Almanac People: Side by Side

Looking back on a moment during the 2016 season, when my Pies’ scarf and hat were briefly put aside. My 12 year old daughter cried when she read this, thinking I had forsaken our team. It’s just a moment in time, not forever. 

 

There was Eddie’s qualified apology, then a half-hearted update, then the Board backed Eddie, and he made a seemingly more sincere video apology. Meanwhile Collingwood footy club supporters ranted on Collingwood’s Facebook page that Eddie ‘should never have had to apologise’. I couldn’t find any rebuttal of these supporters’ opinions from the Club. We’re all supposed to get over it, and move on.

 

I was born into the black and white, and have loved them with all my might-through the years of Daicos, Mark Williams, Rene Kink, Peter Moore, Billy Picken, through the drawn Grand Final of 77, to the victories of 1990 and 2010.

 

We grew up watching footy with dad on the wooden benches of the MCG. Our cathedral, where the souls of fans made up a large, messy family. Go Collingwood! dad would yell, in a guttural mangle. Wearing his beige overcoat, and with his member’s cap on, he would yell both support and condemnation. There was a bond that came with this joint barracking-an ‘in it forever’, love you always, forgiving, long-suffering, celebrating, dreaming, hoping, ecstatic belief in the team.

 

When I was nearly a teenager, I ripped the stitching on my denim skirt to bits, as I wrestled with the tension of watching Twiggy Dunne line up and kick to give us a draw in the Grand Final against North Melbourne in 1977.  In the 1990 Grand Final, I sprawled, massively hungover, on the top deck to see the Pies beat Essendon. It seemed like just me and Dad, up there, up high, on top of the G. The roar of the crowd, and our victorious team song, sort of flew away, into the sky.

 

Through two back-to-back losing Grand Finals against the Brisbane Lions, the 2002 game with my first child, 3 weeks old, strapped to my front, and clad in a black and white onesie. The boy slept until the game became dire in that final quarter, then his wailing began and my milk and tears began to flow too. Wasted. We both cried that day, him from hunger; me from a different hunger. I trudged, beaten, from the ground.

 

And then there was 2010. The Grand Final against St Kilda, which Dad was too sick to attend, and the famous replay which gave us our first premiership in twenty years. Our whole family was there, dad being well enough to attend the replay. My daughter and I had front row seats, and as the players ran their victory lap, they stopped to embrace my 6 year old girl. ‘Sweetheart!’ said Darren Jolly, as he stopped to hug her.

 

 

So, there’s black and white mail for me again. It hurts to see it. ‘Supporting our Players and the Club you Love.’ I can’t bring myself to open it. I have picked it up, and turned it over. I feel ripped off. Can’t rip the plastic off. I am trying to imagine my whole heart barracking at a game for our boys, but I’m not sure I can feel ‘side by side we stick together’. In fact, even thinking of singing our song makes me feel sad. Our song. Perhaps this feeling is tinged with grief, for dad who is gone.

 

‘Go Pies!’ I like to yell at the game. But, no, for now, I’m putting aside the hat and scarf. My heart has turned a little cold, and the mail will stay unopened. Sorry, Dad. I hope it’s not forever. It can’t be forever.

 

Good Old Collingwood Forever…

 

Postcript: Less than a week after writing this, the team played a game and won, and when the team song came on, I sang it with gusto, in a taxi, with a full heart. I had felt a twisted gut feeling for that week, but I know the Club is bigger than the President. Go Pies!

 

PPS Took myself and my daughter to  last game of 2016 season v Hawks. Thriller! It was great to be back in the stands supporting our team. My daughter pleaded with me that night ‘can we please go A LOT more next year, mum? I forgot how much I LOVE going to the footy and seeing the Pies.’ Side by Side We Stick Together.