ANZAC Day 09

[SweetLeftFoot]

ANZAC day should be earned by clubs. There should be two games. One game should be between the top two Vic sides of the previous season to play at the MCG. The other game should be the top two interstate teams to be played at the ground of the team that finished highest on the ladder the year before.
Our service men earned their right to this day. In that spirit, so too should clubs earn that right. Anything less just smacks of imperialism and dishonours our Diggers.

Imagine what an insult it would be if both teams were last and second last the year before.

That's actually a really, really good idea.

 

[SweetLeftFoot]

Well for 80 odd years the day was there for two football sides to take and make into something special. Nobody did. Collingwood and ourselves did the hard work and made it into the day it is now. If you want a game like ANZAC Day do it yourselves.

OK. You keep ANZAC Day as long as Essendon and Collingwood agree to give North all their Friday night fixtures.

Given how you support a club doing all the hard work to make a fixture popular having the right to keep that fixture, I'm sure you can't disagree?

 

[DarwinRoo]

Well for 80 odd years the day was there for two football sides to take and make into something special. Nobody did. Collingwood and ourselves did the hard work and made it into the day it is now. If you want a game like ANZAC Day do it yourselves.

We made the day special football wise. If you don't get the difference you're an ignorant fool.

With a comment like that I don't think you have any right to call anyone ignorant.

 

[Cuzz09]

I love the ANZAC Day game

GOt my tickets for this years.

It will be my 10th ANZAC Day game as a neutral - went in 1995 and it was awesome!

Went to... 95, 97, 98, 99, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008 and now 2009

 

[skzm]

Not really no. Why should it take a football match for kids to understand what the day is about? Shouldnt that be taught in schools.

There's no school on Anzac day

 

[Johnson#26]

ANZAC day should be earned by clubs. There should be two games. One game should be between the top two Vic sides of the previous season to play at the MCG. The other game should be the top two interstate teams to be played at the ground of the team that finished highest on the ladder the year before.

Our service men earned their right to this day. In that spirit, so too should clubs earn that right. Anything less just smacks of imperialism and dishonours our Diggers.

Imagine what an insult it would be if both teams were last and second last the year before.

Like it's been said all along, create your own tradition. Sheedy/Allen did it in 1995, so other clubs shouldn't try and freeload off it.

You've gotta have some decent, genuine rivalries, though, to pull it off, not a Coll/Bris, Syd/WCE fleeting rivalry.

 

[Johnson#26]

By all means have your game Pies and Bombers - and be the only game on in Melb for all I care ...however Freo have every right to also commerate the day (which is a little more important than any football club or league).

Which you did, though, from about 97-00, didn't you? I recall games against St Kilda and Brisbane at Subiaco, but not too much like it since.

It is about the ANZACs and I think a properly handled commerative game in each of Melb, Adelaide and Perth would be a better way to handle it.

But like the Last Post, if it's overdone, then some meaning will inevitably be lost. That's part of what makes it special. One game, one meaning.

If you had Christmas every month it would be drained.

 

[Johnson#26]

OK. You keep ANZAC Day as long as Essendon and Collingwood agree to give North all their Friday night fixtures.

Given how you support a club doing all the hard work to make a fixture popular having the right to keep that fixture, I'm sure you can't disagree?

Clubs don't make the fixture, SLF. Anyone can request a Friday night match/s. It's the AFL you should be talking to, not Collingwood and Essendon.

 

[Lance Uppercut]

hmmm this thread is late this year

 

[Primetime Pricey]

spewing that this is the 1st year i cant come over for the game in a fair while.
Always a great day, start off in the city with the parade then walk over to the Joiners Arms and get into convo's with people u dont know and share a beer.
walk over to the MCG and listen to the minutes silence. Awesome experience.

in regards to the comments about who owns Anzac Day, no one owns it but in saying that no other clubs wanted to play on Anzac Day when this all started and Allen and Sheeds got together and put the proposal to the AFL. Its been a raging success and now clubs want it so they can cash in. Collingwood and Essendon should have the rights to this match until they cant draw a big enough crowd to warrant it.

There are 4 games on this Anzac Day, lets see how those crowds go and we can come back to this.

 

[Bomberlicious]

in regards to the comments about who owns Anzac Day, no one owns it but in saying that no other clubs wanted to play on Anzac Day when this all started and Allen and Sheeds got together and put the proposal to the AFL. Its been a raging success and now clubs want it so they can cash in. Collingwood and Essendon should have the rights to this match until they cant draw a big enough crowd to warrant it.

Spot on.

While a Grand Final rematch has some merit (SANFL do this every ANZAC day), I'd rather see this as the first match of the season (not 9th v 11th...). Essendon & Collingwood have made this into as essential fixture on the footy landscape, to the point where as the OP infers, neutrals go along to experience a unique football event.

I doubt very much if ANZAC day matches only drew crowds of 40000 - 50000, supporters of other teams wouldn't be falling over themselves to grab a slice of the pie...

 

[bomber-crow]

sadly in a couple of years. the afl will turn this game into like the grand final, where nearly all of the tickets will go to the corperate world. i can see it happening. i would be typical of the afl to do that

Mate that has already happened, i got my tickets at 9:05 the morning they came out, 5 minutes after it opened and i got top level near the back.

 

[ERead]

Like it's been said all along, create your own tradition. Sheedy/Allen did it in 1995, so other clubs shouldn't try and freeload off it.

You've gotta have some decent, genuine rivalries, though, to pull it off, not a Coll/Bris, Syd/WCE fleeting rivalry.

Heh. What will it take for the Coll/Bris rivalry to become genuine?

The AFL will do with ANZAC day whatever makes financial sense. If Coll/Ess thought up the idea, great. If they keep making heaps of dough for the AFL, then they will remain the ANZAC teams.

Once GCFC and Western Sydney get up, every AFL state (makes me emotional to call QLD an AFL state - it ain't yet) will have a derby/rivalry that will be genuine and can do what they want with. I am sure the AFL will support the derbies being played on special occasions - I doubt they'll want all of the fans across the country at derby games all at once though. It does seem to work in the US though where almost all the NFL games are played at the same time on Sundays.

 

[Hearts to hearts]

Back to the point of the thread...

I've got a ticket and will go, as I have done every year for the past decade. I go to a bunch of Collingwood games each year with my partner, kids and mother in law and this is always one of them, for a few reasons.

a) it's on in the daytime so it's good for the kids and has fewer drunks
b)Essendon and Collingwood always provide a huge, passionate crowd and this day brings even more than usual
c) whatever neutrals are there either choose a side and cheer and boo along, or they otherwise get into the spirit, because it has more atmosphere than any GF I've been to.

To be honest the ANZAC/memorial pre-match is the hardest aspect of the day to like, because it so often has got way over the top. I think it would be ideal to have the diggers from the march go round in cars and take in the ovation as representatives of all their brothers and sisters in arms, have the last post and the minute's silence, play the anthem and keep it at that.

But as a footy match, it is an outstanding event and the two clubs and their supporters should be congratulated for it - although as always there are comments made in threads this time of year that make that a hard thing to say.

 

[Lance Uppercut]

Mate that has already happened, i got my tickets at 9:05 the morning they came out, 5 minutes after it opened and i got top level near the back.

haha you got screwed, are you a member? I got mine the second day they were open to members. Ground Level. Section M. Row AA. Seats 4 - 6. Behind the goals.

Come and say hi if you can scam your way past security!

 

[scruffydog]

ANZAC day should be earned by clubs. There should be two games. One game should be between the top two Vic sides of the previous season to play at the MCG. The other game should be the top two interstate teams to be played at the ground of the team that finished highest on the ladder the year before.

Yes because I can only imagine the excitement that a Melbourne V North Melbourne game would bring if they happened to be the top Victorian teams...

The AFL wants to fill the stadium with people, not crickets.

Anyway, I'm going. No idea where as I didn't buy the tickets.

 

[damochandler]

Mate that has already happened, i got my tickets at 9:05 the morning they came out, 5 minutes after it opened and i got top level near the back.

it will get worst than for the collingwood and essendon suporters.

 

[DirrtyBee]

im gonna be sitting in the essendon cheersquad again... dear god...

 

[Primetime Pricey]

im gonna be sitting in the essendon cheersquad again... dear god...

could be worse, could be in the Adelaide or Port Adelaide one

i wait for the Collingwood and Joffa comment..... lol

 

[The_Trav]

The AFL loves the ANZAC Day fixture. Essendon v Collingwood is almost a guarenteed sellout every year, along with the many viewers that tune in around Australia generating a lot of money for the AFL, money that goes to clubs like North Melbourne and Western Bulldogs who are unable to stand on their own 2 feet due to poor membership numbers and attendances. Why would the AFL want to risk selling out the MCG by playing games in other states that may attract an extra 10 000 than normal? Football is a game but AFL is a business. It's all about revenue. I'm not saying that it's right or wrong that only Essendon and Collingwood play in this fixture but the facts are that the AFL is getting the money they want out of it.

 

[DirrtyBee]

could be worse, could be in the Adelaide or Port Adelaide one

i wait for the Collingwood and Joffa comment..... lol

Thing is, those big black and red things on the sticks that they shake around... they smell like they've been wiped on the floor of a men's toilet. They smell RANK!

 

[ManWithNoName]

With a comment like that I don't think you have any right to call anyone ignorant.

Before we started the ANZAC Day match, FOOTBALL WISE, it was just another day. It's now the biggest day of they year outside the Grand Final. What's hard to understand about that?

 

[Lance Uppercut]

Thing is, those big black and red things on the sticks that they shake around... they smell like they've been wiped on the floor of a men's toilet. They smell RANK!

floggers they're called, somewhat aptly

 

[Hearts to hearts]

Thing is, those big black and red things on the sticks that they shake around...

Do Essendon have more adults carrying flags than any other club? Certainly the case among the crowds I've been in. (Although I haven't been to Kardinia Park, and the stories suggest they could challenge to be the all round winners.)

 

[Primetime Pricey]

Thing is, those big black and red things on the sticks that they shake around... they smell like they've been wiped on the floor of a men's toilet. They smell RANK!

so ur saying they are kept at their homes?