What does Freo Stand For? (Mk II) | Print |
Written by Greg   
Guy Smiley hit the nail on the head and not much else needed to be said. Obviously like himself and many of us, I have also been boiling with anger since Monday night but trying to restrain from letting it get to me to the point where it explodes. I had contained the anger and it was down to a light simmer but reading Mr Smiley's work, it tipped me over the edge. I just had to get it out to get it over and done with so I can enjoy the next two weeks break.

An ignorant arrogant Robert Walls insultingly wants to question what Fremantle stands for.

Robert, show us another club that entered into a national professional competition consisting of part time WAFL players. Show me a club which has enormously struggled for success and many times squandered the chance at success as much as Fremantle has. And finally, show me a club that has done and gone through all that yet constantly increased their fan and membership base.

Robert Walls you talk about the culture, or lack there of, at the Fremantle Football club. The fact of the matter is you were going around in the Bedrock league with Fred Flintstone. You never were involved in the AFL as a player and barely as a coach, a sacked coach I should say. Culture at clubs today is virtually non-existent unless it's the much thrown around term "drug culture." Culture at a club is created in the old suburban leagues. The WAFL, SANFL and VFL. The days when you played for the club depending where the suburban boundary lines were drawn. You played with your mates from the under 9's up to the South Freos, the East Freos, Claremonts and so on. That's what creates club culture. Today's national competition makes it near on impossible to gain or create that same level of loyal, or for want of a better term, gang tight type mentality. But you are obviously past your use by date as it seems you haven't been able to mentally move with the times. The "good old days" are just that. They're gone and this is how it is now.

I am constantly stunned, yet incredibly proud to see the supporters that Fremantle has. Sure we all hurt when things go horribly wrong and fire up and shoot from the hip. But when the dust settles, you know each and every one of those fans and members will be back as strong, as passionate and as loyal as ever before. Show me a Richmond or a Melbourne that has that level of loyalty in their supporters! I would go as far as to say that there would barely be another club in any sport worldwide that having as less success as Fremantle has had yet keep such a tight and sizeable loyal supporter and membership base.

Sure, as Guy Smiley said, we're desperate for success and we'd each probably give our left arm for a premiership but being a supporter and a fan of Fremantle, to me, is so much more. I get angry and disappointed like the rest of us but never will I, nor could I and neither do I want to, support any club but Fremantle. And I don't believe I am on my own in saying so.  

Why is it when coaches and the majority of players that leave Fremantle all count themselves still as Fremantle people? Why is it they say "No matter where they are or who they're involved with, they still bleed purple to a degree? That is a large part of what this club stands for and it's an attractive club quality and one of which I hope we never lose.

Mr. Walls if you can't see what this club stands for and what it means to all involved then, like we're all suggesting, it's time for you to hang it up, disappear and drift off into the land of insignificance and let someone who is rationale, respectful and competent take your place. Belittling clubs, their coaches, players and supporters is nothing short of arrogance of the highest nature.

Unfortunately many people in this game believe success is a given. Well quite frankly, it's not. The Robert Walls, the Hutchy's and the Carolyn Wilson's are nothing more than condescending, egotistical  weasels who thieve an overinflated undeserved wage by playing up their own self claimed importance.

Hutchy is an absolute parasite constantly hiding behind his, "I'm just doing my job" line. Carolyn Wilson should not be involved in the football media as she dishes it out without a second thought but then when someone has a crack back at her, she goes and gets the person sacked or calls for a nationally broadcasted apology to be forwarded to her. Robert Walls, A SACKED COACH and a coach who had a player physically belted by his own teammates, went and spent a week with the Eagles and gave them the all clear, saying they handled the incidents well, they've cleaned everything up and they're a great club.

What firstly Robert Walls on On The Couch and then Hutchy on Footy Classified both threw in Mark Harvey's face was some of the most atrocious indecent and insulting acts I've seen on a show where you would expect a decent level of respect to be forwarded to all concerned regardless of current happenings, in a long long time. I would have applauded Harvey if leaned over and gave them both a smack in the mouth because that's what they both deserved. However, Harvey, a man who has done more for football than those three lowlifes will ever do, carries himself too well and occupies too much class to sink to their gutter reporting level.

It's safe to say if the show was Underbelly and all three, Walls, Caro and Hutchy made guest appearances, then they would have been capped by the first ad break in episode one.

 
Discuss (4 posts)
What does Freo Stand For? (Mk II)
SimonBlog May 07 2008 07:41:17

This thread discusses the Content article: What does Freo Stand For? (Mk II)

Greg, can you please expand on the following comment:

"Robert Walls, A SACKED COACH and a coach who had a player physically belted by his own teammates"

Who was the player and what was the story?
Re:What does Freo Stand For? (Mk II)
guy smiley May 07 2008 07:52:45

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s280599.htm

"Ugly incident in Australian rules not forgotten

The World Today Archive - Friday, 20 April , 2001 00:00:00
Reporter: Luisa Saccotelli
COMPERE: One of the ugliest incidents ever to emerge from an ugly macho side of the game of Australian Rules football.

In a highly unorthodox training session it appears the Brisbane Bears' players formed a circle, put on boxing gloves and one by one purposely thrashed and pummelled a fellow player until he was bloodied and bruised.

The former Bears coach, Rob Walls, says he ordered the punch-up because one of his players, Shane Strempel, "needed to be taught a lesson". The bizarre training session only ended when another player said they should stop, or Strempel might be killed.

The incident which has only just come out in public, happened 10 years ago but as Luisa Saccotelli reports for The World Today, those involved have never forgotten it.

UNIDENTIFIED: We pulled the boxing gloves out and we made a big circle and we put Strempel in the middle of the circle and we let him go a round with one player and then dropped that player out and then we put another player in to go another round.

UNIDENTIFIED: What do you do? I mean you're 21 and your coach tells you to do something so you have to do it.

LUISA SACCOTELLI: Former Brisbane Bears' players recalling what happened at one particular training session with coach Robert Walls in 1991.

UNIDENTIFIED: You know, you really started to feel sorry for him. You thought maybe it was a little bit overdone.

UNIDENTIFIED: Just seeing everyone's face change. The longer it went on, the less people wanted to step in. They realised enough is enough.

LUISA SACCOTELLI: The person in charge was former Brisbane Bears' coach, Robert Walls. His former players recalled the incident as part of a re-enactment for an official AFL Players' Association video about past players' memories of the sport.

Former Brisbane Bears footballer Robert Dixon produced the video and was at the training session when Rob Walls decided Shane Strempel needed to be taught respect.

ROBERT DIXON: He sent us on a lap and we came back and there was a bunch of boxing gloves on the ground and so we were all thinking, you know well something's going on here and Rob had some really interesting training drills at the best of times, but this was something a bit different. And he picked eight of the biggest blokes that played, fortunately I wasn't very big so I didn't get picked, and sent Shane in the middle and said look, this is maybe the only way we're going to get some respect from you or the players and sent one at a time in for two minute rounds.

So, the first round was obviously an even fight because Shane was up to it and he was a big bloke himself and could box but by the time two and three came around it was tough for him to even hold his arms up so it became a battle from thereon in.

LUISA SACCOTELLI: So what state was he in by the end of it all?

ROBERT DIXON: He was pretty groggy. He had copped a bit of a pounding and he had blood coming from his nose. He had problems with his teeth. So it was a fairly severe sort of punishment, I suppose.

LUISA SACCOTELLI: It was a strange disciplinary attempt even by the standards of a decade ago, according to AFL Players' Association's CEO Rob Kerr. He said if it happened today the Bears would have breached their duty of care to Strempel and would be legally liable, at the very least for breach of contract.

Well, now the coach has turned commentator. These days Robert Walls is a Southern Cross radio broadcaster, using their airwaves to mount his defence.

ROBERT WALLS: You know, it was a controlled, safe situation. I was always near him. The players knew that they don't throw hay-makers or round-armers. It was boxing/sparring situation because they'd been taught that. He never got knocked over. He never got cut. They are heavy gloves that they wear and at the end of it he walked in with everyone else.

LUISA SACCOTELLI: Rob Walls on Melbourne Radio. But his former charge Robert Dixon says he's spoken to a lot of the players involved and they see it differently.

ROBERT DIXON: It was a fight and that wasn't unusual and sparring wasn't unusual, but this was a bit different given that it was survival for Shane at the time. He was defending himself.

LUISA SACCOTELLI: Well Robert Walls said that it was a highly controlled situation, it was only sparring, he was there the whole time to make sure that the player was safe. Is that how you remember it?

ROBERT DIXON: I mean it was controlled in as much that they were, he was there and it was controlled as much that we were in a circle and at any one stage it could have been called off.

LUISA SACCOTELLI: The players interviewed for the AFL Players Association video recall Brownlow medallist, Brad Hardy, intervening to call a stop to the boxing.

ROBERT DIXON: Brad Hardy, who was nearing one of the last guys to go in, basically said that's enough Rob, I think that means he's had enough, which stopped the whole incident.

LUISA SACCOTELLI: I think he said, "We'd better stop or we'll kill him". Is that accurate?

ROBERT DIXON: Well it's accurate to Michael McLean recounts the story in the video and that's how Madge heard it. I have a feeling that it was probably the last time in AFL football that you could get away with such a thing.

COMPERE: Former Brisbane Bears' player, Robert Dixon, with those memories he can't let go."
Re:What does Freo Stand For? (Mk II)
shane May 07 2008 07:54:09

Congratulations on your decisions to start following football this year, Simon. Hope you're enjoying it.
Re:What does Freo Stand For? (Mk II)
SimonBlog May 07 2008 08:03:51

Thanks Guy, much appreciated.


Discuss...