News 2021 AFL Fixture

[shintemaster]

I don’t know, it says to me it’s based on expected crowd numbers and success which kind of go hand in hand. If we had 30 attendees at every game they would schedule the game at a suitable venue even if it was a Geelong home game.

It's got nothing to do with that. It is just another leg up from the AFL to its favourites and cash cows.

 

[Luke72]

It's got nothing to do with that. It is just another leg up from the AFL to its favourites and cash cows.

I agree, they blatantly change if they can see a buck in it, or if people wielding a fat wallet demand it. Given our lack of high profile cash cows realistically our best chance of getting the game moved is to regularly fill these stadiums. It will be hard to do because I find the idea of going to Geelong to watch a game too much effort and I suspect many others are the same.

 

[Gasometer]

Since and including 2015 we have only played three games at Kardinia park.

In 2015, when we played them twice.
In 2018 when we only played them there
And in 2019 when we played them twice.

One game is too much if you cannot get into the ground

 

[Gasometer]

So has anyone heard of our annual Len Hall Tribute game against Fremantle? Apparently the Dockers regard it as "a clear stand out" from their opening block of fixtures. On the AFL website they go on to say "We're excited this year's game falls on the eve of Anzac Day and we can't wait to once again see our players, members and supporters do justice to the occasion".

I've never even heard of it (I'm sure Len was a great man), let alone aware that we were part of such an event. Who says we don't get given blockbusters!

An awesome story.
This should be a movie Mr Seagull

 

[shintemaster]

I agree, they blatantly change if they can see a buck in it, or if people wielding a fat wallet demand it. Given our lack of high profile cash cows realistically our best chance of getting the game moved is to regularly fill these stadiums. It will be hard to do because I find the idea of going to Geelong to watch a game too much effort and I suspect many others are the same.

It's not going to happen. Big clubs will always be bigger and with 10 teams in Vic the numbers say Vic teams have to play Geelong at home - same applies for interstate clubs. The only way to have these BS guaranteed return legs for all the big clubs if other clubs take up the slack - clubs like ours. Believing in some reality where we can change this by getting more people to home games is a fallacy.

 

[Snake_Baker]

An awesome story.
This should be a movie Mr Seagull
View attachment 1031558View attachment 1031559

Len Hall was a pussy.

North Melbourne's very own "Barney" Hines would eat him for breakfast.

Private John Hines (1873–1958)

Hines was born Johannes Heim at 16 Grosvenor Street Liverpool on 11 October 1878 and baptised at St Joseph’s church on 20 October 1878. After working at Bevington Bush Tannery, he enlisted in the British Army in 1895 but was found to be ‘non Effective’. The following year he joined the Royal Navy but was ‘Discharged as objectionable’ after eight months. A Liverpool Irishman, Hines was drifting around Australia working at different jobs before he joined the AIF in 1915. He found work as a merchant seaman and married Hannah Maher at Our Lady’s church in Eldon Street in 1899. They had two children together but for some reason around 1904 he left his family behind in Liverpool to start a new life Down Under.

He was heavily tattooed and gave his age as 28, but was in fact much older, and successfully joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 8 May 1916 after being discharged as medically unfit the previous year. Assigned to the 45th Battalion he departed Sydney for Europe on 22 August 1916. After completing training in England, he was sent to the Western Front in March 1917. In June 1917 he captured 60 German soldiers during the Battle of Messines. He was most effective in combat when attacking German positions with his beloved “Mills bombs”, a type of hand grenade.

Commander of the 45th Battalion, Arthur Samuel Allen, described Hines to a journalist in 1938 as “a tower of strength to the battalion … while he was in the line”. Away from the front line his poor discipline often got him into trouble. He was court martialled on nine occasions for drunkenness, impeding military police, forging entries in his pay book and being absent without leave.

One of Hines' pastimes was prowling around collecting prisoners and loot with enthusiasm. His haul grew far too big for one man to haul around, and he opted at times to trade it for alcohol from other men in his unit. He dragged around his "military surplus" collection with him throughout the entire war.

He is also unofficially recognized as perhaps Australia's deadliest soldier of the Great War, having killed more Germans than anyone else in the Australian Imperial Force through his unorthodox, and near-suicidal tactics. On one occasion, annoyed at the sniper fire from a German pill-box, he ran straight at it, leapt on it's roof and preformed a war dance while taunting the Germans to come out. When they failed to comply, Hines lobbed a couple of Mills bombs through the gun port. A few minutes later the 63 Germans who had survived staggered out with their hands above their heads. Hines collected his "souvenirs" before herding his prisoners back to the Australian lines.

There were some near misses, too. At Passchendale he was the only survivor of a direct hit on the Lewis gun nest. Blasted 20ms. and with the soles of his boots blown off, he crawled back, got the gun working and continued firing until he fainted from wounds in his legs.

On one trip he came across a battered German dressing station. Creeping in, he found the surgeon standing over the operating table and, on tapping him on the shoulder, Hines was amazed to watch him topple over - dead from a shell splinter in the heart. Only one man had survived - ironically a wounded Tommy who was on a stretcher on the floor out of the blast. Picking the man up as if he were an infant, Hines carried him towards safety but he died before reaching allied lines. Hines lowered him gently to the ground then returned to loot the dressing station.

His booty wasn't confined to portable keepsakes. At Villers-Bretonneux he liberated a piano which he managed to keep for several days until he was persuaded to give it away. On another occasion he scored a grandfather clock which he carried back to the trenches. But, after its hourly chimes were found to attract German fire, so his mates blew it up with a Mills bomb.



Private Barney Hines, with his trophies from the fighting at Polygon Wood, Belgium


At the Battle of Polygon Wood in September 1917 Frank Hurley took an iconic photograph of him with the spoils of war captured from the Germans. The photograph was published in late 1917 under the title “Wild Eye, the souvenir king” and became one of the best-known Australian photographs of the war. Many soldiers identified with him and were amused by his collection of souvenirs. The photograph was used as propaganda, and a false story developed that the German Kaiser Wilhelm II had become enraged after seeing it.

In Armentieres he came across a keg of Bass which he started to roll towards the battalion. He was stopped by military police and told not to go any further with it. Unfazed, Hines left the keg and went ahead to round up fellow Diggers who returned to drink it on the spot.

When the AIF reached Amiens they found the beautiful cathedral city deserted. It was too much for Hines. He disappeared and was finally sprung by British military police in the vaults of the Bank of France where he had already squirrelled away millions of francs, packed neatly in suitcases.

He was hauled off for questioning by the British who, nonplussed on what to do with the reprobate, returned him to his unit. Later he was to boast that the escapade had cost him no more than 14 days' pay and that he had been allowed to keep the banknotes he had stuffed into his pockets.

But for all his incorrigibility, he was an outstanding, if unpredictable soldier who managed to capture many German soldiers single-handed.

Hines was also renowned for the party he held at Villers-Bretonneux after he found a cache of 1870 champagne and tinned delicacies. His mates were all decked out in top hats and dress suits which he had also acquired. It was to be his last party for some time. Just after it ended he scored a bullet wound over his eye, another in his leg and a whiff of gas. Despite protests, he was hospitalised at Etaples, being almost blinded.

A few nights later the Germans bombed the hospital, causing 3000 casualties. Hines hauled himself out of bed, found a broom which he used as a crutch and spent all night carrying the wounded and dying to safety.

After the war Barney Hines took up living in "Dudley Mansion" in the West Melbourne swamp lands.



He became an avid supporter of the North Melbourne Football Club, and on match days he would arrive at the Arden Street oval, or "town" as he called it, on his Donkey, "Kaiser Wilhelm", and would be seen frequenting the local drinking establishments with the last remnants of "The Crutchy Push".

The post-war years and the Depression were hard on him, although he received occasional support from ex-service groups.

He later died in Sydney in 1958 and was buried at Rookwood Cemetery

 

[Gasometer]

Len Hall was a pussy.

North Melbourne's very own "Barney" Hines would eat him for breakfast.

Private John Hines (1873–1958)

Hines was born Johannes Heim at 16 Grosvenor Street Liverpool on 11 October 1878 and baptised at St Joseph’s church on 20 October 1878. After working at Bevington Bush Tannery, he enlisted in the British Army in 1895 but was found to be ‘non Effective’. The following year he joined the Royal Navy but was ‘Discharged as objectionable’ after eight months. A Liverpool Irishman, Hines was drifting around Australia working at different jobs before he joined the AIF in 1915. He found work as a merchant seaman and married Hannah Maher at Our Lady’s church in Eldon Street in 1899. They had two children together but for some reason around 1904 he left his family behind in Liverpool to start a new life Down Under.

He was heavily tattooed and gave his age as 28, but was in fact much older, and successfully joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 8 May 1916 after being discharged as medically unfit the previous year. Assigned to the 45th Battalion he departed Sydney for Europe on 22 August 1916. After completing training in England, he was sent to the Western Front in March 1917. In June 1917 he captured 60 German soldiers during the Battle of Messines. He was most effective in combat when attacking German positions with his beloved “Mills bombs”, a type of hand grenade.

Commander of the 45th Battalion, Arthur Samuel Allen, described Hines to a journalist in 1938 as “a tower of strength to the battalion … while he was in the line”. Away from the front line his poor discipline often got him into trouble. He was court martialled on nine occasions for drunkenness, impeding military police, forging entries in his pay book and being absent without leave.

One of Hines' pastimes was prowling around collecting prisoners and loot with enthusiasm. His haul grew far too big for one man to haul around, and he opted at times to trade it for alcohol from other men in his unit. He dragged around his "military surplus" collection with him throughout the entire war.

He is also unofficially recognized as perhaps Australia's deadliest soldier of the Great War, having killed more Germans than anyone else in the Australian Imperial Force through his unorthodox, and near-suicidal tactics. On one occasion, annoyed at the sniper fire from a German pill-box, he ran straight at it, leapt on it's roof and preformed a war dance while taunting the Germans to come out. When they failed to comply, Hines lobbed a couple of Mills bombs through the gun port. A few minutes later the 63 Germans who had survived staggered out with their hands above their heads. Hines collected his "souvenirs" before herding his prisoners back to the Australian lines.

There were some near misses, too. At Passchendale he was the only survivor of a direct hit on the Lewis gun nest. Blasted 20ms. and with the soles of his boots blown off, he crawled back, got the gun working and continued firing until he fainted from wounds in his legs.

On one trip he came across a battered German dressing station. Creeping in, he found the surgeon standing over the operating table and, on tapping him on the shoulder, Hines was amazed to watch him topple over - dead from a shell splinter in the heart. Only one man had survived - ironically a wounded Tommy who was on a stretcher on the floor out of the blast. Picking the man up as if he were an infant, Hines carried him towards safety but he died before reaching allied lines. Hines lowered him gently to the ground then returned to loot the dressing station.

His booty wasn't confined to portable keepsakes. At Villers-Bretonneux he liberated a piano which he managed to keep for several days until he was persuaded to give it away. On another occasion he scored a grandfather clock which he carried back to the trenches. But, after its hourly chimes were found to attract German fire, so his mates blew it up with a Mills bomb.



Private Barney Hines, with his trophies from the fighting at Polygon Wood, Belgium


At the Battle of Polygon Wood in September 1917 Frank Hurley took an iconic photograph of him with the spoils of war captured from the Germans. The photograph was published in late 1917 under the title “Wild Eye, the souvenir king” and became one of the best-known Australian photographs of the war. Many soldiers identified with him and were amused by his collection of souvenirs. The photograph was used as propaganda, and a false story developed that the German Kaiser Wilhelm II had become enraged after seeing it.

In Armentieres he came across a keg of Bass which he started to roll towards the battalion. He was stopped by military police and told not to go any further with it. Unfazed, Hines left the keg and went ahead to round up fellow Diggers who returned to drink it on the spot.

When the AIF reached Amiens they found the beautiful cathedral city deserted. It was too much for Hines. He disappeared and was finally sprung by British military police in the vaults of the Bank of France where he had already squirrelled away millions of francs, packed neatly in suitcases.

He was hauled off for questioning by the British who, nonplussed on what to do with the reprobate, returned him to his unit. Later he was to boast that the escapade had cost him no more than 14 days' pay and that he had been allowed to keep the banknotes he had stuffed into his pockets.

But for all his incorrigibility, he was an outstanding, if unpredictable soldier who managed to capture many German soldiers single-handed.

Hines was also renowned for the party he held at Villers-Bretonneux after he found a cache of 1870 champagne and tinned delicacies. His mates were all decked out in top hats and dress suits which he had also acquired. It was to be his last party for some time. Just after it ended he scored a bullet wound over his eye, another in his leg and a whiff of gas. Despite protests, he was hospitalised at Etaples, being almost blinded.

A few nights later the Germans bombed the hospital, causing 3000 casualties. Hines hauled himself out of bed, found a broom which he used as a crutch and spent all night carrying the wounded and dying to safety.

After the war Barney Hines took up living in "Dudley Mansion" in the West Melbourne swamp lands.

View attachment 1031592

He became an avid supporter of the North Melbourne Football Club, and on match days he would arrive at the Arden Street oval, or "town" as he called it, on his Donkey, "Kaiser Wilhelm", and would be seen frequenting the local drinking establishments with the last remnants of "The Crutchy Push".

The post-war years and the Depression were hard on him, although he received occasional support from ex-service groups.

He later died in Sydney in 1958 and was buried at Rookwood Cemetery

They all were