I think we all figured out the Olympics were a load of codswallop, the Grand Prix’s bloody expensive and Demetriou’s mad, but did you really need me to point that out for you?
Speaking of Demetriou, and the GP, since he’s so obsessed with planting a team in Western Sydney, maybe we could put him in charge of the Grand Prix Corporation and he could move it up there? Or maybe he could stage a coup at Tennis Australia, and he could relocate the Australian Open so Sydney could have a few more race riots?
*
May’s probably not the right time for an end-of-season wrap-up, but I think it’s necessary to go through a few things while we’re sitting back and reflecting fondly on twelve months of this rubbish I call a sport column.
I hope you’re all checking the website every Thursday, or sometimes Friday, for my footy tips. Looking back I think I’ve excelled myself in your service, by getting less than half my tips right, and also, I think, listing them under the wrong round numbers (a big Thank You to Barry at work who pointed this out as I was proudly showing off our website).
Now don’t let little things like that, or the fact that I’m generally publishing my tips before the teams are even announced, bother you. Terry Wallace is still coaching, I’m still tipping…
At the start of 2009 I started to count how many times I say Demetriou in this column. I’m working on showing up on the first page when you Google him. One day soon I’ll work out how to make it a keyboard shortcut.
I am indebted, as we all are, to Jason Akermanis, for his forthright, honest, and rational opinions on everything, so freely given, without a thought for, um, anyone else’s feelings, or indeed his own reputation or dignity. Men like Aker should be applauded for their ability not just to turn a game through blinding skill, but also their ability to turn an entire club, indeed an entire nation, against them through blinding arrogance.
Nominations are now open for my annual Sport With Juzzy Awards. Please let me know of any particularly brilliant moments of sporting prowess, incompetence, criminality or chutzpah that may have slipped under my radar. I’m hoping to get that youtube chick from King’s Cross to host, failing that we’ll pass the hat around and get Trent from Punchy. More likely I’ll end up putting on the Darth Vader costume and doing the whole thing in the spare room.
*
I loathe Catherine Deveny and Tracy Grimshaw, however I am moved to not just paraphrase them, but agree with them to the point of congratulating them. Ick.
Over the past couple of weeks you haven’t been able to reach for a piece of toilet paper without reading something about Matty Johns. The issue deserves more time than I’ve got, and I’m not sure that it’s something that belongs in a sport column anyway.
Having said that, let me say this. All the apologists for him and the conspicuously silent team-mates who were there with him on that night in Christchurch keep relying on the word Consent. She went to the room with Johns, so she therefore consented to whatever happened after that. She wasn’t tied up or bashed, so she must have Consented.
They’re footballers. They play a contact sport. They consent to enter a sports arena and be assaulted up to a point. They don’t consent to being eye-gouged or digitally penetrated or punched or spear tackled. There are rules, they have a referee to look after them.
A drunk nineteen year old girl found herself naked in a room with six erections, each one attached to a hundred-plus kilos of muscle, alcohol and testosterone. There was no whistle that could be blown, no send-off rule, no ref. She didn’t deserve it, she didn’t ask for it and there is no excuse for the players involved not knowing that.
I feel like I’ve swum through a lake of shit, and swallowed some.
*
Having spent The Thomas Years watching St Kilda find new and interesting ways to turn silky skills and a five goal lead into some kind of insipid display of contest-avoidance, 2009 has become something of a trauma for me.
Having lost the lead in the last quarter against Fitzroy, the Saints found something extra, dug deep, stuck fat, bit the bullet, stood up, and fought back. Every week some commentator or other finds a way they can be beaten, and every week they’re proved wrong.
It remains to be seen whether the Game Of The Year in Round Fourteen, Saints v Cats, will be moved to the MCG. It would make sense, given that there’s every chance they’ll both still be undefeated, and the crowd could easily top eighty thousand.
However, it makes sense, so the AFL will dither around with lame-arse excuses for not making a decision until it’s too late to make a decision (mainly because Collingwood will be in their ear about who gets the Marquee games, but also because SponsorDome seem to have photos of Demetriou et al in compromising positions), so the game will stay at SponsorDome, thousands will miss out on tickets, it won’t be shown live, and both clubs will lose money.
*
I’ve started stocking up on Red Bull, chips, and sick leave, in preparation for the greatest annual sports event in the world, the Tour De France. Two weeks of lying on the couch til 3am, bliss, I tells ya! Lance is back. As you know, he retired a couple of years ago, and has spent his down-time running marathons and carrying fridges up Mt Everest, and he’s back!!!!!
Aaaaah, Le Tour, how I love you. How I love Phil Liggett’s ability to know everything about every rider, every team, every town they cycle through, every hill they climb, but more, his ability to so effortlessly segue from the main industry of the town in Kazakhstan from which one rider hails, to the particular piquancy of the cheese in the quaint village the peloton just whooshed through.
Cycling is the new golf. Get a bike. Ride. Get fit. Look cool. Have a really good, actual life-saving reason for screaming at dickheads who don’t check their mirrors before changing lanes or opening their doors.
*
Well the Pet Issue was a couple of months ago, but I just have to mention our Mighty Whippets this month, and in a sporting context rather than a stop-rooting-that-famous-person’s-dog context. The Whippet Racing Club of Victoria hold regular meetings at a Greyhound trials track in Tooradin, on the way to Phillip Island, so we loaded the family up and headed South.
Lots and lots of lovely whippets, see how they run! Owen and Phoebe have never properly chased anything except each other and the odd border collie, oh and once Owen chased our cat halfway to Caulfield, but a mechanised lure is something very new to them.
In between the serious timed races for the Racing Whippets, they ran a few “hand-slips” (as opposed to putting them in starting boxes which can be kind of scary for what are, let’s face it, naturally nervous doggies) for us maidens. Now we’d been holding them up at the fence so they could watch the racers and get the idea, and they seemed really keen. Which we discovered was all a ruse, as they walked around in circles sniffing each other’s arses while the lure travelled off around the track, ignored.
The good folk from WRCV have seen this all before, though, so sent out an experienced racer for our little chaps to chase. They got the idea, but the racer soon pulled too far ahead, and being clever St Kilda whippets, they slunk under the fence and ran across the grass in the middle of the track to catch up. Which really pissed off the racing whippet, who was far more important than them, and was wearing silks and all. They all felt better, however, after Owen had mounted the racer and I stepped in dog shit.
Children were getting a little bit bored with all the standing around in the fresh air with no computer or DS or Harry Potter DVDs, but WRCV to the rescue again, with the unveiling of six week-old whippet puppies, resulting in two hours of “pleeeeeeeeeeeeeze, they’re so cuuuuuuuuuute, can’t we have one?”, and your editors feeling like utter bastards for saying “No, we hate puppies.”
And Collingwood. See you next month.
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