jikajika

Yes Roger. Well done. Before that he lived in Naracoorte and played for Kybybolite. The point is not how the specific social geography of Jack Trengove might affect his chances of making it in the AFL. The point is how the specific social geography of James Strauss might affect his chances of making it in the AFL. Social geography is an interesting field, Roger. I think you would enjoy doing some reading about it.

You seem to be taking what is a very uncontroversialobservation about social geography very personally. Perhaps you are JamesStrauss? If so and having received a blue-chip education, it is maybe somewhat superfluous of me to point out that class and social geography havebeen a phenomenally powerful feature of Australian football for a long time. The rivalry between Melbourne and Collingwood was of coursebased on class and the geographic juxtaposition of upper and working classsuburbs. And of course clubs drafting from zones around countryVictoria once provided no end of regional rivalry through social geography. Saying Strauss won’t make it because he has been too busyponcing it up in Canterbury and at Scotch is of course absurd. But that doesn’tchange the power of social geography on conceptions of player capability – evenwithin current conceptions of MFC’s playing list. I have often seen aroundfootyblogs the hardness of Strauss and Watts being questioned, both of whom arewell-known as products of the elite private education system. Contrast them withsome of the ‘hard nuts’ of the team who come from much more working-classareas: Grimes (Calder), McKenzie (Geelong), Jones (Mornington peninsula),Bartram (western coast), Frawley (Ballarat), Trengove (Naracoorte). I am not saying social geography is the determiner ofplaying potential. I am saying that much as our Scotch graduates here mightwish otherwise, social geography plays a strong role in popular conceptions of playercapability precisely because historically it has had a strong influence on theway players play the game as well as the tribalism of supporting one team or another. The possibility that James Strauss is having troubleadjusting to AFL standard football because the circumstances of his socialgeography meant that he has faced less setbacks and had to struggle less to geton an AFL playing list is not absurd, nor even particularly challenging.

Right. Here's Jim Stynes making a similar point, albeit without the joking: 'Second-year player James Strauss, 19, was officially on the trip as the Demons' second emergency for the Port Adelaide match, but Stynes says the underlying motivation is because his background - growing up in Canterbury, educated at Scotch College - is so fundamentally different from Jurrah's and Wonaeamirri's. ''That's been something that we've focused on as a board, to say, 'How can we support the development of these footballers and make them better citizens?' because they can get wrapped in cotton wool and then leave the system at 24 or 25 and have the shock of their life, because it's been so easy for them,'' he says.' http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/reaching-out-20100604-xkrf.html

Fair enough. I put it to the author of this post that one of the key reasons James Strauss has comprehensively failed to deliver or even really develop as many reasonable observers would like is because he appears to have had an exceptionally privileged upbringing and an extremely sheltered education under the auspice of an elitist ideology, and this has increased the likelihood that when he was exposed to the harsh examination of the AFL, he was found desperately wanting and did not have the resilience or adaptability of people like (say) Liam Jurrah to overcome personal obstacles in order to make it in the big time. In that regard, it is somewhat ironic that it was a fellow graduate of Scotch, Campbell Brown, who told Strauss on his debut that he was 'by far the worst player on the ground'. But then, Brown is originally from WA. 'Country footballers from public schools are better at overcoming personal setbacks than city footballers from private schools' is a political comment, and as such I guess it violates the code of conduct. What are you gonna do? You're gonna make an inference toward the same point by referencing 'poxy private schools'. Well, perhaps I should apologise for having a dig at graduates of Scotch College. I guess what with everything else in life being so damned hard for them, they really didn't need trolls making snide comments on footyblogs too. Finally, I think you would have struggled to justify claims that my comments 'ventured well inside racist territory'. I am very comfortable with the appellation 'resilient' in the fashion I used it. Anyway, it's Friday night, and you are probably busy too. Shalom aleichem.

Ah, back in the glory days Demonland would happily venture into social geography when discussing a young footballer's merits and demerits. I see that time has past. How much fun you must have patrolling the virtual highways of this place. 'Guys, come on. Come on, guys.' Well I for one will never forget that Rod Grinter came from Katandra West.

You see, the thing about Melbourne supporters is they take pride in edumacation. It stops them from doing dumb stuff like comparing Jack Watts to Luke Molan, then mouthing off about 'contributing to the progress of the team of the red and the blue'. Most of the time.

Damn straight. Darwin is one of the loveliest cities in the world, and it's a fabulous place to watch football, but the combination of gossip-mongering and parochial populism in the NT News is so bad it's not funny.

On occasion carried the ball with exceptional agility in very heavy traffic.

Good looking bloke, too. Alluring squint in the left eye. Suggestive, full lips. Isn't he an astronaut?

I like the way Bell goes about his footy too, but surely both he and Jamar are borderline to get the boot. Both have produced game-swaying football only once or twice.

Hm. How about we drop the wackness of Dunn and the old Valentino?

Bell in with orders to smash williams, run off him, and kick goals from 60m out. I'm gonna thrash this son of a sheep farmer home. Go Belly!

I see you are jedi too. I sense the Force is strong within you.

The look on his face after he turned to the crowd as the ball sailed through was a very sheepish: 'sometimes you win, sometimes you lose - I just won'. That's why the celebration was half-hearted. Nobody can take full credit for a fluke. But as Hanny girl says, flukes happen more often to some than others.

On the whole I endorse the cultivation of legends - but the goal was not intentional. I was standing halfway up the hill in front of him. He tried to centre the footy and miskicked under pressure. It was the only mistake I saw him make all day. I'm with angryfijian - the tackle on Simmonds was just as impressive.