When AFL teams run onto the ground at the start of each match they run through a "run through", or what we here in the civilized state call a "banner".
These crepe paper constructions call the boys to conflict with warlike slogans and rousing imagery. For instance, those of my team, the Melbourne Demons, commonly contain a biting Dee-pun beside a picture of a demon brandishing a trident. What right-thinking footballer wouldn't be elevated to a competitive frenzy by Dee-monic Destroyers Decimate Diabolical Dons? I mean - RAAAAAH!
Less common, though, are banners with pictures of perpetual losers brandishing cutlery.
Lol! I grew up in Melbourne and went to many AFL games. No offence - because I know you follow the Dee's, but that is one of the worst banners I have ever seen!
Posted by: Baleboosteh | 12 June 2007 at 14:01
The banner would've been better with a dead magpie on the fork (referencing that game's opposition) but what's with Undie Mundie and why would you be welcome to it...
Posted by: Soups | 12 June 2007 at 14:11
Bale: I wouldn't go so far as to say "worst", but nor would I have it up there with best. If it's anything, it's puzzling and/or incongruous. After all, what sort of nong associates Wile E. with winning unless they're taking the piss. (I don't think they were.) Although, to be fair to the coyote, he's nothing if not persistent and therefore a role model of sorts, despite all the anvil related setbacks.
Soups: The maggie on a fork is good, but the cheersquads have a pact whereby they don't shit-can each other's teams. A pity. A little spite could be a lot entertaining.
Undie Mundie is a slogan for prostate cancer awareness. Given I'm a 45 year old bloke, I thought it better not to take a pot-shot. Mozz, and all that. As it happens, I was less perturbed by Undie Mundie than I was by Mike Brady's prostate cancer song they played over the PA. Either way, though, I've just booked a
finger upcheck up. So it worked.Posted by: Tony T. | 12 June 2007 at 14:55
It is a perplexing banner. Great that Wile E gets a guernsey but the banner isn't particularly funny.
Wile E should have a fornlorn look, holding up a small sign saying"Help!" anyway
Posted by: RT | 12 June 2007 at 16:21
We should take a leaf out of Fitzroy's book (apart from the folding)
"SEDUCED BY NORTH
RAPED BY BRISBANE
F**KED BY THE AFL"
Or whoever dragged out the timeless "DO THE WORLD A FAVOR - GET RID OF DON SCOTT"
Meanwhile for the sake of trivia what did our banner say the night of the 'merger match' against Hawthorn? And why didn't we tear the fucking stadium apart and lynch the pro-merger directors after the final siren?
Posted by: Adam 1.0 | 12 June 2007 at 19:30
Only kids and retards join cheersquads. Hence the "witty" banners.
Posted by: James Dudek | 13 June 2007 at 05:20
Banners have come a long way. I remember a WAFL GF back in the dark ages when the idea first appeared in the West. They put up a batten frame about 6ft by 3ft at the boundary, and cross hatched it with black and white crepe streamers. The first bloke ran through it, because someone told him to, all the streamers tore to bits and that was it. Everyone else ran around it. Bloody exciting for a lad from the bush to see how things were done in the big smoke. I've never forgotten it anyway.
Posted by: os | 13 June 2007 at 11:53
They had the same banners in the VFL up until ( I think) the 60s. Then in the 70s they started getting larger for the home-and-away and giant for the finals. Now the home-and-away banners are similar to the 70s finals banners.
James, the Essendon cheer squad once called them the Bombres.
Nor do I remember the Merger Match banner. But it was bound to be something disgustingly give-up.
Posted by: Tony T. | 13 June 2007 at 13:35
They were obviously supposed to unleash forkin' Hell.
Posted by: Wicking | 14 June 2007 at 09:53
The sad thing about banners is that they might be made by kids and retards but when they go up half the ground strains to see what's written on it, and somebody within one row will always read it aloud and chuckle at the end.
Posted by: Adam 1.0 | 14 June 2007 at 10:57
You must sit in some scary parts of the ground Adam.
Does anyone remember a Foxtel production from the mid 90's called Small Tales and True (or something like that). There was one called Tigerland which had an inside look at the cheer squad and the politics of banner making. It was pretty funny. Wish I could find it again.
Posted by: Bruce | 14 June 2007 at 12:26
Come on, Tone - they won a game. What more do you want?
Posted by: tONY | 14 June 2007 at 20:04
I don't want much. Win EVERY game would do.
Posted by: Tony.T | 14 June 2007 at 21:37
I've got a feeling Adam 1.0 sits in the cheersquad section.
Posted by: James Dudek | 14 June 2007 at 23:14
I can assure you he doesn't as I've sat with him before and I don't.
That could be a lie, mind.
But it's not.
Not at all.
Posted by: Tony.T | 15 June 2007 at 09:12
It's not.
Posted by: Tony.T | 15 June 2007 at 09:14
EVERY game became a pipe dream in round 1 - as a tired & battered St Kilda supporter I can assure you that you're best placed taking any comfort you can, whenever you can.
Posted by: tONY | 15 June 2007 at 21:39
As far as taking any comfort I can, I was sucking my security blanket well before Brock McLean got injured in that round 1 game. Sure, injuries screwed our season, but it seemed to me we were well out of sync all through the pre-season and up to about round seven or eight with OR WITHOUT the injuries.
Posted by: Tony.T | 16 June 2007 at 21:08