Timothy Reddan-A'Blew

👏 to all winners, particularly, to the triers, and of course to Our Puzzle Patron. As with the other time I was recused, I'm not sure I would have got it. But I'll pretend I would have!

The suggester either missed my last conundrum, or they were vying, rather belatedly, for its 6th prize and mis-addressed their PM! 😄

Well played, @Roger Mellie!

Confirming, Il Patrone, I am recused? But I'm humbly PM-ing you as to how you could fill that bench and sit a great coach beside them, for your delectation(?)

Kudos to you, 'Jeff' (I presume, as opposed to the agricultural professional?) I did miss them all. I was alive - just, and was a regular home and away attendee in the '60 and '64 seasons, on my 50-year-MCC-member grandfather's ladies ticket, available to kids under 12. Finals were not available to me, then. So it looks like you have me for age, too. I once attempted a survey on here, as to how big a cohort 'our' generation is in Demonland. Not a great response, but from people's stories from time to time, it does seem significant.

There's that one in The Godfather? Certainly apposite. Though perhaps a tad strong...

Honorary: 2x5 surname 😄

Btw, Timmy A'Blew wrote it... 🥺

Ouch. True. But ouch. Something in the 2x5-letters name? Harry Petty saying hello.

With the World Wide Web We're Whatever We Want to be! 😉

I'm with you, Jack! 😊

Very nice, @Whispering_Jack. Thanks! Timed, I imagine - closer to the new season than the old - to help prime our anticipation about this transformed group in the now-almost-close-enough-to-touch former. But surely someone will follow up, so it may as well be me (because I Can't Let Go)... I expect there to be, in 2026, lots of Chances, that we're always Taking The Chance as it presents, and, indeed, that there'll always be One More Chance to take. So, for 2026, Here I Am, Come What May. It may be Sweet Dreams, but... I do expect Miracles. Goodbye. Tim

Very nicely for this Tim, one of our other Tims - most uncomplicatedly, @Tim - takes home the 'Kinnear'. Well done to him! 👏 That's it then. Our 36 are all the players who wore 3 or more numbers in MFC seniors games. McKenzie, Hendrie, Evans and Harris wore 4. Kinnear, uniquely, wore 5 - in only 47 games! I believe the game missed by Whispering Jack was the 1958 GF, when players had to have new numbers, after the leak of their normal ones in the lead-up. Bluey and Froggy were the only ones that day who had worn, or would go on to wear, 2 other numbers.

Time to bring this baby home. For one last chance to grab prize 5, the 'Joe Kinnear' - excuse my apparent stutter: N...numbers.

By my count, it's even... Yep, I see the door...

I fear I might be in a very significant minority, but is there anyone else on here who would not have expected to be at the 'G, had it been there, and so is not burdened by a lack of fulfilment? (This is sacrilege, perhaps! - but we are Demons 😉) I was there for 1988 and 2000, but those miserable experiences (though joyously not repeated on the night in question 😊) aren't what influence me now. Age? The whole ticketing miasma? Crowd aversion? AFL overhyping? Cost? And with what I felt, almost constantly, from 21 August, through September, on the night of 25 September, and well into October 2021, and what I saw on the big screen and other media across that time, I'm imperceptibly short of fulfilment, if at all!

Puptracca?

Toby Bedford at the Giants. Simon?! 😂

And now, appropriately, @demon-4-life is our 4th winner. A first-timer, I think? Welcome and Well Done! Similarly appropriately, his is the McKenzie/Hendrie/Evans/Harris prize. I wonder if there is a 'lander with '5' in their alias. The appropriate Kinnear prize will rest well with them!

Might need to take some care in these airings in this forum? At a personal level, anyway, too serious for this funny old uncle (not Uncle) of a thread!

How powerful are omens? Given the general tenor of this thread, this one's probably well short. Still... We made a grand final on the 100th anniversary of our first premiership.

One b*te and it's sh*te.

The pre-season in 2025 began in the 2nd week of May. That might have had a 'pre-pre-season' occupying April, I guess. With no list decisions left to be made (I think?) that a coach might want a say in, a selection not until February/March wouldn't be unreasonable? However, are there any contracts still in the air that a coach uncertainty might be affecting?

...though there's a bit of a Gippslandy trend across the Club generally? Nice to have a(nother?) heartland, rightly associated with our Casey gamble. Warms this Gippy heart, anyway!😊

Would that read as a promoting noun or an inciting verb?