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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
Come on people, let's get this thread back on track.
Come on people, let's get this thread back on track.
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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
Now here is an idea! Maybe we could sponsor butch!
BUTCH the Western Bulldogs' unofficial mascot is on the outer.
The hound is a favourite with fans and scored a YouTube hit after TV cameras caught him getting randy with Collingwood's magpie mascot.
But the bills are mounting and the Bulldogs won't throw Butch a bone.
The club has an official mascot in Woofer - a man in a dog suit - and is not prepared to pay for Butch to provide pre-game amusement.
etc etcComment
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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
"But it's good to see Butch at the games and it was pretty funny when he attacked the magpie."
Umm...
Not called attacking in my day....Comment
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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
What bills could possibly be mounting? If only my dogs weren't labs. Otherwise i'd gladly take them along to all bulldogs games and not request a cent from my club, on the contrary i'd feel privileged.Comment
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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
[COLOR="Red"][B][U][COLOR="Blue"]85, 92, 97, 98, 08, 09, 10... Break the curse![/COLOR][/U][/B][/COLOR]Comment
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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
I think we've seen that one TCD
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Comment
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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
Casual day @ work tomorrow.
Am wearing the T-Shirt to test my theory.
If we beat the Cats tomorrow night, i will pack the shirt away for a fortnight and bring it out for the real action, in case it's like a 3 wishes only thing.Comment
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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
Now we really have jumped the shark!
Perhaps Eade will finally see reason and leave Huddo in the ruck while playing the beard as a small crumbing forward.Comment
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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
I like this call
'Rita is a fan - pub gossip has her pushing for Hudson to complement it with a headband'
And this...
It's owner is starting to wonder if he's created a monster right beneath his nose. ''We all know it's big and it's red and it's not very attractive, but if it wasn't for (Bob) Murphy writing about it every second week (in The Age) I might be able to get rid of it.
''But now he reckons I have to get permission from 'the people' to shave it off.''
Too right!Float Along - Fill Your LungsComment
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Re: The Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society.
Bulldog Belle has already posted this in Dogs day, but deserves to be in the Beard thread. The TShirt pic is also published in The Age.
The ''Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society'' has been mentioned in this article on Huddo....
Hair of the Dog
The Age | Peter Hanlon | August 21, 2009
Peter Hanlon | August 21, 2009
IN THE tipping competition at his local pub, Ben Hudson is listed as ''1st ruck''. It's debatable which is more surprising: that an AFL footballer can have a local, or that Hudson is an AFL footballer.
There are echoes of another time in more than just Hudson's chin (more about ''The People's Beard'' later). Hudson is a ruckman of the sort that thrived when beards were everywhere. That he not only survives against modern uber-athletes, but is crucial to the Western Bulldogs' fortunes, is a retro triumph to rival the rebirth of stove-pipe trousers.
''Physically, if you look at it from a stats point of view, I'm probably shorter, I'm not going to jump as high, and I can't run as fast,'' is Hudson's take on how he stacks up against the new breed of smooth-running, high-leaping, game-breaking machines. ''You could argue the game hasn't exactly evolved to my advantage.''
This could get a man down, but Hudson and the art of modern ruckwork is a simple tale of evening up the odds when they appear to be stacked against you. While his eccentric partner of the centre bounce, Will Minson, waxed lyrical on ABC radio last weekend about using logarithms and calculus to work out their rotations, Hudson's take on their craft is less complicated.
''When you get the chance to slow it down and use your strength you go for it. I think you just work out ways, you just have a crack,'' he says.
''You know they're going to outjump you, so if you purely try and time your run at the ball they're going to win nine out of 10.
''You just have to use your physical attributes. I try and make contact and protect where the ball's going to bounce.''
Of course, you can't have a crack in the way bearded giants of another age might have. Once, long ago and far away, Hudson thought nothing of ''testing the waters'' by giving away an early free kick or two. In the AFL that spells free entry to the forward line, which equals disaster. ''As you get a bit older you realise you probably shouldn't rap the other ruckman around the head.''
Minson recently helped him change a tyre on his 1958 Holden, debunking a Hudson theory that his teammate was only good at the things normal blokes can't do.
Back out in the middle, their collegiate approach to wearing opponents down helps offset the limitations of having an old-style partnership at the bounces, where neither is a mobile tall first and a ruckman second (think Paddy Ryder for Essendon this season).
''I think they know Will and I are going to be physical. We just work as a tag-team, work over the ruckmen and play to your strengths.''
They make an odd couple. ''I only wear collared shirts to job interviews, he wears them to bed,'' Hudson says of the man he calls ''a unique individual''. Yet they are neighbours, and mates. ''Ask Will a question and he'll have the answer. He's a big man, the Adonis, so you can't really argue with him.''
Hudson is a realist; he knows the new breed's adeptness at ''spreading from the contest'' is hard to match, and there will be times when he gets caught out. ''The game's not going to get any slower. I'd have my head in the sand if I thought ruckmen were meant to be six-foot-five and 110 kilos and not be able to jump.''
He's not looking for sympathy, and doesn't get any. The innkeepers at the Commercial Club Hotel don't so much keep him watered during football season (behind the beard lies a committed professional) as fed. And grounded - in another echo of old Australia, no shortage of advice flies across the bar when he drops in for a carb-load. ''Jeez, Rock, you got your pants pulled down there,'' was the welcome after a miserable afternoon a fortnight ago against Nic Naitanui and West Coast.
Asked how he thinks the up-and-comers might view him, Hudson's response is as grizzled as his whiskers. ''They probably think I'm a grumpy old ruckman, that I'm too old to be there, it's a young man's game.'' That he gets in the opposition's face and is rather talkative out on the ground, rounds out the profile.
Yet the obsession with the prototype ''modern ruckman'' doesn't faze him; on the available evidence - speed over 20 metres, leap off four steps - he'd probably pick them ahead of himself too. ''But as long as the people in the media who keep going on about them aren't in match committee, I'll be safe for another week.''
That he was ever picked at all is incredible given he trod a path to the big time that very much belongs in a more bearded age. All being well, he will play his 100th game against Collingwood next weekend, an almighty effort for a man who was 25 on debut.
In brief, the family moved to Brisbane when he was eight, he played rugby and basketball, then got back into football at university (the uni pub was next to the footy ground). He finished a physiotherapy degree, joined the workforce, met a girl, lived a life. Already, he was older than many of the third-and-fourth-year players he locks horns with each week.
Even when his competitive nature got the better of him and he came home for a job and a shot at the VFL with Werribee, it helped that his grandmother's house was opposite Chirnside Park. Then he was drafted by Adelaide and became an AFL footballer.
He feels blessed, knowing that when the end comes, the world beyond won't be foreign. ''Every player's fear post-footy is, 'What do you do?' I'm lucky, I've worked in the real world. I enjoyed it and I'll go back to it.''
Living in Melbourne's inner north agrees with him, and with Rita, a girl from northern NSW who Hudson says ''accepts football'', but shakes her head at its hold on the city.
''I don't think she'd seen a game when we met - she knew me pre-football career.''
To see the game only as her man plays it must be a strange thing. Hudson is aware how often he ends up on all fours, at the bottom of a contest he's just negated, scrambling around trying to clear a path or effect a clearance.
''I know I spend too much time on my knees,'' he says, laughing it off as a trait inherited from his father. ''I spend too much time walking or half-jogging to the next contest, too.''
It is a self-deprecating take on the fulfilment of what the Bulldogs ask of him: to make a contest, and to give a second effort, and then a third.
Another quirk is what he does with the ball when he gets it. A club statistician recently gave a presentation on his handball-to-kick ratio; in 2009 he has handballed 200 times and had just 48 kicks, and never more than four in a game. ''We've got some pretty good on-ballers, so you just give it to them and let 'em run. I'm not Lindsay Gilbee when it comes to the art of kicking.''
Which brings us to the art of beards. Hudson has worn one off and on for a good while, but only this year has it taken on a life of its own. A ''Ben Hudson's Beard Appreciation Society'' has materialised, and Bulldog online forums are littered with comparisons and acclamation of ''the beard''.
It's owner is starting to wonder if he's created a monster right beneath his nose. ''We all know it's big and it's red and it's not very attractive, but if it wasn't for (Bob) Murphy writing about it every second week (in The Age) I might be able to get rid of it.
''But now he reckons I have to get permission from 'the people' to shave it off.''
Rita is a fan - pub gossip has her pushing for Hudson to complement it with a headband - but whether ''The People's Beard'' makes it to the altar for their end-of-year wedding is yet to be seen. ''Whatever she says goes.''
Behind Murphy's taunts, there is an observation of Hudson that betrays why there is a place for him in today's game.
Asked what makes him a good footballer, Murphy says: ''Because he makes his teammate a better player.
''And his beard, obviously.''
FFC: Established 1883
Premierships: AFL 1954, 2016 VFA - 1898,99,1900, 1908, 1913, 1919-20, 1923-24, VFL: 2014, 2016 . Champions of Victoria 1924. AFLW - 2018.Comment
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