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The love of the jumper. It comprises the colours, the history and the heroes of seasons gone. The identity of the club is the thread that binds those fleeting moments of glory into something bigger.
We who share the colours also share an identity, we were there in the hard times.
It runs deep in sporting culture.The people who wear our colours are merely interchangeable parts, capable of being discarded and replaced or even crudely traded away when surplus to requirements.
Some names are etched in history, yes, but others are quickly forgotten. In the memory of the sporting public, the mortality rate is stunning.
As a Collingwood supporter, it’s something I’ve been forced to confront. The image of Mick Malthouse passing a Carlton Premiership Cup to Dale Thomas is an image my emotions have thankfully been spared, while Heath Shaw streaming off a Western Sydney half-back line still raises the heartbeat.
Wishing ill-fortune upon players I used to so avidly support is inherent to modern football and not something I face in solitude. For St. Kilda fans, watching Luke Ball receive a premiership medal must have been agonising, but that is a man very difficult to despise. He is admired as much on the field as he is off it.
Few would condemn or begrudge his success.
In the last few months, and in a different code, my love for the jumper has been tested. I still remember the first Victory match I attended, the stunning 3-2 win against Sydney FC in 2006.
It was the first time the club had played at the Docklands Stadium, and struck a chord with me that still resonates. I signed on as a member the following season, and have followed the A-League passionately since.
The introduction of Melbourne Heart, now Melbourne City, and the enthralling derbies that came with it have only served to heighten an A-League experience already blessed by major-city rivalries between Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane.
The Brisbane games were always my favourite; the counter-attack and flair of Archie Thompson and his various counterparts against the famed Roar-celona of recent years made for some stunning encounters.
Even more so, Brisbane possessed the ultimate pantomime villain – Besart Berisha.
Berisha, the Albanian striker who lead the A-League for goals in the 2011-2012 season and has featured prominently in the Golden Boot calculations since, has a colourful reputation.
In 2012 he was banned for a week for removing his shirt and inviting Sydney FC’s Pascal Bosschaart down the tunnel for a fight. Rumours of disharmony between Berisha and a his Brisbane teammates spilled out into an open and violent confrontation after a match with the Central Coast. However the cause of most of my grievances was not so much his dive in the 2012 grand final, but the celebration that followed.
Cheating is one thing, but a self-prescribed lap of honour afterwards says a lot about a man.
So I remain conflicted. As Melbourne Victory unveiled it’s new signing, I was forced to see the name Berisha on that jumper for the first time. The uncomfortably dichotomy between a love for the colours and a disdain for the man wearing them will likely linger of the term of his contract.
Can I in good conscience cheer for that man? Is there any honour in donning a Melbourne City scarf and at least saving myself some trips to the Docklands? Perhaps I should just sit this season out?
But then I remember the feeling on Terrace after we beat Adelaide 6-0 in season two. The love for the jumper will always reign supreme.
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