Quite a stark article about the 1978 FIFA World Cup held in Argentina, which provided political cover for the military dictatorship that murdered 30,000 leftists and was torturing many just down the road from a stadium where games were held. FIFA has quite the track record.
Well… I didn’t have high expectations for the game but somehow it went even worse than I’d anticipated 🙈 Ah well, to quote my dad: “What football game? It’s cricket season!”
It’s AFL Grand Final morning! I know not everyone cares about football, but it’s a big deal ‘round these parts nonetheless: we had the public holiday Grand Final Eve yesterday, lots of cafés and the like close early in advance of the game, and it’s a day for people to catch up with friends and family, often over a barbecue, like secular Christmas! It’s sometimes said that football is like a religion here in Victoria, which I think is over-egging it slightly, but surprisingly not that much. Following the ups and downs of the AFL season is like a social glue for the “believers”, and feeling alienated by everyone else’s obsession with football is a unifying experience for the “non-believers” 😂
Because of the pandemic, today will be the first time in three years that we’ve been allowed to catch up with loved ones to watch the game. My own team, the Sydney Swans, is even playing in the final although it’s very much the underdog (Geelong, the other team, has been truly ascendant in recent times) so we’ll see how that goes. I’m not optimistic tbh. But I’m looking forward to watching the game with family and hoping for a miracle!
The sheer callousness of Hawthorn FC, as described in this article, has genuinely shocked me. Apparently Hawthorn’s senior coaching staff has been forcing their way into Aboriginal players’ relationships – forcibly ending them on the player’s behalf and denying the partner’s right to even speak to him, forcing players to hand over their phones to swap in new SIM cards, forcing players to move house to a coach’s spare room effective immediately, bullying players’ pregnant girlfriends into unwanted abortions (and in one case succeeded)… just absolute crazy shit. Like holy fuck, this is unfathomably evil.
Article is obviously very heavy – content warnings for racism, reproductive coercion, pregnancy loss, suicide attempts, and not just as passing references but in detail. Fuck Hawthorn.
OMG that prelim final was one of the most stressful games I’ve watched 🫣 One minute longer and I’m sure we’d have lost, Collingwood were all over us. But WE DIDN’T AND SWANS ARE IN THE GRAND FINAL, BABEY~ 🔴🦢🔴
Tweet with an attached 5-minute video explaining the great game of Australian rules football to newbies 🙂
What strikes me about this article is not so much the part about Wimbledon dropping “Miss” and “Mrs” to bring the women’s honour board into line with the men’s, but that married women were literally listed as “Mrs. [Husband’s initials and surname]”. Like Chris Evans’ 1981 title is credited to “Mrs J.M. …
This was one wild thing to witness! Can’t help but think there’s good safety reasons why it’s not (usually?) allowed. Something like a half-hour delay before they were able to play the last 6 mins of the game too, lmao. Regardless, congrats Buddy on the 1000th goal !
Hope I don’t come across like a total asshole in this post but with the death of Shane Warne announced today, I can’t help but marvel at how The Eulogy Song never ceases to be true. Before today, he was mostly mocked for his womanising and drug use and dodgy self-named charity and not-very-good cricket commentary. Now, he’s a “legend of the game” and the premier has offered a state funeral! Man, I have nothing against him personally (he was obviously an insanely talented cricketer, and it seems like he was a nice enough bloke to everyone not named Mitchell Starc…) but it does my head in how the media & public just shift gear from criticism to rapturous adulation and pretend not to notice the whiplash that induces 😛
Can I be real, it’s pretty disappointing that an entire Ashes game can be called off just because it rained for a couple of hours 😕 Women’s sport has come a long way in public recognition in the last few years, but it’s still really not taken as seriously, hey.
Jessica Smith is a socialist and a feminist who loves animals, books, gaming, and cooking; she’s also interested in linguistics, history, technology and society.