• Toyota Premiership
• AFL Grand Final 2011
• AFL Fixtures
• Fixtures by club
• AFL Tipping
• AFL RSS
• AFL photos

The Crowd Says (15) | Page 1 of Comments

• Rocky said | March 13th 2008 @ 9:20am | Report comment

  Stop crying! You cant say that to its just victorians, every state has its bias. The Aust cricket selectors have a bias to NSW. SA like to bitch and moan about Victoria…..It makes life interesting.

  And the umpires are influanced by the crowd … a better turn out would have help the crows.

  Reply
• 

  Spiro Zavos said | March 13th 2008 @ 9:57am | Report comment

  The bias, in my view, is in the DNA of Victorians. Victoria was a protectionist state. NSW, with its great natural port of Sydney which as Governor Philips said ‘a hundred ships of the line could sail abreast,’ was a free trade state. Sydneysiders tend to be free traders in all apsects of their life, including embracing imported sports teams like the Swans. Victorians tend to be protectionist in all aspects of their life, with one winter sport (AFL) and a pox on any teams even in that sport from outside Victoria.

  Reply

• Michael C said | March 13th 2008 @ 9:58am | Report comment

  This does smell of being a bad loser.

  HOWEVER -
  I admit the Vic media is rubbish, unlike some soccer and Rugby folk who reckon their’s an AFL protection racket going on – well, only if that means the trumped up overly negative reporting of off-field incidents is ‘protection’…..and Ben Cousins was one such example…including the way that it was somehow deemed to be proof that the AFL was soft on drugs and that the AFL program wasn’t working……to which I counter by saying that Cousins, as with ANdrew Johns, exposed how the WADA match day testing is next to useless about revealing a problem. And no program is any good without sufficient testing.

  Umpires – pay too many free kicks – they have been pushed down a path of paying free kicks ahead of calling for a bounce.

  I don’t care for accusations of bias or imbalance. That happens, especially with 3 umpires. However, too many incidental contacts are being penalised with free kicks. And, why not put a stop to 4 players jumping on top of the player trying to do something with the ball – - let’s have a rule that any more than 2 tacklers will deem that no tackler freekick can be generated.

  Reply

• Redb said | March 13th 2008 @ 10:17am | Report comment

  Spiros,

  Ever heard of 1788 First Fleet et al. Convicts the first settlers of Sydney all wrapped in chains. Free, yeah right

  NSWelshers have never got over the fact that we wouldn’t play their English games, although we did take up cricket to keep our Aussie Rules footballers fit during the summer, well that’s how it eventually turned out.

  I actually enjoy union and soccer.

  But a question for you? Where do Roy Masters and Phil Gould come from? Biased? Prejudiced? blindsided? Anti- Victorian? – who could not get more biased commentary from our NSWelsher friends. There are a few Victorian writers that make me cringe- Mike Sheahan for example, but even he does not have spit out such anti interstate venom, Masters, Gould and others are in their own league. At least Peter Fitsimmons does it with a huge grin on his face. Good onya Fitzy – best sports journo in OZ.

  cheers
  Redb

  Reply

• Michael C said | March 13th 2008 @ 10:45am | Report comment

  Ah Spiros…..

  I’ve just put something along these lines in another thread -

  I used to support WA vs Victoria when Jimmy and Phil Krakouer and Ross Glendinning were playing for the Sandgropers against a Big V team devoid of North Melbourne players.
  I supported Brisbane to defeat Collingwood in the 2002 Grand Final – I think in 2001 I just hoped for a good game.
  CLUB is KING. NOT STATE. We killed off State of Origin – even though we effectively invented it (one year earlier than the Rugby League boys). We enjoyed it for a while, but, when we went national, when we were willing and (I’ve run out of ‘w’ words….

  Reply

• Michael C said | March 13th 2008 @ 10:57am | Report comment

  hmm, ‘words’ is a ‘w’ word……maybe not!!! wow!….) able to ‘share’ our league…..okay, a few people went kicking and screaming.
  But
  For most Victorians, after the only live footy being the Sunday afternoon Reserves match (the Commodore Cup or the Army Reserve Cup) from the Lakeside Oval or the mid week night series out at Waverley – suddenly, we had a live ‘league’ game each fortnight, the Swans up in Sydney. Many of us would know and recognise the Swans players better than our own of that era. They were the 2nd team for most Victorians.

  alas – the Storm are not downtrodden by people NOT willing to give them a go. It’s just that Rugby League is a rubbish event live. People turned up in droves for the big SoO game at the ‘G. 80+K, the next time back to about 50, then 30…….the novelty gone and all that was left was a game that doesn’t work without buffoonery in the commentary box and slow motion replays…(the ARE replays, aren’t they??).

  We gave it a go.

  and, so, whilst the Sydney folk, claiming ‘free traders’ – and, yet, as the Colonial administrative HQ, Sydney was infact the umbilical cord back to mother England. Sydney was the Empires outpost city. Sydney could not handle that Melbourne out grew her in wealth and population in the late 1800s. Melbourne, that free and planned city, not a penal colony come good – no, free enterprise, the spirit of the gold miners…..alas, perhaps the threat of revolution (post US and French revolution, twas a constant fear of the latter colonial era) given the goings on at the Eureka Stockage. In fact, it might be the Sydney folk who painted the myth of Irish creating the ‘Victorian Game’ (despite no proof for such, and a very great lack of orange or green in the team colours!).

  Syndey – the city more likely to accept and embrace a game called “Scandanavian Rules Football” than one based on “Victorian Rules Football”.

  Sydney – the city were the ‘very British’ people in positions of power over ruled the potential voting of feet of players and spectators to the ‘southern game’ by effectively locking the gates. Sydney – the city that dared NOT to be the ‘leader’ of Australia……..and so reflected by the fact that Melbourne hosted the Olympic games barely over a 100 years after being established, that Melbourne became our home of tennis and formula 1, that the Melbourne Cup is pre-eminant and the Sydney Cup but a mere shadow. Why? Because Melbourne and Victoria GOT ON with LIVING IN AUSTRALIA, rather than serving a military ‘tour of duty’ in the colonies and yearning to return to Suffolk.

  Reply

• Westy said | March 13th 2008 @ 12:57pm | Report comment

  Michael C…….What has gone wrong………. From the city that produced our most British of Prime Ministers Stanley Bruce and Ming “the Merciless” Menzies…. They would never be products of Sydney…..From the city that rode the back of the Gold Boom….Dear me Melbourne has always had its attractions to me….. its efforts in culture, gardens, transport, food and museums have been wonderful…and indeed planned and made with man made intent……..that is of course the paradox of Sydney an unplanned haphazard sprawling metropolis along some of the most beautiful coastline in the world. Its terrible but wonderful. Build an opera house by a working class Labor government on one of the best parts of the harbour with a lottery and gambling taxes. Then try to tone it down. Only in Sydney. No sport will ever master Sydney because there are simply too many things to do including to many good quality sports. The state of Victoria is doing well in subsidising Australian film but please the ripping up of Albert Park and the continuing subsidisation of an event Formula One losing 44 million is not one of its the best . Will it now be at night?You do Sydney a grave disservice ….with the 1956 Olympics . Sydney never put in a counter proposal and the event was strongly backed by Melbourne Menzies. My father was genuinely estatic when Melbourne won as were most Sydneysiders. Where Melbourne has shown itself in its worst light was when it used its Australian Olympic infulence to intentionally undermine Sydney”s first real bid which was in our natoinal interest to replace the Sydney proposal and see Melbourne badly lose in 1992 .Melbourne’s conduct was on the whole petulent and narrow. Coles made clear Melbourne’s bid was doomed to failure and was a conseqence of blind domination of some sports by the Melbourne establishment. Its support for Sydney’s bid in 2000 was lukewarm at best despite its direct benefits for Australia and nearly 5 million Sydneysiders starved of sporting facilities……Most Australians celebrate Melbourne’s events … the same has not always been recipricated……The overturning of Sydneys first bid was and is one of the greatest acts of bastardry in sport in Australia…..Redb….Victoria on average have the best AFL players because they have the most players….NSW have the most young men playing cricket and on average have a greater number of better players…..for this reason NSW boys dominate in cricket generally although WA and in more recent times QLD have had something to say.

  Reply

• Redb said | March 13th 2008 @ 1:23pm | Report comment

  Westy,

  So Roy Masters and Phil Gould are the journalistic doyens of everything balanced and objective in sport?

  I find in my travels that NSWelshers are far more acid in their criticism of Melbourne than vice-versa. Bias – phew read some of your own papers, start with the Daily Terror……:-)

  South Australians on the other hand are proof Tasmanians can swim.

  Queenslanders live in NSWelshers shadow and the beer is crap.

  Western Australians have a giant chip on their shoulders concerning anything from the east.

  NSWelshers are deluded enough to think they are Australia full stop. Sydney was a nice place for a penal settlement, much like Port Arthur really.

  Tasmanians are taking swimming lessons to get an upgrade.

  Northern Terroritorians can drink, AA is a now a government department.

  Victorians are the salt of the earth, the true Australians, the foundation of the nation, we also have the best horse race and get a holiday along with it. Gotta love that.

  cheers
  Redb

  Reply

• Michael C said | March 13th 2008 @ 1:41pm | Report comment

  Westy -

  I was hoping no one would mention Menzies, or Bruce for that matter – however, that’s the ruddy conservative side of politics.

  Maybe more present the examples of Archbishop Mannix and of James Scullin.

  Albert Park – I was more referring to the Grand Prix usage back prior to 1958 – the current one however, though I care not for the race, is probably worth every penny spent on it.

  The main difference :

  Sydney welcomed Steve Price, we couldn’t get rid of him or even Stan Z quick enough. Even Derryn Hinch is fairly even handed and non threatening these days. Sydney on the other hand elevated John Laws and Alan Jones to positions of potentially greater power than the prime minister. Seemingly only giving the PM a bit of a ‘hand’ when one chose to live in Sydney – which in certain eyes was the way it should always be.

  The irony is that NY and LA are separated by an entire continent. Melb and Sydney are directly linked by road and rail – curse that standard gauge.

  Reply

• onside said | March 13th 2008 @ 1:43pm | Report comment

  When did Victorians stop beating their wives

  Reply