This is gonna be a long post. Feel free to ignore it. I’ve been thinking about writing for a few months. Now I feel like I need to write it.
I’m demoralised, the coach looks demoralised, the team looks demoralised, and the supporters are obviously demoralised (and angry). And the whole outside world doesn’t mind having a kick while we’re down.
But I wanted to remind myself what I love about sport, what I love about footy, and what’s great about the North Melbourne Football Club and makes it unlike any other club I’ve ever been around.
First I should tell you I’m not an Australian and have only followed footy for about five years. I’ve lived here for about seven years and was a sports-nut growing up in America. I watched and played gridiron, basketball, and baseball. Watching AFL confused me at first. But I picked it up pretty quickly and now I think it’s the most entertaining game in the world, by far.
My first North experience was in Round 13 of 2007 against the Bulldogs at the MCG. The guy who ran the cafe next to my office asked me earlier in the week if I’d picked a footy team yet. I hadn’t. He invited me along. It was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Drew Petrie kicked six goals in the first quarter. We were sitting behind the goals at the Punt Road end. It was an awesome view on a sunny day. It took me a while to figure out why everyone kept yelling 'Dish'.
At the time I didn’t really know who Glenn Archer was, or why it was a big deal that he was playing in his 300th game. In retrospect I realise how lucky I was to watch a legend of the game play. You can usually count on one hand the number of players in any sport who truly deserve the reputation for never shirking a contest. I can see now Arch is one of those players. And I understand now why he was so respected on and off the field. More importantly, I can see how one player helped to define the spirit of a whole club.
But I didn’t know any of that then, and frankly, I wasn’t sold on North either. The bloke at the milk bar next to the office told me to go for Geelong. He said they were an up-and-comer. I was tempted but I kept my powder dry.
Picking a football team, really picking any sporting team or picking the people you’re going to be loyal to in life is not something you should take lightly. Who you choose to associate with (and stand beneath the blue and white with when no one else will) says something about what kind of person you are.
And unless you’re a turncoat, it’s not the kind of decision you change either. In fact, with real loyalty, it’s the kind of thing you can never walk away from. You have an obligation. The obligations you take on of your own free will are even more serious. You choose them. You can’t shirk them.
Anyway, I finally made my decision sometime in the early evening of April 19th 2008, in round five against Collingwood. Harry O’Brien gave away a 50 metre penalty with 5:57 left. Shannon Grant scored a goal and North took the lead 97-93. With 5:50 left, the worst ball up I’d ever seen (which remains true to this day) went straight into the hands of Adam Simpson. He hit Ed Lower inside 50 with a low flat kick. Lower kicked his second goal of the quarter and put North up 105-97.
At 31:31 into the quarter, Alan Didak burst into an open goal and kicked toward the city end of the ground to put Collingwood ahead. We were so far away we couldn’t see what had happened. But the crowd roared and we were sure he’d kicked a goal. But he’d missed. I’d actually forgotten all about that miss until I went back and watched the last quarter on Youtube. I watched it again this afternoon and it made the hairs on my arms stand up.
When Didak missed it was 106-105. Petrie took a mark on the resulting kick-in and the clock ticked. At 33:06 Matty Campbell crumbed a ball at Nathan Thompson’s feet and North was home. The score was 112-104. The siren sounded at 34:47 and for the first time in my life I joined in the chorus.
I suppose it would be a better story if I chose to become a supporter after a tough loss. But winning close games breeds belief, just as losing close games sows doubt. After four quarters, a ton of high fives and more beers than I can count, I believed. Oh how I believed.
Watching a team that wouldn’t quit, that played for each other, and that worked their asses off - that was enough for me. Life is generally unfair and random. You can never control the results. You can only control your own effort, your commitment and your loyalty. To paraphrase George Washington, 'you can’t guarantee success, but you can deserve it'. I thought North deserved my loyalty based on that effort.
Anyway, from that day forward I was a North man. I’ve been a member for the last four years. I go with the same group of guys to every home game. We’ve gone to a few best and fairest dinners. I’ve had a chance to drink a beer with Glenn Archer, talk to a lot of the players and have even gone in with some mates to sponsor a few players in the last two years.
This brings me to a point I want to make; you can get closer to this club and its players than any other sporting club I’ve seen in the world. I can’t believe how much they (the Kangaroos) go out of their way to make the players available to the public. Whether it’s open training sessions or questions in the Victory room after a home game, it really is amazing. We should appreciate how rare that is in modern sport. You simply don’t see this in any other major sport in any country. At least I don’t. I think North’s board knows that making the club so accessible to the public, especially kids, is one of the keys toward long-term support.
When I heard James Brayshaw talk at this year's Season Launch about running footy clinics in the country so kids would grow up barracking for the Roos and coming to our games I was impressed that they’re thinking that far ahead. I think it’s absolutely the right way to build a long-term foundation. And let's face it, building a solid membership in Melbourne, given the club’s location, isn’t going to be easy.
But about this being able to get so close the club, it just doesn’t happen other places. As a kid in the States my older brother used to take me to the hotel in Denver where the Dallas Cowboys stayed when they were in town. We were huge fans growing up and used to bring signs and pads of paper and pens. Sometimes we’d get autographs, but pro-athletes in America are generally so far removed from the public that you’re lucky to get within ten feet of them. I don’t know what it’s like with European soccer stars.
I know it doesn't have anything to do with winning and losing, but I think it’s worth saying that North members have more access to the club and the players than any pro-sports team I’ve ever seen. We can actually be a part of our club. There’s nothing else like that. We should be grateful for it, too. And we should use it to support the club when we can. Especially when it needs it the most.
In fact I’d have to say that the one thing that’s surprised and disappointed me the most is fans who actually turn on players at the game and shout abuse. I’m not gonna claim to be an angel on this one. I’ve shouted a few choice words at a player in the comfort of my lounge room at home. That said, I can’t stand hearing a North supporter calling one of our players ‘useless.’ I know. I know. You got a ticket. You got a right to say whatever you want. But I’ve been around Richmond and Essendon and Collingwood fans who are absolutely brutal to their own players. It is an utter disgrace. I’m always embarrassed and angry when I hear one of our supporters playing to the crowd for a few cheap laughs by bagging a player. Sometimes it’s funny, of course. But other times, it’s so damned vindictive and mean spirited that you wonder why someone bothers at all.
You can be disappointed with the team’s effort. And critical of particular players or a lack of effort. But some of the stuff I read last week after the Port loss was shocking. I’m certainly not disputing anyone’s right to be critical and have their own opinion, but some people did not exactly cover themselves in glory.
Of course we hate because we care. If it didn’t matter to us we wouldn’t be so angry. That is the nature of sport. It’s what makes sport great...and terrible.
When life kicks us in the teeth five days a week or for three or four decades in a row (as it does), our team can give us a lift. I like sport because I know that life is basically random and unfair. None of us are getting out of it alive. And often, it sucks. Sport shows us that sometimes life doesn’t have to suck and that glorious things can happen.
Once in a while your team wins it all, or beats someone it shouldn’t. Someone does something great that makes you wish it was you. Someone makes an exceptional effort...or does something athletic and amazing that only a few people in the world could. Or someone triumphs through pure hard work and spirit and beats an opponent who’s bigger, faster, stronger, and better and whose supporters are louder, meaner, and uglier. David beats Goliath and good triumphs over evil and we are a part of it.
When it’s your team, those triumphs are your triumphs. That’s why you shake your fists with joy when you win. And that’s why you die a little when you lose. Or if you don’t die, you at least hurt a lot.
I reckon there was a lot of hurting going on this week...and at every level of the club - the supporters, the players, the board, the coaches, the staff, probably even the grass at Arden Street was depressed.
I’m excited for the rest of the season because I have decided I will do my part and not give up. No one can hide from where we’re at right now. I’m assuming professional athletes are more competitive than the rest of us. The boys can’t like losing. I simply don’t believe they’re not taking it seriously enough or trying hard enough. I want to see how this whole thing turns out.
But I do believe...that they lack belief right now. The only way you regain that belief is by winning. I think they’ll win if they play with desperation and fear.
But they’ll only win if they start playing for each other. If they don’t, they’ll be just another professional sports team that does okay but never achieves much. That will be disappointing for them.
But enough about them!
We can’t control their effort. And we can’t control the outcome. The only thing we can do is control our own effort.
So what I’m suggesting is that your club needs you now more than you need it. If they don’t believe in themselves we need to believe in them because that’s our job. That’s what we can do for the club. It seems pretty un-North like, if I’m allowed to say that, to bag the team and sulk at home like a bunch of sore losers. That’s not spirit. That’s just feeling sorry for yourself. That’s kind of pathetic. And we’re all better than that. Besides, it’s the only thing we actually control: whether we show up or not.
So I’m gonna show up on Sunday and I hope you do too. I just wanted you to know that I came to this country knowing nothing about football and even less about North. And now I love all three - Australia, footy, and not least the Shinboners. So I’ll see you Sunday. It’s time to believe...one and all.
