Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Fremantle football - don't panic

'Twas not a good weekend for either the Fremantle Dockers or the West Coast Eagles. Indeed it's not been good season so far with either of our state's major AFL football teams. Neither can muster what it takes to climb out of the doldrums.

I have a theory about the reason for the Dockers' failings. It's the wussy nearly all-white rig they now seem to wear in most matches. It makes me feel like barracking for the other side whenever I see it. Take a look for yourself.

The tricolour guernsey on the left is the one everyone usually recognises for Fremantle. It became traditionally recognisable. Not so with the other insipid job. Excuse me, I think I need a chunder just from looking at it.

Next weekend Fremantle are playing Geelong. They're the bunch of brutes who won last year's grand final. For Freo the prospects don't look good. But we've got our lucky Fremantle Dockers flag flying at the front of the house so that might do the trick.

Fremantle players should study the design of the Geelong guernsey reproduced below. During next weekend's game if they see any player wearing these colours, then they shouldn't kick the ball to them. They won't kick it back in a hurry.

This might be a problem for some Fremantle blokes because the Geelong colours are the same as East Fremantle in the state league, and quite a few Docker's players have had an association with Old Easts, or the Sharks as modern spin doctors would like them called.

Horizontal stripes use to be all the go in the olden days. The only way you could tell the difference between Geelong and Old Easts was that one team had blue and white stripes and the other had white and blue. But they played on different sides of the continent so it didn't matter.

Nevertheless this gives me the opportunity to include a picture of Old Easts from my personal collection. The club started about 1898. The postcard is pre-1910. Some of the family names such as Doig played for East Fremantle over several generations. The Fremantle Dockers proudly associate part of their heritage to the club.

Check out the unfortunate name of the umpire in the picture - Ivor Crapp.

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

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Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!