Oh, we’re from Tigerland, A fighting fury, we’re from Tigerland …

Week six. Tigerland. The mighty Richmond Tigers.

Faye (second from left) and Terry (right)
there were apparently meant to be many more people there but Faye and Terry had eaten them …

I had high hopes for this game. After the last couple of games had been a bit samey i was looking forward to the chance that this one would stand out. After five rounds i was 2 wins (Essendon rnd 2, St Kilda in rnd 3) and 3 losses (Roos in rnd 1, Melbourne in rnd 4, and Hawthorn rnd 5) so i saw this game as a good opportunity to get my season back on an even keel.

Richmond were also the only winless team left that i hadn’t seen and i hadn’t seen any team have it’s first win of the season yet. I took that as a good omen – Richmond and I were both overdue for a win and they’d given a good account of themselves against some of the top teams. Also apparently under Victorian spelling, Geelong is an anagram for inconsistent (obviously the Victorian school system does spelling differently that NSW) so there was every possibilty that they weren’t going to turn up this week.

It was a slightly different routine this week. I’d spent the first part of the afternoon as the guest of the President of the Williamstown VFL club (a full report on that to come during the week) so i had to call off my usually pre game merch search in favour of an afternoon lunching with Matthew Lloyd and meeting VFL legend and former brownlow medallist Barry Round over a few beers by the bay. (Yes, I’ve made a note to myseld to not mess with the routine again!)

VIP Area, no hospitality spared…

My guides to Tigerland for the week were Fay and Terry – a recently retired couple who seemed about as incapable of canabalism or spitting on someone as any people I’ve ever met. When Fay generously offered to give up her spot in the exclusive Tigers players’ sponsors area (complete with catering, free booze at half time and a pre match talk from an ex-player and one of the coaching staff) so that I could go and have a bit of a VIP experience i was questioning whether the Tigers marketing department had deviously replaced a real feral Tigers fan with a couple of actors for the evening.

The banner goes on and the theme song starts blaring out…

As the Tigers theme song started blaring out Terry explained to me as though it was an objective fact that the Tigers had the best theme song in the competition. It’s actually pretty good, but I figured that that would probably be a dangerous thing to concede this early in the season. (You can listen to the song here courtesy of the great and long suffering folks at puntroadend.com). I was willing to concede pretty readily that the song was a LOT better than Fremantle’s theme song – which is a total shocker.

I don’t usually quote the club song’s lyrics in these posts, but i’ll make an exception this week (after all, the playing of the club song was the high point of the evening for Richmond fans and things went downhill from there):

Oh, we’re from Tigerland,
A fighting fury, we’re from Tigerland,
In any weather you will see us with a grin,
Risking head and shin,
If we’re behind then never mind,
We’ll fight and fight and win.
For we’re from Tigerland,
We’ll never weaken ’til the final siren’s gone.
Like the Tigers of old,
We’re strong and we’re bold.
For we’re from Tiger yellow and black,
For we’re from Tigerland.

Of course the other reason to post the lyrics would be IRONY.

Initially i took the song at its word. After all, the other thing i’ve been hanging out for since week one was a big come from behind win. At quarter time, Richmond were trailing by about 60 – 7 or something like that, so i told Terry that when Richmond came back from this (“If we’re behind then never mind”) they would be odds on favourites to be my team.

By half time the score was about 130 – 20 odd and the MC in the function room announced that there was a guy from ABC radio in the room who was checking out Richmond with a view to them being his team. He was actually a bit sheepish and said that maybe this performance may not be enough to convince me but i responded by yelling (i had had a few since midday at Williamstown!) that WHEN Richmond came back from this (“ We’ll fight and fight and win“) i would call off the search at commit my loyalty on this very day.

“We’ll never weaken ’til the final siren’s gone”
the fans make for the exits at three quarter time

At three quarter time the scoreboard flashed up that Geelong had racked up the highest three quarter time score in the history of the VFL/AFL competion and Tiger fans everywhere were making for the exits. By this point the whole “We’ll never weaken ’til the final siren’s gone” was starting to seem a bit unlikely.

While some so-called fans wimped out, Terry and I left the VIP area and found Fay behind the Tigers cheer squad. Not ones to be deterred by a little thing like irony, the Tigers cheer squad were singing their theme songs, chanting their chants, waving their flags and keeping their heads up despite the merciless taunting of what seemed to be two thirds of the population of Geelong.

As Richmond collapsed to their worst ever defeat in their glorious 120 year history, i realised that i had witnessed something perversely unique. Something that i would never forget and something that would mean that – regardless of where this mission ends up – a little part of me will always be pleased to see Richmond return to the top.

As I stumbled home, it was the lyrics to another song that ran through my head. As is often the case when i am a few beers into the evening and in love with everything that is bittersweet about Melbourne, it was actually a Paul Kelly song. Another sport, another time, but a couple of lines from Paul Kelly’s Bradman offer hope to downtrodded teams everywhere:

They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn,
And in the hour of greatest slaughter the great avenger is being born