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Last week I defended the AFL against the seemingly indefensible, which was their handing down of penalties in the Melbourne tanking saga.
However, I did mention the language they’ve used in recent times has made them an extremely viable target for those that wanted to take a shot.
And then I came across a statement by Gillon McLachlan in The Australian over the weekend, referencing his new position as chairman of the laws committee, and it quite simply made me ill.
The quote, lifted out of a Patrick Smith article, was this:
“That means getting a singular view of the people on the committee and incorporating input from the game’s key stakeholders and very central to that are the supporters.
“You then need to establish through the laws committee what you are trying to do so you have a strong consensus at the start of the process.”
Seriously, what has happened to the game we call ‘footy’?
I’ve read and re-read this quote twenty times now, and every time it gives me a headache trying to work out what he’s trying to say.
Why must we put up with such pompous jargon which doesn’t say anything but key words? It’s all I can do not to sob uncontrollably if I think too much about it.
I can still love every game of footy I watch, whether it’s twenty goals to nineteen on a fast track at Etihad, an eighty point thumping at the WACA, or 4.11 to 3.13 at a wet, windy and frozen AAMI Stadium.
The way the AFL carries on, they’d have me believe the reason I watch footy is not because of a love of the game ingrained at birth and further entrenched over thirty-three years.
It’s not because I barracked for my team, Richmond, for the only reason a man should – because my dad did.
It’s not because I can still remember having a signed poster of Maurice Rioli up in my bedroom as a five-year-old, given to me because one of my dad’s mates, a plumber, worked on his house and asked for it on my behalf.
Imagine the special feeling to come home from school and find it there on my wall.
It’s not because I grew up worshipping full-forwards, as we all did as kids (and still do now!), the likes of Michael Roach (his number eight was the first I ever had on my back) and Jeff Hogg (which Richmond supporter doesn’t remember his ten goals in the “Mother’s Day Massacre” against Collingwood in 1991?).
It’s not because I had to wait the best part of twenty-two years to be at the ground for a final involving my club, but did so each season with unyielding passion and fervour. It turned out to be a 70 point belting at the hands of Essendon by the way.
My family took one three week family holiday over the course of growing up, and only one in September. Of course the footy Gods would dictate that both would combine in 1995. All Richmond finals were watched on the floor of an apartment complex in Broadbeach. Scotty Turner’s bump on Gary O’Donnell and Matty Knights cutting a swathe through the middle of the MCG still remain vivid on that TV screen to me.
And it’s not because of the career of Matthew Richardson, who shall forever be my favourite player.
His first game was ten days after my 13th birthday and his last was less than a week after my 29th. From impressionable adolescent to happily married man, I defended him stoutly when the many critics were lining up to whack away.
The 2008 Brownlow Medal still stands as one of the great nights of my life. To see the overwhelming love, admiration and respect for the man that I’d been worshipping for what felt like my entire life brought tears to the eyes.
I’d like to say I’ve never wavered from supporting the Tigers, but I’m often reminded of a story by my maternal grandfather, a lifelong Melbourne man whose family had been as starved of success in their lives as I have been in mine. It’s one he likes to tell when we’re lining up for hours on end in the MCC queue on the morning of the Boxing DayTestor grand final.
It was 1987, Melbourne ran a campaign called “Give Robbie Flower once last chance to play in a final”, and despite my allegiance to the Tigers, I had the poster on my bedroom door.
Even then, a great football story, no matter the team, was able to capture my attention. Flower was a Demon champion who, like so many in our great game, just happened to be in a bottom team for the duration of his career.
When the Dees made their emotional charge into and then through the finals, the likes of which may not have been seen before or since, my seven-year old mind came up with a deal for my grandfather, doubtlessly seeking to gain his approval – if Melbourne were to win the premiership, I would barrack for them up until round one in 1988.
A strident man even at his most easy-going, his reply was simple – you never, ever change who you barrack for. Ever.
These are all lasting memories, and are merely a few of many that shaped my passion.
But these memories mean nothing to the AFL, presumably because I didn’t “get a singular view” of the people on the committee or “incorporate input from the game’s key stakeholders”.
According to them, I don’t love the game because I simply love it beyond justification and know nothing else. I only love it because of a “strong consensus at the start of the process”.
The AFL believe we love this game because of their constant tampering, tinkering and meddling. Because of their unending codifying, manipulation and thought-control. Because of their unrelenting, unremitting, and frankly unbelievable attempts to hijack the evolution of our game.
Actually, AFL, we love this game in spite of all of the above, not because of it. We love it because it’s in our veins. We love it because of memories forged in a more innocent time. We love it because we know no other way.
Newcomers to the sport feed off the passion of those already entrenched as much as the game itself.
So please, just leave us, and the game, alone. And take your ridiculous language with you.