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site's very busy and not sure this is gpoing to get up, so have a read. I'll link it if it makes it to the website.
Once We Were Warriors (and still are)
Today I shared the pool water and the showers at Melbourne University’s gym with many of the Carlton players and it got me thinking about why – why we support our team, what is in it for us? And as I swam and then as I towelled down with the boys around me, hearing their friendly chatter, their team-banter, I did what most of us do since we first become aware of things besides our mother’s milk.
I pretended I was one of them. I was part of the pack, towelling down, getting dressed. It was not Simmo’s smother but mine in the last against the Swannies. Gibbs had nothing on Goodes compared to me, me, not Stevo or Fev, set us alight in the first, and my groin is far better than Judd’s.
It is what we do. As a child we did it all the time. Every time I picked up a football I was Gags or Gooldy (even on the weekend I was showing my son how Gooldy kicked the ball). I was Quirkey when I ran, Crane shrugging a tackle, and Jezza when I flew – Jezza of course was the Everyman of speccies for all children – one of those rare players that transcends a team’s colours.
As adults, though, we must act mature and discuss the pros and cons of a game, yet inside, hidden from each other except in the glint in our eyes, we still shape-shift. We stand in the outer watching the game but while seeing the lads run, we play another game in the Irish-green, soft-turfed, football oval of our minds. We take the marks, kick the goals, and tackle Goodes or O’Keefe or whoever our opponents are that week.
Watching gives us a chance to reconnect with the kids we once were. Inside our heads all that we dreamed we’d be still exists and on top of that pile is the football star. So we watch a new generation of stars emerging and our eternal child joins them, plays with them, does all the things we see Murph or Griggs now doing.
There is a negative of course, the anger that comes when the stars do not live up to the game played in our heads. Where we can always chase hard, where our tackles always stick and we never fumble, grow tired or miss a set shot, we forget that players are human not super-shapes of the unconscious. In our minds that boy is the perfect footballer who always kicks the winning goal after the siren. It is why we hate umpires so much. We feel their mistakes affecting that game being played out in our heads, the umpires always get the script wrong!
But even with the negatives, the mere fact our players give us the chance to release that little boy brings us joy, lets us stream into the ground eager as colts about to run the maiden race, and if we win then everyone, no matter how young or old, struts out between the gates like a bright six year old. If we lose, still it is okay, we might be angry with the players, at the club, but never at ourselves. Our little boy would have held that mark, caught that player, and stopped that goal.
In our minds we are Jezza and Big Nick and Doully and Southby – and even more. It is why we always return. That child in the old Bluebagger jumper (number 11) needs to be fed, needs to stretch those long ago muscles and run that sacred ground hidden in the precious shadows of our minds.
After the swim I stood there with the boys, listening to their friendly banter. I even said hello to Clokey and Eddie, pretending quietly that I was part of this group, that my aged body was still a spritely 20 years old. That the future lay ahead further than it does behind. That’s another thing about having a football team. Carlton is eternal whereas the body is not. Each quarter, every week, each season, the side is reborn.
Football is the Eternal Play we humans need to cope with the fear of death, is it our Greek Tragedy, our Medieval Passion Play. As long as my side runs out wearing the glorious white monogram I can pretend that I, too, am young and fit and ready to do battle with life. Football reminds us that hope springs eternal.
And so the call that football in Melbourne is like a religion is not so far off the mark. It does help us cope with the dark by showing us the light of each generation’s youth strutting their stuff on the eternal stage.
In the end it does not matter that we lost, what matters is that we played. Oh it helps that this year when we play its always interesting, that we are winning or at least getting ourselves into winning positions. It makes the journey to and from the ground easier, but truly, so long as we have a group of men pulling on that jumper, so long at that, then I will be there.
I never understood that during the wild ride of the sixties, seventies and eighties. I never understood how anyone could follow South or North, the Bulldogs, St Kilda or poor, sad Fitzroy. Now I do. Now I understand, they too have this child in their mind, only their child wears the Swans red and white, their team’s sacred colours, and so I am even more saddened for all the Fitzroy people, what do they do when their child has no one to play with anymore? This is the real tragedy of what was done to that club, how we all failed to give them all our support. I think I understand why they embraced Brisbane and why those games where they wear the old jumpers are so important.
I hope the Melbourne people remember this too, for their club needs all those little boys to dig deep into their grown up pockets and help out a club in danger of passing away.
But enough of the dark; let us return to the light. This week we take on the Doggies and I am sad to say I think our lads might struggle. You see, there they all were, in their youthful primes in the change-room today and then I came out of the shower and, well let’s just say I think their confidence may be shattered this week.
I hope, though, I am wrong. I hope the boys take heart in seeing that even an old man has a certain glory of being. I hope they are inspired. Perhaps they’ll see that life is a gift and they’ll come out fighting. If so we’ll murder the doggies.
If not I know one thing for sure, my little child will still play a blinder – he does every week.
Fev to kick three
Harts four
Murph for leather poisoning
Gibbs to demoralize Cooney
And Grigg
and myself to share BOG
Go Blues!
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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!
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