The first edition for June, and who’d have thought we’d get to the halfway mark of the year with only 45% of human society on the brink of collapse.

Something that I’ll inevitably ignore (As a Hawks member) about this week’s Australian Football Hall Of Fame, which I wasn’t even aware had changed to a four day celebration, is the new inductees.

Coinciding with Kennedy’s elevation to Legend, Saint Lenny Hayes (Saint by team, Saint by nature) was given the well-earned nod, and some of the other first-time nominees this year include:

Luke Ball, Jonathan Brown, Dean ‘Big’ Cox, Darren Glass, 2012 Norm Smith Medalist Ryan O’Keefe, and Ben ‘The Truck’ Rutten.

Simon Black was already voted in last year, but his official induction was held off a year because he was filming Australian Survivor in Fiji, and out of all those names, I would say that Coxy is the closest thing to a moral lock.

If the best all-round ruckman of the current AFL era isn’t a first-ballot inductee, I’ll spew up.

A true story about John Kennedy Snr

So last night (To my genuine surprise) John Kennedy Snr, who was already a demigod at Hawthorn, was named as the 29th Legend of the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

When Kanga’s name came up for discussion about who to induct as a legend, I hope someone in that room arced up and yelled “Don’t think, don’t hope, DO!”

Not only do I enjoy it because Kanga is pretty much the Godfather of the Hawthorn Football Club as we claim to know it, but we get to watch Port Adelaide supporters complain that Russell Ebert & Fos Williams were ignored again, and that the Hall is VFL-centric…

Which it definitely is.

That said, here’s that story from a Hawthorn history book titled One For All by Harry & Michael Gordon, written after the 2008 flag.

Kennedy was an educator by profession (The source of his fabled sermons to players), and he first resigned as Hawks coach after 1963 (Geelong easily defeated the Hawks in the Grand Final), when the Victorian Education Department transferred him to Stawell Technical School, where he became the principal.

After the Hawks fell back to the basement, Kennedy was reappointed coach in 1967, and was appointed principal of Swinburne Technical School (Not to be confused with Swinburne College) in Hawthorn, allowing him to balance both careers.

Page 126 reveals that Kennedy was appointed to the Victorian Teachers Tribunal at Christmastime 1970, and as per the Act, he had to resign as Hawks coach, because members of the Tribunal couldn’t receive payment for outside work, and Kennedy was getting $2,000 a season.

In his resignation letter, Kennedy remarked (Quite sincerely) that he would be “Honoured to coach the team voluntarily, and ask that I be allowed to continue as the unpaid coach at this vital stage in our progress.”

With a loophole presented to them, the Hawthorn Committee said yes, and in 1971, John Kennedy voluntarily coached Hawthorn, becoming the only unpaid coach in the VFL.

The Hawks won the flag.

Also, when you think about it…

That’s now 4 former North Melbourne coaches who are now Legends of the game.

Kennedy Snr, Ron Barassi, Malcolm Blight and Barry Cable.

Barassi propelled the Roos to those 2 flags and 5 consecutive Grand Finals in the 70s, Blight was dumped after 16 games, Cable did coach the 1983 minor premiership and not much else, and Kennedy Snr set a young Alastair Clarkson on his way, and he helped engineer the Battle of Britain in 1987.

Even in a display of violence that 1980s English hooligans would admire, the Poms didn’t take to the Australian game.

Chad Wingard Taking A Stand

The obvious context –

1. National Reconciliation Week is happening right now,
2. He’s annoyed about the press coverage of the George Floyd protests & riots (Which has been a steaming pile of mostly negative crap)
3. The issue of racial violence seems a starting point to reignite talk about the treatment of Aboriginal Australians, namely deaths in custody, which still hasn’t improved since the Royal Commission.

This incident in Surry Hills today being another example.

Good for you Chad, and it was nice of Footy Classified to prove your point last night.

That Hitler photoshop joke on Sunday Night with Matty Johns

Clearly it was over the line and Matty apologised to the Jewish community, but watching it live, I thought the intent was to point out how easy it was for people to smuggle in the face of some horrendously evil bastard on those $22 cardboard cutouts.

Which someone literally did with British serial killer Harold Shipman, and it was remarkably hilarious how the NRL didn’t even check who he was.

Martin Bryant would’ve been a red flag, but Shipman is obviously obscure to the average Australian crime fan.

In short, if you’re going to make a gag like that, probably don’t use someone as painfully obvious and offensive as Adolf Hitler…

Use someone like Pinochet instead.

The Good Bloke Award

Goes this week to the Penrith Panthers, who gave all 10 avaliable tickets to Sunday’s game at Campbelltown to the families of Newcastle’s 3 debutants (Tex Hoy, Chris Randall & Brodie Jones), instead of sharing it among themselves.

Apparently they got an exemption from the authorities just to be there, so all in all, good on ’em.

Whoever loses the Queen’s Birthday Game could get their coach chopped

If it weren’t for the Titans existing, this game could’ve been Spoon Bowl 2020.

Dean Pay in the gun with the “Shit sandwich” Bulldogs, and Paul McGregor boiling in a vat with the underperforming Dragons.

In that sense, whoever sucks more this coming Monday will be the true winner, as the Eagles say, in the long run.

The things you hear on Sky Active

The latest example – The one and only Darren McAullay calling the darl about dinner plans before he called the last at Northam yesterday.

Chicken and coleslaw, Cob, you can’t go wrong.