The Age: An Eagle aiming high
Here’s something novel - a positive piece on a West Coast Eagle’s player; this piece on David Wirrpanda. It’s worth checking out.
David Wirrpanda’s got history. Among his forebears on his mother’s side is Sir Doug Nicholls, one of the very first Aboriginal footballers to make it in the VFL (the AFL today). Nicholls was from the Cummeragunja mission on the Murray River. He slept in empty boxes at the Victoria Market when he first came to Melbourne in the 1920s. Small, swift and brave, he won big professional foot races, fought in boxing tents and went to Carlton, where the trainers refused to rub him because he was black. David Wirrpanda heard that story as a child.
Jan 24th 2008
Good to see that you’re still alive Bruce. It’s been interesting over the break to see the interest in anything “bad Eagle” dying down. With Steve Johnson screwing up yet again, and Geelong (the club held up by many as the model for both success and behaviour) slapping his wrist yet again, I have a feeling that people other than Eagle fans are slowly coming around to reality. On two points:
(1) the Eagles’ recent problems are potentially the tip of the iceberg, and that anyone talking their club up as the AFL’s model citizen is setting themself up for a fall, and
(2) the club’s handling of the Cousins issue (a player with off-field problems, but a superstar on the field who the club couldn’t afford to lose in a premiership window) is pretty much exactly what most other clubs would have done. Given a choice between doing the “right thing” (even if there is no concrete evidence of wrongdoing) and keeping a premiership window open, each and every club would have gone for the premiership.
Jan 28th 2008
Indeed, this is what Geelong have done by not even slapping Johnson over the wrist - they’re after another premiership, just as the Eagles were at the start of 2007. I’d argue that what Johnson could easily have ended up worse than anything Ben Cousins was doing.
Not that Cousins didn’t get what he’d well earned, but… well I doubt we’ll hear too much from Geelong fans any time soon over perceived “culture” issues at West Coast.
PS, as fordy said, good to see you’re still out there in the blogosphere.
Jan 28th 2008
Incidentally, I didn’t see that article before - it shows just how impressive a character Wirrpanda is, and it’s a shame that when people go on about role models in football that he doesn’t get more of a mention. Perhaps he’s in the twilight of his career, but I think - and hope - we’ll be hearing of David Wirrpanda for many years yet.