Dear Mr Gordon

[GVGjr]

Should PG be pushing the AFL to insert the Bulldogs into the Anzac clash rather than having a sub strength Essendon side that now doesn't live up to the spirit of the game?

I'd also question if Essendon have any prime time games we might be able to swap with them.. Food for thought

[Axe Man]

Should PG be pushing the AFL to insert the Bulldogs into the Anzac clash rather than having a sub strength Essendon side that now doesn't live up to the spirit of the game?

I'd also question if Essendon have any prime time games we might be able to swap with them.. Food for thought

The AFL have already said that they won't be changing the fixture in relation to Essendon games.

Our round 22 Sunday twilight match at Etihad against them is sure to be an absolute blockbuster. Thank goodness it's not our home game.

[G-Mo77]

The AFL have already said that they won't be changing the fixture in relation to Essendon games.

Our round 22 Sunday twilight match at Etihad against them is sure to be an absolute blockbuster. Thank goodness it's not our home game.

Technically no but it'll seem like it. I might go sit in their members area. Shouldn't have any trouble finding a seat.

[ledge]

I wonder what clubs will do if the crowd drop Is significant loss. Because all clubs will suffer will they approach the AFL for some sort of compensation ?
Especially us playing them at etihad if we don't get enough to pay the venue.

[jeemak]

Ledge, it's likely to happen though unfortunately the only conclusion the AFL will draw to improve the following season's attendance will be to increase the exposure afforded to the EFC against the narrative they're embarking upon a journey where a fresh start will be their salvation and likewise to all opposing clubs.

They'll get the number one draft pick at least and in all likelihood a priority pick once one or two key players leave as free agents.

[Ghost Dog]

Technically no but it'll seem like it. I might go sit in their members area. Shouldn't have any trouble finding a seat.

What do you mean? Their membership will skyrocket after this. You watch. They are the Southern Confederates of the AFL. United in their warped philosophy. All red-neck bally-ho about their premiership future after having their arses handed to them by some court in a country most of them couldn't find on a map. Except my Dad...of course!

[FrediKanoute]

What PG should be doing is pretty simple really. He should be making sure that a supplements program of the like that has brought down the Bombers cannot happen at the Bulldogs. He should make sure that there are proper controls on both Football department actions and spend with the Chief Medical officer of the club reporting/confirming regularly to the Board that there is no systematic doping going on. We like most clubs should make sure our house is in order (and I have no reason to believe that it is not) and that appropriate controls and governance exists so that it can't happen.

What has happened at Essendon is in my mind a case study in what happens when an organisation has poor governance. From the players to the Board no one questioned the program/actions/inaction/judgement of the people involved. the result is that you have an organisation in disarray. You will always have people who try to cheat. Its human nature. Individuals cheating is a problem, but a strong organisation will weed out and eliminate these people. Essendon's problem is that either everyone was in on the deception or they turned a blind eye to the deception.

Peter Gordon's main task (and the Board) should be to make sure it can't happen to us.

[BulldogBelle]

One avenue that could be pursued is trying to get Shane Charter to spill the beans.

The Herald Sun can reveal Hird and Charter worked together for 12 months on his diet and fitness during the champion’s premiership and Brownlow Medal-winning career.

Charter was also hailed as “the architect” behind Demon Shane Woewodin’s 2000 Brownlow Medal win.

Charter is mentioned in the Arbitration Decision Report 29 times mainly as the supplier of illegal drugs to Stephen Dank.

Playing football at Castlemaine he was getting knocked around every other week and needed bulk and muscles, and fast. "So I hit the gym and never came back," he says. "I put on 10kg and never went back to football. I loved it."

Embracing the performance-enhancing drugs then in vogue - nandrolone, boldenone, Stanozolol, Dianabol, ephedrine and more - he sculpted himself into a bodybuilding and powerlifting champion.

He walks the talk, the 45-year-old has been on "the gear" all his adult life.

If he's pushing steroids, he's using them. If he's promoting peptides, he's injecting them himself. If he's treating sportsmen with platelet-rich plasma, he's tried it on his own dodgy knees.

While researching a paper on steroid detection in rats for his university biochemistry degree, Charter used some of the steroids on the animals and kept the rest for himself.

Research and development, an enterprise that allows scientists to legitimately import a range of chemicals into Australia with a permit, remains part of the work Charter does at his Melbourne anti-ageing clinic, Dr Ageless.

Dr Ageless began his professional life as a pharmaceutical salesman for global medical research giant AstraZeneca, building his own business as a personal trainer on the side in the late 1990s.

He began attracting some star clients - football players such as Luke Darcy, Nathan Brown, Simon Garlick, Scott West and Shane Woewodin.

So impressed was Woewodin with Charter's dietary advice, the Demons star praised him during his acceptance speech for the 2000 Brownlow Medal (Woewodin has since issued a statement saying he received nutritional advice, and nothing more, from Charter).

Another of Charter's star clients from that period was James Hird.

Charter says it was he who introduced Hird to the world of supplements."Hirdy wouldn't touch them before he met me and he never took anything that was against the rules," he says.

He says Hird introduced him to club chairman David Evans, who took him on as a consultant at investment firm JB Were for about three months, guiding executives on health and wellbeing.

Everything is milligrams, hormones, fragments, molecules, volumes, kilograms, hydration, fat, composition, muscle and more.

He documents his correspondence with the diligence of a librarian and watches his bank balance like an accountant.

His multi-million-dollar vineyard home in Sunbury, on Melbourne's outskirts, features a fully equipped gym, the walls of which are plastered with anatomical drawings and charts.

Biology textbooks are piled high on his office desk and pictures of famous sports stars he has worked with line the walls.

Less visible, however, is evidence of his criminal clients.

In Charter's catch-all approach to business, everyone is welcome - underworld figures, athletes, lawyers, executives.

Over the years he has treated a range of colourful characters including an alleged major drug trafficker who is aligned with the Calabrian mafia.

Boxer Barry Michael was once a client. So were bikie enforcer Toby Mitchell and his family, as was Tony Mokbel's former girlfriend, Danielle McGuire.

Charter knows Tony Doherty, the well-known gym operator whose Brunswick facility operates next door to a Bandidos bikie clubhouse.

He baulks at naming his famous football friends, but in talks with the Herald Sun has mentioned controversy-prone North Melbourne hero Wayne Carey and West Coast bad boy Ben Cousins, who Charter says he has twice chaperoned to a rehabilitation clinic in Thailand.

He met "Cuzzi" through their mutual mate, the late underworld figure and sports manager John Giannarelli.

Cousins' battle with illicit drug addiction has been well publicised, but Charter has no reason to believe he ever used anything in a performance-enhancing capacity.

Charter's first and only brush with the law came in 2004 during Operation Macer, a joint investigation by Victoria Police's major drug investigation division and Customs. Before that, he had never been on the law enforcement radar.

Charter was arrested and found in possession of 100,000 pseudoephedrine-based tablets in 2004. He pleaded guilty and received a reduced prison sentence.

So it was no surprise when he turned Crown witness in the drug prosecution that saw a number of figures jailed over a large-scale steroid and pseudoephedrine trafficking operation.

County Court judge John Smallwood noted Charter had been a genuine witness and seemed confused about why he would throw away a successful career by turning to crime.

"You clearly were very good at what you did and gave advice to high-powered people and organisations," sentencing judge Smallwood said.

"Why you commenced this offending is beyond me."

The judge remarked that if not for those crimes, Charter's conduct throughout his life would have been "exemplary".

Charter struggles to explain it himself.

"When you are mixing in a world of sporting stars, high-powered businessman and criminals, a lot goes on that the general public are never aware of," he says.

"Unfortunately when you get too close to a hurricane you can get sucked in."

Charter had been introduced to steroids by a powerlifter who the Herald Sun has established has links with a group called the Council of Australian Powerlifting Organisations.

Based in Albury, on the Hume Highway, CAPO operates a competition that is not subject to anti-doping rules. Some of its members have drug convictions and one of its competitions allegedly once took place in a Rebels bikie clubhouse.

Charter prefers not to revisit these links, saying he's not proud.

But it is his tangled past that makes him an asset in the biggest anti-doping probe in the history of Australian sport.

He knows all the right people in all the wrong places and, more importantly, understands the science behind manipulating performance-enhancing drug testing regimes because he has done it himself.

Privately, Australian regulators concede that they are losing the fight against performance-enhancing drugs in sport and believe this will change only with big reforms to the way performance-enhancing substances are regulated.

Charter says even the latest biological passports, which track changes in an athlete's blood for evidence of doping, are not foolproof.

"These biological passport tests are limited and can be manipulated," he says.

He was assisting the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority in its efforts to unravel the "exotic" supplements program adopted by the Bombers last season.

Charter alleges that he sourced a range of substances for sacked sports scientist Stephen Dank while Dank worked for Essendon.

He has supplied ASADA with a list of peptides and hormones he claims Dank had requested.

Of the substances Dank allegedly requested, Charter has records that indicate he supplied him with growth hormone six, CJC-1295, Melatonan II, Thymosin beta 4 and mechano growth factor.

Separately, he recalls that Dank had also asked him for advice about using what is known as a Myers Cocktail.

Popular among bodybuilders, it is a 45-minute intravenous infusion of various vitamins and minerals. And at about $800 per drip, it's not cheap.

Charter says he ordered the required equipment, but Dank never collected it.

SHANE Charter - the convicted drug trafficker who may have supplied former Essendon sports scientist Steve Dank with supplements at the centre of footy's doping probe - has links to Bombers coach James Hird.


There have been quite a few AFL players over the years that have suffered the effects of a Navicular stress fracture dreaded injury. It is an injury that is becoming one of the most feared amongst AFL and sporting circles. Due to prominent AFL players being struck down with a Navicular stress fracture the profile of this injury has grown in the media in recent years. James Hird is probably the most notable name but recently Alex Fasolo, Jack Trengove, Jimmy Bartell and Shaun Higgins have all suffered Navicular stress fractures..

The Navicular bone is located in the inside/middle of the foot, is positioned between the forefoot (ball of foot) and the rear foot (heel) and forms some of the key joints within the arch and mid foot. It is surrounded by the cuneiforms and talus and with excessive force and impact is often jammed and crunched between these other bones. It is thought that limited ankle joint range of motion, in particular dorsiflexion, and over pronation of the foot are possible contributors to the development of this injury. In comparison to other areas and other joints the Navicular has a reduced blood supply and as it is under constant pressure and loading, does not have the same opportunity to heal and repair.

Non-weight bearing in the form of an offloading cast is used to immobilise the joint to allowing healing to take place.

This injury is and that it can easily be career ending... Geelong's Matty Egan.

James Hird managed to defy the odds, resurrect his career and become one of the game’s greatest players.

[Twodogs]

Geez ringer. Once was enough.

[bornadog]

Geez ringer. Once was enough.

You should know

[BulldogBelle]

Don't know how that got posted twice. I deleted one of them. It is a bit long eh!

[Twodogs]

You should know

That's enough from the peanut section.

Don't know how that got posted twice. I deleted one of them. It is a bit long eh!

That's OK Ringer. I may have done it once or twice myself.

[BornInDroopSt'54]

Don't know how that got posted twice. I deleted one of them. It is a bit long eh!

To delete a post, you've got to select delete twice. There's a second delete option at the bottom.

[Twodogs]

Don't know how that got posted twice. I deleted one of them. It is a bit long eh!

To delete a post, you've got to select delete twice. There's a second delete option at the bottom.

done.

[Remi Moses]

The Murdoch rag's front page today!
Just bizarre