Recently I went to the Ticketek website to investigate the logistics of my mates’ annual pilgrimage to State of Origin games in Sydney. Every year for the last five years, around 10 mates and I have donned the blue wigs, shirts and morph suits and joined ‘Blatchy’s Blues’.
The first year we went I was fascinated by how a bloke, who held his 18th birthday at the second Origin game in 1999 with a group similar to myself, had transformed the Origin scenery forever by growing his group year-by-year to establish a mass of Blues fans.
Last year, 15,000 people stood with him, donning those familiar wigs and shirts.
What I found on the Ticketek website was nothing short of disgraceful.
Blatchy’s Blues were gone.
They were completely removed from any marketing material appearing on the website and replaced by the very corporate and smug public relations sensitive tagline of ‘NSW supporters section’.
It seems as if the NRL is trying to take credit for organising this feature of the crowd, much like they took credit for the Auckland Nines when in fact it was organised by two blokes with a vision.
Much like those two blokes who had a vision and should have been much more recognised, Dan Blatch’s vision of Blatchy’s Blues has now ended.
The NRL have thrown tradition and history out the door of the plane they are chartering to become the ‘greatest game of all’. It leaves them on course for a destination void of all passion, notoriety and stigma.
Without history and tradition, you’ve got nothing.
Why the reason to dump the fascinating story behind Blatchy’s Blues? To make it more appealing for families? To aid those who can’t read a paragraph stipulating what Blatchy’s Blues actually is?
Seriously, if you want fans ‘engaged’, you need to have things to keep them ‘engaged’. The story behind Blatchy’s Blues was just one of those that keep fans and the public talking.
We are Blatchy’s Blues. We are the ones the players come to thank at the end of the game. The ones Michael Jennings salutes after an Origin try.
The ones who remind Billy Slater he is a ‘banker’ when in Sydney. We play our part in making sure Origin is the most watched, most attended and most talked about sporting event in Australia.
You might think I’m being over the top, but, would Cricket Australia let go of the Barmy Army on an Ashes Tour?
Where would the Western Sydney Wanderers be if not for the Red and Black Bloc? Supporters groups have long been established around the world, and are a growing trend in Australian sport.
They are a transcending part of sporting contests and produce as much hype as the game often does. Liverpool’s KOP, South Sydney’s Burrow, The Fanatics at the Australian Open and the hundreds of other supporters groups around the world, they all have their place.
You see it’s not the fact we’re all sectioned together dressed in blue paraphernalia that makes us different from any other fan at the game, it’s the emotional investment we put in.
It’s the recognition and understanding of where the group has come from. What we’ve been through. The choice you make at the time of purchasing tickets to go the extra mile, do something, anything, which might help us win.
This year, Blatchy’s Blues will be entering its 16th year, a remarkable feat considering our leader is now well into his thirties.
With literally nearly a decade of dominance by Queensland upon us, this year shapes up no different to the last.
The missed chances, the what ifs, the refereeing blunders, the Maroon arrogance, the heart breaks and devastated train trips home all drive the motivation to don the blue wigs once more in the belief that the drought can be broken.
If you’re still having trouble getting your Blatchy’s belief back, type ‘State of Origin pump up’ into the YouTube search bar. You’re welcome.
Barbauld
Guest
I think it's Ticketek only wanting its own name on it's website. The sanitise it by using the words "NSW supporters section" rather than Blatchey's Blues or perhaps they want Blatch to pay for the privilege of using his name on their site. It's more likely to be about Ticketek making money than anything else. They charge $6.05 to print off our tickets on our home printer. It's all about money
Von Neumann
Roar Guru
I could be wrong, but I remember something like that too, except in my memory (fuzzy on this) there were incidents in the blatchy's section last year, serious ones, and I remember reading a story about it, and I came away dissapointed about this 'element'. I can see why though the NRL would not want such a large "independent" supporter group going about freely attaching themselves to the origin concept in an official way - no offence to the blatchy's (its an awesome sight!) but maybe this is for the best (the non officialness of it). Sorry to pour rain on this, I'd love it if it stayed as it was, but if you have something like that and its not controlled, we return to a situation like the 'wild billdogs fans' days, or even soccer problems as we've seen in australia before. It hurts me to say this, but it could be a consequence of the new day and age on the planet. I also remember reading a story not 3 weeks ago about an english premier league fan club that was very large, for either aston villa or crystal palace, and it was 2 guys who organised it for the past 35 years (originally started by the father of one of the men, and carried on by the son and his friend)....then they rock up one day to the ground they'd been going to for the past 35 years without fail.....only to be turned away without a shred of warning. Now, that is horrible. They didn't even tell them until they were turned away at the gate. 35 years. Shocking really. The reason: the club in this day or liability and lawsuits, could not afford to have a non-official supporters group of that size which was not an official and legally binding supporters group. I guess you have these 2 blokes hanging around the club a fair bit, going to the stadium and organising things, but because they are not direct employees and because of a myriad of other issues - one being no doubt, lack of official control over them for benign reasons perhaps - it was seen as too risky or had the possibility to go bad at some stage, I dont know. Neither do I know the exact background of it. I simply do not understand this on so many levels, but I get it on one or two which I find completely unsatisfactory. It could simply be a case of the people in charge at the time. I am sure they had no official reason given, and the two men (elderly men btw in their 60s, not wild youths) were quite dumbstruck. They thought the relationship they had with the club was something else. So I am not sure what the exact issue is with the blatchy blues - one thing is for sure, I am going to miss seeing that sea of blue wigs. That had become something really passionate and awesome about origin time. So I will add this, and I hope someone takes heed: I honestly don't know whats going on in these regards, if the blatchy's guys were not 'playing ball' or something else, something disregarded or who's decision it was; nor do I know if this entire thing is actually true and the blatchy's will be there this year, but money is not everything. Corporate drive is good, but rugby league is a team effort, and supporters groups are a time honored tradition. To snuff them out would be lunacy, and to turn them away or not try to work with them would be a mistake. And yet, we live in an era of idea-stealing, dubious software patents, and fact-erosion. Examples, the humble computer mouse and cursor - stolen, apple-samsung - a feud over who invented the wheel first, evolution and climate change denial for political gain and the dangerous consequences. This is relevant, because these are the narcissists that we must deal with on a daily basis and these tendencies have crept into sport. How can these things be done? Its people fretting over balance sheets and politicizing something thats meant to be fun. I dont really want to get used to it.
Squidward
Roar Rookie
I thought they were removed late last year. Then a massive up roar happened and I remember tweeting gallen and he blew up and then they got reinstated