The internet can be a snarky, hostile and at times, brutal place – especially when sports banter is concerned (not at The Roar, of course). But occasionally there are heartwarming moments that restore your faith in people and clubs again.
Over at the subreddit r/AFL, user thepetrochemist hails all the way from Switzerland and recently discovered the great game of Australian rules football.
Hi folks!
So I discovered footy kinda accidentally. I was channel hopping an there was a game showed on french sport tv one morning and I got amazed at how cool the sport was. From that point, I watched all the games I could… This really is a great sport and I don’t get why it doesn’t have a bigger follow-up internationally…
Anyways, I wanna get more involved in the AFL, so I will be lurking around and maybe asking very newbie questions, I hope you don’t mind…
By the way, I thought it’d be better to pick-up a team to support, but having no clue about it, I decided to e-mail some teams to ask them directly why I chould pick them up as my favourite 😛
So who were the teams that got back to him?
To their credit, the GWS Giants and Fremantle Dockers got back to their potential new Swiss fan pretty quickly, and with some pretty compelling responses.
GWS Giants:
“Thanks for getting on board with the GIANTS! It’s fantastic to hear about support from overseas. We are the newest club so if you like an underdog, we’re surely the team to support.
We are having an excellent season this year, staying in the top eight for the first half of the year. We currently have some key players out for the season with injuries which we’re hoping won’t affect us too much.
What we love about our club is that we don’t rely on a particular player to win us the game. We have a dense pool of talent in our reserve side too so there’s healthy competition for new players to step up and fill their spots.
We are a very young side but we’re finding our form and making many milestones in the process. We’re optimistic we’re going to be fierce competitors in the near future.
Fremantle Dockers:
Thank you for your email. What an exciting time for you to start watching Australia’s great game of AFL. What better to support than the Fremantle Dockers! Only relatively new to the competition compared to other AFL teams commencing our 21st season in the AFL, we have much to look forward to in the future.
We currently sit top of the ladder after 13 rounds into the 23 round season. Fremantle Dockers greatest player and captain Matthew Pavlich has captained the team again in 2015. This season will be Pavlich’s 16th season in the AFL, and his ninth consecutive year as club captain, where he will add to his 167 games as skipper.
Matthew Pavlich is the only West Australian based player to ever play more than 300 games in his career. Fremantle Dockers midfielder Nathan (Nat) Fyfe has also lit the competition alight in previous seasons, with the 23 year old being voted by his peers as the most valuable player in theleaguelast year. Fyfe also sits favourite for the Brownlow medal (AFL’s best and fairest as voted by the umpires) so far this year. We would love for you represent the Purple Army in Switzerland.”
It’s sensational to see AFL clubs taking the time to respond to letters like this. Not only does it show clubs are willing to have a genuine and real connection to fans, but it’s also critical to have this sort of engagement to grow the game beyond our borders.
And as for which side he’s rooting for?
He’s undecided as yet, but says the Gold Coast Suns got back to him as well, and he’s going to watch a bit more footy before he makes his decision.
The Giants and Dockers though, are at the top of his list.
Sometimes the internet is a wonderful place.
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