Two Bulls in a Paddock

What an ugly and demeaning expression that is.

They’re doing it at Collingwood, it seems like Port might be keen, and now it turns out that they tried to do it at Brisbane, failed to get the contract signed, but ended up with the bloke they wanted, when they wanted him, anyway. All of this succession planning is interesting but jeepers, what a beat up.

In the modern era of the game one club has one coach, or at least that’s how it appears from the outside. But things are always more complicated than they appear. Historically the coaching position was never so clear cut, there have been plenty of captain-coaches like Jesaulenko and Barassi, as well as formal and informal succession plans down the ages. And in the modern game the head coach might have the final say, but there are almost as many coaches as there are players at today’s football clubs. Fitness coaches, weights coaches, midfield coaches, kicking coaches, etc. As well as directors of coaching, welfare officers and the like. The players don’t seem to have any trouble figuring out who is boss.

Perhaps the media are the only ones who have a problem with it? Presumably because they are not sure who to hassle for a quote or whose resignation to call for when things are going pear-shaped. Or perhaps its just because anytime they put Collingwood on the back of the newspaper they sell more copies.

I predict that the next two years will be all sunshine and roses down at Collingwood, as long as the team keeps winning. Come round 6 2011, if the pies aren’t in the top half of things, then it will take significant board level intestinal fortitude to not give Mick the boot and install Nathan a smidge early. We shall see...

History never repeats, I tell myself before I go to sleep...

(with apologies to Split Enz)

I have been taking a stroll down memory lane with a copy of Football Ltd by Garry Linnell. It is truly great football book wich not only gives a fascinating insight into corporatisation of the AFL, but also a beautiful and terrifying snapshot of the recklessness and hedonism of entrepreneurial business during the era.

I have just finished reading the chapter on the creation of the Brisbane Bears, their disastrous move to Carrara on the Gold Coast and the alliance with Christopher Skase that ended in debt and tears. So it is with wry amusement that I note the signing of NRL player Karmichael Hunt to the soon-to-be-realised Gold Coast Football Club. I can’t help wondering, if the Bears had managed a coup like that in 1988 instead of signing fading star Warwick Capper, would the Queensland public (and everyone else for that matter) have paid a bit more attention? Could the path of football history have been changed if we had just thought to poach rugby players sooner?



Good luck to Hunt and the GCFC. I hope it is an experiment that works. And I hope that they have all read Football Ltd, because within its pages are the inglorious mistakes the league and its clubs made in the pursuit of expansion. Mistakes the GCFC would be wise not to repeat.

A hen in the roosterhouse

Kelli Underwood is calling football on TV. And she’s a lady.

I know, we all thought that the gates of hell would open and the MCG would be dragged on in the second a woman was allowed to tell men something about a game a football, but it seems those fears were unfounded. It turns out, external genitalia is not the only qualification for knowing something about football.

Well done to channel 10 for giving her a shot, and for recognising that football calling is not the sort of thing one is good at overnight. For the moment they appear willing to give her the time and support to improve. I hope that continues.

I personally thought she was good. I like a commentator who is humble enough do to the research and actually knows the names of the players (I am looking at you ABC commentary box calling the Melbourne v Sydney game last week. “Is that Morton or Bate?”* ) and tells you what said players are doing on the field. If she didn’t have Malcolm Blight providing his own brand of staggeringly useless special comments, she might have even had something to work with.

I would prefer a few less newspaper articles which damn the woman with faint praise. Underwood’s has had a pretty fast rise from getting the twilight game call on ABC radio to the hot seat of the Cats v Hawks game on a Saturday afternoon, and I think she is entitled to a little time to adjust. Can we give her more than two weeks on the air before tearing her call to pieces?

Having called two cats games in a row, the fan forums are alight with complaints of bias, but seriously, even the most fabulous and virtuous caller of the game, Gerard Whateley is prone to a little bias, so is Tim Lane and don’t get me started on the rest of the special comments crowd. Still if I called a dees game, we could be down by 70 points and you still wouldn’t know who we were playing against.

There is only so much of the fan forums you can read on this topic before involuntarily tossing your computer out the window, but I would like to draw your attention to this gem, posted by melbournemartin on the bigfooty forum,

"This is the problem. She sucks (apparently, I was at the game instead) but if we say it, then we're racist."

Now that is quality analysis.


* Bate


Morton


Hard to tell apart aren't they?

Well, that was quite the hiatus

It turns out I have not graced these pages for over a year. Sorry about that. Still, I am pretty sure there was nobody hanging out for the next installment, so can we all just pretend like I have been posting witty, insightful and well-researched pieces on the world of football this whole time. Okay, great.