Franklin’s Swans different version to the hapless Eighties’ model

Lance “Buddy” Franklin has the chance this weekend to become, in my eyes, the Alan Shearer of the AFL world. I’m talking about the Shearer who arrived at Ewood Park in 1992 to spearhead Blackburn Rovers’ eventual climb to the summit of English football in 1995. It might now seem like something out of a Doctor Who episode, but Shearer had a swagger and aura up front that terrified defences and took us to where we were. Sadly, it’s all too long ago now. He wasn’t a one-man team. He had plenty of support but the spotlight was always on him. He spent many more years at his hometown club, Newcastle United, but ask him where he won his only medal… In my eyes, as a non-Aussie Rules expert, Franklin has that same feel. Every time the Sydney Swans are on the box, he dominates. Totally. I don’t jump on bandwagons, but I’m a Swans fan from the mid Eighties when I first arrived in Oz. I was “dragged” to the SCG by my boss, the late, great Bill Casey, who was sports editor on the sadly long defunct tabloid, The Sun. “Come on, you’ll like this game, you’re a bloody Pom. It goes forward,” I remember him saying. Fair enough, I did go. And I did like the game. Bill was originally from Melbourne so he just kept up with his inbred sporting yearnings and backed the Swans, who had been transplanted from South Melbourne. So far, so good. But the Swans were crap. They lost most Sundays and had some comedian up front called Warwick Capper, who wore shorts that were so tight they were even more close-fitting than the ones that Freddie and the Dreamers sang about years before. It was all a bit of a culture shock. Dear Bill passed away a few years ago but I doubt even he would have believed what the Swans have turned into. Sydney was never an Aussie Rules city but it was glam Sundays under the Doctor Edelsten regime in the Eighties. Various visitors from Blackburn – Geoff Bond, Clive Charnley, Mick Charnley, nay even Shaun Gill aka the Scientist – were brought along for the ride at the SCG. The Ladies Pavilion was all full of glorious looking lasses suppin’ champers – fake tan, high heels and fur coats. I’m sure we all thought it was some weird timewarp from the Lodestar back home. Just a few years on. You had to be there… Sydney audiences are fickle but for ever fashionable. Even so, it was always a great day out, before me and Bill had to go to work to put out the Monday morning edition. Now the Swans are on the verge of another premiership with bullocking Buddy leading the way. Bill would hardly have been able to take all this in. Neither would the lasses who looked in excellent health with the fur coats on. So if anybody asks me this weekend why I’m supporting the Swans, I’ll be able to tell ’em. “Where were you when you were shit?” as the old wind-up chant goes. Well, aye, I was there. You could ask Bill if he was still here. His wife, Pat, would know too. And so would another ex-Sun legend Peter Kogoy, who presented Geoff with a Swans scarf as a souvenir when he and Clive departed for the plane back to the UK all those years ago. Geoff has family connections in Melbourne via Kath, so I’m sure he’ll be tuned in. Anyway, Buddy, simply pretend you are Shearer and blow away these arrogant Hawthorn types. Just because they come from Melbourne, they think the game is theirs. It’s not mine, true, but the rest of Australia plays it too. Norwood certainly did last Sunday in another triumph for the good guys. Well done, Redlegs. I could be on for a sporting affiliated double if Buddy delivers. Let’s hope so…