Great footy matches which have made it into your family mythology

In the Harms family mythology there are many footy matches which are remembered. Not all fondly I might add. Almost all of them involve the Geelong Football Club. Many involve the despised Pies. Which footy match has made it into your family’s mythology; a story which is told and re-told.

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.

Port no match for the Cats at Kardinia

Sunday afternoon. I am in the position; the same position I’ve been in for almost a fortnight. In bed, leg up. I have a maroon plaster cast from toe-to knee. I am feeling very Queensland and very Fred Flintstone. And pretty sore. A bowtie-wearing surgeon has put my right foot back together. He is a [Read more]

How The Footy Almanac saved football

The Footy Almanac has saved football. The Richmond footy club almost saved footy a few years ago, but here at the Almanac we’ve done it properly. The Tiges almost saved footy when they lost to Geelong by 157 points one Sunday evening in May, 2007. At a time when the Swans and West Coast had [Read more]

Almanac Golf: Tony Ongarello and the WAGS Dinner

John Harms met Tony Ongarello under unusual circumstances – during a dinner at Metropolitan Golf Club.

Harms on Round 1

Thursday evening. I am thankful for football. Football takes Anna and me to the North Fitzroy Arms where we join the footy tipping comp, and catch up with the grey-haired wits who gather there. Anna has a lemonade-Coke (as we call it on our household). We head home. An hour off the opening bounce. Fish [Read more]

Harms on footy commentators

John Harms measures the current crop of footy commentators according to the Sid Waddell scale. Check out his article from the Age, and return to leave your comment. Footy talk: too good to be scripted www.theage.com.au

Willaston Dreams

Pictures by Almanacker Peter Argent It’s a great time of the year for footballers around the country. Wherever they might be. Some have been hard at it all summer. Running with squinted eyes through the shimmery white heat, loving and hating (at once) the beads of sweat which trickle between their shoulder blades, down the [Read more]

Theo takes a great leap forward at Princes Park

Saturday morning. Sunny and mild, but the breeze picking up, and bringing with it northern stickiness. Family Harms is pottering about: no plans. I am thinking about Collingwood. They have done it pretty easily the night before. Dawes and Daisy Thomas continue to mature. They are good, and there is much improvement in the squad [Read more]

Tip the Top 8 comp

Each season Loose Men Charities and The Footy Almanac crew hold a tip the top eight competition. The idea is to select the finishing order (at the end of the home and away season) of the AFL’s top eight. It’s $10 to enter. Half the cash goes to the winner, and half goes to a [Read more]

Mathematicians who have kicked on

March 1 was International Maths Day. And so my mind was turned to Maths. As a Maths-History graduate I am always looking to those Mathematicians who have kicked on, in the hope I might uncover their secrets. I’ll start the discussion by mentioning Melbourne Vixen and Australian netballer Julie Corletto, who is a Maths graduate. [Read more]

Flares for Dot Balls Campaign

Add your name to this petition I hope to take to those who run Cricket Australia. We the undersigned believe that bowlers are copping the raw prawn in T20 cricket and believe that flares should whoosh heavenward when the bowler delivers a dot ball:

Tennis, snoring and the punt: a reflection

A few years ago, when I was writing Memoirs of a Mug Punter, I got in to a lovely routine. I’d start writing just after AM finished and stick at it (with occasional glances at the form guide) until midday or so. Then I’d have a bit of lunch. On a good day: left-over pizza. [Read more]

Know your tennis crowd

Melbourne is abuzz with the excitement of The Australian Open. Well. Sort of. Channel 7 tells us it is, and Channel 7 is abuzz with tennis, and hilariously funny gaffs which allow Todd Woodbridge to liken himself to S.K. Warne (Todd Woodbridge is like S.K. Warne the way Maggie Thatcher is like Juliet Binoche). Yes, [Read more]

Prepare to Scream

I went to the T20 match between Australia and England on Friday night at the MCG. On the train going in from Merri (where the MCG’s centre wicket once came from) I looked at the plastic card-ticket on the lanyard that hung around my neck. It had a barcode, and a clear warning that no [Read more]

On the Brisbane floods

Some interesting stuff on Brisbane and floods: Just in case you didn’t know that Queensland was a flood-province here is the Bureau of Meteorology’s history of flooding on the Bremer and the Brisbane Rivers. Have a look at how many floods and especially at the 1893 flood – and the extracts from the papers/journals/diaries. http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/brisbane_history.shtml [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Tough times in Goodna

John Harms wrote this piece about Goodna at the time of the major floods in 2011.

COMMENT: What has happened to the world?

Fair dinkum, I’m going nuts. And if it wasn’t so sad, it would be funny. It’s sad because this is the world my kids are growing up in. It’s a world where the disingenuous thrive, where mendacity is trumps, and truth is the currency of fools. Well call me a fool. And take me to [Read more]

And the Australian disappointment continues

Sydney Test – Day 3 The big thing about this Test series is how disappointed cricket-lovers across Australia feel. Not the sort of disappointment that has you lamenting the half a metre of water that is rushing under your Queensland house, but disappointment of a sporting time. This was a series set up for cricket-lovers, [Read more]

Australia flogged

I spent the last few overs of the Australian debacle that was the third day of the Melbourne Test Match standing at the southern end behind the rampant Barmy Army. They were loving it. Next to me was a solemn man in a heavy metal T-shirt. I didn’t recognize the name of the band but [Read more]