The first ‘Follow Swallow’ for 2013. It’s been a long time between drinks and I hope all my loyal readers have been keeping well.
Let’s get into it then shall we?
Well, there are a lot of new faces in the team and a lot of new haircuts getting around. Aaron Black and Aaron ‘Fishy’ Mullett have been working the ‘modern bowl-cut’; short around the sides and full of body on top…it’s kind of like an average Indie quiff. As a result of their new wave do’s, it’s prompted some others to change things up. Daniel Wells rocked up to the airport today looking like Justin Bieber, however he was not happy about it. He claims his wife Ria was at the salon and he went in to get her, but the hairdresser forced him into the chair and gave him a teenie-bopper fringe comb over. Todd Goldstein has gone nice and short which is good for a bloke that normally doesn’t even bother. His daughter Olivia is understood to have voiced her dislike of it, while Lachie Hansen had an overgrown rat tail there for a while – but Lachie can get away with it. Then you have the old school blokes like Leigh ‘Patch’ Adams, Ben ‘Cunners’ Cunnington and Lindsay ‘Boof’ Thomas who just whipped out the shaver and went with the Number 2 crew cut all over. Shaun ‘Ats’ Atley gets his done every two weeks. If you ask me, my haircut looks the best out of them all. It never appears like I’m trying too hard and you can’t really tell when I’ve had it done and that’s the key I reckon; to get a seamless transition. I know every time Ats gets two haircuts, it’s time to get mine done. I work on a 2:1 ratio.
Here’s a picture of Boof before the clippers came out.
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I mentioned Cunners earlier and he had a close shave of another kind recently. He took his brand new $350,000 boat out fishing and because it was his first time putting it in the water, he’d forgotten to replace some bungs or plugs in the hull. When Sam ‘Gibbo’ Gibson and Brad ‘Baz’ McKenzie went down into the cabin, they noticed a lot of water seeping in. Cunners had to take evasive action and hang over the edge to plug the holes and stop himself from having to go down with the ship. Promising a nice seafood feast for his recently relocated family (from South Australia), Baz was apparently refusing to kiss the smaller, illegal fish and throw them back into the water in case he failed to catch any others.
Cunners isn’t the only one who almost found himself in deep water of late. Our deep soft tissue massage manager and director of oily skin pressing manipulation Luke ‘Flushrubs’ ‘Flushie’ Thomas (nee Warnett) was in the change rooms at Blundstone Arena speaking with another staff member about Brad Scott’s birthday (which is today) – Flushie thought they were alone at the time and said, ‘I want to offer Brad a flushrub for his birthday, free of charge’ (Flushrubs are a special kind of lactic acid removing massage, usually charged out at about $89.95 per hour). However little did Flushie know, Brad was in the meeting room next door. Under the impression Brad had heard him, Flushie went right ahead and created a special birthday card for Brad, complete with a special voucher – you can view it below.
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The funny thing is, Brad didn’t hear Flushie and doesn’t have a clue what the card is all about. Well, maybe he does now.
Flushie’s partner in crime back at the club, our website guru Robin ‘Dog’ Burton, has also come in for some attention here. He’s been debating the value and worth of compasses. The ‘dog’ doesn’t think they’re useful anymore and in his mind, they never have been – this is the same bloke that only just discovered that compasses actually move. He thought north was whichever way you were facing. So when it was put to him, ‘If you were Christopher Columbus, setting sail on the high seas to discover new worlds, how would you know which way to sail and where you are going?’ Rob replied, ‘Maps’. Yep, that’s right, ‘maps’. In another situation Robin was looking at some construction sites and asked the question, ‘When will the world ever be complete?’ When asked to be more specific, he said ‘There’s always something being built and it’s annoying.’ He added, ‘That’s why the end of the world would be handy because everyone would just stop building things.’ It’s lucky he’s the best in the business at what he does!
That was pretty concerning but nothing compared to something Ryan Bastinac said. Gibbo asked him, ‘If you were in New York, with just $2 in your pocket, how would you survive?’ Basty answered, ‘I’d call mum.’ I suppose it’s no surprise, he still drops his washing in to her every week. Once a mummy’s boy, always a mummy’s boy.
On that…Hi mum, hope you’re enjoying your UK trip.
Baz McKenzie should probably have a good chat to Robin about the whole map and compass thing. I was speaking to him the other day about ‘Street Smarts’ and ‘Book Smarts’. For those of you who don’t know what the difference is; ‘Street Smarts’ are having shrewd awareness of how to survive in an urban environment, whereas ‘Book Smarts’ is being academically adept and successful scholastically. Baz thought differently and said he was ‘Street Smart’ because he, ‘Knew how to use a map and a GPS to get around’. He had no idea.
Our fitness and nutrition coach Jona Segal had no idea also, that he was being filmed. He is one of the fittest at the club and likes to do his own conditioning nice and early in the morning. There’s a rumour doing the rounds that he was busted working out to the Les Miserables soundtrack again and someone captured it all on video. Always one step ahead, Jona took measures to make sure the video never sees the light of day. It’s understood he has effectively sold his soul to the devil, agreeing to supply the owner of the footage with ‘dirt’ on other staff and players and in exchange, the video will be kept secret. But there’s a condition which may work against him. If he runs out of saucy gossip, photos and videos, all will be revealed.
One of our assistant coaches has also tried to keep something under wraps, but today all the boys discovered what it was. Shane Watson, formerly with the Magpies, was ‘knocked out’ or so he told us, in a game against St Kilda in about 1997. But they replayed the game on Fox Footy this afternoon and it was the slightest knock you’d ever see and yet he was carried off on a stretcher, only to come back on ten minutes later with no signs of any injury. This is the same bloke who always tells the backs to be, ‘courageous, aggressive and competitive’.
Despite the embarrassment, it hasn’t affected his close friendship with Brett ‘Fruity’ Allison because they’re inseparable.
Eric ‘the Beast’ Wallace and Majak Daw are also pretty tight. The pair played golf recently and the Beast scored 127. When asked how he went, he said, ‘My drives were amazing, my putting was phenomenal…but I just have to work on my short game.’ Majak thought he won because he scored 130.
Hopefully we can score that much tomorrow against the Power…providing they score less of course! It’s our last game at Blundstone Arena for about 15 months because of the redevelopment which will begin soon. We’ve only won once down here in Hobart, but that should all change come 5pm.
The entire city has been so welcoming; they even lowered the height of the crossing buttons on the traffic light poles so Brent Harvey can reach them.
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Thanks for reading – see you all at one of our games!
