Back in town

The past few seasons my personal excitement, my keenitude, for footy, for tipping, had waned to such a degree I almost changed my name to Wayne.  I'm glad I didn't, it's a shit name. It tells a tale though that my Demonland nom-de-guerre is General Malaise. 

I'd gone cold. But today I'm red-hot, ready to reconnect my rabid footy-ball fervour. My typing digit assaults the keyboard with renewed vigour. PunchDrunk has been resuscitated for its 30th straight year. And when I say straight, I mean continuous. I'm talking non-stop discotheque dancin' party.

Welcome back all who give a good god-damn, who care enough to belly-up to bar again. Rest assured though, the bar is still set way low to accomodate.

The Hangover

It's been a long lonely off-season and we each approach the new season with varying degrees of expectation, trepidation, hope and dread. While each of us prepares in our own fashion I ask that you spare a thought for current Champ's unfortunate situation as we cast our minds back to last year.

It all began with Brenton as Dusty's date at the Brownlow.

It only got only got worse from there...

Little Richard v Ron Barassi
These Ron Barassi Specials were my first ever footy boots. I must have been 7 or 8 years old and they were about 15th-hand and on loan from school.
Everyone got a pair for the year, or as long as it took for your carbunkles to outgrow the previous kids' bunyons.
Leather stops nailed straight into your sole, perma-wet and wearing generations of deeply encrusted mud from school grounds all over Melbourne. They smelt of long-dead pig and the pain was intense.

More pain here

Send home the clowns.

Off-season is called that because it's... well, a bit off isn't it? Controversy, carnivals, camps (or not).
My Mum always said; "Never trust a carnie, they're all a bit weird". And AFLX - What a Zooper Joke (see image to left to gauge how low the bar was set). Pop-Footy for those with the concentration of a goldfish. Oh hang on... The Dees won their first bit of (plastic) silver-ware since 1989. I love it!
Then there's an AFLW comp that was one of the AFL's shining lights from last year basically torn down by them this year. What I saw was good tough honest footy.
Or the new Match Review Panel that's now a panel of one person...
The Jack Watts fire-sale (maybe good) then he goes and kicks 6, for the first time ever, at his new club (probably bad).
The best off-season news though: New clash strips - no white. Footy jumpers that look like footy jumpers. Mind you, I haven't seen the Hawks one yet, but the Dees are channeling Robbie Flower, Gerard Healy, Gary Baker and Jacko.
Now the circus is over, we can all stop dreaming about it and start losing again for real, and no-one's more excited about that than me.

Back in town

...and back in a BIG Way this year.

The past few seasons my personal excitement, my keenitude, for footy, for tipping, had waned to such a degree I almost changed my name to Wayne.  I'm glad I didn't, it's a shit name. It tells a tale though that on Demonland my nom-de-guerre is General Malaise. 

I'd gone cold, but today I'm red-hot baby, and ready to reconnect with the healthily rabid footy-ball fervour of old. My typing digit assails my keyboard with renewed vigour, PunchDrunk is resuscitated for its 30th straight year. And when I say straight, I mean continuous. I'm talking non-stop discotheque dancin' party.

Welcome back all who give a good god-damn, who care enough to belly-up to bar again. Rest assured though, the bar is still set way low to accomodate.

2017 WRAP: Cath takes the Granny, Brenton fondles the Tigers Cup, Drunk Prize-night and more (but not much)

 Just over a week ago I ventured with a select handful of fellow Drunks into Tigerland and watched the carnage unfold. In the bar, on the field, on the streets, in the gutters. Underdogs prevailed, tenacity was saluted and I'm sure lessons were learnt. I've forgotten what they were.

In the midst of the uproar I watched Brenton watch his team do what no-one ever really thought they would, or could.
At the same time somewhere in another part of town, Cath 'Bob Brookmeyer' Delabosca Stewart Onassis won the PD Grand Final.
I just kept drinking buckets of 'free' Furphy thinking it was having no effect. Til I got home.

Congrats Cath, Congrats Tigers all: Brenna, Dirk, Dickwad, Coxy, Juzzy G.
Commiserations to Ian, our token Crow, who seems to have had his cards marked "Close but no cigar" this year. Second in the Drunk, his team second on the Big Day.
I dream of being second. In pretty much anything really.

For the annals here's what unfolded:

And here's how we got here:

PunchDrunk Prize Night

Folks may have been wandering through the back-streets of Fitzroy on the Thursday evening preceding the Game and wondered at the Red Carpet rolling up to the door of the Union Club Hotel. Well, I can assure you it had nothing to do with the 2017 PunkDrunk Prize Night. 

A die-hard but devilishly attractive band of Drunks turned up to cheer on our prize-winners: Brenton, Phil and Ian, partake in heartfelt camaraderie and talk a fair bit of uninformed footy nonsense. No life-lessons were learnt but no lives were lost so I call that a nil-all draw. Happy with that.

Here's the proof (thanks as always to Bernie):

 Brenna wins The Cup and dares to Dream Big

 Phil popped down from Sin City to say Hi and collect a brown envelope of cash

 Drunks up and about in the Tiger Room. Roar.

Brave Drunks inspecting the parcel of Demons exotica Brenton kindly donated to my pool room. Except the Demons AFL Priceline cologne, I'm wearing that. 

And the Grand Old Flag alarm clock/money bank which the Demon Child has nicked.

This year's lucky Barrel Girl. So called because Bernie pulls her out of a barrel.

Although this practice was fine in the 70's some find it a questionable tradition today. Fear not, the rules have recently been dragged into the early 20th century and Brenton no longer gets to keep her.

New PunchDrunk Cup

Anyway it turns out that Brenton went to some function at Benny Gale's house and took along the PunchDrunk Cup to show it off. When he got home he realised he'd picked up and left with the wrong cup (below), so it looks like we'll have to have it re-engraved with all our historical details if anyone can remember them (I'm pretty sure I won in '95, '98, '99, '01, '04 and '06?).

I asked Brenna how the new cup compares to the old one. He said "Nicer, Shinier, Bigger". It does look nice.

Drunk diaspora

Taffa missed Trobby so he used a little radar love to track him down in Berlin and tell him who'd won the flag, who won PD, who won The Bachelor, who won the last elections and to watch out 'cos a madman has taken over the world. Trobby knows all this already because he is on FaceBook. 

Anyway they had a big cuddle, a couple of bottles of wine, posed for a couple of selfies and opened the Berlin branch of PunchDrunk.

This is a still from their forthcoming movie 'The Erudite Author and the Loveable Rogue drink wine in Berlin."

I reckon that's it for the year. Thanks for coming see you next year.