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Footballinvective.com's 2005 Awards
Season 2005 produced its share of heroes, clangers and notoriety, and footballinvective.com has seen fit to honour the highs and lows of the year with its inaugural medal presentation. Regular readers of footballinvective.com would be familiar with its weekly awards for Hero of the Week, Cult Figure of the Week and Clanger of the Week. The footballinvective.com pantheon of annual awards honour the highest (or lowest) levels of achievement throughout the year, as embodied in 7 separate medals:
Hero of the Year: · The Malcolm Blight Medal (Player of the Year category) · The Malcolm Blight Medal (Coach of the Year category) · The Malcolm Blight Medal (Top Bloke of the Year category)
Cult Figure of the Year: · The Peter Bosustow Medal
Clanger of the Year: · The John Bourke Medal (best on-field clanger by a player) · The Geoffrey Edelston Medal (best clanger by football officialdom) · The Mike Sheahan Medal (best clanger by the football media)
The first annual footballinvective.com awards presentation was held at a glittering galah ceremony at the Clown Casino palladium, where a "who's who" of football identities were in attendance.
Malcolm Blight and Peter Bosustow were on hand to present the medals named in their honour, whilst Mike Sheahan and Geoffrey Edelston recorded their apologies. True to the form of his playing days, Bosustow arrived in a blaze of glory, then stayed for only 3 drinks before departing early, leaving the crowd in a frenzy of speculation for the rest of the evening as to whether he would return.
At the end of the evening, the following winners entered the Footballinvective hall of fame:
(Player of the Year category)
Winner: Chris Judd
He may have won the Brownlow in 2004, but the Juddernaut went one better in 2005, as the inaugural winner of the 'Blighty' for Player of the Year. Judd's season had it all - Goal of the Year, a controversial suspension for taking a stand against scrotum-hugging taggers, the Norm Smith medal for almost winning the flag for his side, and a second consecutive Jo Bailey Medal for best-looking Brownlow night companion, not to mention his ongoing status as the leading sex symbol in a veritable team of porn stars.
An honourable mention must go to Matthew Scarlett, for not only keeping Geelong competitive during the second half of the season, but also for what footballinvective.com judged to be the best single game by a player in 2005. In Round 12 at Unskilled, Scarlett turned in a truly heroic performance against the Crows, where he not only took out both Scott Welsh and Ken McGregor, but amassed 14 marks and 30 possessions himself, to single-handedly allow the Cats to hang on by 3 points. Ironically, this was to be the last game that the Crows would lose in the home and away season. Even more ironically, Scarlett would receive only 2 Brownlow votes for this game, which just goes to show how much the umpires have it in for Geelong.
But full praise to the Juddernaut, for another outstanding season.
Judd gives his acceptance speech:
(Coach of the Year category)
Winner: Neil Craig
At the end of 2004 the Pride of South Australia had taken a battering, as the Crows languished in the bottom half of the ladder, whilst cross-town rivals the Power celebrated their first AFL flag. Few could have predicted the turn-around in their respective fortunes that would occur in merely 12 months, and culminate in the Crows totally wiping the floor with Port Adelaide in the first Mega Showdown.
Neil Craig deservedly wins the 'Blighty' for Coach of the Year for not only reviving the sleeping giant that was the Crows, but for reviving the spirit of an entire state, and against such formidable odds. Just like Big Kim assuming the leadership of the ALP this year, Craig's task was made so much harder by the devastating effect on team morale that his predecessor had inflicted.
Not everyone had faith in Craig as the answer to the Crows' woes and footballinvective.com is the first to admit that we were wrong, horribly wrong, when we counseled the Crows brains trust against appointing him for the 2005 season at the end of 2004. In round 17 last year, footballinvective.com argued that: "By appointing Craig as coach next year, the Crows would be succumbing to the bad old days of SA insularity. They need to look further afield and find a coach who has credibility and recognition beyond merely South Australia."
Footballinvective.com learnt a valuable lesson from this episode - never think you know better than the Crows brains trust, for the greatest football state in the world also produces the greatest football minds in the world, and the powers-that-be at West Lakes have been well and truly vindicated. Footballinvective.com can also claim some vindication for ignoring the predictions of the lesser football media and at least tipping the Crows to make the finals. Prior to the commencement of Season 2005 we predicted (and hoped) that: "With a lame, untested coach and a list that is all-but-written off, the Crows have nothing to lose. This should mean they decide to throw off their inhibitions and return to their traditional values by playing some old-style free-flowing South Australian football, a la the SANFL in the 1980s and the original Crows of the Cornes era."
Perhaps the footballinvective.com crystal ball is particularly prescient, or perhaps Neil Craig found inspiration in this web site when devising his game plans at the start of the year. Whatever the case, the Crows, so maligned in the Ayres years for being drab and old-fashioned, rebounded in splendour under the leadership of Neil Craig, and have set themselves up for another era of South Australian dominance. For that, all lovers of football should be grateful.
Craig: Pride of South Australia
(Top Bloke of the Year category)
Winner: Paul Roos
Just like the 'Blighty' for Coach of the Year, it was an easy choice for the footbalinvective.com judging panel to hand a second even greater honour to the premiership coach. Roos qualifies for the award on many different grounds, but it's hard to go past the way he responded to Comrade Dimetriou's ill-considered sledging of his team earlier in the season. In particular, his magnificent put-downs of Comrade Demetriou after the Grand Final. Roos displayed the contrast between himself and Chocko (who would have been odds-on to win the Top Bloke 'Blighty' in '04 had it existed) by not going for the gratuitous sledge on the victory dais, but instead toying with his target in the same way that a sadistic cat toys with a half-dead mouse, continually alluding to when he might or might not let fly at the AFL chief.
At numerous interviews and press conferences after the Grand Final, whenever he was asked if he cared to comment, Roos would simply laugh it off and say he was thinking about it, which merely had the effect of drawing even more attention to Dimetriou's gaffe, and thus prolonging the pain for the Dear Leader of the AFL. When it comes to subtlety, Chocko is about as subtle as being hit by a runaway Scott's Transport prime mover, whereas Roos operates on a more cerebral and sophisticated level. But the result is exactly the same - more deserved ridicule for Comrade Dimetriou who, as Ron Boswell would say, has egg on his face from head to toe.
Furthermore, Roosy's twin triumphs of winning both the premiership and the Malcolm Blight Medal also vindicate the decision of the Swans board to appoint him coach at the end of the 2002 season, after sustained pressure from players and club members. Readers may recall that with two weeks left to go in the '02 season, Terry Wallace cynically colberted the Western Bulldogs by walking out from his coaching contract, amid rumours he had entered into a clandestine deal with the Sydney board to make him coach of the Swans. After several weeks of internal bickering and player power in favour of Roos, and a threatened supporter revolt if Wallace were chosen, the Sydney board finally chose the loyal and modest Roos over the mercenary and meretricious Plow. They chose wisely.
There is a certain poetic justice in the outcome - 3 years later Roos is basking in premiership glory whilst Plow, for his sins, has ended up in the proverbial football hot seat as coach of the Tiges. Sitting in this hot seat at Tigerland is like sitting in an electric chair in the Deep South - it's only a matter of time before the switch is flicked and the occupant fries.
Roos has demonstrated that loyalty and fidelity still have a place in modern football. In awarding him the inaugural Malcolm Blight Medal (Top Bloke category), footballinvectice.com is not only honouring a great football identity, but also making a statement to the world, namely: Colberting Doesn't Pay.
(Cult Figure of the Year)
Winner: Gary and Nathan Ablett
Season 2005 has given the football world plenty of inspirational performances by some truly great players - from Leaping Leo's epic mark, to Big Barry's fearless on-field leadership, to Plugger Brown's awesome brute force, to Chris Judd's bedroom prowess, football supporters have been dazzled by some truly memorable displays. Yet none have thrilled a crowd so much as when the two young sons of The Great Man have taken the field together and flicked the switch to "genius".
Although they may not (yet) individually possess all of the skills of The Great Man, between them they both have just about all of his attributes. If the true measure of a footballing cult figure is the excitement they generate amongst football fans, then the sight of "Ablett to Ablett" at Unskilled Stadium this year clearly exceeded anything generated by any players of any other team on the excitement meter. To have been in the outer this year at Unskilled was to truly experience the psychological phenomenon of the baying mob. Just the mere sight of either Ablett taking possession of the ball was enough to send the crowd into a frenzy. But if it appeared there was even the slightest chance of that Ablett kicking to the other one, the mob rose to another level of emotive madness. Then there were those brief sublime occasions where one Ablett actually did pass it to the other, who would invariably oblige by rising for a speccy, and send the mob into what can only be described as uncontrolled delirium, of a kind not seen since from Geelong fans since Billy kicked THAT goal after the siren, or the The Great Man took THAT mark with two seconds left in the Match of the Decade way back in 1994.
It is a key principle of mob psychology, acknowledged and exploited by despots and demagogues throughout history, that a people who are downtrodden, humiliated and insecure are the easiest to whip up into a frenzy of mob excitement. Given the club's history of under-achievement, Geelong fans are clearly the most ripe for seduction by a charismatic cult-figure. In 2005, they had not one, but two of them.
Sons of The Great Man - Cult Figures from birth
(Clanger of the Year by a football administrator)
Winner: Rud Butterss
We've said it before and we'll say it again, that the nepotistic appointment of Grant Thomas as coach of the Saints by his best mate the Club President (and the colberting of Malcolm Blight that preceded it) is likely to be seen in future years as one of the clangers of the decade. Yet given the propensity of the lesser football media in general, and Mike Sheahan in particular, to overlook this problem and grossly talk up the Over-rated Football Club, the need for constant repetition of this argument by a reputable media outlet such as footballinvective.com becomes so much greater. As we said in our mid-season round-up:
The fate of the Saints since those words were first written has done nothing to dissuade us of that view. In particular, the dreadful Preliminary Final fade-out against the Swans (and accompanying tactical nous of a Baldrick cunning plan from the Saint coach's box) demonstrates that St Kilda, despite having arguably the best list 'on paper' of any side in the AFL, have condemned themselves to an era of underachievement to rival even that of Geelong in the early '90s. There is no doubt that their fate would be vastly different had they stuck with Blight and not embarked on an exercise in crony capitalism that would have done Suharto proud. For that, long-suffering Saint fans can thank their present administration and its current president, who would be more at home in the Jakarta presidential palace, rather than his Kath and Kim ("look at moye") spiv palace on the Brighton waterfront.
(Clanger of the Year by a player on the field)
Winner: Brendan Fevola
Rod Butterss and Grant Thomas have copped plenty of stick from footballinvective.com this year, but they are now joined in the hall of shame by this web site's other favourite whipping boy of 2005, Brendan Fevola, aka the F-Train.
Long time sports fans will recall that John Bourke achieved life-time fame by getting himself rubbed out for 10 years for decking an umpire in 1985, in an incident that was oh-so eloquently captured by the commentary of Slug Jordan. Whilst on-field violence or brain explosion is not a pre-requisite of winning the John Bourke Medal, the criteria require an act (or acts) on the field which most deserve the response of Slug on that fateful day in 1985: "Take the boy off. Take the boy off. Take him off."
Fevola experienced the proverbial 'horror year' in 2005, yet the year began in perfect style, when he dominated the pre-season cup and helped Carlton to an upset piece of silverware over the Eagles in the final. Carlton thought so much of him that they signed him up to a lucrative new deal that would see him replace Kouta as the team's "marquee player". All the ingredients were there for a stellar season. Yet all the ingredients were also there for a player with an excitable ego, suspect temperament and history of underachievement to blow it all. Fevola chose the latter option and like Humpty Dumpty, had the proverbial great fall.
After the triumph of the pre-season, the F-Train became what Jack Dyer described in 'The Club' as the proverbial 'March Champion'. This is a fitting description, given that his on-field attitude often resembled that of Geoff Hayward in the same movie, though at least Hayward had the excuse that he was stoned.
In one of the better columns to emerge from the lesser football media this year, entitled The Shag's day of shame, Robert Walls summed up the situation perfectly:
As if such a public grilling was not enough, the F-Train also attracted the ire of a fired-up John Nicholls at the club B&F. Yet even the exhortations of Big Nick do not seem to have been enough to pull him out of his rut. As Iceman memorably said to Maverick on 'Top Gun': "It's not your flying that's the problem, it's your attitude". That really says it all.
The F-Train - Take the Boy Off
(Clanger of the Year by the football media)
Winner: Greg Baum
As expected, the footballinvective.com judging panel was flooded with nominations, as the lesser football media once again covered itself in ignominy in 2005.
Mike "As consistent as Shoaib Aktar" Sheahan predictably put up a strong showing in an attempt to take out the medal named in his honour, with his on-again, off-again love affair with Nick Riewoldt and Grant Thomas one of the highlights in another year of predicable fickleness. However, footballinvective.com believes in a level playing field and giving others a sporting chance. Accordingly, just like the sadistic stewards who used to put 70kg on Phar Lap to prevent him winning every race, footballinvective.com must handicap Sheahan to ensure he does not run off with this award every year.
A further honourable mention goes to former Eagle and now some time boundary rider Peter Wilson who, as previously reported, described a superb 55 metre super goal by Chris Judd as a “misplaced kick to the top of the goal square.” This same goal was, of course, later judged to be the official Goal of the Year. CLANG !
But as far as clangers, uninformed comment and plain cretinous behaviour from the lesser football media is concerned, it is impossible to surpass this 'effort' which appeared on December 14 in The Age (where else) by one Greg Baum, entitled "Nationalism hijacking sport is a real worry"
No cretinous Baum, the comparison is neither unavoidable nor disturbing. In fact, any comparison is just plain stupid, and only a sanctimonious Fairfax journalist would be dumb enough to make one in the first place.
Unfortunately, it is not surprising that Baum chose to draw this ridiculously long bow, given that his paper had editorialised in the same week that the idiotic Cronulla riot was incontrovertibly due to the innate racism that "lurks just beneath the surface in Australia". Presumably, this innate racism does not apply to enlightened Fairfax journalists, who no doubt consider themselves immune from the kind of afflictions that beset "ordinary Australians". Long-time Age political correspondent Michael Gordon also opined the same week that the Cronulla idiocy was a symptom of "the expression of the less tolerant, more ugly country Australia has become since September 11". Presumably Gordon does not believe that he himself has become "less tolerant and more ugly" over the last 4 years. Of course he doesn't - only dumb, impressionable "ordinary Australians" have been affected in this way.
If Fairfax journalists ever happened to mix with any ordinary Australians then they might actually find that we are actually rather benign people. Footballinvective.com IS ordinary Australia, and was there on that magical night in Sydney on November 16. There we witnessed Australians from all backgrounds - skips, wogs, Lebs, and yes, even Cronulla surfie hoons, united as one in support for their team. The World Cup Qualifier and the joy which followed were an example of the great unifying benefits of sport, and how it bridges cultural and social divides and brings people together. When footballinvective.com attends an event such as the WCQ, we see 80,000 Aussies from all walks of life united in expressing positive emotions for a team that gives us all something in common. When snobbish Fairfax journalists attend such an event they see only 80,000 irredeemably "intolerant" and inherently "ugly" ordinary Australians, who are all just waiting for any excuse to give expression to the innate racism that "lurks just beneath the surface".
If Baum thinks that the passion shown by Australian football fans for their national team is "disturbing" then he should visit Germany next year and witness the passion shown by supporters of the other 31 teams. Then he might have an appreciation of what supporting a national team in a really intense manner actually means. Footballinvective.com hereby bets Greg Baum all the tea in China that he won't see any special detachments of German paramilitary police deployed to keep Australian fans away from other nationalities, in the way we surely will in relation to English and German hooligans when they (once again) go on the rampage. Nor would Baum have seen any 8 foot fences at Telstra Stadium to keep Australian fans segregated from Uruguayan fans, a concept that has been sadly necessary in European football grounds for decades.
Furthermore, Baum's rant is also objectively bad journalism, for the most fundamental of reasons. His article concludes that:
Not only does this contention cast a slur on all normal Australian soccer fans, Baum demonstrates that he has no evidence that there actually was any connection between the two, merely concluding that there "might" have been a link. Baum himself admits that his entire thesis is simply his own speculative conjecture. Either he should have enough confidence in his own opinions to stop equivocating and say he actually believes it himself, or he should not write such rubbish in the first place, given that he has no evidence to support his assertion, other than the seemingly ingrained view of The Rage that ordinary Australians are inherently racist.
Baum's ignorant rant once again illustrates the appalling insularity, cultural snobbery and rank out-of-touch nature of the lesser football media, and The Rage in particular.
Many sports fans over the years have despaired at those who for cynical or ideological reasons seek to drag sport into politics. We should be equally dismayed at the cretinous actions of those such as Greg Baum, who so ignorantly and ideologically seek to drag politics into sport.
Baum: Clanger of the Year
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The
Peter Bosustow Medal
The
Geoffrey Edelston Medal
The
John Bourke Medal
The
Mike Sheahan Medal
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