PUFWE 06

I’m trying to start a tradition. A tradition celebrating friendship through football. Since having friends move to Melbourne (the home of the AFL) I thought it would be good to take some friends down to visit and to see the Swans play in Melbourne. This is its second year in existence. After last year’s trip I thought it needed a dodgy acronym, and I found one. PUFWE stands for PenUltimate Footy WeekEnd. It’s called penultimate because the ultimate footy weekend would comprise of 4 matches in 3 days but that was too much for my AFL rookie friends. Fair enough too, I’m unsure whether I could stand that much footy. But I’m willing to give it a crack.

Last year we saw Sydney play St Kilda. As it turned out this match just happened to be their worst for the whole season. Just our luck. We drowned our sorrows at the Retro Café in Brunswick Street on some of the best cake we had ever seen.

This year we watched Sydney play Hawthorn at the MCG. Sydney were on their way up, finally showing their premiership winning form with greater consistency. Hawthorn, on the other hand, were on a downer after a blistering start to their season. Less than 30,000 people attended the match which meant for a lack of atmosphere but we made up for that with our spirit (and sledging). In the end Sydney were just too convincing and skilful, winning by 65 points.

Here’s some more details of the weekend:

• Queen Victoria Markets are huge and are mainly geared towards the females. A lot of repitition with the content of the stores. In the end me and Nathan spent more than Sara and Alison. We each bought a replica Socceroos jersey.
• The Esplanade Markets at St Kilda have completely different shops. Lots of artwork and handcrafts, I was impressed.
• Acland Street in St Kilda has a few shops where you can’t help but drool. So many cakes to choose from. I recommend trying one at a time.
• Melbourne Central is a big shopping centre centrally located in Melbourne (hence the name). However their Myer outlet feels a bit disjointed and all over the place. We were searching for a male toilet for 10 mins.
• Trams are the way to go. At times they may appear slow but they are very reliable and cheap. A daily ticket costs $5.50 ($2.50 on Sundays), which gives you endless trips on the rail, tram or bus services.
• Don’t be shy saying you’re a Sydney supporter in Melbourne as we outnumbered Hawthorn supporters on Saturday night. I don’t think all of them would have flown down like we did.

Aboriginal Agenda

I heard Senator Barnaby Joyce on the radio this afternoon as I was driving home. He was talking about the problems in Aboriginal communities. He has an idea of encouraging mission groups to go “back into the area” (I didn’t know they were there in the first place let alone gone). This, he predicts, will teach some “social mores” to overcome the culture of child molestation and substance abuse. It’s a shame that, and Joyce acknowledged this himself, that this sort of plan would be shouted down as “politically incorrect.” Apparently when mission groups were in these communities there were far less issues. I’d be interested if someone knows more facts about the situation.

Footy Season Do’s - Mark 2

I thought that the blog on Footy Season Do’s was slightly taken out of context. Most of the fault for gaining that result is mine. The tongue in cheek tone was lost and perhaps I didn’t explain well enough. Not that it’s that big a deal in the scheme of things.

But anyway, in regards to weddings, I understand that these are hard to nail down a date to suit everyone you want to invite. So I have in the past and will gladly in the future miss playing any footy fixture for anyone willing to invite me to their wedding.

It’s more the less important do’s I was referring to. This doesn’t mean they’re not important, just less important than weddings. Saturday afternoon is a conflict of interests if close friends play sport. So Saturday night is preferable.

This whole blog came about after a team-mate, a vital element in our team, missed a game because a cousin had a do on a Saturday afternoon. We were a bit perplexed as to why it wasn’t on Saturday night. Perhaps there were mitigating circumstances, we can only speculate.

Footy Season Do’s

There was a debate early last season after an AFL player was going to miss a game to attend his brothers wedding. He ended up missing the wedding to honour his contract. We also hear occasionally of professional athletes sticking around while their pregnant wives give birth. If football wives could plan when they give birth I think they might. But parties are much easier to plan. So why have them conflict with a game?? Apart from the obvious inconvenience it is promoting a sedentary lifestyle by segregating your footy playing buddies in social circles.

If there was a party during footy season that collided with one of my games, I would have to say I would decline. However it has never come up as yet so I don’t really know how I would react in such a conundrum. There have been some do’s on a Saturday night, which is achievable and much preferable.

I was disappointed enough when not one, but two friends had their wedding during the AFL finals series, one of them on Grand Final Day. Although Sydney weren’t playing it is still a must see for any supporter. I sacrificed, but compensated for the lack of television by checking the scores on my phone constantly. Don’t worry, it was on silent.

So I guess this is a word of advice for those organising parties. Consider your football playing friends (of any code) and don’t organise things such as a Saturday arvo barbie, wait till the evening. Or better still, don’t plan any important do’s in footy season. This will be hard for anyone who has his or her birthday between March and September however. I guess they will just have to arrange an alternate date:).

Hamstrung

Hamstring, noun: group of muscles in the back of the thigh
Heartlage, noun: a supposed trivial injury, i.e. no heart
Hamstrung, verb: having a hamstring injury that is deemed to be a heartlage by team-mates

Very annoying and frustrating it is too. Team-mates tend to mistake a slight injury for not wanting to play. It is usually very much the opposite. It’s very frustrating to be watching team-mates play when injured.

I have been struggling with minor hamstring injuries for a few years now. I initially thought it started from when I did a gymnastics subject for University. The coach suggested we do this stretch everyday for a month and by the end we should be able to do the splits, regardless of our size. I though I’d test her out, but a few days later at training I twinged it for the first time.

However another thought has crossed my mind after hearing about the plight of Swans player Heath James. He has suffered 13 hamstring tears and it was thought that this was in some way due to the disproportionate strength between his quadriceps and hamstrings.

So if I am able to finally get some time when I don’t have to recover from hamstring strains I might be able to do something about that. But for now I guess I just have to put up with the supposed ironmen who are unbreakable. Pride comes before a fall a wise man once said.

The F.A. Cup

I did something for the first time on the weekend. I stayed up until some ridiculous hour to watch a soccer match. Not just any match they tell me, but the FA Cup. I’ve had a quick lesson on what all the Soccer (or Football) competitions around Europe are and what is their significance. The FA Cup is apparently one of the biggest. It is a Knockout competition featuring teams from all English competitions.

The teams playing off this year were Liverpool and West Ham. Immediately I had a dilemma as I had initially adopted Liverpool as my team because their colour was red, the same as the Swans. However, West Ham are nicknamed The Hammers, so they are, I guess, my sentimental favourites.

The match itself ebbed and flowed, mainly ebbed. There were enough goals to satisfy my appetite, but only half of them were very good. The other half were very lucky. Two of Liverpool’s goals came from their captain, Steve Gerrard, who had won the Player’s Player award from the Football Association. They were the best strikes of the ball I have ever seen, simply pure skill.

The only real fan of either of the teams, Nathan, was up and down out of his seat like a yo yo. I was about to tell him to calm down when I realised that that is what I looked like back in September last year when Sydney won the AFL Premiership.

The match finished at 3 all, even after 30 minutes of extra time. Unfortunately that means that the game was decided by penalty shots. I say unfortunately because it is such a cruel way to lose. But there has to be a winner, and when you play a game where it is so hard to score you need a simple way to break the deadlock.

There is so much pressure on the players taking a shot at what appears to be an easy task. When you take into account the 2 hours of game time as well as the 90,000 strong crowd singing songs and cheering, this was going to be no easy task. It showed on the faces of the West Ham players. They never looked confident and unsurprisingly missed 3 of their 4 penalty shots. Liverpool slotted 3 and that was all the difference.

Waxing Biblical

Sounds like Brisbane Lions coach, Leigh Matthews, was waxing biblical when he said, “If you can't serve two masters, decide which master you are going to serve” in a report from the AFL website. From all appearances it might look like he is giving a sermon to his players to try and inspire some spirit and enthusiasm to perhaps win a couple of games before their season goes completely down the gurgler. Unfortunately though, he was only commenting on players being payed by media outlets. The two masters referred to being the football club and the media outlet. Ah well, maybe some other time.

Tough Love

I like the concept of tough love. It says I love you enough to give you this reality check. It may hurt now, but in time you will realise that it was necessary. It’s like how my Mum gives me the metaphorical boot up the bum to get me moving when I start to get a bit lazy.

I think people are afraid of tough love, not wanting to hurt other people’s feelings, in which I think there is some merit, no one likes hurting people's feelings. But if you don’t like a situation and someone is doing something wrong I feel it is someone’s duty to rebuke to correct the behaviour. When this is done right I think it can be very effective.

It can be infuriating to hear things about you second or third hand. Are we that scared that we can’t open up the lines of conversation and in a quiet moment say, “Hey, can we talk?”

No one needs to air dirty laundry in public, nothing ever gets sorted that way. But coming into the conversation on equal terms, starting sentences with, “I don’t like it how you…” or “When you do this I feel….” which would lead to “I would prefer it if you would….” helps get desired results.

Now that might hurt an individual, in the short term, but if we are to grow as people and as Christians I believe we need a bit of tough love. Without it we go through life being spoilt by simply believing that we are so good that we’re doing everything right. Why wouldn’t this person think that, no one has told them that they are doing the wrong thing.

A Different Breed

Primary Teachers are truly the most special people on the planet. I’m not just saying that because my mum was one. However, she is an example that proves my point. I have a varied experience with primary teachers including having many friends in the profession, but now I have a new appreciation through my work with Sportspro.

Not many, if any, schools are able to have specialist PE teachers, and with all the talk of an obesity epidemic Principals are keen to have some sort of sports program but unfortunately lack the human resources, i.e. their teachers aren’t sporting oriented. I won’t hold that against them because they call organisations like Sportspro to run their sports program.

Initially I thought it would be an interesting change from teaching secondary students, less attitude. The biggest culture shock came on my first day, I asked the teacher in charge if someone could put the basketball hoops up and I was expecting her to grab the General Assistant or give me the key to the shed and point me in the right direction. Instead she opened the window and asked two Year 6 kids to do it and they willingly obliged, it was regarded as a reward for being good students. You would never see that where I was last year, too much attitude.

So enough of the background info and blatant plug, now for my point. If I had their workload I would literally go crazy. They have to deal with many things for which I just have little patience. I’m talking tantrums, crying for no reason, dobbing for trivial reasons, and the biggest one, not knowing which is their writing hand. It’s a good thing their teacher is around so they can deal with all that. It took me all term to bring my vocabulary down to their level. In the end I took the most basic coaching rule of keeping it in three’s, three main points for each skill and emphasising those.
Looking inside one of the Kindergarten rooms you can see the effort these teachers go to. The walls are adorned with words, numbers and pictures on different shapes of cardboard. There are posters of value and labels on desks so each student knows where to sit. A lot of teachers cover all of the books of their students. All this on top of teaching them all day, you can tell that the work doesn’t stop at 3pm. I wouldn’t like to imagine how long they spend in their own time. Although I have a fair idea.

I’ve been impressed with the schools I have been to since the start of the year, Beecroft PS and Turramurra PS. They have made me think about where I’d like to live when I grow up and have a family of my own.

The Siren Drama

On the weekend there was an AFL game between St Kilda and Fremantle in Launceston. It was a very tight finish with less than a goal (6 points) separating the teams in the final stages. Suddenly most of the Fremantle team was surrounding the umpire protesting about something. Nobody had any idea why, including Dermott Brereton in the commentary booth. Apparently the siren went but none of the umpires heard it, a lot of the crowd wouldn’t have heard it either as there was a lot of cheering that usually comes with a tight finish. The umpires allowed play to go on for another 15 seconds and St Kilda kicked a point to level the scores. Mass confusion erupted especially from Fremantle as they thought they had just won their first game in Tassie.

Tonight the AFL Commission will decide whether to overturn the result or let it stand and everyone appears has an opinion. Brisbane Lions coach, Leigh Matthews, preferred to talk about this issue than how his own team is going.

I was watching the end of the match and have since seen some very interesting explanations on the events from the Fox Footy channel, such as a bloke in the crowd tapping on the window of the timekeepers booth to alert them to the fact that the game is still going. I am hoping that they will give the win to Fremantle

Paul Gough from afl.com.au has summed up both sides of the argument here

The Calling Factor

I'm not sure what to think of the whole idea of receiving a calling to an occupation. One time I took some decent photos and someone remarked that they think I had found my calling, and it wasn't said tongue in cheek. I guess they didn't see the equal number of rubbish photos that I took.

Last year was my first year of teaching and I was thinking that this was what I wanted to do for my career (some might say this is a calling). However by the end of the year I was second guessing myself as to why I wanted to teach. Do you think God would call you to do something you didn't enjoy doing?? I tend to think not. However I'm not suggesting that it's supposed to be all roses, everything should have it's struggles.

Going into the ministry I believe is different. Embarking on this venture requires alot of conviction, a calling if you like. You have got to have conviction because it's no money making career move. It is not an occupation to be taken lightly, like some of us do with our regular jobs, like I possibly did with my teaching last year.

The Christ Files

I have just completed reading the latest work from the John Dickson Collection. it is called The Christ Files and it is published by Blue Bottle Books.

Here Dickson analyses how historians know what they now about the historical Jesus. He gives us examples of sources used by historians such as Greco-Roman texts, Jewish texts, the Oral Tradition, New Testament documents, and even archeology.

Dickson has a simple style of writing that is appealing to me as I couldn't handle heavy theological pieces. That is not to say that Dickson is light on or dumbs down his content. He tells us what we need to now and doesn't get bogged down in specific details that may happen in more scholarly works.

The book is only 101 pages long but is packed full of information. I recommend it to just about everyone who hasn't already studied biblical history.