BACK in the 1960s the Idlers Five penned a little ditty called Melborn and Sideny, which played on the differences between the two cities.
The key verse for a young football supporter went:
I'd rather live in Melbourne
Although it's not so classy
Sydney's got its strippers
But we've got Ron Barassi
Rhyming 'classy' with 'Barassi'? Sheer magic.
The song came to mind the other day when the selection of defender Paul Puopolo moved Hawthorn to issue a statement clarifying the pronunciation of some of its players' names.
It's Pew-op-olo, apparently.
The thoughtful Hawks added Kyle Cheney (Chee-nee), Ryan Schoenmakers (Show-en-makers) and Brent Renouf (Ren-off).
But wait there's more. The pronunciation of Shane Savage, it seems, needed clarification. It's Sav-ege, as opposed to Sav-ahhhzhh, as French-language AFL commentaries might have it.
Sam Grimley is pronounced Grim-ley. Move along, nothing to see here.
Menegola is Men-a-gola rather than Men-egg-ola or, heaven forbid, Mengele.
Lisle is Ly-el, not Lizz-ly, Lizz-ley or any other variant.
Mahony is Mah-ni. Yep, Mah-ni. Not Ma-hoe-ni.
It's Broost for Bruest, not, umm, Brew-est. Breast?
What would Jack Dyer have made of all this? Dear old Jack had dreadful problems with DiPierdomenico, and made a frightful hash of trying to say that Paul Salmon reached for the ball with his giant "tentacles", substituting a quite different word.
And Dipper. What about Dipper?
Many years ago when I was writing a sports column for a Melbourne newspaper, I contacted Dipper to provide a definitive Italian pronunciation for some footballing names that seemed to be causing some confusion.
Camporeale and Prestigiacomo. Campo-relly or Campo-ray-ah-lay? Presti-gee-a-como or Presti-jack-omo?
Dipper, bless his heart, didn't have a clue. But I reckon he could have had a stab at Grimley.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs
