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Blame greenhouse gases. Blame pay television. Blame Super League. Blame Ricky Nixon. Blame whoever you must for there is a silent, corrosive epidemic infiltrating Australian sport at its highest level.
No, I’m not talking about James Brayshaw.
I am of course lamenting the loss of great nicknames in Australian sport. Whilst the Aussie dollar has brushed aside competition like Tony Lockett at a Sizzler buffet, are we lagging where it really matters most?
What point is it being the first country to emerge from the global financial crisis if we must trail the global sports community in witty, original nicknames for our sports stars?
All of a sudden Australian sport has got so darn serious, a phenomena that can be traced back to Australia’s world beating 1999 year where we went from spirited battlers to big timers on the world stage. Cricket, union, league, ummm Aussie rules… you name it, we won it!
With this success though came great expectations of our athletes, and slowly but surely the Johnny Raper-type who played hard and partied even harder was being put out to the warm-up oval. They were seen as uncouth, unprofessional and perhaps the biggest sin in modern sport… unmarketable.
This whole nonsense reached a crescendo a couple of years ago when Ricky Ponting’s manager issued a press release stating that his client was now to be referred to only as ‘Rick Ponting’, for future sponsorship opportunities. Rick?
The fans already had a name for Ponting, he was ‘Punter’.
And before him was ’Tugger’. And before him ‘Tubby’. And before him ‘Captain Grumpy’. And before him etc etc.
But I digress.
Of course sports people still have nicknames these days, as do most Australians with lazy friends, it’s just that in years gone past a nickname required more than adding a ‘y’ or an ‘o’ onto someone’s last name. It was something that was clever and funny… something that got the fans down to the ground without talking down to them at the same time.
Maybe I’m living in a panel van commercial but surely it’s much more fun to watch a game of footy between blokes called ‘Sloth’ and ‘Bloodnut’ and ‘the Baby Faced Assassin’ as opposed to ‘’Locky’ and ‘Browny’ and ‘Coops’.
The crying shame of all this is that the U.S, the leading force in both political correctness and sports marketing, openly embraces such obscure monikers for their sporting heroes.
Sit down to watch ESPN any given weekend and you’ll be confronted by ‘The Sheriff’, ‘The Dagger’, ‘L-Train’, ’Chester the Molester(?)’ ‘Big Daddy’ and our very own ‘Bogey man’ Andrew Bogut (who is eternally grateful he didn’t get stuck in the NBL with the lame nickname ‘Boges’).
So, in an effort to inspire our current athletes and raise national moral I have collated a brief list of Australian sports’ greatest nicknames from the past which I would like every Brado, Daveo and Robbo to add to.
The final list will be collected and hand delivered to the Australian Institute of Sport by Trevor ‘Rexona’ Chappell on grand final day.
Sincerely,
Vic ‘Steggles’ Arious.
Phil “Whatsapacketa” Sigsworth
Allan ‘Hurricane lamp” Mckean (i.e. not very bright)
John ‘Nobody’ Eales
Ray ‘Mr Perpetual motion’ Price
Mark ‘Afghanistan’ Waugh
Matthew ‘The Velvet Sledgehammer’ Lloyd
Phil ‘Thousand Bees’ Gould
Nathan “Knotso’ Sharpe
Troy ‘Bunnings’ Selwood
Chris “buddha’ Hanley
Add yours now!
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