Off Their Feed

Glenelg v South Adelaide, Good Friday, 2018 –

At Noarlunga Oval, the re-jigged Tigers, under new coach Mark Stone, took on South.

We were hoping to be able to adapt the headstone to the unfortunate Hannah Twynnoy, mauled to death in Malmesbury in 1703:

“In bloom of life

South’s snatched from hence,

They had not room

To make defence;

For Tyger fierce

Took life away.

Here panthers lie

In a bed of clay

Until the Resurrection Day.”

———————————–

Unfortunately, the Tigers looked inept and listless and were out of the game by halfway through the third quarter.  South took the part of the Roman Army.  We had no system in attack (frequently, there was no one in attack) and were consistently beaten to the ball and outrun.  It was a bad start for rookie coach Mark Stone. With Port, Norwood, Eagles and Centrals to come, we fear that the bad start may be extended.

Glenelg 7.12 (54); South 14.8 (92)

Looks like it could be a long, hard year.

The Club, at this year’s Annual General Meeting, exterminated the Vice Presidents’ Group, the longest-running fundraising coterie in the code, which, since 1957, has raised millions for the cause. (You wouldn’t know it from the Club’s public communications, which fail to mention any of this, but this is the case.  This is an infamous act that will cast a long shadow!)

The VPs recognised, at least 2 years ago, the need for adaptation in view of the new paradigm of a rapacious and arrogant national competition, but our efforts to address this changing world fell on deaf ears and the 50 year-old VP Group, embodied in the Club’s Constitution, was euthanised as though it had been in place for 50 minutes.  The Vice Presidents’ Room has been re-badged as the President’s Room. The Function Centre, built on free-toil by various Vice Presidents, is now a chaotic gymnasium, and an industry joke. No one takes the administration of the Club seriously and regards its sworn word as absolutely worthless.

The spin was that the Vice Presidents’ Group was ‘elitist’ and ‘undemocratic’. Funny, no-one told me that when I was bringing bread and chooks to functions, donating my hard-earned to the cause, attending countless rubber-chicken dinners, getting players jobs, giving free legal services, buying people drinks, supporting folks in need and generally, doing a lot of heavy-lifting.  Turns out I was some arrogant sod who needed a good telling-off.  Turns out the CEO knew better than the rest of us (who had stuck by the Club through thick and thin).

Apparently, winning doesn’t matter in football anymore.  Vide Glenelg c. 2018 – useless, incompetent, possibly insolvent, and soft.  As for who runs the Club these days, do they actually support Glenelg Football Club?  Or are there 5th columnists in the ranks?  We wonder.