Retired #18: Matthew Lloyd - Diagnosed with Bell's Palsy - 15/3

[longdaveyjetta]

I know it is off topic ... but ...

There was four players given up by us. Ridley, Delaney, Kickett and one other I can't recall. Lloyd was an out and out gun. I remember in 99 he was a teenager and treated like a legend of the game. The thing that works against Lloyd with everyone looking back is that he was a little one dimensional as a lead and mark player and unfortunately for him he started to hit his peak when Essendon went down hill. Then as we started to gather some momentum with a rebuild we had a coach who didn't know how to manage his fagile ego and he was slightly incapacitated due to never ever getting speed off the mark back. Once he struggled to beat blokes off the mark and he had a rubbish midfield kicking it over his head he was not much danger as a lead up player.

The fourth one was a bloke by the name of russell Williams, A red headed Aboriginal player we had on our list, played a few games in the 1's, but was mainly a consistent seconds player....What a brilliant deal by Sheeds, we already had Cummings and could afford to let Ridley go...Delaney was quite good but injury prone which proved to be the case at freeo...
Lloyd however,was a freak, that Tri game where we played Collingwood and Carlton, I was there, we played the first half against Collingwood, then had a break and played carlton in the 3rd match...Lloyd only played the second match, and not all of it, but he did kick three goals and took a screamer in the space of 10 minutes, just a freak, fittingly his first game was against Carlton where his Dad played....

Let's hope Goddard can have the ultimate success at Essendon as Lloydy did.......

 

[revival_mode]

and Knights playing him across HF so we could play Neagle?

that was such horseshit

 

[Shane Hird]

What do Goddard and LLyod have in common?
We gave up nothing to get them!

That's an insult to Ridley!!!! How dare you blacken his name...what we might hav been had he stayed.

 

[yodellinhank]

Tony Delaney

Tony Delaney if I remember correctly?

At the risk of staying off topic, T-Bone was the main part of that deal. Massive WAFL cred, just never translated to the big league.

Dale K deserves a derby trophy in his honour I believe. Rename it the DK demolition derby for mine.

 

[table tennis]

Dale kickett.... More clubs than tiger woods

 

[Lord Nicholson]

Has been made an EFC Hall of Fame Legend:

http://www.essendonfc.com.au/news/2013-02-19/lloyd-becomes-a-legend

And rightly so.

 

[Kong]

The best since Lockett.

 

[mike14]

needs to come back to the club as goal-kicking coach

 

[Jade]

needs to come back to the club as goal-kicking coach

Could also probably teach Hurls a thing or two about timing a lead, and controlled aggression.

 

[Fraz]

For those in Tassie, on Good Friday Lloydy will be pulling on the boots for the Latrobe Football Club:
http://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/1378237/exclusive-lloyd-pumped-for-ntfl-opener/

Also, it was nice to see the snippets of the Hall of Fame induction on 'The Hangar' last night. Would be nice if his full speech (and the others) are uploaded on BomberTV.

 

[Kong]

Why was he called The Velvet Sledgehammer?

 

[Lance Uppercut]

Why was he called The Velvet Sledgehammer?

because he was such a goody goody off-field and such a beast onfield

 

[Beerfish]

Was it first coined by Sam Newman or did he just latch onto it?

 

[Doss]

Was it first coined by Sam Newman or did he just latch onto it?

I think Lloyd said the former in his book.

 

[Lord Nicholson]

I prefer Taffeta Truncheon anyway.

 

[Doss]

God I still miss him.

Watching clips from the late '90s...gets me nostalgic.

 

[Beerfish]

I prefer Taffeta Truncheon anyway.

Stainless steel wiffle bat?

 

[Kong]

because he was such a goody goody off-field and such a beast onfield

So was it a term of endearment (i.e. "he destroys teams in a playing sense") or a back hander (i.e. "he's a dirty player")?

I first remember hearing it around the time he took out Josh "So Good" Thurgood.

 

[Lance Uppercut]

So was it a term of endearment (i.e. "he destroys teams in a playing sense") or a back hander (i.e. "he's a dirty player")?

I first remember hearing it around the time he took out Josh "So Good" Thurgood.

little out of column a, little out of column b

 

[lamaros]

I never liked being called ‘Pretty Boy Lloyd’, which I think Sam Newman came up with on The Footy Show one time. That was an image I really didn’t want – I wanted to be respected for being a footballer who was hard at the contest. I may have been reading too much into it, but I felt it was a label that wasn’t me. ‘The Velvet Sledgehammer’ was a better nickname from Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman, as it insinuated I had the look of a nice guy but hit very hard.

Doesn't really go into it more than that.

 

[windyhill]

Worshipped that bloke.

 

[Doss]

Worshipped that bloke.

I think we all did.

Lloyd was like a security blanket to Essendon supporters in some ways. I felt quite empty when he copped the season-ending injury iin 2006. And, I remember really struggling to adjust to not seeing him out there in early 2010. Took a long time to get used to it.

 

[windyhill]

I think we all did.

Lloyd was like a security blanket to Essendon supporters in some ways. I felt quite empty when he copped the season-ending injury iin 2006. And, I remember really struggling to adjust to not seeing him out there in early 2010. Took a long time to get used to it.

He was my point of difference to Hird,never warmed to him. But Lloydy......

 

[Despair]

We will never have a forward of Lloyd's calibre ever again.

*edit* - Typing that makes me want to cry.

 

[OzBomber]

My favourite Essendon player of all time. Miss those leads from the goalsquare where he would run full pelt at a bullet pass from midfield and he'd take it 9 times out of 10 hands outstretched. Such a shame he had that injury in 2006, killed his explosiveness to get away from the defender and ultimately cost him the opportunity to reach 1000 goals.

Still find myself watching vids on YouTube randomly some days just to get a reminder of how good he was.