The Terrace

Here at The Terrace, Stephen Handley is one of the players that personifies the mid-nineties. When we hear another rockin’ verse of The Cat Attack, we’re immediately haunted by a vision of Handles, kicking three goals in junk time during the latter half of the ’95 grand final. It’s fair to say Handles seems to have copped a verbal belting more times that you can say Kent Kingsley was a crap full forward. But, really, was Handles all that bad?

He played 73 games between ’92 and ’96, kicked 23 goals and, believe it or not, picked up 4 Brownlow votes over the course of three games in the 1992 season. He missed out on the grand final that year, but was part of the ’94 and ’95 grand final sides. Some blame Handles for those losses, but we think that’s a bit rough. I mean, one handle don’t maketh the bar, does it? Ultimately, Handles won’t be remembered for much at KP, but at least the Coodabean’s penned a nice story about him. Handles, we salute you. And your fierce haircut.

Here at The Terrace, we’re really struggling for words. And whilst it’s not red-headed Tuesday, we couldn’t resist breaking with convention and sharing this little gem with you. Nice chain, Scratcher.

Well, Monday is always so much sweeeeter with another Hawthorn win under the belt. Firstly, here at The Terrace we’d like to make special mention of Lewis Jordan, ummm, we mean Jordan Lewis. You see, based upon Jordan’s behaviour,  he really does appear to suffer from a serious bout of knobitis.

Moving on…apart from the obvious,  did any of our punters notice there was a hat trick of déjà vu moments harking back to recent glory games? Yup, there was no less than a holy trinity of déjà vuness. How brilliant.

1. 1st quarter: Varcoe, Chapman, Snapman, Goaaallllll! Need we say more?

2. 2nd quarter:  Ablett, City end, Bends it back, Goalllllll! ’07 prelim anyone?

3. 4th quarter: Member’s flank, Harry Taylor, Match-saving Mark! Leo Barry would be proud (again).

Shame there was no Toe Poke (or mark over Warren Tredrea), really. Happy Monday.

Here at The Terrace, we’re not actually convinced Mick Turner’s nickname was ‘Micky T’, but that’s beside the point. Then again, we’re not exactly sure what the point is. Anyway…our somewhat flaky records suggest Micky T. played the grand total of 245 games for the Cats in the 70′s and 80′s. Wearing number 9, he dobbed an impressive 285 career goals, was captain of the club for two years and started on the members’ wing in our ‘Teeaaaaammmm of the Ceenturrry’ (insert Dennis Walter voice over – with echo special effects for good measure). Micky T. now has a son called ‘Che’. We wonder if he has a strong interest in South American Revolutionary history? Hmmmmm. Happy Wednesday Amigos!

Monday’s victory reminded me of how much we hate Hawthorn, and how very much we all enjoy beating them. Then again we seem to hate a lot of clubs and enjoy beating ‘em all, but Hawthorn really are a bunch of first-class knobs with the moral integrity of a festering slumrat, so they’re extra special. For the record, with the way we played on Monday, I’m throwing the word ‘composure’ around the watercooler a lot this week. It’s a nice word to associate with your football club. So very nice indeedy.

Anyway, we thought you’d enjoy Big John’s football card. There’s not much more than can be said about Sammy (300 games, blah blah blah…), so we’ll let the Scanlan’s card do the talking.

“Like the proverbial frog in the kettle, the temperature is rising and in our blissful ignorance we do not realise we are being cooked alive.” Gary Ablett Senior, Herald Sun, March 26

Ummmmm, did you read Gary’s diatribe in the Hun last week? Did they publish it as a joke? Whichever way you look at it, it’s fair to say the great man has adopted our quest for ‘The Holy Trinity’ with Christian gusto. Kudos, Gaz. Welcome to the team…

Gary and the waterfall. Picture: Mike Keating Source: Herald Sun

We could spend our Tuesday talking about Collingwood, and the the drivel their players have been drooling for the past day or so, and the fact that Dane Swan is a first-class bogan, that a high percentage of their team share less-than-below-average excuses for christian names (think dane, dayne, tarkyn, sharrod, jarryd, jarrad, steele) and that they have one player with the surname ‘dick’. But, here at The Terrace we are more mature than that.

For now, sit back and enjoy a first-class Gary Ablett Snr audio-visual extravagazza. Top ten marks, top ten marks alternate version, top ten goals, top ten goals alternate version – and first but not last, Gary Ablett’s big hits to the tune of ‘Eye of the Tiger’. The Lester Ellis footage is priceless! If you can spare the time in your high-flying executive day, it really is worth it. Enjoy…

Firstly, we’d like to express a special thankyou to the Moondog for reading our last post – and cutting his hair. We’d like less permness and curls and more hardness with goals come September, Cameron. Thank you.

Secondly, here at The Terrace we’ve been desperate to find a reason to put Andrew “Willsy” Wills up in bright lights. And watching Freo reminded us the wispy, balding nut who went west (in more ways than one).

What can you say about Willsy? He played 148 games for Geelong, Freo and the Bulldogs, and averaged 12 possessions and .9 goals a game. As Wikipedia puts it, “Wills was a character of the game, noticeable due to his clean-shaven head.”

Well, as Sandy Roberts once said, what more can you say?

Speaking of Freo, each quarter from Sat’day in four words or less ( it generally ends up being four, but this week we’ll stick to three):

q1. welcome back Otto!!!

q2. and Kelly too!!!

q3. Tomahawk is emerging.

q4. great work Wojo…

Bring on September,

The Terrace

Peter Doyle didn’t play many games (35), nor kick many goals (15). And whilst he may not have won many premierships (1 reserve premiership – off the bench – in 1975), he sure as hell boasted another weird ‘scanlens’ portrait. Does anyone get the feeling ‘doyley’ was a dead ringer for Macbeth? Thought so. Here at The Terrace we wouldn’t mind betting he was mates with our good friend Ricky T. Browne.

Until Friday,

The Terrace

Today we continue our time-honoured tradition of saluting players with surnames that double as nouns. Moving forward, for clarity and humour’s sake, we’ll refer to them as ‘surnouns’. And this week’s player really is a beauty: Ray ‘Swap’ Card. It goes without saying that ‘Swap’ shares his surnoun with that of a trading card, which is, as the portraits below suggest, highly fitting!

To be fair, there was more to ‘swappy’ than a great surnoun. Firstly, he wore a mean mo’. Secondly (and one might argue most importantly), Ray was a rugged, skillful and negating defender, so much so that he won the ’83 ‘Carji’ greeves medal. He wore number 20, played 110 games between ‘77 and ‘87 and kicked just four goals.

Swappy, we salute you, your surnoun, your  mo’ – and your sense of humour!

Until Friday,

The Terrace