WSYD The Sydney Celtics

[Capone]

Leinster Sell Record Number of Season Tickets

http://something.ie/sports/2008/05/20/leinster-sell-record-number-of-season-tickets/

Munster doing exceedingly well too

http://www.munsterrugbysupporters.com/News_Detail.aspx?rowid=18770

Can't be assed looking up Ulster but I am sure they are doing well also



Sorry, what were you saying again? Game in jeopardy in Ireland... Didn't Leinster win the Celtic League and Munster win the Heineken Cup?

 

[Horsebox]

We have 2 proper professional rugby teams in the whole country and both of them are provincial sides. They basically represent our national team cut down the middle. Look more closely and you will see that club rugby is dying on its feet. Poor crowds and poor adult playing numbers mean that a lot of them are just running to stand still.

 

[Beckers]

We have 2 proper professional rugby teams in the whole country and both of them are provincial sides. They basically represent our national team cut down the middle. Look more closely and you will see that club rugby is dying on its feet. Poor crowds and poor adult playing numbers mean that a lot of them are just running to stand still.

Union in Australia is dying a slow death aswell. Has to be the most boring game ever invented. Its a step down from NRL!

 

[Fire]

We have 2 proper professional rugby teams in the whole country and both of them are provincial sides. They basically represent our national team cut down the middle. Look more closely and you will see that club rugby is dying on its feet. Poor crowds and poor adult playing numbers mean that a lot of them are just running to stand still.

Don't get carried away by some of the unionists here. Union is so stuffed that they are considering merging with League. That would be like Ireland joining GB.

 

[Capone]

Union in Australia is dying a slow death aswell. Has to be the most boring game ever invented. Its a step down from NRL!

Representation in the same amount of states, looking to get into Melbourne as well. Higher average crowds. Proper international competition. We're doing just fine, I'd worry more about your sport.

OT: Forest fan as well, "where were you in '84"?

 

[Capone]

Don't get carried away by some of the unionists here. Union is so stuffed that they are considering merging with League. That would be like Ireland joining GB.

Whereas AFL is so stuffed they have to transplant franchises in the alien areas of West Sydney and the Gold Coast in the panic against so-called new threat 'soccer'. We have had the 'worry' of soccer for ages in the East, now it is starting to hit home in the west and south, more and more juniors will opt to play that over AFL. We haven't been as lucky as to have a monopoly of talent in Vic et al. Now, come join the club.

If RU is in the dumps and struggling for juniors over here, the game won't die. Sure will hurt the sport in this country, but will be able to be resuscitated from an external source due to the international nature of the sport. Whereas is AFL is in the dumps over here, you know the rest.

In close, we are not scrambling to the nearest city as we are not under threat. You are

 

[Fire]

Whereas AFL is so stuffed they have to transplant franchises in the alien areas of West Sydney and the Gold Coast in the panic against so-called new threat 'soccer'. We have had the 'worry' of soccer for ages in the East, now it is starting to hit home in the west and south, more and more juniors will opt to play that over AFL. We haven't been as lucky as to have a monopoly of talent in Vic et al. Now, come join the club.

If RU is in the dumps and struggling for juniors over here, the game won't die. Sure will hurt the sport in this country, but will be able to be resuscitated from an external source due to the international nature of the sport. Whereas is AFL is in the dumps over here, you know the rest.

In close, we are not scrambling to the nearest city as we are not under threat. You are

Why are you here?

And the AFL is not expanding in response to soccer, just like in 1982, 1987, 1991, 1995 and 1996. It is doing so in order to increase its revenue and the strength of the code, which as a non profit organisation, is it's MO. In other words, this is a proactive move, ot a reactive one. The only reative element to it is that the AFL is doing it 3 years earleir than it originally planned as a reaction to the NRL setting up on the GC, so as to not give them as big a lead, which could otherwise end up making the new club's start up more difficult.

AR has never been stronger. I think its laughable that you even suggest that this is in response to soccer. Soccer has had no effect on any level of AR. At all. If you want to argue otherwise, then please come up with something. Soccer has had the most junior participants out of all the codes for a while now, but it hasn't effected the AFL's talent pool one iota, either in terms of quality or quantity. AR Juniors are actually being funneled from the junior soccer system. Have been for years.

Its one thing to say that the AFL is in the dumps when it has never been stronger, at any level, and another to come up with a reason why.

So go ahead. How is the AFL in decline?

I know some things about RU though. And I think its pretty funny that you are spinning the safkins withdrawing from the s14 as a positive step forward for RU in this country.

RU is very much in danger of not having a competition in this country. If you think that anything that Australia and NZ can pool together will be anywhere near as financially beneficial for RU as the current s14 is, then you are a walking joke.

You claim Australia has 4.5 states. Going by that criteria for being awarded a state, RU has none. 0. nada. Not even the ACT.

To clarify, i don't care about RU at all. If it dies or becomes number 1 on the planet, it will not interest me at all. Just don't come on here acting like Goebbels.

 

[Saint77]

The Sydney Celtics would be a great addition to the AFL. The team will have a huge following and the membership numbers for the club will be the highest in the AFL. The majority of the members will be from Melbourne, as Melbourne has the highest concentration of Irish descendant in the world.

The Sydney Celtics will follow a long line of successful Irish diaspora sporting clubs, such as the:

London Irish Rugby Club (Rugby Union)
Notre Dame Fighting Irish college football (Grid Iron)
Glasgow Celtic (Soccer)
Boston Celtics (Basketball)
Bostone Red Sox ( Baseball)

The only country in the world that would have a problem with an Irish diaspora sporting team would be Australia. Australia is one of the most racist countries in the world thanks to the high population of Anglo-Saxons who want Australia to remain a part of the monachy. We recently saw the violent nature of Australia's Anglo-Saxons during the Cronulla riots. Australians are the only people in the world that still says Irish jokes without even a second thought that it is recist.

If the Sydney Celtics do not go ahead then it will be due to the fact that Australia is racist.

 

[Fire]

The only country in the world that would have a problem with an Irish diaspora sporting team would be Australia. Australia is one of the most racist countries in the world thanks to the high population of Anglo-Saxons who want Australia to remain a part of the monachy. We recently saw the violent nature of Australia's Anglo-Saxons during the Cronulla riots. Australians are the only people in the world that still says Irish jokes without even a second thought that it is recist.

If the Sydney Celtics do not go ahead then it will be due to the fact that Australia is racist.

Perhaps the foulest bullshit that has ever graced a computer screen.

I don't even know where to begin with this. It's probably for the best that I don't.

 

[cos789]

Have no problem with Celtics sharing the "Sydney" name with the Swans either, a la New York Giants/Jet, Los Angeles Lakers/Clippers. Just be based out in the western suburbs but fans of all areas of Sydney are welcome.

The divisions don't have to be strictly geographical anymore like in WA ans SA . The WCE was originally pitched at Sandgropers , didn't have to be specific . With the advent of the Dockers being linked to Freo , South of the River or anit- Eagles , the Eagles tried to change their name to Perth , but were defeated by the members .WCE now identifies with North of the river .
In SA it just revloves around one team - Port - you either love them or go for the other team which happens to be Adelaide . The new WS team will grow it's own identity revolving around Homebush .The Swans have their own identity nominally based around the history of the SCG .

..

 

[Ant_]

And don't forget AFL, created by British men.

Bzzt Australians, thanks for playing bye bye now.

 

[Saint77]

And don't forget AFL, created by British men.

AFL created by British men ???

The TRUE origins of Australian Rules Football

It has been recorded in 1857, Tom Wills, H.C.A. Harrison, W.J. Hammersley and J.B. Thompson devised a new sport called Australian Rules Football. In the following year the new sport recorded its first match and it involved Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar School. Although this may be true, let it be known to all that Tom Wills and the founding members did not invent this game, they only promoted and modified a game that had already been played for at least 50 years earlier in another country. What Tom and his founding members did was to organise and to promote a version of an old Gaelic game called Caid. The rules they recorded in 1857 became known as the Australian rules version of Caid, hence the reason for the name of our game, ‘Aussie rules’, instead of having its own unique name such as Soccer, Rugby or Gridiron. Tom Wills had experienced first hand the potential of such sports as Rugby and Soccer in the UK after a recent visit. Having knowledge of the popularity of a form of Caid being played in rural Victoria for at least 10 years prior, he went about regulating it for us Aussies in 1857.

There were a few variations of Caid being played in Wales, England and Scotland earlier that led to the football codes of Rugby and Soccer. But in Victoria there was a different form of Caid being played to that of Soccer and Rugby. This unique form of Caid football became very popular in Victoria during the Gold Rush years of the early 1850’s; this was also the time when Victoria received a huge influx of immigrant Irish from County Kerry, Ireland. The form of Caid that was commonly played in Kerry eventually ended up in Victoria and in due course evolved into Australian rules. This variation of Kerry Caid also helped to form the basis of Gaelic Football in Ireland. To this very day Australia and Ireland are exclusively the only two nations that play this type of footy. Their codes are so similar that the two nations are able to maintain a successful hybrid game of International Rules.

It is a fact that Australian Rules did NOT originate from Gaelic Football but both codes did originate from the Caid played in County Kerry.

During the Irish famine (1845 - 1850) and also during the Gold Rush years of the 1850's, a large percentage of County Kerry's population migrated to Victoria. During these years Kerry Caid was played in the rural areas of Victoria and although it initially involved the Irish it wasn’t long before other nationalities took up the sport. As a result Victoria became the only state in Australia to claim to be the birthplace of Aussie rules. At the same time in the 1850’s, Kerry Caid began to spread across Ireland to evolve into the national sport of Gaelic football. An interesting point here is that even to this very day, Australian Rules has kept more of the original Kerry Caid characteristics than Gaelic Football.

The Caid played in Kerry became popular in the early 1800’s, as evidenced by Father W. Ferris of Glenflesk, who wrote a thesis on the then traditional game. The game usually started on Sunday after Mass at a central point between two parishes or villages and the team that scored the first goal with the ball won the game. The fastest runners were heroes in these early games. Kerry Caid was played on an open field in which boughs of trees in the form of an arch were used as goals at either end. The word Caid essentially refers to the ball used, which was made of animal skins with an inflated natural bladder inside, which resulted in an elongated ball, much like what Aussie Rules uses today.

To begin the match, the ball was thrown in on the parish boundaries in which two tall rucks were used; wrestling or tackling was allowed; the ball would be picked up and kicked to another team mate. The unique characteristic of bouncing the ball on the run and the hand-pass, both unique to Aussie and Irish Football was a common feature of Kerry Caid. These are the main characteristics that have survived throughout the entire history of both Aussie and Irish codes. One big difference between the two codes is that in Aussie rules we have the ‘mark’, which is the true Australian part of our game. The theory is that it originates from the Aboriginal word of ‘Marngrook’, in which a possum skin filled with crushed charcoal and tied up with kangaroo sinews was kicked around. A noted feature of Marngrook being the high marking.

As mentioned Australia has maintained most of the original characteristics of Kerry Caid in that tackling is still allowed and that we still use an elongated ball. Whereas in Ireland, they use a round ball similar to soccer; they play on a soccer shaped field; and that they have also dropped the tackling which was once common in the early All-Ireland competition. After the 1850’s both codes evolved and the sport was introduced to schools and not long after clubs were formed. Victoria began its first official competition in 1877 as the Victorian Football Association (VFA), and the Irish began their National competition in 1884 as the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA).

Kerry Caid has advanced into two modern day football codes that have allowed our two countries to compete against each other in a very exciting and unique game called International Rules. With Gaelic football having originally developed through the culmination of Caid in Kerry, it isn't surprising to find that County Kerry is the most successful county in Ireland having won 33 All-Ireland Finals over the last 118 years.

 

[Fire]

Tomas Wills was a British man.

Australia wasn't to be federated until almost half a century later. There were no Australians because there was no Australia.

Of course, its a technicality that is groping at straws at best, deliberately misleading at worst.

 

[Fire]

Saint 77, what you posted is not in the least bit true.

Be wary of anything that tried to claim that it is the true version of events. Usually, it means that it doesn't have anything else to try and convince you with.

You will notice that there isn't a single source mentioned in that slab of fiction. If you are going to try and contradict the official records, which have been thoroughly sourced and referenced, then you are going to have to come up with more than just claims.

 

[Redb]

Whereas AFL is so stuffed they have to transplant franchises in the alien areas of West Sydney and the Gold Coast in the panic against so-called new threat 'soccer'. We have had the 'worry' of soccer for ages in the East, now it is starting to hit home in the west and south, more and more juniors will opt to play that over AFL. We haven't been as lucky as to have a monopoly of talent in Vic et al. Now, come join the club.

If RU is in the dumps and struggling for juniors over here, the game won't die. Sure will hurt the sport in this country, but will be able to be resuscitated from an external source due to the international nature of the sport. Whereas is AFL is in the dumps over here, you know the rest.

In close, we are not scrambling to the nearest city as we are not under threat. You are

err troll boy.....I actaully prefer rugby union over RL as msot AFL fans do, why dont you find a rugby union forum to spin...

you offer cliches and very little substance..

 

[Hobdog]

Re: New Team: Sydney Celtics ?!?

Western Sydney = Fool's Gold

And no quantity of leprechauns will help that.

Would McDonalds put a restaurant in a town where everybody ate health food and then pour a heap of money into the store in the hope that a few people would decide to try the food?

 

[cos789]

Tomas Wills was a British man.

Fair comment .

We're all descendants from the apes .
If you look closely they still habit rectangular green open spaces in winter time in the Northern climes . They are slowly becoming extinct however and the government has erected large concrete enclosures so they don't run away .
.

 

[Dorval6]

I love the whole concept of the Celtics.

First decent idea the AFL's come up with in years and now they're trying to distance themselves from it

 

[Horsebox]

Australians are the only people in the world that still says Irish jokes without even a second thought that it is recist.

I don't think Irish jokes are racist. Mind you, I haven't heard one in years (Paddy Irishman, Paddy Englishman etc.). Paddy Irishman jokes were actually quite popular amongst us kids growing up IN IRELAND. I always wondered though why the english and scottish guys in the joke were called Paddy as well.

 

[zero]

look at it this way, say there is no link to the GAA other than the name, and just compare the "celtics" name with a couple of others that have been floated for WS.

wolves, pioneers, mountaniers, redbacks, kookaburras.....celtics stacks up against all of them. i think i actually PREFER celtics to any of the others that have so far been put forward.

even if there isnt a single irishman playing for them, i think its still better than wolves.

 

[Black Falcon]

From a dum Aussie, I am wondering if that is Sydney Seltics or Sydney Keltics?

Another dum question. If the origin of the franchise name is from Glasgow Celtic, then why the #*& is everyone going on about the Irish connection? Last time I looked at the atlas, Glasgow was in Scotland! So the question really is, how many folks in western Sydney (or greater Sydney) have Scottish roots.

Based on what I've heard of the Celtics v Rangers games in Glasgow, why the hell would we literally wish that upon our fair game of Aussie Rules?

If any Britannians wish to see that again, then go back home!

Why should any one nationality be highlighted in the AFL by naming a club after them or their emblem?

For all you Celtics fans out there, isn't the club Hawthorn based on Celtic colours and name?

I could actually live with Sydney Shamrocks, but why name a team indicating that its only chance to win a game is by luck and four leaf clovers. God help us. Bury Celtics as a club name. Up the mighty Sydney Cockatoos!

 

[Azzballz Deluxe]

From a dum Aussie, I am wondering if that is Sydney Seltics or Sydney Keltics?

Another dum question. If the origin of the franchise name is from Glasgow Celtic, then why the #*& is everyone going on about the Irish connection? Last time I looked at the atlas, Glasgow was in Scotland! So the question really is, how many folks in western Sydney (or greater Sydney) have Scottish roots.

Based on what I've heard of the Celtics v Rangers games in Glasgow, why the hell would we literally wish that upon our fair game of Aussie Rules?

If any Britannians wish to see that again, then go back home!

Why should any one nationality be highlighted in the AFL by naming a club after them or their emblem?

For all you Celtics fans out there, isn't the club Hawthorn based on Celtic colours and name?

I could actually live with Sydney Shamrocks, but why name a team indicating that its only chance to win a game is by luck and four leaf clovers. God help us. Bury Celtics as a club name. Up the mighty Sydney Cockatoos!

Mascot would be a Celtic warrior.

Would ahve a very broad appeal i reckon

 

[Saint77]

I don't think Irish jokes are racist. Mind you, I haven't heard one in years (Paddy Irishman, Paddy Englishman etc.). Paddy Irishman jokes were actually quite popular amongst us kids growing up IN IRELAND. I always wondered though why the english and scottish guys in the joke were called Paddy as well.

Most Irish jokes are about an Englishman, an Aussie, or Scottish bloke.. etc and an Irishman. And they all end with a laugh about how stupid the Irishman is. And don't forget that for 800 years the Irish have been put down, killed off and been treated as second class citizen by the British.

If you don't think that irish jokes are racist then you need a history lesson.

 

[Fire]

Most Irish jokes are about an Englishman, an Aussie, or Scottish bloke.. etc and an Irishman. And they all end with a laugh about how stupid the Irishman is. And don't forget that for 800 years the Irish have been put down, killed off and been treated as second class citizen by the British.

If you don't think that irish jokes are racist then you need a history lesson.

You need an English lesson to fully grasp the term 'racist'.

Irish is not a race.

If anything, it is bigotry, not racism.

And its not even bigotry.

 

[3kzisfootball]

I was looking whether anyone copied and pasted this article here before but I could not see it.

Apologies if it had.

I have no comment regarding this article. I put it here for interest and for debate.

An Irish joke


Patrick Smith | July 15, 2008

THE AFL is a smoothly run, mightily successful sporting competition. Never mind what sort of code. It is just well run. None better in Australia. So it is very rarely embarrassed because it very rarely makes a dill of itself.

You can take issue with its plan to drug test players during their holidays. It is, of course, a breach of personal liberty. Or you can mock the three-strike drug policy as too player-friendly. Or look bewildered at a tribunal system that throws up the oddest of decisions. The interchange mess dragged on for a week too long. And it would have helped had the umpires heard the siren back in 2006 when St Kilda played Fremantle in Tasmania.
The league might, at times, be over-zealous. But it very rarely does dumb things. Not often guilty of plotting the farcical, dreaming up the laughable. In fact, there is more than a little arrogance as it goes about its business of running the most successful sporting business in the country.

Rugby league? Union? Soccer? Pleeeease. The AFL all but preens itself that it gets the big decisions right. Badge of honour sort of thing.
But yesterday morning the AFL executive team sat down for its post weekend debriefing. Every member knew that over the weekend the AFL had been made to look stupid. The league heavies felt embarrassed. Chief executive Andrew Demetriou said that they had been made to look desperate. A bit like Dad's Army.

The problem was a report in Fairfax papers on the weekend that suggested the AFL was seriously considering a plan to launch "an Irish-dominated team in Sydney's western suburbs, which would perform before an international audience under the Celtic brand name".
By running the story on its front pages the Fairfax editors were saying this was more than one of many proposals, it was more than a left-field idea by a business entrepreneur. No, the reporter and the editors were saying that the idea of the "Sydney Celtics" was a real option for the 18th team to be based out of west Sydney.

By midday yesterday the AFL had contacted the Gaelic Athletic Association to apologise and explain that the idea was not in any way a real option that the league was investigating. As it is, the GAA is concerned that the AFL lures a handful of its best footballers away from Ireland.
The chief of the Gaelic players' association, Donal O'Neill, who had mentioned the idea of an Irish involvement in any AFL expansion during a three-minute conversation with league officials in January 2007, contacted the league. He shared their frustration that his 18-month-old query might have caused the AFL any embarrassment.

AFL heavies knew as soon as they saw the headlines in Sydney and Melbourne on Saturday morning that the ridicule would come quickly and with venom. Collingwood president Eddie McGuire was so flabbergasted that he felt the clubs might need to reconsider their support for expansion if that was the best the AFL could come up with.

Demetriou said the Celtic idea suggested that the AFL had run out of ideas for west Sydney. "The report is not right. The west Sydney team will not be the Sydney Celtics and it was nonsense to suggest it would be. It belittles the amount of good work and sound ideas that we are generating for the Sydney franchise."

To compound the issue, The Age yesterday attempted to justify the story with an editorial that, in part and in retreat, said: "AFL commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick has acknowledged that the idea is under consideration. Even if it means that it was not simply dismissed as soon as it was received, it tells football fans something about how the league might be imagining the future of their game."

Does it? How? It is hardly evident in the establishment of the Gold Coast team, to be structured and funded in the manner of all AFL clubs. It will play in the AFL in 2011, only one year before the second Sydney team.
Player manager Ricky Nixon, who has established a business talent-spotting in Ireland for AFL clubs, is, not surprisingly, keen to talk to Demetriou. He cannot be blamed because he is touting for business. Thanks to the Fairfax media, he has received front-page publicity.

The AFL has been struggling to sell the concept of its 18th team to the public, especially Tasmanians who feel their claim for a spot in the national league is being wilfully ignored. The Celtic mischief has hardly helped.