(Not) knowing when to stop (2024)

The Elizabeth Eagles go down by 516 point to nil on May 4.

The comedian Rowan Atkinson has a sketch where he plays a Geordie football manager.

“Lads,” pants a defiant Atkinson, “37 nil. I’m ashamed and I’m hurt but let’s not panic. It’s only half-time.”

We don’t get to know the final score but given the boss’s delusion, a doubling seems about right.

What the result will not do is to come anywhere near the happenings in a small corner of northern Adelaide a week ago.

Footy in South Australia is a religion, a calling that extends far beyond supporting one of the state’s big AFL teams, the Adelaide Crows or Port Adelaide, who regularly pull in crowds of 40,000 plus.

Such largesse is not true of the Elizabeth Eagles, an amateur team in the Men’s Division 6 and who on Saturday May 4, lost to Fitzroy Lions by 516 points to zilch. And at home.

For the non Aussies, footy is a game of about two hours playing time. A kick directly between the posts earns six points with one point (a behind) for a near miss either side of the main posts.

It’s a hard running sport played on a cricket sized oval with 18 players apiece on the field at all times. Player interchanges are regular and you can take a breather and trot back on.

A notable score in the AFL - the national premier tier - will be above 100 points. The highest ever AFL score is 239 by Geelong against Brisbane in 1992, the Queenslanders notching 75.

The Fitzroy win is mind blowing. As well as 82 goals, there were 24 behinds.

Every time a goal is scored, the ball (known widely as a Sherrin after its manufacturer) returns to the centre of the field where the umpire throws it into the air and the tallest player (ruckmen) on either side leaps to try and palm the ball to their mates who boot it upfield asap.

It means that after every restart the ball will effectively have been knocked to Fitzroy who heaved it forward to a player within scoring distance. There is little time for anything else to happen.

No-one knows whether this is a record score but the consensus is that it could well be. Logic suggests yes.

Regardless, it was not unexpected, the Eagles’ first other three games this season all ending in defeat, the opposition notching 347, 265 and 296 respectively.

The Eagles took May 4 on the chin.

“It’s pretty gutting, we got flogged,” said Tim Young, a director.

“A bit shell shocked, no-one likes to go out there and get pumped,” admitted Hugh, a player.

Neither man seemed surprised, scant financial backing leading to a mass exodus of players pre season, only kids and granddads left perhaps.

Indeed the Eagles, aware that a shocking season awaited, asked to be demoted before a Sherrin was kicked.

No, said the league, man up.

“We have regulations around promotion and relegation and in normal circ*mstances, they serve us well,” it told the local newspaper, the Bunyip. “The Elizabeth Football Club isn't the only club navigating on and off field challenges in 2024.”

So there.

Objectively the denial is understandable but it feels plain mean.

Elizabeth Football Club, 68-years-old, matters deeply. Its wider surrounds are not great, LA South Central is OTT as a descriptor but the general direction is not amiss.

It’s an area heavily populated by ten pound Poms after WW2 and has long fallen into disrepute, illegal drugs and stolen cars omnipresent. Yet drive through the UK’s Liverpool, Salford or the lesser parts of south London and it compares favourably.

Critically, it comes with a community spirit and bonding fostered by mass car production (Holden) that until recently, seemed to employ every other household. Ten years ago when Holden announced it was pulling out of Elizabeth, fears for its future were apocalyptic.

The Eagles represent the old and the new Elizabeth. Abutting the heaving A20 road, white picket fences border the pitch and gum trees are everywhere along the perimeter. There is a two storey clubhouse and soccer and cricket and netball teams play there too.

Perversely the catastrophe loss has afforded the Eagles a profile it has never known, national TV and newspapers taking a peek at lower rung sport last week.

There were the opportunists, one well known former AFL player expressing his wish to help out before the next match against Adelaide Lutherans (as well as Poms, northern Adelaide welcomed 19th century Germans fleeing religious persecution).

“I’m keen to pull the boots on but there are some hurdles to overcome,” Mr X said before failing to show.

Fitzroy haven’t come out cleanly either, its club president choosing to focus on congratulating his players on their highest ever score.

"To say today was a game of records being set is an understatement," he babbled away onFacebook. "Congratulations to all involved.”

He was not entirely shameless.

"We must understand that wins and records like this always come at the cost of the opposition who are currently struggling,” he said.

The neutral will argue that Fitzroy should have slowed up and it does seem a victory borne of unnecessary ego. When amateur sport is so one way what’s the point in cranking up the pressure against a bunch of old men, kids and misfits? You’d hope that come Sunday morning Fitzroy felt guilty as hell.

The Saturday May 11 match was, unsurprisingly, another loss but Young, now promoted to director of football and with a new coach, Matt Switala, stemmed the tide, the final margin 167 points in the red.

Staggeringly there were also 20 new Eagles, Switala still getting acquainted with the call-to-arms responders as he addressed them pre-game.

Central United, also winless this season are next up. It will be a first success for one team and we can at least expect the victor to be considerate of their opponents.

Footy may be a religion but it is also, only a sport.

…

Ron Burgundy comes to Yorkshire

Leeds’ fans will be hoping this is not the Will Ferrell they get.

Last night, Leeds United travelled to Norwich for the first leg of a play-off match that goes some way to determining whether either club will be promoted to the Premier League later this month, an upgrading worth more than £120 million in annual revenue.

The newly revealed celebrity Leeds fan Will Ferrell, who has apparently bought a sizeable stake in the club through its American owners 49ers Enterprises, was not at the match though. Whether he will be at Thursday’s return leg is unknown. A win there will take Leeds to Wembley with the winner promoted to the very top table. Newspaper reports say that Will, better known as the half-wit TV anchorman Ron Burgundy or the equally infantile Elf, is keen on an inaugural Wembley visit.

He is not, as we know, the first Hollywood player to eye up an English football club, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney newly famed for buying up Wrexham (Welsh but playing in England). They’ve spent a fortune bleat Ryan ’n’ Rob but are now just two promotions from the Premier League and its £120 mill just for the losers.

What the Hollywood motivation truly is, we are yet to find out.

There is a bright side. Almost 35 years ago a ‘businessman’ from Carlisle called Michael Knighton offered £20 million to buy Manchester United FC. Surreally, even at the time, the bid was snatched at by an owner clueless to the club’s future earning potential.

He’s not the messiah, he’s just a naughty boy. Michael Knighton in 1989.

Deal done (we thought) the beaming Knighton turned up at Old Trafford for the opening match of the 1989/90 season. There was no grandstanding from the prawn sandwich seats for Knighton though, the chairman elect trotting out with the players pre match before, circus like, throwing down a few shapes, keepy-uppies and belting the ball into the net in front of theStretford End the highlights.

It should have been impossible not to smirk but the crowd, transfixed, lapped it up. A few days later the deal fell apart, the messiah falling to find the promised cash. He’d asked his chums and they’d stumped up a good amount but not £20 million. It was akin to having a whip round with your mates after a lightbulb moment in the Red Lion yet counting the coins the next morning proving disappointing.

A survey last week meanwhile showed Manchester United to be worth $6.2 billion (US).

It’s not just Michael Knighton who should feel sick, anyone who had a job and no mortgage or family in 1989 missed out by not having the foresight to find the funds. But kudos to Knighton for giving it a go. The boy done well.

As for Will, Leeds might look like a river of gold but really, he’s 35 years too late.

…

A bang on the bonce

Novak in full protective mode.

Novak Djokovic was signing autographs after a routine win over Corentin Moutet at the Italian Open in Rome when he was hit on the head by a water bottle.

Get past the headlines and it was an accident albeit one waiting to happen, the great champ holding his hands up to sign as fans leaned down from the stands above to thrust balls and paper and whatever at him. Someone leaned oer too far and the bottle slid from a backpack to hit Djokovic square on the bonce, knocking him down, in shock we presume.

Cannily, he wasn’t well enough to appear at the ensuing press conference but did front up on court the next day wearing a bicycle helmet over the top of his standard baseball cap, a touch of self deprecation that hit the spot beautifully.

Any bureaucratic panic that such interaction with fans should be curtailed is nonsense. Last January when Djokovic returned to Australia after his Covid test avoidance expulsion he won his comeback tournament in Adelaide. After the final he spent perhaps 20 minutes in the same, water bottle threatening position, signing paper and paper before throwing his shoes, socks and shirt to an ecstatic band of followers.

Signing away in Adelaide - and not a water bottle in sight.

It was raucous, a touch mad and very good humoured. Djokovic invariably means well but, overly earnest maybe, is not always the best judge of the room but in Adelaide he got it right and in Rome too.

Tightening up security in this situation would be overkill in the extreme.

ENDS