A Ghost article that never got off the ground. Thought someone might like to read it.
Well the game has come and gone and the Wizard Cup is ours. Not THE CUP but a cup nevertheless: A symbol that this club has indeed taken stock and moved forward. A sign that this club knows it is in the business of football and in football you have no business unless you win which the boys duly did. Brilliantly! So today the whole football community know the Bluebaggers are back in business. We are not merely clinging on, we are back, and we are in the contest to win, not to take part.
It was a pleasure to watch my son as he sat nervously throughout the game, his first live Grand Final of any sorts. He spent much of the game with his head looking down into the football record, ticking off the goals, counting Fev's tally like a secret spell, and daring himself, daring himself to hope again. Daring himself to maybe even believe his old ghostly dad who talks about the greatness of this club, who talks of famous wins, the final victories, the spirit, the success the club demands of itself.
Today my son believes his old Da again. That is what the win brings, Belief. We may be an old club but we are no longer a tired club. We are no longer a club lost in hindsight recollections of the glory years like an old, toothless sailor sitting by the quay muttering about the big fish caught years in the past. We are fresh and eager and ready again to push ourselves as hard as we must to attain the success we demand.
Many clubs laughed at us, other taunted us, many smiled at the fallen poppy, cleaved it seemed in two: A beetle on its back kicking, struggling to flip over, looking as if it would never right itself again.
While they laughed and waved their spoons and imagined a competition free from our dominance, we gathered to ourselves, breathed deeply and stared into our navy blue soul for a searching examination of who we had become. It was not a pretty sight; we had become a club soiled and lost, a club not wanting to accept the new demands of a different competition.
Then we set about rebuilding, restructuring and reorganising. Saturday was the first real step where the football world saw that we are returning. We are not there yet, no one thinks that, but we are on track, we are gathering about us a group of players who play this game, in this jumper, the way we have always played: Proudly, brilliantly and ready to meet all and sundry. You can only beat what is put in front of you. This Wizard Cup we beat all we met. That is a big statement.
Each week of the preseason competition the football world doubted us, waited for us to fall, hoped for us to succumb as we have been, monotonously, until very recently. We took their doubt and scorn and ill will and shoved it back at them with a game that is simple and devastating. Many exponents have forgotten a simple fact. It is not how often you touch the ball. It is not how many tackles or kicks or marks or contested hot dogs you win, it is not a stats sheet comparison that decides the winner of a football game. It is your score versus your opponents score. The rest is just a map on how this might be achieved but it is not the reality. It is not the achievement. For that you have to go out and kick more goals than your opponent.
On Saturday night we showed them the reality: Kick goals and restrict your opponents to less than the goals you’ve kicked. Simple and yet so many people insist on game plans and strategies that make kicking goals hard. Not for us, for us it is the A and B principal. You have two points and we all know the shortest route between two points is a straight line. The boys run straight and hard, the rest, as they say, is history!
Now everyone has woken up to us. Now we have made believers not just of the faithful but even of those that detest us. No one wanted us back. They wanted us stretchered off and forgotten about. But in life we often do not get what we want. The Blueboys are back on their feet!
Collo refers to the ocean liner turning slowly.
He may be right about the turning circle but he is wrong about the vehicle. We are not an ocean liner; we are a frigate, a battle cruiser, a warship intent on seeking out the best and testing ourselves again and again until we are the best.
We are a navy Blue Juggernaut and the turning circle is almost complete. Already I can hear the hate in other supporters again. I look at my son and smile and tell him those who do not follow the blue hate us again. This means we are doing the right things. This means we are returning from the disaster we beset ourselves.
From here on we sail straight and hard. It will not always be plain sailing; it never is when you set yourself to reach the pinnacle. It will at times be hard and there may even be still more turns to make, but they will be smaller circles, easier to make, while behind us we are regathering our force: The Navy Blue army is evident again. It was there on Saturday night; a voice of 35 odd thousand at least, a voice screaming out, chanting ‘Fevolaaa’ or just singing that song, that wondrous tune that reverberates with all the famous victories this club can boast.
Yes it was only the Wizard Cup and in the season proper it means little but it meant a lot to us who follow this juggernaut with our blue, blue hearts passionately worn on our sleeves. It means a lot to the players too who are developing a stronger sense of purpose each and every week.
It means a lot to Denis and Collo and all the people who have turned this battle ship around.
It meant a lot to my young boy, a target these past few years in the schoolyard where those whom we call friends always throw the sharpest barbs. This week he is eager for school, he cannot wait for lunchtime. He is a True Blue Carlton supporter and proud of it!
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Great once again. I still say dannyboy needs to be employed in marketing at Carlton. I'm ready to take a bullet for the team.
