James Hird rushed to hospital

[SonofScray]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

It's a massive, deserved fall from grace and something that he has to make sense of and deal with. I hope it haunts him and that Club for a long time. Everything has a price.

[Bulldog4life]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

James Hird has plotted his own tragic course BY PATRICK SMITH

The best physicians and psychiatric boffins are putting James Hird back together again. That’s what is reported daily in the media. After an emergency dash in an ambulance to hospital he is now in rehabilitation. Drug overdose apparently.

Hird has been a sad story ever since he began to self-medicate with poor advice in February 2013. He started out well enough. That’s when he told a media conference, which reverberated around the world, that he took full responsibility for a secret and dangerous peptide regime that had been running uncontrolled at Essendon for a year.

No sooner had Hird said what should have been obvious to a rabid Shih tzu he moonwalked away from his admission. Apparently, he had been forced by the AFL to be so willing to take the blame.

From that moment Hird, the most perfect footballer and ambassador the AFL might have ever possessed, overdosed on hubris almost weekly. If he is a lost soul now then he must accept the consequences. He initiated all the wrongs he presumably perceives done to him.

He should, of course, have our sympathy and constant concern. He was everybody’s hero but now finds himself in a wretched place. So does his family, especially his children. But, from everything that has been made public over the past four years, it is Hird and a clique of advisers who have plotted this tragic course.

Since the news that he was in hospital after a serious “medical incident” the community has once more broken apart into two sides. One argues that Hird had let down the club and the players by his lack of methodical governance, the first duty of an AFL coach. Players he coached received drugs — some of which have not been identified — and others that have and which led to 34 players coached by Hird being suspended for 12 months. Hird, by his lack of watchful eye, forced Jobe Watson, the son of former champion Tim Watson, to hand back his 2012 Brownlow Medal.

Watson senior has been a most interesting commentator throughout this saga. He has been torn between protecting his son’s legacy, as well as his own small but important part in wooing Hird and Mark Thompson to Essendon as the dynamic coaching duo. For a person in the media ultimately he was too compromised to comment freely and without prejudice. Mostly, his best work was snide and unhelpful.

It has been said friends have rallied around Hird. That must be comforting to him and the family. Hird’s father, Allan Hird Jr, who also played for Essendon, said in The Weekend Australian on January 7 that the 43-year-old’s health was “paramount and our No 1 concern”.

Yet in the media, social and mainstream, the commentary is as confused, spiteful and misinformed as always. The root cause is the fundamental failure of observers to differentiate between the AFL case against Hird (lack of governance) and the ASADA case against 34 players (taking banned substances).

If you choose to meld and confuse both cases then you can stitch together a case that satisfies your biases but does not represent the facts.

For example: it is shouted and hardly reasoned that the AFL bullied Hird so much that he ultimately could not cope and in desperation gave up. He was made a scapegoat that ultimately drove him to his all but fateful decision.

It is peddled by the likes of former South Australian champion Graham Cornes who now holds a loud but uneducated role in the Adelaide media. He wrote recently: “Those of you who have vilified James Hird — the media, particularly the Fairfax Press, who hounded and ridiculed him; the keyboard cowards who act from their cover of anonymity and lack of any moral filter.

“The opposition fans whose prejudice and hysteria blinded them to the facts; the AFL, which lost control of what should have been an internal matter; the football world in general, which has ostracised him; and indeed those from within the Essendon Football Club who were desperate for a scapegoat — must all face the consequences of their comments and their actions.

“For it is you who have driven James Hird to what could have been his last, desperate act.”

There must have been great angst in the newsroom as to whether this drivel should have been printed. If Cornes means by scapegoat that someone had to be held responsible for an illegal and secret drug regime then, yes, Hird had to be held to account. He was, after all, the coach.

His suggestion that it should have been kept within AFL walls proves his frightening lack of understanding of sport, not just football.

The drug code under which the AFL competition — and all major sports perform — is run by the independent Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency. Any attempt not to co-operate with ASADA brings heavy and crippling penalties.

On the weekend Danny Corcoran, who was at Essendon at the time the club sports medicine witch doctor Stephen Dank ran his program unfettered by club governance, spoke publicly. Corcoran, then the club football department boss among other things, served a short suspension for his part.

On the weekend he told News Corp: “I walked out of (Hird’s) ICU unit and just felt the total despair of how systemic bullying and harassment of a person had caused him to fall into such a dire state.

“I can’t believe it. He’s in an ICU in a secure ward. A great man — a great champion, reduced to this ... it’s just horrendous to think that it’s got to this point.”

Yes, it is horrendous. But it is not the making of the media, the AFL or ASADA. Hird had cobbled together a group of lawyers, barristers and public relations gurus who helped shape his future. Too late, he sought to protect the players that he had previously left so vulnerable to Dank, a man now banned for life from Australian sport.

Others, like Thompson, declare that Hird should have been brought back to the bosom of the game. That neatly ignores the salient fact that when Hird quit Essendon in August 2015 he had been returned as head coach and had taken the club to 14 losses out of 19 games, the last one he was in charge of saw Adelaide beat the Bombers by 122 points.

He walked away because he realised his tenure at the club was untenable.

President David Evans, running the club in 2013 when the story broke, sought a quick end to the mess when he attempted to strike a deal with ASADA and the AFL. It meant Evans and other officials including Hird would have had to admit to their lack of governance. Effectively, Evans was pushed aside and businessman Paul Little took over as president and the club and Hird began a long, expensive and fruitless crusade through the courts.

They lost at every turn.

This was not bullying by the AFL or ASADA, which was to offer a deal to the players similar to the one taken by Cronulla. The Sharks grabbed it and won last year’s NRL premiership.

Essendon and the AFL sent Hird off for a study course in Paris. He was paid $1 million for the 12 months of his disqualification. His contract was extended. Oh, please. Someone bully me, bully me.

Hird is ill and we should all pray that he makes a full recovery. But to suggest that his present condition is the fault of anyone else is folly and a falsehood.

Hird, sadly, drove himself to the intensive care unit, calling the directions all the way.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/opinion/patrick-smith/james-hird-has-plotted-his-own-tragic-course/news-story/52b8eee1cdb4885b25381990e78b7283

[FrediKanoute]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

Well said Patrick Smith - cutting, honest and accurate. Lets move on now and give some sympathy to people who truly deserve it.

[The Doctor]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

A brilliant journalist who always brings the story back to the facts and not swayed by the hysteria or popular opinion.

[Twodogs]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

Patrick's world is a little too black and white for mine. i like agitaters though and he is a bloody good stirrer. Good journo but I don't often agree with his opinion. But that's OK. I'm sure he's not losing any sleep about it. I'm not.

I often enjoy his articles though and that one is particularly good. Problem is though every time he gets on his high horse and starts lecturing about so,e player indiscretion I remember that he's the only cricketer I've seen punch another cricketer during a match (I've seen a couple in the car park after stumps but not out on the ground) so it tends to sound a little hypocritical.

[Sedat]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

Hird's hubris and arrogance gave this story an extra 3 years of oxygen - this story would have been as good as over if David Evans and Demetriou were able to negotiate a punishment with ASADA in 2013 along the lines of what the Cronulla Sharks players and officials copped (ie: bugger-all). But Hird could not swallow even a miniscule amout of pride to take any form of punishment as a result of his culpability and responsibility in the program. Hence why he spent the next 3 years in the courts and screwed up EFC's last 3 seasons in the process.

The PR spin from the pro-Hird camp since last week has been as sickening as it has been predictable.

[Bornadog]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

Hird's hubris and arrogance gave this story an extra 3 years of oxygen - this story would have been as good as over if David Evans and Demetriou were able to negotiate a punishment with ASADA in 2013 along the lines of what the Cronulla Sharks players and officials copped (ie: bugger-all). But Hird could not swallow even a miniscule amout of pride to take any form of punishment as a result of his culpability and responsibility in the program. Hence why he spent the next 3 years in the courts and screwed up EFC's last 3 seasons in the process.

The PR spin from the pro-Hird camp since last week has been as sickening as it has been predictable.

He has also had to foot millions himself in legal and what not fees. This has hurt his wife and children's future. So selfish.

[Topdog]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

Brilliant article, just brilliant

[Sedat]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

A follow up article from Patrick

James Hird column did not trivialise mental health, but corrected mistruths

From the moment news broke that James Hird was ill, some Essendon supporters and other members of the community damned sections of the media and the AFL.

On Monday this column addressed the mistruths and mischievous reporting that desperately tried to explain and politicise the reasons why James Hird, a former champion footballer for Essendon and potentially a fine coach, was taken to hospital on January 4 and then a rehabilitation centre after a drug overdose.

From the moment the news broke that Hird was ill, some Essendon supporters and other members of the community immediately took to social platforms to damn sections of the media and the AFL for driving Hird to his desperate act.


The core of the comments was that Hird had been bullied. It was a tragic moment cynically seized by people who had earlier and unsuccessfully pushed for Hird not to be held to account for an amateurish lack of governance at the club.

The response to the column was vast, some parts supportive of the column, some parts understanding and content with its thrust and another part agitated. And angry. Mostly, though, the reaction was squalid stuff. Uneducated and driven by nothing more substantial than the colour of their club’s football club jumper.

One tweet was disgusted that the column described the psychiatric personnel helping Hird recover as boffins. The use of the word in the column was, apparently, written to demean mental health issues. The tweeter obviously had no idea that a boffin is an expert, or specialist. An authority in his or her field.

Hird’s illness was a trigger to all the men and women who supported and barracked for Hird to restart their war against the AFL and members of the media who were critical of the former coach’s role in the Essendon peptide regimen under disgraced sports medicine man Stephen Dank. If we are not prepared to face up to the truth about the Essendon saga then nothing is learnt. And Hird’s illness never fully understood.

Between Hird’s hospitalisation and Monday’s column, history was rewritten. Hird supporters wallowed in the opportunity to paint the AFL as mean and calculating and ASADA conniving in their pursuit of the Brownlow medallist. No one seemed to think this regurgitation of Hird’s fall from grace and good health was inappropriate or could be a hindrance to his recovery.

Nor the fact that the Court of Arbitration for Sport destroyed their arguments in January last year when 34 players who were at Essendon in 2012 under Dank and Hird were suspended for 12 months.

The column was written to explode the misrepresentation of the facts concerning Hird’s leaving Essendon as coach before the end of 2015 season. It did not trivialise mental illness but corrected an avalanche of untruths freely published and articulated after Hird’s hospitalisation.

Hird was not bullied but given poor advice and made misjudgments of his own. That is why he is under expert treatment, his life spiralling down a dark hole of his and others’ making. This column again expresses its great concern for Hird and his family. Just as it repeatedly did last Monday.

Cannot like this post enough. It perfectly encapsulates the agenda of the pro-Hird brigade and exposes their grubby opportunism at attempting to rewrite history.

[jeemak]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

Cannot like this post enough. It perfectly encapsulates the agenda of the pro-Hird brigade and exposes their grubby opportunism at attempting to rewrite history.

It does, but it also perfectly contrasts that with the human side of this issue that each side of the argument is seemingly losing site of.

I've read a lot of posts of sympathy about James's kids and family - and they've all been fair enough. But irrespective of what he's responsible for and what he's not owned up to, he's cooked and I have sympathy for him.

People are trained to be who they are over a long period of time. In Hird's particular case he's been trained to be a self loving person more than anyone of us could ever imagine to have been. Smith's first article above shows us what happens to self loving people when those they surround themselves with love them more than they do themselves.

To think that a new EFC regime could possibly look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth that was the original AFL deal offered to the EFC beggars belief. This is the precise point at which James Hird fell down.

I've needed to be careful with my posting on this issue because of who I work for over the course of these past few years. What I can say now, is that the coterie and commercial interests involved with the EFC in the first instance thought they could steam roll the AFL, ASADA and the public, using Hird's image as a pin up boy as public leverage. And then these dickheads realised the same thing the rest of us did (which they probably already knew, but were bluffing over), which is the evidence is water tight and only hail Mary movie type revisionist scenarios could save them. Whilst I appreciate the arrogance of of Hird is strong, I believe the arrogance of his backers is and was stronger.

James Hird has always been an extremely self centred, glorified, but fragile creature. He's nobody but himself to blame for his current predicament, but a huge part of the non-sympathetic public perception issue with his current position needs to take into account that he's a product of the people who glorify him.

[Topdog]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

Well said jeemak. Hird could have been stopped at any point by a number of different people. EFC waited far too long to tell him to stop.

[merantau]

Re: James Hird rushed to hospital

Patrick's world is a little too black and white for mine. i like agitaters though and he is a bloody good stirrer. Good journo but I don't often agree with his opinion. But that's OK. I'm sure he's not losing any sleep about it. I'm not.

I often enjoy his articles though and that one is particularly good. Problem is though every time he gets on his high horse and starts lecturing about so,e player indiscretion I remember that he's the only cricketer I've seen punch another cricketer during a match (I've seen a couple in the car park after stumps but not out on the ground) so it tends to sound a little hypocritical.

This is one incident (the on-ground punch) that passed me by. Can you elaborate?