The Real James Hird Story -- My Version Of How Essendon's Supplements Scandal Played Out

'How the fuck did it all go so wrong?'

It seems to fans of AFL club Essendon like myself, the ongoing devastatingly destructive drama engulfing the godforsaken club is never gonna end.

Now Essendon coach James Hird has resigned after a turbulent coaching career marred by the ongoing "supplements scandal" over the "pharmacologically experimental" program of injections of various substances overseen by "cowboy" biochemist Stephen Dank that Essendon players were put through in 2012.

With WADA still appealing a ruling that had cleared Essendon players of wrongdoing earlier this year, and Essendon's on-field results making Tony Abbott's poll results look positive, it was probably inevitable Hird -- who has spent at least as much time in court as in the coaching box -- would have to go.

But so much of the real story of what the hell went on at the club has remained a mystery -- especially, from my point of view, how my name has been kept out of the media for so long?

I mean, what have all the investigative journalists been doing? How the hell did Caroline Wilson win that fucking Walkley?

Well.. I can exclusively reveal (take that Caro) that my name may not remain out of the story for much longer. A friendly "source" has leaked me the following transcript of a secret hidden camera recording that has emerged as part of WADA's evidence against the club.

Dating from January 2012, it throws light on the moment Hird began to serious consider the supplements program Dank had to offer, and, sure enough, it is the first decisive evidence that one "Carlo Sands" had a hand in the affair.

Now, 2011-12 was around the time of one of my infamous pear cider binges. So while I always figured I must have had something to do with this debacle, my memory was pretty vague.

Pear cider, as I know too well, is the Devil's own drink, and the only thing I can say in my defence for what the below transcript reveals is that Stephen Dank seemed to make a lot of sense at the time. But then your perceptions are pretty fucked when you're "on the pear".

I publish the transcript below so that all Essendon fans and fans of the game can know what truly happened -- and also because I like to highlight my key role in important events.

***

Many have wondered who introduced a character as dodgy as Stephen Dank to Essendon.

TRANSCRIPT

 [January 2012. James Hird in his office at Windy Hill, Carlo Sands bursts through the door with a dodgy looking bloke in a trench coat in tow.]

CARLO: Jimmy! [slaps Hird on the shoulder] Howyagoing? I got a great plan you're gonna wanna hear!

HIRD: [weary] What is it, Carlo? I am a bit busy right now, we're about to really get stuck into preseason...

CARLO: That's just it! I know just how to whip the boys into shape! And christ they need it, have you seen them? It's like they've consumed nothing but pints of Guinness over the entire off season!

HIRD: That's coz you put them on a Guinness-only diet! I can't believe you talked me in to appointing you Chief Off-Season Fitness and Well-Being Advisor, I never should have gone out with you for "just a couple" of pear ciders.

CARLO: Alright, let's not get into a slanging match over who did or did not get the squad totally smashed every day for four straight months, the point is I know how to turn this around, and quick! This is my mate Steve [points to dodgy trench coat bloke] Say hi to Jim.

DANK: [cackles loudly]

CARLO: Stevie's got this great program sure to bulk the players up. You know he worked with Cronulla in the NRL? Have you seen those lads? Christ, imagine Jobe bursting through a pack with a neck the size of Paul Gallen's!

HIRD: [sniffs] Have you been drinking?

CARLO: What? Maybe a couple, that's not the point! This is the answer to our problems! Basically, he's got these magic needles and you just inject them repeatedly into the boys and wow hey presto they're totally bulked up and shit!

HIRD: I don't know... it sounds a bit dodgy. Is it actually legal?

CARLO: Of course it is! Steve, tell Jim here about the legal situation.

DANK: [cackles loudly]

HIRD: Yeah... look Carlo, I appreciate you're trying to help, but...

CARLO: [leans over] He's also got some magic needle stuff that'll sort out your tan.

HIRD: What?

CARLO: Totally sort your tan. And totally natural looking, too.

HIRD: [trying to appear uninterested] This really all sounds very questionable...

CARLO: Oh come on James! There's no point hiding it! You're obsessed with your tan!

HIRD: I am not!

CARLO: Everyone talks about it! "There goes James Hird," they say, "a true champion of the modern game with five club best and fairests, two premierships and a Norm Smith and Brownlow medal under his belt... if only he didn't look so fucking pasty!"

HIRD: You swear this will work?

CARLO: Tell him Dank.

DANK: [cackles loudly.]

HIRD: Well...

CARLO: Then it's settled! Steve, bring your semi-trailer with the supplements around...we're in business!

DANK: [cackles loudly]



***

Yeah it is all coming back to me now reading that. Not one of my brightest ideas, I will concede. Sorry about that. Here is a song about the dangers of going out and drinking too much pear cider (may not mention pear cider specifically but all "pear heads" will get it).




'Light flashes and my mind goes numb. My head beats like a drum ...' Swedish bluesey pop singer Miss Li nails the essence of a sustained pear cider binge.

Arrested for walking while looking like Ben Cousins

Ben Cousins has refused to comment on fresh charges laid against him after he was caught being Ben Cousins outside his North Beach home in Perth on April 17.


The news that Ben Cousins was stopped by police outside his Western Australian home yesterday, and charged with possessing less than a gram of marijuana has finally forced me to break my silence on this blog.

I have had one or two things to say about the former West Coast star and famous drug abuser in the past. So I felt what the world needs now, at this difficult time, is my clearly stated views on the matter.

This is especially crucial seeing as "Ben Cousins" is no longer trending on Twitter, and therefore at high risk of disappearing from the front of everyone's minds.

So, allow me to state as clearly and forcibly as I can that, without any doubt, the Perth cops were more than justified waiting outside the home of the fallen star until he dared showed his face outside. The threat of Ben Cousins walking the streets with a tiny amount of pot is a threat to our society so great that no amount of tax-payer funded resources is too high to stop the menace.

And it is not just in Perth that our men and women in blue are taking action. Just today, while walking walking down harsh streets of Sydney's inner-west, I saw a bloke walking past me and thought: "Hey, he looks a little bit like Ben Cousins."

Barely had the thought entered my head when a cop car came screaming 'round the corner, pulled up and two burly uniformed blokes lept out and tackled the poor bastard to the ground.

"We are from the Ben Cousins Action Squad," barked the first cop to the man being shoved onto the ground by the second cop. "And you are under arrest for walking the streets while looking Ben Cousins!"

"But I'm not Ben Cous...," the man tried to splutter before a boot in the face silenced him.

"Shut up, you sick bastard! Walking around looking like Ben Cousins! There are children nearby too! Read him his rights Serge."

The second cop, knee in back of the man who looked a bit like Ben Cousins, began: "You are under arrest for looking like Ben Cousins on a public street. You have the right to conduct an exclusive interview for an undisclosed sum with a media institution of your choosing. Anything you say may be taken down and used against you in future media reports in a bid to wring the last possible ratings out of your sordid, fucked up story."

"But I'm not Ben Cous....,"the man tried again, before a fresh boot in the face silenced him.

"Oh yeah?" taunted the first cop, waving around a tiny amount of pot in a small plastic bag. "If you are not Ben Cousins, then how do you explain the fact we just found this illicit substance in your pocket?"

"That proves it!" spat the second cop. "Only Ben Cousins would be so evil as to the walk the streets with pot in his pocket!

"What? You bastards planted that!"

"Sure, as if anyone is going to believe someone who looks like Ben Cousins," said the first cop. "Cuff him serge."

And as the poor bastard who looked a bit like Ben Cousins was cuffed and thrown into the back of the cop car, I made my way down the street, trying my hardest to look as non-sportsmanlike as possible. Luckily, in that field I'm a natural.

Ben Cousins is a god damn, no good drug addict

It has taken me a full week to be able to write this post. Seven days of hurt and pain too intense to express.

I feel sadness and a sense of deep betrayal.

Finally, I feel capable of putting my feelings into words: Ben Cousins is a god damn, no good drug addict.

Now, many readers will no doubt chastise me, with a sense of bemusement, that I am a little behind the times.

Other, more dedicated readers of this blog, may, with equal bemusement, accuse me of hypocrisy — or at least a short and somewhat fickle memory.

And, yes, it is true. Back in 2007, when the entire world seemed to be leaping on top of and ripping at the flesh of the Aussie Rules super star for his confessed drug problem, Carlo Sands stood up and courageously defended him.

And I stood almost entirely alone, asides from some mealy-mouthed clown called Stuart Munckton who said it was all disgustingly hypocritical, but refused to unconditionally defend Ben Cousins’ right to wreck himself whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted and with whatever substances he exercised his free will to destroy himself with.

Only Carlo Sands had the principles and courage to take such a clear-cut stand.

All this is true.

And it is true I argued that Cousins’ “only crime is generating bad publicity for the AFL via the vulture-media — threatening the AFL's ‘brand’ (read: corporate sponsorship)”.

It is true I wrote on the media’s cynical exploitation of Cousins’ troubles: “Let's be clear — this means profits for them as they voyeristically pick over every aspect of Cousins' personal life that can be sold as seedy, troubled and down right fascinating ... A lot of headlines, a lot of readers and a lot of advertising cash.”

And, yes, it is also completely true that I publicly urged him not to cave into pressure, but to front the show trial at which the AFL predictably banned him from playing for a year and proudly paraphrase Oscar Wilde’s famous trial speech with a passionate defence of “The love of the drug that dare not speak its name”.

True.

But that was before last Sunday.

Everything I have done for Ben Cousins — and much of it remains unreported — only makes his betrayal worse.

What happened was this: The Mighty Essendon Bombers, on the very edge of the final eight in the last gasp of the AFL season, rock up to play the Richmond Football Club. The Tigers having languishing on the ladder somewhere between the bottom and very close to the bottom all season.

Essendon needed to win this game to ensure we stayed in the eight. Not only that, but more or less the entire world fully expected them to. Those four points belonged to the Essendon Football Club.

And yet they lost. By less than a goal. Five points.

And who should star in this upset, with a arguably best on ground performance collecting 31 possessions in the midfield?

One Benjamin Cousins.

It is clear he is back on the crystal meth. It is a fucking disgrace.

The fucking drug cheat. After all I did for him.

And, while we are on the topic of Richmond beating Essendon last week, what the fuck ever happened to “tanking?”

“Tanking” is the highly controversial, alleged practice by teams late in an AFL season that are near the bottom of the ladder of deliberately seeking to lose in order to receive a higher draft pick on the following season. Under AFL rules, the 16th team gets first pick, the 15th second etc.

No one has ever been able to exactly prove the practice exists.

Critics of the “tanking” theory raise how difficult it would be to ask your 22 players to go out on the field and deliberately play badly, much less for the coaching staff to coordinate such a thing.

They raise the pride players have in their game, the competitive instinct, the desire to do their best and so on and so forth.

I have a simpler explanation.

Maybe those teams at the bottom of the ladder accused in the latter part of an AFL season of tanking actually keep losing, not through any conscious design, but simply because they are really shit.

This seems the most likely explanation to me. They are just crap teams. They can’t play the fucking game. Their players suck.

They couldn’t win a wrestling match/spelling bee combo with a dyslexic dwarf.

After all, that is why they are at the bottom of the ladder in the first place. They lost most times they took to the field in the first half of the season, why should anyone expect things to be different in the second?

This strikes me as the most likely way to explain the apparently stunning phenomenon of teams at the bottom of the ladder continuing their losing streaks.

And speaking of teams at the bottom of the ladder, Essendon’s game against the West Coast Eagles in now underway. What is more, The Eagles are somehow in front.

If Essendon somehow lose this match, drugs will most certainly be involved — whether performance enhancing on the Eagles side, or a massive binge the night before by Essendon players complacent about what should be a walk over.

Hell, even the Fremantle Dockers beat the Eagles last week.

But back to Ben Cousins. The only thing I have to add is to say that I loved that man like a brother.




"Love is like a cloud, it holds a lot of rain." AFL super star and renowned drug abuser Ben Cousins has broken this bloggers heart

The demon weed: don't touch it, it will ruin your life

I have made my firm views on drug use pretty explicit.

It is without a doubt a major problem in our society. It is nothing less than a scandal.

Booze is getting more and more expensive and drugs prohibited by historical quirk appear to be getting harder to acquire and, yes, more expensive.

And should we actually take out a mortgage in order to acquire an appropriate level of intoxication to deal with late monopoly capitalism, the cops would rather see us forced to overdose in a bid to avoid persecution than enjoy them in peace.

How the fuck are we meant to get wasted? Or do our rulers seriously expect us to just cope sober?

However, I am the first to admit when I have made a mistake.

Now, mostly I choose booze (which would make a great advertising slogan), but I have never sought to counterpose my choice to those of others. We are, all of us, united by our deep-seated desire to kill the pain, even for just a bit.

However, it is clear that when it comes to marijuana, I for one clearly underestimated its dangers. It turns out it is the demon weed after all.

Yes, the world was rocked just days ago when the News of the World, a bastion of investigative journalism for the betterment of humanity, published a photo of Olympic hero Michael Phelps enjoying a cone.

I had always considered the likes of Phelps to be bizzare freaks who do crazy things to themselves for no apparant reason.

Now, thanks to the NOTW, it all makes horrible sense.

This is a clear example of the dangers of smoking pot.

It starts out as the odd joint with mates. But it is a slippery slope.

You go deeper and deeper until the next thing you know you are a champion swimmer and the greatest Olympian in history in terms of gold medals won.

Can you begin to concieve of the amount of pain and suffering it takes to reach such a situation? I mean what sort of lifestyle is that?

It is proof that pot make you do completley irrational things. I mean, seriously, how wasted do you have to be to decide it would be a cool thing to get in a pool and then swim to the end, only to turn around and swim back again?

Over and over again?

Now, swimming in moderation is fine. But it so often starts as just a bit of harmless fun, but before long you find yourself doing it every day. Obsessively, and at the expense of all other facets of your life.

At first, it is just a few laps. Next thing you know, you're hooked.

It starts with pot and it ends with a severe swimming addiction.

What a horrible way to live.

Don't touch pot, it'll end with tears and whatever horrible national anthem your nation has playing while you stand on a podium.





It started as a bit of fun at parties. It ended with the "Star Spangled Banner" playing twenty times.

The Ben Cousins Show Trial — Guilty of causing bad headlines

I am going to get serious for a moment here. I apologise, but this is something that is very close to my heart: drug abuse. Anyone who knows me, knows how strongly I feel about drug abuse.

I fucking love it.

So when I find out someone's career is going to be ended by it, I get a little upset.

Tomorrow is a sad day in the history of the Australian Football League.

Aussie Rules superstar Ben Cousins faces a Show Trial, where he will be found guilty of generating bad headlines (the official title is “bringing the game into disrepute”), banned from playing for at least a year and quite possibly for ever.

In true Show Trial-style, if he ever wants to play again he will almost certainly have to publicly “recant”, confess to his degeneracy and apologise to the entire fucking country for having sinned.

Now don’t get me wrong. Ben Cousins may well be one of the greatest Aussie Rules footballers ever, but he is far from innocent.

Until his recent sacking, he played for the West Coast Eagles — a close contender the most arrogant and obnoxious club to ever bring the game into disrepute.

However there are a good three dozen or so other young men currently on the Eagles playing list, and none of them are being hauled before the AFL’s Star Chamber.

And as Cousins has never played for Carlton, some leniency is surely due.

So what has he done?

Well anyone who has glanced at the papers will know this is all about drugs.

Illicit drugs.

Not “performance enhancing” drugs. Recreational drugs.

Seems young Ben has a liking for for substances that, for reasons of historical quirk, are currently prohibited.

This state of affairs is not even 100 years old and, like the ill-fated (and utterly evil) alcohol prohibition in the US in the '20s, has proven a complete and utter failure.

Prohibition merely makes prohibited drugs more dangerous and under the control of violent gangsters.


I'll have my coke with ice, thanks

So what are these drugs Cousins is perhaps a little too fond of? Well, that has not been confirmed.

Let’s just say that the popular joke goes: “Have you heard about the new Ben Cousins meal deal at [Eagles sponsors] Hungry Jacks? No burger and fries, just coke and ice.”

So young Ben Cousins, who has won pretty much every award it is possible for an AFL player to win at the age of just 29, likes to put a lot of white shit up his nose.

There is an obvious question no one asks: so what? What business is it to anyone else where one of the games highest-paid players pocket money goes?

Personally, I prefer to soak my liver. I will admit that certain stimulants can assist in this task, allowing you to drink for entire weekends at a time.

But I have principles and don’t believe in performance enhancing drugs.

I take my booze straight.

Apparently, our fine and principled media and politicians have a different take. I don’t want to call the media vultures, as that would be an insult to what is, in comparison, a mighty fine bird.

Let’s be clear — this means profits for them as they voyeristically pick over every aspect of Cousins’ personal life that can be sold as seedy, troubled and down right fascinating.

And as Cousins is, on available evidence, a drug addict, there is a lot out there. A lot of headlines, a lot of readers and a lot of advertising cash.

For politicians, who I am sure we would all love to drug test, it is simple moral hysteria to turn working people who like to drink against working people who like other drugs — and give the cops more power to attack us all.

The facts are these: Cousins has never tested positive to drugs. He has never been found guilty of any crime. His only crime is generating bad publicity for the AFL via the vulture-media — threatening the AFL's “brand” (read: corporate sponsorship).

Cousins’ drug use does appear to have become something of a problem for him. But there is a reason such things are, usually, referred to as “personal issues”. It’s because they are no one else’s fucking business!

The importance of getting wasted

Now, I love booze, but I am not a fascist. I see no reason to force my personal preference on others.

The important thing is we all love to get wasted.

And we can all too easily cross that fine line between good, healthy drug abuse and serious addiction. Most of us do this with alcohol, a minority with prohibited drugs.

To give a sense of how ridiculous the system is, according to the media, Cousins, who had fled to the US, was admitted to hospital after overdosing on cocaine. Having survived, needing care and assistance, Cousins found himself pursued by the US police wanting to charge him for using a prohibited substance!

Of course, that was more front page headlines, notwithstanding Ben Cousin’s dad’s emotional appeal to the media to leave his son alone because he has little hope of recovering with the media pillaging his every movement.

But this is not all that the AFL are considering when they charge Ben Cousins with bringing the game into disrepute.

No, he has also brought the game into disrepute by associating with what are referred to as “underworld figures” in Perth.

Ben Cousins is a known “associate” (that is what you call someone's friend when you want to spit on the friendship) of John Kizon, well-known suspected gangster and drug dealer who, according to his lawyer, is a fine upstanding citizen.

What is Cousins’ problem? Why would he want to hang out with petty, small-time gangsters when he is more than welcome to associate with big-time corporate robber barons from the insurance industry like SGIO — high-profile sponsors of the Eagles?

First the man abuses the wrong drug (why can’t he abuse alcohol like most famous Aussie sporting icons for fuck's sake?)

Then he hangs out with the wrong sort of gangster!

He clearly has to go.

A new Oscar Wilde?

The actions of the media vultures, the moral hysteria, and the hypocritical clamouring for the blood of a high profile victim guilty of preferring the wrong sort of pleasure brings to mind another infamous case from over 100 years ago.

Now, I am not saying Ben Cousins is a modern day Oscar Wilde.

I am not trying to compare his problems with the white powder with the persecution of the genius playwright and Irishman for homosexuality.

There is obviously no comparison. By all accounts Wilde had none of the grace nor poise on a football field, and he never won a Brownlow.

In his defence, Wilde also never played for the Eagles.

What I will say is I hope Cousins gives a spirited defence of his right to put whatever shit up his nose that he wants. As footballers are not renown for a Wildean way with words, I have taken the liberty of writing Ben’s speech for him.

Head held high, inspired by Oscar Wilde’s famous trial speech, Cousins should declare to the whole world his love of the drug that dare not speak its name:

“‘The love that dares not speak its name’ in this century is such a great affection for stimulating narcotics that Sigmund Freud enjoyed for cocaine, such as Coca Cola made the basis of their corporate expansion ... It is that deep spiritual affection that, when pure, is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art.

“It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as ‘the love that dares not speak its name’, and on that account of it I am placed where I am now.

“It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of drug abuse. There is nothing unnatural about it, and it repeatedly exists with a younger man who has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him.

“That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.”

Well, Ben Cousins, you have the support of this fellow drug abuser.




Or an alternative speech Ben Cousins could give if Wilde’s not his bag.


POSTSCRIPT

Sure enough the inevitable happened. The AFL Show Trial found Ben Cousins guilty of bringing the game into disrepute and banned him for 12 months, after which it will consider whether to let him back in.

The AFL *refused* to even say what the evidence against Cousins that their Star Chamber considered actually was! And on this basis, Cousins is denied employment for at least one year in the only thing he is any fucking good at. Beyond running from cops, of course.

And as predicted, in true Stalinist style, Cousins was forced to hold a press conference at which, woodenly reading his prepared script, he publicly “confessed” to his crimes and admitted to being a degenerate human being.

He apologised to everyone for this state of affairs.

The only hint of defiance came with this reference to the seemingly endless stream of lurid stories about Cousins in recent weeks: “Contrary to media reports, I am a lot further down the track in my rehabilitation than has been reported.”

Of course, Ben Cousins had no choice but to capitulate. It was a kangaroo court, the verdict was prepared in advance and everything was stacked against him. He could play his assigned role or he could kiss his career (and livelihood) goodbye.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to accept such hypocritical stupidity.