Whispering_Jack

Seems to me from that B) symbol that you might know something about her return? I miss her - like I miss Niccolò Machiavelli, Atilla the Hun, Hitler and Stalin . They were all regular folk in their own way but I wouldn't pee on any of them if they were on fire.

Yeah, the white boys like Scotland and our boys from bay 13 are all choir boys.

One of the twins never played a senior game but he was a regular in the reserves and later won multiple b & f's in the ammos.The twins once played on both wings for their amateur team with the cousin in the middle (same surname) so it was an unusual call of the centreline when the coach read out the team.

Thanks guys. While a great deal of the story relies on my memories as a young child, I managed to subsequently piece together parts from what older people told me and from some research. The old actor was real and he was apparently, a perfectionist, so the idea of him rehearsing lines from a play in a foreign language is not as silly as one would think. The little girl who was his granddaughter grew up and married a Melbourne supporter whose twin cousins played with the club. Alas, he is no longer with us but I'm certain he would have enjoyed the story. Her younger brother (at the time of the story not yet born) is a member of the Collingwood board who is also married into a prominent family of Carlton people. I don't want to go further into it than that but, in the context of my story, their footy clubs obviously learned more from Semper Fi and tasted more success in our adult lives than mine. The Marine was real too and I think he was the first black person I ever met. Three years later, we had moved to the northern suburbs where I came across many others at the Olympic Village. I can't say for sure whether the passengers from the tram were coming from the Barassi debut game or not but I'd like to think it was and that I was close at hand when it all started. You can have your Leigh Matthews' and your Wayne Carey's but in my eyes, and in the eyes of many of my generation, Barassi was THE greatest. The chemistry he had with Norm Smith and what I consider to have been the outward unity of the playing group and the club for such a long period of time, led to our monumental success and six premierships in the decade 1955-64. It was all shattered in 1965 and we've never tasted true Semper Fi in the intervening years. Perhaps when the current tanking crisis is overcome, we'll finally be united.

Happy New Year OD and all and yes, it was a big night which ended with some TV viewing of the NYE celebrations and fireworks on Sydney Harbour. Once that finished we watched some highly skilled and trained athletes in the semi finals of the World Darts Championships which we all thought was a fitting way to end the old year and start the new, especially for the Demon fans among us. This is because throughout 2012 all and sundry were throwing darts at the Demons but, thankfully, it's a new year and 2013 is the year when we finally fight back.

Sounds plausible O50 but I think Demetriou's antecedents were like the Toumpas family, Greek Cypriot. Not only that but it seems that he's already tried his hand at politics over there because, according to Wikipedia, Andreas Demetriou is "a former Minister of Education and Culture of Cyprus." My mail is that he will soon retire from the AFL and re-open his parents' fish and chips shop in Sydney Road, Coburg where it all started which is a risky enterprise because the area is now strongly inhabited by Turkish Cypriots who, for some reason, don't get on too well with their Greek compatriots. This should not worry Andy too much because he has the experience and the capacity to reverse engineer a negotiated solution to the problem and is tipped in the Fin Review and BRW to go on and make a fortune from his new enterprise. Meanwhile, Toumpas will go on to become the AFL's most influential player of Greek Cypriot origin, winning two Brownlows (including the one he shares with Jack Viney in 2015) and playing in multiple premiership teams for the Demons before becoming AFL CEO himself on retirement. During his term as CEO he will oversee the successful three day investigation into Carlton's salary cap rorts of 2007-9 which result in the Blues' merger with cash strapped Collingwood in 2033.

Hi DeeBest. Thanks for the news. What are your thoughts on our recruiting post Prendergast?

Which is what we've been relying on since day 1.

FOI might be a problem because neither the AFL nor the MFC are government agencies but otherwise, I like the idea. It seems to me that the members should be entitled to see and read the evidence produced against the club and the nature of that evidence.

Is that Saddam or Nasser making a comeback or do you have a dodgy spellcheck?

We had our very own Vince Lombardi in Norm Smith. Both were larger than life figures who achieved significant results in their coaching careers. Both started at clubs other than those at which they made their names and ended elsewhere as well. Both died relatively young men, of cancer at age 57. Both are honoured by their respective competitions on the biggest day of their sport's year. We have the Norm Smith trophy on grand final day (best player) and they have the Vince Lombardi trophy (winning team at the Super Bowl). In my estimation and in relative terms, Smith was the greater figure. We had the magical combination for well over a decade of Smith as coach and Barassi as the dominant player. Smith imbued all of the essential features of a successful side, hard work, dedication, loyalty and a fierce desire to win while Barassi carried them out on the field with a ferocity that has been virtually unmatched throughout the game's history. When Barassi left for Carlton and Smith was sacked some months later, all of those attributes went from the club's make up and have to this day never re-appeared.

Hi Folks, The Sri Lankans and the crowds have moved on and I think this thread has run its course. Time to close it down. Cheers

Does he not have a contract with the Storm or don't such things matter in the world of rugby league?

I may be wrong but I have this feeling that the NSW thing might be changing. If you include Maxwell who looks like playing in the third test, then 4 of the last 5 test debutants would have been Victorians. I'm not sure NSW has a batter outside of the current test players who has instant credentials for a test place ATM.

Fantastic word BD. I reckon it must be at least 35 years since I last heard anyone use it. Those of us who have followed Melbourne through thick and thin for so long must be nincompoops. And if we were doing that in the 50s, this might bring back some memories especially for those of us who came from the bush.

I wonder how bold Inverarity and his fellow selectors will be now that Ponting and Hussey are both out of calculations for the tours of India and England? Usman Khawaja and Alex Doolan appear to be the next cabs off the rank (along with Maxwell) but I wonder if they're prepared to really look to the future and blood someone like Peter Hanscomb on the tour to India?

They're stark raving lunatics up there. This was the other main headline in the same edition of the NT NEWS http://m.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/12/29/316273_ntnews.html'>Mankini golfer totally bunkered ... and people want us to commit to as many as three games a year up there!

He got married and had children.

It's sad but for some reason, I never warmed to him. Probably because he was a South African and a Pom and one of the few from over there in the old dart at the time who ever put up a fight against us. Still, my condolences to the family in this difficult time.

Sue, it does matter that other clubs "may have infringed".There were allegations of tanking afoot for a decade before 2009 and the AFL always gave tanking a narrow interpretation. If your season was shot they gave carte blanche to the clubs to list manage and experiment to their hearts content and the short term aim of winning matches was deemed less important to clubs in that situation to the longer term objective of developing your team for the future. Andrew Demetriou came out publicly approving Melbourne's tactics in the Jordan McMahon game. And as long as clubs kept their policies private and in house there was no damage to the reputation of the game. By 2007 it was patently and plainly obvious to all and sundry what Carlton was trying to achieve and the AFL turned a blind eye. Moreover, you can bet in it that if there were any incriminating documents or emails around at Blues HQ they would now have been well and truly disposed of and yet not a single person from the AFL has deigned to explain why they have not been looked at thoroughly as we have over the past six months. As mentioned elsewhere, several others also went through the motions of not playing to win between 1999 and 2009. That this sort of discrimination is occurring in what is supposedly a billion dollar industry is nothing short of scandalous and bodes poorly for the AFL and the administrators responsible for allowing this to happen

That might be acceptable to some but a sanction against the MFC or any of its officials in the absence of similarly prolonged and through investigations of other clubs also suspected of tanking but not investigated would leave the AFL's integrity in tatters and the commission and its senior officials carrying the smell of corruption.Redleg's solution is the cleanest and the best for all concerned.

What about a hand for one of country's most exciting young cricketers and a Demon by virtue of coming from the Melbourne Cricket Club - Glenn Maxwell.

On the other hand, Schwabbie's concentrating on lifting the spirits of the Age as Fairfax Media begins its slide into oblivion and the hands of a consortium led by Gina Rinehart, John Singleton and Mark Carnegie. With that lot in control, we can expect a substantial dumbing down of content (if that's at all possible) and several long time contributors and more staff should be gone by winter time. Here's our mention in what passes for our only local broadsheet these days thanks to the efforts of CS who surely deserves compliments for helping lift the MFC's public profile this year - http://www.theage.com.au/sport/demons-exorcised-in-mcg-overkill-20121228-2byr9.html'>Demons exorcised in MCG 'overkill. Thanks to Cam, we have now overtaken Collingwood in media coverage these days. Our sponsors must surely be delighted! However, I should add that the only thing missing when J Howe left the MCG on Boxing Day was his #38 jumper prominently displaying the sponsors' logos although given the manner of his departure, the logos might not have been visible under the red vest.

Me represent the AFL? I reckon I could handle the gig but then, there's a fair chance that I'd probably tank.

Ah yes ... the old burden of proof has been the undoing of many a legal Eagle. Courts, burden of proof, on the balance of probabilities, defining terms and working out what people meant when they said something or committed it to writing. The music is like cash registers to the ears of lawyers ...