Attn SANFL - A bit of care with the Football Budget please..

[rd]

Its only a trivial matter to most footy fans but the SANFL Football Budget - as the offical weekly publication of the SANFL - is starting to look a little bit silly with the errors that are sneaking into it. This weekend's Budget (Round 13 June 26-27) has the usual middle page colour poster - why is it of Michael Coad in a week when Sturt have the bye? How many Sturt fans won't buy the Budget this week because they're not at a SANFL match and consequently miss out on a poster of one of their stars? Page 15 has a picture of "A Norwood Contingent at the 1983 Preliminary Final". Since when did John Halbert and Malcolm Greenslade (present in the pic) ever have any involvement with the Norwood Football Club? Gee, a bit of SANFL research easily reveals that Halbert was Sturt's Coach, Greenslade the Runner and Neil Craig (at the back of the pic) was a Sturt player in 1983. I like the Records pages (starting at page 20) placed next to each of the team lists for the 4 games - but why can't the Recent Results include the scores from the 2009 meetings that the teams have now had? The previous week the Football Budget had an excellent article by Rod George regarding "The Great Rivals". Sadly the Granger/Caldwell/Cornes incidents mentioned halfway through the piece have been written or edited to give the impression that everything happened in one game when in fact these two infamous moments involving Granger occurred in two different finals matches - the 1981 Grand Final and the 1982 Preliminary Final. Please don't let the standards of the Football Budget drop away - it is a vital part of the SANFL fan's lifestyle!!

[Wedgie]

Drop?

Nathan Lonie was one of the posters earlier in the year!

Sounds like the standard has improved, at least Coad still plays!

[Barto]

Sounds like a bit of laziness.

Either that or someone from the Sunday Mail is now doing it.

[zipzap]

What's even stupider is that Coady was a centrefold last year (or just maybe the year before but I'm fairly sure it was last year). It's proudly on display in my classroom

[Mr66]

RD, have you sent this message to the SANFL?
If not, do so and then let us know what their reply (if they reply) is.

[Columbo]

I agree RD, to some people it is probably nothing but there have been a few mistakes starting to creep in this season.

In a couple of games a few weeks back the formatting was out in the umpires list and showed only one goal umpire but 4 boundary umpires, the start time for one of the Eagles reserves games was down as 4.55 not 11.15, the last Eagles V Central game had the high/low scores etc the wrong way around and have noticed a couple of times that the previous meetings do not include 2009's games.

Wonder if we will ever get to the point of the budget becomming an online magazine and all you will get at the ground will be a printed team sheet along the lines of a trial or under 18/s game......personally i hope not

[spell_check]

Wonder if we will ever get to the point of the budget becomming an online magazine and all you will get at the ground will be a printed team sheet along the lines of a trial or under 18/s game......personally i hope not

If Jesper Fjelstad becomes editor, most likely.

[heater31]

What's even stupider is that Coady was a centrefold last year (or just maybe the year before but I'm fairly sure it was last year). It's proudly on display in my classroom

I seem to recall that he got a gig the season before as well. The week Rick dropped him to the 2's and a week later he was out for the season with a knee reco.


It must be for the female SANFL fans......they must like him which wouldn't worry Coady the slightest

[71/72]

Wonder if we will ever get to the point of the budget becomming an online magazine and all you will get at the ground will be a printed team sheet along the lines of a trial or under 18/s game......personally i hope not

If Jesper Fjelstad becomes editor, most likely.

Ain't that the truth, he should be sued for impersonating a sports journo.

[nickname]

The SANFL's weekly stats report this week stated that West's last win against Norwood was in 2006. They're not aware of what's happened this season?

[whatever]

I went to a WAFL game this year and was very surprised with their budget. It puts ours to shame.

1 - they list everyones jumper number, seniors, reserves, colts - doesn't matter if they are playing or not they are listed. Thus if Hurn gets dropped from the eagles at the last minute his number is still in the budget for his wafl club.

2 - they have stats of every AFL player from the previous week who was drafted out of the wafl

[Big Phil]

I went to a WAFL game this year and was very surprised with their budget. It puts ours to shame.

1 - they list everyones jumper number, seniors, reserves, colts - doesn't matter if they are playing or not they are listed. Thus if Hurn gets dropped from the eagles at the last minute his number is still in the budget for his wafl club.

2 - they have stats of every AFL player from the previous week who was drafted out of the wafl

And don't you actually get one as a part of your entrance fee, although in saying that, I don't know if it is the same as the SANFL's $10.

I was impressed with the WAFL v SANFL Budget I got when in Perth for the State Game. The only thing that made us all laugh, including the players themselves, was that they had a page with little snap shots of all the players. Under Brant Chambers name was a picture of, yep, you guessed it, Brant Chambers. Under Brad Babrowski's name was a picture of.... Brant Chambers !!

[Adelaide Hawk]

I went to a WAFL game this year and was very surprised with their budget. It puts ours to shame.

At the end of every season, I ask the WAFL to send me a copy of their Grand Final Budget. It's possibly the one football publication I hang out for most, it's a great read, and a year book of the entire season. Fantastic publication.

I've collected SANFL and VFL/AFL Grand Final budgets/records since the early 1960s and the SAFL Football Budget is a must. I'm starting to have have doubts, however, about collecting the Women's Weekly style AFL record ... Last year it was 242 pages thick, and I was interested in about 50 of them.

Edit: And I like the way the WAFL Football Budget puts a short list at the bottom of each team list of AFL listed players and their guernsey numbers. It's annoying when an AFL player is dropped back to the SANFL and is not listed in the Budget.

[csbowes]

Top comments RD... completely agree with that. The problem here is they must have non-SANFL people doing the editing, people who would otherwise pick up these obvious errors.

I would hate to see the budget go, but maybe its time for a revamp, new ideas on new sections, new format, would it be better to have the budget as a small A5 sized product, surely that would also help reduce production costs since you can get 2 x A5's for every A4, seems logical to me, but then I'm not a printer.

I also find the articles a little light on at times. I think that's a sign of the times that the SANFL doesn't have the $$$ to put into it, but what we see in some free publications, like that sportsbet one or whatever you get in pubs, can't remember the name, its just a matter of getting volunteers with some footballing knowledge to do the write ups on certain games. On this forum alone, we have a number of people with the required knowledge to give fair unbias commentry on games.

For me I like opinion pieces on the state of the game and previews for upcoming matches, for post-game assessments, quarter by quarter accounts is what works for me, rather than jumping all over the place like the Advertiser does at times. Its not something I see in the budget, but would certainly appreciate if they brought it in.

There are other articles in the budget, which I'm not sure have as much value. But then I don't profess to speak for everyone, an online survey by the SANFL would do wonders to find out what the public wants.

[prowling panther]

I would hate to see the budget go, but maybe its time for a revamp, new ideas on new sections, new format, would it be better to have the budget as a small A5 sized product, surely that would also help reduce production costs since you can get 2 x A5's for every A4, seems logical to me, but then I'm not a printer.

I think you are on the right track, lets make it smaller, have good footy write ups and charge 6pence for it like they used to years ago.

[Adelaide Hawk]

I would hate to see the budget go, but maybe its time for a revamp, new ideas on new sections, new format, would it be better to have the budget as a small A5 sized product, surely that would also help reduce production costs since you can get 2 x A5's for every A4, seems logical to me, but then I'm not a printer.

Certainly for those of us who collect them, a smaller size would be most welcome.

[Barto]

The Budget used to be the smaller size, it was a pain in the arse when it was changed.

[therisingblues]

I also find the articles a little light on at times. I think that's a sign of the times that the SANFL doesn't have the $$$ to put into it, but what we see in some free publications, like that sportsbet one or whatever you get in pubs, can't remember the name, its just a matter of getting volunteers with some footballing knowledge to do the write ups on certain games. On this forum alone, we have a number of people with the required knowledge to give fair unbias commentry on games.

Which makes me think about the footysa.com days when a guest poster would do a review of the next round of matches. Some of them were well written.
Perhaps the budget could request input from certain posters? I am pretty sure no fees would be required as people post on here for free all the time. I understand that without a fee gaurantees of standards could be hard met at times, but then it doesn't have to be regular thing. Just print the good ones when they come up.
I guess it would just be like a letters section except that the piece would be in a different section, and recognised as an opinion of an invited commentator/blogger.
Just put of interest, do they still do the segment called "over the fence", where they talk about what happens to people not directly involved with the game?

[Columbo]

Couple more errors pointed out to me at the game today...the reserves match details for the Eagles v Bays and South V Dogs were wrong way around...again only minor but its starting to get worse than the spot the difference between the pictures thing in the budget!!!

[godoubleblues]

have a look at the back page of the footy lift out in todays Addy
this issue got a mention