Crying At Sport

(This was written after the tribute to murdered Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh following the Collingwood v Hawthorn game)

I don’t cry at normal things. It’s always something I’ve been a little concerned about. I didn’t cry during break ups or unrequited love or sad movies as much as would be expected. I didn’t cry when my cat died. I only ever cried in pain or anger. I didn’t cry like other girls and didn’t seem to feel things as deeply. My emotional responses didn’t appear very “feminine”. In recent revelations, this has started to make sense to me. And now I’m starting to understand who I am and why the death of Phil Walsh, and particularly why the moment of the teams huddled together being addressed jointly by the two coaches, affects me as a tragedy. Why it leaves me crying in front of the tv.

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Royal Park Reds

das_kapitalDAS KAPITAL

Marx, Karl  (Penguin Classics; Reprint edition, 1992, ISBN 978-0140445688)

In all probability, Marxist sport associations have existed for as long as universities have funded student clubs. After nine meetings over boiled lentils, a few may even have contrived to play their first games. However one communist cricket club in Melbourne, called ‘The Royal Park Reds’, has fielded teams for more than thirty years.

Amateur cricket clubs in Australia play on two types of pitches: turf and matting. The former refers to the type of pitch professionals use: prepared strips of grass cared for by groundskeepers (often at copious expense); the latter to a concrete pitch dressed on the day with Astroturf mats brought by the teams. Continue reading

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