nourishing obscurity

You’ll have seen the news downunder, covered here and there are two things to add:

1.  My team

Geelong Football Club says it has “nothing to hide” about the training program it ran under former fitness guru Dean Robinson.

Robinson, who was the strength and conditioning coach at Geelong between 2007-2010, has been stood down by Essendon, where he worked last season, while the AFL and ASADA investigate allegations of inappropriate use of supplements.

“We have nothing to hide and there has been no wrongdoing on our part,” Cats chief executive Brian Cook said yesterday.

Cook’s comment came as a club source told the Geelong Advertiser Cats players were subjected to intense scrutiny from drug testers after they started their amazing winning streak in 2007, which ultimately led to their drought-breaking premiership.

“This team was suddenly winning everything and I guess ASADA thought ‘what’s going on here?’,” the source said.

“ASADA had drug testers there all the time, but there was certainly nothing sinister behind what we were doing. Do the simple things well was the philosophy and it was very, very simple what we were doing. There was no rocket science behind it.”

And:

Mr Cook [CEO] said nothing of the sort had ever taken place at Geelong. “The club’s doctors, and not any sport science staff, directly determine all treatments and the use of all supplements by players. No player has ever been requested to sign a waiver or indemnity concerning supplements used,” Mr Cook said.

Geelong premiership captain Cameron Ling said he was surprised to see Robinson’s name linked to the Essendon investigation.

Most players are reported to be shocked at what had happened at other clubs.

2. Chief Football Writer

The same parachutee with a track record of muckraking and unsubstantiated claims has been at it again, weighing into the drugs issue. Readers were not impressed:

# Caro, I used to respect you as one of the few journos who weren’t on the AFL gravy train, but your articles today and yesterday are just disgraceful. You should be ashamed to have written such emotive, ill-informed, unsubstantiated garbage. Where are your facts? You’re dealing in innuendo and rumour. Nothing’s been proven – we don’t even know what the supposed” facts” are yet! But you make ridiculous and wild allegations as if they *are* facts.

# Caroline, imagine if you were the parent of a journalist so desperately short of news that you have to fill space with this piece of vacuous tripe? C’mon…..no facts available so you have to manufacture fantasy? Please leave this kind of speculative nonsense to Twitter.

This person calls herself Chief Football Writer, knowing nothing about football itself and the ins and outs of clubs, being a woman, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans. Yet she tacks CFW on the end of every mention of her name, in case someone tries not to take her seriously. Like these people:

# Her stuff is about football, but it’s only peripherally about football.

1. She is a gossip monger, the original Gossip Girl.

2. She sources her articles from disgruntled people at football clubs.

3. She rehashes old material. She must have a huge “Saved” folder, as she cuts & pastes all her old stuff into any “new” article.

4. She has never written anything about the game itself, and I suspect that she knows very little about footy. She is only concerned with the “political” aspects of the clubs.

5. Her articles would fit in well with a tabloid newspaper or a gossip magazine. It is embarrassing to find them in The Age, but then it is a long time since The Age was a quality newspaper.

She uses good English and this causes many people to assume that she knows what she is doing – don’t be fooled, she just writes a load of rubbish.

And:

# Caroline Wilson’s role isn’t really to comment on on-field matters. Wouldn’t surprise me if she knew little about tactics, skills, fitness, etc. The Age has other journalists for that aspect of the game.

Chief Football Writer is a meaningless title. It doesn’t make their articles any better or more valid than other journalists.

# She’s a drama queen and an attention seeking whore who takes an ignorant approach in her opinions and thinks she has a clue.

Her supporters are the top brass pushing Political Correctness and wanting to “get women into the game”. Her detractors are the ordinary guys and gals on footy fora, people who know their football and discuss it night and day, all having played it at one time or other.   Hell, even I’ve played it and I’m not even down there.

The thing is, no one would tear her apart like this if she was any good but she’s not – that’s the bottom line. There are places women really should not be and this is one of them, especially Chief Football Writer. You can add to that on the front line of battle and parking cars.

Men should stick to what they do well and not try to compete to be women and vice-versa is true too.

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