By Anna Shiel The long awaited season had come into reach. From the lazy holiday sleep-in, the family awake from their sweltered snooze. You throw on some shorts and a loose singlet to head towards the local corner shop. You stroll to the corner shop, well known to your childhood, with the paint dated, defeated [Read more]
Almanac Rugby League – This Is Not The Way Home
June 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Fremantle. It’s a pleasant enough place to sit and watch the rest of the world spin by, but it is barely a city or is one in name only. For all of its industrial attachments, Fremantle’s charms are quite easily found in numerous other port cities; somewhere else. Everything that happens here from the marketplace [Read more]
Come on Sainters
June 28, 2012 by 3 Comments
So, the last time the Saints played, (against Adelaide a fortnight ago – it seems like a lifetime), I was one grumpy Saints supporter. I was ready to have an uncontrollable rant about the way the boys were playing, the rules of the game, and what I saw to be obvious changes that need to [Read more]
My son hates footy
June 28, 2012 by 26 Comments
By Cheryl Critchley The love of our great game is not genetic. As a Richmond tragic I can prove it. My son hates AFL footy and is angling for a spot in the Guiness Book of Records as the person who has attended the most AFL games but NEVER watched one. Now nine, Ben [Read more]
Waving Money
June 28, 2012 by 14 Comments
Waving Money. Hold on to your storm in a teacups! Word is, some fans took the piss out of a young bloke who chased the money last weekend! Flashed fake dollars at him! Gasp! Booed, even. Strewth! What’s more, a few of them made a banner or two that were taken down. [Read more]
Cures for insomniac supporters
June 28, 2012 by 2 Comments
Sleepy-headed coverage of Euros 2012 Semi-final 1 Spain 0 – 0 Portugal (Spain trudge forward on penalties 4-2) This very stalemate would’ve whittled the edges from the even the keenest footballing enthusiasm. We were right to expect a show. Portugal and Ronaldo were improving with each performance. They’ve played exciting, attractive, passing, attacking football; the [Read more]
A little more
June 28, 2012 by 5 Comments
deep in the last term – when little more can be done we do a little more my heart beats – the ball falls from his arms Elliot’s heroics – a reminder I’m not a child sky bereft of blue how difficult some goals are overcast Beams making something out of [Read more]
The summer I’d been waiting for…
June 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment
By Eliza Karlson My earphones are in and my iPod is on full blast. The air-conditioner is on high and as I look out the window I can see the mountains forming and can feel the road slowly winding along. The car is packed so full that I can’t see anyone else, as my view [Read more]
When the Pies met the Hawks
June 27, 2012 by 3 Comments
By Jessica Landy I am leaving for America in two days and it’s probably the most important AFL game of the year. If Collingwood wins we are in the grand final for the second consecutive year. Collingwood haven’t defended a premiership since 1936. My dad had almost just broken my heart. He had forgotten that [Read more]
Drysa White Hot as Blacks Jump to Top Spot
June 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment
SKOBS RISE ABOVE THE BLACKS’ MOONLIGHT CLOUD Whenever the Blacks come up against St Kevins, there is a flurry of pre-match correspondence. Players from both teams receive messages from friends and family during the week that convey how deeply important a win would be to their respective club. In the lead-up to this week’s instalment, the [Read more]
1980: A Personal Footy Almanac: Round 14, Saturday 28 June, v Collingwood, MCG
June 27, 2012 by 8 Comments
In the respectable household of my childhood, the ABC was our default TV channel. So when it came to footy, my weekly staple was “The Winners”, an hour-long highlights package of the best 2-3 games of the round. Buried late on a Saturday night, it wasn’t the ideal viewing time, but there was nothing quite [Read more]
Special weekend when all your teams get up
June 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Bit of a special weekend of footy for me, but without doubt the highlight was the win for community footy on Sunday, but more of that later. It’s not often that all your footy teams win on the weekend, but that’s what happened. Being a bit of a footy tragic, I have followed many teams [Read more]
DA Puzzle of the Round (14)
June 27, 2012 by 4 Comments
Discover the world of David Astle here. But first, can you solve this week’s puzzle? Only new this year, this first-round draft pick has already impressed club selectors. (There’s now talk of a longer-term contract for the same left-footer.) But here’s the kicker: his first name is the character famously played by his surname in [Read more]
These here are crazy times
June 27, 2012 by 22 Comments
In an era where games often follow scripts more predictable than Two and a Half Men, and finals aspirations tend to expire well before the home straight, the last thing football needs is another reason for supporters to stay at home. Yet those most heavily invested in their team’s fortunes couldn’t help but feel they [Read more]
What sport does to us
June 27, 2012 by 1 Comment
I love sport for the emotions and reactions it evokes in us. Like many others, I watched Black Caviar’s heart-stopping win early Sunday morning from my lounge room. It was too cold for Fed Square. Television is best when you can actually feel the tension coming through the screen. This was definitely the case from [Read more]
Round 13 Winners and Losers
June 26, 2012 by 6 Comments
The byes are finally gone. I think Beau Waters scared them off. WINNERS Collingwood (and the West Coast Eagles…) Both Collingwood and West Coast continue to confound eminent doctors and scientists by playing so well despite half their sides being out on account of major injury/obscure illness/missing limbs. The Eagles don’t have their two best [Read more]
Of Bogans and Burqas
June 26, 2012 by 15 Comments
By Phil Dimitriadis The AFL celebrates multicultural round this week. Its catchcry is: “Many cultures, one game”. Possibly, but there is more to promoting cross-cultural understanding than just vacuous slogans and panegyric rhetoric. People from diverse cultural backgrounds are still seen as a novelty and until this changes Australian football will not realistically reflect the [Read more]
Almanac Rugby League – The cursed existence of a Roosters supporter
June 26, 2012 by 1 Comment
All supporters do it tough at times. Its part of the attraction, addiction even, of passionately supporting a sporting team. In a cruel sort of way, we need to experience the dark, heavy feeling of despair that lingers for days after a loss to also truly appreciate that overwhelming, sun-is-shining, birds-are-singing, life-is-good elation that takes hold after a win. But [Read more]
Endless Summer
June 26, 2012 by 1 Comment
By Caitlyn Kennedy I love summer. I love the feeling of being hot, I love lying on warm concrete, I love diving into cool water, I love the different fruits of the summer, the late nights and the long days on the beach. I love how summer is completely carefree, no rules, no regulations, just [Read more]
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