grizzlym
Premium Platinum
Rock on 1976.
Well, with Barry Manilow, Bay City Rollers and Wings burning up the charts, rock is probably not the right word. But that’s the mid-70s for you. A cultural paradox wrapped in a tasteless riddle where fey music met alpha males, and hideous things eventuated.
Make no mistake: men of the mid-70s were macho men. There’s no ambiguity unless of course you’re talking about the Village People. Hell, even Elton John pretended he was kind of straight.
Men of the 70s had moustaches so large that Australia Post issued them with their own postcodes. And 1976 saw the celluloid debut of the biggest macho man of them all – Rocky.
Yep, Sly Stallone put it all together and put that porno behind him (so to speak) to write, direct and star in the movie that launched him into the Hollywood stratosphere.
How apt that Rocky spawned numerous sequels because so did the 1976 flag for the Hawks. And unlike the Sly One’s diminishing quality, we just kept amping it up.
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Speaking of stratosphere, the USA successfully landed a couple of remote-controlled cars on Mars in 1976. While back on earth the Concorde enters service flying between Tasmania and Melbourne - in preparation for Huddo's imminent return. But most importantly, the VHS recorder is introduced and almost overnight the pr0n industry get a huge jolt of Viagra and new suburbs of Canberra spring-up overnight.
And then there was VFL footy and the 1976 Flag.
To lapse into seriousness for one moment, 1976 was arguably the most emotional, bittersweet, culturally defining flag for Hawthorn. Every flag is a moment to cherish and celebrate, but this flag was more poignant not just for what we won, but what we lost.
What a flag it was, like Rocky, it was a tale of adversity and struggle, dedication, great talent and, finally, victory coupled with redemption, which was glorious but later tinged with a sadness that still echoes through the club today. Because while we won the flag with a side containing some of the greats of the club, the man who was the heartbeat of the club was at death's door.
Some people maintain - my father included - that the Little Fella could have been the finest of the 1970s crop. We will never know. Perhaps some posters may care to venture an opinion on this thread.
We won, but we lost. A pyrrhic victory befitting a Greek tragedy.
All of the ingredients were present for a great game: 12 all-time greats across both sides; a dying champion; two master coaches. This was the apotheosis of 1970's footy.
So knowing the lay of the land, one man was brave enough to take up the challenge.
Thanks Rusty.
Over the past few weeks, Rusty's RAM modules groaned into action, kick-starting that great internal hard-drive in his head, which in turn spat-out words like a first generation daisy wheel printer - in a slow, methodical and precise manner. (By the way, Apple computers were founded in 1976 and the first laser printer introduced too.)
After Rusty's epic, consideration should be given to changing his name to Stainless Steel Hawk.
Let the Rusty begin.