AGB Footy

UNDERQUOTE OF THE DAY

Upon an umpire awarding a very long 50 metre penalty, you often hear a commentator say "I'd like to buy real estate off that umpire." You don't often hear the reverse:

West Coast v StKilda. The WC full back kicks out to a teammate about 8 metres away. The mark is paid.

Commentator 1: "That's not 15!"

Tony Shaw: "Chee, I'd like to buy real-estate of that umpire."

I'd like to sell real estate to Tony Shaw.

TURKEY SHOOT

All it needed was a pinch of Andrew Jarman:

Drew Morphett: "What a magnificent goal! Stupendous! It was great! Great, I tell you. I love this game. Love it. Great! Pete, how good was that goal?"

Peter McKenna [Up in the grandstand]: "Great."

Tim Watson: "Goal of the day."

Ross Glendenning: "Rubbish. Goal of the day goes to Michael Gardiner."

Don Scott: "Ooooo, I LIKE the boy!"

Peter Landy: "Who is the fellow in the Crows jumper?"

Bernie Quinlan: "Ask the Swan."

Dennis Cometti: "Back after the break, by which time Bernie will have finished coaching Fitzroy."

BARREL O' MONKEYS

Imagine, if you will, the press box at the Melbourne vs Footscray match:

~~ "Did you see Wheatley's kick-out?"
~~ "No, I was at the buffet table."
~~ "I missed it, too, I was at the bar.
~~ "Anyone see Wheatley's ball burster?"
~~ "Nope, I heard it was a bomb."
~~ "Uh uh, I heard it landed in the guts."
~~ "Not here, I heard it landed in the centre circle."

Peter Hanlon, The Age:

HOT AND COLD

Hot was Paul Wheatley, who wins the Malcolm Blight "save the torpedo" award with a kick in the last quarter that landed in the centre circle (with Doggie Dylan Addison, unfortunately).

Bruce Matthew, The Herald Sun:

WHEATLEY MAKES BIG IMPRESSION

No wonder Melbourne's Paul Wheatley is revered for possessing one of the most powerful right boots in the AFL. Wheatley loaded up with a monster torpedo punt from a kick-off following a behind two minutes into the last quarter. The ball landed at a marking contest in the centre circle, with the length of the bomb estimated to be at least 70m.

The kick indeed was a barrel, but while it landed parallel with the centre circle, it landed well away from the centre circle.

THROUGH THE PAST DARKLY

Funny how things work out.

Looking through footy clippings to post on the AGB, I came across this photo of the 1986 Upper Great Southern Football League premiers, Narrogin Towns. The captain/coach in the front row with his left hand on the cup is John McGuire who played footy for East Perth, including the 1978 WAFL premiership. (Somewhere I have a Sunday Times photo of him taking a hanger in a match against Claremont. Coincidentally, his step-ladder in that photo is Rob Houwen, the coach of the GNFL side that won Westfarmers the following year. Rob's in the glasses at left.) John also played cricket for Mount Lawley (as did David Virgo, who is also in the Towns photo), and is the second highest all-time run scorer in Perth District cricket.

In 1988, John captained an Australian Aboriginal side to England that was part of the Bi-Centenary, and which sought to celebrate the famous 1868 Aboriginal tour of England.

He was a top bloke and while wondering what he might be up to these days I recalled that the coach of that 1988 aboriginal side was an ex-Shield speed merchant from Queensland called Ian "Rainbow" King. Several years earlier, 1981/82 to be precise, Rainbow had been terrorising batsmen when he played for Dampier Salt in the Pilbara Cricket Association. He gave me a couple of blacker-than-blue corkies that lasted at least a month. I then started wondering what might have happened to Rainbow when, almost on cue, I received an email from my brother:

Ian King. Played cricket against him. He played for Karratha I think. Nearly knocked by head off once but afterwards apologised.

Cricketer on indecency charge

A former first class cricketer has been remanded in custody after being charged with an act of indecency against a young person.

Ian Harold King, 65, appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court this morning, after being extradited from South Australia at the weekend.

Police allege King committed the offence in Canberra in the early 1990s while he was a junior cricket coach.

The victim is now 30 and lives interstate.

King played Sheffield Shield and one-day matches for Queensland in the 1969/70 season.

He did not apply for bail, and will reappear back in the same court on July 23.

THE BEAR OBSESSITIES

Stump Woods: "Big history, this club, mate, oh yeah... 32 flags."

~~ Valentine's Day

The Sunday Age review for Valentine's Day, which aired last night on ABC1:

Now this is how you do feel-good. Aunty's had a couple of stabs at it this year but with Valentine's Day we finally arrive: gorgeous family drama that's funny, whimsical, warm-hearted and feels absolutely real. Rhys Muldoon is fab as Ben Valentine, the drifter manoeuvred into coaching a small town's footy team, but he's ably supported by a great cast of familiar and not-so-familiar faces. The equally fabulous Peter Temple provided the script, which snaps and sparkles. Peter Duncan (Children of the Revolution, Unfinished Sky) directs. The result is a package that perfectly captures small-town Australian life and the strange magic of Aussie rules football. There are too many highlights to list them all, but the choreography of the first footy match is worth a special mention.

Gorgeous - a hideous word.

Valentine's Day was OK. Not great, but easy enough to watch. It was certainly a far sight better than the dreary East of Everywhere and the cliché-laden quirk-by-numbers that was Bed of Roses. If you happen to stumble across it on ABC2, Foxtel or via an ABC1 repeat, give it a lash.

But.

You knew there'd be a but.

Footy details. I'm a stickler for details, and only a little bit obsessed.

The review above, and a few others I've read, not to mention Rhys Muldoon on an ABC Conversation Hour last week, referred to the show as "a package that perfectly captures small-town Australian life and the strange magic of Aussie rules football."

In essence, maybe; in reality, maybe not.

The thrust of Valentine's Day is this:

While passing through the town, Ben Valentine (Muldoon) finds himself on the wrong end of the law, but when the judge hears he has a sports background, he is given community service: to coach the local footy team, the Growlers.

(Strictly speaking, Rushworth are the Bears, but that doesn't matter, lots of clubs have secondary nicknames. I used to play for the Tooronga Malvern Panthers, but most of us called them the 'Biners, as in the Combine. In this case, the Rushworth Bears are also called the Growlers, which leads to a tidy, if ribald, sight-gag.)

Ben has been arrested, but while he's in jail the magistrate hears his name, puts two and two together, gets twenty-two, and assumes the Ben Valentine in his lock-up is the same Ben Valentine who once played "20 odd" games for "the Tigers". (The real nickname of the real Rushworth is the Tigers. Really.) It's never stated precisely which Tigers, but since Ben is referred to as "having played with the best", it's pretty obvious the writer's inference was that Ben played in the AFL for Richmond. The magistrate, who doubles as the big nob at the local footy club, then fixes the sentence so that Ben, instead of going to jail, has to do 200 hours community service coaching the local Rushworth Bears.

Got that?

Valentine's Day is based on a plot of mistaken identity. A drifter, thought to be an ex-league footballer, ends up coaching a team in Victoria... and no-one realises. No-one in a Victorian town spots that the Ben Valentine who now coaches their footy team is not the same Ben Valentine who once played "20 odd for the Tigers". On the other hand, the townsfolk DO recognise Tony Cosgrove, captain of the Tigers who comes to watch one of the Bears' games and who the real Ben Valentine had a fight with at the Tigers; a fact which popped up as No.2 on Google when a local lawyer - a hottie, naturally - does a search for Ben.

Elsewhere.

The Bears get blanket coverage on the local radio station. Now, I've played a lot of country footy in a lot of country towns and while there is certainly a call of the game on the local radio station, there is not much else; certainly not ear-to-ear talk-back.

Smokers are fake. Bet that's news! Fake smoking applies to so many television shows and movies, it's ridiculous. Surely it's well past time the makers of TV shows stopped trying to convince us their characters enjoy a gasper when quite obviously they would rather lick trees. Virtually none do the drawback, and most look about as convincing as a ten year old "smoking" a musk stick.

When is the last time any of you rocked into a small country town, rolled into the pub, and the local band didn't give you a headache?  Mel, a woman who is one of the biggest fans of the club, plays in a local band - that is not bad. Not that I've already been on the internet hunting down the soundtrack - although they do a reasonable version of the Sunnyboys' Alone With You - but it would have been much more realistic had the band been rubbish.

Mel also makes a footy mistake. The Bears need to win three out of the last four games to stay alive as a club in their own right or else they will be forced to merge with Lucan. Mel: "We need six more competition points. We gotta win three from four." Ignoring, with great restraint, the "three from four", a creeping Americanism that makes me mad, correct me if I'm wrong: the Kyabram District Football League have four points for a win. That would mean Rushworth only need to win two games. Maybe the writer, Peter Temple, is from a rugby league state; or maybe he is even from the bizarro world we call South Australia, home of two-point wins, one-point draws, and strange percentages.

Pretty much every time sport is featured in a film or on a TV show the people playing are crap. Complete scrubbers. Valentine's Day is no exception. Rushworth are awful, and I don't know why the choreography needs a special mention; unless it's a special mention, if you know what I mean. But that doesn't stop them beating arch rival Lucan in the last match, despite the Lucan players actually being able to play. They kick properly, hit targets, mark on the lead; they are proper, grown-up footballers. Rushworth looked like a bad Under 14 side made up entirely of unco fat kids.

Nor have I ever seen a player and/or coach walk down a street of a country town as everyone, not just the odd passer-by, cheers him, pats him on the back, and treats him like a rock star.

After the Great Northern Football League won the 1987 Westfarmers Championships First Division, smashing the South West 28.8.176 to 7.4.46 and I had my picture in the Guardian - the Geraldton Guardian - no crowds parted as I strode up the street.

Ungrateful bastards!

The mum of one of the guys I played with said "good win" in Coles.

POLAKSED

Richmond's Graham Polak was hit by a tram on Saturday night. But things are looking up since he woke from a "medically-induced yesterday".

Liam Pickering: What about the sad news of Graham Polak overnight?

Danny Frawley: Pretty disappointing... he's in a self-induced coma.

~~ Sunday, half-time, Melbourne vs Brisbane