2009 Cover
It’s More Than A Game
Our 2009 cover art is a culturally cross-connected work. It unifies many components of the Australian zeitgeist. Look out – there may be merchandise coming.
Painting by Richmond artist Nick Howson.
2009 Footy Almanac Cover
June 4th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Reminds me of going to the footy as a kid. What a great cover!
June 4th, 2009 at 8:30 am
excellent
June 4th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Beautiful / adj. having an appearance or qualities which please the senses
June 4th, 2009 at 9:55 am
yep, and the goal ump’s lab coat doesn’t look a bit out of place.
bring it back!
June 4th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I like it. It reminds me a bit of the late Noel Counihan’s paintings of footballers which you can see (amongst other places) on the covers of Sandercock and Turner’s book “Up Where Cazaly” and Fitzgerald and Spillman’s book “The Greatest Game”
I am not suggesting Nick Howson is copying Counihan, there are probably only a finite number of ways that you can depict footballers, but Howson shares with Counihan the ability to portray footballers in motion and I like that very much
June 4th, 2009 at 11:02 am
There’s just something so exciting about paintings of football and footballers. Maybe they appeal to the naive kid in me,I don’t know, but whenever I see a good one (like the above) I want to go out and buy a box of coloured pencils and a sketch pad and draw speccies.
I’m still waiting for my print and t shirt from the first two books. If there’s merchandise coming can we go for all three?
June 4th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Brilliant. Looks like it belongs in the National Gallery. Pity about the colours though … but Richmond had its turn last year
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June 4th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Looks fantastic! But who is it and where?
I gather by the mountain backdrop, the ‘early colonial architecture’ (as my dad put it) and tassie tiger banner it’s somewhere in the apple isle….
As for last year’s Richo portrait – is it available anywhere in a poster or print?
June 4th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
That’s gotta be buddy, right? can I order merchandise already? would hate to miss out – I’m thinking place mates, tea towels, bedspreads, curtains, towels. deck the place out, might surprise the wife, I’m sure she’d be stoked!
June 4th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Sean, it’s a recent development, but yes you can order prints (320 x 430 mm) for $80 or prints done up in a hand-finished, gallery-style, box frame (they do look very good) for $300 (475 x 587 mm). Ring on 0417 160 911 or email me at pauldaffey@hotkey.net.au
June 4th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I LIKE it. Squawks and Sainters.
Reminds me of my early days in the fifties when those 2 clubs regularly finished last and second last. Squawks stone motherless one season, then the Saints the next.
When we finished playing junior footy on Saturday mornings all those years ago we would ponder on Geelong’s opponent for later that day.
If it was, say, Hawthorn a cuppla teammates would opine it wasn’t worth going down.
But I remember prevailing in the change rooms discussions by saying: “Bugger it. Lets go down and watch us win by 10 goals.”
That usually swung the doubters.
June 5th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Sean, I should also say that the main man in the 2009 painting is indeed Buddy. Nick has painted him at York Park (that’s the Western Tiers in the background). The Hawks plays the Saints at York Park in Round 19.
Richard, I remember Geelong beating Richmond by 12 goals at the MCG in 1972 and I thought the world had turned upside down. To that stage in my young life, I thought it was the natural outcome of events for Richmond to play with Geelong like a cat played with a ball of wool. The Pivots were very poor in those days.
I especially remember David Clarke’s distinctive gait and left-footed kicking style. He, of course, wore No.14, a number that is in the process of becoming a famous Geelong number.
No, it’s not because Darren Flanigan wore it.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Paul, Steven Handley perhaps?
Great cover. Looks like Buddy’s made his traditional move to the left to hook the ball back through the big sticks. Wind direction favourable, as evidenced by the flag above the tassie tiger. Goal for mine.
I remember that Cats/Tigers game too. A Cats supporter I went with my beloved, a one-eyed tiger fan. We sat in the Richmond members. I loudly expressed enthusiasm for the boys all day and was lucky to get out alive. Fortunately many Richmond supporters had left when they realised the Tiges weren’t going to kick 13 in the last ten minutes or so to win. What’s changed?
Supported the beloved and the Tiges in that year’s GF, but another unhappy day for her I’m afraid.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
I love the cover, Bring back umpires in white. Rod Oaten
June 11th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Perhaps not Steve Handley, either, Burkie.
(Unfortunately, I have no more Cats No.14s to contribute. As for Richmond, Bruce Tempany, Marty McMillan, Aaron Fiora … eeek! … I’ll stop there.)
I, too, was at the 1972 Grand Final. Sigh.
My main memories are of Big Nick and Skinny Walls sharing goals and my Auntie Joan crying outside the Punt Road end about “that rotten Carlton”.
Joan’s first dog was called Paddy, after Paddy Guinane.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Looks great. I recall those houses whilst at the ground last year
July 6th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
The significance of the cover may well be Buddy turning it over to the Saints!
July 13th, 2009 at 11:47 am
I remember Geelong beating Richmond by 76 points in 1972.
As a Cats fan I used to listen to ABC Radio in Katherine in the NT every Saturday arvo.
We were an ordinary side in ‘72 despite making the finals every year from 1962-69 when Richmond ended that era with a 118-point thrashing in the ‘69 first semi.
Back to the ‘72 game, what a boost for a Cats fan used to the scoreline going the other way every week.
Of course we finished nowhere in 1972, waiting until 1976 for an elimination final win over Footscray.
August 25th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Great man that Darren Flanagan. I told mum she had to remove the 14 from my (woolen) jumper when he was shipped off to St Kilda and replace it with Buddha Hocking’s 32. She wasn’t too thrilled sewing on two numbers but I couldn’t kick the footy in the street and have people thinking I was supporting that big pelican Handley.
October 6th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Stephen. Speaking of big, Brett Spinks didn’t appeal? In the old days George Moloney and Percy Martini wore the glorious number 14 with distinction for Geelong. Sadly though I didn’t make it to all their games.
October 6th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Nice painting.
As I said to the art teacher girlfriend as we wandered round the Van Gogh gallery in Amsterdam “Dont know much about art, but I know what I like!” She became ex gf very soon after.
Not intending to start a raft of conspiracy theories, but can we expect future editions to highlight actions from Carrara [the empty car park maybe] or Campbelltown baseball park? And is there really a Tassie Tiger on display in Lonnie? Surely it should be the Esk River as displayed in the Boags label not that which adorns the Cascade bottle.
November 1st, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Just a thought. It would be good if someone made t-shirts with the painting of Buddy on the front of it for the writers of the 09 Almanac.
December 4th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Josh,
It’s a good idea. We were too late to organise it this year, but Almanac merchandise should be introduced next year.
December 4th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Chalkdog,
The Tassie Tiger is the artist’s interpretation.
Commercially inaccurate, but fine in a symbolic sense. There’s no greater Tassie totem.
Craig Davis (ex-almost every club in the VFL) once told me a story about the River Esk. At 17, Davo was living in Ross, about halfway between Launceston and Hobart, and playing his first season of senior footy for the Launceston Footy Club.
To get from Ross to Launceston, you have to cross the Esk. One Saturday it was flooded. Craig’s father Bob, himself a great footballer with Ross and Launceston, encouraged Craig’s wish to head upstream to the least dangerous point and and swim across the river. A Launceston Footy Club man would be on the other side, ready to whisk him up to the match.
Davo’s mother (one of the Crosswells) intervened. Davo had to go back to Ross for the afternoon.