Weighing into the Club Debate.

[Sly]

*Note: This is a repost from my Board where Posters were debating relative stature of respective Teams. This is my Response to them.

You have stepped onto the Board and into a Post with The Incandescent One, the greatest force in arrogance today. Eddie McGuire, Jeff Kennett - heard of them? Minor despots looking for a rock to crawl under and hide from the conflagration of my ego.

So, here's me throwing my weight around into the debate regarding Club Stature.

There may have been a time I envied the Carlton Administration and espoused that had Collingwood had that sort of professionalism, opportunism and nous at the top (through the 70's, 80's and 90's) we'd be sitting on (conservatively estimating) 28 Premierships now.

But Carlton, oh Carlton, what have you done for me lately?

When it comes right down to a historical review of the last decade, we come away with ONE Premierships apiece - and the 80's are a long way away.

I take both hands to withdraw my penis and from 15 feet away I urinate profusely on your Preliminary Final appearance in 2000, your Grand Final appearance in 1999 and other such recent Final-appearances.

I've always said it: if you haven't WON the Premiership then you're just one of the losers in that given year.

Finishing Grand Finalists in 1999, Carlton would come away with Stephen O'Reilly and Michael Mansfield debuting in the Navy Blue for 2000. Coming last in the same year, we'd come away with a Once In a Generation Prospect in Josh Fraser.

Tell me, truly, outside of North Melbourne being Premiers - and hitherto glory was eclipsed by the success of the melanoma, Melbourne Storm, winning the Premiership in their respective competition that same year - who really profited out of 1999?

So don't talk to me about recent appearances in Finals unless you've won the bloody thing. This isn't a Beauty Pageant. If the winner can't fulfil obligations, the crown isn't passed to the Runner-up. Better to be born ugly and kept hungry.

And just to digress momentarily, what is 'recent' anyway? To my 3 year old twin nieces, the success of 1995 doesn't mean a thing. So don't reach back subjectively to cite 'recent' accomplishments, otherwise I'll start pulling out successes from the 20's. Hell, that was recent. I was at the Spanish Inquisition and it was headed by Ron Barassi and Caroline Wilson.

Now, sure, the Deejiot will yap - like that damn little mutt which annoys the bulldog in the Bugs Bunny Cartoons - about "16 Premierships" and 1981, 1979 and 1970.

Congratulations.

Now find a vine and get over it, you buffoon.

How far do we reach back to find the blanket glory? At some point as we recede further into the past I think these events lose their objectivity and become just part of the hazy blur - meaning they lose their exclusivity to champion and triumph. At that point I think, hell, just pick any event where Carlton lost and use it as a counter-argument.

What'll never change is the bandwagoneering nature of the Carlton soul-less. Success measures loyalty, but loyalty doesn't equate to fanaticism in the Blues' Ranks, (and they sure are rank). Like any team there'd be the zealots - like the Deejiot - but it's already been demonstrated (upon this very Board) that supporters of the Blues are intolerant of mediocrity.

Shoulders are broad, back's unbowed, sites are set.

Essendon, oh Essendon - 21wins in a Home & Away Season, three straight Final-wins netting a Premiership...and the volcanic ejaculation of triumph barely equivocates to a damned splutter.

Do you realize the way Collingwood would've celebrated an Essendon-2000-like Season? They would've postponed the following Season (and in the case of an Olympic-year, the Olympics themselves also) indefinitely until they'd gotten things back under control. Damn, we celebrated harder and longer after beating Fremantle in Round 2 of this year. (Yeah, quip it up).

If it were Richmond, or maybe even Carlton, the celebrations would've been longer and harder. Of course, the babble of bewilderment which followed the 2000 Premiership can be accredited solely to one man - Kevin Sheedy. After 20 years of Sheedy, it's little surprise Bomber-fans don't know whether they're coming or going.

It's a far cry from the 80's (and earlier) when the volatile and threatening Bomber-fanatics occupied Windy Hill. It was frightening going there. But as the ground faded into extinction so, too, it seems, were the vassals of boofheads extinguished.

Now when I attend games involving the Bombers it's like going to the cattle-call auditions for Popstars. The English band (who were most-certainly Essendon-supporters) "Bros" once sang: "When will I be famous?" Well, if I were a Don, I'd be asking: "When will I be credible?"

The debacle of the 1999 Preliminary Final bereaved the supporters of their fanaticism and the expectancy which ran prevalent throughout the 2000 Season robbed them of their passion. When the Premiership was finally won, it seemed most of the Donners had forgotten how to celebrate - or forgotten the necessity of celebrating.

It's an older wound and cycle, though. The last time I saw Donners genuinely intoxicated with the ecstasy of the ultimate victory was following the 1984 Grand Final. But 15 subsequent years of Sheedyism has left them largely devoid of the gambit of genuine emotion(s).

Now, almost as if they were tanning on the deck chairs of a Cruise Ship and relaxing to the gentle roll of the waves, Donners have performed the ultimate miracle in home-medicine & surgery - the self-lobotomy.

CONCERN: We're down.
REACTION: Sheedy will get us back up.
EMOTION: *Nominal.*

CONCERN: We're up.
REACTION: It's just a matter of time before Sheedy roots us back down the ladder.
EMOTION: *Nominal.*

WHAT"S KEVIN DOING? - We learned to stop asking. We are good little Pod-people. In time, Kevin will come harvest us from our Pods and tell us when to celebrate. And when it's time for gloom, Kevin will put us back in our Pods and sew us back into the fields until the time of the next harvest. We do not ask. We do not question Kevin. We are Good. We are the Pod-people.

As for Richmond...come on - 10 Premierships and almost half of them were won in a spurt under Tommy Hafey. One Final's appearance in 19 years, an Administration prone to cyclical self-implosion and a revolving door on the Coach's Position. Richmond never "hire" a Coach: they lease him.

I can't take this pending contest all too seriously. Sure, the supporters are numerous, rabid and passionate, but they come from the generational grouping propagated from The Hafey Era. Sooner or later, one of them will realize - will have to realize - it's just a dream, wake up, and ask: What the hell am I doing?

The answer is: Nobody really knows.

How enjoyable was the life of a kamikaze in World War II? Because I envision that support for Richmond takes a similar tact - sure, it's a hell of a ride and the climax is explosive, but in the end it doesn't really mean a lot more than a signature on a Life Insurance Policy and the wife (or the husband, in some cases) holidaying blissfully in Hawaii.

And look, I'd never, ever, say a bad word about Hawthorn, but how can this team which has the ugliest guernsey in the League, virtually nil impact in terms of stature, credibility and lasting impression expect to throw its anorexic form around with the heavyweights? Because, let's face it - barring a schizoid little burst in the 80's, it isn't an exaggeration to say the Club hasn't done much - it ain't done a thing.

There are other Teams in the League, I think. For the truly ENLIGHTENED those Teams don't even weigh-up to the SANFL Port Adelaide Magpies. Truthfully. While Teams like the Swans, the Saints, the Bulldogs, et al, were staining the League and blotting the history books, befouling them by putting dutiful little historians to the vile task of recording them, real Football Teams have been notching their place in history for posterity. Unfortunately, those Teams aren't always in the AFL - the Assclown Football League.

So what's you're Team mean?

Nuttin'.

But there's some on this Board who say that Collingwood is the "Envy of the Nation."

They're wrong.

Collingwood is the Envy of the World.

Real envy is intangible; if you can pinpoint the mark of your jealously, then it's just an obsession. But it's when you can't that the real envy blossoms.

And when that occurs, find the rifle, find the clock-tower, find the park, set the sites and lock and load.

It'll all be Black and White to you.

Sly,
aka Silk
The Incandescent One.


<B>Sly.
<FONT size="3">MTA.</FONT s>
The Collingwood Rant. </B>