Critiquing the Crows Spin Machine

I posted back in April about  Crows 'star' Nathan Bock being arrested for striking his beloved.

One thing that intrigued me at the time was that shortly after I posted an Anonymous comment appeared suggesting I had overreacted. The comment said he was "only guilty of handbag violence". I misunderstood the comment at the time thinking it was making the suggestion that a footballer's partner was only just an accessory (like an handbag) and so it didn't matter if you bashed it.

I thought this interpretation pretty offensive and so deleted it! I did wonder where it had come from, and over the next few days was rather drawn to the conclusion that it was probably someone at Football Park who had been designated the task of trying to get erstwhile bloggers to moderate their righteous (or  possibly self-righteous ) anger. This seemed a little paranoid even for me. Though I had been under attack from two other correspondents around that time.

I didn't think much more about it until a couple of weeks later a similar sort of Anonymous comment appeared and it said

Stephen, he damaged her handbag. Spousal violence is indeed deplorable but aren't you over reacting a tad? Check your sources it was nothing more than purse bashing!

This actually gave much more credence to my original paranoid idea. And so the comment was left on there with a further comment by me that I didn't buy this argument....though now it was clear to me that Bock had indeed destroyed her purse!!

Now, for the record , today in court he pleaded guilty to assault

The report says

Prosecutors said Bock slapped his girlfriend, Carlie Matthews, twice on the left side of her face and threw beer in her face during an altercation at the General Havelock Hotel. 

He later damaged Ms Matthews' handbag, mobile phone and bracelet, the court heard, but was too drunk to be interviewed by police at the time. 

                           full report here

This was not merely the destruction of someone's handbag!!

Now while the incident was reprehensible, if my theory about the Adelaide Football Club trying to spin local blogs is even partially true...this would still indicate that they consider this as something needing damage control rather than fundamental change of culture.

Is enough, enough?

Crows player Nathan Bock has declared that he is repentant and ready to play.
He was caught striking his beloved in anger, whilst drunk. Crows management decided he should be (at least) temporarily suspended. And here we are a week or so later, and he declares he is ready to go.
Is it long enough?
We shall see what they decide. Personally I think spousal violence is a bit more serious!

Team playing

I pontificated in the past about team spirit when Wayne Carey was picked up by The Adelaide Crows after having been dumped by the Kangaroos for, amongst other things, bonking his captain's and alleged best-friend's wife.
Why, I wondered, would any team want to recruit someone who obviously threatened the cohesiveness of the team. The answer (though not simple) is of course talent. Carey, it seems to me, was not such a great pick-up; was never happy in Adelaide; and is now a rather pathetic picture. The game of football was diminished (I think) when it said that we can forgive anything if we can get someone who will kick goals.
So here we go again, Collingwood have had a little spat this week. And bad though it is that who ever was driving was also drunk, the issue that has caused dismissals is not the event itself but the lying about it. So Alan Didak (who appears to have been a passenger) is being disposed of for lying, to management and others.
This seems to me not totally unreasonable, since you should expect your team to have a certain loyalty and honesty.
Is there also a certain opportunism in getting rid of a rotten apple? Possibly
Eddie McGuire, the mega star and Collingwood President, was being grilled by principal idiot Sam Newman last night (I wonder if it really was hard hitting or if it was just meant to look so). It looked sort of convincing, but did he actually breach confidence by talking hypothetically about generic "Player's background", whilst engaged in a conversation abotu one in particular. (I mean he alluded to things that may have happened to some players when they were children which may explain why they were difficult...was he talking about Didak? I don't know! But he could have been, and it sort of seemed like that, but I don't know.
Eddie is alleged to have told the boys in the dressing room when berating them "I have sacrificed everything for this club, I have given up the chance of three Gold Logies!!" (Strewth!!)

Any way, moving on, it was fascinating to see that no sooner had Didak the loose cannon been released that there were murmurings about whether or not the Power would pick him up.
The ability to kick goals conquers all reservations.
So it was good to see Captain Tredrea and others (here), let's hope the Crows (for the team's sake) don't make the Carey mistake over again