Brendan Fevola

There aren’t many television shows worth watching but I would urge everybody to go out and buy the five season DVD box set of the American drama Friday Night Lights. This critically acclaimed and largely unwatched program is ostensibly about the tribulations of a high school gridiron team in the fictitious Texan town of Dillon.

It is in reality a show about life itself, and the good and bad judgments which people make while growing up and as adults, and the ramifications those decisions have on their lives and the lives of others.

The star of the show is the intense but big-hearted Eric Taylor, the coach of the Dillon Panthers, whose determination to win is tempered by his compassion for the young men under his charge.

Continue reading "Friday Night Lights, Fevola and the No Di*kheads rule" »

If you thought one win against the lowly Kangaroos was enough to keep the wolves from the door, think again.

Michael Voss, the Brisbane Lions favourite and most decorated son has found himself standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down and wondering when he’s going to feel the hand of power pushing him in the back.

In this, his third year at the helm, he stands accused of systematically bringing the football club he served with such distinction as a player and captain to its knees with some of the most arrogant and ill informed decision making we have seen from an AFL senior coach.

Continue reading "Voss’s losses are proof there are better bosses" »

The most remarkable Brendan Fevola-related fact, shocking as it is, is not that he made a clumsy, desperate, albeit half-hearted attempt at suicide after a domestic spat and “three or four bottles of wine”, as revealed at around the three minute mark of his interview on the AFL Footy Show last night.

Neither is it that he was turfed out of Crown Casino yesterday for playing poker, despite the fact he is, supposedly, a recovering gambling addict who once lost $365,000 in a day and who admits he had been visited by tough guy debt collectors.

No, the really surprising thing about the special, warped little corner of the universe reserved for all things Brendan Fevola, is that Fevola is now the subject of enormous public sympathy, if the twittersphere and many other more traditional media outlets are to be believed.

Continue reading "Silly season turns to sympathy season for Fevola" »

Melbourne has a particular view of itself. You know what I mean – pretty, arty girls in cheese-cloth skirts running around after giant balls of string. All those laneway bars populated by smart people wearing Ted Bakers. Big sporting events and, of course, a footy code that’s so much more sophisticated than the one the “mungos” play north of the border.

Well, Melbourne’s image is a tad tarnished this morning folks. Just like that big ball of wool, it’s been unravelling for a while. The conga-line of AFL scandals is nothing new to league fans – we’ve been enduring them for years – but you do wonder how it’s going to be taken by the horn-rims-and-Converse crowd in St Kilda.

The extraordinary thing is that the most damage has been done with a man wearing a tight perm.

Continue reading "So who’s the screwed up code now, eh?" »

It’s every punter’s dream - betting with money they don’t have. But don’t think this fantasy is limited to wealthy bankers, lawyers and high-profile footballers like Brendan Fevola.

If you have a job and a place of residence, then congratulations. You, too, can get instant credit with one of Australia’s 40 odd corporate bookies. It’s easier than getting a phone line or gas connected, and it’s nothing short of a national scandal.

There were two disturbing aspects to Sunday’s brilliant exposé by Phil Rothfield and Rebecca Wilson. The first is that we all have to feel sorry for Brendan Fevola now that he’s a “victim” of gambling addiction, rather than just a common and garden variety idiot. The second is that anyone could end up in Fev’s shoes.

Continue reading "Fevola not the only mug addicted to free bookie credit" »

Brendan Fevola is one of those blokes who quite literally has trouble as his middle name.

If it’s not a phone text scandal over model Lara Bingle, it’s something just as bad, like an allegation of indecent exposure.

After the Lions suspended Fev today, there are serious questions about the bad boy’s future.

Continue reading "Has Fevola finally destroyed his AFL career?" »

IT was a bit like the Itchy & Scratchy Show. Brisbane Lions skipper Jonathan Brown was itchy ... itchy for the ball in his AFL Round 1 clash against West Coast.

Brown’s Lions teammate and reigning Coleman medallist Brendan Fevola was scratchy ... scratchy in front of goal.

There was plenty of hype about the Lions’ new dynamic duo during the off-season. Will the Lions’ new-look forward line work, starring Brown and Fev?

Continue reading "AFL Round 1: The Itchy and Scratchy show" »

If blokes are honest, most of us would admit to behaving differently when there are no women around. While the extent of the change varies from guy to guy, most of us do things and say things we wouldn’t dream of doing or saying in female company.

Usually it’s low-level yobbo stuff - drunken anecdotes, sexual innuendo, a sneaky wee on the lemon tree – but for a minority of screwed-up blokes it involves a complete personality transformation where they drift into a shocking moral orbit, their macho posturing cheered on by their equally boorish buddies.

In the context of sport, particularly in light of Brendan Fevola’s unravelling and the car crash quality of Wayne Carey’s memoir, it’s clear that for many of our sporting heroes, life has been one extended boy’s night.

Continue reading "The boys’ clubs protecting our sporting yobbos" »

It would be interesting to know just how much longer our football administrators are prepared to tolerate the oafish behavior of some of the country’s top class players who seem hell bent on turning themselves into low rent non-celebrities.

Several names come to mind but first it might be just as well to take a look at the long term effects their actions might have on the hundreds of young blokes who look up to them as the sporting giants they once were and try to emulate their incredible achievements on the field.

Role modeling is an important part of growing up and it might be interesting to get the take on what’s been happening lately from the dads and mums and older brothers who devote their Saturday mornings taking the very young kids to Auskick.

Continue reading "Footballers don’t need to go public with their ‘problems’" »

UPDATE 4.20pm Wednesday: Carlton has just announced they have dumped Fevola. You can read about at the Herald Sun here. The following was posted by Anthony Sharwood yesterday afternoon:

It’s starting to look likely that Brendan Fevola will be sacked from Carlton after his Brownlow Medal night antics.

At least, that’s what the tssk tssk-ocracy is baying for. If Fev is booted, the Sydney Swans must swoop. As Homer Simpson would say: this must happen, this should happen and this must happen.

Twice, the Swans have poached troubled key forwards from Melbourne and twice it has been a huge success for player, club and city.

Continue reading "If no one else wants Fevola, Sydney should grab him" »

SEPTEMBER comes with certain guarantees – birdsong in the early dawn, the smell of jasmine on the warm breeze and the sight of Brendan Fevola wielding a giant dildo.

You’re snapped with one enormous sex toy and suddenly it’s news, eh? Damn vultures. The publican at Naughton’s in Carlton reckons the whole thing was a stitch-up anyway, that the offending phallus belonged to a fan who handed it to Fev just so he could take a photo on his phone and leak it straight to the tabloids.

People can be cruel. And on behalf of tabloids everywhere, I’d like to thank them for their excellent news sense.

Continue reading "The real awards for sporting achievement in 2009" »