Did you hear the news on AFL trade week? There is a massive story breaking, one that will shock fans of football and will make people think the game is no longer the game they love. We will get to it in a moment but first.
The papers and news grabs are filled with content on what might happen in this week’s trade period. The Y2K bug didn’t receive this much attention, yet it doesn’t stop our appetite for the main course of the big coup that a club is about to land.
The mantra from the clubs is straightforward “Football is a business”, we keep hearing, “we need to do the right thing by our sponsors (first), members (second) and supports (third, in a slight dig at the fact you are not yet a member).”
On the other hand there are the player managers and don’t they just love this time of year. This is my chance to be quoted and have my name in lights. I can say anything and they will quote me. “My player is looking to move clubs for his football and if anyone wants to buy my second hand Falcon let me know because when he signs I will be upgrading to a Merc.”
Talk back radio with a sporting flavour, enjoys their busiest time of the year this week, bar the week leading into round one of the football season. I love listening to supporters in late March, blinded by the faith in their clubs telling them they are going to play finals this year. Richmond supports, frothing at the mouth, clog up the talkback lines with the Tiger renaissance that is about to take the competition by storm. This is of course based on the easy 30 point win over a previous year’s finalist, playing only 8 regular players in a practice match in Alice Springs that there is no TV coverage of.
Back in trade week there are 5 months to go before the start of the year yet every supporter knows the type of player their club is going to trade in to take them the next step. Then when you chat to your mate who follows the opposition you realise that they think the same player will make the difference at their club.
Better tune in to Trade Week Radio because they have the exclusive news on what trades have happened and what trades are about to happen. The newspapers have produced special online portals to monitor all the breaking news coming out of trade week too.
Then there are reports that clubs want more time – we should extend trade week by another week. With all the deals that have broken and all the pages of print would an extra week of all this excitement be too much? The graphic designers will have something to do next year, create a new logo for Trade Fortnight.
So with so much news and content to deliver, I almost forgot the big breaking news. That in this year’s Trade Week, there were a total of no big name trades, again; no shock trades, again; no clubs came out saying that they would prefer to trade than wait for the draft. Just a lot of rumour and talk about rumours and talk, about nothing.
Lenny
