Round 12 – Carlton v Geelong: I shit myself!

June 2, 2026 by Matt Zurbo Leave a Comment

Round 12
Carlton v Geelong
Friday 29 May 2026
MCG, Melbourne

I Shit Myself

I shit myself!

‘The Footy Almanac page is closed.’

The Knackery was down. Only one single, brutal sentence had replaced it. I thought of the ripples across a nation. Everywhere I go, everywhere, any scene, all ages, when I least expect it, from people I least expect it from;

“Sure, I’ve read your stuff.”

“I liked that piece on that topic you did.”

Even;

“We have a customer that has a crush on your pieces.”

Never a swarm of people, just here and there, ghosts in life’s machine. But always. A community hidden from the mainstream, and, by and large, each other.

‘The Footy Almanac page is closed.’

John and his collaborators never did it for money. How they dealt with the minefield of people and businesses that only see the world in terms of ‘mine’ and ‘not yours’ and ‘coin, coin, coin’, from the AFL, sideways, always had me mystified.

Passion like the Knackery doesn’t just go blank-screen over small things. I sent John and Col the one email, and got the hell out of the way, so they could deal with it. I sat in our bush cabin home, listening to bad weather, vaguely imagining hard fought battles. But, mostly, the stress of great people. Of a friend.

Who knew where the bullets were coming from?

‘The Footy Almanac page is closed.’

The timing was awkward, if not Murphy’s Law. I had just sent someone a link to one of my old stories. I was half happy with it at the time, it still seemed to scrub up. I checked the date. 14 years ago! Yesterday. So vanishes a life, a writing career, the aging speed of your children.

I had sent the piece to the author of a rival site. I know I should hate them, like John does. So many of the buggers got their taste for it writing for the Almanac, before building the moxie to have a crack at their own creation.

“In the end, we’re all taking the audience from each other,” John told me. “And none of us can make a living.”

That’s the world, I always thought. The human condition.

‘The Footy Almanac page is closed.’

Oddly, reading those words, I felt vulnerable. Exposed. As naked as the page they were written on. Had I lost a home? A comfort zone? Where else could I express my thoughts on footy and its far bigger picture without compromise?

Where would I post my stories?

On facebook?

Start my own site, raw and simple and stupid?

I was a 58 year old boy lost. A man locked out of a community, that was locked out from each other. The Knackery is unique. I believe that. It’s people are unique. The roof of it needed.

How were they feeling?

‘The Footy Almanac page is closed.’

The piece I had logged on to post was about Carton’s win against Geelong. It’s moment is gone now, but the gist was something like this;

Want is a beautiful thing, sometimes it is everything. I grew up hating Carlton, and thier money and arrogance, in a class warfare type of way, all comic book and harmless. Cowboys and Indians, Hollywood heroes and enemies. But I was barracking for them tonight as underdogs.

They earnt my love and affection. Physically smaller, skinnier, far less talented, they won with physical aggression, tackles that came from the heart, WANT, and little zoning. Defensively, they almost entirely went one-on-one. That, in today’s game, requires an entire team. Every one of them.

Want. Fierce, in-your-face tackles. One-on-one. Beyond that – go for it.

It was such a simple thing. A physical thing. It gave me such a simple response. I barracked, passionately!

“Go you Bluebaggers!”

The! Under! Dogs!

Little men crashing into and bashing far bigger men and reputations. Which actual players did what didn’t matter.

‘The Footy Almanac page is closed.’

Who knows? My review may be whack. But that’s how I saw it. I checked the Almanac site ten times an hour, every hour, over the weekend – even if only for my mate, John. Even woke at 3am to piss, and checked again, bringing grumbles from the misses. Imagining the duck’s feet behind that sentence still staring back at me.

A community, for some a way of life, looking at the same blank page, waiting…

‘The Footy Almanac page is closed.’

Then, today, Monday night, wind acting like violent shore breaks, rain sideways, there the Footy Almanac was again. A busy as all hell page, full of titles and stories and backlogs, and promos. Home! Haha. Once more I was safe from any of life’s bigger decisions!

I spoke to Dave Wilson and Smokie and hoped none of my 500-odd stories contributed to the tumult.

May this website outlive all of us!

As for the game, I dunno, by far, head-and-shoulders, the best player was Tackles. Time after time, the bullies in hoops tried to ox their way through, only to be wrapped up by angry calamari!

If I was to recommend just the one highlight, something to pack into those 8 minute clips on YouTube, it would be the second half. Want is glorious. Want is worth watching.

Fellow underdogs, the Blues were as stubborn as the Knackery.

CARLTON 1.3 5.9 9.11 12.16 (88)
GEELONG 4.4 6.8 9.10 12.12 (84)

GOALS
Carlton: Hayward 3, Young 2, Kemp 2, Ison, Cerra, Hewett, Byrne, Cripps
Geelong: Cameron 4, Dempsey 2, O.Henry 2, J.Henry 2, Mannagh, Dangerfield

BEST
Carlton: Walsh, Weitering, Smith, Hayward, Cripps, Dean
Geelong: Smith, Cameron, Humphries, Holmes, Dempsey, Guthrie

INJURIES
Carlton: Nil
Geelong: Humphries (leg)

Crowd: 61,081 at the MCG

More Round 12 Reports Here