Friday, February 5, 2010
The irony of the media, including Best Clubman (although it’s highly debatable that a blog with 21 daily hits qualifies us as a member of the media), this week excessively debating whether AFL players face excessive media scrutiny has not been lost on the industry... except on Mark Robinson whose Year 8 English class discussed the concept of irony a week after he dropped out of school.
What about Geelong’s Matthew Stokes? We all know what happened. Stokes was charged by police for possessing a gram of cocaine or, as it was known to Ben Cousins prior to 2009, breakfast. How do we know it? Because not an hour goes by without a new “development” in the story.
It’s almost enough to make you agree with Nick Maxwell and feel sorry for AFL players for being so overexposed. Well at least until the next time Best Clubman tries to get into Boutique by lining up like a normal person for nine hours while Leigh Brown walks straight in wearing a pair of loafers and a “Vote For Pedro” t-shirt.
Take this little nugget of information – Stokes has now left Geelong (the town, not the club) to escape the limelight. How do we know this? Because Geelong Advertiser journalists, amongst others, were lying in wait outside the home of a fringe AFL player on continuous 12-hour shifts and saw it happen.
In fairness to Stokes, the best way for young people to ensure a good night out in Geelong is to woof down a gram of coke before going back to a hotel to intravenously inject some hammer with Gary Ablett Senior. Coincidently, this is also the same way to make it through an entire episode of My Kitchen Rules without killing yourself.
What is more difficult to comprehend is Stokes’ excuse that he bought the coke for his mates and not himself, rather than let a mate with no money, reputation or profile to protect make the transaction. Closer inspection makes this excuse harder to buy than hen’s teeth, elephant tusks or a second album from Kate DeAraugo.
Luckily, by arresting Stokes, police foiled a plot between Stokes and his anonymous mates to pull a bank job where Stokes entered with nothing covering his face while his balaclava-clad mates sticky taped pictures of Stokes to their heads with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth.
Through his actions, Stokes has done irreparable damage to the Stokes name, undoing all the good work of this man in much the same way as a sex-crazy upper-class businessman from Melbourne’s leafy eastern suburbs has tainted the respected Rockefeller name forever through his desire to climb on top of a toothless northern suburbs battler while her hubby watched. Ouch. Too soon.
For those playing at home, it should be noted that the Melbourne beacon of informative, insightful and important information for the masses, the Herald-Sun, has produced a special graphic presentation on the Herman Rockefeller story, yet a rudimentary inspection of their website by Best Clubman during our lunch break couldn’t find anything similar on trivial matters such as the Copenhagen conference on climate change or a road map for peace in the Middle East. Stay tuned for your “Where Stokesy Sold The Coke” liftout this weekend. Indeed.
Moving on, in Stokes’ favour in avoiding prosecution and a possible lifetime ban from the AFL is the fact he apparently hasn’t committed a criminal offence in the past, with the possible exception of his performance in the 2008 grand final.
Not working in Stokes’ favour is his decision to turn up to this week’s committal hearing brandishing a moustache of sufficient thickness to make Tom Selleck reach for the Remington.
Not being a legal expert we can’t be sure, but Best Clubman is reasonably certain that it’s not in a defendant’s best interests to turn up to court to defend drug trafficking charges while sporting a push broom on the old top lip that makes you look like Pablo Escobar.
The only thing worse would be turning up to court to deny charges of domestic violence dressed as Matthew Newton while wearing an Andrew Lovett jumper and humming the chorus from I Can Transform Ya.
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“WHERE STOKESY SOLD THE COKE” LIFTOUT...
THE “MIDAK” ULTIMATUM...
Thursday, February 4, 2010
AFL players staging for free kicks has joined hooliganism, the growing divide between rich and poor clubs and WAGs as things from soccer that the game in this country really could’ve done without... except of course for Rebecca Twigley and that 2004 Brownlow dress.
In fact, the problem has become so bad that AFL head office have been forced to amend the rules for 2010 so that “stagers” can now be cited by umpires to face the tribunal.
As a training tool, all umpires on the AFL’s books will be trained in detecting bad acting by being forced to watch the complete first season of Hannah Montana, every KFC commercial aired in Australia since 1992, and re-runs of AFL press conferences where Andrew Demetriou insists that tanking does not exist.
While directly undermining the spirit of the game and ruining it as a spectacle, umpires also claim that players feigning for free kicks makes a job that is seemingly hard all that more difficult for a group of men whose lives are already at a disadvantage due to them being born smaller than all the other boys at school, sucking at sports at school, and having no mates as children.
The “staging” addendum to the rules of the game, to be known as the “Milne-Didak” clause or “The Midak Ultimatum”, will take effect in Round One.
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TEACHER’S MONEY...
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The one question that has occupied the minds of most people in management positions at AFL clubs is “What’s the best way to try and cover up a rape by a member of the playing group?” The second is “Are AFL players under too much scrutiny?”
While the first question has an easy answer – John Elliott organising to pay the girl off to shut her up – the second is a little more difficult to answer and is one of those annoying topics that raises its ugly head once every footy season to be debated by losers, alcoholics, the unemployed and other supporters who don’t barrack for Collingwood, the Bulldogs or Port Adelaide.
The 2010 season has already had an early dose of input into the debate, with Collingwood captain Nick “Third Man Up” Maxwell warning us that players could “walk away” if exposed to the current level of media attention they receive.
Maxwell believes the constant media glare on the movements and behaviour of AFL players away from the field places “unrealistic pressures” on the players which, presumably, is matched only by the “unrealistic salaries” they receive for working what is essentially a 20-hour week or, as it’s known by people who actually work hard for their income – teacher’s money.
''You see one bad movie and you tell 20 people about it but you see one good one and you might tell three. It is always going to make the news when negative things happen,'' Maxwell said without identifying the exact number of people disgruntled Collingwood supporters complain to when their club flops out of yet another finals series or whether the bad movie in question was a copy of the club’s insipid performance against Geelong in last year’s preliminary final.
Maxwell continued his whining by warning that it’s only a matter of time before a player quits because of all the media attention, at which point they’ll have to get by on the measly hundreds of thousands of dollars they’ve earned during their playing careers.
''You can't go out and enjoy yourself and it is frustrating and it is going to cause players to end their careers … earlier than they could have played for”, Maxwell said in what may actually have been a misinterpreted comment on coach Mick Malthouse’s boundary-hugging game plan sucking the fun and enjoyment of the game from the Magpie players.
Apparently Maxwell hasn’t taken his concerns about excessive media attention on players to the people who pay his staggering wages at the Lexus Centre, well not if the News section of the club’s website is any indication with this week’s “breaking stories” including features entitled “Magpies fly to Mansfield”, “Monday’s training session snaps” and “Snake bite stirs up Fraser’s summer”.
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SHOCKING STATISTICS...
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
As we enter the month of February, the good people at FebFast are encouraging us all to give up the booze for a month to remind us that drinking and alcoholism are not to be laughed at or admired, just like Ryan Shelton.
Like we did, you probably received an inter-office email seeking your participation in FebFast, which contained the following shocking statistics to encourage you to go dry.
• Alcohol is one of the three largest contributors to premature death in Australia, with harmful drinking killing 3,000 people every year. Ironically, it’s also the largest contributor to 50,000 Collingwood supporters having sex annually on Anzac Day and achieving conception, so every year more people are actually born than die as a result of alcohol.
• Alcohol is second only to tobacco as a preventable cause of drug-related death and hospitalisation. The top three is rounded out by watching St. Kilda since Ross Lyon became coach.
• The misuse of alcohol costs the Australian economy over $15 billion dollars each year when factors such as crime and violence, treatment costs, loss of productivity and premature death are taken into account. However, federal tax collections on pre-mixed bourbon cans in any season when Collingwood win eight or more games amount to $22 billion, providing a net positive economic result.
• 51% of alcohol consumed is drunk at levels that pose a risk of short-term harm. The other 49% didn’t occur on Carlton’s pre-Christmas booze cruise on the Yarra.
• Over 450,000 children (13%) live in households where they are at risk of exposure to binge drinking by at least one adult. Of the 87% of children not exposed, 82% have seen Brendan Fevola’s Street Talk segment from last year’s Brownlow on YouTube, meaning 95% of all children have been exposed to the harmful effects of drinking by an adult.
Shocking statistics. Perhaps the greatest shock to stun the public into action to avoid the evils of alcohol is this picture which clearly shows how booze can have a detrimental effect on one’s life. The only thing more harmful in society than alcohol are the Jews, who, as everyone knows, are “responsible for all the wars in the world”.
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YOUR AVERAGE PORN STAR V@GINA…
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Geelong superstar Gary Ablett and partner Lauren Phillips have confirmed that their relationship will join Paris Hilton’s acting career and John Terry’s marriage as things that will not continue into 2010.
Last year’s Brownlow Medal winner and his girlfriend of seven years confirmed their separation with a joint statement on Friday. "We remain close friends and will continue to support each other, and we ask that people respect our privacy at this time," the statement said.
The end of the relationship between the game’s premier player and Melbourne’s premier D-list celebrity hungry for media attention despite possessing no discernible talent, which sounds eerily similar to Best Clubman when put down in writing except for the bit about being a celebrity, is a shame as the pair had quite a bit in common, not least of which is an ability to take themselves, their relationship and their place in society ridiculously seriously to the point they felt they had to confirm their break up via a media statement.
While it is believed there are no third parties involved in the split, Ablett apparently became curious at Phillips’ insistence that the stray blonde male hairs he continually found on his girlfriend’s pillow belonged to Ablett given his dome has sported about as much hair as your average porn star vagina since going bald two years ago.
Given that Best Clubman’s longest relationship ended when the anonymous girl we’d been following got off the No. 48 tram at the corner of Collins and Williams when she noticed that the only thing more off putting than the wierdo smile we were sending in her direction was the fact our tracksuit pants were around our ankles while our todger was covered in a mixture of Vaseline and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, we’re unsure how Phillips is feeling about the break up.
However, it is hoped she isn’t experiencing some of the telltale signs of depression, such as loss of appetite, and is still gorging on food the same way she gorged on Ablett’s celebrity for the past seven years.
The end of a long-term relationship now gives Ablett one more reason to leave Geelong and accept a contract with the Gold Coast in addition to the nightlife and having to look at Cameron Ling naked in the Cats’ changerooms.
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GOLD COAST SYPHILIS…
Friday, January 29, 2010
With the possible exception of Carlton introducing compulsory drug testing for all players after Mad Monday or Andrew Lovett meeting a woman in a nightclub whose idea of a good night out doesn’t include non-consensual physical contact, there’s nothing scarier for an AFL player than the thought they may have done a serious injury.
North Melbourne’s David Hale and Jack Ziebell this week experienced that same heart-in-your-mouth feeling Best Clubman feels whenever the Herald-Sun front page contains the headline “Police close to catching kindergarten flasher” when they both suffered what were thought to be long-term injuries at training.
Hale has been cleared of serious injury after crashing into a fence at training earlier this week that resulted in his leg bone piercing the skin. Fortunately for Hale, the Kangaroos and the people at the National Hair Institute who view Hale as a walking billboard for what can be achieved with hair transplants, a tetanus shot and a course of antibiotics should see the big ruckman return to full strength by collecting less than 10 possessions and looking generally disinterested on the field by Round One.
Hale crashed into a boundary fence at the Kangaroos Arden St training ground. The laconic big man described the incident as “one of those freak things that happen in footy” just like the time he kicked eight goals on Matthew Scarlett in 2008.
After suffering a broken leg in his rookie season, young midfielder Jack Ziebell put the fear of Mathew Egan through the club’s coaching staff when he was thought to have re-broken his leg during a training drill at the club’s recent camp on the Gold Coast.
Fortunately Ziebell escaped injury and has returned to full-scale training, leaving those of us who took Brendan Fevola contracting a bad case of syphilis in the office sweep on the next major impairment suffered by an AFL player on the Gold Coast very, very thankful.
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O’BREE IN THE MIDDLE…
Tuesday, January 26, 2009
The same people who remember Nathan Buckley as a great leader during his playing days are the same people whose short memories lead them to tell anyone in earshot that AFL coverage was much better when it was on Channel 7, forgetting that towards the end of their reign, Channel 7’s commentary team regularly included Tony Shaw and Kevin Bartlett calling footage being recorded with just two black and white handheld cameras while Doug Hawkins and Dipper ran the boundary telling the audience about interchanges that occurred two quarters ago.
Similarly, the people remembering Buckley as some sort of Lee Iacocca-like management guru obviously forget that he spent most of his career berating less talented teammates for their on-field mistakes, which is perfectly understandable given Buckley spent many years of his career playing next to teammates as talented as Ben Kinnear, Andrew Pugsley and Michael Gardiner (no, the other one).
So besotted are the Pies with Buckley’s ability to become a great coach they not only offered him the head coaching job in two years time, they’ve now decided to let him take the helm during the NAB Cup while Micky Malthouse takes a spell, despite Buckley being only part way through his first pre-season in his assistant coaching role.
Fortunately for Buckley he gets the main gig in the second round of the NAB Cup should Collingwood win their first round match against St. Kilda, whose recent dominance of the Magpies promises to be a visual car crash for Pies supporters they just can’t look away from, kind of like that scene where Michael Madsen cuts off the cop’s ear in Reservoir Dogs or any scene in any film featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Collingwood’s chief of football Geoff Walsh told the media the club’s philosophy was to throw its assistant coaches in at the deep end to speed up their development. “`We saw last year that the assistants appreciate the opportunity and get a lot out of the experience, "Walsh said before adding that “Mick is still on hand to help or add something if he needs to” which would suggest that Malthouse will be on hand to offer Buckley the benefit of his 27 years of senior coaching experience with adroit moves such as “I’d throw O’Bree in the middle… seriously”.
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MOCK ENGLISH ACCENTS…
Monday, January 25, 2010
Excessive club and fan adoration and inflation of Nic Naitanui’s ability for season 2010 is a little bit like Best Clubman’s orgasm – we all knew it was coming but we didn’t expect it to arrive this early.
In fact, the only thing more predictable than West Coast fans getting firm in the pants and waxing lyrical over Naitanui is Best Clubman waxing unfunnily about intercourse through the use of tedious and tenuous analogy.
The big guy is fast becoming the most overrated commodity coming out of Perth since Jebediah bothered us with their faux rock posturing set to the sound of mock English accents in the 90s.
News just in that Naitanui will lead the Eagles’ ruck division during the NAB Cup due to an injury to first ruck Dean Cox will do nothing to stop the inertia surrounding Naitanui’s hype.
Based on last year’s performances, all Big Nic will have to do to enhance his reputation in the NAB Cup is turn up, look athletic, lose the ball attempting to bounce it before re-collecting it, rack up five touches and then head to a local disco with Karl Langdon before anyone with a postcode beginning with a 6 hails the emperor’s new clothes.
“You'd think Nic would get a fair bit of rucking (while Cox is injured). You've got to give him a bit of grace”, assistant coach Peter Sumich said.
Presumably this means West Coast supporters not having conniptions like those seen after the Hawthorn game last year when Naitanui’s three goals in the last quarter represented his total disposals for the game, one of which involved stealing the ball from Simon Murphy which is one of the few things in life easier than making gags about Tiger Woods or Scientology.
In fairness, Sumich did all he could to reduce the hype and remind West Coast supporters than Naitanui is still a work in progress. "He's going to have some pitfalls and some jump-ups, so we've just got to bear with that," Sumich said in leaving all in attendance with one last question – “What the f—k is a ‘jump up’?”
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DO THE MATH…
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Geelong has announced that Cameron Ling will join Winston Churchill and Alf Stewart as important red-headed leaders throughout history.
Unlike the British Empire in 1940 or the Summer Bay bait shop since Alf started spending too much time pulling beers at the surf club, Ling assumes the top job at a time when his organisation is at the height of its powers.
Appointing Ling as the face of the organisation could prove burdensome for the Cats as Ling’s looks may restrict the club using him in membership ads on TV during hours when people may be eating.
The new position will mean Ling conducts more interviews than in previous seasons which, given his somewhat annoying personality, means he now becomes the third most over-exposed and irritating blood nut on Australian TV at present after Jim Courier and the girl from Bardot now showing in those late night re-runs of the woeful Thorpey’s Undercover Angels airing on 7Two.
Ling got the nod ahead of the two other contenders for the position, Gary Ablett and Joel Selwood, on the basis that the other two play the ball instead of bending the rules on tagging to within an inch of their life by constantly nudging, pushing, prodding, holding and poking their opponents while the umpire is too busy bouncing the ball to do anything about it.
In reality, Ablett may have been overlooked because Geelong management were the first people to actually do the math in this article and realise that he was 18 in 2002 when he started going out with a 14-year old Lauren Phillips. Probably not the kind of guy you want in charge of your club, unless of course you're of the school of thought that thinks Dennis Ferguson would make a good skipper of an AFL club.
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ANYONE WITH EVEN A WHIFF OF RETARDATION…
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Channel 7 have pulled off a major coup in the football entertainment industry by poaching Peter Helliar from Channel Ten to host a new weekly footy program to air before its major rival The Footy Show on Channel Nine.
The last time Channel 7 lured a footballing personality over to host a new program, the viewing public shielded its eyes from the ensuring car crash that was Live and Kicking in 1998.
For Helliar’s sake it’s hoped his Channel 7 career lasts slightly longer than those of Doug Hawkins and Paul Couch who went from being highly coveted and highly paid stars with nothing of interest and/or humour to say in 1998, to filming advertisements for sewerage tanks and Geelong car dealerships by 1999, which were actually more entertaining than Live and Kicking.
Hellair became available when Rove McManus decided to discontinue his show for 2010, meaning there is actually a negative from Rove disappearing from our screens. For the sake of original, creative and, erm, funny comedy everywhere, hopefully Ryan Shelton and “Investigationing” or “Philosophisationing” aren’t part of Helliar’s deal.
In what media commentators are hilariously referring to as a “shock”, Helliar will not be doing Strauchanie, his comical alter-ego who occupies a fictional place on Collingwood’s list while spouting the one joke that stopped being funny in 2006 again and again and again.
"It is time for a fresh start to create some new characters. I would like it to be a very family-friendly show," Helliar said before revealing that he is working on 3-4 new characters, rumoured to be Strauchanie’s brother, Poochie The Dog, Steve Urkel and Strauchanie’s aunty (which is just Strauchanie wearing dress and a hi-larious pair of ladies glasses) to help him wring the last few droplets of comedy from what wasn’t a very funny joke to begin with. Well not unless you like your comedy wrapped in a blatant impersonation of David Brent from The Office.
For their part, Channel Nine are considering moving The Footy Show forward an hour but will refrain from altering the content unless Hellair’s show features men dressing as women, men dressing as 80s pop stars while miming classic 80s hits, men plugging the products and programs of anyone even closely associated with the show, or the host trawling the streets of Melbourne to interview anyone with even a whiff of retardation.
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DREW MORPHETT AND NEIL KERLEY…
Friday, January 15, 2010
After yet another season of serving up the footballing equivalent of a particularly nutty turd on a plate for its members, Richmond are down 5,400 members on the same time last year.
This is despite the fact the Tigers are actually more enjoyable to watch than St. Kilda, who won 20 games and achieved record membership levels last season on the back of a Ross Lyon-inspired game plan the visual equivalent of a particularly nutty turd on a plate.
Richmond will now start the season with two major impediments, with a major shortfall in membership joining Troy Simmonds’ career defying all logic to anyone outside of Punt Road and extending into another year as reasons the club is knackered.
The membership shortfall equates to a downturn in revenue of $1 million for the club, which in turn equates to around 2.5 years of the massively inflated contract the Tigers gave Simmonds when he came over from Fremantle at the end of 2004.
At the end of 2001, with the Tigers having just made a preliminary final and the TV rights leaving Channel 7, Best Clubman made a bet that Richmond would make a third finals series since 1982 before Drew Morphett and Neil Kerley called another AFL game on national television, which now doesn’t look all that safe with 7 set to make a bid for the TV rights in 2012 and Simmonds and Jake King likely to still be on Richmond’s list at that time.
For the sake of Best Clubman’s wallet and the viewing pleasure of the footballing public, it can only be hoped that Morphett and Kerley take too much of whatever it was that killed Brittany Murphy before 2012.
Chief executive Brendan Gale defended the club’s membership and urged fans to get on board. “We exist for our members,” Gale said in dispelling rumours that the club exists for the benefit of the joke writers on Before The Game.
Remarkably, the club had over 37,000 members last year despite its lowly status meaning that it’s the only club in the league whose mathematical chance of making the finals expires as soon as Round 1 begins or Simmonds plays his first match of the year, whichever occurs first.
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R. NAHAS…
Thursday, January 14, 2010
New Brisbane forward Brendan Fevola has been given the all-clear by Crown Casino management to attend this year’s Brownlow Medal after his shenanigans at last year’s event resulted in him losing his drink, his pants, his mates, his dignity, and, finally, his place on Carlton’s playing list. In that order.
The Lions have also sought permission for Fevola to attend bars in Ireland, use public toilets in the Chapel Street district and wear an exposed dildo in Federation Square. The outcome of these applications is unknown, although Fevola hasn’t given up hope of fulfilling his lifelong dream of pissing on a barman in Ireland while wearing a dildo.
Crown’s decision to allow Fevola to attend the Brownlow means his antics can join excessive video montages of this year’s Brownlow favourites, C-list celebrities asking E-list partners of footballers “Who are you wearing?” on the red carpet, and Andrew Demetriou’s pronunciation of “R. Nahas” as annoying events to endure on AFL’s night of nights.
Amazingly, Fevola’s former Carlton teammates Ryan Houlihan and Andrew Walker have not been so lucky and have been blacklisted from this year’s Brownlow after their run-in with Crown security after the club’s now infamous Christmas booze cruise on the Yarra in December.
In the event that Crown’s ban does not stand up in court, Houlihan and Walker will be precluded from attending this year’s Brownlow on the same basis as every other year since they’ve been in the league – ability.
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RUSLING, SEAN, STATEMENTS TO MEDIA 2005-2009…
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The only things less reliable than Scott Gumbelton’s body are Melbourne’s trains, condoms manufactured in Cambodia, and Chris Judd’s continued empty promises that player misbehaviour at Carlton is “disappointing, not on, and it’s my mission to improve it”.
Since being drafted in 2006, the promising Essendon big man has played only 5 senior matches, having succumbed to a number of major setbacks including a significant back injury, hamstring problems and being coached by Kevin Sheedy in his rookie season in 2007.
For three years Bombers management have continually told the media that Gumbelton is back in training and working his way back to fitness and a possible return to the senior side by the end of the season.
Many people in the industry have begun to think that Essendon have been taking the media and their supporters for a ride by offering a false ray of light at the end of a very long Gumbleton tunnel again and again and again. Thorough investigative journalism by Best Clubman has discovered this to be true, with the Bombers’ football department borrowing tips from Collingwood’s, if an email we intercepted from the Lexus Centre to Windy Hill with the subject “Rusling, Sean, statements to media 2005-2009” is anything to go by.
Yet again, Dons football manager Paul Hamilton has come out and told all within earshot that Gumbleton will be ready for NAB Cup selection. However, unsurprisingly, Hamilton also revealed that the club had not yet finalised a scheduled return for the lanky key position player, although May 2015 has been penciled in as a tentative return date depending on how Gumbelton’s body responds to preliminary treatment for osteoporosis and leprosy.
"He is travelling well. He is doing everything in training and he tested well, so we are happy with his progress," Hamilton said in reference to the No. 2 overall pick from the 2006 draft as journalists in attendance debated whether to place Gumbleton one spot above or below Sam Bowie in a list of the worst second picks in professional sports history. What Andrew Walker has to say about this in unknown.
Hamilton went even further, making one of those AFL management weasel word promises that all clubs make before claiming they were misconstrued weeks later.
"He'll be available for sure, but we've just got to work out how we go," Hamilton said which, in AFL speak, means the Bombers will wait and see if Gumbleton is needed urgently or whether all that pre-season training invested by the club into Jay Neagle to try and teach him to move laterally has paid off.
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DRUGS, ALCOHOL AND GAMBLING…
Sunday, January 10, 2010
When news came through that this year’s batch of AFL rookies were attending a seminar on drugs and alcohol, most people’s immediate reaction was that it was great of Ben Cousins and Brendan Fevola to agree to take the lads out one night for an evening of debauched fun that begins at Eve nightclub and ends pissing on the front window of a different nightclub in plain view of startled patrons.
Further inspection revealed that the seminar was about avoiding drugs, alcohol, gambling and the other trappings that come with being an AFL footballer that can be dangerous to one’s health, such as agreeing to appear on the panel on The Footy Show or befriending Alan Didak or Colin Sylvia.
The colloquium will be run as part of the AFL Players Association induction program with North Melbourne’s Jack Ziebell and Richmond’s Ty Vickery lecturing the 120 drafted rookies.
In addition to avoiding drugs and alcohol, Vickery will presumably provide this year’s rookies with strategies on how to avoid getting the football given that he only touched it a paltry 78 times in nine games during his rookie season.
The rookies will also attend a tutorial on cultural diversity in football to be hosted by Essendon’s Bachar Houli, Carlton’s Setanta O’hAilpin and Collingwood’s Harry O’Brien, with Houli answering questions from the crowd such as “Who are you?” and “Do you play footy?”
The final lesson will be hosted by retired Demon David Schwarz and will focus on gambling, with former Bomber Steve Alessio rounding out the two-day event with a discussion entitled “Alcohol and football – your choice”.
Those rookies choosing “football” will be sent back to their clubs to resume pre-season training, with those who elect to go with “alcohol” sent to Visy Park to train with Carlton.
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OPERATION…
Friday, January 8, 2010
People like Best Clubman, and by that we mean uncoordinated softies who’ve never played football competitively at any level yet feel it’s our right to stand at the football and question the bravery of AFL players for pulling out of a contest despite the fact we sleep with the light on and a plastic mattress protector on the bed, the former because mum kicks all night if the light is turned off and the latter because we still get night terrors about monsters, leprechauns and Dennis Ferguson hiding in our closet, often forget how difficult it must be to be a professional footballer.
You can get injured in so many ways. Last week, Hawthorn’s Brent Renouf suffered burns to his arms, legs and back that required skin grafts after being pushed into a fire on a Queensland beach. This week, West Coast’s Tim Houlihan cut his foot on broken glass at the family home in Ballarat and may have sustained ligament damage.
And don’t forget Collingwood’s Josh Fraser, whose pride suffered near-fatal damage during the trade period after the Pies thought so much of his efforts in the ruck over the last decade that they traded for Sydney’s Darren Jolly. This is in addition to Fraser having a name which is virtually impossible to pronounce when spoken quickly ten times in a row.
Making Fraser feel better is the knowledge that in the space of one week he went from being the worst first ruck in the league to being quite possibly the best back-up ruckman in the history of the game.
New North Melbourne boom recruit, Ben Cunnington, selected with the fifth pick in last year’s draft, hasn’t even played a game or completed a pre-season and he’s already been injured, with the club’s medical staff discovering a “hot spot” (or potential stress fracture) in his right foot.
Fortunately for Cunnington and the Roos, the “hot spot” was detected early, giving him a greater chance of avoiding serious long-term injury, which the club has put down to its brand spanking new medical facilities and the fact that, for the first time in its history, the cash-strapped club’s medical department consists of actual people rather than a VHS copy of the first season of All Saints and a very old version of the board game Operation left at the club by Jose Romero in the early 1990s.
Prior to the new facility opening at the end of the 2009 season, the identification of Cunnington’s stress fracture would have been left in the hands of the tarot card reader who runs a stall reading fortunes for five bucks on Wednesday mornings on Errol Street.
"We're fortunate that as a result of our new medical and conditioning structure that we've been able to pick this injury up in its early stages,'' the club’s chief of football Donald McDonald said.
The Kangaroos could use a little luck with their latest first round draft pick given Robbie Tarrant (selected with pick 15 in 2007) apparently can’t seem to change gears in his car without popping a shoulder and still hasn’t played a senior game, while Jack Ziebell (pick nine in 2008) had his rookie season ended after breaking his leg against Adelaide in Round 12.
Hopefully Cunnington makes a full recovery and prevents Roos fans from avoiding that sinking feeling in the stomach that Best Clubman always has the morning after a big night out when we wake up to find the cab driver putting his clothes back on before realising we actually had a $50 note in the back pocket of our jeans that we forgot to look for.
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ANONYMOUS COMB…
Monday, January 4, 2010
For the first time in recent memory, the eyes of the AFL world were on Carlton yesterday for a reason other than salary cap breaches, the latest Brendan Fevola drama or news that Rebecca Twigley suffered a wardrobe malfunction at the club’s best and fairest resulting in everything that should’ve been inside her bra ending up on the outside of the bra.
Okay, that last one has never happened but in the increasingly lonely world of Best Clubman, where pulling up beside a pretty girl in the car next to us at a set of traffic lights is cause for us to call our parents to say that we may have met someone, we can only hope for such good times.
The real reason for the focus on the Blues was due to the club being all set to announce the penalties it had handed down to booze-cruise louts Ryan Houlihan, Andrew Walker and Eddie Betts.
The verdict? Each player has been suspended for a month, which sounds kind of harsh at first but quite gutless in reality when you remember that the matches that matter don’t start for another 10 weeks, rendering this penalty more ineffectual than the comb Chris Judd received from an anonymous player in the club’s Kris Kringle this year.
After being allowed to train with the rest of the squad today, the three naughty boys were forced to clear their lockers and begin training with the club’s feeder team, the Northern Bullants, for the next four weeks, which sounds a lot like how Houlihan and Walker have spent most of their underperforming careers so far anyway.
Carlton president Stephen Kernahan, whose credentials for the top job don’t seem to extend beyond Dick Pratt dying and the club having not yet found a qualified replacement whose sole business experience isn’t running a sports store with Mark Arceri, announced the bans today as the Blues players returned from holidays.
For a man with such a domineering leadership presence as a player, Kernahan’s pathetic attempts at providing discipline and leadership as president are the only thing funnier than his Ray Romano-like voice.
"We know this will impact on their preparation for the home-and-way season,'' Kernahan said without mentioning that Houlihan, Walker and Betts are barely affected at all with a piecemeal punishment that sees them train with a semi-professional outfit for a month while on full pay before jumping straight back into the senior side for Round 1 given the club’s playing stocks are about as deep as an episode of Two And A Half Men.
When compared to the punishment Geelong levied to perennial bad boy Steve Johnson in 2007 for an indiscretion committed over the Christmas break, six weeks suspension during the home-and-away season, Carlton have proved yet again that they’re determined to take as many shortcuts as possible to achieve success.
It would seem that soft suspensions have replaced brown paper bags filled with sequential bills of large denominations as Carlton’s preferred means of building a premiership side.
Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of the whole fiasco is that once the suspensions were announced today, the players then attended a team meeting where the club’s leadership addressed the issue of player behaviour.
Presumably this involved the league’s most hapless captain standing in front of the group and explaining how he’s somehow managed to actually do a worse job of providing off-field leadership than he did during his time at the Eagles.
The players were then forced to watch the film Leaving Las Vegas and an episode of Californication featuring Kathleen Turner to further their education on the tragic consequences of excessive alcohol consumption.
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JOY DIVISION RECORDS ON HIGH ROTATION…
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Some things just aren’t funny. Genocide. Road fatalities. Ryan Shelton. You can add to that list rape. Sorry, alleged rape. So Best Clubman will do well to wring anything of comedic value from the latest Andrew Lovett story but we’ll give it our best shot just like Rove Live did by devoting three years of airtime to unsuccessfully try and squeeze something funny out of Ryan Shelton.
Lovett was yesterday questioned by police over rape allegations made by a woman, providing police with a statement at the South Melbourne station.
As per usual, the policy implemented by professional sporting organisations when one of their players is alleged to have committed sexual assault is to indefinitely suspend the player while presuming the accused is innocent until proven guilty and/or until the club has hired private detectives and fancy lawyers to find enough dirt on the accuser until it can be proved that she’s a slapper who brought the player’s action upon herself.
To wit, St. Kilda have indefinitely suspended Lovett, who attended yesterday’s police meet-n-greet armed with prominent barrister David Grace, who’s stored in speed dial on Lovett’s iPhone given his previous dalliances of the non-consensual kind with female suitors.
Whether Grace was the genius that orchestrated Lovett’s last defence of “it was the depression and that wot made me do it to her” is unknown but viewers of the latest farce should brace themselves for Lovett displaying the stereotypical side-effects of depression in the coming weeks, such as filling a script for Zoloft at his local pharmacy, physical evidence of possible self-harm and listening to Joy Division records on high rotation.
Police investigators questioned Lovett for two hours about the woman’s claims that she was raped in the early hours of last Thursday at a home in Port Melbourne she attended with Lovett and a teammate.
It’s been reported the woman claims to have been sexually assaulted while she was asleep, which comes as news to Best Clubman where, in our experience, the woman usually goes to sleep during the sex and not before.
Whatever happened, the public and those trying to milk the incident for column inches, such as Best Clubman, should take a back seat and let the right and proper authorities – the police, the courts and posters on Big Footy – speculate and discover the truth.
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CRAIG PARRY…
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Since agreeing to come out of retirement to coach the new Western Sydney franchise, coaching legend Kevin Sheedy has fielded queries about his sanity and fitness for the role.
Questions about Sheedy’s sanity stem from the fact the only people who voluntarily agree to move to Western Sydney are usually doing so to be close to a methadone clinic. While Sheedy’s fitness has become a hot topic given he’s about six more months of solid eating away from having Craig Parry’s body.
Sheedy has taken the criticism about his fitness to heart, embarking on a grueling fitness campaign to shed the extra kilos for what he has called “the toughest” challenge of his coaching career. This comes as news to most observers who had assumed drafting Kepler Bradley at number six was Sheedy’s most significant coaching obstacle.
A jibe from AFL legend Ron Barassi about his girth has prompted Sheedy to lose 5kg in recent months by training for two hours a day and hitting the gym five times a week. Such a rigorous training regime has resulted in Sheedy logging up more hours on the track than Stuart Dew and Nick Stevens managed to accrue between 2001 and 2009.
Having turned 62 last week, Sheedy is barely even taking a break from his fitness campaign over Christmas, only stopping briefly to celebrate with his family, who must be thrilled daddy has decided to up and move the family to one of the few areas of Australia with a crime rate within two-and-a-half standard deviations of Footscray’s mean.
“I wanted to take a break because I've been training hard for the past 12 months. I dropped (lifted) 165 (pounds) the other day,” Sheedy said in describing a meeting at AFL headquarters where he was required to lift up Andrew Demetriou’s jowls off the floor and back onto their usual resting place on the table.
"I'm hanging in there. It's about wellbeing and my personal health. Not just losing weight, I'm trying to put it back on where it used to be."
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AS THE FRENCH LIKE TO CALL IT…
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Next season is a big year for Carlton. The Blues are kind of like that weedy kid in high school with the athletic ability of Marlon Brando, the Apocalypse Now version not the Streetcar Named Desire version, who despite their parents spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on expensive sporting equipment and specialist coaching, still sucks at sports.
In spite of the ridiculous number of high draft picks and free-agents obtained by virtue of them having the first pick in several pre-season drafts, Carlton still remain half-finished in the way most Melbournians hoped Federation Square was in 2001 when it opened only to have it dawn on us as the years progressed that, nope, that seems to be it.
In addition to glaring holes in the forward line and the lack of any sort of defensive accountability since Anthony Franchina pinched his last opponent, Carlton’s premiership prospects now face an off-field discipline issue, with several of its players involved in incidents in recent years.
The latest scrap involving Ryan Houlihan and Andrew Walker engaging in a brawl at Crown Casino has prompted Carlton CEO Greg Swann to dish out $5,000 fines to each player. Swann described the players’ actions as “unacceptable” before not stating that drunk and socially appalling behavior by Carlton players isn’t funny unless there’s a dildo involved or if it’s being recorded for Street Talk.
Houlihan and Walker were disciplined after being evicted from Crown’s Promenade Hotel after a fight with hotel staff, who were just as surprised as the rest of us non-Carlton supporters that Houlihan and Walker were still even playing AFL football.
It’s reported the two players returned to the hotel foyer with a female companion in what may have been the precursor to the timeless AFL tradition of “spitroasting” or, as the French like to call it, “le spitroasting”.
According to sources present, which is tabloid journalism code for someone who walked into the foyer 15 minutes after the incident occurred and heard the story from a vision impaired Chinese cleaning lady at the end of her shift, one of the players was arguing with the women before a fight broke out between the teammates with hotel security getting involved and police arriving as the fight was brought under control.
What is not known at this point is whether the argument between the players was due to each providing a different hypothetically workable emissions trading scheme, with Houlihan taking umbrage at Walker’s suggestion of a 15 percent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels.
However, given this was an argument between two AFL footballers, it is distinctly possible that the bone of contention may simply have whose boner got first contention in the impending ménage a trios. Zing. Christ, that was terrible.
The latest brouhaha at Crown involving AFL footballers has led to the usual wowsers demanding that AFL players be banned from the casino complex. Calls for a blanket ban seem premature given the number of AFL player-related incidents at Crown in 2010 is likely to fall from this year for no other reason than Brendan Fevola is now living in Queensland.
In unrelated news, Jupiters Casino have decided to hire 1,200 additional security guards and cover all glass in the complex with a special urine-proof protective film.
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TEGAN AND SARA, ROSIE O’DONNELL AND ELLEN DEGENERES…
Saturday, December 19, 2009
A curse has to go out to the sub-editors at the Herald-Sun for avoiding the usage of any number of double-entendres in the wake of Collingwood’s crafty forward Brad Dick requiring a shoulder reconstruction. Shame on you sirs.
If it were up to Best Clubman, in that infinite time we spend at our desk not doing work while thinking about Megan Fox dressed up as Princess Leia from Return Of The Jedi while baking gingerbread men and dancing to the Macarana, we would’ve come up with smutty banners such as “Injured Dick”, “Pies Take Dick Out For Six Months”, “Dick Needs Surgery”, “Sick Dick”, “Ouch, Dick Hurts” or “Malthouse Loses Dick” (tee hee…). But hey, that’s why we’re not gainfully employed as a sub-editor.
Dick injured his shoulder during Collingwood’s now annual training camp in Arizona, which for once should stop the Magpies banging on about how beneficial the trip is every year. However, it’s certainly not the first time an end-of-season AFL trip has ended with an injured dick (tee hee…).
Dick had reconstructive surgery on Wednesday which “went well” according to club doctor Ruben Branson. But he would say that wouldn’t he. Ever heard a club official say the surgery went badly? If you believe Geelong management, every Matthew Egan surgery “seems to have corrected the problem”. Meanwhile poor old Egan is being operated on with a stanley knife by Dr. Nick Riviera and hasn’t played a game in over two seasons.
It’s a shame for little Dick (tee hee…) that he has suffered another setback after undergoing a knee reconstruction and missing the entire 2008 season. He seems like a great kid and was one of the few Magpie forwards who came out of his skin (tee hee…) and turned it on in the finals. His vital third quarter goals against Adelaide helped start one of the greatest finals comebacks of recent times and thrust (tee hee…) Collingwood into the preliminary final.
For Collingwood, the injury comes at a bad time and puts added pressure on renowned finals flops (tee hee…) Alan Didak and Leon Davis to contribute goals in the big games. Hopefully for the Pies’ sake, they’ll avoid the lesson learned by Tegan and Sara, Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres – life’s not the same without Dick (tee hee…).
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CHESTAL GRAIN SILOS…
Friday, December 18, 2009
The world isn’t perfect. In a perfect world, Trinny’s pretty face would sit perched above Susannah’s bountiful bosom. Instead, Trinny gets around with a pair of A cups while the pug-faced Susannah carries around the equivalent of two grain silos on her chest.
In a perfect world, Best Clubman would’ve returned home from our two week holiday from Thailand armed with a non-English speaking wife whose sole purpose is to please us with what she calls “suki-suki” in very broken English. Instead, all we came home with was a nasty bout of mouth warts contracted from putting the table tennis balls used during the floor show at the Spearmint Rhino in downtown Bangkok in our mouth in the mistaken belief they were some sort of Asian brand of really large Mentos lollies.
And in a perfect world, people would stop feeling sorry for Hawthorn’s Trent Croad and recognise him for what he is – the greatest defensive fraud in the modern history of AFL. Instead, non-Hawthorn fans have been forced to endure constant whining from our Hawthorn friends about poor ol’ Croady and a myth has been doing the rounds that Croad is one of the best defenders of his generation due to his courage in playing on with a broken foot in the 2008 grand final.
While missing all of 2009 with a broken foot and this week suffering even more complications in the healing process is bad news for Croad, fans need to put the Hawk defender’s career in perspective and realise that this is a guy who’s had more than his fair share of luck.
After being drafted at the end of 1997, Croad created quite the life for himself. By 2001 he was on the cover of the Herald-Sun sports section sitting atop his expensive European sports car while telling us all of his interest in purchasing investment properties. This is despite Croad having the IQ of a member of the Kardashian family but with less knowledge of how to actually play the position of centre-half forward.
And, if popular rumours are to be believed, which they most certainly are, Croad was so popular with the dames in the nightclubs that he was forced at one point to implement a ticketing system not too dissimilar to that used at your local supermarket deli in order to service his lady admirers.
Hell, Croad even managed to overcome the significant impediment of being traded to Fremantle in exchange for the draft rights to Luke Hodge and found himself back at Hawthorn by 2005 and in a premiership by 2008.
As if all that isn’t enough, Croad managed to squeeze in All-Australian honours in 2005 after being reborn as a key defender despite the rather obvious facts that his team won a paltry five games during a season when he really didn’t do that well on opposition key forwards if performances on Barry Hall (who kicked 3.5 in Round 1), Matthew Richardson (3.2 in Round 2; 4.2 in Round 21), Saverio Rocca (5.2 in Round 6), Chris Tarrant (3.0 in Round 10), Fraser Gehrig (6.0 in Round 12), Warren Tredrea (7.0 in Round 13), Kent Kingsley (4.1 in Round 14) and Daniel Bradshaw (5.0 in Round 19) are anything to go by anyway.
Yet somehow Croad claimed All-Australian when, staggeringly, Essendon’s Dustin Fletcher only has two All-Australian caps despite being the premier defender in the game over the past 15 seasons. Even more unfathomable is that Max Hudghton and Simon Prestigiacomo have exactly zero All-Australian belts between them in spite of both men regularly conceding fewer than 25 goals in entire seasons.
So if your garden variety Hawthorn supporter tells you to feel sorry for Croad and his latest setback and bang on yet again about his 2008 grand final heroics, remember to tell them Croad is well in the black over the course of his career in terms of luck.
Then point out that his “playing on” with a broken foot actually constituted laying a tackle one second after breaking the joint before leaving the field which, while no doubt gutsy and well beyond the pain threshold of someone like Best Clubman who becomes squeamish at the prospect of a mild dose of constipation, is hardly Rick McCosker returning to the crease in the Centenary Test to bat with a broken jaw.
The harsh reality is that the best thing Croad did in the 2008 grand final was leave the field when his club was actually behind and the only thing preventing the game from being a blowout by Geelong at that point was the repeated inaccuracy of the Cats key forwards in front of goal who, it should be noted, were dealing with Croad’s “defensive” pressure much like Michael Jordan used to handle Craig Ehlo in the playoffs.
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THE HOT BREAKFAST…
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Defending the indefensible can be a tough job. Anyone who’s seen Andrew Demetriou front the media and claim that tanking does not exist knows that. So kudos to Collingwood president Eddie McGuire for attempting to defend his integrity in the face of several hecklers at the club’s annual general meeting last night.
Confronting his detractors face-to-face is a new experience for McGuire, whose usual method of responding to even minor questions about his leadership is to resort to petty cheap shots delivered through one of his various media outlets.
Given the latest ratings for The Hot Breakfast are only just above Yasmin’s Getting Married levels, McGuire may have one less forum for launching tirades against his critics in 2010.
The brouhaha started when several Magpies members from the 500 present had the temerity to actually ask questions from the floor at the annual general meeting, which is in direct breach of McGuire’s Pay Your Money And Shut Up membership policy installed when he took over in 1998.
Surprisingly, the greatest concern of Collingwood members wasn’t the fact the club has won precisely zero premierships since McGuire assumed the reins. Rather, the Magpie diehards are worried about senior management making decisions without the consultation of the rank-and-file membership base.
Decisions such as the appointment of Winter Olympian Alisa Camplin to the board and the creation of the Richard Pratt Cup for games against Carlton were made without members’ approval. Whether this is grounds for impeachment of McGuire is unlikely.
The Camplin appointment should be applauded for what it is – a gross act of tokenism in redressing perceptions of gender imbalance in the game. But the creation of the Pratt Cup seems a mystery given Australia’s favourite corporate criminal had absolutely nothing to do with Collingwood besides selling the club recycled cardboard boxes at an inflated price pre-determined in high level meetings between Visy and Amcor. Presumably, the Pratt Cup will see Collingwood and Carlton agree to collude and fix the scores in their two matches each season.
"I think there was a certain lack of respect tonight, which I was personally disappointed about," McGuire said. “The respect that was not shown to the position as president of the Collingwood Football Club was disappointing. I am big enough and ugly enough to look after myself”, he continued before doing that thing where he says criticism of himself is water off a duck’s back before he responds with name calling and taunts not usually seen beyond a primary school playground.
"But I won't ever let people denigrate our club, our guernsey, the servants of our club and certainly not the position of the board or the presidents of the football club”, McGuire whined with a statement that didn’t rule out anyone denigrating Alan Didak.
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“AN EYE FOR AN EYE… OR A SPILLED POT”…
Sunday, December 13, 2009
There’s not much to hate about Collingwood midfielder Scott Pendlebury. He’s smooth, silky, and wins his own ball. In addition to these positive traits, Pendlebury also shares one characteristic with Best Clubman – he’s rubbish at fighting. Well, at least according to reports coming out of Eastern Victoria in the early hours of today anyway.
In fairness to Pendlebury’s fighting ability, his assault last night outside of a hotel in Lakes Entrance in East Gippsland was the result of being king hit from behind. Given that he was not already lying defenceless on the ground when the attack occurred, police have ruled out Carlton’s Setanta O’hAlpin as a suspect.
Although, as the assault occurred in a gutless fashion from behind, an all points bulletin has been issued by the fuzz for Bomber legend Matthew Lloyd who specialised in “accidentally” making forceful contact on oncoming defenders intent on spoiling.
In reality, which is increasingly becoming an increasingly hazy concept for Best Clubman given our penchant for taking Percodan and playing dress-ups while wearing a plastic nappy during our encounters with ladies of the night, police have arrested a 20-year old Lakes Entrance man over the assault.
The alleged offender is set to face the Bairnsdale Magistrates Court in 2010, which is newsworthy for no other reason than most people were previously unaware that Gippsland has a judicial system of any kind beyond “an eye for an eye… or a spilled pot”.
The assault occurred as Pendlebury left the Central Hotel in Lakes Entrance, with the young midfielder’s head hitting the pavement after being knocked out cold. Fortunately Pendlebury’s pedophile-like moustache braced his fall and didn’t result in a terrible brain injury that would have made him the second person to play at AFL-level despite significant cerebral impairment after Brendan Fevola.
Actually, that last gag has been used by Best Clubman at least three times this year so maybe it’s us who has the cereal repairedment.
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DIET GERVAIS…
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Life provides certain indicators that tell us when milestones have been achieved and lines have been crossed. For example, the first sign that you’ve entered middle-age is your purchase of the latest Powderfinger album. Or the last three before that, mind.
Another example? The red flag that tells you that you’ve just lost your sense of humour is finding yourself laughing at a skit from Ryan “Diet Gervais” Shelton who, with the impromptu retirement of Rove McManus, now assumes the mantle of the least talented performer on Australian television who isn’t a part of the Newton family.
Similarly, the signal that you haven’t made the most of your post-AFL career and hit upon harder times surely has to be driving a milk truck in Sydney while awaiting trial on charges of fraud and forgery. If the sad and worsening story of Daryn Cresswell is any guide anyway.
Amazingly, it’s only six years since the former Swans onballer retired from the game after 244 reasonably solid matches. Or was that stolid? Even more amazingly, it’s only three years since Cresswell was an assistant coach at Brisbane and thought to be a future senior coach. And perhaps even more amazingly, by 2009 it’s Cresswell who finds himself a declared bankrupt and $700,000 in the hole due to a gambling problem and not David Schwarz.
During his career, Cresswell made the most of limited ability to become one of Sydney’s greatest ever midfielders due to what was widely perceived as having a pretty wise head on his shoulders. Now, as he sits at his lowest ebb and contemplates time in the big house, the only solace Cresswell can find is that this is Australia and if a man with limited ability can’t return and make something of himself and find success and wealth here then he can’t do it anywhere. Just look at Ryan Shelton.
Whether Cresswell can foresee brighter days ahead is doubtful. Serious criminal charges and a possible stint in jail are no laughing matter. Just like a segment of “Investigationing” or “Philosophisationing”.
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JULES LUND…
Friday, December 4, 2009
Much like Best Clubman walking past a primary school, kindergarten, child care centre or community park is a prompt for mothers everywhere to dial 000, the prospect of watching a game featuring St. Kilda since Ross Lyon took over as coach is a subliminal cue to go out and purchase a packet of No-Doz, two slabs of Red Bull and some prison-strength amphetamines.
While the Saints somehow managed to win 20 games during the 2009 home and away season, they were as entertaining to watch as a conversation featuring Philip Ruddock. Nevertheless, St. Kilda management has decided to re-sign Lyon for an additional three years until the end of 2012 or until such time as the Saints score over 100 points in a game, whichever comes first.
The new contract will ensure Lyon becomes the second longest serving St. Kilda coach of all time after Alan Jeans, which is almost as staggering as Ruddock becoming Australia’s third-longest serving federal parliamentarian in February next year.
Much like Micky Malthouse, Lyon seems adept at getting the most out of a subpar list. Much like Micky Malthouse, Lyon came within two kicks of coaching his team of battlers to a premiership over the dominant club of that epoch. Much like Micky Malthouse, Lyon seems to retain an amazing degree of support from his club and its supporters which, when added to the example of Jules Lund, provides further proof that some things are inexplicably popular.
"I feel extremely privileged to be coaching at St Kilda and consider it an honour to be presented with the opportunity to lead the club as senior coach for at least another three seasons," Lyon banged on as Saints members quietly ducked out to grab copies of the Bible, the latest Specky Magee opus, and the A-K of the White Pages to read while enduring another turgid Saints home game in the next three years.
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3-PARK SUPERPASS...
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
With Waverley Park discontinued as an AFL venue in 1999, the number of cavernous, difficult to get to stadiums with distances between spectators and the playing field akin to a small fun run has remained at one – Adelaide’s Football Park.
Those unfortunate enough to have attended a match at the home of the Crows and the Power will know that the only trip more indirect in the game at present is St. Kilda’s movement of the ball towards goal under Ross Lyon. Somewhat remarkably, a weekender to Adelaide to watch your team on a road trip is actually the only thing more boring than watching the Saints and their chippity chip game plan.
So good news is afoot for football fans in Adelaide with the announcement that the much more central and conveniently located Adelaide Oval is to be upgraded to host AFL matches within five years. The renovations will take the number of tourist attractions in the city up to three, with Football Park combining with the Museè Du McLeod’s Daughters and the water fountain in Rundle Mall to offer a 3-Park Superpass.
The cost of the upgrade is set at $450 million, which is roughly equivalent to $10 in Melbourne money, and will see seating capacity increase to 50,000 to enable the Power to increase the average number of empty seats at non-Showdown home games to 44,000.
All Crows and Power home games in the regular season will be moved to Adelaide Oval while Football Park will be maintained for NAB Cup matches, SANFL fixtures and as the Crows training facility. Port Adelaide will keep their spiritual home at Alberton Oval, while the Crows will still use a discarded bank vault in Snowtown as theirs.
Raising the funds for such a massive expansion to what is one of the best Test cricket venues in the world will be no easy task, with the South Australian government chipping in $300 and the Federal Government topping up the remaining $150 by agreeing to pull back the planned introduction of the internet in South Australia by 15 years.
In the event of cost blowouts during production, any funding shortfall will be covered with money raised from the unclaimed pensions of disabled people who have “mysteriously” vanished in the Hills area of Adelaide.
Current Crows chief executive officer Steven Trigg took time out from being a tosser who uses a string of management buzz words in order to illustrate a relatively simple point about his perception of a Melbourne-centric bias in all AFL decision-making to offer his support for the planned upgrade.
"This investment provides significant potential for the Adelaide Football Club and football generally," Trigg said. His Port Adelaide counterpart Brett Duncanson was equally as excited and that moving from Football Park is a step in the right direction for the embattled club, maybe even more so than finally delisting Toby Thurstans.
"Our fans will be very excited by the opportunity for the Port Adelaide Football Club to play in a city stadium," Duncanson said before unveiling a comprehensive campaign aimed at educating the notoriously uneducated and uncouth Power supporters in the nuances of how to use some of the newer features of the renovated Adelaide Oval that your average Power supporter may be unfamiliar with, such as seats and toilets.
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“THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID”…
Saturday, November 28, 2009
New Collingwood midfielder Luke Ball has described his drafting by Collingwood as a “huge relief” after an uncertain six week period where he faced the prospect of being forced to join Melbourne, a punishment prohibited by the Geneva Convention against prisoners of war.
Ball’s is very glad his search for an organisation even less successful than his former club St. Kilda has been over the past 50 years ended at the Magpies rather than at Melbourne, the Western Bulldogs or working in the public relations department at the Church of Scientology.
Despite having been a former captain and All-Australian at St. Kilda, as well one of the Saints better players in this year’s narrow grand final loss to Geelong, Ball requested a trade to Collingwood after falling out with coach Ross Lyon.
Unfortunately for Ball, his path to the Magpies was complicated by the fact the two clubs could not agree on a trade. Whereas the Saints wanted something of value in exchange for their key midfielder, Collingwood offered a mid-range draft pick and Tyson Goldsack which is a bit like turning up to a property auction in South Yarra armed only with three magic beans and an old copy of the Sale Of The Century board game to play at home as your only forms of remuneration.
With clubs such as Melbourne and Essendon having several draft selection before Collingwood’s first pick at 30, few people other than the Magpies and Ball thought he would still be available at such a late stage of the draft.
With Ball’s salary demands putting him out of the financial reach of most clubs and Melbourne deciding to pursue a youth policy, Ball ended up going later than a recently married Irish Catholic woman’s period. Zing.
An earlier version of this joke had it that Ball joining Shane O’Bree and Tarkyn Lockyer in Collingwood’s midfield made the Magpies’ on-ball brigade slower than the menstrual cycle of a recently married Irish Catholic woman’s period, until we realised that this made no sense. Or does it? Not really within our field of expertise.
"It's a huge relief to have it over and done with," Ball said at a media conference at the Lexus Centre as Best Clubman yelled out “that’s what she said” in reply to prove that we can actually sink lower than jokes about periods.
Ball watched the draft at home on his couch with former St. Kilda Matt McGuire, who also found a new home with Brisbane. Neither player would confirm they flicked between the draft coverage and the concurrent episode of Big Bang Theory airing on Channel 9 to see which was the more boring audio-visual experience.
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OBLIGATORY HILARIOUS FEV DILDO…
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Brisbane have hired security guards to spy on new recruit Brendan Fevola at his farewell party in Melbourne. The Lions obviously don’t trust the normal method people use for tracking the behavior of D-list celebrities – seeing if anyone sold graining footage of improper behaviour taken on a mobile phone to the Confidential section of the Herald-Sun.
To insure itself against yet another scandal featuring its new property, Brisbane hired two security guards to sit clandestinely nearby and observe Fevola’s behaviour while socialising with former Carlton teammates. At the time of print it could not be ascertained if the obligatory hilarious Fev dildo was invited to the farewell drinks.
The Lions’ sneaky efforts represent the first time in history that security guards have been employed to keep Fevola inside a venue, as opposed to their usual role in being remunerated for turfing Fevola out onto the footpath after another “bathroom malfunction”.
Amazingly, sources claim that Fevola was not aware of the presence of two burly security men tailing his every move until one of his former teammates enquired who the men were. Presumably Fevola assumed they were just the regular Hells Angels that follow him to chase a debt.
It is believed that Fevola made a phone call once he became aware of the security guards to check on why they were there. Unfortunately Fevola was in Brownlow Medal night form and attempted to make the call with Ryan Houlihan’s shoe, although Chris Judd was kind enough to hand Fev his iPhone, at which point the burly full-forward was informed that new coach Michael Voss had hired the security guards to prevent people from hassling him.
At the risk of repeating an earlier quip, this represents the first time in history that security guards have been employed to keep Fevola from being hassled by innocent bystanders, as opposed to preventing Fevola from applying pressure point tactics to whoever happens to be walking past when the mood should strike the great man.
The evening passed without incident with Fevola’s wife Alex picking him up at 6.30pm to take him back to the family trailer. It’s not known how the obligatory hilarious Fev dildo got home.
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“SMOKESCREEN”…
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Since Matthew Knights took over as Essendon coach at the end of 2007, news of a Bombers player aged 25 or over leaving the club comes as less of a surprise than using Google Earth to find your home only to zoom in to street level and find Shane Warne on top of your wife while you were at work.
So it is that utility Adam McPhee, aged 27, has decided to head back to his original club Fremantle after seven seasons at Essendon, leaving Bomber midfielder Mark McVeigh none too pleased.
McVeigh’s beef with McPhee stems not from his decision to leave, but more to do with the timing and the reasons offered, with McVeigh labeling McVeigh’s decision to leave due to his friendship with Fremantle coach Mark Harvey a “smokescreen”.
In McPhee’s defence, moving to the hapless Dockers, who have very little chance of making only their third finals series in their disastrous 15 seasons, makes sense to anyone with a regular job. While the Bombers continue to climb the ladder and play in finals, Fremantle start their holidays one month earlier every year. Think about it, you get paid the same amount for working less. Makes sense.
In reality, McPhee walking out on Essendon just as they ascend the ladder after four dismal seasons, only to suit up for Fremantle as they embark on yet another four year period of rebuilding pain, does seem a bit strange and is a bit like Pete Best doing one from The Beatles to start Pete Best & The All Stars. As we know, Ringo went on to get the money, adulation and women his talent didn’t really deserve, while Best went on to work at Woolworths and attempt suicide. Ouch.
"It was a real surprise and we would have liked to have known earlier and maybe we could have got something for him", McVeigh said before not adding “as long as it wasn’t Kepler Bradley”.
"I've read in the papers that he's great mates with Mark Harvey which I find a bit hard to believe," he added in a glowing endorsement of Harvey’s attributes as a person.
Knights is now growing quite a back catalogue of club stalwarts who don’t seem to rate his attributes as a person, with McPhee joining Matthew Lloyd, Scott Lucas, Damian Peverill, Mark Johnson, Jason Johnson and Mark Bolton as senior players not in the coach’s grand plans since taking over two years ago. Although with Bolton it’s easy to see Knights’ point.
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WORST FOOT SKILLS…
Friday, November 13, 2009
The news of Richmond superstar Matthew Richardson’s retirement has hit most Tiger people hard given that, for most of Richo’s playing career during the 90s and early millennium, the club enjoyed about as much success as Mel and Kim over the same timeframe.
Watching the great man take spectacular pack marks and kick 800 goals was the only enjoyment supporters had with the exception of Justin Plapp’s very strong finish to the 1998 season.
The loss of the club stalwart has been somewhat easier for former coach and playing legend Kevin Bartlett who at the age of 21 had to deal with the loss of his ability to tackle, handball and grow hair. Nevertheless, Bartlett came out this week to express his remorse that Richo was never made skipper of the once proud club.
“It's a great shame he was never made skipper,” Bartlett said. “I'm certain he thought it would have been a great honour, and it would have been, but that honour is now dead”. Much like Bartlett’s chances of getting another job as an AFL coach.
Richardson’s best chance of gaining the job as captain appeared to be at the end of 2004, when former captain Wayne Campbell retired to be replaced by Kane Johnson in what appeared to outside observers as a secret club policy to hand the captaincy to the player on the list who had the worst foot skills. Although this rumour doesn’t stand up to scrutiny when it’s remembered that Steven Sziller, Chris Bond and Paul Broderick never skippered the club.
While most impartial observers rightly assumed Richo was never given the captain’s job due to his inconsistent on-field emotions, Bartlett believes the key forward should have been given the mantle based on his services to the club.
“I thought a couple of years years back the club should have recognised his tremendous contribution to the club,” Bartlett said without going on record as saying that the biggest favour the club could have done Richo was trading him to a team that actually had a chance of making the finals more than twice between the years 1992 and 2009 rather than awarding him the title of captain.
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TRADE BAIT…
Sunday, October 18, 2009
For most people, the cost of courting Brendan Fevola is waking up with a bad case of gonorrhea a few days later. For the Brisbane Lions, the cost of luring the wayward one into their lair has been veteran full-forward Daniel Bradshaw.
After being offered as bait for Fevola during trade week after 14 seasons of loyal service, Bradshaw has decided that, unlike his Jack Nicholson-like exceedingly high hairline, which has gone nowhere since he debuted in 1996, he may be on the move.
The Fevola trade has been controversial for a number of reasons including Bradshaw’s hurt at being offered to Carlton in the first place, Lions midfielder Michael Rischitelli not wanting to leave the sunshine state, and the AFL announcing that an investigation has been launched into an alleged sexual assault made by Fevola on a Herald-Sun journalist at the now infamous Brownlow Medal evening, which has the potential to result in a lengthy off-field spell if proven.
But perhaps the only bigger surprise than all this is the fact Carlton would offer a soon to be 31-year old full-forward with a reconstructed knee a three-year deal. Then again, we shouldn’t be too surprised given that this is the club that allowed a comatose Micky Martyn to run around in 2003 with all the mobility of a Hummer to fulfill his dream of reaching 300 games while playing fullback for the worst team in the competition.
Bradshaw’s agent Colin Young confirmed to the media that Bradshaw’s nose, much like his creaky knee, has been put out of joint by the events of the last fortnight.
"He's rejected a contract from the Brisbane Lions to have a look at what's around," Young said. "He didn't know until the Wednesday (of trade week), so if you were 30 years of age and had four children how would you feel?”
The arrival of Bradshaw onto the free agent market now doubles the list of elderly forwards with decrepit bodies seeking a new home. In Bradshaw’s favour for landing another job is that, as opposed to ex-Tiger Nathan Brown, he’s at least played in one final since the year 2000.
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MAD MONDAY DILDO…
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Revelatory claims made by Brendan Fevola on Melbourne radio have shown that the former Carlton full-forward sought a last-minute trade to arch-rival Collingwood after a potential swap to the Brisbane Lions in exchange for Daniel Bradshaw and Michael Rischitelli fell over late on the Thursday night of trade week.
Fevola made it known that, in an effort to stay in Melbourne and extend his list of off-field misdemeanours at popular nightspots around town, he rang Collingwood president and good friend Eddie McGuire in an effort to create the most annoying and hated pairing in Australian culture with the exception of the unlikely possibility of Stephen Milne joining the cast of Rove.
"It (the initial trade deal to the Lions) did fall over on the Thursday night, I got a call late that night," Fevola told Triple M, mentioning that it was lucky his phone was on vibrate at the time as he would have never heard it inside Spearmint Rhino.
Revealing the anguish that players shopped around in trade week go through, Fevola said "It's a terrible week to be a part of, I never thought I would be a part of it. I think Friday, about 10am, the deal was off and I rang you (McGuire) and said: 'See what the Pies can do because I think it's over'."
Why Fevola ever thought Collingwood would take him is a mystery given the Pies’ raft of young key position forward talent, although Travis Cloke’s 2009 season may shed some light on the matter. Perhaps Fevola was assuming that trades for Jarrod Molloy, Carl Steinfort, Chad Rintoul and Chad Morrison in the past decade was an indication that Collingwood are prepared to offer anyone in their late 20s a deal.
McGuire took time out from plotting to take over the world to confirm that the Magpies were indeed interested in Fevola’s proposal. "We were into it, but they (Carlton) wouldn't deal,'' he said in adopting the same attitude that ex-Mrs. Best Clubman had when we dared bring up the idea of employing sodomy in the bedroom in order to re-stoke what was by then a smouldering relationship.
After a busy and emotionally draining week, Fevola appeared happy to have landed in Brisbane to join what seems to be a team on the rise after its first finals appearance in five years this season.
“It would have been nice to stay in Melbourne, but that's the beauty of our game, it's a national game and you can go anywhere,” Fevola said without audibly expressing his relief at moving to a state much closer than Victoria is to countries without extradition treaties with Australia should this investigation into an alleged sexual assault on a female Herald-Sun journalist on Brownlow night go sour.
With the trade having been completed and everyone attempting to begin new phases of their lives, Fevola has started looking for a home in Brisbane and met some of his new teammates at a barbecue at new captain Jonathan Brown’s house. Brown’s response when Fevola turned up to the barbecue armed with the dildo from Mad Monday as a house warming gift is unknown.
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YANKEE DOODLE DANDY…
Tuesday, October 12, 2009
You have to feel for Luke Ball given his run of outs in the last three weeks. Fresh from missing out on a premiership by two goals, Ball was faced with the knowledge that he remains on the outer with St. Kilda for reasons unknown by anyone who isn’t Ross Lyon, having been offered what by all reports is a relatively paltry contract for a former All-Australian in his prime who managed to accrue over 20 possessions in a grand final despite playing less than 50 percent of game time.
At the beginning of the season Ball was widely considered an A-grade player, only to see his career options dissipate quicker than Macaulay Culkin’s after Home Alone 2.
Then, to make matters even worse, his dream move to Collingwood was scuppered, a team with loyal fans that plays to packed houses every week and has a decent chance of winning a premiership in the next three seasons.
The final nadir for Ball came last weekend, with confirmation Richmond and Melbourne, the worst two teams in the competition, are keen to select him in the upcoming drafts with one of their raft of high draft picks obtained from years of fielding teams with Jake King and Paul Johnson in them.
This final piece of news has Ball reading up furiously on the rules of free agency and contacting Slater & Gordon to pursue the merits of a restraint of trade claim against the AFL and its antiquated trading rules, which make player movement slightly more difficult than a bowel movement the day after eating a sack of potatoes.
And all because Ball, known to be one of the league’s good guys with genuine leadership skills, has a relationship with Lyon that seems to be going about as well as an Ike Turner marriage.
One piece of good news for Ball is the announcement from the Demons that they won’t be using any of their high picks in the national draft to select a mature player, preferring instead to obtain Ball via the pre-season draft if other clubs choose not to select him in the national draft.
This development is believed to have prompted Ball to contact his agent and reverse his decision to commit suicide and/or book that trip of a lifetime to Baghdad wearing a confederate flag around his shoulders and a carrying a portable stereo pumping out Yankee Doodle Dandy to all within earshot.
Melbourne coach Dean “Winning Percentage” Bailey announced that, just like Best Clubman, the Demons would be scouring the nation for the best teenage talent they can find, rather than using one of their high selections in the national draft on Ball.
Acknowledging his decision may affect the club’s ability to land Ball if he nominates for the national draft, Bailey said "(Selections) one, two, 11 and 18 we're going to pick some young players and it's whether (selection) 34 comes into the equation or maybe 50" as Demons supporters hope this number one pick turns out better than Jack Watts and Travis Johnstone.
"I don't think he's going to be there at 50, so it's whether we use 34, but as a list management group we haven't really sat down and decided that number yet," Bailey said while fronting the media wearing a t-shirt with “Can you believe I’m an AFL coach?” printed on the front and a smile appropriate for the only man in history to have won seven games in two seasons and face absolute no pressure to keep his job.
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“THINK HEALTHY”…
Monday, October 12, 2009
With Jesse Smith walking out on North Melbourne during trade week, the finger pointing has begun as to who’s at fault for the injury prone, yet highly talented, son of former club great Ross Smith deciding his future lies elsewhere.
Smith, after managing only 27 games in five seasons due to persistent leg injuries, has suggested through manager Liam Pickering that his decision to leave was based on North’s medical facilities not being good enough, rather than because, as most people forced to watch North suck big time this year had assumed, the club’s playing stocks weren’t good enough.
In Pickering’s words, the Kangaroos didn’t have the right “tools” to assist Smith’s rehabilitation, which is surprising given that Aaron Edwards was a teammate and you’d have to go far and wide to find a bigger “tool” than a man who likes to enjoy the sounds of Lionel Ritchie with his pants around his ankles at a music festival.
Pickering’s excuse is a little hard to swallow for North’s chief of football, Donald McDonald, who rightfully pointed out in response that the Kangaroos are set to open their new $15 million elite training facility within the next month.
This replaces the previous medical facilities at the impoverished club, which consisted of an old packet of Tylenol found in a gym bag left in the rooms by Alex Ischenko in 1994, an ultrasound machine made from Paddle Pop sticks, and three tents stolen from the set of M.A.S.H in the 70s.
"This is a very delicate situation because we could not have possibly worked any harder to get Jesse right," McDonald said before mentioning that the club was charging Smith personally for his medical treatment during the 2009 season, presenting the media with an invoice for $1.37 to be mailed to Smith’s manager to recoup the cost of both packets of Band-Aids, the lollipop the doctor gave him for being a good boy, and the online psychology session that encouraged Smith to “think healthy” in order to get better.
During trade week, North offered Smith a two-year deal laden with incentives that rewarded him for getting on the park. This was rejected with Pickering suggesting his client may be linked to a move to Geelong.
This will undoubtedly come as wonderful news for Smith to know he’ll be off to a club whose medical facilities have so far managed to get former All-Australian Matthew Egan on the park a grand total of zero times since he succumbed to a foot injury in 2007.
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“WEAK C—T”…
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Alistair Clarkson holds a grudge like Lorena Bobbit. The Hawthorn coach, still peeved at the supposed injustice of former Essendon skipper Matthew Lloyd laying what most observers thought was a legitimate bump on Brad Sewell in Round 22, combined with the anger stemming from CEO Ian Robson defecting to Windy Hill, has launched another tirade aimed at the Bombers.
The Hawks are a little touchy about the Campbell Brown affair of trade week, where Port Adelaide alleges that Hawthorn offered Brown’s name on a list of potential trade targets in exchange for Shaun Burgoyne, only to be embarrassed when Brown and Hawthorn subsequently stated the angry little defender was not tradable at all.
"At no stage were we ever going to march a player out of our football club," Clarkson said. “I know the Essendon Football Club did that back in 2002 with Damien Hardwick, Blake Caracella, Justin Blumfield and also Chris Heffernan, and I don't think it did the Essendon Football Club any good”.
While the relevance of this comment escaped most journalists in attendance and came across as another petty swipe at a hated rival, Clarkson’s rant overlooked two important facts in that Hardwick left at the end of 2001, not 2002, in exchange for the draft pick used on Andrew Welsh, and removing someone who was as overrated as Justin Blumfield while getting a second-round draft pick in return is a good thing in the same way that in the last decade three clubs somehow received an answer of “Yes” to the question “Seriously, you want to take Justin Murphy off our hands?”
"Sending out players of that quality affects the culture of your club too much. We weren't going to do that with high-quality players in our footy club that are so important to our culture. Campbell Brown is one of those."
This suggests the Hawks wish to maintain a playing culture that endorses over-the-top tough guy histrionics and slapping the shoulder of Angus Monfries when he isn’t looking but not one that improves your list by trading a limited player like Brown for a superstar like Burgoyne.
In the aftermath of the Round 22 incident, Clarkson was given a $5,000 suspended fine for labelling Lloyd a “weak c—t”. However, unlike Mrs. Bobbit, Clarkson did stop short of threatening to cut off Lloyd’s manhood but only after he’d been pacified by three assistant coaches, a muzzle and a packet of Stillnox.
Meanwhile, the irony in all this is the fact Hawthorn have just allowed one of their own premiership players, and former club leading goalkicker, Mark Williams to leave the club which, presumably in Clarkson’s eyes, doesn’t undermine the culture at Hawthorn the way it did at Essendon seven years ago.
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“STAND BY YOUR MAN”…
Friday, October 9, 2009
Considering Brendan Fevola apologises for his behavior about as often as John Howard apologises to the stolen generation, today’s plea for forgiveness for his drunken Brownlow antics could be interpreted as the great man turning over a new leaf… or it could just be his attempt at defusing new claims of an alleged sexual assault on the night.
Having been traded to the Brisbane Lions earlier in the day, Fevola sought to apologise to anyone who was offended by his Brownlow rampage, which presumably includes Crown’s waiting staff, Rebecca Twigley, club captain Mr Rebecca Twigley, the nightclub crowd forced to listen to his impromptu nightclub rendition of Hey Baby, Ryan O’Keefe’s lips, The Footy Show’s viewing audience, and the unfortunate member of Crown’s cleaning staff who drew the short straw and had to force down the floater Fev left in the toilets of the Palladium Room.
The most interesting development from today was news of an alleged sexual assault on a female journalist in the female toilets on the night in question. Intrigue now surrounds who the woman in question may be, but smart money suggests it was not Caroline Wilson who Fevola allegedly mistook for Jon English in the Crown foyer, forcing Wilson into a headlock until she agreed to belt out the theme tune from All Together Now.
"I think, on Brownlow night ... I pretty much made a dick of myself that night and had too much to drink and I don't think I missed too many people that night,” Fevola said in responding to the seemingly endless torrent of criticism coming his way from the politically correct morass who are slowly taking over and ruining the fun for the rest of us.
Seeking forgiveness for his crimes against humanity, Fevola said “to watch those tapes on the Footy Show and stuff, you just look at it and think you don't want to be that person or ever go back there again because it was embarrassing and you don't wish that behaviour upon anyone” before left-wing liberals accused him of donning black face paint and performing a medley of Jackson Five hits.
“I've apologised to everyone and that was in my statement. I apologised to all the people that needed to be apologised to on the night,” Fevola said as he authorised his manager to send three case loads of White King toilet cleaning bleach to Crown as a peace offering for his misdemeanours.
Not surprisingly, Carlton have sought to immediately distance themselves from their former spearhead. Blues president Stephen Kernahan explained the club’s rationale for separating themselves from their leading goalkicker.
“Brownlow night didn't look good for our footy club but I think the club's acted in an appropriate way,” he said without explaining whether drunkenly reprising Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” in the middle of the day on Lygon Street in full view of the media before pouring a beer over your head whilst celebrating Carlton’s 1987 premiership constitutes acceptable behaviour.
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QUESTION TIME…
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Until John Anthony kicked the match winning goal for Collingwood in last night’s semi-final against Adelaide, the last time Best Clubman saw someone dog it so badly for 120 minutes was Robert De Niro’s performance in Meet The Fockers.
Fortunately for Anthony, unlike Meet The Fockers, his story had a great finish with him kicking the match winning goal just seconds before the final siren after receiving a contentious holding free kick against Ben Rutten without the ugly spectacle of watching Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand pretending to be a quirky old married couple.
With Anthony lining up for goal with less than a minute left after amassing a measly three possessions from almost four quarters of football, you could forgive Magpies coach Mick Malthouse for being a little worried about Anthony’s ability to kick truly after experiencing the kicking yips from the midway point of the season.
According to Malthouse, the result was never in doubt with the veteran coach having complete faith in Anthony’s ability to do what was, until recently, a task he was exceedingly good at despite the fact most Collingwood fans were hoping Anthony would cramp up and be forced to hand the kick to Simon Prestigiacomo.
But Anthony’s straight boot with only seconds remaining on the clock capped off a remarkable comeback after the Pies trailed by 26 points at half-time in a first half effort that was less entertaining than question time in federal parliament or an episode of CSI Miami, whichever is being shown later on free-to-air TV these days.
"That's their job - I thought Jack could knock it over," said Malthouse. "I was quite comfortable that Jack had it, barring a total kick into the man."
Even more remarkable than the Magpies comeback was Malthouse’s ability to mask his anger knowing that Anthony’s exploits at the end of the game mean he has to pick him for this week’s preliminary final with Geelong or face the wrath of the Pies faithful.
As opposed to Anthony, many of Collingwood’s younger brigade managed to enhance their reputations in the heat of finals football, with Steele Sidebottom, Brad Dick, Tyson Goldsack and Cameron Wood all having their moments, causing Malthouse to be downright giddy about the future of the club,
"Finals football is on a big stage and there's no room in sides going forward for players who can't perform on a big stage," he said in a statement that doesn’t completely rule out dropping Anthony this week rather than watch the inevitable toweling he will receive should he cop Matthew Scarlett as a direct opponent this week.
Considering Anthony couldn’t stop Bulldogs full back Brian Lake from running off him in Round 22 despite Lake possessing a posterior of sufficient size to demand its own icon on the weather map, perhaps the only man happier than Collingwood supporters as Anthony’s kick went through the big sticks was Cats coach Mark Thompson.
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A PUFFY SHIRT UNDONE ALL THE WAY TO THE WAIST …
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Anyone who remembers the movies Swordfish or Monster’s Ball for anything other than it representing the first time Halle Berry got her kit out on camera is either a liar or Fred Nile. Yet, while we’d all waited for this day for so long, when it finally arrived we didn’t feel as joyous as we’d hoped.
Sure, having Halle’s baps as a mental image assisted Best Clubman on those lonely nights when the only thing we had to pacify our immoral urges where a tube of moisturiser, a conveniently sized circular hole we discovered in our neighbour’s fence, and a splinter removal kit.
But think about what we lost. We haven’t looked at Halle the same since and the world’s a poorer place for it. She’s just like all those other celebrities who’ve been unable to resist the urge of showing their wares in public and Berry is now no different to Paris Hilton, Sharon Stone and Therese Rein.
Although we may have just imagined that last one given our fantasy for banging a chick on a pirate ship was evoked after Mrs. Rudd wore that puffy shirt with the ridiculous sleeves.
Relating this long-winded analogy to Chris Judd’s current predicament, how disappointing it is for the hundreds and thousands of people who have looked at Judd as a shining example of a footballer with a brain, only to now know he and his eye-gouging, pressure-point loving ways make him no better than the rest of us.
Will we ever look at him the same? Will we be able to love him like we always have? Will we still be able to wear a low cut red dress and prance around in front of the mirror with our todger between our legs pretending to be Rebecca Twigley at the 2004 Brownlow Medal?
Last night the AFL tribunal did what we all knew they would in suspending Judd for three games for making unreasonable and unnecessary contact to the face of Brisbane's Michael Rischitelli during Saturday night’s elimination final.
The act itself seems so incongruous to a born leader who won a Brownlow, a premiership and, most importantly, Twigley all by the age of 23.
Carlton brought out the big guns in its defence of Judd, bringing in QC David Grace to uphold the great man’s reputation against what was plain for all to see were the actions of a dirty player.
"There was no intent to cause any harm whatsoever," Grace said of Judd's actions in lifting a statement directly from Dick Cheney’s autobiography entitled “The Joys of Water Boarding: It Only Sounds Like Torture”.
But AFL legal representative Jeff Gleeson, who spends his weekends informing small children that the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus aren’t real, did what he had to do and shattered the myth of Judd as some sort of super human with a better moral code than the rest of us.
"This wasn't in the play, Rischitelli would not have expected contact and could not have defended himself (as Judd was standing over him) and this was not an event that should have occurred on the football field," Gleeson said in a statement which does not rule out applying pressure point tactics in an Ultimate Fighter bout or an end of season trip involving NRL players and a drunk groupie pinned down on a bed in a cheap hotel room.
"I am obviously disappointed with the outcome but now we will go and assess our options and make further comment at a later date and that is all I can really say right now," Judd said after the tribunal’s ruling before leaving Best Clubman with one less hero and one more lonely night with the moisturiser, the hole in the fence and a mental picture of Therese Rein in a puffy shirt undone all the way to the waist.
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THE BIG BANG THEORY…
Sunday, September 6, 2009
When news came through that Western Bulldogs livewire Jason Akermanis had decided to re-sign for another year, most people who witnessed Alan Toovey burn him off at Etihad Stadium six weeks ago assumed Aker had put pen to paper for another year at Nova, rather than for the Bulldogs.
Akermanis was recruited to the Bulldogs at the end of 2006 as the missing piece in the club’s premiership puzzle, which so far has returned a grand total of one terrible finals campaign in 2008.
At the time, some doubted the merits of the trade for the Bulldogs, with Akermanis over 30 and coming with a minor history of soft tissue injuries. However, the most entertaining personality in the league has proved surprisingly resilient, missing only four games since crossing to the club.
Over the same period of time, approximately zero people involved with the Brisbane Lions organisation have missed their former Brownlow medalist who, from the outside at least, seems about as annoying as an episode of The Big Bang Theory but, remarkably, even less funny.
The dynamic forward believes his body can handle another season. “A couple of weeks ago I got a strong impression that my time at the club was to be welcomed for another twelve months and that's always a nice feeling. I think that up until that point I'd just figured that I would retire at the end of the year as I was getting that feeling that they didn't want me.”
Providing more evidence that he is actually one of the better blokes of the AFL, Akermanis even suggested he would be willing to take a pay cut in order for the Bulldogs to re-sign defenders Brian Lake and Ryan Hargarve to further help the team’s premiership ambitions.
"I think they will re-sign Brian and the same with Ryan Hargrave ... it's not so much about money rather the will, the want and the enjoyment and that's there, we can work out all the facts and figures later," Akermanis said.
Hopefully for the fans and media alike, all this means the continually entertaining Aker can remain one of the few players worth listening to and one less example of the usual football-speak offal espoused by people like Ross Lyon, Dean Bailey and Brett Ratten, whose dull, dreary, cliché-laden method of speaking has forced the state coroner to add an extra box entitled “Suicide after interviewing AFL coach or player” under the “cause” section of death certificates.
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EYELASH REMOVAL…
Tuesday, September 1, 2009-10-09
Ah September. That time of year when the sun comes out, the grounds harden up, the finals begin, and Richmond officials go on holidays and start working on walking into a room at Etihad Stadium during trade week and asking “Anyone want Richard Tambling or Jay Schulz?” while maintaining a straight face.
For the first time in a while, Essendon will be a part of the finals, offering players like Brent Stanton the opportunity to kick sideways spinning drop punts on a much grander stage.
Unfortunately for the Bombers, they will do so without the services of skipper Matthew Lloyd, upcoming ruckman Paddy Ryder and tortoise-like midfielder Sam Lonergan, all of whom have been suspended after Saturday’s spiteful clash with Hawthorn.
Essendon have decided to not challenge the penalties handed down to their three troops on the basis that Brad Sewell now communicates via an Etch-A-Sketch after being hit high by Lloyd, Ryder was seen clearly jumper punching Luke Hodge in the most incriminating footage not featuring Brendan Fevola urinating on a nightclub window, and Lonergan’s ability is such that the club couldn’t justify the cab fare from Windy Hill to AFL headquarters at Docklands to challenge the penalty.
Coach Matthew Knights indicated that Lloyd himself agreed not to challenge his four-game suspension for his head-high bump on Sewell, which was unexpected given the furore surrounding the incident suggested most people thought the penalty was against the spirit of the game in the same way as St. Kilda’s style of football.
"We support Matthew's decision and obviously there has been a huge focus on head-high and I think Matthew felt himself that it was done and dusted in many ways because head-high contact is a nasty part of our game at the moment and there's a real big focus on it," Knights said.
While most people thought the Bombers would challenge Lloyd’s penalty as a show of support for their long-serving spearhead, the decision to accept the ban makes sense given Lloyd stood about as much chance of getting off as Barry Hall did after claiming he was just removing an eyelash that wouldn’t budge from Brent Staker’s cheek that had been bothering him all game.
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COLOMBIAN MARCHING POWDER…
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The AFL tribunal has reinforced St. Kilda being undefeated through 20 rounds and Andy Maher occupying four prominent roles in the football media already told us – the game of AFL as we know it is dead.
In upholding the match review panel’s decision to suspend Hawthorn spearhead Buddy Franklin for his perfectly executed bump on Tiger Ben Cousins, the tribunal has laid the foundation for next year’s AFL marketing campaign to contain the slogan “Now with NO physical contact”.
Franklin’s penalty was extended to two matches after initially only getting one week from the match review panel, making Franklin the third highest profile victim of gambling in the football industry behind David Schwarz and Simon Goodwin, who incidentally had five large bet on Franklin getting off and is now so in debt he’s decided to feature in those chip ads with Dale Thomas in order to a raise a couple of extra bucks.
While Franklin clearly made high contact with Cousins, most observers with a passing interest in the game had assumed the bump was legal as it occurred in play and Franklin had his elbow tucked into his body, meaning Cousins injury only occurred because of the disparity in heights between the parties being the equivalent to Aaron Sandilands trying to get a leg over Pink in the sack.
Hawthorn football manager Mark Evans tried to rationale the club’s decision to pursue the matter further. "We decided last night that we will contest the findings of the Match Review Panel and go to the Tribunal."
As for Cousins, when pressed for his recollection of the clash, his account was a little sketchy. "I was playing and my next memory was sitting on the bench," Cousins said. "I have no memory of it."
When asked to better describe the light-headedness and short-term memory loss associated with the bump, Cousins estimated that it was somewhere close to the former after a night out with 12 vodka and Red Bulls, two lines of Colombian marching powder, and a quart of ice.
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KING HIT…
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Unlucky Richmond tall Graham Polak hasn’t played at AFL standard for 420 days, which is exactly three more days than teammate Jake King, who has managed to squeeze in nine games in that period for the Tigers.
That will all end this weekend when possibly the best and most heart-warming story of this AFL season reaches it end when Polak takes to the field tonight after suffering significant head injuries after being hit by a tram last year.
Polak has showed terrific courage and strength to return to the field. Amazingly, the former first round draft pick can even laugh about the incident now. "I laugh about it now. I know it was a serious (accident), but I can't sit there and let it get me down my whole life," Polak said yesterday.
The incident occurred when Polak tried to run in front of a tram near Armadale road late on a Saturday night. Unfortunately, Polak’s was unable to avoid the oncoming tram travelling – a vehicle that travels at low speed and is unable to make any lateral movements, making it eerily similar to performing tackling drills with Troy Simmonds at Tigers training.
Polak was placed in an induced coma with doctors worried he would not survive, let alone play football at any level again. Upon awakening from his coma, Polak is alleged to have believed the year was 2029 and asked medicos whether Richmond had made the finals again since he’d been asleep.
"I have to get over it some time. I laugh and say, 'How can I get hit by a tram that's stuck on two tracks?'. It was a silly thing of mine, but I've got a good story to tell my kids and grandkids."
The journey culminates tonight when Polak dons his new protective helmet and takes to the field against Hawthorn, making him the second player to take to the field after suffering a significant brain injury after Brendan Fevola.
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“THANK YOU FOR COACHING”…
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
New North Melbourne coach Brad Scott has reportedly secured the job within 30 minutes of being interviewed at Arden Street. Initial reports suggest this rapid timeframe may have been because he was the best man for the job, while others suggest it was because he was parked in a 30 minute zone due to the club not being able to afford its own car park and being unable to reimburse Scott any parking fine should he not rotate his car before the arrival of parking inspectors.
Scott was the last of four shortlisted candidates to be interviewed, which included stand-in coach Darren Crocker, Hawthorn assistant Damian Hardwick, and Scott’s jutted chin, which makes him look like the lovechild of Brendan Fevola and Popeye.
Kangaroos chief executive Don Eugene Arocca informed the media that Crocker would continue to coach the side for the remainder of the season. He also denied any knowledge of any Mafia-related unsolved crimes during Melbourne between the years of 1994 and 2005.
This situation must be difficult for Crocker, who is now forced to coach out the season in full knowledge that Scott will be taking over and is looking on in the stands, which is kind of like your lady friend announcing her next boyfriend to you three weeks before she decides to break up and having him watch your performance in the bedroom so he can gain an insight into how things are done around here.
"We had a 2 1/2-hour meeting with Brad, we continued our own talks after that and it was unanimous and very prompt," Arocca said. “This bloke came to us and talked about the science of football, the physiology of football, his desire to learn more.”
In addition to these attributes, Scott is thought to have secured the position due to him having his own stationary and agreeing to buy his own Footy Record every week without claiming it as a work-related expense.
The clincher for Scott was a 30-minute overhead presentation outlining what he’d learned in his time as a player under Leigh Matthews and as an assistant coach at Collingwood with Mick Malthouse, two of the modern coaching greats.
The North selection panel then held follow-up talks with Scott over sandwiches and coffee, during which the new coach suitably impressed to be offered the position so quickly. Also in his favour was the fact Scott brought the sandwiches, which was handy given North Melbourne has no cafeteria or vending machines in the tent that houses its administration, and the sole contents of the petty cash tin at reception was` $6.15 in coins and Wayne Schimmelbusch’s “Thank you for coaching” certificate with a post-it note on the front reading “Coming in to collect from reception 11/4/93”.
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GIRL GUSHING LIQUID ALL OVER HER MAN…
Monday, August 17, 2009
The female Brisbane Lions fan who doused Bulldogs skipper Brad Johnson in beer at the end of Saturday night’s match has made an apology for her unusual behaviour, stating that she is remorseful that she drenched Johnson in liquid and ruined his night by getting him wet, all before he’d had the chance to go to the rooms after the game and get drenched in Powerade after singing the team song.
Commenting on male-female interactions isn’t really Best Clubman’s bag. Shucks, getting served by a reasonably attractive waitress at a restaurant is cause enough for us to change our Facebook status to “It’s complicated”.
But even we could tell that Johnson, possibly the happiest and most smiling man on the planet not named Larry Emdur, didn’t deserve the treatment who deserved from the clearly inebriated lady. Such behaviour, much like the content of twin Channel 7 fizzers Double Take and TV Burp, is no laughing matter.
The only good to come from the incident is the girl’s sincere apology, as well as Best Clubman, in researching this story, having a legitimate reason to type “girl gushing liquid all over her man” into a search engine on a work computer and watching the resulting videos on YouPorn.
In reality, the Johnson incident was bizarre, with the Bulldogs man being dunked in the Lord’s liquid while handing out caps to the four Bulldogs fans who bothered to make the trip up north, before he admirably looked at the girl and walked away without retaliating.
The video footage then shows the girl mouthing the words “I got him” into her mobile phone and laughing with her boyfriend standing next to her, which seems like unusual behaviour to most of us but may indeed be just another Queensland custom the rest of us are unaware of just like not bothering to have a senate in state parliament, dropping the letter “g” off the end of doing words, and engaging in overt racism.
The Lions released a statement informing the media that the fan, a Sydneysider holding a Victorian-based Lions membership, had apologised and had also agreed to a series of behavioural conditions in order to maintain her membership and attend future games.
Amongst these conditions was an undertaking to never repeat the behaviour again at future AFL matches, sending the offendee a full apology letter, and making a donation to a charity of the offendee’s choice.
To those in the footballing industry, such an agreement is known as a “Fevola” and comes in a class case labelled “not to be used unless in case of an emergency and/or the day after a heavy night on the sauce”.
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KINSHASA FC…
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The Sydney Swans have elected to copy the coaching succession plan of Collingwood by having current coach Paul Roos hand the reins over to assistant John Longmire in 2011 or the next time the Swans score over 100 points in two consecutive matches, whichever comes first.
Until today’s announcement, Longmire had been on a shortlist for the senior coaching position at North Melbourne and was to be interviewed early this week. So, with the prospect of taking over at Arden Street with its dilapidated facilities and wafer-thin playing stocks, Longmire made the logical decision and bolted for the Swans position, thereby consigning himself to coaching a club with wafer-thin playing stocks but with facilities that don’t resemble those of Kinshasa FC.
Longmire has been offered an initial two-year contract. “I'm naturally thrilled about it,” he said in that monotone, expressionless manner of his which suggests he is either under the influence of a heavy sedative or has just had the misfortune of watching the Swans play their ultra negative brand of football every week for the last eight years.
"I've been working closely with Roosy for eight years and (football department head) Andrew (Ireland) as well so I think the football department is really set up," Longmire continued while handing the microphone back, sideways, back again and then back even further to other people at the press conference, in order to mirror the woeful game plan the Swans have employed in the last decade.
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HEY HEY, IT’S SATURDAY…
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Years after losing his humility, his confidence, his ability and, finally, the confidence of the Essendon Football Club, the tragic story of former Bomber Damian Cupido now shows that he has been losing $1,000 per week on gambling.
Unlike Cupido’s ability to handball or perform under pressure when faced with even the slightest bodily contact from an opponent, Cupido’s descent into financial oblivion due to gambling addiction is no laughing matter.
Since being delisted by the Bombers at the end of 2005, concluding a 53-game career that didn’t go anywhere close to fulfilling his massive potential and even greater ego, Cupido has been plying his trade in the SANFL.
As if being forced to move to Adelaide wasn’t punishment enough for Cupido’s inability to apply himself to training and fitness at AFL level, the poor guy now finds himself wasting $1,000 per week on punting on the horses.
The irony of Cupido losing such significant amounts is that he accrued this money while wasting $3,000-$4,000 of Essendon’s money each week during the 2004 and 2005 seasons following a decent year in 2003 after crossing over from Brisbane.
Cupido has returned home to Melbourne and begun counseling to help him fight his illness, with the goal of applying himself to these sessions to an extent far greater than his application at training while in the AFL.
He said leaving Adelaide was the only way he could “be healthy again”, which is a sentiment shared by anyone who’s had the misfortune of spending more than 48 consecutive hours in the City of Churches will attest to.
Not surprisingly, Cupido only began gambling after moving to Adelaide, given the city’s nightlife and cultural events are about as entertaining as the upcoming Hey Hey, It’s Saturday reunion shows promise to be.
"Two-and-a-half years ago, I didn't know how to put a bet on," Cupido said. "I didn't know what to back, didn't have a clue, didn't want to go into a TAB,” he said before Best Clubman was unable to think of a witty analogy or one-liner to end what is really a very sad story.
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THE CATCH UP…
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Best Clubman never really understood why Collingwood coach Michael Malthouse is so revered as one of the elite coaches of modern times. With a measly two premierships from 26 years of senior coaching Malthouse doesn’t have that much to boast about. And his legacy is even sketchier when you remember that his sides are about as fun to watch as those Ricky Ponting ads for Suisse vitamins.
After signing that controversial hand-over agreement with Nathan Buckley, whereby Buckley will assume the senior coaching role at the Magpies in 2012, at which point Malthouse will become the director of coaching, many people are speculating whether these best laid plans will come undone.
Malthouse isn’t exactly dousing the flames of the fire, telling radio station SEN yesterday that he can’t guarantee he will see out his three-year term as coaching director once Buckley assumes the top job if another club offers him a senior position.
While the chances of this are slim considering the hiring of coaches over the age of 40 by AFL clubs remains as popular as Channel 9’s The Catch Up, Malthouse’s words mustn’t inspire a high degree of confidence amongst the Collingwood faithful.
The details of Malthouse’s agreement with Collingwood are believed to be rather ambiguous, with neither party sure of exactly what will happen.
Staring Malthouse in the face is the fact that he voluntarily just put a two-year limit on his coaching career, which may be hard for him to digest, but probably less so for long-suffering Pies supporters seeking another premiership, not to mention football journalists with the temerity to ask “annoying” questions of Malthouse in post-game press conferences such as “Happy with the result?”, “Good win today, Mick?” and “Why the hell has Leigh Brown not been dropped at least once during the season?”
One man who was forced to suffer through a similar experience is former Hawthorn coach Peter Schwab, who had coaching legend David Parkin appointed to oversee his last years as Hawks coach. Although he never had the misfortune of being forced to pencil Leigh Brown’s name into the team sheet 30 minutes before the game.
Schwab said he was “dubious” such an agreement could work and it would be difficult for Malthouse to vacate his position if the Magpies achieve a degree of success in the next two years.
Malthouse himself speculated on his ability to leave Collingwood after winning a flag in 2011. "I am contracted to Collingwood for the next three years after that,” Malthouse deadpanned in his usual manner.
If he is somehow able to land the Pies a flag by 2011, considering their average list and turgid game plan that hugs the boundary at all costs, Malthouse may like to focus his attention on achieving other impossible feats such as discovering a cure for AIDS and fitting Eddie McGuire’s head through the neckhole of a non-button-up shirt.
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DRUNKEN DUMP IN A HOTEL CORRIDOR…
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Best Clubman’s attempts at breaking the big news stories before all of the major media outlets have been less successful than Elton John’s attempts at living as a heterosexual. So we won’t even pretend that we broke the story about Karmichael Hunt defecting from the NRL to accept a contract with the new AFL Gold Coast franchise.
But what we can lay claim to is that, if you look at this picture and then compare it to this picture, Karmichael Hunt may actually be Guy Sebastian sans the trademark afro.
However, this celebrity spot-up falls under the weight of close scrutiny when you remember that Sebastian is a devout Christian who waited until he was married to share his first sexual experience, whereas Hunt shared one of his many sexual experiences with a groupie in the first disabled toilet cubicle he and two of his Brisbane Broncos teammates could find in 2008.
What this all means for Hunt, the Gold Coast franchise and the AFL is anyone’s guess, but for NRL chief David Gallop, a man whose unbridled optimism and enthusiasm in the face of overwhelming scandal is to be admired, believes Hunt’s flight to the AFL “doesn’t mean the sky is falling in”.
A more prosaic view would suggest that Hunt’s skill set will be hard to replace for the NRL, with its pool of players with a rapid fire quickstep significantly reduced. Although its pool of people with a record of allegedly participating in unwanted group sex scandals remains at Cancun levels.
Unlike Nate Myles’ decision to take a drunken dump in the middle of a corridor at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Terrigal in full view of other guests, Gallop believes Hunt’s decision to switch codes is not a sign of underlying problems within the game of rugby league and doesn’t stain the brand in a manner similar to that of the carpet at the Crowne Plaza.
"This is an individual decision, the sky is not falling - only a week ago we had Timana Tahu coming back to rugby league," Gallop said without explaining what a Timana Tahu is.
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FINALS CAPITULATIONS FOR DUMMIES…
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
In the least logical decision since they decided to add Scott Cummings to an already top-heavy forward including Anthony Rocca, Jarrod Molloy and Chris Tarrant in 2002, Nathan Buckley has accepted an assistant coaching position at Collingwood with a guarantee to succeed current coach Mick Malthouse in 2012.
Having two men working together with notoriously large egos who like things done their way or not at all is a massive gamble and, for Collingwood’s sake, better produce greater output than Cummings managed with his total of 13 possessions in five games for the Pies, with his only long-lasting legacy being that current Magpie players now have an extra 200 cubic litres of space in the club spa that was added to accommodate Cummings’ ample girth.
As part of the deal, Malthouse has extended his senior coaching contract by two years, which will take him out to 12 seasons as coach of the Magpies without once tasting ultimate success. This unfruitful stint should leave him in prime position to assume leadership of the Victorian Liberal Party in 2012.
In actuality, upon Buckley assuming the head job in 2012, Malthouse will become the club’s director of coaching from 2012-14, which gives Best Clubman three more seasons to work out a pun that includes the words “Nathan Buckley”, “Eddie McGuire” and “head job” without sounding smutty or forced.
This succession plan is the first of its kind in AFL, although, just like shin guards, racism in the form of supporters throwing banana peels at black players on the other team, and feigning injury after seemingly innocuous incidents, it is quite common in soccer… sorry, the World Game™.
The Collingwood board signed off on the unique agreement last night despite the fact Buckley’s coaching experience does not extend beyond taking three training sessions with the under 18’s at the AIS and unsuccessfully teaching Simon Prestigiacomo how to kick a drop punt between 1996 and 2007.
According to Malthouse, the succession plan will serve the interests of all parties concerned. “One of the great things about this appointment is that it gives me another two years with these young players with what we’ve tried to achieve,” he said at a hastily arranged press conference while handing Buckley a well worn copy of “Finals Capitulations For Dummies”.
As for Buckley, he can’t wait to return to his former home, for no other reason than it means he will now spend less time in confined spaces with David Schwarz in the Channel 7 commentary box.
“I’ve come back to a club that I have enormous emotional ties to," Buckley said, echoing the same sentiment Alan Didak experiences whenever he drives down King Street.
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JUMPIN JAI TAURIMA…
Monday, July 27, 2009
In news that should have Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson running out to purchase more of whatever material it is that he uses to compose that massive chip on his shoulder, Essendon has lured Hawks CEO Ian Robson to the Bombers.
Unfortunately for Hawthorn, when it comes to off-field personnel movements, the AFL does not permit trades between clubs, meaning the only thing the ol’ Mayblooms will be getting in return is the Bombers’ title as the club with the two least worthiest All-Australians in recent history, with Campbell Brown (2007) and Trent Croad (2005) far exceeding Adam McPhee (2004) and Jason Johnson (2002) in terms of ineptitude.
The movement of Robson to Essendon continues a long and proud tradition of major exchanges between the two clubs, which includes Paul Salmon, Jonathon Robran, and Richie Vandenburg’s fists with McPhee’s head in the infamous “line in the sand” game of 2004.
Robson begins as CEO at the end of the season, replacing long-serving Essendon CEO Peter Jackson who is vacating his position due to a misunderstanding between the Bombers and Quit Victoria, which required all workplaces to remove their Peter Jacksons in order to comply with anti-smoking health and safety legislation. Zing.
Essendon president Ray Horsburgh, owner of a neck so large that Andrew Demetriou’s father had to jog his memory to see if he may have accidentally impregnated another woman and inadvertently given Demetriou an extra sibling 50 years ago, was positively brimming about the new appointment at the club.
“At Essendon we are following a similar football and business strategy to that of Hawthorn – including focusing on bringing through a young playing group together,” Horsburgh said via the club’s website only minutes before having his gastric band replaced.
While privately seething, Hawthorn had to perform their contractually obligated clichéd duties to wish their former employee well in his new position no matter how much they wish his career suffers the same rapid decline as that of Jumpin Jai Taurima’s after claiming Silver in the Long Jump at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
“Ian has served the club well over the last five years , we thank him for his contribution to the team that delivered our 10th premiership last year, and we wish him well at Essendon,” Hawks president Jeff Kennett wailed in a statement more predictable than Andy Maher asking every non-AFL guest on his SEN radio program “So, have you seen the local game? What do you think of it?”
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