Is a Team Of Nobodies Really a Team? Part II
February 5th 2009 01:29
Dud-baiting: the process by which someone with limited or no sporting ability questions the appearance, physicality and existence of those with slightly better levels of sporting ability and have utilised them at a professional level.
It’s been a while between drinks but the summer of tennis has been a little time consuming, what with the five-hour epics, J.A banging on about the deuce court and female tennis players from the Eastern Bloc. The other day I looked up from my dinner to glance at Ana Ivanovic’s first round match and when I went back to my food I realised that my dinner was as cold as Andrew Demetriou’s touch - I’d been staring at the T.V screen for 35 minutes. Not long after I realised it wasn’t a T.V at all but just a poster of Ana Ivanovic. That’s when I realised I had to get out of the house.
Since the backline was published there’s been plenty of brilliant suggestions…to name a few…
Terry Thripp
Bernard Toohey
Laurence Schachie
Rudi Frigo
Romano Negri
And of course Robert Klomp, who I’m assured by Collo won the 11 inch Panasonic Television on offer for best on ground in a pre-season game in 1981 with an eight-possession performance. Awesome.
Wing
Scott Bamford
Little more than a bag of bones attached to a Mark Waugh-century-on-debut-at- Adelaide-Oval mullet, the minute Fitzroy wingman was, in Bill Lawry’s words, ‘a whippet’. Bamford looked like a cast member from Fraggle rock and had about the same physical presence. A stiff breeze would send this bloke into traction, he made Christian Bale in the ‘Machinest’ look like Shane Lee. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in thinking it was just a matter of time before this speedster had an impact. It didn’t happen though, even with a move to Brisbane. Maybe we all just hoped the little feller would come good to fulfil that famous prophecy ‘Its not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog’. But really, if we’re honest, that’s just a cheap bumper sticker on the back of a ute driven by a NASCAR enthusiast with a penchant for Nickleback and Carlton Cold and Scott Bamford - in the end - just wasn’t very good.
Centre
David Calthorpe
Calthorpe had the body of a greengrocer, so I guess it’s amazing that he even got past under 10’s, but it is still bewildering that this bloke performed to the level he did. Easily confused with Peter Filandia and with legs like a pool table, Calthorpe actually won an E.J Whitten medal. An astonishing achievement when you consider his physical restrictions and the suffocating spread of body hair.
After a couple of years of success in the middle for the Bombers it was almost as if the entire league woke up from its slumber one day and decided ‘enough is enough, this bloke isn’t getting a kick anymore’. And thus he never did again.
Even with a big money move to (surprise, surprise) Brisbane, he suddenly lost that yard of pace he never really had in the first place and his fall from grace was complete. Footy fans the world over greeted his sudden shitness as though it was there all the time, but they just couldn’t see it…like a crowded cinema sitting bolt upright, slapping themselves on the head and screaming in frustration ‘Ahhh! Kaiser Soze was the cripple! I was just gonna say that.’
Calthorpe ended up wallowing in the North Melbourne twos alongside a collection of special Pagen project players including Gareth John, Garry Dhurrkey, Bradley Plain, Jason Danitchenko, Eric Lissenden and Trent Nicholls.
Wing
Jamie Lawson
Lawson was actually pretty good in his prime, a tricky winger with a blistering turn of speed but this is more of a focus on his post-career activities, or maybe lack thereof. The little feller broke his leg, launched some kind of suit against the SCG for damages and proceeded to get real fat. Like John Candy fat. This bloke out Geoff Heugal-ed Geoff Heugal before Geoff Heugal had even thought about beer batter. Lawson was only a Monaco bar away from starring on Jerry Springer. The episode where they have to remove a wall of his house and transport him via an 18-wheeler to the hospital to treat him for his ‘gland problem’ then get him in the studio so a deviant amputee can confess his undying love. And then a fight starts and the crowd all chants ‘Steve’ in unison before Jerry signs off with some schmaltzy words of wisdom that have nothing to do with anything. And we all feel a little dumber.
It’s been a while between drinks but the summer of tennis has been a little time consuming, what with the five-hour epics, J.A banging on about the deuce court and female tennis players from the Eastern Bloc. The other day I looked up from my dinner to glance at Ana Ivanovic’s first round match and when I went back to my food I realised that my dinner was as cold as Andrew Demetriou’s touch - I’d been staring at the T.V screen for 35 minutes. Not long after I realised it wasn’t a T.V at all but just a poster of Ana Ivanovic. That’s when I realised I had to get out of the house.
Since the backline was published there’s been plenty of brilliant suggestions…to name a few…
Terry Thripp
Bernard Toohey
Laurence Schachie
Rudi Frigo
Romano Negri
And of course Robert Klomp, who I’m assured by Collo won the 11 inch Panasonic Television on offer for best on ground in a pre-season game in 1981 with an eight-possession performance. Awesome.
Wing
Scott Bamford
Little more than a bag of bones attached to a Mark Waugh-century-on-debut-at- Adelaide-Oval mullet, the minute Fitzroy wingman was, in Bill Lawry’s words, ‘a whippet’. Bamford looked like a cast member from Fraggle rock and had about the same physical presence. A stiff breeze would send this bloke into traction, he made Christian Bale in the ‘Machinest’ look like Shane Lee. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in thinking it was just a matter of time before this speedster had an impact. It didn’t happen though, even with a move to Brisbane. Maybe we all just hoped the little feller would come good to fulfil that famous prophecy ‘Its not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog’. But really, if we’re honest, that’s just a cheap bumper sticker on the back of a ute driven by a NASCAR enthusiast with a penchant for Nickleback and Carlton Cold and Scott Bamford - in the end - just wasn’t very good.
Centre
David Calthorpe
Calthorpe had the body of a greengrocer, so I guess it’s amazing that he even got past under 10’s, but it is still bewildering that this bloke performed to the level he did. Easily confused with Peter Filandia and with legs like a pool table, Calthorpe actually won an E.J Whitten medal. An astonishing achievement when you consider his physical restrictions and the suffocating spread of body hair.
After a couple of years of success in the middle for the Bombers it was almost as if the entire league woke up from its slumber one day and decided ‘enough is enough, this bloke isn’t getting a kick anymore’. And thus he never did again.
Even with a big money move to (surprise, surprise) Brisbane, he suddenly lost that yard of pace he never really had in the first place and his fall from grace was complete. Footy fans the world over greeted his sudden shitness as though it was there all the time, but they just couldn’t see it…like a crowded cinema sitting bolt upright, slapping themselves on the head and screaming in frustration ‘Ahhh! Kaiser Soze was the cripple! I was just gonna say that.’
Calthorpe ended up wallowing in the North Melbourne twos alongside a collection of special Pagen project players including Gareth John, Garry Dhurrkey, Bradley Plain, Jason Danitchenko, Eric Lissenden and Trent Nicholls.
Wing
Jamie Lawson
Lawson was actually pretty good in his prime, a tricky winger with a blistering turn of speed but this is more of a focus on his post-career activities, or maybe lack thereof. The little feller broke his leg, launched some kind of suit against the SCG for damages and proceeded to get real fat. Like John Candy fat. This bloke out Geoff Heugal-ed Geoff Heugal before Geoff Heugal had even thought about beer batter. Lawson was only a Monaco bar away from starring on Jerry Springer. The episode where they have to remove a wall of his house and transport him via an 18-wheeler to the hospital to treat him for his ‘gland problem’ then get him in the studio so a deviant amputee can confess his undying love. And then a fight starts and the crowd all chants ‘Steve’ in unison before Jerry signs off with some schmaltzy words of wisdom that have nothing to do with anything. And we all feel a little dumber.
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