Old Ghost article no 4

The Ghost - Technical Difficulties

The Ghost 5:10 PM Thu 31 May, 2007

The Ghost wrote a brilliant article (if I do say so myself - it even had a Rolling Stones reference – ah the waste) last week however technical difficulties meant the article never appeared. Sometimes I wonder if our club is not experiencing technical difficulties. So many times we are so close and yet no cigar.

I see Andrew D now admits there is something rotten in the state of Victoria. Its something we supporters have known for some time but the wheels of power always move slowly in this state – something about Victoria being placed at the pinnacle of a very high hill – which would explain the swift relief the other states’ get.

As the greatest Victorian club I can only assert that those stirring the cauldron of Victorian football began to assist our efforts. -  Perhaps getting in Juddy’s ear and telling him to come home for the good of Victorian football (certainly would explain his freedom to gouge anyone’s eyes – as I read his comments Brown was at fault – the old ‘he attacked me with his face’ argument).

So what might these technical faults be? Certainly it’s something to do with the state of water in this state. In Sydney Nick Stevens would head down to the beach and return healed after a single swim – does this say something about the positive effects of dumping sewerage where the waves form offshore? (Is this the Pooh Matthews referred to?) Clokey wouldn’t even need to have a swim; Libba just has to splash some water on his shoulder and viola! – a return to the seniors.

Perhaps it’s our facilities. At West Coast they run fasters for longer. They are bigger as eighteen year olds than we are at twenty. It must be all that scientific gear they have in their weights room.

Or maybe it’s not technical at all. Maybe the problem is simply one of weather. Take Brisbane – no please, take Brisbane… In Brisbane every day is either perfect or glorious. Here we get perfect, glorious, wet, cold, windy, boring, smelly and frosty all in one day – does this weaken our kids preparation for the games?

Adelaide has nothing to offer in these discussions unless we plan to build several more churches to compete with their prayers – how else to explain the report of Lappin and then Mattner’s absolution. Or Welsh’s in the back that goes unnoticed while Richo’s Tigers lose any chance of redemption (is it true, are the Tigers the lost thirteen tribe, or maybe the lost seventh legion?)

Perhaps the technical difficulties are more to do with glitches in the system. How to explain Waite’s great day except for the worst shot on goal seen this season and that dropped mark. Oh cruel world! Oh bitter fruit this sport bestows - from superman to soap hands in a single moment. Not that I am blaming Waite, merely searching for solutions. Young Jarrod played a great game, as did Tex and Carrots and Simmo and Scotland. Young Bryce made me dribble several times during the game – he is going to be something!

So what is it? Is it simply the foibles of youth/ the mad headlong rush to greatness and then the pause and the victory slips away? Are we the Hare to everyone’s tortoise? We c certainly race ahead and then fall asleep, perhaps dreaming of the great Carlton teams when a quarter was all it took to put a side to the sword. Perhaps the fault lies with Denis. Perhaps we is trying to build a working class side, anew incarnation of the Shinboner spirit but the bluebagger soul is a different animal. We at Carlton dream the dreams of Gods not of men. We are Prometheus (our falls are certainly the work of Gods) rather than Ulysses. Perhaps we cannot slog matches out. We want to fly like Jezza, dominate a quarter like The Buzz; we are the Navy Blue Ocean rather than the Kangaroo earth. We work in troughs and glorious waves; white foam crests of the CFC running amok for short brilliant moments captured in our minds forever.

Certainly we miss our ancestral home advantage. Like all the Victorian clubs (oh though how we fought; how we clawed and clung and in the end lost the fight - we were Dunkirk to the AFL’s Turk!) we allowed the AFL to make a technical foul and ruined our single great advantage – remember Tex’s first game at the Park. There was the lad, flying as high as any great Bluebagger and every act of his was greeted by the sweet banging of joyous hands on the signs around that great ground. Perhaps that’s all it is. Perhaps the players miss the sound of those hands, the stamping feet and roars of the Heatley Stand.

And so these young lads, the Murphs and Gibbses (how would Ayers have handled his name?) and Simmos and Texes will have to rebuild our foundations; will need to lay new building blocks for future generations of great players and great teams. These kids have been given a huge task. They need to take the soul of this club, make it strong again and set it free to fly upon the green grass of the MCG and the funny orange tinged grass of the Dome. They need to take all that was great about our ancestral home and champion teams of the past and make them anew into a new great Carlton team, one strong enough to conquer the outrageous arrows of Interstate teams and the AFL.

Hopefully that new team will continue to show the glimpses we see every week, the courage of that Simmo mark, the glory of a Waite goal, Tex on the run, Gibbs’ cool, Murph’s leadership, AB’s grunt and Fish’s sticky hands. Maybe this week we’ll keep it going for longer than those brief moments. Maybe this week the lads will put it together for four great quarters of football.