The Bulldogs are looking good in their big year.
When Subiaco kicked the first three goals at Leederville Oval against top team South Fremantle it seemed that despite the strange season the WAFL order was the still the same. However the Bulldogs struggled back into the game, evened it up and then ran away from the Lions as no team has for years. Continue reading
When I was young, growing up in the suburbs of Perth, everyone kept chooks. Continue reading
Nearly 15 minutes gone and not a goal on the board. Photo by Les Everett.
Sunny skies at Fremantle Oval. A beautiful day for the football and the meeting of the top two teams. But it wasn’t so beautiful after all. The strong breeze to the prison end wasn’t a nice straight-down-the-guts variety so the teams employed the age-old tactic of playing the dead flank. Continue reading
Carnival atmosphere? The Fremantle derby attracted a crowd of 4000.
We’re a quarter of the way through qualifying rounds of the 2020 mini-season.
And.
The fifth Bendigo Football and Netball League Hall of Fame induction evening was held late last year and what a gala night it turned out to be. The league’s very first group of Legends, five in all, were named to great applause and affirmation at the All Seasons function. Continue reading
JD and me
Fifty-five and sixty
Kicking a brand new footy
Behind the cemetery Continue reading
After South Adelaide’s 1884 trip north Adelaide’s West Torrens Football Club was another interstate footy club to journey across the borders to NSW to play a series of matches. But this wasn’t until July 1922 when the SANFL Eagles started their tour in Wagga Wagga with a match against the combined Riverina side. Continue reading
FIDA Seagulls’ Indigenous and Special Event games guernsey. Photo Courtesy of FIDA Seagulls website.
Earlier this season, only a few weeks ago, I wrote a piece called Three Jumpers. It briefly re-visited stories from some time ago about two footy jumpers that have meant a lot over the years, and then concluded with a new story, about a third jumper. Continue reading
There’ll be no senior footy and netball played in the Bendigo league this season.
For the first time since World War 2 – the 1944 season – no football will be played in the central Victorian sport headquarters. Continue reading
THIS is a story of three jumpers. Football jumpers. Australian Rules football jumpers. A story of stripes and numbers, of collars and colours. This is a story of a brother, a father, a daughter. Of a widow, a greengrocer, a stranger. Continue reading
Henry Harrison has long been regarded as one of the founding lights of Aussie Rules and indeed was christened “Father of the Game” back in the 1860s. But was he? It’s something I wasn’t aware of until reading Roseville Rod Gillett’s and Ian Granland’s 2019 Journal of the NSW Australian Football History Society. Continue reading
When footy historians compile best-of lists, players who have won more than one fairest and best award plus those who were voted top footballer on the ground in a grand final there’s some other amazing statistics tabulated. How about a list of people who have played in six, seven or more country Victorian premiership-winning sides since World War 2. Continue reading
While neighbouring district footy and netball leagues have pulled the pin on their 2020 seasons three central Victorian bodies have still got their collective fingers crossed. Continue reading
City-based football followers in this early part of the 21st century probably don’t realise that some of their district clubs boast a long and proud history. Such is the case with Inglewood, a town of 1,100 sited 45 kilometres up the Calder Highway from Bendigo. Continue reading
As a former player with the Sydney University Aussie rules footy club I was fascinated recently to read a look-back through history of my old outfit.
The club was formed in 1887 to play in the local Australian footy competition in a code variously known as Australian Rules, Australasian Rules or more pertinently Victorian Rules back in the day. Continue reading
“I’m still tingling,” I said in numerous conversations after the event. Maybe it betrayed my meagre vocabulary. But it was accurate. I was tingling and it came from an unexpected source. The 2010 WAFL grand final was played between Claremont and Swan Districts. I barrack for East Perth who had been beaten by Swans in the preliminary final a week earlier. I had no emotional attachment to this game. Continue reading
Geelong in Sydney 1882. Photo from The Road to Kardinia by Russell HT Stephens.
Football has long been a key part of the way-of-life for huge numbers of Australians and its impact goes right back to the mid and late-19th century. Continue reading
The wonderful poet Bruce Dawe died on 1 April 2020, aged 90. The poem below was one of my first pieces of published work. 1981. It has quite a few internal references – phrases adapted from titles of Bruce Dawe poems.
I’m devastated. John Prine’s death has hit me hard. It’s funny how we relate to musical artists, follow their lives vicariously through their songs, concerts and in this time, our connection to them through social media. So, when a favourite passes it feels like a family member has died. Prince hit me hard. Maybe it was his age. David Bowie too. Joe Strummer, Johnny Cash (huge sigh as I type) and Slim Dusty. Continue reading
Dance lessons weren’t too bad. I wasn’t much good but others were worse. The girls from Prendiville College would come over to CBC after school for an hour or so under the eye of a lady who knew all the steps. Continue reading
• John Nicholls: the captain.
To say that legendary AFL coach Kevin Sheedy had multiple player selection worries during his coaching stints with Essendon and the GWS Giants would be putting it mildly.
Over the past few weeks he has released – line by line – his best 24 footballers to have hailed from the Bendigo district and in particular from the Bendigo Football League post-World War 2. He was to have named the complete team at a special function at the end-of-March’s Bendigo Jockey Club’s $1 million Golden Mile raceday, but with the coronavirus restrictions in place spectators, punters and BJC committee guests were banned from turning up to the track. Continue reading
You could call it an illusion, a trick of the stage lighting. Or maybe it was just tiredness that created the moment.
Hamer Hall. October 2001. Paul Kelly is onstage. His grey hair, what little there seems to be of it, is close-cropped. His face appears gaunt, his eyes in shadow. He has looked like this for some years now but it is only at this moment, late in the concert, that for some reason, perhaps merely a blink of my eyes, I think the songwriter bears a passing resemblance to one of Australia’s most popular writers. Continue reading
Times have changed. We’re home. The kids are home, well your kids are home, I haven’t got any.
You won’t get any parenting advice from me but I do know something about something that’s back in fashion – reading aloud. Continue reading
Haydn Bunton snr. The greatest?
It’s always a dream job to be asked to sit on a selection committee to pick teams of the decade or teams of the century. Continue reading
Geelong opened its 2020 account in the AFLW with a 22-point victory over winless Richmond at Bendigo’s Queen Elizabeth Oval on Saturday. In front of a bumper crowd officially listed as 4,900 the Cats set up the win with a scintillating six-goal second term. Continue reading
AFLW Round three
Fremantle vs Collingwood
Fremantle Oval
Saturday 22 February 2020
My first live AFLW game of the season. Continue reading
A look at Bombshell (MA 15+)
Harassment of women with the accompanying lewd comments in the work-place has come under much more in-depth scrutiny in recent years. Far more than it did in the 1980s and 90s (where it was ever-present) and clearly through the influence and clout of the #MeToo movement. Continue reading
Since way back in 2004 a couple of good mates and me have had a Top 10 Songs of the Year night. Our friendships stretch back to the dawn of the 80s (and even earlier) and we know each other pretty, pretty, pretty well. Comfortable just hanging out, sharing laughs and curious to hear what songs have caught each other’s ear. For some reason our Top 10 is a Top 12. I can’t even remember why. We also include another five songs.
The five “extra” songs thingy is not meant to imply that they could not make the Top 12. We added this dimension to the night back in 2014. You see, Dylan had recently released The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete. So we decided we needed to hear each other’s five faves from that magnificent stew. Since then we have treated the five extras as a chance to play some songs that had a more personal connection or that might distract the flow of your Top 12. Or whatever.
So, without further ado, here’s my 2019 “extra” five… Continue reading
It’s taken a while but here are my live musical highlights of 2019.
A look at 1917 (MA 15+)
Director Sam Mendes had a large movie portfolio behind him before his interest in World War 1 was sparked by an ageing family member.
Some years back his paternal grandfather, Alfred Mendes, told him a tale about a young soldier instructed to cross enemy lines, alone, to alert a fellow-British outfit they were about to run into a carefully staged German trap. So Mendes took up the story although instead of a single soldier entrusted with the information he enlists two. Continue reading
A look at The Good Liar (MA 15+)
You’d think with mega-stars Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen in the two leading roles a movie focussing on rip-offs and cons would be a sure-fire hit. Well, almost but not quite. It’s a near miss with some intriguing off-shoots. Continue reading
A look at Official Secrets (MA 15+)
Every now and then we go to a movie not expecting all that much, but certainly hoping to be entertained. Such was the case with Official Secrets. Continue reading
Cometh the moment cometh the woman.
The sudden cancellation of Tennessee Fender Telecaster goddess Julien Baker at Chevron Gardens for the Perth Festival left Julia Jacklin alone to fill the bill.
The wait is over. Rick has put in the work. We get a cool play-list for our next gathering or drive. It’s the trickle down effect in operation. Continue reading
We had a bit of a blank stretch through October and November but still managed close to our normal annual tally of 30 movies. And there were a few trips to mainstream cinemas during school holiday periods to keep the granddaughters entertained. Not surprisingly, those films such as Ralph Breaks The Internet, Dumbo and Secret Life Of Pets don’t make this Top Ten list. Continue reading
Death Of A Typographer by Nick Gadd
You like fonts? You like murder mysteries? You like 1970s Dutch prog rock? You’ll love Melbourne writer Nick Gadd’s second novel. ‘Clever, witty and very stylish,’ said The Age. Lots of fun. Continue reading
When Scott Walker (above) died just over a year after Mark E Smith it seemed as though the stitches that held the universe together in some short of shape had started to fray. I have written about both of them on this website as it happens.
This year has been a good one for crime reading, with some favourite new novels out by Adrian McKinty The Chain, Emma Viskic Darkness for Light, Dave Warner River of Salt, Garry Disher Peace and Jock Serong Preservation. For my Christmas reading, I’m looking forward to cracking into Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980, edited by Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre, following their earlier pulp collaboration – Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980. I’ve got a chapter in the new book, but I know I’m going to love the range, research and comment across the whole thing. Continue reading
It’s generally acknowledged that the Christmas festive season brings with it dollops of good cheer and for Bendigo’s representative players that’s certainly the case for late 2019. Continue reading
Six days before the AFL grand final thrashing there was another lop-sided decider. The scoreline was similar and the margin greater in the WAFL grand final. Like the vanquished Giants, the WAFL runners-up South Fremantle managed just three goals for the game and were out of the contest before half time. Continue reading
Sydney was a popular destination for interstate Aussie Rules football teams in the latter part of the 19th century. Only two seasons after VFL club Geelong had played a series of four games, South Adelaide arrived in 1884 for a schedule of five matches in two weeks. Continue reading
Every scoreboard tells a story
A Song. A Place. A Time.
With the first dog chosen in the AFL Canine Draft
escape to the Vasse idyll
