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I have no love for Collingwood. I grimace when I hear their club song, I cringe when I see Eddie McGuire cheering them on and I grin broadly upon learning of their defeats.
Why? It makes no sense. I respect their success as a club, both on and off the field. None of their players particularly grate on me. And unlike many Australians, I don’t detest their president. He is terrific for the game and as an ambassador for his club.
Yet the sight of the black-and-white stripes loping on to the field distorts all these rational views and evokes a primal urge to level abuse at my TV screen.
Clearly, I am not alone. Collingwood is both the most famous and the most despised sporting club in Australia.
Far from being a negative, the tsunami of vitriol which engulfs the Pies each season works in their favour. From a marketing perspective it is a godsend. It allows the club to successfully frame every AFL season as ‘us versus them’.
Every club tries a similar tactic, but it doesn’t have the same authenticity and potency. Collingwood fans live in the knowledge most other AFL barrackers dislike them, which surely solidifies their fervent support.
The Pies had close to 80,000 members in 2013. That is an extraordinary figure.
Yet they are the villains of the AFL. The good versus evil narrative that lies beneath the surface of every Pies match may well be a subconscious reason why so many fans turn out to watch them.
This battle of dark versus light is even played out on their guernsey.
McGuire seems to revel in his position as the Sith Lord in charge of footy’s equivalent of the Death Star. (To be honest, I’m not even a Star Wars fan so I’m clueless as to what prompted that clunky reference.)
He expertly exploits the media, dangling controversial quotes which he knows will hit the back pages and airwaves. A journalist by trade, McGuire is intimately familiar with the industry adage: ‘If it bleeds it leads.’
So when he gets riled up about an issue he makes sure to turn the debate into a bloody crime scene with his slicing commentary. In doing so he sets the agenda, earns the club the media attention it desires and inflames opposition supporters across the country.
When his team takes to the field that weekend, there is a fresh backdrop of drama which makes their match all the more engrossing.
Over their 15 games at the MCG last season, an average of 64,000 people turned out to watch Collingwood play. Any sporting club in the world would be delighted with such figures.
Do Collingwood care that tens of thousands of those people harbour dark, wicked thoughts about them?
They love it, because for Collingwood it’s always about us versus them.