Author: Nat Webster

Is there anything more frustrating than hearing someone say, “it’s just a game”? Because for many of us, it is something far greater and more precious about that. We live it and breathe it and study it and feel it like almost nothing else. Your team wins and you’re the king of the world – lose and it’s a week of heartache and ribbing from friends and colleagues (and family if you’re truly unlucky). I’ve started this blog because there are few things I like to talk about more than AFL and I have some really great friends. I also wanted a space to record essays, thoughts or photographs about our great game. My aim is to publish some of my friends’ observations about football and my own thoughts on what’s happening in the AFL - I generally write up my thoughts on the Port Adelaide game each week and the interviews with friends are all published in a first person style. I also wanted to have an online space around AFL that wasn’t the arguing idiocy that forums can devolve into, the incredible bias of Facebook pages, Supercoach anything, or purely match review style pieces. I wanted posts that are interesting to read on a theme or issue and I’m always infinitely keen to hear other people’s opinions when they’re delivered in a thoughtful manner. Some quick information abut me – my name is Natalie, I'm from NSW, I live in Melbourne and I’m a Port Adelaide supporter. A proud Port Adelaide supporter, I should say. I’m also the black sheep of my family as they all follow the Sydney Swans, though consequently I do hold the Bloods very close to my heart as well. I grew up in country NSW watching rugby league and rugby union and we were horrified at the idea of this “aerial ping pong” business until Sydney made the grand final in 1996 – first game I ever watched was the Brisbane Bears v Essendon final that year while I was studying for my HSC. I decided to go with the new team Port Adelaide in 1997 and the rest, as they say, is history.

What we’re talking about this week – Round 13.

cats

1. Redemption – Much was made of the fact it was Geelong veteran Corey Enright’s 300th game but the Demons spoiled the party. After their heartbreaker against the Saints the week before it was good to see Melbourne back on the winner’s list, led by an outstanding performance from Bernie Vince. Channel 9 might have jumped the gun a bit though…

2. Hird’s holiday – So Big Jim headed to Europe for a week during the bye to finish a business course and all hell broke loose. Is this even an issue? Really? I reckon clubs can decide what best when it comes to running their own teams. Storm in a tea cup.

3. Taking a gamble – Brent Guerra starred on the back page when he recounted the gambling addiction that took hundreds of thousands of dollars from him. It’s definitely not a new issue when it comes to AFL players but thepart that raised everyone’s eyebrows was when he spoke of Hawthorn’s “gambling culture.” Needless to say the club weren’t happy and fired back pretty quickly. I’ll always have a soft spot for Guerra after a shoddy kick from him in the 2004 prelim against the Saints effectively got Port into the grand final and the rest was history.

4. We’re the Eagles, we’re flying high – Daniel Kerr’s interview on The Footy Show received mixed reactions (I haven’t seen it personally). There apparently appeared to be a lot of avoiding the question when it came to his drinking at drug taking while playing with the Eagles and overall it left a lot of people unsatisfied.

5. Power’s off – Not the season we wanted at Port Adelaide and it hurts. Losing to Carlton is just salt in the wound.

“I’m normally, you know, a pretty reserved kind of guy but I do tend to unleash at the footy.”

1993

Pretty much all of my best memories from the end of my time in Canberra have one bloke in them – Christopher Mark Iverson. Although Ivo was technically my brother’s friend, we ended up living with a big group of other people in a Melrose Place style complex in Kaleen and chaos soon ensued. He’s still one of the best damn alcoholic Trivial Pursuit players I’ve ever met however his penchant for singing tones rather than words on SingStar continues to get under my skin. What I’m trying to say though is that Ivo’s a good bloke, despite the fact he’s a) a Bombers supporter and b) a lawyer. Now that we both live in Melbourne we catch up now and then for Coronas jammed into bowls of frozen margarita and, of course, to talk about football.

Name: Chris Iverson

Age: 33

Recruited from: Albury Wodonga

Occupation: Legal eagle

AFL team followed: Essendon Bombers

All time favourite footy moment: 1993 grand final

“I go for the Essendon Bombers. Why? That’s a good question. Footy is a big part of my family; my mum never followed football until she met my dad and then was quickly indoctrinated into the football way of life. My dad goes for Collingwood and my mum now goes for Brisbane – she’s from Brisbane. Who knows why my dad goes for Collingwood but he does, and he goes for them as all good Collingwood supporters do, he’s one eyed. I have three older brothers and two of them now go for Richmond and one goes for Collingwood. It was a big thing within my family for me, the youngest child, to pick a side. There was two and two – two Collingwood and two Richmond – and my parents and my older siblings were all trying to corrupt me. Anyway, it was a big thing. Family friends also tried to make me go for Sydney, but basically by the time I was 11 my best friend at school was a mad Essendon supporter and he and his dad brought me down from Albury Wodonga to Melbourne to go to an Essendon v Carlton game. I don’t know if you can recall the Essendon/Carlton game in the 1993 early rounds but basically Sticks Kernahan took a mark after the siren and just needed to score a point to win the match. He took the mark 35m out, slight angle and kicked it out of bounds on the full. It was a draw. I’d never been to such an exciting game. To top it off, my mate’s dad knew someone who got us into the Essendon rooms so I then went and met Sheedy and all the Essendon players, got all their autographs and I thought “Oh I might become an Essendon supporter.” Then we came back for the Essendon v Adelaide preliminary final that year and Essendon were down by about 45 points in the third quarter and basically they came back, stormed home, won the match and then the following week won the grand final. I thought, “Yep, that’s it, Essendon.” I wandered between Collingwood, Richmond, Sydney for a while in my youngest years, but then 1993 Essendon, that was it.

That said, it’s hard to keep going for them now. It’s too late now to change teams – my family gave me grief in those early years for changing and it would be even worse now. I think when you’re seven or eight then you’re entitled to take a little bit of time to work out where your allegiances lie – it’s such an important decision! Once I made the decision to commit though, that was it through thick or thin. I’ve got no time for people who switch teams or get on the bandwagon, that sort of thing. Our mutual friend Jimmy, he’s the worst. He has gone for pretty much every team in the NRL; the Chargers for a while there, St George – when I first met him he was a St George fan, then the Canberra Raiders for a bit, then he switched to the Titans when they were first formed and said “Yep, this is the team for me and I’ll never switch again,” now he’s back with the Raiders again. Literally he changes teams all the time. (To be fair Jimmy’s girlfriend is a Raiderette aka Canberra Raiders cheerleader so his most recent switch is probably understandable.)

The past three years have been tough, very tough. It’s been hard to admit you’re an Essendon fan. The drugs issue is such a polarising issue with people. And when I say polarising, that kind of makes it sound like there’s a 50/50 split either way but it’s not. It’s – how many teams are there in the comp? – it’s 17 against one usually in term of the views on the issue.

When people hear I’m a Bombers fan they usually roll out the “drug cheats” line. It’s all about the drugs at the moment and has been for the last three years. People didn’t tend to say too many bad things about Essendon in the years before that; everyone had teams that they hated like Carlton or Collingwood and not to say that everyone liked Essendon, but people didn’t hate Essendon the way that they now seem to. I think it’s ridiculous, when this all happened in 2011 and we have the current players in 2015, to think they are still now benefiting from taking some type of illicit substance. Half the players aren’t even there. Even for those who are still there, I don’t think that what they took was necessarily, on a worse case basis or even on ASADA’s case, something that was going to have a lasting effect. So I think that’s a bit unfair that people are still talking about them doping or being on drugs now. Anyone who’s watched any of our last two or three games would know that’s not true!

I’m also not saying that we didn’t do anything wrong – of course we did.  But, at present, the only thing we’ve been done for is ‘poor governance’ and I reckon that there’d be quite a few clubs that have subsequently taken a close look at the governance of their supplements programs and made a few changes.

I’m not necessarily on either side when it comes to Team Bomber or Team Hird. To be honest I thought last year when Bomber was in charge and there was pressure on the club to get rid of Hird or for Hird to resign himself, I was thinking yeah, maybe Bomber should stay on. It was just going to be too divisive for Hird to come back and Bomber has a proven record as head coach at Geelong. But then I just wasn’t all that happy with the way Bomber went about it at the end of the year and since then he’s been wanting noting to do with the club it seems. I’m kind of thinking that maybe we made the right call. I mean, the jury’s out on whether Hird’s actually a good coach or not and Thompson’s got two premierships to his none, but he took a bit of gloss off his record. He was the favourite son all through last year, right until the very, very end.

Absolutely this has damaged Hird in the eyes of Bombers fans. He was the absolute golden child, could do no wrong and even giving him the most favourable assessment now you can’t say he’s still the golden child. You just say he was a great player and leave it at that, I think people tend to agree. I don’t think he deliberately set out to do anything wrong in 2011, I think he was probably naïve and took some bad advice from someone who he thought was a guru, who had certain qualifications and who had worked at lots of clubs in the NRL – turned out he was probably nothing more than a charlatan.

I probably came down from the Murray once a year for the footy when I was growing up. We went to a lot of Collingwood games, I remember going to a game out at Victoria Park back in the 80s. I also think I went to the SCG a few times, went to the ‘Gabba in Brisbane, went to the WACA even – the WACA! They didn’t really tend to play much footy there, I went to the WACA before they started playing out at Subi. I didn’t go to a single game when I actually lived in Perth though – couldn’t get a ticket unless you were a Dockers or Eagles member! I probably go to the football seven or eight times a year now. I missed the first five weeks of this season as I was overseas or interstate but I’ve been to a couple of games so far. I probably went to seven or eight games last year and the year before, since I’ve been living in Melbourne.

I don’t have a membership. I decided when I moved to Melbourne I was finally going to take up a membership because having lived in Canberra, Perth, overseas, it just never seemed worth paying out for one. I must also admit that when I lived in Canberra I tended not to follow AFL as much as I used to and what I do now do because you just don’t get as much coverage there. So then when I moved to Melbourne at the start of 2012 I really looked at the packages and was pretty convinced I was going to get a good membership and go as much as I could. Then the so called “darkest day in sport” happened. That was enough to put me off – I didn’t think we’d even have a team at one point.

It’s not my best self at the football. Let’s be honest. I also get so nervous that I tend to have a few pre-game frothies. This is what I mean by not my best self: I’m normally, you know, a pretty reserved kind of guy but I do tend to unleash at the footy. I don’t tend to boo anyone for non politically correct reasons – I wouldn’t boo Adam Goodes for instance – but I do tend to have a go at the umpires and if I think they’ve made a bad decision, I will boo them. Which I know in current times is questionable but anyway, I still can’t help myself. My other thing I yell out is “Ball!” Just “Ball,” that’s it.

I’m not very superstitious by nature but until this year, there was a particular mate of mine that whenever we went to a game or even whenever we watched a game together, Essendon always won. Actually it might have been a game at the end of last year when it all fell apart and it hasn’t been any better since. But for the first 18 months I lived in Melbourne I was convinced that if my mate Kabe and I watched every game together then we would be undefeated for the season.

In terms of being there live, the best game I’ve watched is the 1993 preliminary final against Adelaide when we were down by so far them came back and won. It was outstanding. Watching on TV it was probably the week after, the grand final or the 2000 grand final. I’ve also been to quite an unusual number of draws. Another one against Carlton in the final round last year. They’re my highlights.

I can still remember my saddest day as an Essendon supporter. It was the preliminary final in 1996 when Plugger kicked the point after the siren. I remember watching at home with my family and with maybe two or three minutes to go we kicked another goal which put us up by two goals and I went nuts through the house. I was yelling out, “We’re into the grand final!” and I was doing laps of our house, screaming and carrying on. My parents and my brothers were all yelling at me to sit down and shut up. Their teams had all been knocked out and I don’t think they were all that keen on my team making the showdown. About 30 seconds later Sydney kicked a goal. And I then very quickly shut up, even though we were still up by six points. Then they kicked another goal and I went dead silent and there was this terrible look on my face. Then when Plugger took that mark for the kick after the siren, I ran to my room and I’m pretty sure I cried. It was a very, very sad day. I haven’t overcome that since – I won’t celebrate until the final siren (though I was pretty confident by quarter time in that game against Melbourne last year where we won by 150 points!). I don’t hate Sydney because they were kind of a bit shit for a long time, they did alright that year but then they were nothing again for a long while until the mid-2000s. I don’t hate them and if it was to happen with anyone then I kind of felt a bit sorry for the Swans because they were so unsuccessful for so long. And they still didn’t win that year. As soon as they beat us I was absolutely going for them in the grand final against the Kangas.

It seems wrong now to say James Hird was my favourite player growing up but he was a champon player, even if there are huge questions marks over his coaching. Matty Lloyd as well, obviously a powerful forward back in the day. In recent times I think Jobe has not just been a great player on the field but off-field as well, he’s really matured a lot as a player and a person. I actually didn’t think he was much good when he first started out – he was a pretty terrible kick.  But he’s worked so hard on his kicking which is why I admire him more, it’s not just natural talent with him.

At the moment I’d take Nat Fyfe but I think Gary Ablett Jr is the best that I’ve seen. I know that Carey was a fantastic player in his time but the ease with which Gary holds the ball, tackles, shakes a tackle… When he’s at his best I just am in awe. Carey might have taken a good pack mark and all that, which Ablett doesn’t tend to do, but for everything else I think Ablett’s the best. And, dare I say it, better than his father who was absolutely one of my heroes growing up.

I’ve definitely got some rivalries. Richmond, for family reasons I always enjoy beating them. Likewise Collingwood but who doesn’t? Those are probably the two biggest ones. West Coast as well just because we’ve had some fantastic games over the years, the Sheedy incident waving the scarf and sticking it up them that day and I’ve been to a couple of games against them since then and it’s always good. Then there’s the moment where Hirdy hugged the bloke when we played West Coast – that was fantastic that moment.

Things I hate… I hate the war on Essendon. I hate the advertising. I hate the LED signs at Etihad Stadium because it’s such a distraction. I don’t know if I like the sub rule. I think I’d scrap that. I mean, I’ll still keep watching the game whether they have that or not, but it’s one thing that if I was on the rules committee I’d get rid of. I don’t like it. Personally I think it cheapens your games record if you’ve spent 95 per cent of the game sitting on the bench. I kind of get the impact of being a man down, with rotations and things if you just have four on the bench, but I don’t know. I just never warmed to it when it was introduced and still haven’t.

I struggle to even answer why I love footy. I love everything about the whole experience, AFL more so than any other sport. Living in Canberra I got into league for a while and union as well in a big way but that tends to be quite polarising in terms of you either like one or the other – there’s still so much class warfare attached to both. Whereas AFL is a great leveller I think, particularly in Melbourne. It’s something which just permeates through the whole community. Going to the game and having such massive crowds, it’s a great experience. It really is the greatest game of all.”

What we’re talking about this week – Round 12.

hawks power ranger

1. Bye, bye, bye – Why is the bye spread over three rounds this year? Why are they playing a Thursday night game this week? So many unanswered questions.

2. Power Rangers are go – Yep, we’ve all seen the comparison shot with Hawthorn’s shiny shiny away jumper displayed next to the white and gold Power Ranger. Even Titus has had a crack at it. I cannot believe that was the end result and everyone in charge went, “Yep, we’re happy with that one.”

3. 41 seconds – The poor Dees can’t take a trick at the moment, going down to the Saints right at the very end. Alan Richardson’s reaction in the coaches’ box was a ripper though – skip to the last 30 seconds of this video to see what I mean.

4. President’s Round Table – I finally got around to watching the President’s Round table on Fox Footy with David Koch, Eddie McGuire, Andrew Pridham and Peter Gordon and it was one of the most interesting football segments I’ve seen in a long time. Honestly, I was riveted. Nice to hear from these guys for a change and I thought the questions were really well moderated. I can’t find a link online but the synopsis is here.

5. Origin record – 91,513 at the MCG to watch NSW beat Queensland in game two of the rugby league State of Origin. Cracking night and pretty happy to have seen the mighty Blues get up. The yelling out during the one minute’s silence for Ron Clarke probably wasn’t the highlight (or necessary) though.

You can take the girl out of NSW but you can’t take the NSW out of the girl.

MCG state of origin 2015

Friends origin

That moment when you sit with the good mates you’ve made since moving interstate 10 years ago and you’re watching your home team play the game you grew up with and they defeat the old enemy in front of a record crowd at one of the best sporting grounds in the world and some bloke you don’t even know sitting in front of you turns around and high fives you and life is just great.

91,513 at the MCG for game two of the 2015 State of Origin. Go you mighty Blues!

Bringin’ on the heartbreak.

wingard v geelong

These are getting harder to write every week.

On Friday I will admit I nearly cried all the way home after the game – or, I should say, during the final quarter of the game. I was working afternoon shift and not due to finish until 8pm. This meant if we were busy and I had to work all the way though, I’d make it home some time in the third quarter. So a colleague and I ordered pizza and settled in.

I suppose both my offsiders got an unexpected glimpse into what kind of supporter I am. I turned the sound down to almost mute because I couldn’t take the commentators. All the non Victorians will know what I mean when I say they always tend to try and ride a Vic team home. I grabbed a wooden ruler and twisted it repeatedly in my hands because otherwise I’m going to end up with scarring across my knuckles from digging my nails in. And then I paced. And paced. And jerked around. All while being totally silent in a mostly silent room. Nah, that wouldn’t have been odd at all.

The first quarter was good. We looked like we might have this one and even pushed out to a five goal lead at one stage. It felt like we were just getting the car warmed up and were waiting to accelerate off down the road. Then the Cats got a couple of lucky ones – that Robbie Gray handball kicked mid-air by Motlop springs to mind – and it was closer than I wanted.

Second quarter was alright but not as promising. Third quarter I waited for that acceleration to kick in and it just never did. Every time we grabbed a goal I expected the tide would start to turn but Port just didn’t want to put the effort in. It’s like they were doing just enough to stay in it and give me hope without actually wanting to win.

At three quarter time I packed my on call gear up and headed to the car. It was the vibe… And I was right because by all accounts we were hideous in that final 30 minutes. I just couldn’t bear to see this happen again and be forced to stand there while the Cats belted out their song. So I drove home, mostly in silence, and wanted to cry. The next couple of days I struggled to shake off the glum feeling because that was a win we definitely should have grabbed. It was a Friday night game at home FFS!

Wingard was sensational, the one shining light on an average night. The thing that pleased me most is that he played such an unselfish team game despite his individual brilliance. Shows to me how much he’s maturing as a player. Carlisle also tried hard and pretty much kept Hawkins right out of the game. Hombsch continues to improve each week as well; right now it’s our backline holding us up because out forwards don’t seem to be able to find a kick anywhere. Our game plan has stalled and we struggle under pressure. The fitness just doesn’t seem to be there or maybe it’s the willingness.

This is getting harder and harder and more heartbreaking each week. I want that side who kicked 60 God damn points in a quarter against last year’s premiers to run out again. Because the way we’re going, we’re not going to see September, not one tiny little bit.

 

 

What we’re talking about this week – Round 11.

IMG_4718

1. #Thank5 – In a perfect world, champions reach 300 games and leave the field chaired off by their team mates after a grand final win. Of course that rarely happens though if it’s anyone who deserved otherwise it’s Chris Judd. The Carlton and West Coast great ruptured his ACL against Adelaide and has subsequently retired from football. He’s a man who said pretty high standards not only on the field, but in his behaviour and professionalism off it. Enjoy retirement, Juddy – you will be missed.

2. Ryan Crowley – Probably one of the game’s most disliked players, the little shit from Freo has copped a year’s ban for taking methadone. It’s also been back dated to last September because yeah, we get so much consistency in decision making. They should have given him two.

3. Sam’s backside – The Freeze MND fundraiser at the G on Monday was sensational except for one thing: when I saw Sam Newman go down the slide in a mankini I had to call the police to report that I’d been eye raped.

4. The circle of parity – Love the graphic above, demonstrates just how close the 2015 season has been.

5. Ooh snap! – Ben Ross and Wendell Sailor arm wrestle on the NRL Footy Show. Once you hear it, you can’t unhear it. You’ve been warned. Have a watch here.

On the grind.

matt white

I remember watching Port Adelaide’s first game this year against Fremantle and feeling very disappointed at the end of it. As the team many were tipping to win the flag this year, I was gutted that Port led all game only to fall short at the end. Of course, that’s before Fremantle won their first nine games in a row and started having the season the Power were expected to have. While the Dockers have blitzed nearly everything in their way, Port’s season has turned into a slog.

The problem is, of course, that when we’re good we’re very very good (v Hawthorn – that opening quarter!) and when we’re bad we’re horrid (v Brisbane). Sitting at 9th on the ladder with five wins from 10 games is not where we’d hoped to be. We absolutely have the toughest draw in he AFL but whinging about it won’t change anything and at the end of the day, you’re pretty much gonna have to beat everyone if you’re gonna win the flag. But I switch on a game every weekend and rather than sitting back, relaxing and enjoying it, I’m always nervous and concerned – which Port Adelaide is going to show up?

Last weekend wasn’t much different. The 38-point win over the Bulldogs belied what a tough, close and grinding game it was for the first three quarters. While Port led at every change, the highest quarter break margin was only the 16-point lead we had at half time. I never had the ability to settle in because I was always a few seconds away from panicking we were going lose this. Nothing like living on the edge, right? Most of the contests involved hard tackling and subsequent stacks on of players jostling for the ball until the game looked like nothing more than a series of throw ups from the umpire.

Port aren’t back at it’s best but to use the key word again, we’re grinding there. I think the loss to Brisbane was particularly damaging for our confidence and often we seem to forget that we know how and are capable of playing good footy. Sure, other teams have probably figured us out a bit this season and we’ve lost the element of surprise, but we’re just not looking as consistently free flowing and assured as we have been in the past couple of seasons. The last quarter we regained a bit of that, kicked straight, and did the requisite damage on the score board. It was nice to see a bit of percentage added on and the boys run out eventual clear winners.

Wingard had an absolutely magic game and was best on ground for mine. I liked his effort all night and he competed well, tackling, setting up other players and kicking a couple himself. He’s just got the cliché silky skills. Wines had a cracker, as did Westhoff and Boaky did well even with two Dogs tagging him. Robbie Gray again, man… Just a pleasure to watch. I’m not sure I’ve ever appreciated him so much as I have this year and what he brings to our team is almost immeasurable. I’ve called him the Rolls Royce before and honestly, sometimes it’s like watching a race where the Rolls is lining up against the Datsun 180Bs. He’s just that good.

We play Geelong this Friday night in Adelaide and are favorites with the bookies, though the churning in my gut hasn’t subsided. Still nervous. I’m not sure you can take much from the Cats’ 69-point demolition of Essendon as an indication of how they’ll come to play against Port but clearly they’ll be feeling OK going in. And will both teams sitting at five wins for the season this will be a crucial scalp for Port to capture – all the while I’ll be shredding my hands to pieces and hoping for the absolute best.

What we’re talking about this week – Round 10.

daniher

1. Goodesy (again) – Not sure you could start a list like this without Adam Goodes leading it off this week. As some point I’ll marshal my thoughts into something describing how I feel about him and his “war dance” during Indigenous Round (in short, I am supportive of both the dance and the person) but until then I’ll keep it short and simple. The one other point I’d make here is that I think often people can’t separate the action and the person when it comes to Goodes.

2. Hall of Fame – Welcome to Michael O’Loughlin, Jason Akermanis, Peter Bell, Neil Roberts, Bob Hammond and Austin Robertson, and congrats to Tony Lockett on being made a Legend. True story #1: Plugger once told my mum to “fuck off” after she said hello to him at a servo in Pheasants Nest. True story #2: my dad used to have a tiny bell that he’d ring whenever he was watching Freo games and Peter Bell would get the ball. What a family.

3. Out to be in – Lots of talk around who the new coach might be at Carlton with a couple of pundits suggesting that recent appointees to jobs had previously ruled themselves out of positions. Interesting. God I hope Stewie Dew doesn’t go there, he deserves better than that #stillmyfavouriteplayer

4. In but out – Speaking of coaches, both North Melbourne’s Brad Scott and Collingwood’s Nathan Buckley will find themselves on the sidelines after requiring surgery. Scott’s done his back and Bucks a hammy. Not a great month for coaches.

5. Freeze MND – I’ve watched Neale Daniher on TV a few times this week and it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see the effect Motor Neurone Disease has had in him in such a short time. Just a great bloke who has given so much to the game and is now in the midst of the fight of his life – and still thinking of others. Just devastating. As Tim Watson said on the Footy Show, “Even if you give up a cup of coffee this week, just $5, then every bit counts.” You can donate to the cause here and hope the Demons get a win for him on Monday.

“I’m not that short sighted that I’ve just forgotten everything that’s happened over the course of my life.”

hovercraft

In the short time I’ve had this website up and running I’ve been incredibly lucky that no one I’ve asked has turned me down for an interview. However not everyone I know is comfortable putting their name to blunt opinions. Phteven is someone I’ve known for a long time and while his passion for the Carlton Football Club hasn’t waned, I’ll admit I’d be hard pressed to own up to being a supporter this year too. So in order to preserve his dignity and allow for his good stories to be told I’ve given him the fake name of Phteven and the occupation of hovercraft driver because both make me laugh as much as the Carlton players do.

Name: Phteven

Age: 54

Recruited from: Diamond Valley

Occupation: Retired hovercraft driver

AFL team followed: Carlton Blues

All time favourite footy moment: 1995 grand final, running on to the ground and catching up to Big Nick

“I follow the Carlton Football Club. The Blues, the mighty Blues, the not so mighty Blues just at the minute, but I barrack for Carlton. It’s a long story but my grandfather played for Carlton in the 1930s. He played one game in either about 1930 or 1931. He worked for the SCC and lived in Brunswick, and would travel vast distances on his pushbike to read meters so he was incredibly fit. He was always a very good sportsman and always said he was a better cricketer than footballer. But he got invited down to Carlton to play and he made the team. He came on as the 19th man in the single game that he played. He was going up for a mark out the front of the Gardiner Stand, which is still there at Carlton it’s the old timber stand – you had the Heatley Stand, you had the Members’ Stand and then the Gardiner Stand – and he obviously didn’t realise that a photo had been taken. So he’s walking to work the next day at the SCC in town and walks past the old Argus building, looks in the front window and goes, “That’s me.” So he went in and bought the photo of him taking a mark in his one game for Carlton, number 13 he was, and I’ve got it. So it was a freaky set of circumstances.

He was employed at the SCC, rode the bike and it was typical that you’d come back for your lunch. A guy comes up and says, “Rex can I talk to you?”. He said sure and the bloke tells him that he’s received two letters, one from Essendon and one from Carlton, they both want him to play for them so what should he do? And my grandfather knew that this guy was a rover or a winger and he advised him to go to Essendon where he would probably more likely get a game. My grandfather was being honest, he wasn’t being facetious. Sitting at the end of the table was a bloke ear wigging on the conversation and he wrote a letter to the then president of the Carlton Football Club and said your player Rex told prospective player X to go to Essendon and not play for Carlton.  So as it happened the president then went down to the coach and said Rex is never to play in the firsts ever again. So he played one game at Carlton in the firsts and the next five or six years in the reserves. He said he would constantly get best on ground but because the president said to the coach that he’s never to play in the firsts ever again due to a perceived act of treachery, that was it. So I’ve got photos of my grandfather not only taking the mark but he also toured Brisbane and Sydney because Carlton did tours back then, long before anything that’s happening now. He’s got photos of him and Harry Valance, the whole team on tour. But he only ever played the one game. So there you go.

My mother, God rest her soul, and my father barracked for Carlton. My two brothers – my youngest brother played for Collingwood for 12 months but has come back to Carlton, my middle brother had a small dalliance with Essendon but we smacked that out of him and got him back to Carlton. And now my girls and my wife barrack for Carlton.

I’m not sure whether it was the first time but this certainly is my most vivid memory – I’ve got some really powerful memories of growing up as a kid and going down to watch Carlton play. I played junior football, probably as a 10 or 12 year old and afterwards my dad said, “Right, we’re gonna go and watch Carlton and Collingwood.” At the time it was ridiculous ’cause we got there late and the ground was packed. He got us in and on the city side on the wing there was a grandstand that just had a tin back and a tin roof on it. So we shimmied our way into the stand and it was packed. I couldn’t see a thing. So my father whacks me up into the rafters of the stand and just says “hang on”. So I’m hanging upside down from the rafters watching the game as a kid and right beneath me – right beneath me – is a massive fight. I crap myself, I’m looking at my father, my father’s yelling “Don’t get down!”. After the fight, which went for only a short time, after the fight there was the circle that no one entered because everyone was too scared to go back where the fight was. So if you looked up, here’s a 12 year old kid hanging from the rafters trying to watch the game… I don’t know how we did it. That’s probably my first memory, my most vivid memory, of going to a Carlton Collingwood game which was a ridiculous game to go to for a young boy.

The tradition for us as three boys, me being the oldest and my two younger brothers, was that we would make what was – when you think about it – a fairly arduous trip. The bus to Northland, the Bell Street bus up Bell Street to Sydney Road, the tram down Sydney Road to Princes Park, we’d watch the game, the tram back to Sydney Road and Bell Street, a Ferguson Plarre sausage roll on the corner – shop’s still there, the bus back to Northland then the bus home. So we’re talking at least a 10 hour day to get to the football but I loved it. It was a treat that we would go.

We knew that if it was close that to get on TV that night me and my brothers had to run down to the fence and hope that the ball came close, then when the ball came you hung over like a idiot. Then you got home quick enough to watch the replay, either on Channel 7 or Channel 2. That was it, that was our highlight. And the other big highlight was running out on the ground after the game. My most vivid memory is running up and catching up to John Nicholls and smacking him right in the middle of the number 2 and just getting sprayed with sweat. I had no idea.

I do go to the footy as much as I can, I actually enjoy it. I love the club. I’m not that short sighted that I’ve just forgotten everything that’s happened over the course of my life. We’re in a lot of trouble a the moment, we’re in a lot of trouble and I think that guys are down on confidence and until that comes back and until we can get a new mix of players in… It almost feels like to me as if we have to start again. And I’m sure that’s not true, I’m there are some gems down there like Patrick Cripps and a few of the other guys we’ve got down there who will carry us forward into the future. But there’s a fair bit of work to do down there I think. But everyone will get their turn at that. All the last couple of years has confirmed to me is that you have to have absolutely everything going for you to win one. It’s so hard. So yeah, we’ll be back. We’ll be back. We have to be. We have to be back.

I’ve gone through a number of phases. I’ve gone through the manic phase as a young fella where I quite enjoyed the interactions at the football. I’m more of a theatre goer now with the occasional spasm thrown in. And it’s usually got to do with blokes like Ray Chamberlain – I think the funniest thing I heard was on radio when Robert Walls was on with Rex Hunt and they awarded some Tontine pillows, I forget who they awarded them to. And someone in the box said we could reward Ray Chamberlain with a Tontine pillow and Robert Walls said yeah, he could use it as a sleeping bag. Just stuff like that. Occasionally I yell out. I’m not on it all the time but I will pick out the odd inconsistency in my view that I think needs to be pointed out. And then I realise shit, I’m 100 metres from the play, they’re not going to hear me anyway. But yeah, I’ll yell out. I don’t just sit there and cop it but I don’t go stupid either. I try not to.

I did go to the football with other people. My brother coaches a team now but I used to catch up with him – he lives a little way away so it was a great catch up for us. I’ve maintained my membership though and I pretty much go by myself, which is fine, I’m happy with all that. I’m happy just to sit there and watch it; believe me, there’s plenty of space at Carlton games now, you can sit pretty much anywhere you want! I’m not overly superstitious about wearing the same boots or jumper or anything like that; in fact, I probably go to the football and don’t identify as a Carlton supporter. I try and de-identify myself. I’ve got a witness protection program because it’s pretty frustrating at the moment. As I said, there’s plenty of spots to sit at a Carlton game now.

On any given day I could be driven to hate anyone. It’s probably easier to name who I don’t hate. Pretty much anyone that we can beat at the moment I don’t hate, everyone else I hate. It’s hard being a Carlton supporter at the moment. All the traditional vile supporters I’ve run across in my time… I still hate them. Hate’s a shocking word. But it’s only from a football perspective. Essendon – yeah, we’ve had run ins with them. The Pies – yeah, I’ve been smacked at Victoria Park in the head by an old bloke carrying an umbrella. Turned around to smack him and there’s 15,000 people there ready to kill me. That was a very long time ago. So yeah, just your traditional targets of hate that you could reasonably expect from a Carlton supporter.

I’m not a big one for the pre game experience. I see quarter time, half time and three quarter time as a time for pensive reflection, not for hearing Britney Spears or Taylor Swift. I use that time to talk to a fellow supporter or analyse where we’ve gone wrong. Our clubs see it as a way of giving away footballs or television sets. So the game’s changed and I get that, I get that, but I don’t particularly like that part of it. Which may sound strange. I get it and I understand they’ve gotta get kids along to the ground and make it as attractive as possible. But yeah… sometimes I just don’t get it. And that’s why I smashed the hovercraft.

I’d make it cheaper for people to go to games. I’d lower the prices of merchandise. I remember I went across to New York and a mate of mine there owns a sports bar. I wanted to take him over a Carton jumper that he could hang in the bar but they’re 100 bucks. I thought, OK I’ll buy him a t-shirt that he could wear around and they’re 50 or 60 bucks. It’s too dear. Just ’cause you’ve got Nike and Mars and the Carlton logo on it – make it a bit more accessible and cheaper for people to buy your merchandise and promote your goods. Surely that’s what it’s all about. I think there’s probably some stuff they can do. I know that they’ve lowered the food prices. It is still a touch expensive in my view. Footy brings such a buzz to Victoria and the product at the moment is fantastic.

Favourite players… Wayne Johnson. Jimmy Buckley. My mother worked at La Trobe Uni and looked after David McKay when he came down so I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for Swan. Geoff Southby. So many of them, so many good players. But I really loved Wayne Johnson, really loved Jimmy Buckley and blokes like Ken Hunter, all those guys. Rod Ashman, David Glascott… We had so many good players. Mark McClure – he was certainly not in the pantheon of centre half forwards but for us it all just worked. Braddles, Sticks, so many good players. Peter Bosustow for the short time he was there. Carlton just had that ability to attract the right player at the right time and mould them in such a way that they were just so successful. It was blokes like David Parkin as coach who took the whole thing to another level. I have the utmost for David Parkin and what he’s done, what he’s done for Carlton. He’s probably my favourite coach. A lot of people have put in a lot of time down there and it’s a real shame to see where we are at the minute, but I think that the way football’s going at the moment everyone’s going to take their turn at that over the years. We just have to suck it up now and get better. But there’s been whole range of players down there over the years that I’ve just loved watching over the years. Jezza had the ability to run flat stick in a stooped position, just a fantastic athlete. Well ahead of his time. We had some great players at Carlton, we really did. We had great teams through the 70s, into the 80s and into the 90s. What a time to grow up being a Carlton supporter. It was as if we could never lose – now it’s as if we can never win. So there’s been a bit of a turnaround.

I recent years I loved watching Kouta, though he’s been gone quite a while now. Fev had the ability to light up a stadium. I was there the day he kicked his 99th goal at Etihad Stadium. I was really disappointed that he didn’t kick 100, he’d had a really good year. And just Juddy. I just so much enjoy watching Juddy. He’s such a good player and has been for us the last five or six years. I actually feel that we’ve underachieved for him and I’m a bit miffed and a bit disappointed that it’s worked out the way it has. I think the move was right, I think getting him across was the right thing to do at the time. people sometimes lose context, of why you do certain things at certain times and to get him across gave the club a whole deal of hope. We lost Josh Kennedy in the transfer and that’s swings and roundabouts but I’m so in awe of what Judd does and how he goes about it. Yeah, he makes the odd mistake along the way but he’s just been such a professional person and such a good player who has the best interests of the club at heart in everything that he does. I think he’s been a very special player, both at West Coast and at Carlton.

Gee, there were quite a few lads running around for Greater Western Sydney who are going to be fantastic. Jeremy Cameron is a fantastic player. Nat Fyfe. I watched a little bit of him on the weekend and he’s a really good player. There’s a lot of good players. I like to see the emergence of young players and there are a few coming along like Lachie Neale at Freo. Freo have got a really solid team this year, they’re gonna be hard to beat. I suppose this is where my interest has waned a bit because growing up, probably like a lot of other kids, I could tell you names, numbers, where they were recruited from, the whole lot. Now these days there’s so many players playing and I don’t watch a lot of TV other than the Carlton games. To actually pinpoint one particular player or a group of particular players is hard. I suppose I’d stick with the mainstream guys and I’m probably more interested in just how we’re developing at the moment. That takes up a lot of my interest and a lot of my time. I watched Matthew Dick the other weekend who we’ve recruited, who’s come down and whilst we got flogged, you could actually see in him there will be a player emerge in time. I like to watch that. Carlton has had a long history of, “We need a centre half forward so find the best centre half forward in the land and get him over”. You can’t do that any more.  So to develop your own people and get them up and running gives me even greater pleasure. That’s why I’m so happy that people like Steve Silvagni are down at the club because I think he obviously has the ability to pick talent and see talent like it is.

I think I know who’ll coach them next year. I think I know who I’d want but we’ll see. Mick’s not to blame. He’s not. I think he’s gotta share partial blame and I think he’s gotten some players to the club that at the moment haven’t lived up to expectations. But I think he’s also gotten some younger kids in who clearly will develop. For some reason Carlton supporters seem to have a degree of impatience that perhaps other clubs, like St Kilda or Footscray who haven’t had a lot of success, don’t have. I can imagine a Footscray supporter thinking, is this a false dawn? Is this another false dawn for us this year? And it probably isn’t. They’re on a real trajectory for success I think on the back of what is one player. And that’s Marcus Bontempelli. He brings that whole club new hope. I think if they continue to build they could end up anywhere, but everything will have to go right. You can turn things around quickly and I think Mick had tried. When you look at Bryce Gibbs signing up for five years and a couple of them signing up long term, they were lulled into a false sense of security. It’s only two years ago that we were a couple of kicks away from playing a prelim final. It’s only three years ago that we beat Richmond from six goals down. But it just shows you how quickly the game moves and how you’ve got to move with it otherwise you’re left behind. And you need a fair bit of luck as well. It’s almost the perfect storm.

I love the continual evolution of the game. I sat behind the goals one day at Etihad Stadium and I watched Scott Camporeale kick out from fullback and then run down to the other end of the ground in what seemed like the blink of an eye and kick it to a bloke who kicked a goal. I just thought, how did he do that? I can only guess at the levels of fitness these blokes achieve. I like that, I like the combativeness. To watch a good game of football there’s just a flow about it, there’s just an aura about it, there’s just something about it that keeps drawing me back. A good game of football can hold your interest for the whole two-and-a-half hours that it’s on but there are other games at the moment that are just rubbish. That’s a worry. I think we’ve probably got two or three or four too many teams in and I think that from time to time, there are perhaps some players that are playing – and good on them – but they perhaps wouldn’t have made it back when it was a 12 team comp.

It’ll never happen but I’d probably dump a team or two. I’d make sure that in a fixturing sense that every team plays each other at least once and then as you rotate through the next three years, or whatever the mathematics works out as – if it’s three or four years, that everyone’s played each other the same amount of times. So in other words, I wouldn’t stack the draw. Look at Carlton – we’ve got the next two Friday nights on the telly and really, it’s hurting our brand. So I think there’s perhaps the potential to keep Friday nights open and then possibly, though it might be difficult from a fixturing point of view, then look at bringing the best two teams from that weekend on to play on a Friday night and really showcase the game.

There’s a few things I don’t like about football. I think, that on the back of what I’ve just said about the players’ athleticism, I have no time for umpires who think they are bigger than the game. No time at all. So I’ve watched it go from one to two to three umpires, and I’ve seen umpires inject themselves into games just because of their ego, and that really really gives me the irrits. I don’t like that.

My prize possession is a photo of me and my daughter with Sticks and Parko and the premiership cup from 1995. That holds pride of place. I was really really fortunate in 1995 to go down to the Carlton rooms before they played Brisbane in that final. I am just in awe of that moment. To be down there and watch the players before they run out was a moment that I’ll never forget and it was really an honour to be down there. You know, I was there the day Blightly kicked that goal, I was there the day the Brisbane Lions kicked us when Warwick Capper kicked that goal, I was there when the fish and chip stand caught on fire, all those little things meld together. Braddles kicking that goal in the grand final and looking across and winking. I’ve seen Greg Williams – one of my favourite players and a bloke I detested at Sydney – come to Carlton and he’s an instant hero. That’s how much it can change. Lots and lots of good memories. I’ve been privileged to be able to barrack for the club.

That ’95 premiership was a special moment because it was the last one and the one I remember the most. And there’s the other premierships. My daughter was born on the 23rd June, 1988 so if you work back nine months to 1987 you can probably work out what’s happened there. She’s a twinkle in the eye. My wife will kill me for that.”

What we’re talking about this week – round 9.

guthrie

1. Indigenous Round – What is it about themed rounds that brings out all the flogs? Every year, whether it’s Indigenous round, women’s round, the anti-homophobia games, social media gets clogged up with tossers who demand to know when it’s white straight male round. Some of the comments want to make me cry when I realise how much ignorance still exists in the community.

2. Mick’s gone – So, anyone surprised that Malthouse didn’t see out the season at the Blues? Nah, didn’t think so. I think it’s pretty tough to blame just one man for the mediocrity of 50 and there’s no doubt that at the end the club didn’t pay him the respect he richly deserved. Enjoy retirement Mick.

3. The great jumper swap – When Geelong’s Cam Guthrie played against his childhood hero Chris Judd last Friday night, he made good on a promise to himself that he’d one day ask for the Carlton great’s jumper. I think it was a very sweet moment and shows that doesn’t matter if you’re playing at the highest level, you still have heroes to look up to.

4. Boooooo – So why do they boo Goodesy? That seems to be the biggest question of the week. Hawks fans have come into question (though they are certainly not the only ones who do it) and claim it’s not motivated by race. Colour me sceptical. This is still one of the best pieces I’ve read on the subject.

5. One point – To divert from AFL for just a second because it’s Origin time aka most important time of the year for a New South Welshperson: one fucking point. You’re killing me NSW. You better bring it in game two, that’s all I’m saying.