Bloods!
In a previous (unpublished on the site) rave on the football (AFL) season on the fate of our beloved Blood-Stained Angels ("the Bloods"), as South Melbourne were known before they adopted the Swan as their emblem and subsequently moved to Sydney, with
Like all supporters, we live in hope, fear, dread and expectation, our fortunes a hostage to the mental attitudes and physical stamina of 20 or so fit young men. I equivocate because I remain unsure as to whether I should be optimistic about the season as a result of the recent victories, or apprehensive because of the possibility of defeat to come.
And recent weeks have not changed that diagnosis much. As I write this, we wait in anticipation the outcome of the AFL Grand Final (the Australian equivalent of the Hyperbowl Superbowl or the FA Cup Final) in which the Bloods are playing for the first time in 10 years. Their last premiership was won in 1933, so a victory on Saturday will rank with the 'World' Series win last year by the Red Sox as the ending of an era of frustration and futility.
And what an emotional roller-coaster it has been. First, we had the semi-final against West Coast won until two particularly egregious umpiring decisions changed the course of the game, not in our favor. (I know that it is cliched to blame the umpiring for such losses but, in this case, the argument is made not by the supporters but by the game's administrators, who removed the umpire responsible from further duties in the finals.) Then, the next week, we were gone for all money against Geelong, until a last minute (literally three seconds on the clock) goal took us to the lead and one of the more exciting moments in my history of sports-watching. (It now ranks with Cathy Freeman's 400 meter victory at the Sydney Olympics, Tony Lockett's point after the siren in 1996 and the Tricolors 38-0 drubbing of St George in the 1975 Grand Final in my personal highlight reel.) "And the crowd went wild" is such an inadequate description of the scene that it verges on litotes. Last weekend, we were in Melbourne for the preliminary final against St Kilda and watched the most remarkable of last quarters as the Bloods scored seven unanswered goals to sweep over the opposition and into the Grand Final. We were seated in a nest of Swans on the second deck of the Ponsford Stand and the instant camaraderie amongst the Sydney-based and Melbourne-based supporters, heretofore a group of strangers, was something to behold. Spider Robinson has said several times in his Callahan's books that 'joy shared is multiplied'; he would have had his case proved that Friday night.
But the emotional ups and downs didn't end with qualification for the final play-off. Thanks to the attention drawn to an incident early in the game by its constant iteration on television, our team's best player was singled out for attention by the game's disciplinary system. (This mechanism is far too complex for detailing here but contemplation of a cross between the Inquisition and Kafka's Trial gives some flavor of the proceedings.) So, for another three days, we went through the usual dreads, hopes and fears, thinking about the possibility of playing the most important game for yonks without our spearhead, only for things to turn out well, due to a technicality exploited by the player's legal reps. (With only slight adjustment, you can think of it in terms written not long ago by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard:
Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the [football] business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?
Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Fennyman: How?
Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.)
And in the middle of all these ups and downs we took ourselves to see the recent film based on Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby's story of his devotion to Arsenal and the travails of the committed sports fan. The americanisation of the film based on the book, released here as The Perfect Catch, turns the protagonist into a fan of the Red Sox and is quite enjoyable, as my review indicates. But it raised some ontological questions about our level of commitment and whether we had passed from being the sort of poor maddies who were wasting our time in sci-fi fandom to the even more deluded fools whose world is determined by the rhythm of the success and failure of their sports team. We decided that, just as we had never succumbed to the belief that fandom-is-a-way-of-life, we had not become so Swan-obsessed as to make us social pariahs and persons fit to be derided in the streets. Followers, we may be; subject to some emotional tides as a result, we certainly are; but fanatics we remain not.
Nonetheless, now come the anticipation and the hope. Unfortunately, we cannot get to Melbourne for the Grand Final, so we'll have to watch it on television, either at home or with a group of fellow-supporters. The next par will be written in a few days time and will either be tear-stained or filled with joy unrestrained. Such are the days of our lives.
(The next paragraph was written five days later on 25/9) Grand final day proved to be one of the great days - largely as a result of the result. We couldn't get to Melbourne for the game because, in part, we had radio duty for the Volunteer Coast Guard that morning. Cath and I are now entrusted with running the radio base on our own. So we rose at a ridiculously early hour in order to open the base by 0700. We had a very busy morning, which is I suppose for the best as it took our minds off the ordeal to come. We had to deal with the appearance of a scuba diver swimming close by the Caltex oil wharf. This is the major venue in Sydney for off-loading oil tankers and, as such, is one of the areas in the spotlight for a possible terrorist incident. We had to ring the Marine Area Command of the NSW Water Police to alert them to the possibility of danger and then co-ordinate between them and our vessel on station nearby, keeping an eye on the swimmer. He left the water soon after and disappeared before the police arrived. Then there was a vessel that had caught its anchor in the rocks just off the Botany Bay heads. We despatched the duty vessel to assist it just as our watch was ending. Thence to the Fox Studios at Moore Park, which we has chosen as our venue of choice for the afternoon. Our late arrival time precluded us from the Swans Social Club that was replete by noon. Nor did we want to go to the local pub - just not our scene. But the 'entertainment quarter' at the former Showgrounds includes pubs, food outlets and a large outdoor screen and was a gathering place for hundreds of Swannies unable to get to the MCG. For those not in the know, the grand final pitted our beloved Sydney Swans (aka the Bloods) against West Coast Eagles from Perth. The first half passed very quickly and our half-time 20-point lead might have misled some into a false sense of security. I know that I had to turn around three times and spit lest my own thoughts and words be seen as jinxing the thing. In the third quarter the West Coast Eagles mounted a comeback and one supporter, obviously a Tolkien fan and well as an Aussie Rules fanatic, was heard to imitate Merry and/or Pippin before the Black Gates: "The eagles are coming! The eagles are coming!" he cried. Cath's elbow in the ribs made me shut up immediately. We still led by two points at the last change. The last quarter was yet another assault on the hearts of the Bloods' supporters (the team has proved, through several close games this year to be genuine heart-strainers) as the team at first went behind then fought back to lead by a single point, after Amon Buchanan scored a goal that was almost a repetition of the last-minute goal against Geelong: Jason Ball tapping the pill out of a ruck to a man running towards goal. This time Buchanan, who had provided the vital block to free Nick Davis in the earlier game, kicked the goal himself. After that, attack after attack was mounted by the mighty red-and-whites, only for each foray to end in frustration with a single point, or a repelling by the Eagles defence. Still the lead had built to five by the last few minutes when the Eagles mounted their own series of assaults. One foray was ended by a match-saving tackle in the goal square; another by Brett "Tiberius" Kirk taking a spectacular mark in defence; then the desperate efforts of Tadhg Kennelly in pushing he ball over the line for a point to them. However, as time was running out, the ball didn't get cleared far enough from the consequent kick in and the Eagles had one last chance. This time it was "Leaping" Leo Barry who came from nowhere to snare a brilliant mark. Ironically, like the Geelong game, the decisive play happened three seconds before the siren sounded. We couldn't hear the siren on the television sound system because the 'entertainment quarter' had exploded in a cacophony of noise at Leaping's mark but we saw the players' reaction indicating it had and the noise level increased exponentially. Not to mention the jumping up and down, and throwing arms around each other, and singing of the club victory song. There's not a feeling like it: "We are the champions ..."
First written: October 2005
return to Raves/Essays index