Micro Noises 89: Fruity Fletcher facts
Fletcher by the numbers - and letters
By now every footy fan and their dog knows that Dustin Fletcher will be playing his 400th AFL match against Richmond this Saturday night, becoming only the third player in history, behind Kevin Bartlett and Michael Tuck to reach that magical mark. And many of those fans will know a lot of the facts and figures behind Fletcher's career, but we think we've come up with a few that might surprise even the most fanatical Fletcher follower.
- Dustin Fletcher played his 200th match against Carlton, just as his father Ken did. While Dustin had a Hird (James) as his teammate that day, Ken had a Heard (Shane) playing alongside him in his 200th. Both players had two "McK"s and a "McC" has their opponents that day. Dustin played against a McKay (Andrew), a McKernan and a McCormick in his 200th game, while dad Ken played against a McKay (David), a McKenna and a McConnon. The Bombers were victorious in both of those matches, kicking 14.12 in Ken's 200th and 13.12 in Dustin's.
- Fletcher will play his 400th game at the age of 40. As everyone will know, 40040 is the ZIP code of Mackville in Kentucky but what some may not know is that the 2000 census revealed that there were 59 families living in Mackville, and 59% is Essendon's winning percentage in all games that Fletcher has played.
- The fact that DUSTIN FLETCHER has pale skin is somewhat ironic, given that he is an anagram of TINCTURED FLESH.
- Both Dustin and Ken played their 92nd games against Richmond at the MCG. Dustin wore number 31 in his 92nd match (as he has done in all games) while Ken wore 21 (as he too did in all games). 3121 is the postcode of Richmond.
- Fletcher played his first game in 1993 and has taken 1749 marks in his career. 1993 was the year musician Justin Bieber was conceived (Bieber was born on March 1st, 1994) and 1749 was the year musician Carl Heinrich Biber died.
Three in a row
In Micro Noises 88 we made note of the fact that Melbourne has registered a final score of 50 in each of its matches in rounds five, six and seven. Going back to the year 2005, we could find no other example of a team registering the same total in three consecutive rounds. Last weekend Micro Noises delved a little deeper into history and found the most recent prior example. In 1999, Richmond scored 79 in each of its losses in rounds 18, 19 and 20. The Tigers did so via three different combinations, kicking 11.13 in round 18, 10.19 in round 20, and 12.7 in round 21.
The next question to be answered is whether a team has registered the same score four times in a row. We don't know yet but, rest assured, we're on the case!
Two many times
Five of last weekend's nine games saw margins recorded for the second time this year. Geelong's win over Carlton was the second 77-point game of the year, West Coast produced the second 53-point game, GWS gave us the second 24-point margin, Sydney's win over Hawthorn was the second four-point match (the Swans lost the first to the Western Bulldogs) and 69 points came up for the second time with Collingwood's big win over Gold Coast.
First among unequals
The gap-filling continues unabated with round eight producing another three matches that featured score pairings never seen before. Two of those were at Docklands, with West Coast's victory over St Kilda the first ever occurrence of a match finishing 131 v 78, and Essendon's win against Brisbane the first case of a 136 v 78 finish. Meanwhile, at Subiaco on Saturday night, Fremantle's win over North gave us the inaugural appearance of a 115 v 42 scoreline.
Score Wars
For the third time this season, 78 has been recorded as a final score twice in the same round. Brisbane and St Kilda both registered that score in their losses at Docklands last weekend, bring to seven the number of times it has been a total in 2015. That puts 78 two ahead of 105, which has been seen five times, which in turn is one ahead of 76, which came up for the fourth time this year in Richmond's win over Port Adelaide on Sunday.
Year of the week
After another big loss, this week at the hands of Collingwood, Gold Coast Suns captain Gary Ablett has admitted that players are having to reeducate themselves and learn the ways and strategies of new coach Rodney Eade. And the players themselves seem to acknowledge the need for some higher education by moving from their quarter-time score of 1.3 to 6.5 at half time. 1365 was, of course, the year that the University of Vienna was founded.
Postcode of the week
Even footy fans who aren't into music probably knew that the Eurovision Song Contest was held last weekend. And many of those would even know that ABBA won it for Sweden in 1974. And it seems the Greater Western Sydney Giants must have had an inkling of who would win this year's version. The Giants kicked 6, 2, 8 and 0 goals in their four quarters against Adelaide last Saturday. 6280 is the postcode of ABBA RIVER, and Sweden went on to win Eurovision 2015.
Ridiculous footy anagrams of the week
It's finally happened. After weeks of speculation, Mick Malthouse has been removed as coach of Carlton, bringing to an end an auspicious 718-game mentoring career, after Malthouse announced he would not coach again. We don't know if the news left Mick's old mate Dale 'Daisy' Thomas speechless but we do note that MALTHOUSE SACKED is an anagram of SHOCKS A MUTE DALE.
With Mick departed, the Blues have appointed John Barker as interim coach. This is seemingly a reflection of how the board felt about Malthouse staying on as coach, and perhaps the state of his mind, given that BARKER - HE IS BLUES' NEW MENTOR is an anagram of BIN BERSERK MALTHOUSE - RENEW!
But even with Mick now out of the way, there are some Carlton fans who believe the real causes of the problems at the club are CEO Steven Triggs and president Mark LoGiudice. And as supporting evidence, they might point out that LOGIUDICE AND STEVEN TRIGG is an anagram of "GEE! GET US! DIVIDING CARLTON!"
Micro Noises is Andrew Gigacz's regular, quirky look at all things footy. The name Micro Noises is an anagram of Enrico Misso, who played one game for St Kilda in 1985. He remains the only Enrico and the only Misso to have played footy at the highest level.
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