It seems Sydney – dismayed at being somewhat overshadowed during the past decade with the Melbourne Gangland warfare and subsequent Underbelly series is going out of its way to restore its rightful position as Australian Crime Central No.1. (The country as a whole has a crime rate comparable with that of other Western nations such as the US and UK). Granted that there’s still some stiff opposition from increasingly violent major cities: Melbourne, Darwin and Perth (probably the most violent major city per capita), but I believe Sydney still is the place for crime in Australia – three major riots in the space of 20 months surely can’t hurt the claim! Plus, would you expect anything else from a city specifically set up to house criminals…
Today’s a perfect example of why no Australian city does crime like Sydney. In the last 24 hours we have coverage on the deadly bikie brawl at Sydney airport’s domestic terminal which resulted in one fatality and whole lot of bad PR, and overnight we have accounts of a possibly related shooting spree in the mid-western suburb of Auburn.
My mother grew up and I spent half my childhood summers in working-class Auburn as it was the home of my grandparents. My grandfather, Poppy, would be spinning in his grave right now. Auburn was always rough but in the last 15 years these kinds of accounts have become commonplace and barely raise an eyebrow anymore.
Sydney has seemingly become an increasingly insular, segregated and hostile city in the last 15 years, particularly after the 2000 Olympics and the resulting economic and social hangover that the city hasn’t seemed to have fully got over. There’s been term after term of bumbling, arrogant, incompetent, self-serving politicians, and an overall lack of leadership, focus, integration and intelligent infrastructure spending which has manifested into itself into an angrier, more marginalised and divided metropolis.
But, then again this is the city that has spawned the likes of Lenny McPherson, Abe Saffron and Neddy Smith. So, should I really be surprised that Sydney still is rough? It’s always been rough, this is the city on which Mark Twain allegedly once remarked:
“It is beautiful, of course it’s beautiful – the harbour; but that isn’t all of it, it’s only half of it; Sydney’s the other half, and it takes both of them to ring the supremacy-bell. God made the harbour and that’s all right; but Satan made Sydney.”
Maybe, we Sydneysiders have just become soft in the past few decades, need a cold, hard dose of reality and – as Chopper says – harden the fuck up!
Ah, Sydney … it may not feel as nice as it once was – or was imagined to be, but it still is home and I’ll most likely move back there before too long, drive-by shootings and all …
A new emblem has been released as part of the Central Coast Bears’ application to join the Australian National Rugby League (NRL) in 2012. The North Sydney Bears were an inaugural member of the NRL in 1908 and my childhood rugby league side, playing out of the picturesque, North Sydney Oval, or ‘Bear Park’ as it was affectionately known. The Bears’ were often likened to Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs due to their shared long drought of premiership success. The Bears went through a purple patch of success, regularly making the finals in the early 90′s however unfortunately this success on the field never fully showed itself off the field.
New Central Coast Bears emblem
With ever increasing – and dare I say it, reckless expansion, of then NSWRL/ARL and the Super League war, the Bears found themselves trapped in an increasingly stifled Sydney market. They sought to base themselves out of the Central Coast’s Bluetongue Stadium – then known as Grahame Park. Unfortunately, due to construction delays the Bears weren’t able to move in when planned and subsequently underwent liquidation. They were forced into a lopsided, ill-fated merger with, the nearby and more successful, bitter arch-rivals, Manly. This merger – known as the Northern Eagles played out of Bluetongue Stadium and Manly’s Brookvale Oval though was never fully endorsed by either set of fans, particularly Norths’ fans and lasted just three seasons before Manly broke off the merger and returned to the NRL as a single entity in its own right, leaving North Sydney – and the Central Coast without a team.
Subsequently, the Bears were left stuck in the second-tier NSW Cup competition where they play out of traditional and spiritual home, North Sydney Oval. As the article indicates there are fresh plans aput to get the mighty Bears back into the big league playing out of Bluetongue Stadium with two home games as North Sydney Oval. If they can do it, I might start following Rugby league again. Hopefully, they’ll be successful! Go Bears!
The home-and-away AFL season is just about upon us and as such they have released their season launch video, AFL – In a League of Its Own. Interesting stuff and worth a look at.
Yesterday was the first hit out in 2009 for the mighty Suncheon International FC. We played our Gwangyang rivals, Mr. Kim’s POSCO team. Mr. Kim is a friendly, middle-aged bloke with a decent belly yet polished soccer skills who assembles a cast of Korean soccer players to take us on once every three or four months. They’re usually a little older but more than make up for that with often superior skill, endurance and ability. We ended up losing 7-5 yesterday but weren’t too disgraced considering it’s our first competitive match in three months. There are however, plenty of rusty spots that need to be addressed in time for the upcoming Gwangju foreign club’s tournament, hosted by Gwangju Inter, in a fortnight’s time – the goalkeeping under-study, in particular, continued to make several basic errors and needs to focus more on play and be more confident and aggressive in attacking and defending his post! But, all in all, we’ve got a good team on and off the field and I think this year will follow on from last year’s gains.
After the match we moved onto see local K-League outfit, the Chunnam Dragons play against Incheon United. Despite being in Korea for nigh on six years now, previous to yesterday I was yet to see a professional match here – I had caught pro baseball and basketball however. Yesterday, illustrated what silliness it had been on my behalf not to have seen a game thus far. The game was a fairly entertaining, fast-paced affair in front of a lively atmosphere consisting of a vocal yet smallish crowd of around 4,000. Of interest to me was the appearance of Australian international, Jade North, playing right-back yesterday for Incheon United. He’s only just joined the club recently and seemed to handle himself quite well out there. The game ended in a 1-all draw, which was quite representative of the match and the two team’s ability throughout the day.
The heavens opened ended up at the conclusion of play and the remaints of our team proceeded back to Suncheon on the free shuttle bus. We were all quite inebriated and festive by this point and proceeded for a couple more lagers whilst discussing the day’s activities. After which, some of us went our different ways. I went on to a friend’s place to play the wii whilst others played poker. By 10:30pm and the rain continuing to stream down, I decided to venture home instead of heading on to another friend’s party as I felt myself coming down with a bit of a cold. This morning, I have a bit of a cold and have decided to just stay home and rest up for the day. But, am glad that footy season is back to full force!
For the last few days Yellow Dust – or Asian Dust [황사 | 黃沙/黃砂hwangsa - in Korean] has pushed its way from China’s Gobi Desert through China, picking up toxic polluntants in doing so and launching across the Yellow Sea to the Korean peninsula and eventually onto Japan and the North Pacific.
It’s a frequent event which reaches its peak around this time of year in spring due to prevailing winds and relative dryness, though in recent decades has intensified due to China’s rapid modernisation and consequent deforestation and increased industrial output, along with continuing desertification now encroaching Beijing itself.
The air quality during this time can slightly bad to downright dangerous for your health, and health practitioners recommend limiting outdoor activities to varying degrees depending upon the daily dust levels.Today is proving to be a particularly unhealthy day throughout the Korean peninsula (from here, click onto the Korean map featuring Real Time Air Quality Data – best viewed through Internet Explorer). Even Suncheon, which is usually spared the worst of the dust flows is experiencing Hazardous levels today in which all outdoor activity is advised against. Indeed walking to work this morning, I can feel my throat gets slightly sore and raspy, not a great day for being outdoors despite the sunny – albeit hazy – conditions. Video chronicling this phenomena below:
* It’s actually worse now that the video displayed above taken 30 minutes ago. But, seeing as my throat already slightly hurts I can’t be bothered taking any more footage and exposing myself to any more dust than I need to!
Plus, would you expect anything else from a city specifically set up to house criminals…
Posted by elcanguro76 
