Much Ado About Nothing
It’s practically impossible to tell whether The Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare, would have been a football fan.
Afterall, in Elizabethan England he had no such opportunity.
When Shakespeare was gadding about in short pants and perhaps toying with the idea of writing about athletic endeavours, the dream that is Australian Football was approximately 300 years from being realised.
Not even that Association muck and its ill-tempered, silk-shirted urchins were on the sporting landscape in Shakespearian times when our William was putting quill to parchment.
But given his penchant for drama, particularly the tragedy, I could see the bard taking more than a passing interest in the Collingwood Football Club and its rather crushing habit of reaching grand finals, only to fall flat on its face at the big dance.
Perhaps he’d also be interested in how the 2011 AFL Trade Week has unfolded. Perhaps.
But probably not, because this year even I’m finding it tough to be at all interested in the comings and goings – and nothings – of trade week.
Maybe I’m still suffering the ill-effects of a broken heart courtesy of that dark day on October 1 and can’t bring myself to buy into the spirit of excitement so bandied about by the mainstream football media.
Why should I care about a couple of B-graders swapping clubs in return for mid-range draft picks that will probably end up being used to recruit the next generation of C-graders into the national competition?
And why would I even bother trying to determine just which way the cards will fall on the ‘GWS mini-draft’ and whether Gubby Allen is, in fact, a smarter operator than Adrian Anderson and the powers that be at AFL House?
Maybe if I thought the Pies needed to ‘strengthen’ during the week-long period I’d be frothing at the mouth for hourly updates and live radio broadcasts from the heart of the action. Maybe…
Not me. Not this year. Not on your Nelly.
The Pies are looking fine for another flag tilt in 2012, and 2013 and maybe even 2014, too.
They’ve already played a quality hand in bringing back Irishman Martin Clarke from his homeland for a second taste of AFL life.
This was one of very few trades actually completed during the first half of an otherwise dull week in football.
But Collingwood may wind up losing Premiership defender Alan Toovey – be it in a trade or at the end of his contract – especially if his rabid management has anything to do with it.
The biggest story in the middle days of AFL Trade Week was courtesy of Jim Marinis and his email to all AFL clubs, practically pimping his client out and right under the collective nose of footy newshounds desperate for something to happen. Anything.
Aside from making a splash in the back pages of Melbourne’s small paper, the ‘Toovey trade’ (or otherwise) got me thinking about a couple of major themes of the aforementioned William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing – fidelity and deception.
I’m not for a moment suggesting Toovey has ‘cheated’ on or lied to the Collingwood Football Club. Nor am I questioning the motive of his management team – they are clearly seeking the best deal possible for their client.
But there seem to be some parallels to be drawn between the whole trade week merry-go-round, along with the circus it graces, and Shakespeare’s 16th Century comedy (tenuous as they may be).
Shakespeare wrote of four main characters in the play, the quartet eventually making for two married couples.
But it’s the rocky and somewhat treacherous road that led them down the aisle that perhaps best resembles the trade week action.
Given the villain Don John’s role in deceiving the protagonists in different ways, he may well have made for a very excellent player manager at the trade table.
Don John fooled Beatrice and Benedick into proclaiming their love for each other when the very same may not have happened if they’d been left to their own devices. See: Mitch Clark and the Melbourne Football Club.
He also drove a wedge between Claudio and Hero, temporarily separating the doting couple before they managed to get things back on the straight-and-narrow in the long run. See: Alan Toovey and the Collingwood Football Club.
If you’ll allow me a wide berth with the metaphor, it’s really not hard to see the role of Don John played by any player agent worth their salt, or by a football department hell bent on getting its man before deadline day.
Marinis has fairly cuckolded the Magpies by offering Toovey to the highest bidder while the Melbourne Football Club has revealed a hitherto unknown desire for Clark – and sweetened the proposal with a fat dowry (four years at $500,000… yes, please).
Whether these deals get done remains to be seen.
In a non-plussed kind of way I hope they do. At least then there will be less chance of the 2011 AFL Trade Week being linked most closely to Shakespeare’s comedy through the title alone.
Much Ado About Nothing – it just seems to fit.
