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STUPID FOREIGNERS

An AAP headline repeated without correction in Melbourne’s Age :

Young Malthouse Magpies do job on Crows

Great news - except that Collingwood actually defeated the Fremantle Dockers, not the Adelaide Crows. The Age’s executive sports editor, appointed six months ago, is from Scotland; the Age’s editor-in-chief (known for his expertise in Australian sport) was a successful Mancunian candidate for the Victorian job. Via Big Footy, whose readers spot another Age headline blunder, this time supplied by Reuters:

Waikato Chiefs thrash Stormers 43-27

The Chiefs actually thrashed the Bulls.

UPDATE. MM has helpful advice for Age editors and other AFL newbies.

Posted by Tim B. on 03/23/2008 at 02:41 PM
  1. Hoots, mon. Och aye, it’s all the same.

    Posted by kae on 2008 03 23 at 05:24 PM • permalink

  2. A bit of a tongue twister there. I accidently dug into this thread expecting stories of Malthusian magpies.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 23 at 05:52 PM • permalink

  3. Such errors show disdain for football and those who read about it. Perilous attitude for a Melbourne newspaper, even one who thinks its readership is made up entirely of homosexual latte-sippers and pseudo-intellectuals who only talk about the arts.

    Posted by Contrail on 2008 03 23 at 06:01 PM • permalink

  4. Age headline of 27 September 2008:

    Pies win Pennant!

    Only it’s a mistake… Sorry, Tim.

    Posted by ann j on 2008 03 23 at 06:02 PM • permalink

  5. They need a big poster on the office wall with all the football teams and their names.
    Or alternatively, they could employ someone who follows football to check the headlines.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 23 at 06:13 PM • permalink

  6. Hey Beavis he he he he . . . his name’s Dick. He he he he he he.

    Posted by Young and Free on 2008 03 23 at 06:47 PM • permalink

  7. Magpies, crows… I just can’t understand why Americans think soccer is gay.

    Hey, did you catch the game where the Lisbon Marigolds played the Manchester Love-Birds?

    Posted by blogagog on 2008 03 23 at 07:17 PM • permalink

  8. What would you expect those sissies to know about sport?

    Posted by Brian on 2008 03 23 at 07:21 PM • permalink

  9. It’s easy to be critical of these outsiders coming into a new city - but has anyone actually taken the time to tell them the things they need to know?

    In the spirit of good international relations, here are a few tips about sport in Melbourne.

    1. Melburnians do not take sport very seriously, and in particular, the raucous but silly past-time known in some quarters as AFL. Most Melburnians refer to it in a self-deprecating manner as Gay-FL, or in politer circles, Fumble-ball.

    2. Melburnians love to have a laugh about their sport. One way to get in good with the locals, would be to approach a local bar in Collingwood soon after they have had a loss - check the results in the Herald Sun - and say something like, “I hear the wee sparrows lost at Gay-FL again - perhaps they are not quite gay enough!”

    This should lead to a round of chuckles, if not a night of free beer, in which you will not be required to reciprocate.

    Hope this helps.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2008 03 23 at 07:25 PM • permalink

  10. Further to Margos tips, your average Gay-FL supporter responds with rapturous enthusiasm to impromptu soccer chants being started at their local game. Try it, and your guaranteed to get several thousand other gleeful fans joining you in a stirring rendition of ‘Feed the Scousers’.

    You should also light flares. Lots of flares. Especially at a Blues v Pies game.

    Posted by CB on 2008 03 23 at 07:33 PM • permalink

  11. We used to play a game just like this when we were toddlers.  We called it ‘kick the ball around, but don’t touch it with your hands’.  It was fun for a while, but by the time we turned seven, we grew out of it.

    - Americans

    ;)

    (sorry, but I can’t help but make fun of such a silly game.  Don’t be angry with me.  We have our silly games too.  I’m thinking baseball, for example.  But even baseball and cricket are 50% less gay than soccer.)

    Posted by blogagog on 2008 03 23 at 07:40 PM • permalink

  12. UPDATE: I should mention that girls still play soccer in the states.  Just not guys.

    Posted by blogagog on 2008 03 23 at 07:42 PM • permalink

  13. Can you imagine how many people buy The Age for the sport results?

    Posted by Brian on 2008 03 23 at 08:10 PM • permalink

  14. This is no mistake. The nasty Victorian press are intentionally confusing South Australians into thinking the Crows were beaten twice in the one day by Melbourne teams.

    In Pretoria, regular readers of the Age are asking each other if the Bulls were beaten twice on the one weekend.

    Posted by mehaul on 2008 03 23 at 08:22 PM • permalink

  15. Could you at LEAST call them ‘the fighting crows’?  It used to be funny, but now I’m starting to become embarrassed for you.  The Crows?!?!  Why not just name yourselves ‘The Hens’ or ‘The Pretty Flowers’?

    Alternate names:

    Crows of Destruction
    Killer Crows
    Crows of Decimation

    UN Sanctioned alternate names:

    Olive Branch Crows
    Crows that Hate Jews
    The Huggable Crows
    The Butterflies of Love, and Their Crow Friends

    Posted by blogagog on 2008 03 23 at 09:27 PM • permalink

  16. #15 Blogga. There is confusion. I have no association with the Crows and even less with the sport. But I do enjoy the paper bag punching between the media of the two States.

    Posted by mehaul on 2008 03 23 at 09:35 PM • permalink

  17. Can you imagine how many people buy The Age for the sport results?

    The Age might get a rude shock if they started removing things like sport that ‘nobody reads.’

    Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 23 at 10:09 PM • permalink

  18. #11

    We used to play a game just like this when we were toddlers.  We called it ‘kick the ball around, but don’t touch it with your hands’.  It was fun for a while, but by the time we turned seven, we grew out of it.

    My problem with soccer is that the final score often seems to have no relation to who played the better game. One-nil, because some guy took a dive in front of the goal posts and got a free penalty kick.
    Two nil, because some guy got sent off because some other guy pretended to trip on his leg, leaving one team short a player.
    Three nil, because the game ended in a nil-nil draw and they had to have a penalty shootout isntead.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 23 at 10:14 PM • permalink

  19. #16 Mehaul:  I can’t help it.  Soccer is just too funny :).

    Let me apologize for all of the references I’m about to make about gayness.  Everyone should be gay if that’s their thing.  I have no problem with it.  But it is a little girlie, no?  Can’t we admit that?

    Which brings me to Beckham.  He was very good at ‘kick the ball around’.  But 1 - he’s English.  And 2 - he plays soccer for a living.  3 - just look at him, with his scrawny arms and legs!  If he didn’t have posh spice by his side, everyone would know he’s…

    I’m just sayin’.  If that’s the cream of the soccer crop, perhaps you should be watching some less gay sports, like synchronized swimming.  Or some kind of sport where they determine who hugs the best.

    Soccer.  Heh.

    Posted by blogagog on 2008 03 23 at 10:58 PM • permalink

  20. Other good names for soccer (some have the audacity to call it football!  As if!) teams:

    The Sydney Mollusks
    The Melbourne Impatiens
    The Singapore Fighting Termites
    The Bombay Flowering Grasses
    The Bangcok Minnows
    The NSW Bajingoes
    The Tasmanian Vajay-jays
    The Australian Women

    My favorite is the last one.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love Australia and Australians and am in solidarity in all things military.  But that WOULD be a funny name :).

    Posted by blogagog on 2008 03 23 at 11:11 PM • permalink

  21. OT:
    Unintended humour headline in The Australian:

    India looks to Australia for wine help
    Not enough good whining in India? Really?

    Posted by Barrie on 2008 03 23 at 11:14 PM • permalink

  22. #15 Why pick on the Crows, blogalog? The crow is the most intelligent of all birds.
    The Crows have won two flags in less than two decades they have contested, and a Brownlow.
    Port Adelaide ‘Power’ got flogged mercilessly a few months ago, didn’t they?
    Who do you barrack for, by the way?

    Posted by Barrie on 2008 03 23 at 11:20 PM • permalink

  23. #22 Barrie: “Why pick on the Crows, blogalog? The crow is the most intelligent of all birds. “

    It’s still a bird though.  And not even a fighting bird like a hawk or an eagle.  It’s more like a weak vulture.  A weak, yet evil beast (they eat my corn, so are evil in my book).

    Mice are smarter than crows.  Would you be a fan of the Sydney Mice?  If they played ‘kick the ball around but don’t touch it with your hands’?

    Posted by blogagog on 2008 03 23 at 11:38 PM • permalink


  24. “The crow is the most intelligent of all birds. “

    ksnksnksnksnksnksnk!!
    Dandelions are the most intelligent of weeds.
    Wallpaper is the most intelligent of wall-coverings.
    snurk snurk snurkity snurk

    Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 24 at 12:42 AM • permalink

  25. “Malthusian Magpies” would be an excellent name for a rock band.

    Posted by sundog on 2008 03 24 at 01:47 AM • permalink

  26. #3. Hmm. Do you know my Aged acquaintances, then?

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2008 03 24 at 03:03 AM • permalink

  27. The Age should go back to what they used to do and wait until the first editions of the Herald Sun come out and copy their coverage.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2008 03 24 at 04:20 AM • permalink

  28. #27 Actually, I don’t know any Age readers. We get the SMH, Australian, Telegraph, Herald-Sun and Age in our office. The Age file is always the one on the bottom because no one reads it.

    #20 Hear hear!!. There are way too many sports teams named Tigers or Dogs or Lions but none named after molluscs. Hre’s my idea. There should be one team in each country named Sharks or Magpies (the Wangaratta Magpies would be an ideal choice here) and all the lesser teams with that name should find an alternative. The Collingwood Slugs, something like that.

    Posted by Contrail on 2008 03 24 at 04:37 AM • permalink

  29. AFL is the only sport in the world that can bring together such seemingly different social groups. What other sport in the world can claim to have combined the vest, a staple of wife-beaters, and short-shorts, a favourite amongst gay men!

    Posted by Brettm on 2008 03 24 at 08:44 AM • permalink

  30. Soccer - It’s football for men who like men.

    Posted by blogagog on 2008 03 24 at 09:24 AM • permalink

  31. Son: I’m thinking about becoming a soccer player.

    Father:  You know I love you and support you no matter what you choose to achieve.  How long have you been gay?

    Son: What!?!  I only said that I wanted to play soccer.  I never said I was gay.  But on a totally unrelated subject, I am gay.

    Father:  Yes yes, I understood that when you said you liked soccer.

    Posted by blogagog on 2008 03 24 at 09:31 AM • permalink

  32. Australian crows are smart — too damn smart, if you ask me. If you approach them while carrying a rifle or shotgun they always fly away, but they’ll stay put if you’re empty handed or carrying a stick. (Been there, done
    that, don’t know how they can tell.)

    Australian farmers hate crows because they kill livestock. They’re no danger to healthy sheep or cows, but they often fatally wound a beast that would otherwise have recovered by [gruesome fact alert] eating one or both eyeballs.

    Posted by Chris Chittleborough on 2008 03 24 at 09:53 AM • permalink

  33. It’s not just Australia, Chris.  They are evil as hell the world round.  They take flight when you have a weapon no matter WHERE in the world you are.

    Howerver!  If you can manage to wound one, yet not kill it, it will keep cawing, which somehow keeps the other crows in the vicinity, flying overhead trying to help it.  You can easily pick off a whole group of those evil scumbags this way.  But you have to wound and not kill one to start off the culling.

    That’s ONE group of crows that won’t be eating my corn seedlings.  Man, I hate crows.

    Posted by blogagog on 2008 03 24 at 10:12 AM • permalink

  34. Most names of pro teams are namby-pamby, not to offend types.  You have to go to college teams, especially the directional ones, here in the states to get names with some pop.

    My choice for the record-“rajincajuns”!

    Can you imagine the uproar if the New Orleans Saints used that one!

    Posted by yojimbo on 2008 03 24 at 12:10 PM • permalink

  35. Hey blogga are you watching the Socceroos play China tonight. Should be a bewdy.

    Posted by mehaul on 2008 03 24 at 06:41 PM • permalink

  36. #34 I see your point as a country person, blogagog. 
    In my suburb white corellas are hated, for flocking noisily and stripping the private garden trees bare.  How about the Canberra Corellas?

    Posted by Barrie on 2008 03 24 at 06:44 PM • permalink

  37. Wtf has soccer go to with the AFL??

    Posted by Anthony_ on 2008 03 26 at 12:16 AM • permalink

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