Testaments from Tigerland?

There are different ways that the fans can react to a stranger intruding on the largest loss in their club’s history.

Obviously at the insane, poorly educated and superstitious end of the spectrum (the Collingwood end?) tens of thousands of them could have grabbed pitchforks and torches and come looking to lynch me deciding that i was a witch or a hex upon their cause. Or you could do what i probably would have done and slinked away sulking – sadly hoping that it was never spoken of again. Or, you could do what Rosy over at Puntroadend.com has done and use this unique coincidence as a bit of a rallying point in difficult times.

Maybe some good will come of last night’s debacle and we might just get a new member out of it. There’s a bloke called Marcus featured on 3LO. He’s been in Melbourne a few years and doesn’t have a team yet. He’s been going to watch a different club each week to try and find a club to devote himself to and this week it was Richmond’s turn to try and win him over.

They had a package of his comments throughout the game on the radio today. Was pretty funny. Rather than put him off he’s considering giving the next 10 weeks of watching clubs a miss and jumping on board the Tigerland Express. He said it was certainly an experience he’ll never forget.

I reckon it’s our duty to try and get him over the line.

OK, so it wasn’t quite a “we will fight them on the beaches” or a Gettysburg address, or even that bit at the end of the Lord of the Rings where a bunch of blokes are standing at the gates of Mordor about to be over-run by 40million Orcs and Aragon tells them that “A day may come when the courage of men fails… but it is not this day” (audio link, go on listen to it Tiger fans!) but for sheer intensity of optimism against suicidal odds, I would think Rosy’s comments deserved to be overly dramatised, filmed and stuck gratuitously into a Hollywood movie.

There may be a day when the courage and self belief of Tigerland fails.. but last Sunday was not that day.

Rosie’s call to arms prompted the biggest flood of testaments for a team that i have yet seen from any team. To read them all, you need to go to Rosie’s web site at Puntroadend.com, but i will include a generous sample of them here – beginning with Rosie herself:

Geelong, i am here to kill your momentum

After watching Sunday night’s tragic loss at the hands of Geelong, I have to apologise to the Richmond fans as I commit the ultimate act of bastardry and switch sides from the exectued to the executioners. This week i am off to Kardinia Park in Geelong to see the devasting Cats take on the unbeaten West Coast Eagles and i’m genuinely hyped for this game. I think it will be a cracker – the team that racked up a cricket score last week take on the team that is generally considered to be the benchmark for this year’s competition.

I must confess that i go to this game with a bit of a prejudice towards Geelong:

Me and the Millers: A circle of pain

Anyone who can remember back all the way to round one might remember Rhys and Kristy, the Roos fans who took me on my first trip to the ‘G on that glorious sunny early autumn afternoon. You may also remember how that game ended in dire tragedy – with Shannon Grant’s inability to kick the winning goal from dead in front (and right in front of me) the only thing that separated me from a life of cursing the fact that i’d picked a team that moved to the Gold Coast.

Well, those who remember the game (or just clicked on the link above) might also remember that Kristy told me that her father had left the Roos after rising all the way through the ranks and taken a job at another football club. Indeed, i believe (and don’t tell anyone because i am not sure how legit this is) i may have even been admitted to ‘G on that first fateful weeked on her father’s pass as a life member of the Roos.

Well, i am pretty sure I saw Kristy’s father last Sunday night in his capacity as the Director of Football at the Tigers.

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!)

Gatecrashing a funeral

Have any of you have ever been in the awkward position of attending a funeral where you didn’t really know the departed? A partner’s Aunt, a friend of the family that you haven’t seen in a years or a very distant relative? Someone you had largely lost track of whether they had actually passed on already? I’ve been there once or twice. It doesn’t mean any disrespect for the dead that you weren’t close or didn’t really know them, it just feels like there is nothing really appropriate that you can say. It isn’t really your grief. You respect and acknoweledge the pain of those around you but there is a nagging sense of illegitimacy about the fact that you are there.

Who said Richmond Fans Eat Their Own?

On the radio yesterday, one man even rang in to warn me that Richmond fans Eat Their Own and that i should be prepared to be eaten if i risk going to a game with them. Certainly Faye, the lovely lady who called in to take me to the game and her husbnad both sounded very friendly and then when i got back home, i had this charming and very uncanibalistic email waiting for me from Andrew…

Ned Kelly’s old club?

While on air at the ABC this afternoon, i received an unexpected call from the President of the VFL Williamstown Football Club (Apparently, they’re also Ned Kelly’s former club!), Trevor Monti. Trevor wanted to invite me along to their game this Sunday and even shout me to a meal and a couple of drinks as part of the President’s lunch. So it looks like i am up for two games this weekend and it looks like Trevor is a mad keen advocate for his team and i have to say that i am really looking forward to Sunday. Although free drinks at lunch and two games in a row may mean i end up a bit the worse for wear by the time i get to the dome.

Anyone want to tell me what i can expect of the VFL experience? Anyone love/hate Williamstown?

Oops.. Phone Dome Aint Home

Already word is starting to filter through from the various AFL related forums that I post to when trying to recruit that i may have made a horrible mistake. Apparently although the Sunday evening game is nominally a Richmond home game, the fans are up in arms that it is being played at the I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-broadband Dome (the spiritual “away ground” of AFL football) and not at the true spiritual home of the Richmond Football Club, the MCG.

[That reminds me: At some point in future when my life as a TV star allows it i will get around to making a longer post about the fact that i have been to 6 home games in 6 weeks but there are only TWO grounds and how it ruins the variety and sense of the unique experience of each team a bit]

But for the time being i thought i’d bring readers here up to speed with what i’ve dubbed the Richmond “Phone Dome Aint Home” controversy by providing some of the choicer quotes for your education:

Richmond on Sunday (and a bunch of references to politics)

I have selected my game for this week and i’m off to see Richmond play Geelong this Sunday. Go the Tigers!!

I’m optimistic – like Richmond, i’m coming off a few losses so there will be nothing like being the catalyst for turning your season around to bring me into the fold. This is actually my last chance to witness a club’s first win of the season!

What do i know about the mighty Tigers? Well, not a lot. Several of my friends and tenuous acquaintances have come out the woodwork as Tigers fans since all this began including Paul The “Independent” Consultant who contacted me earlier and is also responsible for the www.puntroad.com web site, my high school friend from Newcastle Greg (who moved here and got onto the Tigers several years ago), and Richard Di Natale, who has just become the lead Senate Candidate in Victoria for The Greens.

the Demons…

Allow me to back track for a second here.

Obviously, i am not one to complain [except when i am complaining – in which case all bets are off], but clearly for anyone who is following the progress of this adventure, the whole thing is merely an attempt to ingratiate myself with the rich and the powerful of this great city by being invited to the football with them. On more than one occasion, I was reliably assured that no team had a greater concentration of disproportiately powerful but pathetically unenthusiastic toffs in its supporter base than Melbourne.

Ahem… meet Kimberly…