Open Mike - St Kilda's troubled history

[howlinwolf]

"St Kilda's troubled history"

Is that what it is officially called ?

Off to a negative start right there.

Fair enough to leave no stone unturned but to start off with that title is just refreshing the public's view of "culture"

Why not start off with the positives and then balance it up with some of the lesser ?

Hopefully the title is just a grab to get non supporters to watch.

[Freebird]

No way will this clown say anything good on st kilda..once said lockett is an animal and should look at the way ablett and dunstall play the game. .we could not believe he had ablett up on a pedestal after he had cleaned up many of our players before Sheehan's statement.

Hawthorn once said the rise of Hawthorn came about with a great Zone. Zones were to be temporary but sides who scored the good zones would not give them up.

Saints were recognised as having by far the worse zone. At one stage we almost had Ballarat players filling the whole team

[White Winmar]

I hope he doesn't 'pussy foot' around about Lindsay Fox. He could have followed up more on Fox when he interviewed Barry Breen, but he shied away. Breen gave him the opening. The myth of Lindsay Fox needs pricking IMHO. Funny how over the years those in the media have been too scared(???) to flush out a bit of the mud.

I know why, Loris. Old "snake eyes" has a mighty amount of clout in this town. When a friend and colleague proposed writing the unauthorised biography, with a warts and all look at the early years, he was left in no doubt that if he proceeded his career in this country was over. This was confirmed by said colleague's direct boss (of one of the major dailies). Not surprising the project did not proceed and is unlikely to until after Mr. Fox's death. Lindsay has a lot to thank Vic Pol for, especially in getting a start in the "sly grogging" industry. The whole "battler in the coal truck" story, while based in truth is only a small part of the whole and rather more interesting story.

[Toy Saint]

Fact is St Kilda may be the least successfull sports club in the history of the free world.

But I really don't like Sheehan at all for the negative way he's treated our club and it's players. It's not just Plugger, I can think of Steven Baker and Milne being poorly treated, and I reckon I could come up with plenty more examples.

[Waltzing St Kilda]

Yep. Said Plugger (when in Saints colours) represented everything bad about the game and Ablett
represented everything good.

Also got tingly over W. Carey, Ben Cousins and the Unflushable Hird.

[Con Gorozidis]

I have a genuine question for Saints fans on this topic.
Is it chicken or egg?
Are we obsessed with individual stars because of lack of team success or has our obsession with individual stars been detrimental to team success?
Which comes first? Or is it a self reinforcing cycle?

[Jacks Back]

I have a genuine question for Saints fans on this topic.
Is it chicken or egg?
Are we obsessed with individual stars because of lack of team success or has our obsession with individual stars been detrimental to team success?
Which comes first? Or is it a self reinforcing cycle?

I'm not sure of the answer to that but the sooner we become a champion team rather than a team of (a few) champions is the day we start winning premierships.

Come to think of it I don't think we have many more out and out stars at the moment (apart from Rooey) so maybe we are nearly there.

[BigMart]

Sheahan

A favourite of Pluggers

We are all aware of our history.... With a bit of luck... It'd be different

Gleeson, Oakley, McIntosh, Gellie, Maguire, Penny, Hamill, X.Clarke, Watts, Allen and countless others just had there careers cut due to injury

That and being able to retain players

[Saints43]

That and being able to retain players

I would have thought that our player retention has been exceptional for a club that never been rich and has been pretty unsuccessful.

[matrix]

$20 says he doesnt even explain the duthie crap properly
S hool girl scandal will be the words used
Nothing factual bout that incident will come out

And i f****** hope he is doing every team in the league and not just picking n us out

When he interviewed Caro the other night, she was at pains to call it something like the "wrongly named but so called St Kilda school girl" incident.

I'd expect that at a minimum.

I actually wagched that last night and noticed that too
A lot of people hate caroline wilson but she calls it how she sees it and is usually right

I also watched the richmond fc one everton posted
Was actually pretty good and can now see why posters are saying they dont think the whole Duthie thing wont be brought up
Id say i went early on that in my first post and will prob be wrong

Gee richmond went thru some coaches, i never knew that part of their history
If they hadnt of got those 5 years ago they would be considered to be the biggest under achievers in the comp for a club with so much history.
Actually looking forward to the saints one now

[Sainternist]

Sheahan

A favourite of Pluggers

I assume you're referring to plugger66 (who was recently banned on this forum), not Tony Lockett?

[matrix]

Sheehan has no love for lockett

[George27]

Sheahan

A favourite of Pluggers

We are all aware of our history.... With a bit of luck... It'd be different

Gleeson, Oakley, McIntosh, Gellie, Maguire, Penny, Hamill, X.Clarke, Watts, Allen and countless others just had there careers cut due to injury

That and being able to retain players

Some of those names in your list bring back great memories, and many thoughts of "what if". Ross Oakley was so unlucky to miss the 66 GF ( and 65 too ) with injury. It was a heck of an effort to win in 66 without both him and Big Carl.

John McIntosh was a super super player. His injury in the 71 semi cost us a flag for sure ( even more than Spider and Lazar going down in 97). He barely played 50 games, but I have him on the bench in my team of the best ever Saints I saw. ( Brian Gleeson was before my time, but clearly was a champion )

Graeme Gellie also succumbed to a knee. In his only full season in 78 he won the B&f in a star-studded team that should have just about won the whole thing. Very gutsy, great hand baller.

[mullet]

supposed to be celebrating 50 years since premiership and this is the best they can come up with.

Negative and Poor

[saintbrat]

On Tomorrow 8:30pm - 9:30pm

This year marks the 50th anniversary of St Kilda's first premiership but since 1966 the Saints have played in seven Grand Finals without success. In this special, Mike analyses why the club still only has one flag.

As the Saints prepare to celebrate 50 years since their lone flag, a new documentary details the years of frustration the club has endured, including the four grand final losses and a draw since Barry Breen's wobbly punt secured a one-point win in 1966.
This includes the agonising defeat to the Cats in 2009, and the draw and subsequent loss to Collingwood a year later.
In the documentary, to air on Fox Footy on Tuesday night, Koschitzke was asked whether he was haunted by those results.
Advertisement

"I don't think it's too strong [a word] because you certainly think about it a lot. You wonder if your life would be different," he said. "It's a great question – I don't know what is the answer

."


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/a ... z44rhonUMT
Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook

[saintbrat]

Another snippett
http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/open-mi ... 6943735fa6

[magnifisaint]

I hope he doesn't 'pussy foot' around about Lindsay Fox. He could have followed up more on Fox when he interviewed Barry Breen, but he shied away. Breen gave him the opening. The myth of Lindsay Fox needs pricking IMHO. Funny how over the years those in the media have been too scared(???) to flush out a bit of the mud.

Please elaborate on Mr Fox

[The_President]

It also doesn't help that all our greatest players pop out girls instead of boys

When was our last good father son pick up.
Scratch that. How many father son selections have we had?

[St Lenny]

If it wasn't for Lindsay Fox, there would be no St Kilda.

[magnifisaint]

I'm watching Married at First Sight instead

[ctqs]

Not that I was there obviously, but knowing what I do of our history I reckon for a lot of it we were like a teenage boy about to experience something for the first time - I'll let you guess what. We got over excited when success was close and ended up shooting ourselves in the foot. After we broke through I reckon we spent too much time looking at the last premiership instead of focusing on the next one. It didn't help that we didn't have money. Other clubs, Carlton especially, partied just as hard if not harder. But it could always afford the top interstate recruits. As for 1997, someone else once said too many of that crop put that GF as the highlight of their careers when it should've been the lowlight. When we were pushing again the best part of a decade ago (can you believe it's that long?) we were run into the ground by the sociopath who only looked at the short term. His predecessor had similar personal traits.
For what it's worth, though, I reckon we're one of the strongest clubs going around. I don't know of any other that could have our rollercoaster ride without success and still be going.
I wonder if things would've been different had we been allowed to keep the 1913 premiership instead of losing it under the challenge system.

[St Chris]

Not as bad as I expected.

Andrew Plympton looks a bit like The Joker.

Shame they interviewed Barry Hall, as far as I'm concerned he's totally irrelevant to our clubs history.

[magnifisaint]

I thought Sheahan did that well. Plympton should buy a toothbrush. Obviously hitting the booze hard.

[1966]

If it wasn't for Lindsay Fox, there would be no St Kilda.

Fox put more money into Carlton than he did St Kilda.
Be very interested to see if he is there on Saturday night.

[Trev from the Bush]

Watched it, loved it. Thought it was excellent and balanced.

Two things only are sure to bring tears to my eyes - great horses and any footage of the 1966 Grand Final and StKilda Players who played in it.

Great to see the egnuine affection between Tuddy and John Bingley. Bingley only played 8 VFL games over 2 seasons; his role in shutting down Tuddy in the GF has been underplayed for 50 years.

To watch and listen to Carl, Cowboy and Breeny was fantastic. Is Alan Morrow the fittest looking near-octogenearian you have ever seen? Carl is still a Saint to the bone. If you ever doubted otherwise we felt it tonight. Cat Colling also fantastic.

Alan Davis was extremely interesting. I have always felt there was some tension between he and Yabby. Although he didn't say as much his comments on his two grand finals in red, white and black suggest he didn't respect Snr Sgt Jeans as much as his team mates. Half a century on it is still a raw nerve.

Barry Hall, I felt, still respects his original club deeply and made no bones about the fact that he HAD to leave StKilda - something GT has been at pains to say over the past 15 years.

I've always liked Andrew Plympton (yellow teeth aside) and found his answers revealing.

Importantly, it is undeniable all that where interviewed (with, perhaps, Hall the exception) still love the StKilda Football Club, warts and all.

So do I.