about 4 weeks #lidoff
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There was such discipline in the team, any arrogance drilled out of them , they did not sing the club song all year until after winning the premiership. And Robert Shaw deserves some credit for his match day strategies. There was one day when Barnes was getting a bath and Shaw straightened it out.
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I think I took it a bit for granted⌠I didnât fully understand it yet, even though I knew it was the best thing you could achieve in the sport. I was still very new to the game then, very new to the culture, and having only recently picked up on it, it was a cool thing to see but it didnât mean a whole lot at that point⌠I was 23 years old and smitten with this girl and was in many ways still kind of using it as a way to get to know her family⌠of course the irony is all these years later Iâm a much bigger fanatic than any of them ever wereâŚ
Iâd only just jumped on the year before when I visited the first time, so I guess I kinda thought âoh, these guys have their act together, theyâll probably win a bunch of these in the next few years. I could have picked any side, but I just happened to marry into this one⌠half my luck!â.
I certainly wouldnât have predicted that pretty much every ensuing year would be more or less worse than the one before it until they hit absolute rock bottom.
I suppose I can safely say that the next one will feel a lot different when it happens.
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Good on you, Stealthy. Good story.
Back to the 2000 side, a discussion here in the couple of years after that flag showed that most of the BBers who were old enough to judge both sides thought the '85 team could have easily beaten the 2000 side (given equal training etc).
For nostalgia sake, we could do an 2000 review over a few weeks. Watch the games, do a game day thread etc. has anyone gone back and watched EVERY game? (Donât even have time to spare)
Easily beaten them, seems a big call.
But geez, there would be some cracking match ups
- Salmon V Fletcher
- Merrett V Wallis
- Thompson V Hird (when forward)
- Watson v Hird (when on ball)
- Walsh v Lucas
- Harvey V Solomon
- Baker V Hardwick
- Williams V J Johnson
To name a fewâŚ
I can be very nostalgic about that 85 team, but reality is that the 2000 team would have killed them.
Concede Simon Madden winning the ruck, but 2000 forward line and midfield were so strong, and the backline was so tough.
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I wonder if @Riolio could retrieve the discussion from wayback then, when memories would have been much fresher than now.
Peos is right - there would have been great match ups between those teams.
My take is that the 2000 side was undoubtedly a champion team with many great players but the 1985 side was a champion team [and mostly comprised] of champions, Nearly all of whom were selected to play for Victoria or their own State sides. The 2000 team did not have that opportunity for recognition so it is hard to get an objective judgement from those years.
The take home message is that we were incredibly lucky to have had such great players representing our great club, and I just hope that we donât have to wait much longer before our current generation can hold up the Premiership cup!
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Stopped singing the song after about round 15, KB actually suggested it to Sheeds.
Think after round 16 or so sheeds made them watch the 1999 prelim again.
Pretty much in the same boat. I was 17, also sitting in the ponsford. Enjoyed the qualifying final but the prelim and the granny were filled with anxiety that we would blow it again. The first half when we were inaccurate wasnât great, but I started feeling comfortable at half time. By final siren it was relief more than anything.
I donât remember much from the game apart from Melbourne getting roughed up all over the ground, the Long bump, and Dr Paul Christian Barnard coming off the bench and kicking a few well-needed goals to get us clear.
I also have a memory of Hird getting tackled in the forward line, holding onto the ball while being rotated in the tackle, and basically waiting for the Melbourne tackler to rotate him back to facing the goals, before proceeding to drop the ball on the boot and kick a goal. All the Melbourne fans went beserk around me yelling for a holding the ball.
I also remember going back to school on Monday and everyone saying 'Gee I never realized Hird was such a good playerâŚ" Well durrr.
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But whoâd play on Vander?
This sounds all to familiar. Although i was only 19âŚ
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Fkg concur. I turned 18 in 2000⌠good times.
Wellman?
True story: I moved to Melbourne in January 2000 because of '99.
I had come over for the Prelim - GF week in '99 and had booked an exorbitant Grand Final package including dodge hotel and breakfast for $1800 (2 people).
No need to rehash what happened in the prelim.
Needless to say I re-sold my GF tickets off using a classified ad in the Herald Sun (itâs a prehistoric version of eBay, look it up) and farked off back to Adelaide.
It farking stung like fark. Iâm talking proper psychological distress at what had transpired. I convinced myself that the only possible course of action was to be there for the next season when we would use the pain of defeat to obliterate anyone who stood in our path.
In any case, I took a month to recover from the prelim and convinced the then Mrs dingus that we were moving to Melbourne.
We tidied our affairs and on January 13 drove to Melbourne in an Alfa Romeo containing everything we owned. Found a place to live (Seddon, the house came with a kitten).
Could not farking wait for the first pre-season game which was out at Waverley, what a shithole that place was (and still is). Went to that and every Melbourne-based game bar one: You guessed it, the Footscray game.
Then about 5 years later, when we were thinking it was kind of time to move home anyway, it was a particularly insipid Essendon performance that convinced me it was time.
Totally worth it.
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So essentially your residence in Melbourne corresponds with some glory days, and you left to leave us in the doldrums.
I moved to Melbourne in 2005.
I am evil Dingus. I bring you pain and suffering.
Iâve said it before, Iâll say it again: Nothing good comes out of Canberra.
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Liked by megz. Well ainât that nice, huh?
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I wonder if the WB figured out they do indeed get a premiership flag.
I hear ya, for me psychologically, it was like being stabbed through the heart with a blunt knife.
I borrowed Lloydâs book Straight Shooter from my father the other day, have just reached the chapter of the 'pain of â99â. Am to scared to read it. 