Help the ?Tip the Bucket? Fund? TODAY

[robbieando]

Fellow RWO members,

I write to you all today with a heavy heart. Once again I had just sat though four quarters of some of the worst umpiring I have seen in my life, while today this didn?t have an overall effect on the outcome of the match (the Swans players themselves made sure of that), its getting the point where I just can?t stand to watch the Swans play in the fear that the umpires will rip out by heart and kick it from one point of the ground to the other and then dance on my grave a few days later.

Enough is enough people and its about time the good people of RWO not only made our feelings known about the current state of umpiring in a our great game, but become active in getting the club to ?tip the bucket? because we as fans can do little, but we with the club can do more.

So I therefore purpose that we as fans start up a fund to allow the club though an appointed club official to finally come to the party and ?TIP THE BUCKET? on the AFL Umpiring Department. Now we all know the cost the club would face if it made its feelings known - $20,000 for a club captain ?Tipping the Bucket? on national television or $5,000 for the coach to ?Tip the Bucket? during his post match press conference. The name of this fund - The ?Tip the Bucket? Fund?

So for every dollar you as fans contribute to the ?Tip the Bucket? Fund?, the closer we all will be to see the club finally being able to ?Tip the Bucket? and not worry it effects the club?s bottom line at season end.

So if you like me have had enough of the crap posing a umpires week in and week out effecting the outcome of Swans matches and therefore your enjoyment of watching your favourite club play, please give so we can as quickly as possible ?Tip the Bucket? and finally are able to enjoy our football once again.

More details as to how to donate to follow in the coming days, so start raiding those piggy banks.

Robbie Ando
President of the ?Tip the Bucket? Fund?

[anniswan]

I'll throw in $10

[daniel f]

Hmm im sure i suggested exactly this earlier and commited a hundred,it still stands.

[Nico]

Yes the inconsistency was appalling. Every time and I mean everytime barry Hall was in a contest he was either held or pushed in the back, yet he even remotely infringes or even looks at an opponent he is pinged. It is joke.

The skinny umpire with the biggest bugle I have ever seen crucified him.

I suggest Barry starts to harrass the umpires with non threating humour such as running to this bloke and calling him Pinnocchio or you are the ugliest man on this earth, or why don't you go and have a feed etc. Surely he can't get reported for that. He might as well because he could not get less than he is from the umpires.

[Nico]

It is a disgrace when the score is 18 to 6 at half time. I think the stat was 8 zip in the 2nd Q.

Freo are serial jumper holders at both contests and off the ball but it took until 3rd Q for them to start to pay the frees. I suggest they were given the stats at half time and realised how bad they were going so went all out to even things up.

Funny how when we threatened they pulled one out of their arse to Freo for a goal.

[Mike_B]

Count me in for $20

And I'll add in another $20 for the AFL's Jeff Gieschen Redundancy Fund too!!!

[Nico]

Everything Jeff Geishen touches turns to ****.

[Glenn]

Count me in....$#%^&^$% Yellow canaries

[Tooth Fairy]

Originally posted by Nico
It is a disgrace when the score is 18 to 6 at half time. I think the stat was 8 zip in the 2nd Q.

Freo are serial jumper holders at both contests and off the ball but it took until 3rd Q for them to start to pay the frees. I suggest they were given the stats at half time and realised how bad they were going so went all out to even things up.

Funny how when we threatened they pulled one out of their arse to Freo for a goal.

What really, really, really upset me was the bs "eveners" the umpires gave us in the second half.

[sharpie]

I completely agree about all this, but would just like to play the devil's advocate thingy to see what people think.

Apart from the obvious pathetic decisions for holding in a 1-on-1 marking contest in the opposition's F50, like last week against Leo Barry, I think the swans only have themselves to blame.

Poor disposal skills and overusing the ball in our D50 puts the receiver under pressure and the ball stays there for a very long time. Ball up after ball up. No strong clearances, and all our defenders are forced to make desperation tackles. Eventually one is going to go high, or get into the opposition's back. You can not play mistake-free high pressure defense for ever.

This leads to a high number of frees in the opposition F50.

[Bron]

What is the objective? Make it clear to the AFL that the standard of umpiring is poor and that Bazza is copping it unfairly. Get them to fix it - we just want consistency.

Collecting $$ is fine, but the odds of someone at the Club doing it are zip. And the AFL would most likely make a fine that was beyond what we had collected.

So, here's an alternative.

1. Get as many people as we can to send a $10 cheque (or whatever) to the AFL with a covering letter saying rather than having our Club wear flack for speaking out, the legions of Swans fans will do it and here's our money so can they now stop picking on Bazza (we can put together a short paragraph for everyone to use).

2. Send a photocopy of letter and cheque to:
a. The Club (so they know we're giving what support we can)
b. Relevant journos (to help publicise it)
c. Bazza (to show support and hopefully help him keep his cool)
d. Us (so we know how many have done this)

The AFL won't cash the cheques (99.99% sure of this), we'll likely get some good press about it, and it might just shame the AFL into doing something.

I reckon this will achieve what we want without the hassle of the fund raising you propose Robbie (fund raising is a real pain - too much responsibility and realistically you won't get to use the money that you raise for the purpose it's intended for).

If you like this idea, here is an action plan:

1. Put together the covering letter and have it available as a Word file for people to download.

2. Get list of "friendly" and useful journos and their fax and/or email details (e.g. the woman of the Tony Squires show who writes in the inside cover of the sports liftout in one of the sunday papers - this is the sort of stuff she'd love I reckon).

3. Post instructions on what to do and how - put it as a news article as well as on the board.

4. Encourage everyone to share the message with all the other Swans supporters they know (there are others that don't read RWO!).

5. Put together a Press Release to send to the Club and the media saying what we're about to do (so what subsequently happens makes sense).

6. Let everyone loose.

If anyone wants to volunteer for some of these actions, reply to this thread.

[Diego]

Banners around the ground where camera can pick them up might be a good start.

Have wity msg on the banner..i know the AFL and the club are strict on banners msg, but with some clever wit (like the pies match..thought that was very clever) we can get out msg across.

Something like "Welcome our newest recruit wearing No1 ALISTAR LLOYD" or something like that.

[Jeffers1984]

Me thinks it's time to take some diving lessons from Port Poofters and Essenscumb to get our "fair"share of free kicks.