Almanac (Footy) Life: Wearing your heart on your…sleeve
I was relieved, as a Collingwood supporter, to have a comfortable win against the Suns last weekend. On the back of last year’s heart-stopping rollercoaster of close wins, I was starting to get nervous after a 4 point loss to Melbourne and sneaking over the line against Adelaide by only 2 – and I wasn’t the only one!
I work as a teacher in a rural primary school, and I’m lucky to be surrounded by a vocal (and this year, increasingly confident) pack of Pies supporters….and we are all women. In a female dominated work environment, it is the ladies who sit around the staffroom table dissecting what went wrong, who is injured and who we are playing next weekend.
After a close match, my phone will beep with texts from women friends about the game. Lamenting a loss, or celebrating the win. Often it’s swearing about a close finish and the shortened life-span which Collingwood are causing with their close wins over the past two seasons. But we love the boys in the black and white despite it!
2023 has been a good one so far (I’m knocking my head as I write that), and sitting top of the ladder has caused some optimism in our number. Walk through our school after a Collingwood win and the teachers come geared up and ready to tell you all about it. We’re doing so well, that we can even be magnanimous towards the Melbourne supporters, proclaiming that we’re glad they did it for Neale, despite their crowing after the inaugural King’s Birthday match.
I started working part-time at another local school earlier this term. I had wondered how long was appropriate before I pulled out the team colours…in the form of my very large and dangly magpie earrings. I left it three weeks – what I considered an appropriate amount of time to appear professional and not too football-obsessed. When I wore them, it was the girls in my classes who questioned whether I barracked for the Pies, before proclaiming their own love of the black and white, or occasionally booing because they were (brain-washed?) Geelong supporters.
And all of these female footy followers got me thinking.
I know so many women who love footy as much as the blokes, and who ride the wins and losses just as closely. We might watch the games in between cooking dinner, or running kids to sport practice, or while writing lesson plans in front of the TV. But when you take a closer look, you’ll see us reading the latest newspaper stories, following the team Instagram accounts, buying the merchandise our kids are begging for, signing the children up for Auskick and paying the membership fees which mean the family can head off to the footy on a weekend.
Women are invested in their footy…and footy needs us as well. I love that AFLW is continuing to strengthen. At home, we cheer the successes of the Collingwood women as loudly as the men. But there is still a place for women (and it’s a big one) at the table of men’s AFL. Harnessing the passion and potential of women AFL-lovers needs to continue, because if they don’t continue to champion women at all levels, it is AFL who will be missing out the most.
Sometimes women might not as openly wear their footy hearts and brains on their sleeves….but if you take notice, it might just be dangling on their ears.
To read more of Nicole Kelly’s Almanac posts click HERE.
Nicole Kelly is a writer who lives in country Victoria. Her novel Lament was released in October 2020. Visit www.hawkeyebooks.com.au/lament/ to order your copy or you can visit www.hawkeyebooks.com.au/nicole-kelly to contact her. You can also follow her on Twitter @ruralvicwriter
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Lovely read Nicole . I rarely miss a Bulldogs game and the evolution over the years in regard to supporters in attendance has been a huge positive .
Gone are the days of standing in the outer at Vic Park or the Whitten Oval surrounded by blokes drinking cans and hardly a woman or child in sight . We have had seats in the same row at Marvel for 20 years , got to know all the regulars around us and I reckon over over 50% of them are women and kids .
The lady and her daughter who sit in front of us are so knowledgeable it isn’t funny and it’s usually me deferring to their logic rather than providing my opinion .
Friday night my 4 tickets are being used by myself and my wife and the other 2 have been given to 2 family friends both female and both Pies Supporters who rarely miss a game .
Oh dear could be a long night for me
Agree Footy needs female supporters and players more than perhaps the people who run the game realise .
Great read Nicole. My partner Lynda is a retired primary teacher and before I met her she lived a life in regional Vic as a tortured and tragic Pies supporter despite seeing a premiership in 1990, unlike me a Saints tragic who had seen donuts! Her torture came from all the lost premierships that she witnessed growing up. When she met me in 2010 guess who played in the GF? We watched it together at my place but had to be separated for the replay! Women play a massive role in our game and you only have to see the split in male and female at a game or on the train going to and from a game to see how much they love it. One night heading home from a game I met 4 x Carlton women supporters who met at the 1970 GF and have been going to every game since together! They were so knowledgeable and funny. I have a daughter who plays now and she loves it. Footy just wouldn’t be the same without the contribution of women.
Great stuff Nichole!
Can I echo Hadyn and Ian’s sentiments and comments.
As a father of three now adult, Collingwood supporting girls and one granddaughter I appreciate your particular lens.
They will as well, no probs.
Go Pies!
Frank
Really thoughtful reflections in this piece, Nicole.
And unarguable, I would have thought.
A workplace with a pack of Collingwood supporters sounds a wonderful workplace!
Our bay in the Ponsford Stand has a very even mix of male and female supporters, often the females are more vocal.
Go Pies!
Thanks for your comments – it’s wonderful to hear all of the football-loving women in your lives!
Great yarn, Nicole. As a fellow Pies fanatic and with some fellow Pies fan women in my life it made me reflect on them, with great fondness. As is the case in many families, I’m a Pies fanatic due to family, my Mum and Dad were both Pies fans and went regularly from the mid 50s. My big bro and I hit the scene in the early 60s and I recall we all went together from the late 60s to late 70s. We’d go EVERY week, from the SE suburbs all over Melbourne down the long trip to Geelong.
As I hit my late teens, Mum and Dad dropped off as we went with mates. Then when I joined the Social Club, Mum jumped on board again and joined us young yahoos as a SC member too from mid 80s til we left Vic Park in 1992.
One of my most memorable moments was looking at Mum at half time of the 1990 GF knowing (well almost knowing) that we were going to win the flag, the first one to break the traumatic 32 year Collywobbles. I’ve got a chill just writing it now. We celebrated back at the Social Club til the early hours of the morning.
Mum stopped going regularly in the early 90s but watches every game on free to air, and tootles off to the local pub when the game is on Foxtel!!! I had the joy of taking her to the 2022 R23 final game of the season where we beat the Blues. It was her birthday and we enjoyed the spoils of the Carlton Prez lunch so we celebrated in style. Every week we have a phone chat or if I drop in to discuss how we played and how we’ll go next week, and this year has been as exciting as its ever been. It’s also filled with Ashes and Wimbledon chat as well at the moment. Mum is one of these legendary loyal Pies fans that would fit in brilliantly with your clan.
And on top of that I’ve got two adult daughters that had no chance to escape being Mighty Magpies. Daughter 2 is a Magpie Member and has inherited her Dad’s loud fanatical (and sometimes partially feral) mannerisms :-). Daughter 1 is a not as involved but with my 4 yo Grandson recently attending his first Pies game and getting a 35 jumper for his birthday, she will be a key female figure in the future.
Thanks again for a great article and GO PIES!!