1 hour ago, Dame Gaga said:

"1984" turned 70 years old recently. Every day George Orwell is proven to be a genius. He only got the year wrong. The Thought Police are here and among us. The AFL are adept at  Doublespeak. I see the AFL Fans Association wants a list of words people can say and can't say at the football. How has it come to this? As my dear old Dad used to say - the world has gone mad.

Some literary types believe Orwell arrived at the title by a small shift for the year in which he was writing (1948) to suggest England was already on that path.

As for the substance of the topic: it's time umpires became professionals. Maybe then the standard of their work will improve, but for now they leave themselves open to criticism with their constantly shifting decisions.

Does anyone know why we don't have full time umpires? Surely it wouldn't be a cost factor?  Clubs now have enormous staff levels and a myriad of assistants yet the umpires are still part time.

Considering the sport is by far the hardest sport to officiate,  you'd reckon it would be a no-brainer.  $2.518Billion from the last media rights yet we still have part time umpires? 

But that is the AFL for you.  Incompetent custodians.  If there isn't a dollar in it,  they're barely interested.

I have come around to the point where I believe full time umpires would make a significant difference. 

As an aside,  the game yesterday didn't have a lot of congestion which made the game a lot easier to umpire.  The game day thread here is often laced with any number of people baffled by the officiating but there was barely a word said about the umpiring.

Which confirms my belief that if the game was opened up a lot more,  there would be a lot less angst towards the umpires. 

Fix the sport and make the umpires full time and then go from there.

 

 

On 6/9/2019 at 1:53 AM, Ethan Tremblay said:

A man who used the alias ‘Frankie’ phoned 3AW after the game alleging what had occurred after he called Nicholls a “Bald-head [censored] (rhymes with frog). “They made me wait half an hour for an AFL integrity officer to come and take a photo of myself and my membership and then I got escorted from the ground by police ... and security.

If ‘Frankies’ story is to be believed, then I don’t see what offence has been committed for the AFL to detain him whilst waiting around for the ‘AFL Integrity Officer’ (now there’s an oxymoron). Unless they reasonably believe a serious offence has been committed, detaining somebody is not on. The AFL under Gil is losing the plot. 

Did you learn about tenses in primary school English?  "is losing" should be "has (long) lost" the plot

On 6/10/2019 at 2:10 PM, Macca said:

The sport would survive quite easily if the umpire abuse was at a minimum.

But the sport needs to be fixed so as to make it a lot easier to umpire.  I have outlined previously what I'd do to fix the sport so I won't go there again (for the time being)  The game is harder to umpire than it ever was thus causing even greater frustration. 

The AFL is at fault but they won't be putting their hands up in a hurry

 In the meantime,  nothing much will change.  It would be like trying to quell booing.  I am not advocating the outlawing of umpire abuse (although I'd rather not have to witness it) I'd rather try and convince people to calm down and see the big picture. 

And ultimately,  our club has much bigger fish to fry in order to achieve ultimate success.  We are miles off right now.

I am sure the brilliant custodians of our (once) great game will make a few more inevitable rule changes come year's end to address that.  :-)

7 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

Taking the pizz now surely ???

From The Age

I'm not at the ballet': Cops bail up Pies fan for 'barracking too loud

A Collingwood fan at Monday's clash at the MCG claims he was threatened with eviction by half a dozen police because he was 'barracking too loud'.

He said police acknowledged he was not swearing or being abusive, and when he questioned them about the apparent problem an officer replied: "Do you hear what I said? You're barracking too loud".

What an absolute load of çr@p - I even am starting to feel a little empathy of this Colonwood fan.  (Now I will have to attend an exorcism).

And as for the police officer, he skipped English classes too - barracking too loudly, not too loud.

6 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

Ha Ha, spotters dressed up like FBI agents, goodness me!

There are a few tweets from witnesses that go with that Age article that back up the story of the Pie fan.

People will seriously boycott soon.

Sounds like a plan. The drums are beating.

4 minutes ago, monoccular said:

I am sure the brilliant custodians of our (once) great game will make a few more inevitable rule changes come year's end to address that. ?

The coaches have made by far the greatest changes to the sport but the AFL have stood idly by and let them do it.

36 players on the ball together with hundreds of rotations per game to name just 2 such instances.  Flooding and the forward press are both coaching initiatives (for want of a better word)

And then years later the AFL employs a band-aid approach to counteract.  True custodians would have been ahead of the game but it's the money and future money that the AFL looks at primarily. 

The game should be bullet proof and can be if the people in charge knew what they were doing. 

7 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

Ha Ha, spotters dressed up like FBI agents, goodness me!

There are a few tweets from witnesses that go with that Age article that back up the story of the Pie fan.

People will seriously boycott soon.

Maybe its time for all supporters to dress as though they are all Undercover cops.   All supporters to dress in the same uniforms. 

 

That'll make the spotters cross-eyed.

 

 

38 minutes ago, Demonland said:

 

Dill and hocking the numbnuts who wrecked football. 

Time to boycott people.

From the AFL...

Stadiums and police across the country have a zero-tolerance for members or supporters that abuse the opposition, umpires and other members and supporters, on grounds of race, religion, gender, disability and sexuality.

So...Bald, what grounds does that come under? Disability? doesn't seem to be race, religion, gender maybe sexuality...

Headed...not sure. Fill in the blank.

Rhymes with Dog:  probably under sexuality....could be a disability as related to eye sight...

Edited June 12, 20195 yr by rjay

ABC News Headline:

The AFL decides not to take action against a spectator who allegedly called an umpire a "bald-headed [censored]", as it maintains it is not coming down harder on the behaviour of crowds this season.

 

Would you believe the censored word is there for all to see on the ABC website.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-12/afl-denies-crack-down-on-crowd-behaviour/11198746

Edited June 12, 20195 yr by sue

The whole thing is becoming more ridiculous by the day.

"Barrack as loud as you can" says Gil the goose .... but not TOO loud OK?

I believe ‘ Verdant Diptera larvae ‘ is the AFL approved fan monica for poor umpires

35 minutes ago, chook fowler said:

I believe ‘ Verdant Diptera larvae ‘ is the AFL approved fan monica for poor umpires

I thought he was referring to Monica Lewinsky.

Wonder how long until Joffa caves in. The AFL certainly won't blink first. 

 

32 minutes ago, Demonland said:

Wonder how long until Joffa caves in. The AFL certainly won't blink first. 

 

And just like that the average IQ in the Collingwood cheer squad doubled

The AFL apologize? Tell him he's dreaming.

I’m with Joffa too, not cos we are [censored] and not worth watching or anything ?

15 hours ago, daisycutter said:

Monica...

 

Hell has frozen over. The Carlton Cheersquad are siding with Joffa.

 

18 hours ago, rjay said:

From the AFL...

Stadiums and police across the country have a zero-tolerance for members or supporters that abuse the opposition, umpires and other members and supporters, on grounds of race, religion, gender, disability and sexuality.

So...Bald, what grounds does that come under? Disability? doesn't seem to be race, religion, gender maybe sexuality...

Headed...not sure. Fill in the blank.

Rhymes with Dog:  probably under sexuality....could be a disability as related to eye sight...

So you can abuse your own team, just no one else.  Lucky we support Melbourne we don't need to yell at anyone else our side is protecting us from from this by playing so poorly that we only yell at them

26 minutes ago, Demonland said:

Hell has frozen over. The Carlton Cheersquad are siding with Joffa.

 

They can get together and form a rival Nuffy Football League.

I'm all for kicking the AFL at every opportunity but there was 75,000 people there the other day - the majority of them Collingwood fans - and the bloke who gets in the paper saying he didn't do anything is exposed 20 seconds later for making a obscene goose of himself at previous games. I think most us will be safe from the AFL Spy Squad putting a bag over our head and taking us to Guantanamo By.

Should have got myself in the media when we kicked 3.16 against GWS and a security guard threatened to chuck me out of a stand with about 250 people in it for letting out a loud wail of distress.

3 minutes ago, Supermercado said:

Should have got myself in the media when we kicked 3.16 against GWS and a security guard threatened to chuck me out of a stand with about 250 people in it for letting out a loud wail of distress.

Looking forward to the leaked video of this. 

24 minutes ago, drdrake said:

So you can abuse your own team, just no one else.  Lucky we support Melbourne we don't need to yell at anyone else our side is protecting us from from this by playing so poorly that we only yell at them

You can't abuse your own. Just sit in a Melbourne member's area and find out why. So let me get this right. The AFL states that u cant 'abuse' your own or oppositon players, umpires or other supporters. What's left? "Come on Dee's"? FFS.