No room for pessimism at Tigerland Patrick Carlyon
Sunday Herald Sun
August 18, 2013 THERE is a better footy story going around than Essendon. It does not involve suggestions of pig-brain extract or even a hint of hubris.
It's about a club that has failed almost all the time since Malcolm Fraser was prime minister and features middle-aged fans who have suffered little but loss since childhood and who now look to September like children eye off Christmas.
These lost souls are trying to learn that barracking for Richmond no longer counts as a confession. They face a transition, like puppies who no longer get kicked, or refugees who have waited so long to receive the gift of hope that they are uncertain, now that it has been bestowed, about how to grasp it.
People now say nice things about their team that have nothing to do with the theme song. They are immunised from gags about finishing ninth. Richmond fans are backing a half-decent team. It's not a turnaround. It's the unsinking of the Titanic.
These once-sorry sacks usually have had no choice in their allegiance. Sometimes, their choice was made generations before their birth.
In one supporter's case, it took place before World War II, when a teenage girl stayed up late in a little house in Coppin St, Richmond. She would make an excuse about checking the time and head out past the front gate to glimpse the clock on the Richmond Town Hall. Sometimes, she would do this again and again.
It wasn't a very good excuse. Her mother and sisters knew she wanted to "run into" a particular fellow walking home from the tram stop after working the late shift as a cadet journalist at The Argus newspaper.
The house isn't there anymore. But the courtship flowered. The fellow was Jack, a football obsessive: his mother, a jolly soul who knew her scones, would keep cosy with blankets and tea while watching play at the Punt Rd Oval. When an umpire denied her boys, she screeched and raged.
Jack's son, himself a journalist, would be starstruck when sent out to interview Richmond great Jack Dyer: family folklore goes that Dyer took him for a beer. Jack's daughter inherited no interest in football, but felt obliged to clad her boys in Richmond jumpers and scarves.
There's a photo of the younger boy, crawling at 10 months, reaching up to a football held by his older brother.
It's clear I had no choice at all.
I know that much myself. Choosing a number for my duffel coat was an annual anguish that now read like Tattslotto selections -- 3, 4, 5, 20, 33.
I bristled with primitive rage at the 1982 Grand Final loss. It still flares whenever Richmond plays Carlton.
I was nine then. I thought it was a bad day. It was Richmond's highest peak for three decades. Another "high" was a preliminary final at Waverley Park in 1995.
From memory, the wind was colder than the beer and Michael Gale kicked the ball the wrong way.
As a Richmond fan, sporting loss was the anthem to adulthood. That expectation infected attitudes outside the game. It was a punishment for a previous life, perhaps, or karma for every sin, including those I'd yet to commit. Beating Carlton occasionally had to serve as a "grand final".
Losing ingrained a pessimism. A flight upgrade? A longshot bet? Yes, these things did come off, but they came off for other people, fans of Hawthorn or Essendon or later Brisbane or Geelong.
For a time, I was courted by Geelong elements. The club won often, and it was fun to mix in circles that both expected and received victory. But I was a fraud. I tried to care but I couldn't. It didn't hurt when Geelong lost. It really hurt when they smashed Richmond.
Now Richmond doesn't lose all the time. Perhaps it's time, given a solid administration and decent coach, to sheer away 30 years of emotional scar tissue. Yet how does one smile at sunshine when so accustomed to the fringes?
Richmond is assured a place in the final eight. It seems fair to hope for two weeks of finals: any more seems greedy. Regardless, the challenge probably lies beyond this season.
The club once whacked coaches: the ALP seems civilised in contrast. Richmond is not about to self-implode. Its playing list is strong: both old and new fans can trust in its immediate future.
The difference is while new believers can blithely plump for a premiership, the long-term faithful may still fret about the prospect of success. Lifelong instincts dictate that it is an illusion.
They may prefer to assume that an asteroid will land on Punt Rd at the next full training session - perhaps one in a cluster that takes out Essendon and AFL House at the same time.
Read more:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/breaking-news/no-room-for-pessimism-at-tigerland/story-e6frfkp9-1226699013313#ixzz2cFS8Qtjg
