In the 80's footy was special. Going to Princes Park, Waverley, the 'G' or even Victoria Park, you could smell the O'Briens catering hamburgers cooking, see blokes selling peanuts walking the boundary, and walk up to the gate on a Saturday arvo' and by a ticket. Remember when the AFL Squadron was in vogue? You used to sit there and wait for your membership card number to be read out, on a cold wintery sunday morning, to win that elusive footy pack! Somehow, that ticket in the plastic sleeve meant so much to me. The one that gave us free entry in to every single game in town. The best one at that! Remember the old Scanlons footy cards? I bet you can still smell that stick if gum with the powder on it. That smell is in bedded in me somewhere. It would stay on those pristine cards for weeks!

The MCG, is no doubt the home of footy for many. Walking down Royal Parade though, to our home ground, to where our champions were born was something else. The no. 19 tram, would stop out the front of our mighty ground, our mighty fortress. How many times would we go there to our famous ground, not just hoping, but knowing we would win? A loss, lord forbid and condemn, was a myth, a mere legend.

Is it just the kid in me? Do my kids still feel the same about my beloved team? Has footy changed really that much? Or have we?????

One other thing I remember. Tanking was not even a word. It meant nothing. Pretty much the same as today don't you think, heh????

In 1987 we won the flag and you were 13 years old.

Your inner flower was awakening as your homoerotic lust for your footballing icons was showing the first signs of a challenge as your interest in boobies began to blossom.

It's a tumultuous time in any young man's life and no surprise that your sense of the importance of you and your world should seem heightened.

It's all downhill from there...

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Well, Linchy, what GW is trying to say is that as you age, your hand seems to get bigger and your dick smaller.

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This might sound extreme in the context of alleged sexual assault, drunken violence and a drug trafficking charge...