesus, I trained those Juniors hard. They were a dead-set chance. At something that would affect them and their community and stay with them forever, like a tattoo for your heart. Sometimes, while training them hard, I’d tell them. I had never won a flag. Not in all those years. Then, my team made the [Read more]
My Best Ever Geelong team – part 1
May 27, 2011 by 17 Comments
Something I do in my head from time to time is pick my best ever Geelong team, that is, the best team I can put together from all the players I’ve seen play during my life time, both live and on television. I did this again quite recently; last week in fact while I was [Read more]
One Phrase At A Time
May 26, 2011 by 24 Comments
Football players and coaches are being coached on and off the field to within an inch of their lives. Their language used to be colourful, but the only colour in football these days is in the jumpers. Media training off the field is killing spontaneity and the thrill of seeing a footballer mangle players on [Read more]
The Symbolic Dissemination of a High Mark
May 25, 2011 by 7 Comments
by Phil Dimitriadis Symbolism and rhetoric find their place in football discourse through the power of language and the images it projects. For example, the sometimes gravity defying elements of a ‘high mark’ have been theatrically rhetoricised over the years from ‘great mark’ to ‘a screamer’ to ‘a ripper’ to ‘a hanger’ to ‘mark [Read more]
Go Hard
May 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment
We played at home this week, against the bottom side. Everybody says to everybody, always, “Don’t take them for granted!” and “It’s not just gunna happen,” and “Go hard!” but they say it without the fire in their eyes, then Saturday comes and they play without fire. Then, at half time, when the bottom side [Read more]
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