A Tale for Anybody Interested...

[Sly]

It was the 17 hundreds - 1775, I believe - and I'd gotten tired of my pursuits elsewhere and my European sabbaticals, so I'd decided to spend a time in London, which was pretty much a bad mistake.

They may say England is bleak and the weather's dreary, but back then it was much, much worse, even if they did have something of an Empire.

At any rate, I ended up repeatedly drinking myself into insensibility to escape the melancholy of my surroundings. Not a day begun which I didn't start with a glass of good mead. Actually, it was very much like my lifestyle today, but without the Berocca.

I'm not sure how long I existed in that state, if you can actually call it "existing." And despite knowing the time was close when I'd be called to a faraway land, I just couldn't drag myself out of my self-imposed rut.

Instead I amused myself by passing from town-to-town, telling tales and singing for my next drop of mead. Ironically, one of the towns I passed through was called "Collingwood."

But it was while I was traveling the countryside as something of a bard that I incurred the wrath of the Law. Drunk and broke, desperate for another drink, I stole to supplement my degenerative lifestyle - and unfortunately, I was caught.

I was thrown in gaol and you would've thought that would've sobered me up, but myself and some of the other prisoners began making a home brew which was far more toxic than anything legally sold. I lived those days in a haze, growing my hair and beard long, never seeing the sunlight and drinking myself into a stupor.

Eventially, I went up before the judge and he sentenced me to transportation - otherwise known as sentencing me to the penal colony of New Holland, which would ultimately come to be known as "Australia."

Life was tough initially on the frontier. Few women, little drink and the English Nobles treated us worse than Umpires. I was forced to get my act together and inevitably, I earned the trust of our English Overseers and was emancipated.

At that time, the land was hostile and untamed and the separists were given - or leased to be more precise - their own plot to work and build upon. I worked arduously... Well, I worked diligently... Actually, I barely worked at all, but I did buy the labor of convicts to till the land for me and to build me something of a house. And I did work them arduously!

But my idleness would be my downfall, and I eventually got back to drinking. My laborers become indolent without supervision and my crops and house went to buggery. It was only when we heard that the Governor would be visiting that I pulled myself out of my intoxicated reverie.

You see, the Governor was going to give the separaists deeds to their land if they were deemed worthy, and this was my chance to do something worthwhile. So I literally whipped my laborers back to work and got things cosmetically shipshape for the Governor's visit.

"You have done well, Sylvester," he said to me in that pompous tone after he'd arrived and completed his inspection.

"Thank you, sir," I deferred, keeping my head low. He thought it was out of respect, but it was actually so he wouldn't smell the alcohol on my breath.

"Yes, very well," the Governor went on, looking around. Then to my ultimate surprise, he ordered the stenographer to draw up a deed for the land. When it came to the name to be filled in on the deed, the Governor said to me, "And what would you call this ere place?"

I hit something of a panic. I hadn't given any thought to naming the place. My mind tried to think through it's sluggishness and I pondered back to my roving across the English countryside. I was very drunk pretty much the whole way through that and only one name came to mind.

"Collingwood," I said.

"Collingwood it is then!" the Governor decreed.

So you see - and I'd like to be quite humble about it, if possible - I'm responsible for what would eventually become the suburb of Collingwood. My slovenly ways are the reason Collingwood's so run down. Of course, as time went by and I didn't age, I had to move on for fear of giving myself away - and that, too, lead to the deterioration of the standard of the community even while it was still being built.

But, quite simply, without me - and please, hold the applause, a simple bow and a charitable donation will suffice - if it weren't for me, there would've been no suburb of Collingwood and, ultimately, no Collingwood Football Club.

Cheers.




S.
The Last Remaining Bad Guy.
The Incandescent One.
The Collingwood Rant.
The Unofficial AFL Ranting Board.