Almanac Footy: Finals Diary Chapter 7  –  Sing the song, buy the t-shirt, Go Lions!

 

On my way to the MCG for the 2004 Grand Final, I saw a Brisbane Lions ‘three-peat’ t-shirt on sale for $10. It was at that sports memorabilia outlet on Elizabeth Street, just around from the Bourke Street Mall. I weighed it up but ultimately decided not to buy it. I’d grabbed a few things after 2001. The WEG poster, a cheap t-shirt from a hawker outside the ground, a mug, the video, AND the DVD – knowing that one day I might just get a DVD player. The following year, we were expected to win, and I doubled down by getting a ‘back-to-back’ t-shirt from someone who had set up shop at the Richmond train station. It immediately made the souvenir t-shirt from the year before redundant. This was why I prevaricated after 2003. What good would a ‘three-peat shirt be if, nay when, we won four, five or six flags in a row? They were heady times for we Lions. It seemed like an abundance of heavenly rewards for what we had endured with those last years with Fitzroy. Brownlows, premierships, Leigh Matthews, Michael Voss, Simon Black – Alastair Lynch a lion again, all was forgiven and the manna from heaven seemed to be flowing. This ‘three peat’ shirt felt like an indulgence I didn’t need. Unlike Mr Creosote being tempted by the ‘wafer-thin’ mint by John Cleese in that Monty Python skit about the dangers of excess, I said no.

 

Maybe it was the fact that I was getting older. Maybe it was a by-product of the merger. Maybe it was just that I was becoming a more rounded person, but the flags didn’t bring the euphoria that I was quite expecting. As good as it was, it didn’t quite compare to standing in the pouring rain at Waverley, 1986, Micky Conlon. Still doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong. A team of psychoanalysts could probably theorise why. Even this week, I’m kind of hoping we don’t lose more so than hoping we win. Football matters just as much to me as it did when I was a kid, but in a different way. I don’t put all my chips on the table with it anymore. Small risk, small reward maybe. I don’t think I’m one of those jaded embittered old Royboys, I’ve come to terms with the merger and love following Brisbane. But everything about the threepeat did make me ponder what could have been in 83 and 86. Maybe as a six-year-old, I would have been at a better age to appreciate it all. Football offers me a lot, but there is more to life.

 

When I was a kid I used to video tape the grand finals every single year. It started in ’86, the year Fitzroy were just one game away. I decorated the cases with photos from the Sun. Grand Final day was one of the rare days of the year that the front and back pages included some colour so over the years I’d stick pictures of Michael Tuck, Steve Kernahan, Gary Ablett, John Worsfold and then rearrange the letters so that ‘EAGLES’ or ‘GEELONG’ or ‘HAWKS’ would offset the black and white action shots. Clag never did the job, it had to be sticky tape. To the victors went the spoils of being the team on the front of the case, the poor CATS had a fair string on the backside of these visual masterpieces. I was waiting for the day when the famous “maroon and blue” would “fight for victory” in one my tapes. Never happened.

 

2001 was big for that reason alone. Lions. The Lions. Our Lions. My Lions. In a Grand Final. What do I remember from that day now? I went. Some things don’t change – it’s a better success ratio being a Victorian Lions member aiming for a GF ticket than it is for an Essendon or Collingwood one – Bombers fans I guess can assume. It was a hot day; the game has disappeared a bit from my mind. I remember feeling like we were imposters. The Bombers fans in the tram were calmly expectant, like Jeff Kennett heading into election day. I was wearing my Fitzroy jumper, and copped a spray from a Bombers fan on the way down – “jumping on the bandwagon are ya champ”. I didn’t say anything, but I still want to ask him, more than twenty years later, what else am I supposed to do? What did (and does) he want me to do with my fandom? The same bloke gave another, the only other, Lions fan on the tram a spray about his “brand new scarf”. Leigh Matthews had ignited our season earlier that year by quoting Arnold Schwarzenegger, “if it bleeds, we can kill it, and we reckon Essendon can bleed.” Maybe they were nervous? Again, I wasn’t so much desperate for the Lions to win – but I sure as shit wanted Essendon to lose.

 

I remember a few things. The siren went and, in the aisle, not far from where I was sitting I saw Kevin Murray standing there with a Lions scarf draped around his neck. He was singing along with the blaring music. I wasn’t the only one quietly observing him, a lot of faces in our bay were looking at him. He was like the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil. Silently overlooking, removed but the centre of everything. You don’t notice how many times the club song plays after a grand final when it’s your own. A few years later, it felt like 87 choruses of “We’ve got the power to win, we’ll never give in…” Alastair Lynch was holding the ball when the siren went, that seemed to symbolically frank the merger for not just me but many fans.

 

In my town, I’m kind of recognised by many as ‘the’ Lions fan. There are others, I’m sure, but being a teacher, I possibly know a few more faces than others. One of my students this year has assured me that when she marries Josh Dunkley, there will be a seat for me at the Lions table. She also assures me, that despite the fact they’ve never met, and that Dunks is currently spoken for, it is definitely a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’. My accountant called out a “Go Lions” across the street today. A few months ago, my barber was kind enough to give me a set of WEG premiership posters, all signed by Michael Voss. He mentioned that “there’s really no one else in the town that would want them”. I put them up in our back hallway, interestingly, leaving room for one more. I’m guessing Michael Voss won’t sign the 2023 version if we do salute.

 

I’m lucky enough to have a ticket for Saturday, I’m going again. We are not the favourites this time but who knows. I tell my year twelve students that there are same hours in the day for them as the students who live in Melbourne and go to independent schools have. There’s a famous scene in the movie Hoosiers where coach Gene Hackman gets the tape measure out to prove to his small-town team that the height of the ring in the huge stadium that they would be playing to be state champions in was just the same as it was back in their small town of Hickory. The enduring legacy for me of Ted Lasso is the sign that says ‘BELIEVE’. Maybe I should have waited, but I bought a souvenir Grand Final T-shirt. If we win, and I hope we do, I’ll buy a premiership one too.

 

 

Read Shane Reid’s other reports HERE.

 

 

 

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