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September 20th 2009 21:29
It is a painful reminder of your own mortality when you wake up and realise you aren't the young man you once were. When you can no longer kick a Sherrin/Steeden/FIFA-approved -ball around with your children due to the lack of useable cartilage around your knee joints, testament to a lengthy amateur career and a cheap health care plan that doesn't include physio or alternative treatments.
Similarly, but more tenuously, the same feelings manifest themselves when you wake up one day and check your hotmail account, only to find an incredibly impersonal email stating your Orble blog has become dormant.
But like Vesuvius in AD 79, SportingMind has quashed rumours of dormancy. This post suggests a return to the good old days, when posts flew thick and fast and apathy was at an all time low.
I would love someone to take over the reigns at SportingMind - but it would have to be the right person. It could not just be anyone. Not some 16-year-old kid with lofty ambitions to be an AFL writer for the Herald Sun; not some clownish amateur who would undoubtedly pepper the interwebs with personal pronouns and vomit-inducing grammatical errors.
SportingMind is not quite ready to hand over the baton - yet. The time will come, sure, it always does. But I, like all great sportsmen on the cusp of retirement, "will know when the time comes".
They always do.
Well, the 2009 Tour de France has finally ended, leaving thousands of sleep-deprived Lycra fetishists to catch up on some sorely needed rest.
It is around this time every year that people pretend to give a shit about cycling for one month in a shameless attempt to do the following: use French words such as pelaton, pass ill-informed gay comments about the sheer romanticism of the French countryside, and make awkward water-cooler conversation with co-workers while feigning interest on the stage progress and “yellow jersey” aspirations of a bunch of ‘roided-up nobodies in a “sport” no-one really gives a fuck about. Too harsh? Probably.
As a former Tour de France contender, SportingMind braved the tough French Alps on several occasions. I know exactly how hard it is to get up each morning and ride 40km up an implausibly steep mountain, when you would much prefer to be picking grapes in one of the many delightful boutique vineyards that southern France has to offer. When all you feel like doing is checking into a gorgeous little off-the-track Bed and Breakfast, ordering a crispy brioche and cafe au lait and amusing the owner’s 15-year-old daughter with your basic knowledge gleaned from a French phrase book. By Jesus, it's extraordinarily hard work, but there's something deep inside each competitor that powers them on to the finish line: anabolic steroids.
But there’s no denying that Le Tour is a hell of a spectacle. And while Australia’s top cyclist Cadel Evans had a terrible time this tour, I still respect everything he stands for. He is possibly the surliest, strangest and most unmarketable sportsman Australia has to offer, but he just doesn’t give a shit about what people think of him. And I dig that.
-SportingMind
The thousands of emails that flooded my inbox, almost beyond the point of recognition, made this post a necessity. And while this topic has piqued my interest considerably, I am aware of the ethical implications a partisan blog might have upon my readership. So it is solely for this reason that I have allowed the waves of discontent to quieten before offering my own take on the greatest rugby league off-field incident of the 21st Century. Now that the puritans, the fiends, the Germaine Greers and the Rebecca Wilsons of our world have all chomped heartily into the bit, it is time for SportingMind to offer a bit of clarity and poise to an issue that has escalated quicker than a Phuket bar mat prank.
Let us not forget the context. It was a chilly night in Christchurch. The Cronulla Sharks had just had a scratchy pre-season hit out against an under strength New Zealand Warriors outfit. Nevertheless, a win – nay, a road-trip win – calls for a few beverages. Matthew Johns was regaling a career’s worth of anecdotes to locals while his less articulate team-mates stood next to him, smirking, hoping to catch some of the leftover adoration and translate that into naughty late-night shenanigans.
Sure, this scene is no different to what happens on your average white collar stop-over in Singapore. For many years Australian businessmen, drunk on in-flight Johnnie Walker and their own sense of entitlement, have enjoyed the benefits of anonymity in a foreign town. Investment bankers homo-erotically high-fiving each other mid act, Maverick and Goose-style, as they defile someone’s (usually a pillar of the Singaporese community) daughter.
But demonisation has begun. No longer is there a positive public perception of the Rugby League Player. He is no longer an adorably grizzled veteran with a wife and three kids, who drives a Holden and battles a reasonably serious drinking problem. He, the modern League Player, is a highly sexed and hairless fiend, who drives a Mercedes with vanity plates and dresses exclusively in tight t-shirts with Spanish phrases on the front. He will, invariably, have a diamond earring in place and an 11 O’clock curfew, which he intends to break. The overwhelming synthesis of duty-free cologne and pheromones is something the best cougars can detect from 50 yards.
The argument made by many is this: Women throw themselves at footballers, so what’s the big deal? If these women are to make their bed, shouldn’t they lie in it? Well, no. Not unless they are previously aware that their bed will be surrounded by the most voracious, depraved and insecure footballers. Footballers who are convinced their latent homosexuality is masked by their totally hetero 12:1 gang-bang ratio. Then they can lie in it - in any position they like.
Footballers feel the need to conform. To stand out from the pack makes one a target for criticism; individuality is frowned upon. Indeed, as Socrates once said, “there is no ‘I’ in team”. And when the desire to conform is stronger than the desire to abide by common law, then we have a problem.
Why can’t footballers engage in typical team-building exercises? Like those at a typical workplace: mundane and sexless “icebreakers” devised and sanctioned by lame HR executives with no sense of irony. No, they must march out into the local village and not return until they have cornered a “willing participant”, subjected her to libidinal extremes and returned to the team hotel to be ready the next morning for a pool session. This is what binds mateship.
SportingMind is an unabashed Matthew Johns fan. SportingMind also believes the game of league has suffered enough over the past 15 years to last a lifetime. Let it not be destroyed by a poorly organised gang-bang.
-SportingMind
The time was the early 90s. Keating was still Treasurer and Bob Hawke was smashing schooners like they were soon to be unfashionable. Yeltsin was asserting his authority in a newly democratised Russia, with revolution having swept the Iron Curtain.
The internet was in its absolute infancy. Youth culture was evolving, with tattoos, piercing and heroin going hand-in-hand with the grunge aesthetic. Gangstas began to rap, which resulted in gangsta rap
[ Click here to read more ]
The North Melbourne AFL club has been the focus of intense media attention over the past two days, all because of a certain video that has made its way on YouTube. The video has been criticised for its negative depiction of women.
[ Click here to read more ]
Acutely aware that the "list" post is the blogospheric equivalent to that of a TV Christmas-special episode, I'll avoid the sugar coating and come clean with it: I'm doing this to keep the fans happy. You wanted it, I'm giving it to you. My spleen, proverbially vented for your benefit, on a platter.
Things I hate:
[ Click here to read more ]
Melbourne, the self-proclaimed sporting capital of the world, has a lot to answer for. You would never think, looking from the outside, that Melbourne is so socially stratified. Instead you would assume that, like all other Australian cities, Melbourne is an egalitarian paradise where all people are offered the same basic human rights and respect.
Enter the footballer. A relatively new phenomenon - circa the late 19th century - the footballer has taken over society as its most worshiped and revered member. The footballer is a different kind of "Untouchable". Not Untouchable in the way that Arundhati Roy described India's society - an abhorrent caste system based on inherent social perceptions - but Untouchable in the sense that they enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the public
[ Click here to read more ]
The N.R.L. simply cannot take a trick. Moments after unveiling an indulgent new ad campaign, the sport once again found itself embroiled in controversy. As such, it was only a matter of time before rugby league's greatest puritan, Phil Gould, stood-up and offered us a heavy serving of his rarely requested opinion. Chief rugby league reporter, SportingMind, caught up with Phil Gould last night for a three course dinner and in-depth discussion on the future of rugby league.
[ Click here to read more ]
Cricket is no longer safe from the threat of politics and violence, as a shooting attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team yesterday signalled the end of a 400-year peace agreement between criminal masterminds and cricketers.
This aggressive assault by unidentified masked attackers has relegated cricket alongside a list of other sports of which have fallen victim to terrorism
[ Click here to read more ]
Over the past two weeks we have been, unfortunately, witnesses to the greatest natural disaster in this country's history. Images of fire-ravaged communities have been plastered across our screens, interspersed with quotes by grieving families and solemn celebrities. Obviously, you know things are serious when Larry Emdur halts his usual "who, me?" posturing on Channel Seven's "Morning Show" in favour of a permanent hang-dog expression.
There have been moments of levity; indeed, sport can provide an outlet during a crisis. SportingMind can recall several moments in history when sport offered a beacon of light - indeed, hope - to a futile situation
[ Click here to read more ]
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