Our Huckleberry Harris

 

I have been trying, and failing, to write something about Harris Andrews for a while now. He’s a wonderful, wonderful player; maybe the best I’ve seen. Getting older makes you see things differently. Football especially.

 

I have what I hope is a balanced fandom. It is a part of my life, but not everything to me. If my Lions lose this weekend, I’ll wish it weren’t so. Such are the vicissitudes of throwing in your lot with a tribe. But nor do I think that football is frivolous or shallow. I do believe there is a poetry and depth to our game. I do believe that our community, particularly here in Victoria, is shaped by it whether we embrace it or not. It defines everyone I know, whether they run towards or away from the siren song of its seductive flame.

 

Which brings me to Harris. As a VCE English teacher, I encourage my students to plan a specific vocabulary when they interrogate an essay question. Synonyms and antonyms. I suggest to them that finding a nuanced word that parallels one of the key terms in the question will help them bring a sophisticated exploration of the topic. I’ve already dropped some antonyms about Harris in this piece – frivolous, shallow. Now for some synonyms for our captain– style, dignity, redoubtable, noble. Daniher is our laconic cult hero, Zorko pugnacious, Neale a champion and Charlie Cameron our rockstar. Harris is our general. A captain’s captain. The way he plays is cerebral yet elegant. The intercepting defender has become perhaps the most aesthetic part of our game in recent years. High risk, high reward. Harris and others of his ilk, either successfully repel the advancing forward thrust of the opposition or leave the door swinging wildly open for them to score. If he plays chess, I bet Harris is the kind of guy who brings his queen out early to wreak havoc and break the spirit of his opponent.

 

Hindsight reframes things. I remember the Grand Final parade last year. It culminates as it does each year with both captains holding the premiership cup together. The footage was a study in contrasts. The boyish, coltish exuberance of Darcy Moore versus our square-jawed, slightly dour leader. Darcy’s kinetic energy and joi de vivre was bursting through the television screen. I remember thinking at the time that he looked like a boy who’d been sent to do a man’s job. In contrast, our Harris looked the man with a mission. He reminded me then, as he does when he plays, of a sheriff in a Western. Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood. It is apt that he wears the number 31. Something about him harkens back to another captain with the same guernsey number – one Ronald Dale Barassi. In another era, another career he would have been a stoic detective wearing a pork-pie hat and arresting hoodlums, tramps and thieves. Someone to rise nobly above the fray. A don or a prince in a Shakespeare play. Watching him that day, I felt that the flag was ours. And gawd it nearly was, but hindsight reframes things. Hopefully I was right, just a year too early with this expectation.

 

It is bittersweet being a Lions fan this week. The media narrative constantly reminds us that we are a ‘non-Victorian’ team participating in an ‘all interstate Grand Final’. Good leaders understand history and its importance to culture and connection. I think that is why that ‘win or lose’, our Lions will not only ‘do or die’ they will return to the Brunswick Street Oval on Sunday morning. There are little snippets of connection that us Royboys and Roygirls cling to. We have learnt in in recent weeks that whilst Harris is a product of the Brisbane Lions academy, and therefore a talisman of Queensland footy, he was actually born in Fitzroy. Fans like me who predate the merger need these nuggets of connection. Stories like this make us feel part of a club that lives 1,800 kilometres away. It has been a long time now since the tangible connective tissue of our two clubs disappeared into memory. Chris Johnson, Brad Boyd, Martin Pike, Alastair Lynch. Not only that, but the brothers Ashcroft are also now heralding an era of father sons from the early days of the Brisbane Lions. Second generation custodians of Fitzroy like Jonathan Brown have also hung up the boots.

 

My daughters and I have developed a bit of a custom before the games we go to. Wherever we are sitting, we will arrive early and head down to the fence to watch them warm up. Such earnest and unbridled zeal has led to photos with Charlie and Fages. Securing a photo with Joe is my youngest daughter’s ultimate quest, her white whale. It was Harris who spied her at the fence on Saturday night though. Harris, who ambled over and said, ‘I bet you’d like a photo.’ I’ve heard that Harris was studying to be a primary school teacher a few years ago. Perhaps with a view to becoming ‘Mr Andrews’ and having a class of his own one day. His further justification though was that as he saw himself a likely future coach. As such, an understanding of pedagogy and human development would be useful. From what I saw in the brief moments he interacted with my family as we took this photo, he has a gentleness and mien that would make his future classroom a fabulous place to be.

 

 

I keep trying to capture what I want to say about Harris. I’m still not sure I have. My Almanac contributions have slowed in recent years; I think I have less to say. I saw perhaps the greatest game of my life on Saturday night. Maybe this weekend will bring a premiership and the muses will awaken again. I’ve known for a while that the next time I wrote something for the Almanac, it would be about Harris. Something about him makes me feel like a mature football fan. It’s easy and obvious to love and appreciate the princely majesty of Bernie Quinlan, the anarchy of Jason Akermanis, the silkiness of Simon Black and Lachie Neale. I completely understand why it is Joe Daniher and Charlie Cameron who have captured the heart and mind of my youngest daughter and inflame her fandom. Harris is a grownups footballer. He is our huckleberry.

Let’s hope that he joins the ranks of premiership captains this Saturday. Hopefully Walt Whitman will not be too perturbed that I have abridged his poem somewhat to salute Harris.

 

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring…

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won…

 

 

 

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