Almanac Footy: Barracking for the Vics??

Why do we barrack for the teams we do?

In some cases I think the answers to that are quite straightforward. Often we are born into a home where the only influences are positive ones associated with the team; we come to know the colours, we learn about the team and its players, the team is probably some version of “local” and when that team wins, those close to us – and thus life itself -is happier. There seems no good reason to change. We are part of the tribe for life. It is a question of time and place.

But other choices are less straightforward. None of the contributors to this page were born into a Sydney Sixers or Melbourne Renegades home. Or a Perth Scorchers home for that matter. What dictates that choice?

Equally, growing up in Perth, the only West Coast Eagles known were those that had for centuries swirled in the thermals above the Whadjuk Nyoongah or Banjima lands, and the Fremantle Dockers were  the collection of swarthy, singleted fellows who glimpsed through the door of the Oddfellows or the Seaview pubs on a trip to the port. Everyone in WA had a Victorian team before 1987.

And how long a time should we hold onto our loyalties after we change places? Should we be supporters for life? Is it a betrayal akin to treason if we change?

I have previously examined the question on this page in the context of watching how my soccer mad son (born in Melbourne, living in regional Victoria) chose an A league team to support, leading me to the same club (despite reservations regarding the conduct of its owners) (see City for the Cup 14/6/21). A related question arose when John Harms told me that Eagle captain Shannon Hurn’s sister was a candidate in the SA state election for the district from where Shannon hailed (see “Five Things about Shannon Hurn” 14/6/21). I was curious as to where her loyalties were. Family ties would have dictated West Coast. Political acuity would have suggested one of the Adelaide’s. There was probably a SANFL team in there as well, possibly Central Districts?  I bet Shannon didn’t support the Eagles before he was drafted. Even if he goes back home I reckon he will never support anyone else.

Take another example. My dad. He was born and grew up in New Zealand, coming to Perth in 1962, 60 years back. Australia v New Zealand in cricket or rugby, he is still passionately black. Australia v England, he is baggy green. He supports Otago in the rugby. He is a big supporter of WA and Perth teams in the domestic cricket.

But he never grew up with Aussie Rules (as we used to call the footy). I had no influences at home in choosing a team in the WANFL. I was first exposed to footy through watching Haydn Bunton jr. on a regular footy segment on Children’s Channel 7. The black and white Swan Districts guernsey he wore looked pretty good (OK all the guernseys were black and white on TV back then which somewhat negated the influence of colour on my choices – and I do regard colour as a very significant factor in this equation. Those readers born after 1975 are asking what does he mean ‘all the guernseys were black and white?’). Swans were the reigning premiers which might have helped. Then I was given a footy card – Des Tuddenham, Scanlens 1965. Same jumper as Bunts. Looked pretty good in colour. I was pretty much leaning to Swans. But I couldn’t have chosen a team that was more inaccessible to where we lived so there was little chance of seeing them play live, and very few of those around me kicking the footy in the school yard supported that team. Well, actually, none.

And then other influences – some subtle, some strong – began creeping in. The coloured Mobil footy cards in 1964 and 1965 showed an array of brilliant colours that were dazzling and alluring. Most of the kids at school went for the Claremont Tigers, the local team, and I went to holiday footy clinics where Denis Marshall, Lorne Cook  and John McIntosh cracked jokes and signed autographs. Les Dobson, my first footy coach, was a massive Perth Demons supporter and by that stage, the Demons were the power house team in WA footy winning 1966-67-68. Les took my brother and I, along with his son to Perth games where I was exposed to Cable, Jenzen, Mills and Ramshaw, but also to the other teams they played, including the Tigers. The 1964 Claremont premiership stars; Keren Guard and Mort Kuhlman, lived in a rental over the road from our house. Buzz Parkinson and Lindsay Carroll played pool and cranked up the juke box at Chris’ Burger Bar where we went for a treat sometimes.

I played in the Claremont Junior leagues and went regularly to Claremont Oval to see games. People in the district put out blue and gold colours,  and every home match day, the Bovells  (the bakery family whose son Tony played for Claremont and with whom I later played at Uni) hung a big tiger on their front porch. And so, by the end of the 1960s, without ever making a conscious decision that I recall, I was a Tigers fan through and through. I went to the 1971 semi they lost and the 1972 Grand final (lost). Was absolutely gutted experiencing both of those days. But that just built that character which inspired the lasting loyalty. The reward for that loyalty was paid in spades with six flags between 1981 and 1996. I have lived in Victoria for 23 years now and I still buy a Tigers membership.

My Victorian team growing up was North Melbourne. I had also grown into that. The early influences suggested Collingwood. The Claremont connections (McIntosh, Duperouzel, Russell Reynolds) pointed to St Kilda.  I think the WA players who went to North, plus the colours and the underdog story, won me over, just as they were making a serious tilt for their first flag in the 70s. I listened to the last quarter of the ‘75 Grand final on a radio frequency that faded in and out, as the WANFL finals had started on the local radio channels. I didn’t resent the Kangas for taking the Krakouers at the peak of their powers as I was happy for the lads to earn their rewards and take their sublime skills on to a bigger stage, though it probably cost us one more flag in 82 or 83. I was less happy that Carlton raided and pinched Hunter, Ditchburn, Blackwell, Aitken and  Ralph. Such antipathy continued the deep antagonistic feelings that most in WA had to Victorian teams – football or cricket – over the years.

With a few notable exceptions, the best WAFL players would be poached to the VFL. That was bad enough, but the real kicker was when they would then be handed a BIG V jumper and come back and play against the black and gold, sometimes proving the difference. Graham Farmer, Denis Marshall, Barry Cable all wore the V and it came to be a despised emblem west of the Nullarbor. The end of tolerance for me was when Claremont, now Essendon, prodigy Graham Moss took telling marks that turned a game between the states at Subiaco Oval. It is hard to describe the joy felt by West Aussies when the state of origin games came along and the best West Australian players in the VFL came home and helped the state to a thumping of the Vics in the first one, then followed up with close victories in some of the best AFL games ever played during the 1980’s state of origin games.

So by the time the Eagles were born in 1987, I was on board. The blue and gold was good. The chance to keep talent at home and see them playing live every second week, even better. But not everyone was so keen. Some of my friends who had grown up with Victorian teams stuck with them, although I just couldn’t understand that. I still liked North and wished them well, but the chance to support a local team which challenged the rest of the country (well, Sydney and Brisbane but especially Victoria) was irresistible. There was another group that eschewed support for any team that chose to play in the VFL, seeing them as part of a cabal that damaged and all but destroyed the WAFL, up until the onset of the national AFL, one of the strongest and most well supported footy comps in the country, and now a shadow of its past glory.

In 1995 I was living in Victoria, working there for a three year stint, when the Fremantle Dockers were created. I went to their first game at the MCG. There was a big Claremont influence in the team with premiership player, hero and coach Gerard Neesham in charge and a bunch of Tigers players in the inaugural list. But by that time I had sat through the pain of Waverley Park in 1991 and the joy at the MCG in 1992 and 1994. I knew Eagles players and staff. There was no going back. I felt no draw to the red, white and green.

And I thus forever condemned myself to the pointed charges of Fremantle supporters – including some of my longest and very best friends – as being a theatre goer or a chardonnay sipper, even though I left Waverley and the MCG after most of the Hawks fans in 1991 and 2015, and celebrated in 1992 and 1994 with a cold VB. I have always felt that such criticisms were born in envy and coated with a little frustration as the Dockers conspicuously, continuously, failed to translate talent into success and eventually  suffered the pain of a lost grand final in 2014 without immediate, nor even (so far) eventual,  redemption, whilst the cross town mob snatched success in 2006 and again 2018. The somewhat  sniffy view that Freo fans were real footy fans and Eagles fans were  just going along for the ride has been a constant theme with little credible support as far as my experience goes. Try sitting through an 80 point hiding by Essendon at Colonial Stadium and having a black and red jacket whacking your head as you sit and suffer as the “Bombers fly up”. I reckon every team has its share of loyal and knowledgeable fans and its share of band waggoners. Exhibit one; “Flagmantle, 2022”.

But I digress.

Despite being a Victorian resident for 12 years before the Big Bash started there was never any question for me that I would support the Perth Scorchers (see “12 Days to be King” 4/12/22). The loyalty to place and the journey through successes and losses with WA cricket teams over so many years made it an easy choice.  My kids who were born in Victoria and lived all of their lives here, felt no such commitment (insofar as they considered the question at all). Samuel’s friends who play the game, support the Stars or the Renegades, so he sort of does as well. Probably favours the ‘Gades on colours and exposure to live games at Marvel. He is a big supporter of Melbourne City in the A League. He wore Barcelona shirts because of Messi. Insofar as he supports an AFL team it is the Eagles, but I reckon that is more a matter of my history, his having a teacher at primary school who played for the team (Michael O’Brien in 2000), perhaps the enjoyment of 2018 (see “Fathers Day” 4/10/18), and the fact that it doesn’t really matter much. School yard influence is not what it was I think. Not everyone follows the footy, fewer with a passion that excites enmity to opposing teams’ supporters. And one of his friends is a big Eagles fan anyway, making them just about the only group of boys in a regional Victorian school (which has produced five AFL players and two AFLW players) with two West Coast fans in their number.

But I live with the expectation that my kids will one day make a choice that has them in foreign colours. Living in Victoria the chances are great. Maybe a boy friend or girl friend whose influence is too significant to resist. Maybe a bunch of close friends  who go to another team’s games. Maybe employment will connect them to a team. And I know I will be perfectly fine with that. A little sad maybe, but I will remember sitting at the MCG with my daughter in 2006 and my son in 2018, and both of them in 2015. That’s enough.

So why am I wondering about all of this now? Well, because something a little shocking and quite unexpected happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was barracking for Victoria. I never thought that could happen. The enmity and agony was just too deep I thought. But it did.

I play Veterans Cricket. Have done for my local club north of Melbourne – Sunbury Macedon Ranges – for a few years. I had previously played a few seasons in the grades for Macedon. I really enjoy it. Made some good friends. And then three of the players in our team were picked to play for Victoria in the national championships. Good luck to them I thought. Hope they do well.

These days just about any serious game of cricket is available to stream through one or other platform online. I could have the Veterans National Championships on and watch my mates playing while I worked. I was now involved beyond just a passing interest in the scores or the results. And so, which state did I want to win the title?

I looked at the names in the WA team. None known. For the first time in my life, in a cricket comp where WA was playing in the black and gold, I realised I wanted the Vics to win. I checked myself. Wait. This can’t be right?  All those years? All that passion despising of the Navy Blue and White? But it was. My mates were playing and I wanted them to win. Which meant I wanted Victoria to win, even if it meant knocking off the boys from the West. “Go the big V’ I whispered quietly to the screen where no one could hear me.

Admittedly, at the same time I was checking the Sheffield Shield scores with no less a passionate desire for the Warriors (or WA Men as they now seem to be known) to emerge victorious and chase down a back to back title. And if it was at the expense of Victoria, like last year, so much the better. Some things don’t change!

And that’s when I began reflecting on the curious and beguiling question of the reason for sporting loyalties. Why they start. How long they last. Are they immutable or can they change and why?

Victoria won the national championships. WA won the Shield game. But I realised my life, like my previously unwavering loyalties, had undergone a profound shift. It might never be the same.

Just don’t tell the folks back home please.

 

 

To return to our Footy Almanac home page click HERE.

 

 

Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

 

Do you enjoy the Almanac concept?

And want to ensure it continues in its current form, and better? To help things keep ticking over please consider making your own contribution.

 

 

Become an Almanac (annual) member – CLICK HERE.