The limitations of this study were directly related to the technological restrictions that were inherent in this design. Due to he fact that a successful blog design is purely dependent on a regularly updated and maintained productivity on the behalf of the proprietor, a constant stream of knowledge that can be more easily observed over diverse cultural topics is conducive to  a blog that is both relevant and insightful. Part of the success of this design is the fact that, despite the previously mentioned limitations, i have been able to compensate for the limitations of information that is somewhat retrospective, and still maintain an element of relativity that will span generations.

To illustrate my choice of current affair, (which in this case is drinking in Australian sport) i decided to narrow down the subjects to four codes of Australian sport. This is because of the wealth of information each of these sporting codes had. Too include more would stretch my information too fine and I feel it would not paint as clear a picture of the subject I was trying to highlight. Another consideration chosen was the particular sports i wrote about. I feel that the sports chosen are mainstream enough and there diverse enough to highlight the differences the boards and officials deal with different drinking incidents and also how the drinking culture between the different athletes from different sports vary.

To get a constant RSS feed is hard for this subject because its not a constant current event, moreover its embroiled with other events so to combat this I put numerous links in every post to try to help to person viewing my site navigate to more information of the current event. Each link will take you to the relevant article with a side bar generally of related news. I found a blog the best medium to present this current event because its easy to update, create and view. One of the most frustrating things about inserting content on a current affair, like this one, is that there are limitations, with numerous sites not allowing you to transfer videos and soundclips across. So links were the only way I could provide the viewer with a wealth of information.

This assignment gave me an insight into the difficulties associated with the means of publishing current events and the means of collecting information and distributing it in a method thats pleasing and easily accessible and also remainging highly relevant.

Banned Nathan Bock at mercy of Adelaide Crows

AFL in my opinion is just as bad as Rugby League when it comes to drunken indiscretions, and personal even though it’s very debatable, I think that the AFL is a lot more relaxed on their disciplinary stance. They choose to sort it out internally and away from the publics view.

The Sydney Morning Herald ran and article on how strong the drinking culture is in the AFL, and extract from that article is below

“More than half of Australia’s professional AFL players drink in excess of 60 drinks in the two weeks after the season ends, putting them at serious risk of long-term harm, a new report has revealed. The first survey to catalogue the drinking habits of the country’s elite footballers has exposed a “boom or bust” culture of restraint and dangerous bingeing that has left researchers alarmed. The anonymous survey of 582 players across Australia found that just two per cent drank at risky levels during the season – far less than the 15 per cent seen in the general male population – but this skyrocketed to 54 per cent in the two weeks after the season ends. And 40 per cent maintained this dangerous drinking level of at least 29 drinks a week throughout their holiday.”

List of Drunken Shenanigans in the last 5 years

2005

• Fremantle Dockers players of Victorian and South Australian origin go on a mid-week mid-season pub crawl, which involves alleged instances of players exposing themselves.
• Steve Johnson and Andrew Mackie of Geelong were detained by police for being drunk in a public place.
• Jay Schulz was involved in a drink driving incident where his actions led to a termination of sponsorship with the TAC.
• Ben Cousins and Michael Gardiner were questioned by police over telephone calls they allegedly received in Melbourne that were made following a brawl and shooting at a Perth nightclub. Police believed they had conversations with at least one of the two men charged with disposing of the gun after the brawl.

2006

• Lewis Roberts-Thomson charged with drink driving at the Central Coast on a football holiday. He was formally charged and his license disqualified for 6 months.
• Colin Sylvia allegedly assaulted his girlfriend and threatened to kill a passerby who intervened. It is believed he was intoxicated at the time. After going to court, a Melbourne magistrate ordered him not to harass, threaten or intimidate her and no charges were laid.
• Brad Ottens of Geelong fails a random breath test when pulled over in Doncaster in the early hours of September 9. Ottens was found to have a blood alcohol content of 0.116, more than twice the legal limit.
• Ben Cousins, upon facing a random road-side alcohol breathalyser test, abandoned his car on a Perth highway and fled on foot before being chased by police. He was later fined $5,000 by the Eagles and $900 in court. In a separate incident, Cousins was arrested for public drunkenness outside Crown Casino in Southbank, Victoria.
• Simon Goodwin assaulted a photographer before threatening to “fucking kill” him after running amok at an Adelaide pub at 11am.
• Heath Black was charged with assault, obstructing police and assaulting police after an incident at the Perth Cup.
• Brodie Holland is charged with assaulting two women out the front of a Melbourne nightclub.
• Heath Scotland was charged with recklessly causing serious injury in a pub. The matter is still before the courts.
• Dane Swan, Aaron Ramsay and Kade Carey were found guilty of criminal damage and assault charges arising from a brawl at Federation Square where they attacked a cleaner and three security guards after Carey jumped on a parked car.
• Chad Morrison was caught drink-driving and loses his licence. Collingwood is sponsored by the Transport Accident Commission which fined the club $200,000, and fined Morrison $20,000.
• Michael Gardiner was caught drink driving after an incident where he destroyed his car and badly damaged three others. In light of his previous record in being involved in incidents, Gardiner was fined $5,000 by the Eagles, and $800 in court. He is suspended by the Eagles indefinitely, and is later traded to St Kilda.
• Chris Tarrant and Ben Johnson, of Collingwood, were investigated over a brawl at a Port Melbourne nightclub carpark on July 30, where a 28 year-old man is rendered unconscious and brought to hospital with facial injuries. Both players are fined $5,000 by their club for breaking a 1am curfew. This brought the number of Collingwood footballers to be charged or questioned by police in 2006 to five. Club President Eddie McGuire condemned the players’ behaviour but refused to suggest they would be suspended. Johnson appeared before a magistrate charged with recklessly causing injury and unlawful assault but avoided conviction.
• Alan Didak, of Collingwood, was arrested after a dispute with a taxi driver on October 6, 2006. It was reported that he disputed a $15 fare difference with taxi driver, and was taken to the Melbourne Custody Centre to sober up, before being released. The club confirmed this in an official statement.
• Brendan Fevola, on an overseas trip to Ireland as part of the International Rules Series, was involved in an incident where he applied a headlock to a barman and was said to be very drunk. Fevola was subsequently suspended for the second Test which was to take place the following week and immediately sent home by the AFL to avoid accusations of a junket.
• Sam Mitchell was assaulted in a Hawthorn hotel on December 4.
• Jeff Farmer and Steven Dodd were involved in an unspecified “altercation” at Club Bayview in Claremont on December 3.
• Ben Cousins was found drunk outside of Melbourne’s Crown Casino early in the morning of December 3. He was arrested by police for public drunkenness, following his “heated reaction” to being asked to move on
• Andrew Krakouer, along with younger brother Tyrone and another man, were charged with recklessly causing serious injury following an incident outside the Harbourside nightclub in Fremantle on December 22. The alleged victim, Justin Robin Martin, sustained serious head injuries and remains in intensive care. The charges have since been upgraded to intentionally causing serious injury.
• Steve Johnson was arrested for public drunkenness in Wangaratta on December 24. This is his second such arrest in 18 months and he was banned from his club until May 2007 after failing to inform his club for 9 days after the arrest.
• Heath Black pleaded guilty in the Fremantle Magistrates Court to a charge of drunken disorderly behaviour and was fined $250.

2007

• Several AFL players were questioned over a hotel scuffle in a St Kilda bar. Players allegedly involved included Fraser Gehrig, Craig McRae, Steven Lawrence, Simon Black and Michael Voss. Criminal charges were laid against the players in June, 2007.
• Heath Scotland was charged with assault and recklessly causing injury to a female outside a Ballarat night spot at 5am, on February 11. Police alleged that Scotland splashed his drink on her and that when she attempted to push him away, he struck her in the face. With him were Lance Whitnall, Shaun Grigg, Kade Simpson, Brad Fisher and Michael Jamison. All players were fined by the club for breaking curfew.
• Daniel Kerr pleaded guilty to criminal damage and assault for throwing a car aerial at a taxi driver’s face outside a Perth hospital and was fined $1,800.
• Brodie Holland was fined $2,500 for his role in a fight with a young woman over a taxi cab. After Hollands fiancee was involved in a scuffle with the woman, Holland approached calling the woman a “stupid slut” before trying to tackle her, placing her in a headlock after which she bit him on the stomach, before striking her in the head with his fist. His court appearance was pushed back on two occasions so not to clash with his football commitments; once he faced court no conviction was recorded and no punishment handed out from his club, Collingwood.
• Fremantle Dockers player Jeff Farmer knocked out a bouncer in the suburb of Northbridge after being refused entry to a nightclub. He is suspended for six matches and fined $5,000 by the Dockers and $3,000 in court.
• Ray Hall from the Richmond Tigers was suspended for three weeks, fined $5,000 and ordered to do community service after he was allegedly involved in an altercation with a patron in a Melbourne bar; police are investigating the incident.
• Des Headland was involved in a physical altercation on the streets of Northbridge.
• Chris Tarrant from Fremantle mooned a female patron in a Darwin nightclub and punched Labor Candidate for Solomon, Damian Hale, in the face. Tarrant was suspended for three matches (two suspended pending good behaviour) and fined $5,000 by the Dockers; police did not lay charges due to no complaint being made.
• Alan Didak was questioned by police in June over his acquaintance with Christopher Wayne Hudson, who Didak drank with at 4am in a strip club before a wild ride in the week before the CBD shootings.
• Jeff Farmer was charged with criminal damage for smashing a car’s side mirror in a rage after being ejected from Burswood Casino. He admits to an alcohol problem, and is fined $750 in court after pleading guilty (with $458 costs), fined $10,000 by the Dockers and ordered to donate $45,000 to charity.
• Daniel Kerr was fined $2,000 over an assault of a teenage Fremantle fan at a party in Perth on January 13, leaving the fan with a broken nose and two missing teeth. His father Roger was also charged, but has not yet faced court.
• On the eve of Geelong’s 2007 AFL Grand Final appearance, David Johnson was arrested in regards to an assault in Geelong at 4:15am. He was not selected to play in the grand final, but was a member of the Geelong VFL side’s premiership the previous week.
• Aaron Edwards, Shannon Grant and Hamish McIntosh of the North Melbourne Football Club were ejected from a Lionel Richie winery gig near Drysdale, Victoria after a violent clash with security and police.

2008

• Sharrod Wellingham, a Collingwood rookie, was charged with drink-driving having recorded a blood alcohol content reading of 0.13, he lost his licence for a year. Collingwood announced they were cutting ties with the TAC sponsorship shortly after. It was the third serious traffic infringement for a Collingwood player during the period of the safe driving sponsorship.
• Wayne Carey, ex-North Melbourne premiership captain, is capsicum sprayed and handcuffed after assaulting police offers answering a domestic disturbance complaint at his apartment in Port Melbourne. Following this incident it is found that he was arrested in Miami, Florida in October 2007 after allegedly striking his girlfriend Kate Neilson with a wine glass and is to face charges of assaulting police, resisting arrest and assault at Miami-Dade County Court on February 15. Following this and the previous incident, he was fired from several media positions. He sold his story to New Idea magazine, confessing that he has a cocaine abuse problem. He has since been charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest by Victorian Police.
• Chris Masten, a West Coast draftee, is fined $2,000 by the club for public drunkenness and his role in an Australia Day brawl, and is later fined $750 in court.
• Brendan Fevola, Carlton’s full-forward, was arrested for urinating against the window of a bar that was trading at the time. Carlton fined him and stated that he was on his last chance, but didn’t suspend him.
• Richmond captain Kane Johnson was arrested for urinating outside St Kilda Road police complex. He was suspended by his club for 1 match and fined $5,000.
• Lance Franklin allegedly made a crude request for sex and called the planned AFL women’s competition “a total waste of time” while drunk in the presence of female patrons at a Melbourne nightclub. He later apologized for the incident.
• On July 9, 2008, Adelaide’s Scott Thompson pleaded guilty in an Adelaide court to seriously injuring a passenger whilst doing burnouts in his car and leaving the scene of the accident.
• On August 3, 2008 Collingwood’s Heath Shaw was arrested for drink driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.14 after crashing his car into two parked cars. The following day, Collingwood’s President Eddie McGuire said that Collingwood wouldn’t suspend Shaw from playing. It later became known that Shaw, club captain Scott Burns and McGuire were incorrect in regards to insisting that Collingwood player Alan Didak wasn’t in the car at the time of the accident. Collingwood suspended Heath Shaw indefintely and Didak for the remainder of the season for lying to the club; Rhyce Shaw was suspended for two matches for drinking whilst injured.
• On December 20, 2008 Hawthorn’s Brent Renouf jumped on two parked cars at Burwood Road in Hawthorn, shattering the back windscreen of one of them. Police charged him with criminal damage; Hawthorn suspended him for two matches and fined him $5,000.

2009

• Jackson Trengove of Port Adelaide was fined for damaging a car windscreen after a night of drinking.
• Aaron Edwards of North Melbourne was caught driving way over the speed limit by police and found to have alcohol in his system. He was immediately suspended by the club for the 2009 NAB Cup and the first four matches of the 2009 AFL premiership season.
• Albert Proud of Brisbane was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm when he threw a glass at a female patron at a Gold Coast nightclub. In response, the Lions withdrew him from the Indigenous All-Stars representative side.
• Wayne Carey pleaded guilty to assaulting Victorian police and received a $2,000 fine.

This is just some of the problems the AFL has faced in their history. It is clear that there is a drinking and disciplinary problem and something needs to be done. In my opinion AFL is the worst of them all. Because there are so many incidents I’m not singling out a certain player or a few to look at. Instead I’ve put links for the incidents that occurred in 2009 and there will be a short post on Nathan Boc, the latest misdemeanor in the AFL. But really Australian Football, somethings gotta give.

On June the 18th 2005 Symonds arrived at the match still intoxicated. Australian captain Ricky Ponting has revealed Andrew Symonds was so affected by alcohol before the infamous one-day match against Bangladesh in June that he fell over at training, then tried to tell coach John Buchanan he was well versed at playing in such a hazy state.”Those warm-ups started with some gentle leg swings, but after four or five swings in the batting group, Symonds moved away from us and headed for the other set of players,” Ponting writes. “He based himself on the edge of that group and leaned against a wheelie bin that was on the edge of the field. As he did so he fell over.”

Ponting and vice-captain Adam Gilchrist saw Symonds hit the ground and suspected he was drunk.”When Gilchrist and I got to Symonds I did not beat around the bush,” Ponting writes. “His eyes looked puffy and I could smell alcohol on his breath. ‘Were you out late last night having a drink?’ I said.”‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘What time did you get back?’ I responded. ‘About 1.30, I think.’

“Given the state he was in eight hours after that, I found his claim hard to believe. My blood was beginning to boil. I did not shout, but let Symonds know exactly what I thought about his behaviour.” Ponting told Symonds he would not be in the team to play Bangladesh. “‘Right,’ was his response,” writes Ponting. “But he said it in such a casual ‘see-if-I-care’ way that it wound me up even more. ‘Don’t encourage me,’ I said. “I was furious at a player being so disrespectful to himself, his teammates, his opponents and his country by turning up to play a game in that state, and I blurted out, ‘He can go home then!’ to Gilchrist before heading off to speak to John Buchanan. Buchanan’s suspicions had been raised when Symonds beat him to breakfast, wearing the same clothes as the night before. But rather than apologise to the coach at training, Symonds told him: “I’ve played when I’ve been like this before.”

He was selected to play the test series against New Zealand during November – December 2008. He did not play any significant role in the first test in which Australia won. However after the end of the test, on 22 November, he was involved in an incident in Brisbane and was reported to be involved in a brawl with another patron who had attempted to hug and have his photo taken with the cricketer. He was cleared by Cricket Australia to play in the following test in Adelaide on 26 November.

In January 2009, Symonds gave an interview with sports comedians Roy & HG, where he made remarks about the acquisition of New Zealand cricketer Brendon McCullum by the New South Wales Blues to play in KFC Twenty20 final against Victoria. Sounding intoxicated, Symonds called McCluum a “lump of shit”, and said that having dinner at the home of teammate Matthew Hayden was enjoyable because he could glance at Hayden’s wife. He was charged by Cricket Australia with violating the code of conduct and was fined, following a hearing over the 25-minute “audiotape” with Cricket Australia chief Michael Brown.

There has been numerous articles talking about his brash arrogance, and its clear that he has a severe drinking problem. Yet all he recieves is a slight rapp on the knuckles and even more suprisingly he is still up for contention to play for Australia. While most of the players are pulling their weight it seems Cricket Australia are not. They have to step up, take responsibility and make sure that Symonds behabviour does not set a precedent.