Almanac Footy: Umpire state of mind – A sit-down with Brendan Hosking

Brendan Hosking, the AFL field-umpire, is interviewed by Joe Sexton providing an enlightening insight into the life of an umpire.

FEARLESS 2021 – Round 11: Sir Doug Nicholls Round

Fearless Thomson offers some thoughts on the current plight of AFL umpires before reviewing Sir Doug Nichols Round.

Man Hating …… Cow

Anne Cahill Lambert is disappointed by the tired old misogynist rants towards women that have no place in today’s society, but unfortunately continue to receive media attention. [I’m with you all the way ACL! – Col]

Umpire and Fans: Yelling at the sky

Dips O’Donnell tries to unpick the latest controversy regarding umpire abuse. His advice to the people in green? Don’t take it personally, because it isn’t really about you.

Et Tactus – Tommy’s sin against the Almighty

Dips O’Donnell’s take on contact with the untouchable umpires, the ballad of Tom Hawkins and other tongue-in-cheek Shakespearean tragedies.

Raving Rulebook No.2

The Almanac’s multi-media megastar Rulebook is back with the second installment of Raving Rulebook. Now available on YouTube.

Centre Square Blues

Warren Tapner has written a poem about the art of umpiring.

Matty Q’s Footy Roundup – Round 5.

Matty Q comes off the long run with some early season observations on footy media, the deliberate out of bounds rule, and the importance of umpires being able to read minds.

Round 2 – Hits and Misses

After a big weekend of footy, Tom Riordan reviews Round 2 and what the results mean for the teams.

PB’s Rant: Lawyers and TV – the lunatics are running (ruining?) my asylum

Peter Baulderstone fires both barrels at video decision making infecting golf, cricket, footy – and society by extension. Crap decisions over the weekend and three days off the grog and sugar can make a man cranky.

The Umpire’s Alphabet

Dennis Gedling gives us a colourful acrostic poem about the under-appreciated art of football umpiring.

Almanac Umpiring: 2016 Pro-Vic Bias in Free Kicks is Getting Worse!

Davesuburban has done his homework with compelling evidence to support what we know to be true, Umpires favour Victorian teams.

My Footy Rulebook for Learning

Yoshi furthers his footy education.

Big deal: A female field umpire and a woman’s place

Somewhat surprisingly, Dave Brown was conflicted by the first appearance of a female field umpire at AFL level. How important was it really?

It’s not easy being green

Really interesting piece from an umpire’s perspective. [Excellent expose of the notion that umpires have identity, something which mainstream discourse tends to deny them – JTH]

The Monster’s Back: Afl Umpires Favour Victorian Teams: It’s A Fact

Stats eroti-a: The Suburban Boy – Dave Warner – has run the numbers and finds that Victorian sides enjoy a pretty good run off the umps, both at home and on the road.

Rules of the game – Chapter 1: OOF and DOB

Charlie Krebs fears that the average footy fan (and most commentators) are wilfully and woefully ignorant of the rules of the game. The Footy Bogan sets out on a journey of enlightenment.

AFL Finals Week 1 – Hawthorn v Collingwood (Floreat Pica): Pies with much to do

  I had a lot of doubts about this game before it started. After all we haven’t looked like beating Hawthorn both times that we met them this year. On the other hand we probably had close to the best team we have had since Luke Ball was injured. Once Paine came out and Sinclair [Read more]