Tigers rise to the occasion

I couldn’t sleep at all. I sat in bed at 1:00AM, and slowly, it crept to 4:00AM, where I finally closed my eyes for a couple of hours of shuteye. I had so many things on my minds, for some reason I was thinking about all these mathematical situations, the game between North Melbourne and [Read more]

Geoff Sinclair’s Home and Away Games- Rd 14

ROUND 14 Adelaide versus Essendon Saturday, July 3rd., AAMI Stadium, Night To: [email protected] Subject: Missing you, and Go hoT Pies My dearest Labrini Howdy Hoodoo Dear Labrini, I wish you were at Huntleigh Mews right now.  I will definately be at the airport to pick you up next Monday, fit ‘n’ Well to welcome U [Read more]

Anyone For Trugo?

Oh, the bloody agony of it. There I was, all set up for a night of enjoyable footy, optimistically  thinking that The Dons will have a real crack at it but they were pathetic. I think I missed the best part of Essendon’s challenge, the first couple of minutes .By the time I sat down [Read more]

Magpies make score board statement as Danni puts voice to paper

Apparently I have a throat infection; it’s that time of year when every one gets sick all the time. My throat feels scratched and I can’t last five minutes without having a coughing fit. In two days I’ve gone through three packets of Butter Menthols and I’m waking up crankier than normal, which trust me [Read more]

Hawks Home in a Classic

After a tiring day in Bendigo, I was ready to get home and relax on the couch. After catching the flu, I felt a little bit better but still had my worries. I didn’t know if I would be right to play footy the next morning against Waaia’s biggest rival, Katunga. That had been at [Read more]

ECHUCA, MAGPIES WIN WINTER MUD BATTLES: JULY 1960

IN the mud and slush of mid-winter 1960 Echuca and Castlemaine scored surprise victories over fancied opponents Golden Square and Sandhurst. The Advertiser’s chief football writer John Rice described the July 11th round 50 years ago as contested “on muddy battle grounds”. “Tailenders Echuca downed the Square, which was fighting for a place in the [Read more]

The aesthetics of football

The hair-cut is an often unappreciated barometer of social development. Whereas only 20 years ago, before the wholesale professionalisation of football, footballers sported the most unfashionable hair-cuts in our society, today they are at the absolute cutting edge of fashion. No successful footballer today can claim to have reached the upper reaches of excellence unless [Read more]

KEN PIESSE: FAVOURITE SONS FROM THE MID MURRAY

Sharrock, Bos, Wallis, Raines, Frèe, O’Bree, Guerra… the Central Murray region has been a goldmine for the big city clubs, some of the VFL’s very best hailing from the townships of Tooleybuc, Jerilderie, Wandella and the like. As much as I admired the prodigious punting of Sharrock and the pepper-and-salt arrogance of Raines, as smooth [Read more]

Frogs, Fevers and Footy

Trying to force the frog from my throat for the 500th time, I stretched out on the couch, annoyed that I’d caught the flu again, the third time in exactly a year. Funnily enough, I got the flu a few days after the Sydney v Collingwood game last year, whereas it has happened again. An [Read more]

Blues run away in the end

Last October, a wise group of Men chose this fixture to be a ‘Fevola goes back to Melbourne to play Carlton’ extravaganza, on a Thursday night. Unfortunately, this plan came unstuck as Fevola pulled out of the side due to a groin problem, which gave the Lions an even smaller chance to conquer against the [Read more]

THE PRE WRAP – ROUND XIV

FOR THE PHILOSOPHICAL MARNGROOK FAN What a week it’s been in Footy Eddie.  Maggot Central unleashes The Geesch.  In what would have to have been the most Kafkaesque performance ever seen on an oval field with an oval ball, the reaction to the opprobrium of their previous efforts beggared description.  Admittedly, the reaction should have [Read more]

Jabiru impressions of a stormy night

On Friday night I drove in 33 degree heat from Darwin to Jabiru. A roadhouse burger in one hand I jabbed at my crackling radio, willing it to give me some sounds of home… As night fell I found Gerard and Drew on 774 and then (when that dropped out) the genuine ‘insights’ of Rocking [Read more]

Almanac racing…MV mid-winter with the Winning Post on my mind

“I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall…” * You know its mid-winter when you donate more to MyChemist than to TAB’s MyAccount! The new “synthetic” track at Geelong is already on high rotation as dank conditions shroud Australia’s south-east. There’s little [Read more]

Can we really manage our way to footy justice?

I’ve been intrigued by the breadth of emotion following the clash of the Steves, Johnson and Baker, in last Friday night’s match at the MCG, and by subsequent events. Most particularly, I’ve been considering the effect of AFL football management style on the conduct of the game. Debate has raged over issues such as the [Read more]

Local Footy: Old Carey at head of amazing logjam

VAFA PREMIER B Old Carey 7 4 135.55 28 St Kevin’s 7 4 115.67 28 Old Haileybury 7 4 115.24 28 Old Ivanhoe 7 4 113.93 28 Oakleigh 7 4 110.65 28 St Bernard’s 7 4 107.61 28 Uni Blacks 6 5 113.73 24 Hampton Rovers 5 6 100.27 20 Old Essendon 1 10 68.38 [Read more]

That Blasted Holy Grail still in sight

When Mark Seymour scripted Holy Grail back in 1992 – just as the Cats lost the second of their four grand finals in that era (ooh, early knife there), I doubt whether he and his merry minstrels envisaged their royalty cheques skewing significantly every September over a decade later. Thanks to Channel Ten’s incessant dead-horse [Read more]

Floreat Pica Society: Round 13 v Sydney

By Tony Scully There are two things that make me nervous, One is when the word ‘Bunny’ is bandied about, the other is when the word McBurney is running about. Thus I went into Saturday night with fear and loathing. How can a side keep the sort of dominance, over another, going (home or away), [Read more]

THE PRE WRAP – ROUND XIV lite

FOR THE PHILOSOPHICAL MARNGROOK FAN What a week it’s been in Footy Eddie.  Just to prove that a week’s a long time in Footy, Footscray have a new full forward and Jana Drama, in a publicity coup reportedly underwritten by the Appalling Football League to the tune of $1.8m over two years, has been signed [Read more]

The Other Side of Soccer

I thought I’d post this piece (that I wrote in May) to give something of an antidote to the 634 problems that I’ve identified with the World Cup. The Game They Play in Tassie Chris Hudson’s A Century of Soccer, 1898-1998 is a comprehensive history of the game in Tasmania. There aren’t too many like [Read more]

UNI FOOTY CLUBS ARE UNIQUE

When Len Cuff transferred in his employment to Sydney in 1984 the former Tasmanian Amateur rep just went straight down to Sydney Uni where he found out he didn’t have to learn a new club song. The Sydney Uni victory song, “1-2-3 the uni boys are we”, “4-5-6 we got ‘em in a fix”, “7-8-9 [Read more]