Roneo, Roneo, Roneo……
Wherefore art thou, Roneo?

Chief offenders – N. Buckley, G.Lyon.

As for that theory I outlined – some non-Saints people that I’ve run it by have said they reckon I might be onto something. Most Saints people that I’ve put it to have said Right back at ya, slick, because if there is one team whose supporter base is open to an accusation of secretly enjoying losing even more than the Saints barrackers, it is my own.

I’m a Demon.

Hello again Roma Street,
It is only right and good that an Ex-Leeton girl be a Demon. The Leeton Reddies were – of course – ALSO known as the Mighty Demons…..
Next year, next year…..KJ.

Not the name of a saint,
That is not until Anno Domini 2009.

For now that well is filled,
Brimming with our tears……
Of gratitude for our heroes.

Beaten?

They aint.

At Ainslie Footy Club,
That also wears the red, white and blue.
They tell the tale of ‘58
When the Saints went down to them,
And Barry Browning kicked a goal……..
Like in Munster when they beat
The All Blacks.

That Day Standeth Alone.

On Saturday night the beacon
On Mount Ainslie ………
Went out.

Extinguished by the weeping
Of mountainy men.
To whom the beauty of footy
And Vanished Youth
Had rendered them sad.

So they ordered a beer
And their old girls a gin,
But soon their voices were raised:
When the Saints go Marchin’ in.

(*Thanks to Wikipedia)
No saint is known by the name of Kilda, and various theories have been proposed for the word’s origin, which dates from the late 16th century.
Haswell-Smith (2004) notes that the full name St Kilda first appears on a Dutch map dated 1666, and that it may have been derived from Norse sunt kelda (’sweet wellwater’) or from a mistaken Dutch assumption that the spring Tobar Childa was dedicated to a saint. (Tobar Childa is a tautological place name, consisting of the Gaelic and Norse words for well, ie: ‘well well’).

Martin Martin, who visited in 1697, believed that the name ‘is taken from one Kilder, who lived here; and from him the large well Toubir-Kilda has also its name….’

Maclean (1972) similarly suggests it may come from a corruption of the Old Norse name for the spring on Hirta, Childa, and states that a 1588 map identifies the archipelago as Kilda. He also speculates that it may refer to the Culdees, anchorites who may have brought Christianity to the island, or be a corruption of the Gaelic name for the main island of the group, since the islanders tended to pronounce ‘r’ as ‘l’, and thus habitually referred to the island as Hilta.

Steel (1988) adds weight to the idea, noting that the islanders pronounced the ‘H’ with a ’somewhat guttural quality’, making the sound they used for Hirta ‘almost’ Kilta.

Yesterday, I decorated the verandah.

Cars stopped.

Photographs were taken.

The balloons hung on for dear life.

St Kilda did not.

Today I’m seeing red, white and black balloons and streamers stuck in trees in the school grounds.

Scurrying in to get the paper this morning, the lovely local copper said: You must be feeling terrible.

Yes.

I’m now on sick leave for 12 months……..

Dear, Dear Megsy,
Thank God you’re alive!
I don’t know what to do EXCEPT pass on how Hec reacted to significant Redlegs losses.
He’d:
*Go off his tucker but not his beer.
* Drive like a man who had nothing to lose.
* Sit in Mass looking vacant – a sure sign of a crisis of Faith.

*FINAL THING0 – Please DO NOT read Roma Street’s thesis. Could prove VERY dangerous in your state. KJ

That view is – they don’t really want to win.

Deep in the places they don’t talk about at parties (to quote Col. Jessup from A Few Good Men), they know that they support the Saints because they lose, and if the Saints suddenly became a successful club, it would tear their souls apart.

I’m not talking here about the salt-of-the-earth Seaford-and-Moorabbin dyed-in-the-wool 4th-generation mob.

I saw some of then cry true tears of rage and bewilderment in 1997.

I’m talking about the inner-city-living, bohemian, rock-and-rolling, Nick-Cave-worshipping, unshaven, scruffy-looking, trilby-sporting, Rockwiz-viewing types whose entire existence is dedicated to living down their private school educations and their comfortable eastern suburbs childhoods, and who consitute the St Kilda fan base within about an 8 kilometre radius of the Melbourne GPO.

The Saints are their team of choice because the Saints specialise in ramshackle administrations and gifted-but-flawed cult heroes and wooden spoons and ‘not quites’ and heartbreaking honourable losses.

The poor dears would have been in psychic agony for the last 6 months, but their Saints haven’t let them down because they’ve done the right thing by their supporters’ hard-won self-image and fallen at the last hurdle.

Dear Roma Street,

KJ.

We have NOT heard from St Kilda Desperado Megsy since half-time yesterday.

Megsy:

Are you still alive?

Are you thinking straight?

Is there anything anyone can do to help?

Please report in – I am sick with worry. KJ.

Dear The Dude…….’cause it’s a ripper, a RIPPER! KJ.