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[Deestroy]

AFL Premiership Round 14
St Kilda V Melbourne

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Sunday Jul 4
Etihad Stadium 4:40 PM (Local Time)
Melbourne Forecast Melbourne Radar


Ladder:

Season Win/Loss

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The Melbourne Perspective:

A few nights ago, some of the Bay 13 boys came around to my place for dinner. There was Davey Magic, Mr Rude, the Mighty Boosh, Andy Mac, You Don’t know Jack and W33. The wives had gone out to see SATC2, leaving us to our own devices. Strippers and witches hats, however, were not on the agenda.

“We’re up against the Sainters this weekend,” W33 said as he opened up another bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1983. “How do you reckon we’ll go? If the boys play like last week, we’ll get thumped.”

There were various opinions, most of which favoured the red, black and white – and by plenty.

“I have always been puzzled by the Sainters,” YDKJ said. “Granted: they will beat us on the weekend, but why have they always been so crap overall? It not just a bad decade – it stretches back over a century. They have won one premiership by one point against a team that had a greater curse on it at the time. St Kilda’s stats since 1896 are comical. For instance, they hold the world’s lowest score: one point against the Handbaggers, who pumped them by 165 points. There is no need to repeat them all. I just don’t understand how they came to be so bad systematically.”

“Beginnings are such delicate matters,” Andy Mac replied. “There is no denying the curse: they have been s**t from day one. Something catastrophic must have happened to the Sainters at the moment of conception.”

“Sometimes I think that a baton - carrying a curse - has been passed down from one St Kilda player to another over the years,” W33 added. “Robert Harvey carried it over his career and he clearly passed it on to Kosi. Milney is in the relay team too. But I agree: it is more than one single player.”

A look came over Mr Rude’s face.

“Well, let ask W H Shaw. He’ll have all the answers.”

“WITF is he?” the Mighty Boosh demanded.

“St Kilda’s first captain.”

The rest of us looked at him and then scrutinised the number of empty bottles in the vicinity.

“Mate, how do you propose to do that?” YDKJ asked with a roll of his eyes. “Eighteen ninety six was over a century ago. This guy has been dust for so long, even the daisies have moved on.”

“I am sure he’d be happy to talk to us,” Mr Rude replied nonchalantly. “He’s quite chirpy, from what I hear. Don’t you want to uncover the secret or not?”

Without waiting for a reply, he cleared the table and trotted out of the room. Much to our surprise, he returned with a Ouija board and a glass.

“Hang on – I don’t believe in any of that bullshit!” I declared. But before I could voice any further doubts, the lights had been switched off and I had a finger on the glass.

Mr Rude went to the underworld equivalent of Sensis 1234 and asked for W H Shaw.

The glass drifted around the board, seemingly of its own accord. Call me suspicious, but I had the impression at times that both Mr Rude and W33 were nudging it around. Nearby, the French doors were open; a night breeze blew in and fluttered the curtains ominously.

The first message came through: “OH s**t, THE TRUCK!”

“No Darren, we don’t want to talk to you,” Davey Magic retorted.

‘CAN SOMEONE TURN DOWN THE THERMOSTAT?” was the next message.

“That must be Tricky Dick Pratt,” I whispered. “Move on.”

A new voice then became apparent.

“WHO HAS DISTURBED MY SLUMBER? WHAT DO YOU BUGGERS WANT?”

“Whom am I speaking to?” Mr Rude asked.

“Wally Shaw, the first captain of St Kilda.”

“When’s your birthday?” I asked in the silence that followed, determined to expose the sham. A date was given. I looked up his entry in Wikipedia (on my i-phone). The two matched.

“We have a question for you, Wally,” Mr Rude stated, getting down to business. “You witnessed St Kilda’s genesis. Your club has been s**t since Day One. If there is a way to stuff things up, they invariably find it. There must be a curse on St Kilda, and it has been there since the first minute of the first hour of the first day of the first season. What is the nature of this curse? Who inflicted it? And will they ever exorcise it?”

Various hypotheses were turning through my mind as I listened on. Had St Kilda’s first oval been built over a cemetery or an abattoir? Was it possible that they had desecrated an indigenous burial-site? Had someone pointed the bone at them?

The glass suddenly became red-hot. We quickly removed our fingers. Even so, it started to move around the board of its own accord.

“DON’T BLAME ME – BLAME ‘N A’. IT’S ALL HIS FAULT!”

“Who in the hell is ‘N A’?” I exclaimed.

YDKJ reached for his i-pad. “According to the St Kilda website,” he declared, “there was no coach for the first few years at St Kilda. It’s N A – not applicable.”

“That is one way of reading it,” Mr Rude rebutted. “There are others. Perhaps the St Kilda administration is covering something up, or else the initials of the first coach really were ‘N A’!”

Contact was lost at that point. Try as we might, Wally Shaw had disappeared into the ether and was not coming back. The night ended soon afterwards when the wives rolled up at the front door.

A few days after, with some spare time on my hands, I dropped into the Sainters’ Head Office. Having made up some bullshit story, I was allowed to spend an hour in the St Kilda archives, which were located in the dusty basement. I switched on the solitary, low voltage light. Lying before me, in all its turpitude, was the history of the St Kilda Football Club: the master-copy of The Streak; the forty eight losses in a row; the butt-whooping at the hands of University; the twenty six wooden spoons (alas for the forests of the world); the fixture against Essendon where none of the players had shown up; the three cents in a dollar pay-back scheme; the medical report on Spider from the 97 Preliminary Final and the Andrew Lovett ****-up. To labour in vain – where could one find a better illustration of this saying?

“These poor buggers have never been able to take a trick,” I muttered to myself. “I wonder why.”

Much to my surprise, there was a mass of century-old material. Most of it threatened to crumble into dust in my hands. Wally Shaw’s signature appeared on some of the match reports (which made for grim reading). There was a team-list from the 1913 Grand Final (where again, the Sainters came a dismal second). While interesting enough, it brought me no closer to solving the mystery.

There was a noise to my right. I stood up in the half-gloom: I was not alone. Dread came upon me. With my blood-pressure in overdrive, I walked over. There was a row of bookcases on either side. Half way down the aisle, there stood the ghost of Trevor Barker in the semi-darkness, all dressed up for the Saints Disco, circa 1981. Before I could utter a word – or scream in terror, he put a finger to his lips and with a wave of his hand, ordered me to follow. He swivelled around and walked down the aisle. Fearfully, I complied. He halted near the end of the aisle. He raised a spectral hand and pointed to a small chest on a nearby shelf that was labelled ‘NA – 1896‘. With a shake of his head, he then disappeared.

Covered in dust and cobwebs, the chest itself had seven seals – the last one bearing the signature of Rod Butters (with effort, I also managed to decipher Lindsay Fox’s scrawl). There was a Gothic script on each one of the side panels, and a large pentagram on the lid. The chest itself felt warm in my hands as if it contained an internal source of heat. What on earth could it hold, I asked myself? Is this the secret of secrets? Using my Swiss Army knife, I sliced through six of the seven seals. I was about to make short work of the seventh when the light above the stairwell was switched on.

“Who’s down there?” screeched a rodent-like voice.

I quickly put the chest to one side and held my breath.

“Do you want to play ‘Mummies and Daddies’ in the dark?” he shrieked in a high-pitch voice. “Coming – ready or not!”

I know that guy, I said to myself: it’s what’s-his-name. How much more trouble does he want? This realisation was accompanied by a cold sweat. Bugger the secret - it was time to leave.

“I’m over here Stevie,” I said in falsetto, throwing my voice to the opposite corner. “I’m ready and waiting, big boy.”

What’s-his-name pranced down the stairs in hunt for his latest prey. Once in the clear, I skipped up the stairs as fast as I could and slammed the door behind me. That’s where it was left.

So close and no banana – that won’t be the epitaph of the upcoming game between the Saints and the Dees but is certainly describes my attempt to disinter the curse that lies at the heart of all things St Kilda.

Biffinator.

 

[Deefolt]

write a god damned book, you have some talent

 

[Banger724]

Nice work Deestroy, very entertaining. Would've been nice if you'd uncovered the curse so as we could set about rectifying it!

 

[Deefolt]

that was actually quoted by biffinator banger724

 

[MAXIMUM GRUNDAGE]

Hahahahahahaha!
I like.

 

[RandB]

Close shave Biff! Glad to hear you didn't get violated like we probably will this Sunday. Good read as always.

 

[Gazza_11]

You didn't give us the margin Biff!

 

[stretcharmstrong]

 

[Demon 16]

Can I be in the next one Biff?

 

[DemonJim]

Haha top read there Biff!

 

[d33my]

Exquisite as usual Biff.

If anyones interested, Riewoldt won't be playing on Sunday
http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/97198/default.aspx

Might shave 4 goals off the final margin...

 

[BigSexc]

Exquisite as usual Biff.

If anyones interested, Riewoldt won't be playing on Sunday
http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/97198/default.aspx

Might shave 4 goals off the final margin...

ooo mite put a sneaky 10 on us then

 

[Gazza_11]

Might shave 4 goals off the final margin...

Gee, Riewoldt isn't that bad

I'm actually disappointed, was looking forward to seeing quite possibly my favourite player back in action.

 

[Demon 16]

I would have considered putting Watts on Rooey for a while just to show him where he should be aiming.

 

[Dez!]

I would have considered putting Watts on Rooey for a while just to show him where he should be aiming.

So you want Watts in the stands then?

 

[stretcharmstrong]

So you want Watts in the stands then?

Hmmm, I believe he said "...would have considered...".

 

[Biffinator]

Hmmm, I believe he said "...would have considered...".

Comrades, go back to the 2009 Grand Final and that vital interception in the middle of the ground prior to the Chapman goal (and the sealer).

For a split second, the ball was suspended in the air. If you slow down the footage, one can always detect a disturbance in the pixilation: it is either the Hand of God or, if you prefer, the Hoof of his counterpart.

if it had bounced in a certain way, the Sainters would have swept it up to goal and the premiership would have been theirs.

But it was not to be - and in fact, it was never going to be.

 

[stretcharmstrong]

Comrades, go back to the 2009 Grand Final and that vital interception in the middle of the ground prior to the Chapman goal (and the sealer).

For a split second, the ball was suspended in the air. If you slow down the footage, one can always detect a disturbance in the pixilation: it is either the Hand of God or, if you prefer, the Hoof of his counterpart.

if it had bounced in a certain way, the Sainters would have swept it up to goal and the premiership would have been theirs.

But it was not to be - and in fact, it was never going to be.

Er, what...

 

[Dez!]

Melbourne
B: Clint Bartram, James Frawley, Kyle Cheney
HB: Colin Garland, Jared Rivers, Jack Grimes
C: Brad Green, Jack Trengove, Cameron Bruce
HF: Jamie Bennell, Matthew Bate, Lynden Dunn
F:Neville Jetta, Jack Watts, Aaron Davey
Foll: Mark Jamar, Brent Moloney, Nathan Jones
I/C (from): Joel Macdonald, Tom Scully, Jordie McKenzie, Jake Spencer, Brad Miller, Matthew Warnock, Addam Maric

In: Cheney, Maric, Spencer, Bennell
Out: Cale Morton

Morton out is interesting, not sure if it's injury or omitted.

Miller on the extended bench has to mean he's finally been f***ed off.

I'm a bit meh on Cheney playing still.

I'd go with Scully, McKenzie, Maric, Macdonald on the pine out those choices.

 

[booshboy]

Still not Sylvia?? anyone know what's going on there, surely his toe must be worse then first thought.

 

[Crimson Azure]

Where is Sylvia, is he still not recovered?

 

[The Dr]

Happy to see Cheney given a chance and Bennell return.

Morton out - good call. He looks like he's only been crusing around in recent weeks.....

Still shocked Rivers keeps his spot, but its his 100th this week, so good luck to him, hope he pulls out a great game.

On the bench, I'd like Scully, McKenzie, Maric (gotta see if he's up to it) and Miller (as a second ruck as much as anything)....

 

[TelkoTheGreat]

Scully, McKenzie, Spencer (err?), Macdonald

 

[Dez!]

Luckily for the Saints none of their players will have to front up at court for this rape.

 

[Djcjdees]

I know we might be looking to play another ruckman to help out the Russian against the saints, but Spencer?

I swear this guy is simply not ready for afl footy. I mean you could argue the same about watts and he gets a game but at least jack looks likely!

I shudder every time I see spencil's name on the same page as one of our team lists.

Nightmarish