Ex-AFL footballer Billy Nicholls charged over shootings

Mark Buttler From: Herald Sun April 26, 2013 7:17PM

A FORMER AFL footballer is behind bars over two shootings in Geelong.

Billy Nicholls, 32, has been charged with two counts of intentionally causing serious injury and related offences.

He appeared in Geelong Magistrates' Court where he was remanded in custody until May 2.

One of the charges related to an incident in Myrtle Grove, North Shore, in which a man aged in his 40s suffered serious injuries on January 8 this year.

The other was in connection with a shooting in which a Coburg man, aged in his 20s, was injured.

He received gunshot injuries to the legs after a confrontation in Springfield Court, Corio, on June 18 last year.

Those offences and others were the target of a special police taskforce called Griffin.

It is made up of detectives from the armed crime taskforce and investigators from Geelong.

Nicholls played 16 games with the Hawks and Tigers in an injury-plagued career between 2001-04.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/ex-afl-footballer-billy-nicholls-charged-over-shootings/story-fnat79vb-1226630279306

And the HAL has never seen free tickets handed out to juniors? :roll:
FWIW, the price KiwiChick mentioned would get her the same ticket at Etihad or the MCG on a regular weekend game...

Not to the same extent as AFL. Gotta love those legit member numbers at GWS......

Edited by ozboy: 26/4/2013 11:02:37 PM

And yet revenues from match days and memberships absolutely blast every other code out of the water. Seriously, it adds up to more than the other three codes combined.

So at least one thing doesn't make sense about your assertion.

But yeh, keep pushing hard, someone will believe I'm sure.

Curtain raiser to Saints vs Swans game in Wellington the other day:

NZ Hawks 8.6 (54) defeated South Pacific Academy, 3.3 (21)

Wow 10k ratings Sydney last night on FTA Digital TV for the AFL, must all be watching on Fox Footy :lol:

At least the Fremantle premiership run is still on track, I think the goal umpire was MOTM for Fremantle.

Richmond well what can you say, hype it up, sell a few memberships, get the crowds up then blame the goal umpire or we can take the coaches excuse of not quite performing when it really matters outside of the football ground :shock:

But - and more to the point of the Wellington expedition - the AFL does fervently believe that it has the greatest game in the world, and figures there is no harm in some evangelism, and might be plenty of good.

It has never been accused of failing to think grandiosely and expansively.

The AFL does not expect to conquer, but it easily imagines that several codes can in any one place sit respectfully side-by-side; they do in Melbourne and Sydney.

It imagines one day a prototypical competitive AFL team in its own Kiwi niche. That is the Swans' status in Sydney, and they are the reigning AFL champion.

Besides, even if all comes to nought ultimately, there are worse places for a junket than Wellington.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/8593633/Aussie-game-seeks-chance-in-New-Zealand

The game: Geary, who has played for St Kilda since 2008, is a defender and during a training camp in Colorado last year, offered this to Americans who wanted to understand the game. "Probably the best analogy was, it's sort of like competitive soccer and you're allowed to tackle and chase and spoil the ball but you use your hands and feet. So keep the ball in the air, you can mark it, transfer the ball from one to another and the aim is to get it in the two big goal posts at the other end,'' the 24-year-old said. Sounds simple enough, right?

"It was pretty funny, there was a lot of blank faces and then everyone all said 'yeah, yeah we understand, that sounds like whatever'. But the best way to describe it was showing them on our phones on YouTube and that was the best way to get them to understand the game and they actually got a pretty good appreciation from it.''

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10879676

6,832 fans for the GWS v GCS today and you reckon the CCM have problems. At least they are still playing their games in the area they are meant to represent and have not sold their soul to the highest bidding state government you can find.

Sheedy is living off the past and the younger players play like they know no one expects anything from them so it is how they play.

GWS has a bigger identity problem than the Melbourne Heart.

Attendances for first seven games of round 5:

Essendon vs Collingwood: 93,373
St Kilda vs Sydney: 22,546
Fremantle vs Richmond: 36,365
GWS vs Gold Coast: 6,832
Carlton vs Adelaide: 44,711
Western Bulldogs vs Geelong: 26,153
Port Adelaide vs West Coast: 26,132

Games today:
Brisbane vs Melbourne
North Melbourne vs Hawthorn

Mediaweek ‏@MediaweekAUS 8m

#AFLFreoTigers 257k FRI
#AFLBluesCrows 264k
#AFLGiantsSuns 180k
#AFLPowerEagles 164k
#AFLDogsCats 125k

Smack bang on the yearly average of 198k for Foxtel.

Shit game between Brisbane and Melbourne. North game looks half decent.

I watched it as a supporter, and it still made me want to wash out my eyes with bleach. Was like watching retarded kittens chase a laser pointer.

Was at the game, was worse live. Did feel so good to be back at the footy though, first time in over a year. Lived on the Gold Coast for the Sun's first season, now I'm in Brisbane for what looks like a train wreck season. Feels like an eternity since I've seen a quality game live.

Another disaapointing loss for the Roos. What the hell, man? Kick straight sometimes.

my sisters brother (actually my half-sisters other half-brother, but we don't see it that way) is in town atm & he's a huge afl fan. he lives on the coast of WA and is west coast eagles mad. so last night i decided to sit down with him & catch the last quarter of hawks vs roos - i think it's the first time i've actually sat down to watch afl since the swans and eagles were in the grand final when big bad baz was around.

jeez they're stupid with possession of the ball. how's old mate for the hawks near the death, heaps of space etc, and kicks at goal? hits a behind, literally gifts hawthorn the ball for their last play to win. stupid idiot.

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

:lol: it's not like that.

my sister & i share the same mum, but different dads. my sisters other brother and my sister share the same dad, but not the same mum. but in our eyes, she is my legit sister and he is her legit brother, and me & him are just mates/cousins of sorts. that's the dynamic we've been rocking our whole lives.

/derailment

This is interesting.

This is a listing of the most popular football sites across the world (excluding soccer and Gaelic).

http://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/Sports/Football

NFL is top, unsurprisingly, the AFL comes in at no. 3, the NRL at no. 6, Realfooty at no. 10, Big Footy at no. 17.

Crowd attendaces after round 5:



Average for round of 35,248
Average year to date for 2013: 35,888 (compared to last season's equivalent: 34,765)

Club Averages after Round 5 (no. of home games in brackets):

Collingwood: 78,250 (2)
Essendon: 72,263 (2)
Richmond: 62,997 (2)
Carlton: 62,841 (2)
Hawthorn: 43,674 (3)
St Kilda: 42,098 (3)
Geelong: 38,696 (2)
West Coast: 38,531 (2)
Fremantle: 37,319 (3)
Adelaide: 33,451 (2)
Port Adelaide: 30,653 (3)
North Melbourne: 27,130 (2)
Sydney: 25,716 (2)
Western Bulldogs: 23,543 (3)
Melbourne: 20,504 (3)
Brisbane: 20,163 (2)
GWS: 13,871 (3)
Gold Coast: 12,708 (3)

Very small for GWS, how long is their deal with Canberra?

Not really significant then, is it?

Another 8 years to run.

There are hundreds of NFL and rugby sites out there, and the AFL beat them all into 3rd spot.

TV ratings to round 5:



Almost 5 million in ratings for that round.

Fox ratings up 590k year to date, FTA ratings down 592k year to date.

:shock:

This is an interesting bit of research from BF. It includes various forms of club/supporter social media engagment (Facebook 'likes', Twitter 'followers'), looks at Dreamteam 'subscribers' and uses membership numbers as another aspect of the analysis, and ranks all the AFL teams from 1 to 18....

1. Collingwood
225,741 'likes' (2nd), 44,800 'followers' (1st), 17,727 'subscribers' (3rd), 73,649 members (1st)
2. Essendon
229,716 'likes' (1st), 40,700 'followers'(2nd), 17,334 'subscribers' (4th), 51,528 members (6th)
3. West Coast
136,841 'likes' (3rd), 25,391 'followers' (8th), 25,467 'subscribers' (1st), 57,333 members (3rd)
4. Carlton
135,054 'likes' (4th), 37,400 'followers' (3rd), 15,157 'subscribers' (5th), 43,827 members (7th)
5. Adelaide
104,630 'likes' (7th), 29,657 'followers' (6th), 21,128 'subscribers' (2nd), 45,000 members (6th)
6. Richmond
106,827 'likes' (6th), 29,700 'followers' (5th), 10,651 'subscribers'(8th), 56,039 members (4th)
7. Hawthorn
91,608 'likes' (8th), 29,224 'followers' (7th), 13,372 'subscribers'(6th), 60,250 members (2nd)
8. Sydney Swans
113,049 'likes' (5th ), 32,447 'followers' (4th), 8,800 'subscribers'(11th), 33,172 members (11th)
9. Fremantle
68,698 'likes' (10th), 20,002 'followers' (11th), 12,540 'subscribers'(7th), 40,000 members (8th)
10. Geelong Cats
50,464 'likes' (12th), 27,991 'followers' (8th), 10,263 'subscribers' (9th), 38,602 members (10th)
11. St Kilda
90,371 'likes' (9TH), 23,295 'followers' (9th), 7,854 'subscribers' (12th), 31,811 members (13th)
12. Port Adelaide
46,134 'likes' (15th), 17,261 'followers' (15th), 9,627 'subscribers' (10th), 39,005 members (9th)
13. North Melbourne
47,905 'likes' (14th), 19,975 'followers' (12th), 7,136 'subscribers' (14th), 32,127 members (12th)
14. Melbourne
32,126 'likes' (17th), 20,875 'followers' (10th), 4,953 'subscribers' (14th), 30,783 members (14th)
15. Brisbane Lions
57,554 'likes' (11th), 15,268 'followers' (17th), 7,585 'subscribers' (13th), 21,608 members (16th)
16. Western Bulldogs
49,027 'likes' (13th), 14,846 'followers' (18th), 4,643 'subscribers' (16th), 26,843 members (15th)
17. Gold Coast
41,926 'likes' (16th), 18,094 'followers' (14th), 2,509 'subscribers'(17th), 11,807 members (18th)
18. GWS Giants
30,304 'likes' (18th), 16,074 'followers' (16th), 1,602 'subscribers' (18th), 11,941 members (17th)

At the Wellington match last Thursday there was a game of AFL9s at half time, involving a variety of NZ-based sports starts, including Andrew Durante. Here are some pics, along with a quote from Durante:

http://aflnz.co.nz/afl9s-a-hit-with-sports-stars/