I grew up in a very traditional Australian sporting family. I was brought up in the steadfast knowledge that you play cricket on Saturdays in summer, Aussie rules in the winter, and golf whenever you can fit it in. Netball is for girls, soccer is for wogs and tennis is for those who couldn’t [Read more]
Crio’s racing
September 13, 2012 by 62 Comments
The John F. Feehan Stakes was always a chance to see how WFA middle distance horses handled the nuances of the Moonee Valley track and thus became a point of reference en route to the W. S. Cox Plate. Historically this timeline also fitted. “Feehan’s Farm”, on which the first race meetings were held in [Read more]
AFL Finals Week 1 – Geelong v Fremantle: Is that it?
September 13, 2012 by 36 Comments
Last Sunday morning a pall of melancholy settled over the Harms household. Nothing could assuage it: not the morning sun through the north window, not the sound of little feet running from the front bedroom, not the smell of raisin toast. Not even the reassuring voice of Barrie Cassidy. “Rainbow,” said young Evie, pointing at [Read more]
Predictable news reports for an unpredictable game
September 13, 2012 by 2 Comments
Keith Almond believes TV coverage of football on the nightly news has not improved since the 1960s; in fact if you take colour out of the equation it has hardly changed at all.
Trains,Pains and Silver Linings
September 13, 2012 by 2 Comments
By Paul Spinks Seagulls fight over a discarded hamburger as I leave Bon Beach station with a Sunday hangover on the 10.45AM Frankston to Southern Cross. The train is already late and proceeds to travel at a pace mimicking tempo footy …slow and measured. I’m on my way home via the noon V-Line to South [Read more]
Indigenous players to the AFL? Why not bring the AFL to Indigenous centres and communinties? The case for NT Thunder FC in the AFL.
September 12, 2012 by 1 Comment
As I suspected it seems that I’m not the only person who has seen a gap between Indigenous and White Australia. To some extent this gap has been narrowed by participation in sport but as I have outlined in an earlier installment it has also created an entirely new problem with players being taken away [Read more]
AFL Finals Week 1- Adelaide v Sydney: A comfy old pillow
September 12, 2012 by 3 Comments
I like my pillow, its durable, supporting, hard working, a little worn at the edges and cost me about $10 from Kmart a decade ago. Sure there are flashier versions with dodo bird feathers or maybe endorsed by Buzz Aldrin, but I like mine just the same. I depend upon it. The Sydney Swans are [Read more]
My Brother Graham
September 12, 2012 by 8 Comments
By Bob Utber My brother Graham suffers with that most terrible of diseases, Motor Neuron. Originally called Lou Gehrig’s disease after the great American baseballer who died with it aged 38, the disease is a progressive degeneration of the motor neurons of the central nervous system, leading to muscle wasting and paralysis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. [Read more]
Blacks Clinch ’12 GF Spot and ’13 A-Grade Berth
September 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
NO PROBLEM FOR OLD MEN AS EXPERIENCED BLACKERS GET THROUGH TO GF They say that love can make music sound sweeter and food taste better. Whilst your narrator is not normally prone to such sentimentality, a similar feeling came over me as I carved through my sweet and sour pork whilst Rose Tattoo’s ‘We Can’t [Read more]
Almanac Rugby League – NRL Finals 2012, Week 1: Melbourne v Souths – Rabbitohs in the lights
September 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
By John Robotham The portents weren’t good. My seven-year-old daughter, Lucy, was conflicted – wearing a garish purple coat over her knee-length Rabbitohs jumper, circa 1999 – a look that amused many. As we joined the river of purple flowing down Batman Avenue she felt more self-conscious, pulling the coat tight around her. [Read more]
September for losers (reprise)
September 12, 2012 by 21 Comments
September is a non-event for those of us who rarely see AFL finals action. Unless we swallow our pride and follow someone else’s team. Always full of hope at the start of the season, we keep September free until the last minute just in case, resisting the urge to plan a weekend away an overseas [Read more]
Geelong Era at an End
September 12, 2012 by 14 Comments
2007 Coming off an horrific 2006 season, and with coach Mark Thompson given the last year of his contract to turn things around, Geelong launched an aggressive and ruthless campaign to win the flag and break a 44 year drought down at Kardinia Park. Characterised by daring, up-the-middle, play on at all costs, all [Read more]
Off Season Odyssey – Part 12: Aussie Humour
September 12, 2012 by 4 Comments
AUSSIE HUMOUR. “No tribal colours,” the bouncer tells me, holding his hand out. We both look at the North jumper I’m wearing. “It’s okay, he’s with the band,” Gav says. “I know the band,” the bouncer says. He’s from Warrnambool. So are the Monaros. Like the King and Queen are from England, and David Boon [Read more]
1980 A Personal Footy Almanac – Second Semi Final, Saturday 13 September, v Geelong, VFL Park
September 11, 2012 by 6 Comments
(For Geelong fans still licking their wounds from Saturday night…sorry, folks, I can’t help the timing of this piece…) A roar goes up as umpire John Sutcliffe signals a free kick in the Richmond forward line. In the tense early moments of a big semi-final, it’s pretty typical of the men in white to assert [Read more]
WAFL: Royals bow out, Sharks shape up
September 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment
THE home teams won the WAFL semi-finals on Saturday setting up an interesting preliminary final at Bassendean Oval next Sunday.
AFL Finals Week 1: The View from Shepparton
September 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment
I hope the tribunal throws the book at Chris Tarrant I love players that play the man and not the ball. I have had a sneaking respect for the Pies for most of the year but now hope that they get walloped.
Off Season Odyssey – Part 11: New Year’s Without Resolutions
September 11, 2012 by 7 Comments
Off Season Odyssey Pt11. New Year’s Without Resolutions. Princetown has a beaut oval. Round. Hard. There’s no team any more, no town. Just the reedy wetlands that is the last gasp of the Gellibrand River, where farmers, back in the day, paddled their milk downstream, on longboats, to the Saturday market. Just coastal [Read more]
AFL Finals Week 1 – Adelaide v Sydney: Behind Enemy Lines
September 11, 2012 by 5 Comments
The Crows fan did not seem happy to see me.
“You again” he growled before breaking into a wry smile. “Jesus I’d almost forgotten about today’s game. Then here you are again in that damn jumper reminding me all over.”
Almanac Footy History: Clegg’s Match
September 11, 2012 by 6 Comments
1949 Brownlow Medalist Ron Clegg played a match for South Melbourne in 1951 of such dominance that is still referred to as “Clegg’s Match”. Richard Davis reports.
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