Go Tiger!

It’s been a long quest – 16 games over about 5 months. I’ve seen every team (i did cheat and see one on TV) and i’ve been with fans of every team but there has only been one game that i know i will never forget.

I am looking for a team for a lifetime not a good time. I never came into this with the plan to jump on a team and ride them to victory this September.

There is something about me and the Tigers that bonded on that fateful night. I have seen them and their worst and admired them (ok, well i’ve admired the fans, not the players – they really were shit). I met men who had flown down from North Queensland to see them thumped, women who had made their banners, and fans that stayed and supported and comforted each other in what must have been one of their darkest hours. I admired them all. I admired how they kept their chin up and how they were dutifully gracious to this unfortunate stranger who had gate crashed their collective funeral. It was surreal, it was awful, it was horribly uncomfortable and it was emotional.

Richmond have managed to scrape out two wins and a draw this season and i watched the final stages of all of them. I cheered them on, i screamed at the TV for them, and i texted and rang Terry and Faye from that fateful night to congratulate them and to try and share some small sense of what it was like for them to enjoy it. I could hear the joy and passion in their voices and their appreciation of the smallest wins. It made the disappointment in victory that i have observed in other fans seem trivial.

After that fateful game some fans appealed to me in their gloom and it really got to me. I read every single one of those testaments and felt the emotion and i returned to them through the season and read them again. I felt it and i haven’t been able to shake the feeling since.

My apologies to those teams i got to later in the year. I think i played out the second half of the season with a niggling injury. Still looking for a team with my head when my heart actually already knew where it was going.

Tomorrow afternoon I am off to see another football game. My 16th and last for the year (i am off on my own mad monday next week and my team won’t be far behind me!) but my first as a fan. I’ll be playing this for motivation, i’ll be dressed up in the gear, i’ll be doffing my cap to former Richmond great Kevin Sheedy, I’ll probably even be dropping by the grog squad for old times sake, but – more than anything – i’ll be hoping that we teach them a lesson and that Richmond’s great future starts here.

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

marcus.

Some acknowledgements before i wrap this up…

My quest is at an end! Before i make the big announcement: To everyone that has followed my quest over the course of the year or taken me to a game or tried to sell me on their team, i would like to say thanks. For the fans of the other 15 teams that i haven’t picked – a little part of me will be happy for all of you when you taste success – particularly the long suffering ones.

In the end, there were a few teams that were more seriously in consideration than others so i feel like i need to acknowledge them before i reveal my final decision: Geelong, The Kangaroos and Essendon.

Geelong came in very close – i loved the experience of footy at Kardinia Park much more than anything i saw in the corporate worlds of the MCG and Telstra Dome. Your team this year is amazing and if you weren’t so god damn far out in front (so i could be safely not accused of bandwagon jumping) i think Geelong would be right up there. After meeting so many long suffering Cats fans this year i just don’t think it would be right to jump on board a few weeks before what i hope will be a red hot finals campaign. You deserve the flag, your fans deserve the flag and i really hope you get it.

The Kangaroos - way back is round one i went to see the team that was the favourite for the wooden spoon. Everyone had written them off before the season started and expectations were low. Everyone i met on that fateful afternoon tried to explain to me the elusive concept of the “shinboner” spirit and i didn’t quite get it. As i have watched that bunch of supposed no hopers turn that around and determinedly fight their way towards this year’s final series, I can honestly say that I get it now. Unfortunately, i just can’t bring myself to sign up for a lifetime supporting a team on the Gold Coast. I hope the spirit and the culture don’t get lost in whatever the future may hold because it is the best in the league.

Essendon - you guys have done my head in this year. I’ve loved you, i’ve hated you, i’ve drank with you in victory and defeat. You will always be my favourite team to play against. I’ve spent most of this year admiring the club’s history, its winning culture, the confidence and passion of its fans, and – more than just about any other individual in the game – its coach and the way he connected the club to an age and an era when the game was just a little less a business than it is now. Don’t get me wrong – i recognise that clubs must move on at some point but there’s a right way and wrong way to go about it. It seems like entirely the wrong time to be jumping on board.