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.
What's My Team? 