Ricky Nixon

It’s a terrific relief to hear that Sam Newman has reportedly offered to mentor the so-called St Kilda school girl, Kim Duthie. We can only presume that she has called upon Newman’s services because Larry Flynt, Ryan Giggs and Silvio Berlusconi were unavailable.

The prospect of Sam Newman providing pastoral care to this poor screwed-up 17-year-old girl is almost hilarious. Which is of course the problem with this entire story. Superficially it is almost hilarious but if you have a proper think about it, it is not hilarious at all.

It’s a bizarre, free-wheeling circus alright, but it’s not an amusing story about sex, sport and scandal. It’s a story about two things only – child protection and mental illness.

Continue reading "Dopey old men and a deeply troubled schoolgirl" »

Teenagers are idiots, most of the time. They do incredibly stupid things. Hormones, drugs, alcohol, and a not-yet fully formed idea of their actions’ consequences means they screw up. A lot.

So, there’s this 17-year-old girl with a lot to say about the AFL. About sex and older men and power and betrayal. She may have won Ricky Nixon’s scalp - there is speculation he is now stepping down after confessing to “inappropriate dealings” with her.

On paper, this is a great story of the little guy (girl) standing up to the big bully boy. In reality it’s a teenager. A teenager who has now outed herself – or been outed – on 60 Minutes. There are reports she was paid a five-figure sum. Which isn’t really that much, when you think about it.

Continue reading "AFL scandal girl’s an idiot. Because she’s a teenager" »

Enough. Unpopular though it may be, it is a time to take a stand.

We have to stop celebrating morons and their attendant antics. We have to stop defending idiots and their self-imposed tragedies.

Whether it be a middle-aged former cricketer with a penchant for romancing equally vacuous bimbos or drug-addled footballers with a natural gift for screwing up every fifth chance offered to them - it’s about time we drew a line in the sand and said “sod off!”.

Continue reading "The Stupid People: They are legion, and dangerous" »

From the very second those stolen/borrowed nudie rompin’ footballer photos were released, the “St Kilda schoolgirl story” has had me biting my tongue.

I bit down through the girl’s distribution of those handwritten “Women’s Rights” and “Fight the Power” flyers at the training session. Bit down a little more watching her YouTube testimonials. And while reading her Tweets. And her blog. And I bit down a whole lot more through her drip-drip video releases.

I bit down because biting down is exactly what’s expected of me. Women just aren’t supposed to criticise other women. Least of all not 17-year-old girls.

Continue reading "Women can critique each other without a catfight" »

The trouble with schadenfreude – apart from that fact that it is a hard word to spell, and using it pegs you as a bit of a showpony - is that it has a nasty habit of coming back to bite you on the bum.

It’s actually a pretty nifty term, a German word for which there is no English equivalent, meaning to take pleasure in the misfortune of others.

The AFL is currently suffering the unpleasant after-effects of years of gleeful schadenfreude, particularly towards those once-unmatchable boofheads within the National Rugby League.

Continue reading "Cocky AFL gets its come-uppance" »

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?" »

As Lainie Anderson wrote in this piece yesterday, it’s wrong for anyone, let alone the likes of Peter Costello, to cast aspersions on the character of all footballers based on a few sporadic incidents. Because really, when you’re dealing with up to 1,000 blokes between 18 and 32, a bit of Tony Abbott’s favourite phrase is going to happen from time to time.

But this stuff with The Girl at the heart of the St Kilda facebook pictures scandal, and her allegations about big time player agent Ricky Nixon is a bad business. This is some seriously low rent theatre we’re watching now.

Let’s start with the girl first. The 17 year old schoolgirl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, first came in contact with St Kilda players who visited her school on a footy clinic.

Continue reading "Grubby & grubbier: The sad girl and the wayward agent" »