Sam Newman

[David]

[think positive]

Yes it has, you split the thread from where the OP was posted. When I asked why you moderated it! Go to the original thread and see. In fact my OP now makes no sense, at the very least you could have explained the split.

[Pies4shaw]

I split this topic out, not David. I took the view that Sam Newman is a stand alone topic, one that was going to get swamped in a discussion of George Floyd and the US protests. Your OP is unedited.

Bear in mind that the George Floyd thread was created at Stui's request to extract the issue from one of the general "odds and sods" threads.

I fully understand your point that Newman resigned at least partly because of pressure following comments he made about George Floyd. But, save to say that it is bizarre that an elderly ex-Geelong ruckman who worked in the football media as a marginal "comic" figure should have considered that he had any special understanding that warranted him making any comment at all about politics in another country, Sam Newman has got nothing to do with George Floyd being killed by police or the protests about that.

[swoop42]

The past actions of George Floyd were certainly nothing to be celebrated and I did find it somewhat disingenuous that most of the media didn't paint the whole picture of the man but at the end of the day none of his crimes carried the penalty of death, he had obviously served his time and on the day was arrested for a non violent incident.

The bigger picture though and what is so often forgotten is that it's poverty and disadvantage across all ethnicity that drives the prison population and racial discrimination is just another aggravating factor on top of that and unless we address it the prisons will continue to be filled by the George Floyd's of the world not because they are born inherently bad but because they were born without an equal opportunity to succeed.

On a side note I found Dave Chappelle's take on the death of George Floyd quite powerful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tR6mKcBbT4

[Wokko]

https://twitter.com/Origsmartassam/status/1274258980903301121

[think positive]

hehe

[Pies4shaw]

Imagine starting your career the year after your team wins the flag, playing for 17 seasons and achieving diddly squat with your team. It must be very, very difficult to cope emotionally with a champion like H who snuck in as a rookie, played at the highest level, won a flag and was an all-Australian.

[stui magpie]

300 games, club captain, 2 best and fairests and an All Australian, member of the AFL hall of fame, the Geelong hall of fame and the Geelong team of the century.

If that equates to diddly squat I'd hate to see what you need to do to be a star.

[Pies4shaw]

Win a premiership.

I'm sorry - I didn't appreciate that I was in a Geelong forum.

[Wokko]

[think positive]

[think positive]

[stui magpie]

Plenty of football superstars never won a premiership, plenty of spuds who happened to be "right place right time" are premiership players.

I don't think any objective assessment would suggest that Jarryd Blair was a better player than Nathan Buckley or Phil Carmen or that Toby Nankervis is a better ruckman than Grundy.

[eddiesmith]

Wow, Harry O’Brien a better footballer than Nathan Buckley, never thought I’d see that on a Collingwood forum!

[Pies4shaw]

Why? Unlike Newman, Skilton was an all-time great and in his many, many years in the media was always an incredibly gracious human being. I never heard him say a bad word about any player, ever. He was an ornament to the game in all capacities. Newman, not so much over the last 40 years.

As for being in the Hall of Fame, it must have more to do with his longevity than anything else. Here's a list of ruckman he played against that were obviously better than him:

Nicholls
Dempsey
Thompson
Moss
Scott
Ditterich
Round
Greene
Balme
Teasdale
Fitzpatrick
Hampshire
Lee
Alexander

There's probably others. Those are just off the top of my head.

My abiding memory of him is the 1969 first semi final against Richmond - watching Mike Greene put it down Bartlett's and Barrott's throats all afternoon - that was the year he was named "all-Australian".

Let's be clear, though, being named "all-Australian" meant that he played for Victoria in an era of team quotas - you couldn't have more than two players from a club picked for Victoria. It isn't like they looked at the season, as they do now, and said it was out of Gawn and Grundy for the all-Australian team. So, nobody in their right mind would have picked Newman to ruck for Victoria if Greene was available - but Bartlett and Hart picked themselves. So, he was picked as second ruck behind Nicholls. God knows why Thompson wasn't in the side ahead of Newman - no-one seriously thought Newman was in Thompson's league - but Terry Waters and Ricky Watt were fabulous players and each were in peak form that year.

I can think of a lot of fine players for Geelong over the years. To me, Newman was just a bloke who played in their team.