Footy is back, and that is more exciting than being able to buy hot cross buns on Boxing Day.
Or, for all you non-chunkers out there judging my analogy, it is more exciting than Lorna Jane branching out into CrossFit tights for men.
And like the combo of melting butter on toasted raisin infused goodness, the AFL have got it right. The opening game of the season should always be the grand final replay; particularly when there is such nastiness between the two teams playing out over the summer.
In a wave of plagiarism not seen since Lana Del Rey stole the chord patterns and dark tones of Radiohead’s “Creep”, who actually stole the same chord patterns and dark tones off Albert Hammond who penned “The Air That I Breathe” for The Hollies, who were too young to be married, Melbourne have been accused of stealing the Western Bulldogs favourite song, which has led to a rumoured nightclub punch on between the two teams in the country of Western Australia, and the Tom Browne Translator running hot on Twitter.
It’s why Carlton and Richmond can now sod-off to their rightful timeslot of “it’s on, so I’ll watch it” Thursday night footy. It is testament to our love of footy that for years we’ve been excited by the precession of 40-point pizzlings that have kicked off season’s past.
As an aside, Carlton will be better this year. Adam Cerra is a star, George Hewett loves tackling fuel, and both will provide Patrick Cripps with the polish and toughness he has so desperately missed since Andrew Carrazzo retired and Ed Curnow moved into a hybrid defensive forward/mid role. I know, Murphy and Judd weren’t bad, but Cripps was young, and they were old.
Friday night footy is bliss, and without the cluster of the usual Saturday afternoon mess, and a free-flowing run of games on Sunday in round one, it is likely that the national divorce rate will receive a boost come Monday morning. Unless of course us blokes lift our games and rub feet while the reality of our loser society plays out on the idiot box.
It really is a festival of footy, which reminds me of that Kevin Bloody Wilson song, The Festival of Life, except that this festival will hold no cuss words, particularly in the direction of the umpires.
As a former junior umpire, myself, it is long overdue to acknowledge and attempt to stamp out the type of mouth-guard-removing-rage-spit that has seen many an umpire, and opponent, hunting cold sore cream as part of their post-game rehabilitation. That spit, and that rage, it is ugly, and has no place being directed at the 14-year-old kid earning $22 per game on a frosty Sunday morning.
Handsome Gill was right to apologise for the way in which the league has celebrated, for profit, it’s rogue players for their aggressive body language and overt acts of petulance without any real consequence. Those VHS’ – Electrifying 80s and the Sensational 70s – really showcased the best of the worst to create cultural icons of the game.
(Photo by Steve Bell/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)
John Bourke – who pushed an umpire, then a couple more white shirts, jumped a fence and decked a spectator, only for the commentator to claim that “he’s done well” – was legendary, as was the commentary, to my 11-year-old brother and my 8-year-old-self, and we would recreate that entire act of defiance, and assault, in backyard games at every chance. Of course, I was the umpire, and then I’d have to be Dennis Collins.
My own experiences as that 14-year-old white shirt, making that $22 per game, were harrowing to say the least. The verbal abuse was actually the enjoyable part.
I umpired a game where a player was chased by an entire team of kids, and parents, off the ground and down through a highway underpass. I have no idea what became of that young man, or whether they all came back for their cars, but I learnt a valuable lesson that day: you do not leave a suburbs junior footy club for a private school team and get away with it.
There was another game when I truly believed I was going to be physically assaulted.
I had sent two players off from the same team, both had been warned multiple times for wild swinging punches to break the hold of the man on the mark, and both didn’t listen. So, after the game, their coach confronted me. He was wilder than Gene. They’d finished the game with two less players than their opposition, and it was bias, not his players’ thuggish approach to junior sport, which had cost them the game. His body shook with rage. I found myself walking backwards into a corner of concrete walls and it just felt inevitable that I was copping one from this angry giant of a man.
As his rage built to what seemed like my final crescendo, a heavenly light appeared from over his left shoulder, it came in the form of my saviour, an actual adult who knew what was taking place was wrong on all the levels. He grabbed bully man by the shoulder, spun him around, and gave him a frightful telling off. I did not know the sound of a grown man peeing himself would be so special, but here we are.
So, too right, Handsome Gill had to dismount his horse and apologise for the 70s, Kingswood Country, the 80s and the glorification of the types of garbage attitudes towards umpires that saw me 23 seconds away from death, or at the very least, braces wiring protruding through my lips.
Umpiring participation is at its lowest, across all codes, and it is because no one wants to give up their weekends to be abused for $22 per game.
Well done, Gill, and the AFL, for making a stand.
Be aware, though, like most new interpretations, the first few weeks will be hard to watch, but as common sense and logic start to play their roles of half-back, I think we will see enormous long-term benefit for the enjoyment of junior sport, and the required participation increase of umpires for all codes and levels.
FOOTY IS BACK… but unlike that rash you get once a year, you can celebrate this with your pants on. Footy won’t burn you or require that special cream you hide in your cricket gloves.
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