An Apology

[Shaun]

Hello to all of you. Some of you may remember me, but for those who don't, i posted here on Nicks about a year ago, but with School and the like, i haven't been able to post. However, with the Pies current form, and Joffa's insistance that i come back, how could i resist.

well, that's the pleasantries out of the way.
Unfortunately, i want to start off on a fairly unhappy subject, but one that needs to be addressed.
I wish to formally apologise to the rest of the Collingwood supporter base about the conduct of some of the Members of the Social Club. While i can stand hearing the media and other clubs supporters crucifying the old Black and White (after all, it is their job), i just can't stomach it when i hear our own supporters giving harsh, uneducated criticism to our own players. Perhaps i am just young and naive, but it just sickens me to see people who supposedly love Collingwood go out of their way to bag the club and it's players at any opportunity. and whatsmore, it gives myself and the other people in the Social club that love the Pies a bad name. For me, it got to the point tonight (vs Roos) when i got into an arguement with a moron who believed Ben Johnson should be shot because he messed up a mark. I mean, Jeez! no-one is perfect, and we have the sort of side that doesn't fold because of one players mistake. I wouldn't mind if this was just a one-off, but it happens every week, and it has to change! I could be here all night telling stories of idiots i've sat next to, but that'd take all night

Now, this is all just my opinion, and i wouldn't mind some feedback on it.

but if you couldn't be bothered reading the bulk of it, basically what i am saying is that to the non social-club supporters; we aren't all bad. Hell, a few of us like getting chants started, and to all the negative, pessimistic supporters, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

well, that's my big rant. i'll be impressed if you can understand it, as it's about 1.30 and i need sleep

-Shaun

[Shaun]

oops, posted twice. my bad.

[tessa]

Shaun l can apprechiate your concerns but there is no book on how people support our Club.We all do it in our own way,
some are criticle,
some are supportive of everything,
some are quiet little mouses,
some of us are loud shitheads,
some can`t afford to be a member so they just barrack,
some join cotorie groups cause they can afford to,
What l am saying is accept all supporters and embrace them for there diversity this is what gives Collingwood our power we can say what we want about each other but god help anyone who has a go at us from the outside.

Tessa (pink magpie member)

[ramjet21]

have to say im with tessa. a pie fan is a pie fan. we each support differently - it doesnt mean we want to win any less than the bloke next to us. agreed, such criticism is counter productive but means nothing to the players themselves and thats all that matters. if yelling out a bit of frustration helps someone get involved in the game and supporting the pies, so be it. with average salary's (apparently) well over 100 grand a season im sure the guys can cop it. its not exactly the worst gig going around is it? be glad that the bloke next to you screaming his guts out has been prepared to fork out hard earned dosh to get to the game and support the team he loves. the same cant be said for many clubs.

[Dr Alf Andrews]

Shaun,

One of the saddest things for me about being a Collingwood supporter is the gradual realisation that this great Club of ours is a nest of vipers.

I thought it must have been the lack of on-field success in recent years, but it seems that even when we're winning consistently we are still riddled with back-stabbers, whingers and splitters.

The Collingwood Football Club has been a disunited faction-riddled mess since about 1963 and I'm now resigned to the fact that it always will be.

The behaviour of certain sections of our Social Club just typifies what we are ... A twisted manifestation of the sickest sorriest aspects of Irish Catholicism. These would have been the same industrial groupers that kept Menzies in office during the 1950s.

It's Catholic guilt ... plain and simple. But it's the ugliest of all versions of Catholic guilt. It's that version of Catholic guilt that seeks to project one's own inadequacies on to others.

It's as if your typical Irish Catholic Collingwood Social Club member is inwardly saying, "I was born evil and will rot in hell for my sins ... therefore everyone else will too ... including that player who just dropped that mark or missed that shot at goal."

It's twisted ... It's perverted ... It's Collingwood ...

... and I love it.

floreat pica
**************
My Ph.D. thesis, "Football: the People's Game?" is now available for viewing and/or downloading at http://alf.magpies.net

[Ed]

I can fully understand a supporter being frustrated at johnnos disposal.
he works hard,plays hard,but ruins it by his poor disposal,causing more turnovers than a bakery could make each week.
Cole does the same and Scotland too.
they get about 50 possesions between them and waste 45 of them.
To win the ultimate prize,they must get over this problem or they will not be part of it.
Yes it frustrates me too,Shaun you are lucky you were not sitting next to me last night in my lounge room,its not bagging them,its just frustration at the wasted efforts.

[Clemo]

ALf,

What drugs have you taken . What has being a Social Club Member got to do with being Irish and Catholic. There good and bad Collingwood supporters. Some are members and some are not. I can not stand when supporters are type cast. I am for one thing not Irish, but I am not just a Social Club member but also a Cheersquad member. For crying out loud - stop typecasting people. It just does not make any sense.

_____________________
Collingwood Forever !
clemo@magpies.net
http://www.dodo.net.au/~clemo

[foxy]

anybody who bagged johnno last night knows NOTHING about footy. certainly he stuffed up a couple of kicks, but he shut down the kanga's most dangerous player (pickett), and in the second half he provided some serious dash out of defence. his hands were, as usual, superb. johnno has really matured this year.

[Brown26]

I hate it when supporters bag our players when they don't deserve it, i wouldn't have minded anyone saying that johnno needs to fix his kicking - he does. but some people go way too far, one guy I say in front of at the sydeny game was bagging tarrant the whole game, calling him crap, telling him to get off, etc. when our midfield wasn't delivering the ball into the forward line, so it wasn't his fault. needless to say, that loser shut up pretty quick with 5 goals in the last.

some people have old, cynical minds that just bag anything they can find, and they usually aren't rational. But on the whole I think Collingwood supporters are realising that these young guys have the goods, and some of the critics are comming round. Some.

Pies for Premiers 2002, 3, 4, 5, 6....

[Shaun]

thanks for the feedback, everyone.

i can understand people getting frustrated at some of the things our players do sometimes, but there are people who do nothing but whinge. i mean, these people next to me didn't even stay for the song , which says to me that these people much prefer seeing Collingwood go badly just so they have something to bitch at rather than actually support us.
Still, in a couple of years, as hard as anyone tries, there will be nothing left to bitch at. We shall be the greatest there ever was! GO PIES!

[Dr Alf Andrews]

Clemo,

What drugs am I on?

I took a couple of Panadols at 3-quarter time ... It's become a necessary evil since I became chant-leader.

What has being Irish and Catholic got to do with being a Social Club member?

Everything mate ... It's the cultural heritage of the Collingwood Football Club. I know that influence has become watered down since World War 2 with all the European immigration and demographic changes. Most Collingwood supporters today wouldn't know a Hail Mary from a hamburger. But I see it in a lot of the older Collingwood supporters. That twisted, bigoted, paranoid, two-faced, finger-pointing, judgemental hatred that seems to rule every facet of their existence.

Maybe it's just the panadol ...

... to be sure ... to be sure ...



floreat pica
**************
My Ph.D. thesis, "Football: the People's Game?" is now available for viewing and/or downloading at http://alf.magpies.net

[tessa]

Dr Alf we all support the same club But we all support it differently that is what has always made a Collingwood fan special to another Collingwood fan.For me I admit I am hard on Bucks but would rather be hard than follow the masses and cheer when he ties his shoes up!That is I that is them.I know what you mean about the history of our social club but that is long gone now isn`t it?We now are more even across the board in regards to little boardroom battles aren`t we.

Tessa (pmm)

[Dr Alf Andrews]

Nice Catholic name you've got there, Tessa ... but as a PMM you're probably not the sort of supporter I'm talking about. I bet you've never voted D.L.P. in your life.

Look ... They're a dying breed, this lot that I'm on about. But their legacy has infected The Club for all time.

So, we've gone from being a faction-riddled Irish Catholic nest of vipers to a faction-riddled multi-cultural secular nest of vipers.

[Ed]

As a student at st bernards college essendon in the 60s,and as a lad at our lady of nativity primary school in the 50s and early 60s, i barracked for the pies,so did a few sons of players that were at the school,the rest of the buggers barracked for essenscum.
Im a catholic of irish origin,although 7 generations are born in oz,ex alter boy too.
I cant understand what your religious bias has got to with the price of fish.
It may well be you Alf that is the bigot,with a view that all catholics are the same.

[Dr Alf Andrews]

Jesus, Mary and Joseph ... can't you recognise a piss-take when you read one, Ed.

My dissertation on Irish Catholicism in the Collingwood Football Club was not intended to be taken seriously. I was pulling your chain, boy ... crucifix and all.

Mind you ... I still think the Collingwood Football Club is a back-stabbing whingeing nest of vipers ... that part was serious ... but I'm sure it's got nothing whatsoever to do with religion or ethnicity.

And I don't have anything against Irish Catholics ... I think they're hilarious. The world would be a much less funny place without them ... to be sure ... to be sure.

I think you need 10 Bloody Mary's and 10 How's-Your-Father's for failing to recognise good honest urinepreneurialism when it splashes you in the face.

Which, I guess, still leaves us with the basic question ... why IS the Collingwood Football Club a nest of back-stabbing whingeing vipers?

... ah, forget it !