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As the wheel of fortune turns in professional sport the average fan can expect their team to have a dud year every now and then. Yes, it’s never much fun losing and being teased by Dave from work, but hey, new seasons bring new hope. However, once in a generation will come that year.
A year so terrible, so full of woe, pain, tears and losing that it can shake even the most staunch supporter to their very core and tear century old clubs apart.
This, my friends, is the annus horribilis.
Every club has an annus horribilis (‘horrible year’) that haunts their record books.
The year where your team can’t buy a win, constantly has players out injured and your star player runs off with the coaches daughter. Some less fortunate clubs have even not managed to see out their annus horribilis (AH).
Take for an example the poor old 1999 North Sydney Bears, a foundation club who after decades of being as successful as Rod Henniker’s razor had become one of the 90’s most exciting sides.
Even following the Super League debacle, the Bears were looking the goods for a sunny future in a brand new stadium up the road on the Central Coast.
Then, suddenly, all the bad luck they had avoided for the last decade hit them like a Terry Lamb elbow.
The Grahame Park stadium was delayed endlessly forcing the Bears into a nomadic existence, players misbehaved on a Wagga Wagga (what is it about that place?) pre-season trip, Ben Ikin attempted to leave the club early and coach Peter Louis resigned after a run of poor (see: terrible) form.
At season’s end the Bears were in debt and railroaded into a shotgun marriage with arch rival and another former high flyer Manly, a courtship that makes any of Lisa Marie Presley’s look well thought out.
If you look at things from a win/loss perspective though the Bears’ eight wins of the 1999 season is phenomenal when compared to that of the 1999 Western Suburbs, 1935 Canterbury Berries or mid-60’s Roosters sides who didn’t win a game between July 1965 and April 1967… a remarkable effort given the absence of nightclubs, mobile phones and Willie Mason in Bondi at the time.
Think Aussie Rules and it’s hard to go past the 1993 Sydney Swans AH, a team that did about as much for the game in the expansion area of Sydney as that Port Adelaide clash jersey from a couple of years ago.
Asking a Sydneysider to watch a Swans game in this era was like going into the Coogee Bay Hotel wearing a trench coat and asking for a pony of XXXX – they were likely to look at you like you’d just asked if you could massage deep heat into their buttocks.
Special praise must also go to some of the final years of the Melbourne University club who lost a commendable 51 games in a row to end their time in the big league, although rumours that the Gold Coast Suns are campaigning for their reinstatement remain unverified.
Head overseas to the land of the free and the home of the ‘unknown fan,’ a silent protest where embarrassed fans will often turn up to the final fixtures of the year with a paper lunch bag on their head.
The noughties saw a dramatic shortage of these bags in the US city of Detroit when the local football team the Lions (2008) recorded seasons that were pretty much on par with the city’s post GFC economy.
I actually had the privilege of sitting next to a Lion’s fan at an NFL game in San Francisco on Boxing Day 2009. When it became clear the game was all but over for the visiting side I offered my condolences only for him to turn to me and drawl “Buddy, we’ve already won a game this year. The way I’m thinking is we’re on a roll.”
His optimism was in stark contrast to the coach of fellow strugglers the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their coach John McKay, who when asked at a press conference about his offensive team’s execution stated that he was “all in favour of it”.
At least the NFL only has 16 games in its regular season. Spare a thought for Detroit’s local baseball side. The Tigers that lost 119 games in 2003.
Strangely enough this isn’t even a record, with that distinction belonging to the 1899 Cleveland Spiders baseball team, a side so woeful that they lost 134 games in one season-a cool 84 games behind the league leaders that left the players scurrying for a fridge to hide under.
But on the upside at least they didn’t have to merge with Manly.
So sports fans, every team has had one-care to share your team’s Annus Horribilis??? I’m sure there’s at least one Eastern pride fan out there!
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