Tiger’s split from long time caddy Steve Williams ends a long and incredibly successful partnership. Most of our images of Woods have his bagman somewhere in the frame – he became NZ’s most successful sportsman!
Great partnerships live long in the memory…
Barry Price to Peter McKenna.
Angelo Dundee and Muhammad Ali.
Graeme Wood and Rick Darling.
Big Jack and Carlton.
In more recent times,
Cox and Kerr.
Archie Thompson and Danny Allsop.
Moody and Nolen.
“…you can’t have one without the other!”.
Crio,
Wood & Darling- beep & beep beep. Very amusing.
Not quite Hobbs & Sutcliffe. Or Greenidge & Haynes. Or Lawry & Simpson.
Lillee and Thomson, Hall and Griffith, many of the best pace bowlers hunted in pairs.
So did many top tennis players like Hoad and Rosewall.
Back in the 60s and 70s when rovers were rovers rather than “midfielders” there were some fine partnerships between ruckmen and rovers. Polly Farmer and Billy Goggin were legendary but I thought Len Thompson worked pretty well with Wayne Richardson and Adrian Gallagher read both Big Nick and Percy Jones consistantly.
Bill and Ben the flower pot men.
Newk and Roche, for example.
For a brilliant few years, it was Freedman and Oliver
Harms and Daffy and on fire Saturday night at the Arms
Great topic Crio, because it to the heart of something that is crucial in human nature and relationships. To me the best relationships are complementary not supplementary. One completes the other. They round you out where you are weak and vulnerable – not adding where you are strong. Like adding another midfield gun to Collingwood, or another strawberry on top of a gateau. Enough is enough.
In footy there is always the angry and the sublime. The rough and the pure. Peter Crimmins and Leigh Matthews. The physical differences in their prime together; and the pathos of their different life outcomes. Matched only by Phil and Jimmy Krakouer. Zen and Rage.
In coaching I like the tortured genius head coach with the everyman ‘common touch’ assistant. Watch the “Damned United” DVD on Brian Clough and Peter Taylor coaching Ipswich and Leeds and then Notts Forest in the English First Division. I guess Taylor must eventually have got sick of Clough’s ego and eccentricities and went on to coach in his own right. Clough was never as effective without him.
My guess from a distance is that Bomber Thompson and Brendon McCarthy at the Cats and now at Essendon, has some of the same elements.
Sorry Crio I don’t find the same poetry in Moody and Nolen or Freedman and Oliver. Too much like the Manager and the hired help (very capable no doubt). I loved Vo Rogue, the late Vic Rail and Cyril Small. A magic partnership where they matched and beat the best together, then back to the Friday meetings at Gatton. Somehow I doubt that the big trainer ‘sausage machines’ could have got the same out of a maverick like the front-running chestnut.
One of my favourite stories on this topic came from an interview with Peter Fleming.
After he’d partnered J.P. McEnroe for yet another major doubles title he was asked the curly question regarding the best doubles pairing.
His perfect answer?
“McEnroe and anyone”!
McNamara-McNamee
Tony,
The description on fire does a disservice to fires. Descended to blithering idiot status just trying to light a spark. Way out of form.
Dunstall and Brereton
The Woodies
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Natasha and Boris (not Becker)
Carlton and Collingwood in grand finals.
Not a partnership persay, but a favourite pairing was Gary Ablett Senior Vs Richmond.
Wonder what sort of a tennis player the Graf / Agassi partnership will produce?
Saturday night by the fire. Did anyone see my camera? Yes I have lost it with the knacker happy snap.
Hayden and Langer/Gilly and Hayden
Greenidge/Haynes
Warne/McGrath
Eddie/Mick/Bucks
Skipper/Gilligan
Agarn/O’Rourke
Scooby/Shaggy…
Kevin and Julia
Howard and Costello
Bonnie and Clyde
Molotov and Ribbentrop
Eddie, Mick and Bucks
Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver
no longer Arnie with Maria Shriver
Tony Grieg and “Bull” Lawry
Mike Williamson/Butch Gale
Cisco and Pancho
Ian Major and Captain Blood
Fred and Barney
Fred Stolle and Tony Trabert
Johnny Lewis and Jeff Fenech?
JB and The Professor
Costa and Cook.
“We are Geelong…………..
TJ and George Moore/ Kevin Langby/ Malcolm Johnson
Pat Nevin & Kerry Dixon
busy Budge!?
The striking combo was more Kerry Dixon and David Speedie. Pat Nevin fed them.