AGB Footy

SINN THE BAG

Coburg Football Club plays in the VFL and it's president is Melbourne "identity", and former super lefty independant MP, Phil Cleary.

Now Coburg are looking for a new No. 1 patron and there's a debate going on over who should it be.

One of the suggestions is Andrew Peacock. Therefore, you might think the other could be a senior lefty. Given Coburg is in the electorate of Wills - maybe Bob Hawke. Well, you'd be wrong.

Today in the Herald Sun....

Coburg Football Club is facing a major dilemma. Does it make former Liberal leader Andrew Peacock or Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams the club's No. 1 patron.

Club president Phil Cleary and vice president Dean Mighell will present Adams with a club jumper when the British Parliament member speaks at the Celtic Club on February 14.

Cleary said Peacock, a club patron, had turned down an invitation to hear Adams' speech because he was on holidays in Queensland.

Cleary first met Adams at the Sinn Fein offices on the Falls Road, Belfast in 1994.

Cleary used to have a radio show on 1116, and every day - much to the puzzlement of this listener - had a segment in which he interviewed Irish commentators. From Ireland. On things Irish. Topical stuff here in Melbourne. Fortunately the show got dumped for an all sports format.

Given Cleary and Mighell's leanings - no points for guessing who'll get the gig.

TIM LANE SAYS STUFF

That was tough. Just one day back was enough to remind me of what a frightfully arduous gig teaching really is. I'd better slow down, don't wanna give myself a conniption fit.

Speaking of SEN, it's been refreshing to hear Tim Lane - unfettered by the ABC affiliation with cricket - prepared to sound off.

Yesterday when Gary Lyon, Tim Watson, Bill Brownless and Tim Lane were naming their Cricket World Elevens for 2003, Lane - on principle - refused to pick Sri Lankan off-chucker, Muttiah Murali. Like all good men Tim knows Bendy doesn't deserve to be playing test cricket and he's prepared to say so. I just wish he'd said so back in 1995 when a convulsing Spanky Roebuck was having his own conniption fit in the MCG commentary box.

Apropos unshackled ... ed ... ness, the other day Tim was asked, "Which AFL team has had the best publicity this summer?". Without hesitation Tim - a Carlton fan - said: "Carlton! Apart from Nick Stevens they've recruited a bunch of seconds players. Daniel Harford hasn't played good footy for years."

Go you good Tim! Listed.

BEEN THERE - DUMB THAT

There's a story in the Herald Sun today reminds me of a footy story of my own from 1988....

ALMOST 300 Victorian footballers have answered a cry for help from a West Australian goldfields team.

Kambalda Eagles haven't won a premiership in almost 20 years, but they could be in with a chance this year, thanks to a huge transfer of Victorian blood.

Back in '88 I was playing for Mines Rovers in the Goldfields Football League and one week we were playing Kambalda at home in Boulder. That's about a half-hour's drive from Kambalda.

That day I lined up at full-forward and had set myself for a particularly tough game. This was because I knew the Kambalda full-back was a fine player - a "fiesty" competitor, if you know what I mean - and I wasn't going to get any "soft" kicks.

To add to the occasion, he was the representative full-back and as I was the representative full-forward, I'd struck up a friendship with him at the league training sessions. Purely out of personal pride I wasn't about to let him get the better of me.

However, I was surprised to find he wasn't playing.

Now, despite the obvious rivalries, the GFL is a fairly civil affair so as we lined up I asked the stand-in full-back the obvious....

Me - inquiringly - "Where's so-an-so?"

Him - puzzled - "Dunno, he didn't front."

Me - flippantly - "Might of had a car accident on the way to the game."

Him - dismissively - "Naaa."

The game subsequently got underway and I thought no more of the exchange.

Over a few beers after the game I asked another of the Kambalda rep players what had happened to so-an-so. Before he could answer one of the Kambalda officials came up and told us that so-and-so HAD indeed had a car accident. What's more, he'd rolled his car and been killed on the way to the game.

Needless to say, I've never asked anything like that again. Even when I think of it now I frantically look for a piece of wood to touch.

FREE TO THOSE THAT CAN AFFORD IT

Remember this?

FOX Footy will be provided free next season to pay-TV subscribers. The decision by Foxtel will save customers up to $100 a year and expose Australian football to millions more viewers.

Free footy! Brilliant!

Hands up any idiot who didn't think there was a catch somewhere. Foxtel are paying zillions for the footy so they're not about to start giving things away. The consensus was they'd just jack up the price elsewhere.

Well, in a letter received today it appears it's ESPN watchers who don't like Oprah, opera, jokeless comedy and WWII, that are going to be ones inconvenienced by the changes.

At the moment you pay around $8 a month for the Footy Channel. This is a lone cost, separate from all other Foxtel fees.

From February 1st, this fee will be abandoned and the Footy Channel incorporated into the basic Fox Package (Satellite Essentials) that costs $48 a month. That fee stays as it was.

There's also another package called Entertainment Plus. This is the one that has Hallmark, Ovation, Animal Planet, Women, the Comedy-less Channel and The Hitler Channel. It costs $14 a month.

Given the name, it's strange - with the exception of The Hitler Channel and the odd Ovation show - Entertainment Plus lacks any actual entertainment value. For this reason many punters don't subscribe. My brother included.

Herein lies the catch. ESPN - with all the Monster Truck Rallies, Dirt Bikes, Street Bikes, Drag Racing, Large Mouth Bass fishing, American soccer, Spanish soccer, Two Team Scottish soccer, Eddie & Jimmy & the 'uke- which was in the free Sports Plus part of Satellite Essentials, is going to be moved to Entertainment Plus.

That means if you're like my brother and can't be bothered with Entertainment Plus - but DO watch ESPN for the American Football - you'll save the $8 a month for the Footy Channel, but you'll have to sign up and pay $14 a month if you want to keep watching ESPN for the NFL, losts of motor stuff, crap soccer with American commentary (NQR) and Strangled Eddie & Jimmy the 'uke.

Personally, I like Oprah Opera, so I've already got Entertainment Plus, thus I'm going to save the $8 a month. However, if you don't you'll be up for an extra $6 a month ($8 up to $14).

Really though, it's not as if you get the Footy Channel for free. You still have to sign up for Foxtel in the first place, it's just a matter of how much you want to pay.

So, in summary, it's good for me, not so good for my brother, but primarily it's an interesting gambit to pull more subscribers. As to the latter, Leaping Larry L - as usual - has his finger on the pulse....

The implicit question is whether this move can prod uncabled Australians out of their pay TV inertia and get subscription television's hoof in the door of more homes. If it does, that's a power-shift in the industry, plus handy news for the AFL come contract re-negotiation time. If it doesn't, what roll of the dice does pay TV have left?

ROHAN IN THE WIND

Rohan Connolly, first one way, then the other. Who knows, maybe that's the essence of a good journalist.

Listening to the radio I'll nod in agreement as he slams the pathetic Grand Final "entertainment" or criticises another AFL conflict of interest. Then a minute later I'll shake my head as he bags the "silver spoon" Melbourne management. Hey, bag 'em for incompetance, not privilege. Background wise, they're no different from anyone else at the top.

He'll often take a pot-shot at what he presumes is privilege, it's a theme that runs through most of his commentary. A class warrior from wayback is Rohan. Well, he does work at The Sunday Age.

Anyway, the last two Sundays have seen him at his diametric best.

Last week, with Jason McCartney as it's fulcrum, Connolly wrote an article posing a question most football watchers would have asked at one time or another - When does "heroism" becomes hyperbole?

No doubt the "McCartney as overkill" theme was the controversial lure to pull readers into the article.

I agree there was some overkill, but unfortunately before he'd finished his article, Connolly had morphed off into a rant revealing his own lefty bias.

And in doing so he left himself accused of exhibiting exactly the same misguided media-play he decrys by ridiculously insinuating Ian Chappell's refugee advocacy was somehow a more worthwhile issue than McCartney's trials....

That's why you won't see or hear much of what many would see as heroism from another former Australian cricket captain in Ian Chappell. An outstanding cricketer and one of our best captains, Chappell rose a few more notches again recently with his outspoken views on the immigration debate.

Chappell had watched the Tampa crisis unfold on television, and unlike many of his sporting brethren, felt moved enough not only to join the list of public identities protesting against the Federal Government's intransigence on refugees, and perhaps alienate a significant percentage of people who had been admirers, but to visit the Baxter detention centre and see for himself.

Several months on, last weekend on 3AW, he was still sufficiently moved to declare that the experience had left him feeling "embarrassed to be Australian". Chappell said his wife, Barbara, had reminded him that "bad things happen when good people do nothing".

He responded with a courageous stand which, like the gradual shift in consciousness that marked Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war, might just help soften this Government's apparent flint heart. Given the type of thinking in this country at the moment, it was heroism no less significant.

What, exactly, is so "courageous" about Chappell's stance? A trip to Woomera and a few platitudes uttered in a radio interview hardly constitute the equivalent of McCartney's being blown up in a nightclub and subsequently recovering to become a spokesman for the Bali victims. With or without hyperbole.

Anyway, this week Rohan does a better job with his pre-emptive strike on professional tennis before Seven's Summer of McAvaney opens the floodgates....

Like a significant number of people around my late-30s vintage, the tennis I prefer to recall is the tennis of yesteryear; the Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe Wimbledon stoushes of 1980-81, John Alexander's win over Italy's Adriano Panatta in the decisive fifth rubber of 1977 Davis Cup final at White City, even those epic Pat Cash-Mats Wilander jousts of the 1980s.

The romance of youth, perhaps. But I reckon it's got as much to do with the way an entire sport has allowed itself to be hijacked and cheapened, not just by shallow marketing forces, but the players themselves. The consequences are a modern generation of tennis stars so self-obsessed, shallow and selfish that they are often unintentional comic geniuses.

I used to love tennis and watched many a match through the course of the seventies and early eighties. However, over the last fifteen or so years I've realised - OK, I'm a bit slow on the uptake - there's one inalienable fact that Rohan misses, despite the hype, 99 times out of 100 tennis is a one-dimensional and boring spectator sport.

SURGE TO MERGE

File this under "Self Indulgia".

As a fanatical Melbourne supporter, the word "merger" is taboo. At least for me, you slutchin' give-ups! As a former Narrogin Towns premiership player, I'm far more sanguine about the idea of a Towns/Railways Merger....

The Upper Great Southern Football League will go from a 10 team competition to a 8 team competition with a merger of the two Narrogin teams - Towns and Eagles [Ed: always Railways to me] to form Narrogin Football Club. Both clubs have voted on the merger and the new clubs first AGM has been held with the proposed team colours are a combination of the two clubs - maroon, blue and gold (Brisbane Lions). Their application to join the league is only just being sent out to clubs, but is expected to be a formalty.

To be perfectly frank - a novel concept at the AGB - I don't like it, but I can see why they would do it.

All over Straya, country footy has struggled. Primarily due to financial pressure, but there's also been player drain as young blokes have had to move to the big smoke for work and/or education. At least a hundred clubs in Victoria alone have either merged of folded in the last twenty years.

Since I first went to the Upper Great Southern Football League there have been three teams drop out through under-resourcing. Cuballing, Lake Grace (Mark Bairstow's home club) and now West Arthur is off to the stronger South West Football League. Not the strongest in 1987.

In recent years the struggling Towns and Railways have found it difficult to compete with the stronger clubs.

Boddington is close to Perth and has been able to pull down city players on the weekends. Williams the same, although they've always had a strong base. Pingelly had combined with Brookton from the strong Avon League. And Evil Kukerin/Dumbleyung combined and came in from the defunct Lower Great Yobbo Football League.

It will be interesting to see what happens at Wickepin and Wagin.

So, even though it's sad, it's probably inevitable. It won't make the 1986 Twenty Year Premiership Reunion much fun though. Or will it?

Update: Boynton has done the homework I was too lazy to do and come up with this relevant site. It includes reference to a supermerger of six extremely famous Victorian country towns - four of which I've never heard. Tempy, Goyra, Patchewollock, Tiega, Kiamal and Ouyen. TGP by TKO....

Several years ago, three Mallee clubs south of Ouyen combined to form Tempy-Goyra- Patchewollock. Meanwhile, Tiega, Kiamal and Ouyen combined to form Ouyen Rovers. Before the 2001 season, TPG and Ouyen Rovers merged to form Ouyen United.

Now that's a merger! But am I alone in thinking Ouyen [Oooo - Yen] United is a lame name?

Tegopatikiou [Teggo - Patty - Kee - Ooooo] incorporates the first two letters of each town and obviously hints at modern day Strayan ethnicities whilst exuding a seductive - and marketable - staccato resonance.

Locals could call it Teg and they'd have a B&S every Easter at the clubrooms. There'd be sculling races, spew jumps, bitch fights and contests to see who could spray the most authentic looking fake mud pattern on their utes. Then they'd release a sticker.