Two weeks. Two losses.
A rare experience
Does not compute.
I get all whimsical and agreeable
Send text messages to my mates who barrack for the Eagles, Dons.
“Well done.” I say. “Your boys played better.”
“Good sport.” you might think
Nah.
I’m just trying to keep the Footy Gods happy.
Good thought.
I believe that you can’t really enjoy any victories if you can’t be generous in defeat.
I’ve been doing the same thing as you & have given due credits to the Bomber fans I was sitting near at Etihad & on an Essendon & then a WEagles notice board.
Hopefully that’ll fill my karma quotient & normal service can be resumed from next weekend on.
Seems to me this experiment with a country town team in the AFL needs to end. Geelong has given the West Coast Evil four of its most satisfying moments. 92 and 94 grand final wins; that 50+ point come from behind win a Kardinia Park in 2006 and now this. Enough is enough.
Couldn’t agree more, Les. Country towns like Geelong just aren’t big enough to support a viable AFL club.
Both of you gentlemen are, of course, completely correct.
A country town should not be able to support an AFL franchise.
It’s a bit like bumblebees. The laws of physics clearly define the fact that the fat round buzzing buggers shouldn’t be able to actually fly. But they do.
But of course, Geelong isn’t an AFL franchise. It’s more a club, a congregation, an attitude of up your’s in these days of brands, franchises and marketing plans. It’s David facing town the big end of town’s corporate Goliaths. It’s an unflattering uniform that actually means something, an actual suburban home ground that hasn’t been torn down or sold off to make way for a housing development, & a small town that shouldn’t but does as it refuses to fade away in the world of ever increasingly concentrated generically cosmopolitan inhabitants of shared concrete palaces.
It’s unique, which is why it sucks in those of us determined to be ‘pure’ & unlinked AFL afficionados.
It’s irresistable.
An older navy & white clad lady sitting in front of me when the Swans hosted the Cats in 2009 turned to me and said: “Are all these people from Geelong? I’m originally from Geelong, and I can’t believe that so many of our people have moved to Sydney.” (Catters almost outnumbered the Swannies in the 35k strong crowd that day.)
“No”, I replied, “I expect that very few are actually from Geelong. But,” I laughed, “We are Geelong!”
Les,
There is always a silver lining…
The come-from-behind win in 2006 was indeed devestating but was the catalyst for what I believe to be a piece of literary genius written by none other than one John Harms.
His encounter with a Cats fan at the 3-quarter time break and the feelings of guilt he described as the Cats were collapsing was as pure a description of Cats-fan psychology as any ever written.