My football team sucks and life has no meaning

Borderer says:

12:50pm | 28/08/12

Try being a Parra fan…. they sucked so much they should be sponsored by dyson.

Little Joe says:

01:18pm | 28/08/12

I wrote last week ...... “I would rather watch the Suns play than the Broncos.” Never closer to the mark than on the weekend.

Seb says:

07:28pm | 28/08/12

Well, you see now, i’ve been following Souths for my whole life, even when they were kicked from the comp, and after they received the wooden spoon year after year. Now we are coming third!
But this isn’t a gloat, no…well just a little, but we might not win the comp, and thats the point of sport. You get knocked down, u get up, and the other 15 teams in the comp have that saying: “there’s always next year”

JoniM says:

01:41pm | 28/08/12

I have been a Panther since their 1967 debut year, Tubesteak.
You have hardly experienced any pain as yet, young fella !
You got the great years of 1991 & 2003 , but I’ve also had many more of the wooden spoon or near as wooden years !
Could be worse, I guess ! I could have picked Cronulla rather than Penrith in 1967 ! Now there’s some stored up misery !

Tubesteak says:

02:02pm | 28/08/12

JoniM
It’s swings and roundabouts. Share their good and their bad and don’t let it get to you. 1991 was a great year.

I like seeing Brandy Alexander on Fox Sports, too. Good to see him get a career after the game. If he was born 10 years later he’d be rolling in money.

Budz says:

02:25pm | 28/08/12

From a Warriors fan:
Quit your damn complaining! You got a premiership within the last 10 years so you have no damn right!

kaff says:

04:44pm | 28/08/12

Speaking as a Cronulla fan who lives in Penrith, I heartily concur with JoniM!

JoniM says:

05:13pm | 28/08/12

Fair dinkum, kaff !
I live out Penrith way and work in Cronulla.
I see pain in the people’s faces down here in the Shire !
Those poor miserable bludgers ! Even their own TV show doesn’t brighten them up !
All those years with good teams and Johnny Lang coaching for no result. He then goes to Penrith and snares his only comp in 2003 !
Anyway, looks like you will get your revenge next year, pinching our only decent players. Cronulla will have more Penrith juniors than Cronulla juniors next year !

HappyG says:

12:53pm | 28/08/12

Didn’t he announce he’s retiring this season? If indeed the injury was “career ending” it was for a few races at most.

M says:

01:17pm | 28/08/12

The crash has ended any chance he had at clinching the championship.

Besides, I’m surprised at how little attention he recieves in the MSM, considering he’s thoroughly trashed the reputation of the most successful rider in history.

RJB says:

01:36pm | 28/08/12

Yes but Chris Holder has healed well from his rib injury and went on to win the British Speedway Grand Prix round last Saturday night. This young Aussie rider is a real chance of winning this year’s World Speedway Championship.

JoniM says:

01:44pm | 28/08/12

You mean Damian Oliver has had another fall ?

Shane* says:

01:49pm | 28/08/12

Why bring that up in a column about sport?

M says:

02:31pm | 28/08/12

Well played shane.

PW says:

01:28pm | 28/08/12

The Warriors are currently the worst team in the comp, bar none. The way the Raiders are going it will be little more than a training run.

The Tigers and their supporters would be better off rooting for the Panthers on Friday night in Brisbane.

Ant: Dunno about the Dogs leading the Panthers 42-6, as it hasn’t happened in many decades, if ever, but the easybeat Roosters hitting 32-0 with 38 minutes left against a team supposedly trying to make the finals was pretty sleep inducing, and not only that, it really happened! Must have been karma.

PW says:

03:40pm | 28/08/12

SM: Actually 29% plus Betfair’s margin. Poor odds if you ask me.

They have to beat Melbourne (who have a minor premiership riding on the game), and have either the Raiders or Broncos lose AND if only the Raiders lose they have to make up a 14 point differental deficit.

The Titans and Knights also have a miniscule chance if the Broncos and Tigers go down, especially if the Broncos are defeated heavily.

SM says:

04:08pm | 28/08/12

@PW

Not right about the storm and the minor premiership - Dogs are 4 points clear

SM says:

04:11pm | 28/08/12

@PW

I stand corrected, Storm can still win the MP, dogs 2 points clear

DemonDiva says:

01:46pm | 28/08/12

Try being a Melbourne fan, then you’ll know what the pain of being godawful feels like. Constantly.

Bill says:

02:17pm | 28/08/12

I still remember the look of absolute disbelief and shock on the faces of the dees’ fans in the crowd at Waverley when Gary Buckenara kicked the winning goal in the ‘87 Preliminary Final after Jim Stynes ran across the mark. As a Blues fan, I don’t normally show sympathy for other supporters, but on that day I couldn’t help but feel the pain too.

pa_kelvin says:

04:27pm | 28/08/12

or a carlton fan..

Bill says:

12:42pm | 28/08/12

Actually Richmond are three games out of the eight with one game to play this weekend. I don’t think the planets will be much help at all…

SM says:

12:42pm | 28/08/12

premier league fan?

Al B says:

12:52pm | 28/08/12

Its an incredibly anti-competitive way of running sporting competitions, i agree Karl. I just wish world football in australia would not be so quick to mimic these local, self proclaimed ‘football codes’. Better ways of doing it than some warped sporting welfare state.

Michael S says:

01:18pm | 28/08/12

In English soccer, there’s only a couple of teams that have a chance of winning the title; and the rest are just playing to stay in the top division.

Promotion and relegation would never work in any Australian competition. The travel costs would be prohibitive, and any team that got relegated would be more likely to go bankrupt within the next year than to go back up.

Without finals, once the chance of finishing top is gone, there’s nothing to play for. Often the top team is well and truly decided long before the regular season is over. There’d be little interest, and a season would wind down rather than build up.
The Australian sporting market, with so many different codes against each other, is far too competitive for any code to risk that happening.

Al B says:

01:47pm | 28/08/12

Michael i think u are correct for salary capped leagues. But two divisions and pro/rel could work under a more open market system.

Where small clubs can be small clubs, rather than being forced to be on a fake level playing field. A minimum wage in the a-league cap just prevents the chance to make it viable. Travel costs is the no.1 issue, but nothing is prohibitive if its given priority over enforcing a minimum wage (maybe?).

It would be worth doing for football in oz in the long run, setting a great base with a two division A-League ...keep at 10 in div 1, once they can find 8 to run very basic A2 teams bring them in. Its not completely unfeasible to do it, provided the conditions are right for football’s own version of the small to medium enterprise to flourish, in reality not some socialist delusion.

Tim says:

02:10pm | 28/08/12

Yeah,
It’s so much better when the owner with the biggest wallet wins every year.
It’s truly the way sport was meant to be.

Weird that the rest of the world just don’t accept it.

Al B says:

02:54pm | 28/08/12

Wallet is never everything in football, plenty of ways to be successful in a proper league system, especially development leagues like ours. And nothing wrong with a bit of financial influence, better when its the expression of a club’s terrace popularity though. The plaything clubs make things ‘interesting’ at least. Not all these super clubs are the same in football.

Mr Marx says:

03:24pm | 28/08/12

At least football is a reflection of life where the biggest wallet does tend to win.

It’s real. The frustrations, relegations, dramas and paranoias are real. Major teams can go bust (Glasgow Rangers) and have to start again. Teams can disappear. Nothing is safe. That’s the real world. Risk and reward.

The Australian sporting landscape simply isn’t real. It’s entirely manufactured to produce a specific business outcome year in, year out.

This is why the CEO’s of the NRL and AFL are paid better than 95% of their players.

SM says:

04:47pm | 28/08/12

@Mr Marx
“At least football is a reflection of life where the biggest wallet does tend to win”

That’s a very narrow-minded view of “life”

Go back to watching your Man U videos now…

Al B says:

01:01pm | 28/08/12

Every team has its own version of what success is. European football understands this, its a part of its appeal and also helps spread it to a more national footprint. Not all teams have to come from capital cities with second divisions.

In Australia we don’t allow that ...level playing fields being the aim. Better to let the small clubs be what they are, same for super clubs and ambitious mid-tablers. All part of the appeal of European football, even with some two team leagues like Scotland. Strayan sport just doesnt “get it” yet and prefers to think its more than it is ...Greatest Game(s) of All haha ...really it is very much contrived… designed so that everyone will get their turn at winning. I hope Gallop is not bringing more of this thinking to the FFA.

HappyG says:

01:00pm | 28/08/12

@Davo have you noticed in the Daily Telegraph that the coverage of Parramatta is 4 - 5 times more than any other team? They have just won the wooden spoon for God’s sake and this paper wants to report all the news about them to the exclusion of all others. Why is that ? Imagine what they would do if they were actually successful. Fortunately we don’t have to worry for at least the next 10 years.

SM says:

02:04pm | 28/08/12

Daily Telegraph heartland is western Sydney

HappyG says:

03:33pm | 28/08/12

@SM. So why not give equal coverage to Penrith, Wests Tigers or the Bulldogs then ?All of these teams did better than Parramatta this year….......the Dogs will even get the minor premiership.

Eden hazard says:

05:04pm | 28/08/12

@Dm, exactly. Working class conservative morons the worst kind. The uncle toms of their class, that king bogan ray hadley is their king too. Plus league is a shit game run by fools! They think they’re the centre of the universe but it’s a minor code everywhere except PNG! What a boast that is!

Bill says:

01:16pm | 28/08/12

Keep the faith, Michael. There are some very good players on the GWS list and a maestro like Sheedy will have them running rings around the opposition in a couple of years.

BTW - sesnsational effort to for the Giants to get 10,000 paid up members in its first year of existence. That’s more than most of the Sydney NRL clubs!

Little Joe says:

01:28pm | 28/08/12

Actually there is a lot of hope for GWS and Suns ...... more than Bulldogs and Dees ...... even the Bombers.

Imagine being a Richmond supporter ..... another could have been year.

My team ..... the Saints ..... are all too old now and simply do not have the legs.

Ps. Treloar and Shiel were in my superlegue team.

Rickster says:

04:17pm | 28/08/12

yeh Joe my lad is a Saints fan….........get ready for a life time of heart break.

Kaff says:

04:48pm | 28/08/12

I made the leap from the Red and Whites to the Orange Army and, aside from the fact that the Swans have the Good(e)s to make the finals and possibly the Grand Final, I am not sorry I did so.

Futures looking really bright.  Love that Toby Greene.

Grinner says:

05:10pm | 28/08/12

Those complaints about how “everyone gets a turn” (not a bad thing anyway, sport is not life, it’s also entertainment), exactly as above! When are stkilda, dogs, Richmond, port, melb and a few others going to win their next flag!? Half past never probably.

Catsman says:

06:36pm | 28/08/12

I’m a cats fan so I’m happy ! But I like giants too, I’d be happy to see them do well, just not better than us. How good was Carlscum losing to GC!?

TimB says:

01:57pm | 28/08/12

Indeed. In a similar vein, it’s hard to hear Ant and Chongy’s sobbing all the way from Belmore .

David says:

02:18pm | 28/08/12

Well TimB, just remember back to last year and perhaps you will be able to sympathise better. Or even the year before, wooden spoon wasn’t it?
Naturally by buying Manly’s coach at least you give yourself the chance to enjoy two finals before starting the off season.

HappyG says:

02:31pm | 28/08/12

Yeah I remeber the 1997 Grand Final too. Nothing sweeter in sport than wiping the smug, self satisfied smirk off the face of the Silvertails. There’s only two teams I follow - The Knights and whoever is playing Manly.

TimB says:

03:08pm | 28/08/12

Meh, a minor blip. For the most part (in recent decades anyway) Canterbury are a finals team.

Indeed as Happy G remembers 1997 fondly, so too do I have happy memories of the 1995 grand final. Good times.

And if Manly were so concerned about hanging onto their coach, perhaps the board should have gotten around to offering Hasler a new deal instead of screwing around?

David says:

05:41pm | 28/08/12

We let Hasler go because, honestly, the comp needs to keep some interest and we need a back to back challenge. Besides is it fair to keep the wonderful Manliness of Manly all to ourselves?

Yes, I remember the drug-assisted Knights winning in 97, thankfully we put an end to the chance of that happening again this year. Or perhaps Tinkler ran out of money to pay the chemist’s bill.

David says:

07:02pm | 28/08/12

BTW after 95 season Peter Moore boasted about cheating the salary cap (sound familiar to the Dogs? How about their last premiership winning squad as well?)

Drug cheats and cap cheats may sometimes beat Manly we will just have to be content with legitimately won premierships.

Dick says:

04:35pm | 28/08/12

That’s what I assumed, a Carlton supporter. I’m one, and that’s how I feel. I mean, just missing out because someone else doesn’t win is bad enough, but going on an early footy trip to the Gold Coast is just BS!

Tommo says:

04:26pm | 28/08/12

Ah,  but are you not aware that the mighty Bears are running second in the NSW Cup? (They are the Souths feeder club - Isaac Luke played for them last weekend - Roy Asotasi, Scott Geddes and several other first graders have played at North Sydney Oval in the Red and black this year)
They should (touch wood) be playing in the GF this year.

Bill says:

05:13pm | 28/08/12

I must say that it’s tough not seeing a flag in 48 years. The dees are better than that. They should completely strip the club down and rebuild, otherwise they’ll never get anywhere.