For all your puzzling requirements, visit David Astle at http://davidastle.com/. Here’s David’s footy clue for this week: If Joy, Ghost or Winona could serve as the comical nickname of Bombers’ Patrick RYDER (think about it for a moment), can you figure out these other imaginary nicknames? We’ve chosen one player from each of the competing [Read more]
Train to Kandy
by Bob Utber Forget about the cricket, the train trip from Colombo Fort to Kandy was worth its weight in chocolates. The British (as the locals call them) built the railway in the 1860’s as their route to the tea plantations that they were establishing. The engineering skills of the Brits can still be seen. [Read more]
Almanac Rugby League – Channelling Tricky
I was born into an Aussie Rules family and growing up on an aboriginal mission in central Australia I was totally unaware of the existence of Rugby League for the first ten years of my life. When I was in year three my parents went on a sojourn to Europe for three months and as [Read more]
I’m in one. Now to win it.
Earned a ticket to the big dance. Imperial Football Club sent four teams up to Mannum on a hot windy 27 degree day and each team earned themselves a ticket to the big dance at Meningie on 17 September. The Under 15s after having the week off did the job against Mypolonga and won [Read more]
Almanac Rugby League – There’s always next year
“What we do tonight echoes in eternity” With those immortal words, the Gladiator Russell Crowe fired up his band of underdogs to bravely take on the might of the Romans. The Gladiator of course now owns the South Sydney Rabbitohs, who with a last premiership win way back in 1971 could be put in a [Read more]
Under the Southern Cross
by John Green Who would have thought it? Richmond playing September footy. Up the escalators from Southern Cross Station. It’s the annual Eureka game honouring the birth of Australian democracy on the Ballarat goldfields in 1854 and the contribution of Australia’s workers to the development of our nation. That’s the miners, not the soldiers [Read more]
Homeground
By Andrew Starkie In September, 1991, favourites Old Collegians Warriors lost the Warrnambool and District Football League Grand Final to the Merrivale Tigers. Earlier this year, the drink company, Gatorade approached media personality, Dave Hughes, to be the ‘face’ of their marketing campaign,’Gatorade Replay’, which offers amateur sporting teams the opportunity [Read more]
Footy Pictures by Jim Pavlidis and lunch with my mum
by Yvette Wroby I love meeting the real people at Almanac events after I have read their pieces or seen their art work. There’s a community of twisted, interesting people all linked by words and creativity. So I took my Mum on Saturday to Jim Pavlidis and his fourteen wonderful, iconoclastic masterpieces. I [Read more]
Almanac Rugby League – Making the Most of a Dead Rubber
I met a couple of Canberra Raiders when I was in year one at school. It was a uniform free day and I happened to be wearing my Canberra Raiders jersey. Two up and coming Raiders players were visiting to promote Rugby League at the grass roots level. The players happened to be Ricky Stuart [Read more]
The true key to AFL premiership glory
What is the biggest guide to which club will achieve premiership success in the AFL this season? Most people would suggest winning form is the key. While those more superstitious might say that luck on the day is all that is needed? Well, it is neither of the above, nor is it anything else that [Read more]
Good signs in Galle. To be confirmed in Kandy?
The positive signs that were evident during the one-day series were on show again during last week’s morale-boosting Test win in Galle, and, despite the loss of Ricky Ponting, the Aussies will head into Thursday’s second Test in Kandy in buoyant spirits. Michael Clarke couldn’t have hoped for a better start to his permanent leadership campaign. His [Read more]
Doesn’t anyone know a Grand Final’s at stake?
For Tony Wilson and so many others, the resting of players in Round 24 had potentially dire consequences. Find out why by checking out Tony’s magnificent piece, “Doesn’t anyone know a Grand Final’s at stake?” on his website.
Football and music. Part I.
Tonight in Tassie, outside, the city streets were still with cold. Empty. Inside, sitting in the warm seaweed sway of a noisy Friday night pub, I was watching the footy on a small monitor above the wine fridge, while the band, behind me, did their thing. The football looked strange. A pocket of [Read more]
The best of 2011?
Well, folks. Here it is, the All Australian Squad for season 2011. Tell us who’s in that should be out and who’s out that should be in. And which of the 40 should make it to the final 22?
Something’s not right
by Andrew Gigacz Something’s not right. It can’t be. Not when supporters of the same footy team turn on each other. But so it was on Saturday afternoon when I joined my three mates for our regular day at a Bulldogs home game. It’s what we’ve always done; for years at Western Oval, [Read more]
Almanac Rugby League – All goes to script
So here I am, sitting in my house in Melbourne, straight off the plane from a business trip to India, with a mate from England, ready to watch a game of footy between a team from Queensland that everyone in NSW hates playing a team from NSW that everyone in Australia (outside of Manly) hates. [Read more]
Saying goodbye to the Dogs: 2011
by Kerrie Soraghan It’s the second last week of the season, and we’re at the ‘G’, watching the Dogs take on the Hawks. We’ve gone along, not thinking we’re a chance to win, but because that’s just what you do when you’re a Dogs fan. You turn up with stoicism, switch on the self-deprecating humour, [Read more]
A merger with the Cervantes Tiger Sharks
by Damian Callinan ‘Do you mind if we start another 15 late? The chef wants to do the dishes now so he can f*#k off home?’ As I changed into my costume behind the modest screen that only barely concealed me from the queue for the kitchen bain maries and didn’t at all [Read more]
Almanac Rugby League – A Day for Darren
Tickets for this match sold out weeks beforehand, in fact well before I was asked to review it for the Almanac. So I watched on the big screen in the lounge after an earlier sumptuous lunch. With pen and paper poised and radio on hand to get comments from ABC Grandstand, I was up for [Read more]











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