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Keywords: Afl

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Fanatic's football fairytale

    • Brian Matthews
    • 06 October 2010
    1 Comment

    Fiction writers have to arrange events so that they achieve the required outcome without stretching credulity. Yet real life routinely throws up sequences so bizarre that a fiction writer wouldn't dare to own them. Try this one. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Confessions of a football feral

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 23 September 2010
    9 Comments

    I am a Magpies supporter, although I've always liked to think I'm not one of those Magpies supporters: the mythical 'ferals' that give every non-Magpies supporter slagging rights — no, I'm not one of them. Recently though, I had cause to wonder.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Beating up on football thuggery

    • Frank O'Shea
    • 20 September 2010
    11 Comments

    Police look on benignly; clergymen bless them; politicians turn up to watch. But can any activity where players set out to damage their opponents be called a sport? And should such an activity be allowed to draw on the country's medical resources to mend that damage?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Football racism evokes ugly past

    • Myrna Tonkinson
    • 18 June 2010
    14 Comments

    Timana Tahu left the NSW State of Origin team after racist comments by assistant coach Andrew Johns. AFL heavyweight Mal Brown described Aboriginal players as cannibals. Why is it an insult to call someone black?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Confronting Aker's and Australia's gay fear

    • Michael Mullins
    • 24 May 2010
    38 Comments

    When AFL legend Jason Akermanis' argument that gay footballers should stay in the closet failed to gain traction, it appeared that in Australia, widespread homophobia was a thing of the past. But the reaction to NSW Transport Minister David Campbell's visit to a gay sex club proves it remains an ugly force.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The wet sheep: a football eulogy

    • Brian Matthews
    • 07 October 2009
    1 Comment

    The one thing more potent than the anticipation of seeing your team in a grand final is the misery of seeing them defeated. A wet, bedraggled lamb glimpsed en route to Melbourne proved to be an ill omen for one footy fan.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The false nationalism of Anzac Day and football

    • Ruby J. Murray
    • 24 April 2009
    31 Comments

    The hype surrounding the AFL's annual Anzac Day match has reached near-sacred heights. Asking what it means to have football played on Anzac Day is as risky as wondering why the Digger is the most powerful expression of Australian identity.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    On Roos 'Chookgate' and footy's duty of care

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 09 April 2009
    9 Comments

    North Melbourne's demeaning chicken sex video is just the latest of the 'boys behaving badly' stories that regularly beset footy. In professional sports, young people no longer simply play for clubs. They are entrusted to them.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Opposition tips for 'green' Liberal leader

    • Tony Smith
    • 30 September 2008
    2 Comments

    Not all Malcolm Turnbull's Coalition colleages wish him success. Influential Liberals from Melbourne will have their doubts following Turnbull's failure to realise that the Roosters rugby league team do not play AFL.

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  • RELIGION

    AFL Demons hope last really will be first

    • Kylie Crabbe
    • 22 May 2008
    2 Comments

    The Melbourne Demons might have something to say about Jesus' claim 'the first will be last and the last will be first'. He wasn't talking about some new magic-bullet draft system, but a way of looking past social ladders to human equality.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bare-chested footballer Cousins and well-dressed thief Pratt

    • Braham Dabscheck
    • 13 December 2007
    3 Comments

    It seems the AFL has a double standard when it comes to its treatment of players and club executives. While the AFL was announcing its charge against Ben Cousins, Carlton Football Club was saying the price-fixing conviction of its executive Richard Pratt was not a relevant concern.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cousins story proves AFL is more than a game

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 November 2007
    2 Comments

    Ben Cousins is likely to be charged with bringing the game of AFL football into disrepute. But even though a broad group of people have an interest in football, how can their interest legitimately demand such a strong responsibility on the part of players and clubs that they can be penalised heavily if they fail to exercise it?

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