The I ❤️ Collingwood thread. | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
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The I ❤️ Collingwood thread.

Haaarrrrgggh. Looks like Joffa's just launched with a size twenty gumboot n the Colonwood footy club have instantly *smile* themselves.
 
Kind of ironic as Eddie went out of his way to thank "my great mate Joffa Corfe" on the way out the door....
They say Ed's been in hiding ..... maybe he's in South East Asia tweeting from Joffa's account:rolleyes:
 
How was he getting into the games if he wasn't a member?
Didn't he say on open mike he was proud to be 30 or 40 year member?
Don't you have to be a member to be part of the cheer squad?
How did Collingwoods award him an achievement award if he wasn't even a member?
 
The Big Richo said:
They have effectively loaded a gun and handed it to the authors and asked them to shoot them. Ripping the scabs off your own racism in public in an effort to do better going forward is quite commendable I think, especially when I could write that report for just about any sporting club in Australia apart from the profile of incident which is relative, but Collingwood has made the effort to instigate change.
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right, wrong and wrong.

The loaded gun bit, spot on. But your explanation and analysis is completely wrong. This rarely happens, but when it does, it is a signifier that things have gotten so bad, that the organisation has backed itself into a corner, swept things under the carpet for so long, something has to give. It is not commendable, it is because things have gotten so bad for so long that something has to give, think Queensland and the Fitzgerald Report.

Any sporting club in Australia? What a load of crap. Culture and governance varies across organisations. Its not set in concrete sure, and can also vary over time, but culture varies across organisations, hugely different between Rio Tinto and BHP for example, and Richmond and Collingwood. You could say there is a Collingwood or 2 in most leagues in Aus, that would be fair enough, but 'just about every club' is plain wrong.

The report says Collingwood's culture is deep seated, this squares with the public record.

Collingwood's goes back to Allan McKallister 'we would draft blacks if they were more like white people.

Have you ever read Gilbert McAdam's accounts of the crowd at the Nicky Winmar jumper lifting game?

Anecdotally, my own experience of the crowd's racism towards Michael Mitchell at Vic Park was disturbing and unforgettable.

Eddie? He was there for all the above. He was host and producer of TFS when Newman wore black makeup and parodied Nicky Winmar.

The rest of his form is well documented, it ain't pretty.

Loaded gun? Yes. Commendable? No, unavoidable due to how bad the situation got. Objectively No. The same as every sports club, therefore normal? No, objectively no..
 
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The Big Richo said:
Afraid I disagree, for two reasons.

The first is that I have spent my life involved in many, many sporting clubs, in the country and city, professional and amateur. The racism in them has always ranged from rife to casual.

More importantly though, on these matters I defer to my Indigenous brothers. I was fortunate enough to be employed at a club that embraced the AFL indigenous round by inviting a former player to address the club during the week.

I sat through three very unique presentations over three different years, each interesting in it's own way. The first was a very successful player from the 70s who gave an amazing talk about his life and career. He spoke about the racial abuse that came his way, from every direction, every single week. Every opposition team, every crowd, including his own. No respite. Ever. One of the things he said was in WA there were lots of player, clubs and crowds who racial abused him but there were a couple of good ones as well. In Melbourne he'd get excited every time he had a new club or ground to play at hoping to find the 'good' one, but it never came.

The second was a player from the early 80s who hadn't had much of a career. He too highlighted the horrific abuse he encountered every single time he went on the ground and how it made him angry and violent until he hated the game he loved. He had a few nephews who had played AFL in modern times and he spoke about the abuse they were still often enduring.

The last one was a player who was a good player cut down by injuries in the late 80s, the sort of name Zips would come up with as a gag. He had been lied to as a young man and had only just discovered his indigenous heritage. He spoke of the shame he felt now when he looked back on the racial abuse that he used to spout, because that was what everyone did in footy.

Collingwood may have had a high profile and featured more in the spotlight for issues of racism but they are just the surface water in a deep river of racial shame that runs through the history of the AFL and all of its clubs.
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You are confusing a lot of issues. I don't doubt your accounts of the back players experiences. That was the times. 70s and early 80s. There would have been different extents back then too, but yes, it was the dominant sentiment, which was nonetheless changing and evolving then and continued to.

Deep River of racial hatred and shame? You'll get no arguement from me, but extent, culture and leading change rather than resisting or following it happens, and is very important, it differentiates organisations and individuals.

Facts are Facts, the Winmar game, coincidence it was collingwood? Bad luck? Form and evidence says different. Facts, data, numbers of black players recruited, comments from senior club figures, and last but not least HLs experience. These things differentiate Collingwood, they do on their own, but when you add them all up, its compelling.

edit, just remembered the Monkhorst/ Long incident too, its pretty much always Collingwood.
 
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Mcguire struggling with been given the arse thanks to the media witch-hunt , hard not to see the irony in that
 
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Mr Brightside said:
Mcguire struggling with been given the arse thanks to the media witch-hunt , hard not to see the irony in that
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Call me a sceptic but every chance its an orchestrated story to extract some public sympathy. His brand is damaged and he'll have PR and media advisors telling him what he needs to do to recover quickly.

Step 1: Lay Low
Step 2: Leak story's that he is struggling
Step 3: Exclusive (fully scripted) interview (with a mate) to confirm Step 2
Step 4: Leak some news about how he is working for charities since his departure from Collingwood
Step 5: Have the Holden center renamed the McGuire center and erect a statue of him out the front - job done.
 
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There is no denying that racism has been an issue in sporting clubs for decades. Really, this reflects society.

Racism continues to be a problem, likely in all sporting clubs to some degree, again reflecting society.

The question is whether each club, and all of us in the community, are trying to address the issues, change behaviour and call out racist behaviour. Here I think Collingwood are behind, at least that is the impression I get. Buckley coming out and saying he should have done more in 2017 is positive in the sense that hopefully he is seeing that he needs to make sure he does not walk past this sort of behaviour, but negative in the sense that he did walk past this behaviour in 2017 - well after we knew racism was wrong.

While Collingwood might be getting more attention over this issue than all the other clubs and the wider community, what is happening at Collingwood will be reverberating everywhere and every other club, and lots of organisations across the country, will see this and it will be having an impact on combating racism. Collingwood may suffer in the short term but they have the opportunity, as a high profile club currently under the microscope, to show that real change is possible - it would be good for them and good for all the other clubs.

Is my club blameless? Highly unlikely. But with the KGI and the recruiting of indigenous players over the last 10 years the impression I get is that Richmond saw a problem and started to take action maybe 10 years ago. Later than I would have liked but I think a lot of clubs took action before it got to the point of an enquiry, which is where Collingwood missed the bus.

Eradicating racism is a long term project, hopefully the ructions at Collingwood will speed things up a bit, and I truly hope Collingwood can change their culture and the rest of the clubs do too.

DS
 
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