Sport - Vyoos

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia, Cricket, Happy Spot

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Sydney to steal the Australian Open tennis tournament?

October 12th 2008 04:14

Barrie Charles Robran MBE, the best Australian rules player ever

I am not a man given to strong opinion or repetition of sentiment, but I think Melbourne, Victoria, should be cauterized, razed and raked into the sea. I loathe and detest and abhor Melbourne, and I am furious that my thesaurus doesn't have more synonyms for the sentiment.

All this started when I was a kid in Adelaide, South Australia, and Melbourne kept pinching our best footballers. In those days, before the national league, before sponsorship deals running to millions and before television broadcasting rights running to gazillions, clubs relied on gate takings for revenue. Melbourne, the bigger city, had bigger footy crowds, and used their fatter wallets to pinch our stars. The best footballer ever, Barrie Robran, told them to stuff it of course, but a lot of others headed east and we never got to watch them except on grainy black and white highlight packages.

But all that was nothing to what happened in 1995 when Melbourne stole our car race. Adelaide had hosted the Formula 1 Grand Prix since 1985, and the city loved it. And suddenly we discovered that it had been stolen from us, the result of clandestine negotiations between the Victorian government and the Formula 1 people. Just like that. I loathe and abhor and detest the Formula 1 people too.

I have never been able to explain to Victorians just how much that hurt South Australians.

Until now. Until the news reported this weekend that Sydney has launched a secret bid to steal the Australian Open tennis tournament from Melbourne. This news elicits disbelief and shock. The Aussie Open is a major part of the Melbourne social and sporting calendar. It's inconceivable that someone could take it away.

I know the feeling.

FOOTNOTE: I don't really hate Melbourne. Not any more. I moved here last year and it's a great place to live. I refuse to go to the Grand Prix on principle, although maybe I should because another news report recently said both Moscow and Beijing want to steal Melbourne's spot on the F1 calendar.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia, Sport

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Give us our game back Andrew 5

September 21st 2008 07:59

Hi Andrew,

For your convenience, I have collected a few comments from people who don't agree with your decision to grant an AFL expansion franchise to western Sydney, where nobody wants it, and refuse one to Tasmania, where everyone wants it.

So here, in case you missed some of them, are a few opinions opposite to yours. Just one suggestion: you may find it conducive to comprehension if you pull your head out of the sand before reading them.

"One thing is certain. The AFL can never call itself a truly national competition until Tasmania is included."

Editorial, Mercury newspaper, Hobart

"(Starting an AFL team in western Sydney) would be like me trying to start a rugby league side in Geelong."

Michael Leary, chief executive of Penrith Panthers

"It took at least a dozen years for the Swans to become a viable team and it could take at least as long for a western Sydney team."
Saul Eslake, chief economist of ANZ

"We are in the process of actually putting another rugby league academy in the (western Sydney) area. It's a very strong rugby league area."
Michael Leary, chief executive of Penrith Panthers

"It is all about money and it shouldn't be all about money. The game is a profession to some, but to the vast majority it is a leisure pursuit."
Lucinda Sharp, Melbourne psychologist and sports performance specialist

"There is a romantic notion that is perpetuated about having a team (in Tasmania). But I think we would do a great disservice by relocating a team here that would be unsustainable."
Andrew Demetriou, chief executive of the AFL

"Crap."
250,000 Tasmanians

"Crap."
58% of Victorians polled by The Sunday Age newspaper in March 2008

Online petition

Give us our game back Andrew
Give us our game back Andrew 2
Give us our game back Andrew 3
Give us our game back Andrew 4

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Sport, Australian football

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Give us our game back Andrew 4

September 14th 2008 07:34

April 2012, Round 1, Australian Football League: Crowd scene at the first Western Sydney Football Club game

Hello and welcome to our first Australian Football League round-up for 2012. The season began with a big Round 1 attendance, partly due to the introduction this year of two expansion teams, the Gold Coast Suntans and Western Sydney Tasmanians.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australian football

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Give us our game back Andrew 3

September 11th 2008 05:21

A big sports crowd in Sydney. But look, Andrew, the game is not Australian football

A letter in Melbourne's The Age newspaper yesterday said, in part, "The AFL is guilty of gross ingratitude in failing to support the inclusion of a Tasmanian team ... A final played in Tasmania last weekend would have attracted a bigger crowd than the pathetic attendance at the Sydney-North Melbourne game ... The population (of Tasmania) is small but enthusiastic (and) in fact the population of Hobart is similar to that of Geelong, which seems to manage fairly well."

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Sport, Australian football

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Blunderball: Spain's strong offensive effort

August 14th 2008 00:30

Using sport and sports people in corporate advertising can work well when it's done well. But whatever money Spanish courier company Seur spent on its latest promotional campaign, it was money well-wasted.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Sport, Basketball, Olympics

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The girlfriend, the Olympics and the TV antenna

August 8th 2008 22:26

Nike, the Greek Goddess of strength, speed and victory - I don't think she likes me

It is 8am Friday morning, the auspicious eighth day of the eighth month of the year 2008, and my girlfriend isn't feeling the love.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Sport, Olympics

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Talk the walk 2

August 4th 2008 01:23

Race-walking superstar Jane Saville. Walkers are not 'sportspeople', according to bloggist Sports Insider

Sports Insider has proved himself here a believer in Voltaire's aphorism, "I don't believe a word I'm saying, but I'll defend interminably my right to say it." At least, I think that's what Voltaire said

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Sport

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Talk the walk

July 31st 2008 07:49

Nathan Deakes and a great sporting moment
(Picture: Getty Images)

Long-standing Orble bloggist "Sports Insider" insists in this post that many of the events at the Olympic Games will not be worth the television time. Indeed, he (she?) claims that some Olympic "activities" are "non-sports" and promises to reveal them over the coming month

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Sport

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The All-Star game - a cricketer's perspective

July 16th 2008 12:31

Oh my, the Americans do it well, don't they? It was a celebration of baseball, and it was a celebration of sport. It was a privilege to see the living Hall of Famers, it was moving to see the tribute to Yankee Stadium, and it was fascinating to watch and witness the history and lore and love for this game of baseball of Americans.

It's a global game, and many other countries were represented in the All-Star game, but it's an essentially American day, a window to its culture

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: North America, US, Sport

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Give us our game back Andrew 2

July 11th 2008 06:06

It is stunning that, in the five days, seven hours and 24 minutes since we posted this advice to AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou, he hasn't called us to discuss the issue. Not once!

We have, on the other hand, today determined that great brothers think alike. Coodabeen Champions and Aussie music stalwart Greg Champion, who has the Champion family's allocation of fame all to himself, was only today made aware of my plea on the part of Tasmania for an AFL franchise

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