Ahahahahahahah Rohan Connolly and 99.95% of Essendon supporters
welcome to stage 1 Head in the Sand- what the last 3 or 4 years have been for you all but despite the signals you were given you have managed to dig your head deeper into the sand.
Then comes Stage 2 Fear, maybe if I took the time to take all the sand out of my eyes then I would not have obstructed vision and really know what my plight is and the path I am going down. Oh no we can't be that crap. I know Collingwood are and Carlton and Richmond have won spoons but not us.
Stage 3 Reassurances- Yes someone from EFC board endorsing the coach and the team and admitting in a half baked way that they have on field problems and that they are working feverishly hard to rectify them as these results are Un Essendon Like.
About 1 win in their next 8 games should send them onto stage 4.
Stage 4 Anger Anger will set in when they will suffer a humiliating 100+ point loss. How can a team ladled with talent like the Bombers lose like that. What are they doing. Its a shame Its a shame Its a shame. These players are good enough. Hopefully the end of the season is nigh by then and most of these yokels can move on successfully to the next stage. Footy talk back hot lines will be clogged by Essendon fans places that were once upon a time left open for Richmond fans experiencing the same downs.
Stage 5 Optimism. With the new pre season comes new hopes new dreams new challenges and quick fix solutions. By January these Bombers will have well and truly had that abhorrent year behind them so the law of averages says a club like the bombers cannot stay out of the finals for too long in the modern era.
Stage 6 What the f***/ anger 2. Surely we cannot be that bad surely we can't keep
losing the way he have been. After all we managed to coax blokes from the VFL who have failed already in their attempts at AFL football to come back and play AFL football. That in itself is a top 6 job isn't it.
Stage 7 Indifference, lets play out this scenario. Lets say in a work situation or a social one.
Hello so and so. How are you ?
Fine.
Follow the footy?
No not really used to go but don't have the time?
Who do you support?
Essendon.
ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha tosser, bet you weren't busy in 2000 you moron.
You find that you have no emotion not because you don't love your club but because you just don't you just sit there and cop it, nor no comebacks to other peoples degrading comments about your footy club. The wit has all gone and all you have left is a tendency to become personal with those making the comments or have a tendency to lean into violence to quell the situation and give yourself something to hang your hat on.
Stage 8 Embarrassment. Realising you have become the butt of jokes from your circle of friends you find a happy medium where you love the game and go to the games but you have no expectation or any goals. You find the train trip to the G or Dome quite daunting wearing your Essendon polo or trackie jacket as fans from real loser clubs like North , Bulldogs St Kilda and Hawthorn look at you like a chesire cat who just ate the cream with a sly grin on their face laughing at your pathetic choice of team after all they have never had the pedigree of your team. Your current plight almost makes their annual failure for the last 100 years worth it as they may break their greatest winning margin against you each time you face them.
You avoid the water cooler at work on Monday and have stopped sitting with the stigmatised clappers at the ground. Stories of Baby Bombers and losing 1 game for the entire season become as tiresome as Collingwoods 1958 premiership anecdotes. In a last form indignity towards you the sweet virginal girl at work who doesn't even talk to anyone unless she's spoken to overhears a conversation between you and a few workmates on a Monday about the weekend footy and lets you know she's a Collingwood fan and that 1990 was her favourite year and that years Grand Final was her favourite footy game ever growing up much to your workmates amusement after she retires back to her trusty pod back in the office.
Stage 9 Rage. Weekend comes around and for the umpteenth time in the last few years its a pivotal game against a much more credentialled and battle hardened team. Guess what you lose.... badly............Poor skills poor decison making by players, players playing in a reckless and undisciplined way, coach playing players who should have been dropped weeks ago due to their poor form and committment all make your blood boil after all you have been witness to this for the last 5 or so years, but to your credit you keep your dignity and hold all your raging emotions in check until......... a trivial mistake by a player at a point in the game where you have no chance of winning makes you start to brood like a serial killer on the loose. Come the final siren you start throwing merchandise off your own body down onto the race as the players trundle in after their awful loss. Throw your membership at the coach who chose a quick fix solution to see out his contract rather than go the full rebuild and call SEN and all other forms of radio media to express your vitriolic opinion on why your club is crap and mutton dressed up as lamb and how long will this run of crap last. Blah blah blah.
Stage 10 Hope. The board notice that the natives are restless. They can see all is not right so they sack the coach and the board then fall on their own sword with a new lot pledging on their honour they will come in to rectify the on field situation as well as the off field one. Finances are dwindling and so is respect. Players from a club who were once cocky and arrogant are now apologetic and sombre to their fans but relieved that a new coach has spared their sorry hides from the AFL scrapheap for another couple of seasons yet or until the coach has finally completed his player review. The fans talk this all up as a recipe for success. After all they have been through who can blame them. The law of averages says 16 AFL teams 8 finals spots that's a 50% chance. Now that new blood is in that surely that equates to success. This board is not capable of blowing merely their own trumpet and having personal interests at heart only. It won't affect the on field performance. After all we are Essendon.
Stage 11 Spend When you are fearful of something going wrong what do you do. You spend it takes your mind off the real issues concerning you and you feel temporarily better. In football parlons that means going into the draft and picking up cheap recycled goods that can hopefully do the job properly this time around. After all if you do nothing we will incur the wrath of our subordinates, so at least we are showing that we are doing something. With spending comes a false confidence and a false bravado so all this unbridled faith has to turn to something good eventually even if we no longer make a yearly profit and our finances are becoming more and more dire by the day.
Stage 12 We didn't cater for this. After a reasonable start that had the conservatives talking about scraping into the 8 and the optimists talking about top 4 and yes even a Grand Final as well ,the dream has crashed and is merely a pipe dream. How could this be? All the so called preparation, dedication planning effort how can it amount to mediocrity, zilch, failure? Where to from here? Rather than trouble yourself and turn yourself black and blue. Give yourself a break and return to stage 1. It will take the heat off for at least 18-24 months after all you'll get your social life back and that will at least prosper. Once the gloss of your binge drinking subsides after a couple of drink driving convictions and a failed marriage to complement all your personal and social misgivings then proceed to go through the other stages one by one till its time to go back to stage 1 and repeat the process over again. Continue for at least 25 years as a minimum and only make the finals once or twice as a token gesture in between. Furthermore factions within the supporter group emerge and the club is looking more disjointed and fragmented with each passing year. Enjoy Rohan Enjoy. You have been a journalist all your life to become what a male Bomber version of the bitter twisted and degenerate writing that Caro produces in regards to the Tigers. Oh Rohan would you like to see the psychaitrist now or in 25 years?
