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Not happy, Benny! (On the role of dissent)

23/06/2014 By Dugald 14 Comments

 

Tiger love under Friday night lights: Doug Sinclair, 66, from Wattle Glen, all smiles at quarter time in his yellow-and-black candy striped suit, with 12-year-old grand daughter, Lily.

Tiger love under Friday night lights: Doug Sinclair, 66, from Wattle Glen, all smiles at quarter time
in his yellow-and-black candy striped suit, with 12-year-old grand daughter, Lily.

'Boo, hiss! Poor form pushing gambling on Twitter, anywhere. A family club? Apparently not' , was my recent reply to a tweet from the Richmond Football Club.

Another follower replied to my reply. 'You seem to have a lot of anger towards the club lately'. And in this brief exchange, there’s an essay about all the ambiguities of supporter loyalty.

Two days before this season’s first game, our CEO, Brendon Gale, said in a press release:

“We are excited about the partnership with Sportbet.com.au [sic], which is another important announcement as we continue to build, on and off the field.”

Never mind that in an orchestrated media announcement – on the eve of the opening game, when all were looking elsewhere – the club would misspell the name of a business it had entered into a two-year deal with. Our football club chose money over responsible citizenry. It sold its membership to a betting agency. It has become complicit in gambling. It has traded in all its history and honour – its great community goodwill – for the quick fix of a bet.

Buggered if I’m going to be silent on this.

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The Tigers were terrific on Friday night; they were dreadful. Matty Dea stood under a high ball and took a courageous mark, and spontaneous handclapping rung out around our end of the ground; he spilled a mark near the top of the square and the Swans goaled. Alex Rance was at his imperious best on Friday night, blanketing his opponent and running off him when the game was there to be won; Buddy Franklin kicked four goals and was the match-winner. There are so many ways to look at a football club; there are so many ways to look at a game of football.

Seventeen minutes into the second quarter, when Brett Deledio kicked a running goal, grown men in the stands hugged each other. A belief that’s been missing all season was back. At this darkest hour, on the eve of winter’s equinox, our team at last was here to warm our hearts. There was beauty in the spectacle.

“Smash ’em, Richmond!”

Richmond would kick only one more goal for the game, and this night’s and season’s despair was complete. The glow-in-the-dark boots worn by Jack and Cotch were of no succour. Still we could not see the light. It didn’t matter that Shaun Hampson kicked his first goal in yellow and black and was mobbed by his team mates; voices in outer still derided his efforts. All that was gained was again lost. The final statistic condemned us: another loss.

“Stem the flow, Tigers!”

“Stand up, Richmond!”

“Do something, Tigers!”

A chestfull of Tiger pride: Glenn Rigg, 34, from Princes Hill shows-off his Bones McGhie design classic at half time.

A chestfull of Tiger pride: Glenn Rigg, 34, from Princes Hill shows-off his Bones McGhie design classic at half time.

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About a month ago, in a blog post titled A lament for Richmond (& how the club broke my heart), I offered considered criticism of the club I hold dear. It may have been misconstrued as anger. It wasn’t. Mostly, it was disappointment; generally about how I thought I’d been treated by Simon Matthews, the club’s general manager of media and stakeholder relations, and specifically about seeing my name on a whiteboard within the club, alongside the word “flog”.

I thank all TTBB readers who posted comments about that story, and who contacted me directly, and “Daffy” who posted about it on the Punt Road End fan forum under the title Shameful treatment of a devoted fan. I also thank the mediator of Punt Road End, Rosy23, for following-up on the issue and managing the debate. Again, in this thread there’s a lively discussion about ideas of loyalty.

In this piece, I wrote about the death of Tommy Hafey, and trust and belief, and about Benny Gale’s tilt for the AFL top job. I wasn’t disappointed in him pitching for the job – most of us have personal ambition, a virtuous trait in football as in life – but was disappointed for all those Richmond fans who hold unconditional trust in his leadership.

In “the Chief” there is an aura of strength and stability, of strong guidance, of a steady hand. In the Chief there is belief and hope. He’s a big man. All of us look up to him.

What had his interview for the top AFL job said about his duty to Richmond, I asked.

“For us outsiders, it can be read only as duplicity. He is Richmond, until a better offer presents. Rightly or wrongly, it is a signal that percolates down. And in a time of crisis, his wavering of trust resonates beyond its circumstances. If his heart is tempted by another offer, why should ours remain true?”

Last week, Brendon Gale was in the news again. At issue was a trip to the Soccer World Cup in Brazil, arranged for by Chrysler whose subsidiary, Jeep, are a major club sponsor. In an article by Greg Denham in The Australian newspaper, Simon Matthews said he had no problem with Gale’s trip or its timing.

“He left on Wednesday and he’s away for a week,” he said. “Brendon’s gone with our major partner, they are a big part of our business, and he’s gone with our blessing.”

Last week I tapped the words “maritime law” and “abandon ship” into Google. So much about football is about perception. The most damning accusation to be levelled at a player is that he is not trying. Or more truthfully, that he looks not to be trying. How a player appears on the field – the way he mans a mark, attacks a contest, runs off the ball – is everything, just as how a club and its leaders might look off the field.

Last week I set an alarm and got up in the mid of night and in a cold living room in Melbourne watched the Socceroos play the Netherlands in Porto Alegre in Brazil, and marvelled at Tim Cahill’s left boot, and thought of Brendon Gale and wondered if he were there.

I think his going to Brazil was ill-advised. Those within the club will, of course, say it was about business networking, which in part is true. But as with all these things, how much was work, and how much was personal pleasure? With Australia 3-2 down late in the second half, my head swirled with the fever of the occasion and the hour of the night, and SBS commentator Craig Foster asked: “How much do you love football?”

The point is this: all of us, if offered, would have jumped at the opportunity of an all-expenses trip to Brazil to watch two games of the World Cup. It’s a no-brainer. But all of us aren’t the head of an organisation with a $44.8 million turnover last year that now faces a crisis. The Richmond Football Club is in trouble, no matter all the calming words. Its on-field woes have the very real possibility of tilting off-field stability.

There is no harm in acknowledging this.

Last season, for instance, of all AFL clubs, only Collingwood pulled more barrackers through the turnstiles than Richmond, and it didn’t sell one if its home games to the tropics. Already this season, the crowd’s voted with its feet. Two weeks ago, for instance, the home crowd at the MCG against Fremantle was about half of what it was for the corresponding fixture on an unseasonably cold day last year. The more we lose, the worse it’ll get.

Both on and off the field, this season’s poor form has dire ramifications for next year, and maybe years beyond. It is not unreasonable to say there will be job losses, and belt tightening, and new ways will need to be found for doing things.

If a crisis is a time of immense difficulty or danger, then this feels a crisis for our club and us fans. And now in this time of crisis we hear that our CEO went to Rio, and it looks a folly. If the trip was about brand partnership with Jeep, then surely Brendon Gale’s most prudent course of action would be to stay home, remaining behind the wheel.

If Jeep wants commercial leverage from the Richmond Football Club, the club need uphold its end of the bargain. It needs to draw crowds. It needs to ensure prime-time exposure. It needs traffic to its website. It needs to pull an audience to be sold to its sponsors. In short, it needs to win games of football.

When Brendon Gale presented to the AFL board for its top job, it was a matter of self-interest. When Brendon Gale boarded the pointy-end of a plane for Brazil it was, in part, a matter of self-interest. As Caroline Wilson, an ardent Richmond person is wont to say, it “wasn’t a good look”.

If this is a misguided interpretation, consider an alternative scenario. Brendon Gale is approached by the AFL to pitch for its top job and he respectfully declines, citing his ongoing role at Richmond. And Brendon Gale accepts a sponsored trip to Brazil but later pulls out, citing urgent matters at hand, namely that he cannot vacate his office due to pressing and unforeseen problems on the home front.

Footy, it’s a game of perceptions.

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subliminals_s01
I stood in the outer on Friday night with Michael Green and others. No, not that Michael Green. This Michael Green is a freelance investigative journalist, and a Richmond man, who looks a likely half-back flanker. Our crowd was in full voice, and good humour, and wasn’t afraid to speak its mind.

“Ya sold your soul, Buddy! Ya sold your soul!”

At game’s end, I left my night’s companions – a Tiger and a Swan – to jump the MCC fence and scuttle around to see the players leave the ground. Richmond were in no mood for lingering. There is little to celebrate when you’re at the bottom of the ladder and expected so much more. Even our home games must for now seem so foreign to the players.

Swans players, conversely, were in no hurry to leave the rapturous adulation of their crowd. The aesthetics of the game mean nothing when you win. Their crowd and its colours looked so joyous, so cheerful, so happy with the night. It is as it should be: their team had just won its ninth consecutive game.

Imagine that? Nine games in a row. It’s been 34 years since Richmond last won nine games in a row. That’s a generation of support. And how it feels as if it could be another 34 years until we do it again.

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 subliminals_s02

 

Early last year I wrote and sent a letter to Brendon Gale.

It began:

“My name is Dugald Jellie and I am an ardent Richmond supporter. I am also a writer. I was a journalist at The Age newspaper, before moving to Sydney in 1997 for a job as a features writer for the Sydney Morning Herald. I have played football, mostly for country teams, and once ran into Greg Dear’s elbow at a game in Lakes Entrance while playing centre-half-forward for the Snowy Rovers. For this I received a free-kick.”

I don’t think he read it.

After last year’s heartbreaking loss to Carlton in the Elimination Final, I had a long telephone conversation with Brendon Gale. I found him inquisitive and fair-minded man; knowledgeable, open and considered.

What I know about Brendon Gale is all on the public record. He’s a family man, a graduate from Marist College in Burnie, was a champion Richmond footballer (244 games, 209 goals), studied law at Monash, was on the Board of the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and before taking the top job at Richmond was CEO of the AFL Players’ Association.

His faith is Catholic and his political leaning – gleaned from Martin Flanagan’s book Richo – is to the left. Every way I look at Brendon Gale, I like the man. He is that heady mix – the thinking-man footballer – that so excites respect and admiration among the crowd.

Our phone conversation was about my perceived grievances. What was unsaid is that both of us knew he was always going to back one of his senior managers – any of his employees – over a complaint from a fan who writes a blog. But he listened, he heard me out. A simple conversation, he placated resentments.

Textbook dispute resolution.

At conversation’s end, Gale confided in trade talks with a Richmond player. He said it was off-the-record. He trusted me, and knew that he could.

When once asked for advice for students at his former secondary college, Gale offered two tips. “Don’t limit your potential and be a doer not a knocker.”

Does my written criticism of the club, and of his recent absence in Brazil, fall into the category of ‘doer’ or ‘knocker’? Are my concerns – my voiced disapproval – of our club pushing the product of a betting agency, those of a ‘doer’ or a ‘knocker’?

Brendon Gale is 10 centimetres taller than I but I know I can look him in the eye. I am passionate about Richmond, I am loyal to Richmond, I want the best for Richmond, as so many of us do.

But this loyalty does not preclude me from dissent. Loyalty cannot silence the crowd from fair-minded criticism. And if the club is blind or deaf to those who disagree with some of its ideas, then surely it will never truly grow and prosper as an organisation. Three wins and 10 losses is the bottom line, as it stands, for this season. The house of cards has fallen. Our disappointments cannot be denied. The time is nigh for Richmond to consider new ways of doing business; to consider new ways of being a football club.

Tiger tiger burning (loyal and) bright.

Email:  dugaldjellie@gmail.com

Twitter: @dugaldjellie

A long night closes: turn off the lights, shut the gate, as the last of the Richmond contingent leave the field on Friday night.

A long night closes: turn off the lights, shut the gate, as the last of the Richmond contingent leave the field on Friday night.

Dugald 23/06/2014Filed Under: dugald_14, front, Uncategorized

On training at Punt Road & an unknowable match & Presentation Night #3

03/06/2014 By Dugald 5 Comments

lady

Tiger woman Ann Bakker, from Brighton, at training at Punt Road on Friday.

troutUnder an entirely blue sky, last Friday morning I caught a train to Punt Road Oval. It was my first training session of the year. I wanted to show support for my team, joining others at the fence in glorious sunshine. I wanted to know if our attendance – our enthusiasm – couldn’t yet help right this season from its confusion.

Trout was there. Lyn was there. Shelly was there. I met a woman visiting from Darwin for the Dreamtime game, now with her daughter and her four-month-old grandson. His name was Joel. I asked if he was named after Joel Bowden.

“Selwood,” said mum. “His dad’s Geelong.”

I went because there is an attraction in seeing the players – professional athletes – up close. I tell it how it is: they are beautiful. Young and immensely fit men in a physical prime of their life, in their bodies is a dream of what life once was, of what it could be, of how it may have been. They have unproblematic good looks. They are pharaoh boy-gods. They are what so many of us wanted to be.

dimmaAnd up close – away from the prism of television, the detachment of a stadium – they also become human. They are no longer names and numbers, lists on a stats sheet, “cattle” to be bought and sold at season’s end, appraised by all. Up close they again become young men. Young men with partners, wives, some with young children. Young men with ambitions and vulnerabilities, with pride and fear. Young men earning a precarious living, probably never feeling entirely secure in their job – despite a contract – knowing all the ways it could go wrong.

Brendon Gale walks the boundary in a crisp white business shirt. Dimma is in a black tracksuit, looking relaxed. I ask for a photograph and he obliges. I miss my opportunity to ask for a coffee catch-up.

On Friday morning I felt uncomfortable for having recently criticised the performance of some players. I owe Shaun Hampson, Troy Chaplin, Steve Morris – possibly others – an apology. What I see on Friday morning is that all players are trying in their own way, as hard as they can. Their mistakes are not deliberate. Their errors are not wilful.

I come to understand that from distance – watching from the stands, or through television glass – my heart has hardened. I’ve turned into a critic, and I do not want to be that person. Down that road leads only bitterness.

players

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On Saturday night I was reliant on others for the score, and to interpret the game. I was elsewhere; at a wedding, in Church Street, Richmond. It was a crowd mostly of medicos – all specialists – and at times I felt awkward. What have I done with my life? It was an evening of fine champagne, and introspection. None were probably too interested in football, despite the groom’s predilection for Hawthorn, mentioned in speeches.
Before the game, Skippygirl (@SatchSkippygirl) said she’d send quarter-time tweets. In her four messages is a summary of a night:
OK Dons 28-1 but maybe Tigers will get it together for 2nd quarter.
OK enjoy the wedding it aint pretty here
Enjoy the wedding :(
Oh dear, enjoy the dancing.
A tweet came also from Darren Crick, from Canberra: its not good mate… don’t look!
Chris Rees (the better half of TTBB) sent a text: Wish I was at a wedding too. Just terrible. 0-26.
And a text came from a mate, Dave: Sitting in a bar in Lombok watching game – beer in my hand. Got a great souvenir to take home – 9 stitches in face.
What happened, you OK? I replied.
His response: Got hit by an Essendon surfboard.
Then early on Sunday morning, Dave sent this: “Am listening to a call to prayer from local mosque… considering going down. Go tigs!

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I’ve not seen the game and am not sure I will. Advice via Twitter after midnight on Saturday seemed unequivocal.
@SatchSkippygirl: Don’t watch the replay, no no no no no
@jebsrock: do not watch the replay. It will be painful. #holidayinSeptember”
@Suzeme: I’ve already deleted the recording.
@BorisABLBuzz: At least it was easy to create a few hours free space on the DVD hard drive… #brutal #brokenrecord #hugme
@ReadingSideways: don’t watch it. We’ve seen it all before, too often.
@BAFLD: that’s 120 minutes you’ll never get back – I wouldn’t bother

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vale_hardwickMonday morning and in the letters-to-the editor section in The Age newspaper, between commentary about federal politics and capital punishment, Tom Pagonis (from Richmond) adds three words to the issues of the day: Vale Damien Hardwick.

It is surely a brutal business being the coach of one of the big teams in Melbourne, when the tide’s running against you. The losses are so public, the humiliation so complete. There is nowhere to hide, no way to air-brush the hard truth. The bottom line in football is that it’s all about results, and the only result that matters is winning. I feel for Dimma, I do, I do, I do.

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Wednesday night is Presentation Night at the Corner Hotel, featuring Cameron Ling and Paul Dempsey, lead singer and guitarist of rock group, Something for Kate. I hope to be there. August last year, when Richmond was winning and the love was being shared, I went to Presentation Night #2. What follows was my interpretation:

It was a night of beautiful nostalgia. Last Thursday at the Corner Hotel, in the bowels of Richmond, they were together at last: Matthew Richardson on stage with Tim Rogers, in a salon of football and music – two forms of creative expression Melbourne does best – hosted by a saint known as Francis, adept at bridging this cultural divide.

It was Presentation Night #2, the creation of music impresario and Pies fan, Andy Kelly, in collaboration with the latter-day ABC Grandstand commentator, Francis Leach. Earlier this season they had assembled player-writer Bob Murphy and musician-poet Paul Kelly together on the same stage, for magical results.

Now it’s standing-room only and the pairing of a Tiger legend with the You Am I front-man – a rackety shinboner – for a long conversation about playing days, and performance, the spotlight, greatness, and the very meaning of life itself. For people like me, who love their football, music and this city, it promised a night of pleasure.

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Richo, Francis and Tim at PN#2. All photos of PN#2 © Tony Proudfoot Photography

Some confessions. In 1994 I was a cub reporter working at The Age newspaper, living with a flatmate on the top floor of an apartment block on the brow of Lennox Street in Richmond (the ‘Loft on Lennox’, we called it), playing sport, drinking with the boys, partying on weekends, often playing a round-robin of squash with two mates on a weeknight, then the three of us running laps of the ’tan’ after midnight. We wanted to push our limits, hold onto the moment.

We fell asleep on summer nights under a glow of neon. We could see the whole city from our living room. It was a time when we thought anything could happen.

I was 24-years-old in 1994, and restless, and often between girlfriends, and unsettled, and was listening to an album called Sound as Ever released by a band called You Am I, with a lead singer called Tim Rogers whose life looked to have the creativity and freedom I desired. He was wild, unhinged, intoxicating. His lyrics had a yearning (“And anyone who’s looking out/Just waiting for tall guys to fall”) that resonated. He could put on a show. He could travel the world.

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Francis with a Bones shirt that was raffled to raise funds for injured footballer Casey Tutungi.

Instead, I wrote little stories for the newspaper. I was good at my job, but never fully at ease. Office life was a chore. I never felt part of the crowd. Looking back now, I think I had bouts of depression that I masked with bravado. I often felt vulnerable. I found happiness in bending words as best I could. I wanted to excel at my craft. In my own way – fearful, unknowing, sometimes reckless – I was careful with what I had.

One of my fondest memories of being at The Age was playing football. One of our games, in the annual media cup against News Limited, was on a Sunday morning at Punt Road Oval. I was young and tall and fit, playing centre-half-back. Rohan Connolly was coach. We wore the Richmond sash.

I’d played sport the day before, been out until the early morning, and had slept in a bed elsewhere. I threw-up in the change rooms before the game, and at half-time. I still have a photograph of me playing that day – all unruly hair and sideburns – lifting up a Herald-Sun player, readying to thump him into the ground. This is how I played football. I was angry. I had no time for pleasantries.

After the game, a colleague, Stewart Oldfield, gave me a lift home to his unit in Northcote where we watched Withnail and I, and I fell asleep on his lounge room floor. Next morning, my name was in the sport section of the paper. I was named a best player.

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Richo with his treasured possession, “The Map”.

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“They’re resilient and loyal, Richmond supporters,” says Richo, up on stage last Thursday night, before an adoring crowd, in a room that hung off almost his every word. He looked a natural performer; tall and handsome, and with an easeful and disarming manner. In a recent profile interview, Greg Baum wrote that Matthew Richardson looks “as if he expects something good is about to happen”, and this is how he is on Presentation Night #2. He tells his story about “getting off the boat” from Davenport with his new Melways – a wide-eyed boy coming to the big city – and all of us want to share in his success.

He is also funny, open, and self-deprecating. “I did like to express my body-language on the ground,” he says, wryly. Memorable anecdotes include the phone call he received from Leigh Matthews trying to coax him from Tasmania to Victoria Park; the day he wore the “map of Tassie” on his jumper in a representative game (“we disgraced the Apple Isle,” lambasted the coach, Robert Shaw); and the afternoon he had tea and biscuits at Denis Pagan’s house in Moonee Ponds, seeing if he might defect to Carlton.

Stories were told about playing against Glenn Archer (an “angry man”, “psychotic on the ground”, all “sharp elbows”, and “once you marked it he fell on top of you”); the fearlessness of the Kellaway boys, especially Duncan running back into the path of Tony Lockett and Gary Ablett (“those guys didn’t miss you if you were in the way”); and the crowd participation behind the Punt Road end goals, most notably from the so-called Grog Squad.

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In 1994, when Sound as Ever hit the charts, Richmond put together a decent team, and I saw Tim Rogers play an acoustic set in a pub in Fitzroy, a 19-year-old Matthew Richardson was in his second-year of AFL football, had found his feet, and showed all what he could do, while promising more. He kicked 56 goals that season.

I watched him play often, sometimes with ‘Yeatsey’, or with other friends who were MCC members, who wangled me in to the old Members’ stand. We walked across from Richmond Hill, stood in front of the stand, drank beer, called out to the players – and all the time I wondered what it would be like running around out there. If I were put on the field, and the ball came to me in space, could I hold my own?

This wondering, I think, must enthral many able-bodied men of an age when they could be a footballer, a contender.

Yeatsey also lived in Richmond, buying a house in Cotter Street, on the flatlands, where our bunch of friends often would end up on Saturday night. He was also a You Am I fan, and through a mutual friend who did occasional night-shifts on 3RRR, got tickets to see them play a prized gig at a club on Jazz Lane. A young Matthew Richardson was also there.

Richmond finished 9th in 1994, missing out of finals by percentage, from Melbourne and Collingwood. In the second-last home-and-away game I went with Yeatsey to see them play Carlton at Princes Park on a Saturday afternoon. We stood in the outer, on a warm day, among a crowd of 32,486 people. It was the Tigers’ last roll of the dice. We needed one win to get in the finals, but were to play Geelong in the last round. We could never beat Geelong.

I had been to a party the night before and had not slept a wink since the Thursday night. Our Tigers got flogged by 114 points. I went home to bed, and slept for two days.

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Tim cranks out Berlin Chair to close proceedings.

I could have stood all night, listening to Tim Rogers talk about football, his childhood growing up in Adelaide, his love for North Melbourne, and the day at the Sacred Heart Mission’s Community Cup, playing for the Espy Rockdogs against the 3RRR/PBS Megahertz, when he took an overhead mark and went back and kicked a goal, in front of his child and several thousand spectators.

I had most recently seen Tim Rogers on stage at the Regal Ballroom in Northcote, performing an evening of musical bohemia during last year’s football finals, and it left me flat. Not so last Thursday at the Corner Hotel. At Presentation Night #2 he was at his engaging and compelling best. He told stories about his father who on weekends was a field umpire; about being a teenager in the Sturt Football Club cheer squad (with Paul Bagshaw’s number on his duffle coat); and about life as a North supporter.

He sang a song about the Paragon Café in Goulburn – a Greek institution where I stop regularly on drives up-and-down the Hume, usually after a booth and lambs’ fry on the menu.

And showman that he is, Rogers provided the night’s two enduring memories. The first was an achingly raw monologue about life in Adelaide as a young man with an ongoing mental illness, and how for him salvation could be found in being passionate about something. “Live a life with heart,” he implored.

And the second came with the night’s final curtain. He picked up a guitar, sat on a stool front-of-stage, the lights dimmed, and he played Berlin Chair. I was 24 all-over again, and I didn’t want the night to end.

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byrne
Before this season began I received an email from Sydney-based Richmond supporter Richard Byrne. It contained this photograph:

His annotated caption: “Rome, January 2014. TOOK THIS WITH YOU AND THE BLOG AND THE TIGER DIARY AND RFC IN GENERAL ALL IN MIND. I OF COURSE TOOK IT AS A (GOOD) OMEN.”
Early last month, Richard emailed again with other tidings I’d like to share. “Been disappointing times for us tiges, battling on with both injuries and a hostile draw against us. None of us thought we’d be sitting 2-5 after Rd7, did we? What a great time for a bye, though…”

 

This present season… you can see us with a mope,

hanging from a rope

if we’re behind then we don’t mind 

we’ll fight and fight and…….. hope…….

So where to from here?

Where is our mythically powerful team?

Who are the characters – The Captain Bloods, The Rolls Royce King of Harts’ ? The Winners?

Who can pull the sword from this terrible stone?

Where are the merry men to lead us out of this dark forest, and who in turn shall lead them?

We need a man who has shed blood on the battlefield. Shows loyalty, follows orders, and leads only by example.

He wears the handsome, scarring near-death glory of a shuddering jousting head clash.

He risks head and skin and draws swoon and envy and respect and admiration at every turn.

Who is this Ace in our deck?

ARISE SIR RANCELOT !

and with him rise the cast of this fabled fairytale forward. 

Sir Ivan of Mullet, David of Astbury, The Jack of Riewolts, The Bacchus of Houli and arise too The Chaplin of Troy.

Arise Edwards The First

Arise Edwards The Second.

Arise the Two Blond Bombshells, Morris and Ellis, the Three Scarlet Pimpernels, Jackson, Vlastuin and Conca, the Four Scotch Guards, McDonough, McBean and McIntosh and Nathan@39Gordon and Nathan @42Foley

Arise The Cotchin of Trent, Sir Tyrone, Shaun of the Grigg, The Noble Batchelor, Doubtless Thomas, Grimes, Big Ben, Biggles, Lucky Pets, T42with SamLloyd, Chris the Elder, Flip Delidio, Service Hampson,  The Martin Lad, 

Intoducing Ben-John Lennon, Todd Elton-John, Bro’Hanlon, The Bigger O and the Matts Dea and Arnot,

Arise(please) Chris The Knight of Knights Knee.

But arise and go quickly good men of Richmond, 

for constant and confusing dangers are alurk.

Awrys things may go, you know, when the Jester is the Jake is the King.

Richard contributes to a blog (thebackpocket.blogspot.com.au) run by Mathilde de Hauteclocque, known well-enough to many Football Almanac readers. His sporadic contributions are filed under ‘The Tiger Diary’ which, he says, are a “slightly loopy look at the riches and routs of Richmond.” 

In these strange days, maybe loopiness is what we all need.

Tiger tiger, burning (not at all) bright

Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com

Twitter: @dugaldjellie

Dugald 03/06/2014Filed Under: dugald_14, front, Uncategorized

Imogen Bowman

28/05/2014 By Dugald Leave a Comment

Imogen Bowman, by the boundary at Western Oval watching Richmond’s VFL team

Imogen Bowman, by the boundary at Western Oval watching Richmond’s VFL team

Where born? At Royal Melbourne Hospital, I think.
Age: 59
Where do you live: Newport. They used to call it Newport West but we’ve dropped the west bit.
How did you come to barrack for Richmond: My dad. My mum was South Melbourne but she wasn’t as keen on the game as dad. My grandfather on her side was Carlton, and all my cousins were Melbourne. I went with my dad.
Favourite all-time player? I don’t know. I guess I’ve got to go for Royce. It was around that era I started watching and I loved all the players. Bourkey, and Dick Clay. But I think Royce was the one. He was great. He was just a beautiful player to watch. He was cat-like, he was graceful. He moved like how a lot of the Indigenous players move now. You know how they kind of float, he was like that. He was not only an aerialist, but on the ground he was clean below the knees. He was flawless, practically. You’d be listening on the radio if you couldn’t get to the game, and every time the ball went forward and they called out ‘Royce Hart’, you knew the ball was in safe hands.
Favourite current player? There’s a lot of good, young kids coming through. Trent’s a star, and Lids. Alex down the back, I’ve never seen him give up. And Morris. And big Ivvy, we all love him. And Jack of course, even after last week. And Dusty. Oh, gosh. But I guess Trent would be the respectable face of Richmond, so I’ll choose him. I really admire him, he’s growing as a young captain. I just love everybody who pulls on a Richmond jumper and plays for them.
What do you most like about Richmond? I love the colours, I love the song, and I love the fact that we’re Tigers. It’s also the kind of people who barrack for Richmond. They’re a type. The numbers never fall. They always hold onto hope. We’re eternal optimists. We just never give up. Not the team, but the people. Richmond people just keep turning up.
Do you have a match-day superstition? I wear certain socks and then we’ll just start losing so I’ll give them up. I’ll even not wear underwear that’s the colour of the opposition side. I don’t know if that works, or not. I used to have a crystal that I wore, and I’ve had scarves and badges. But then we start losing. None of it works. They just don’t work, so why bother?
When will we next win a premiership? I’m not counting the days. I’m not holding my breath. Not in the foreseeable future, not with the team we have now. We have some good young players, but we’ve just got too many holes. And with the way the draft is, and free agency, it’s really hard for the middle clubs to come up. You can’t buy a premiership but you can maintain one, because all the good players want to play for the top clubs. It’s going to take a miracle, but I’m not going to drop-off. You never know.

 

Dugald 28/05/2014Filed Under: fan, Uncategorized

Round Eleven – Time to Dream

28/05/2014 By Dugald Leave a Comment

SWANS to mug the Cats. In “virtual reality”, aka fantasy points, Swans – 14,456 and Cats – 14,510. The real world is a bit different and the SCG is no “‘fool’s paradise”.

St Kilda to unbeat the PIES. Any “hopes” saints supporters have of victory is just “pie in the sky”.

Melbourne and PORT. We all “aspire” but only one team has a “trance” of winning this one.

Lions to cop a flogging from the BLUES. If wishes were fishes the stands would be full. Are I dreaming. Chris Yarran is leading the Blues goal kicking with 12 ?? Forward line what forward line.

Bombers to lose to the TIGGERRRSSSS. Red and black and yellow are the colours of the indigenous flag. Preseason both teams dreamed of making the finals, but results have been a huge wake up call to both.

ADELAIDE to overcome the Suns. The suns are building “castles in the air’ after at beating lesser teams their “reverie” will hit the hard elbow of reality this week.

Bulldogs will have no room to move playing with FREEO. If shoes were clues, the doggies would be barefoot.

HAWKS to continue the nightmare for GWS. Who will kick eleven this week. When you start your nearly coleman winning FF at CHB it crosses the thin line between illusion and delusion.

Eagles tackle the KANGAROOS. I “fancy” the Roos because they have bested better teams

– EASY TIGER

Dugald 28/05/2014Filed Under: tips, Uncategorized

1995 v North Melbourne – The Dream Start

18/05/2014 By Chris Leave a Comment

The charity we get from the umps here is beyond belief. The current CEO goes arse-over-teakettle at about 0:20 and gets a free for it. Stuey Edwards arrives 6th or 7th and is awarded the mark. Knights gets a free on defensive 50 for having the tidiest hair. Etcetera. Speaking of the white larvae, the centre bounces are the worst you’ll ever see.

My highlight is Michael Gale’s gather at 5:20, going at top pace. I had not remembered him having such great balance and skill, but that is a moment of pure class that ultimately brings another goal.

The Tasmanians are prominent here; Chrissy Bond, the Gales and Richo. And I notice from the ad that pops up for Trust Bank that this was taped by someone here in the island state.

 

Chris 18/05/2014Filed Under: tube, Uncategorized

Round 7: On playing Geelong, and other things.

08/05/2014 By Dugald 12 Comments

howson

Football cultural expression #985: A long-sleeved Tiger (an olden-day Brett Deledio, with no elbows?) painted by artist Nick Howson – a Pies man – on a public wall beside the Swan Street entrance to Richmond Station. His unauthorised artwork is titled ‘Tiger Legend’, and Melbourne is all the richer for Nick’s audacity.

dimmeys

Our hour of need: the timepiece on the yellow and black Dimmey’s (or is it Dimma’s) clock tower is either broken, or reads one minute to midnight. It seemed an omen before Sunday’s game.

The season’s narrative shifted last Sunday. After six games filled mostly with disappointment and resignations, in the scrim of cold rain at last there was hope. This is what the business of football is about. Our everyday is suspended for two-and-a-half hours each weekend during the football season, during which our trust and dreams are carried by others.

Alex Rance and Brett Deledio, we thank you. For your contributions last Sunday, and we hope it’s the beginning of a run of games that brings collective fulfilment to all who’re Tigers.

On Sunday afternoon, I had expected a narrative of despair. I chose not to attend the game. I had challenged my team to win (a pact really, only with myself), saying if they did I would walk from Punt Road to Kardinia park in a pair of Richmond socks bought recently from the Tigerland Superstore. They cost $18, are a half-size too small, and for me were a purchase charged with symbolism. The shop assistant, she looked underwhelmed.

gulls

Birds on a day of cats: the crowd is inside the ground, the game has started, the seagulls gather outside.

But then the game arrives and I cannot stand still, so under heavy clouds I ride through Richmond because I know in my heart I want to be at the game. Football makes us like children. I stand outside the MCG in the rain as the game begins. I listen to the crowd inside. I see people I know. I take photographs of seagulls. I find a keyhole where I can look down the ground’s spine. And then I turn my bicycle for Brunton Avenue, for the ride home in the rain.

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A game’s narrative can be deceptive. On the television, late in the second quarter, Richmond are yet to kick a goal and are down by 30-odd points when I pick up the telecast, and it looks as if all my imaginings were to come true. Then late on Sunday night I watched the replay, and it’s obvious we weren’t nearly as bad as the score-line suggested. Football needs context. For most of the first half, we held our own, but they took most of their chances.

And then Jack did what Jack does best; he ignited the spark. And then Brett Deledio (oh how we’ve missed him, and oh how dashing he looked in those long sleeves) did what he does best; he started the fire. Two goals in two minutes, and how us Richmond fans love a little passion, a little emotion, a little feeling in our footy.

Anything seems possible when the Tigers are up-and-running. Hope spreads among the crowd; it’s shared like wildfire.

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In these recent dark hours, these past few days I’ve felt the Tiger love, and all I can do is reciprocate. Last Friday, a keen supporter of TTBB had me as her guest to a Tommy Hafey Club luncheon at Punt Road, which was a treat in so many ways. I’ve never been to the Maurice Rioli Room before. Dustin Martin was interviewed on stage. Former players offered fond and candid insights into their days at Richmond. I met Joel Bowden. I felt a connection with my club.

flood

Glum skies, bright lights: a view from outside the MCG as the game started on Sunday.

I will write a report on the luncheon, and the fundraising activities of the Tommy Hafey Club, shortly. It was an occasion made all the more poignant with the ailing health of Tommy; with lingering thoughts another generation is soon to pass, and with it go all its dreams and memories.

On Monday I was in contact with the Capital Tigers supporter group who are running a bus from Canberra to Sydney on Saturday 24 May for the game against GWS. Darren Crick is the man to see, for a seat. One of the highlights of my season last year was catching a bus with the Gippsland Richmond Supporter Group, from Morwell to the MCG. I wrote a story about it. Before the Round 10 game I will get to Canberra, then catch the bus with the Capital Tigers. A story awaits. If you live in the district, why not join in?

I met Darren briefly last year at a Sydney Richmond Tigers supporter group function, before the game against Sydney. He said it’d been a quiet trip up; he’d forgotten the DVD of the 1980 Grand Final. What would be your favourite Richmond game to relive on a road trip?

The Sydney Tigers are hosting a pre-game function at the GWS game, starting 11.30am at the Horden Room, at the Olympic Park Showgrounds. Tickets are $35, which includes food and entertainment. Nick Daffy is the special guest. Their function last year was a beauty – and a full house! See their website to book tickets. I hope to wangle my way into the room; for the purposes of investigative journalism, to document all the ways us Tigers express our attachment to our team and to our club.

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Alex Rance thrilled us all on Sunday afternoon, with his passion, mongrel, deep overlaps, and run off the ball. We all knew he was a good player – fearless, daring, quick, creative – but somehow in this past month we had forgotten he was that good. We saw Alex Rance on Sunday through new eyes, and gained a new appreciation of what he can do and what he adds to this team. My lingering memory of the game was his concession of a free kick on the Members’ wing, for a full-frontal assault on Joel Selwood. This act would likely not be included in ‘Dimma’s Dissection’ on the club’s website, but for me it was an act that could well mark the season’s turning point.

It was a one-man show of defiance, of retribution.

Alex Rance decided he was no longer to be bullied and pushed-about by Geelong. We are no longer their whipping boys. He was willing to give away a free-kick and I for one was happy for him to do so. There was venom in what he did. It was a statement of intent. It was a considered gesture that I think showed leadership and pride in who he is and what he does. Missing for so long because of an off-field mishap, Rance played like someone seeking forgiveness from his teammates, his club, and us supporters. His absence was sorely missed during our time of crisis.

The time has come for him to put his head down and play hard and committed football. He again won our respect on Sunday. But this is not yet the end of the deal.

Brett Deledio looked as slippery as an eel on Sunday. Notwithstanding his indiscretion (an errant elbow, which he should rightfully be shameful about), his silky runs on a heavy ground, his long kicking, his running goal, were a delight to behold. I’ve often thought our club need bottle his DNA. Of all Richmond players, for so long he’s been the most gifted, the most athletic, the most pleasing to watch. He makes the game look easy, which is the hardest thing to do. We are lucky to have him. We need to hold him dear.

Sam Lloyd has the knack, and if he can keep apace of the game, there are goals aplenty waiting for him, and a wonderful story he can share for years to come around the campfire. Playing Geelong at the MCG is a long way from playing Tocumwal or Moama at Hardinge Street Oval, and long may he hold onto this opportunity. Goals, Sam, keep finding those goals!

Matty McDonough, during the pre-season, was like a fresh and new wind. He is light-footed, and sprightly, and seems not afraid to take the game on. We need his spring. Never mind he makes the odd mistake; he is learning the game, and he looks full of endeavour. All we can ask is that our players strive and try as hard as they can, and he looked to be doing this on Sunday.

Reece Conca was our everywhere-man on Sunday, hacking the ball forward from scrimmages, lifting it lightly from the ground and sending it into attack, setting up plays from deep in defence. I love that he and his brother now play for the club. I love reading recent dispatches from the VFL team that list Luke Conca among the contributors. I went to watch Luke play for the Surrey Park Panthers in the Eastern Football League last year, and am thrilled for him he has this opportunity to be part of a big Melbourne football club. There is an old Italian motto rarely used that rings true: two Conca’s are better than one. The Richmond Football Club knows all about this.

Dave Astbury again stood tall in defence and is having a stellar campaign. The Dave Astbury Appreciation Society (#daas, on Twitter) is in full swing. At the start of this season, I sent out a tweet asking for Dave Astbury stories or photographs from fans. I want to write an essay about Dave, because I want him to know how us fans appreciate what he has made of himself. I want to know also if our group appreciation can help make him a better footballer, make him a better leader among men.

Please feel free to email me any correspondence to weave into my #daas story. Details of our fund-raising ‘Tiger’ t-shirts will soon be announced. All proceeds will go to (a) reimbursing the start-up and running costs of TTBB; (b) on a fact-finding trip to Dave Astbury’s home oval at Tatyoon; and hopefully even (c) on a bus ticket to the West Coast game, which coincidentally falls on my birthday, that I’d like to celebrate afterwards with a large margherita at Conca’s Pizzeria in Perth.

Plaudits to Damien Hardwick for switching the sub so early. Nathan Gordon had had only one possession to half-time, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Sometimes, the game runs around you and you simply cannot find the ball. Gordon was having one of those afternoons. But to his credit, he kept harassing and laid tackles that didn’t go unnoticed.

And Shane Edwards had a half-a-game out of the box. Could we not keep him in the forward pocket permanently? He springs about like a constant threat, he lays lunging tackles, he knows how to sniff out a goal. He has also one of the great attributes of a good forward: he’s hard to pin down, hard to put a match-up on.

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Joel Selwood in the last quarter was streaming blood from a gash in his forehead (Alex Rance, anyone?) and all watching the game on television – if not at the ground – were faced with a moral dilemma. What would you do? Would you alert the umpire to his open wound, having him spelled to the sideline?

My initial thought was to scream at the television. Selwood is bleeding! Get him off! Head wound! Health and safety issue! Stop the game! Blood rule, blood rule! Bye-bye, Joel!

I couldn’t understand why Brett Deledio wouldn’t quietly let any of the field umpires know that his opposite number had an open gash and spurting blood would most likely mean his fetching long-sleeved top would need a cold cycle wash. When Selwood kicked a goal that looked to put the game out of our reach, I quietly seethed. Have our players not been schooled in the art of gamesmanship? Wasn’t Dimma one of the finest practitioners of it, in his day?

Slow the game down when it’s running against you, speed it up when you have a run-on – and banish Joel Selwood from the ground when he’s a mobile billboard for the Blood Bank.

After the game, my only rationale is this. Players like Brett Deledio play the game to a different set of rules and a different code. For players like him, it’s all about the challenge, and the contest of testing your abilities against those of another man. He didn’t care that Selwood was bleeding. By his code, blood didn’t matter; he wanted to beat his adversary with all things being equal. He knows of the traditions of Francis Bourke, streaming blood from a gash above his eye and sent to the forward line to win a game of football at Arden Street, and how it’s been enshrined in football folklore.

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A professional football club should be a meritocracy. When Chris Newman limped from the ground late in the game, my guess is that many Richmond supporters could see an upside. There is unwritten callousness in football. One man’s injury is another man’s opportunity. And so Chris Newman’s calf goes, and we are sorry for him, but a blessing is it forces the hand of team selectors.

Late last year, Fairfax journalist Emma Quayle, in an engaging multi-media series titled Five Seasons, followed the debut season of Richmond’s 18-year-old Nick Vlastuin. One of the ideas in her compelling story has stuck with me. “He [Vlastuin] wasn’t playing as well as he wished he was and he hadn’t forgotten what Brett Deledio had told him not long after he got to the club: if you get a spot in the team, don’t give it up easily, because somebody else will take it.”

keyhole

Outsider’s clipped perspective: a goal-to-goal, cheer squad to cheer squad view of the game, as seen from a peephole outside Gate 4, soon after Geelong kick the opening goal.

There is crude social Darwinism in football; it is a dog-eat-dog world.

Our first third of the season has not gone to script. We lost to Gold Coast and the Bulldogs. We were walloped by Collingwood and Hawthorn. We have looked slow and stilted, hesitant and unsure. Our confidence has waned. A core of players are not contributing to the level they were last year, or the level we had come to expect of them.

Chris Newman was one of those players; Troy Chaplin another. Chappy was a keystone of our defence last year. This season, his game has been mired with errors. How can the coaching staff justify his inclusion when perhaps others for now might offer more for the greater cause of the team? Why not swing Ben Griffiths into his role, rewarding him for his solid game in the reserves? Set the younger man a challenge.

By relegating Chaplin to the VFL, it also sets him a challenge. I’ve never met Troy, but I have met his parents, and I know he has a young family, and I know he is a man of fine character. I would expect him to fight his way back into the team, and for this, all us fans would respect him. Overcoming adversity only endears us to players. It is the classic story of resurrection. That is why we hoped for the best for Tyrone Vickery on Sunday, and were pleased he made himself a target and kicked two goals.

I am still uncertain Shaun Hampson offers the team as much grunt around the ground as Orren Stephenson. A few weeks ago I saw Hampson standing over a contest and before the umpire had blown his whistle, he removed his mouthguard. It was a gesture of concession. Was I imagining it? I never want my Tigers to give up before the whistle is blown, before the ball crosses the boundary. As our song says: “we’ll fight and fight and win”.

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Chris Rees’ Virtual Duffel Coat, found elsewhere on this site, was featured this week in an article in The Guardian about six missed traditions of Australian Rules football. The story can be read here. If you haven’t seen the duffel coat, please have a look, and share it among Richmond fans.

What he is creating is something that should be cherished by all who have an affiliation with Richmond. It is an artwork that blurs the boundaries between players and fans, and club employees/volunteers, and which knits together the continuum of Richmond players from all eras. Names like Stuart Maxfield and Tony Jewell are pinned to the duffel coat alongside property steward Giuseppe Mammone, former life member Alice Wills, celebrity fan Waleed Aly, and boot studder Ilmar ‘Drac’ Tilterns.

I love the inclusiveness of this project, the way it brings fans and players together, putting them on the same billing. I also love its deep nostalgia and sense of shared history. I hope Chris’s Virtual Duffel Coat becomes a cultural phenomenon, I hope it is embraced by the current custodians of our football club and shared among a wider audience. From little things, big things grow.

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tent

The hollow business of losing: with the game on, the membership stall at the ground stands as an empty shell, but hopefully not a metaphor.

Sunday’s game must be a turning point. Under leaden skies, there was hope for this season’s future. As the cheer squad’s banner illustrated, our backs were to the wall, and our team came out fighting. As so many supporters articulate in online fan forums, and by gate attendance numbers, it’s not the losing that matters – but the way in which the losing happens.

There are scales of defeat, and on Sunday afternoon it was universally registered as ‘honourable’. Rarely on a Monday morning after a loss have I felt so buoyant.

But the hard fact remains: 2-5. Our team have little margin for error. The good ship needs to be righted. Grievances need be buried. All hands must pull as one. We must start winning games, and stringing them together as a daisy-chain, and as if this where always expected. The well-being of our fragile team and our fragile club depends on it. A football club, really, is only as strong as its playing list, and only as strong as its supporter base. In this, Hawthorn and Geelong and Collingwood are doubly-blessed.

We have been playing catch-up for the best part of 30 years.

Cometh the hour, let’s see who are the young men who will stand up; who are the men for a crisis; who are the men we’ll forever honour; who are the players who will “fight and fight and win”.

Do us proud, Tigers! Make us roar!

Tiger tiger burning bright

Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com

Twitter: @dugaldjellie

Dugald 08/05/2014Filed Under: dugald_14, Uncategorized

Round Seven – The attack is back

01/05/2014 By EASY TIGER Leave a Comment

The flavour of the month last year was tight defence. But this year the top defensive teams of 2013 (Freo, Swans and Tigers) have had their defences blown asunder by good attacking sides.

Blues to get pounded by COLLINGWOOD.
Buckles is comfortable with the vicissitudes of the modern game, whereas Mick is stuck in 2010 mode. Also Pendles is hot.

HAWTHORN’ll attack the Saints from the get go and keep on truckin to gain % to get on top.
Hawks have a multitude of attacking options and Saints a singular only one uno.

Gr We Sy are still learning and way undergunned against the current top scoring team PORT.

CROWS’ll lambast the tryinghard Dees. Adelaide is generating big attacking muscles

BOMBERS must beat the Bulldogs to stay in touch with the eight. A toss up.
The Doggies have a more potent forward set up, but Bombers have some good attacking players coming back.

Lions have no chance against the SWANS – with or without Big Money Pants
IF Swans can get their attacking forwards on the park it should be fun to watch.
Not that it matters , big money pants has played just seven games and is subbed out injured. 201 games to go big fella.

ROOS’ll win an tough game with the Suns. The winner will certainly make the top eight.
Both teams like to attack, but we will see who blinks first and drops a man back.

Cats to lose to the mighty TIGGEERRRSS. Fingers crossed, they’ll charge forward this week.
Have tigers gone vegan ??. names are the same, but they’re the Tigers of Old not the Tigers of Bold.

Eagles and FREEO. One team will fall upon the other and the other will fall apart. Which one?

EASY TIGER

EASY TIGER 01/05/2014Filed Under: tips, Uncategorized

Mark McQueen’s vertical grill

28/04/2014 By Chris Leave a Comment

ttm_s12

Chris 28/04/2014Filed Under: museum, Uncategorized

R6 v Hawthorn: A long day’s journey into night

28/04/2014 By Dugald 16 Comments

“That’s a lot of fanfare, it’s putting the pressure on,” says Katrina, a Hawks fan and one of my football companions on this day, as the sound of jungle drums echoes around the cauldron of the MCG before Richmond enters the fray. “Still, guess it’s better than the Collingwood break dancers.”

Eight minutes into the game, and with the Tigers pulled-apart so demonstratively by the Hawks, her appraisal is no less succinct. “This is starting to feel like Hawthorn-Richmond.”

r6grigg

Warm-up before the bounce: the much-maligned Shaun Grigg (who I thought played a fair enough game on Sunday).

Forget the anomalies of the past two seasons; in the first half of the first quarter with the sum total of our forward inside 50s being a ball kicked along the ground by Jack, here was an afternoon shaping as an embarrassment. Hardwick had spoken midweek about a need to play big in big games. Here we are again on centre stage at the MCG, and again all our hoped-for lines are fluffed. All that flattered us was the score line, courtesy of their missed chances.

David Hale (“the oldest looking 29-year-old guy you’ll ever see,” says Katrina) out-marks the younger Troy Chaplin, and a pattern is set. They look to have more players in their backline, and their forwards look looser and to be running everywhere.

The Richmond crowd – like our players – falls silent before such a lopsided equation, with its ring of familiarity. Oh, how it’s unravelled so quickly, how the house of cards has tumbled.

Such a beautiful autumn day, it seemed ruined by a game of football.

And then hard in a pocket, Jack taps one back, and Dusty picks up the loose ball and fends off two of them and kicks a goal around his body – into the crowd at the Punt Road end – and he’s a blaze of tattoos in the glistening sunlight, and all this misery for this fleeting moment is worth it.

Soon after the siren sounds – like a bell to relieve a punch drunk boxer – and Andrew, another Hawk and another companion on this day, turns and says: “I’d take that, two goals down.” He’s being generous. The balance is two goals, seven other scoring shots, the weight of possession, and all the hope.

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r6astbury

The halo effect: our man Dave, a fund-raising effort for the Dave Astbury Appreciation Society soon to be announced.

Earlier in the afternoon, I had seen the colours on the station platform – so much gold glimmering in clear autumn sunshine – and I had known there was someplace I needed to be. I enjoy this delightful prospect before the game. The rituals of dressing. Leaving home. The stride to the station. The standing huddle of disparate supporters on the platform, the teasing anxiety; all up one end, readying for the exit ramp at Richmond station.

The train arrives, the day’s principal activity beckons. Young children clutch and spin footballs. Fathers are noosed in scarves, in anticipation for the late afternoon chill. Women have packed rugs in team colours. All of us know the air will cool. Winter is coming. All that is uncertain is the outcome of this day.

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At 4.25pm during the halftime break, the sun thankfully tilts below the Members’ Stand and the afternoon can only get better. ‘Selfies’ are screened on the scoreboard – it’s a commercial imperative (“post a photo of you and your Bingle sticks”) – and I wonder at all the ways a football club can commercialise the experience of being barrackers. Never have I seen so many iPads at a game; I know we are playing Hawthorn.

Cyril Rioli kicks a goal in the first 30 seconds of the second half, then Hale marks in front of Chaplin (again), and they have two goals in less then two minutes and the afternoon is gone.

How many marks has Shaun Hampson taken?

I see by the day’s end the rude answer: none. The team’s tallest player, a touted gun recruit over summer, and for the second week running he manages to take not one mark in two hours of football. We have a problem. He is paid good money to play football, but it’s hardly a performance to pay good money to see. It is a statistic that should rightly haunt him: two games, zero marks. How can a club justify this return on investment?

Troy Chaplin doesn’t even look as though he wants the ball. He’s out-positioned and out-marked all afternoon by Hale (eight marks, one contested, two goals) and Ben McEvoy (six marks, one contested, one goal). His leads when we move the ball so painfully slow from defence look, at best, half-hearted. The ball slips through his hands. But worst of all, his shepherds don’t even make body contact with opposition players. He is playing with no conviction. His confidence is in ruins. How long must we wait until he turns it around?

Cyril makes us look like fools. As does Bradley Hill. And I wonder why our recruitment of Aboriginal players has for so long been so lacking or mired by failure. I’m pleased for Shane Edwards when he kicked our first goal. But the long view is that Richmond – unlike Port Adelaide, unlike Hawthorn, unlike Sydney, unlike Essendon, unlike Adelaide, unlike West Coast, unlike Fremantle, unlike others – seems not to have created the culture, or chosen to have created the culture, where young footballers from other cultures can grow and thrive.

Thank goodness for Bachar. Thank goodness also on Sunday for Dave Astbury, who stood up again in the contest, and stood up in tackles, and stood up to the onslaught.

“Think it’s all downhill from here,” says Katrina, late in the third. “Like really downhill, like the handbrake’s off.”

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r6crowd

General admission: Hawks and Tigers mingle with delightful anticipation, squinting into a warm sun.

The three-quarter-time promotion of the Tigerland Superstore sounds hollow. Blah, blah, blah. What an inopportune advertising time-slot. Why must football clubs insult our intelligence like this, and why must they seek to so loudly occupy and commercialise the cherished quiet time in football? Do they think we cannot amuse ourselves with conversation and catch-ups? Is our attention span that short? Any vacancy, and they choose to sell the space.

At least the so-called ‘Cuddle Cam’ offers a communal laugh. It pans in on two bearded Hawthorn supporters, grizzly old ZZ Top types, holding plastic cups of beer, and they duly oblige. Good sports.

The day’s inequality does not abate in the last stanza. A farcical score review helps only to prolong our agony, and embarrassment for Steve Morris. We all get to see his error again, in slow motion, on the big screen, paused. He was incapable of rushing a loose ball across the goal line. It encapsulated his afternoon. Plenty of desperate acts – all flailing arms – that seem as papering over cracks. He’s caught too far from the contest, from his man. He looses his footing. He clutches at his shoulder, grimacing.

How the fairytale turns sour so quickly. As with Chaplin, his partial defence might well be that the ball was so often and regularly found in our defence.

r6boys

Sitting on the fence: Two Tigers and a Hawk, at quarter time.

I get up to leave early, just as a Richmond pitch invader also makes a run for it. It is a moment that’s both comical and saddening. In my Book of Feuds for this game against Hawthorn, I said I would streak naked across the MCG if I thought it could rid us of the curse of Helen D’Amico that seems to have afflicted our club since the third quarter of the last game played in the 1982 season. But never did I expect this.

We needed an extra man in the backline, but not this bloke. He made a lead, then stopped, crouched, surrendered. He gained not one possession. Then he was tackled, and carted off the ground like a sheep.

Dave Astbury, forever the gentlemen, and I think maybe the son of a shearer, fetched his belongings and put them aside. He could read the situation. He could understand the frustrations, however misguided.

The station platform at Richmond is filled with yellows and blacks, with our colours, that now look so dull in dusky light. Many had thought better of the day. There is something to be salvaged in making it home for the evening meal.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Sunday night and I am disturbed by what has happened. Trust and belief seem to have broken at our club, so quickly and readily after the dream of last season. Trust between players. Trust between coaches. Trust between fans. Trust within the club. Trust in football. Trust in something we hold so dear.

Are we living a lie?

Long into the night I make a mental list of those players of ours who on Sunday I know I trust.

I trust Trent Cotchin, and was pleased to see he was first to disparage Josh Gibson for crudely cannoning into Reece Conca. I trust Brandon Ellis, because he is our future. I trust Dave Astbury and Ben Griffiths, because of what they’ve shown this year. I trust Nick Vlastuin because everything about him says outstanding citizen (courage, leadership, humility). I trust Jack Riewoldt because he hurts, and shows passion, and gives us a spark, and kicks goals, and has pride in his performance. I trust Bachar because I love Bachar. I trust Ricky Petterd because, despite the errors, he looks always to put his body on the line. I trust Daniel Jackson because he has mongrel in him. I trust Dylan Grimes and Reece Conca because they are still finding their way.

It’s not that I don’t distrust all other players, but for whatever reasons the contract between this fan and those players is not watertight. It is still to be proven, or to be re-established, or re-configured. I would delight in being shown to be wrong.

A good Hawk: I sat with three dear friends on Sunday, all Hawks, including Katrina, a good wit with an open love affair with Luke Hodge (despite her partner, Dave, being an anguished Tiger, and a good man in a crisis).

And for me, the unwritten social contract between a fan and our coach, and a club and its administrators – the custodians of our shared history and communal passion and common dreams – has been strained also.

Performances like that offer so little confidence, so little reason to believe. Again, I would delight in being shown I have misread the situation.

Nothing much has worked this season, despite all the false bravado. We have been shown to be pretenders, again. Ours is not the football club we hoped it to be. Look at how Hawthorn goes about its business of recruiting, and nurturing and getting the best out of its players. Look at how Port Adelaide has lifted itself from its mire with an honest work ethic, and now is taking Matty White along for the ride. He kicked two goals against Geelong on Sunday night.

We’ve missed his run-and-carry. We look so slow and ponderous and uncertain. We look a shadow of the team that beat Port last year, that ran rings around West Coast away, that worked over Fremantle in an arm wrestle.

When Brett Deledio, mid-way through the last quarter of this season’s first game, against Gold Coast away, kicked the ball away in anger and frustration, after a loping Tyrone Vickery pass, the result was more than a free-kick against. It looked as if trust among the playing group was broken. There was discord. There is nothing more damaging to team morale than disunity. Our season has looked as good as broken ever since.

Our dreams are broken also.

Tiger Tiger Burning (not so) Bright

Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com

Twitter: @dugaldjellie

Dugald 28/04/2014Filed Under: dugald_14, Uncategorized

Footy cards taken seriously as photography

03/04/2014 By Chris 2 Comments

[Another old post from my Diary of Dadness archives]

I still have my old football cards which date from about 1969-1985. Every now and then I look back over them and critique them as works of photography.

Geoff Blethyn kicked 107 goals in a VFL season this year (1972), wearing glasses. And yet you never hear about him. The photographer has chosen the same dramatic angle for all the Essendon shots it seems. A kind of, well, up the shorts angle really.

vincent_peter

2014 update – I have done a t-shirt based on this card, modelled above by Age scribe Peter Hanlon,
while Dr Vincent Yuen rocks a Bones McGhie

What is going on here with Ross Brewer’s arms? I’ll bet he was a hoot when he did his Mr Tickle routine in the rooms after training.

I love a player who strikes the same pose year after year, especially a lairy one like “selling the dummy”. Peter Bedford had all the skills and won the Brownlow Medal. Paul Callery is mostly remembered for being tiny and going on to be a stats man on ABC radio – I think he has a PhD now as the other fellas call him “Doctor”.

Sometimes the ball gets a bit slippery. These pics all have a touch of “whoaaaah there” about them.

And finally: the Swans mostly-white jumper seems to have caused some over-exposure problems here. He would have been stumbling around blinded for a while after the flash went off.

Chris 03/04/2014Filed Under: tassie_14, Uncategorized

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