Have Bones, will travel.

So, the Richmond Football Club is into the Australian Football League’s Grand Final of 2017. I’m a member, and over the past 15 plus years, I have been to as many games as I could. Some of the highlights: Richo’s ten goals against the Dogs; some close Dreamtime at the G wins; Dusty’s emergence. For half of the last fifteen years I’ve been living overseas, so I have not been to as many games as many other Richmond fans. I’ve missed all of their recent finals. Heresy of footballing heresies, I haven’t even been a member every year. Footy is a part of life, rather than life itself. It’s not more important than life or death; but going to the footy with friends and strangers provides intense emotional experiences. I also like going alone to games and becoming a part of both the real and imagined Richmond community. Singing together; high-fiving strangers; exchanging banter and commentary.

I went to every home game this year, except for one (the Bulldogs game), and then, come September, I found myself in Indonesia for family and work reasons. So, I have missed the two finals played already, but will be back for the Grand Final, which, somehow Richmond have found themselves taking part. I’m not the world’s most dedicated Richmond fan; but following the Club and Team is satisfying and enjoyable. Yet, following the Tiges also fosters anxiety and frustration. Perhaps this is the reason I found myself on the verge of tears when I saw Trent, Titch and Nank celebrating the win. Seeing Jack Riewoldt in tears after the win fostered more love for this team: the players themselves are unashamedly emotionally invested.

Of course, as a just a regular member, I have no chance of getting a ticket for the Big Dance. Given that the participating team’s supporters have been structured out of the ability to reasonably purchase tickets, I’m not even going to bother to try and somehow score a freebie through connections or friends. Compare this with the recent case of FC Köln fans going to London to watch their team play against Arsenal. Out of the tens of thousands of fans wanting to attend the game, the Club found a way to make sure that members who had been on board for 20 years were able to purchase tickets if they chose to.

Richmond Selamatan

I watched the Preliminary Final from my hotel in Yogyakarta in the company of my four-year-old daughter, who, thanks to the influence of her kindergarten teacher, is a Bulldogs supporter. She watched Hey Duggee and Peppa Pig while I worked hard at not expressing any emotion as the Tiges ground down the Giants. As 93,000 Richmond fans roared at the game’s conclusion, it was clear: tradition trumps fabrication. It was also clear that a champion team beats a team of champions. Yes, Richmond are not ‘champions’ yet, but the team embodies that spirit of playing for each other; knowing one’s role. Players can have bad games, but still make crucial interventions: Castagna against Geelong, Butler against Greater Western Sydney. And the irony: Brett Deledio jumped ship to find a premiership elsewhere, only to be handed a defeat from the supposedly hopeless club he left.

Amidst the euphoria of making the Grand Final, some things remain as unnecessary interventions from the Australian Football League. Richmond has agreed to wear their Away jumper at the behest of the League’s administrators, despite there being no clash. The arrival of away jumpers is a part of the increasing diversification of themed jumpers. It is another piece of merchandise that can be put on the racks at club shops. The jumpers do not clash; but yes, the Away Richmond jumper is easier to see. The bright Puma yellow, as with the Borussia Dortmund and Ceres Negros association football team uniforms, could light up a bleak winter’s night. It is my hope that the Club has only appeared to acquiesce to the Australian Football League’s whim, only to run out onto the ground on the day, in its traditional and proper jumper.

The size of the Australian Football League’s logo on Richmond’s jumper further reveals the Australian Football League’s narcissism and self-aggrandisement. Most of us Richmond fans are torn between the pleasure of this week, knowing we’re in the Big Dance, to make a fuss about these ‘minor’ issues. Yet, I also find this further evidence of the complacency of many fans who accept the capricious changes made by the Australian Football League to the game of Australian Rules Football. The impression is that the clubs work for the interests of the Australian Football League, rather than the league acting in the best interests of the clubs. The tail wags the dog.

The current state of the Richmond Football Club is a testament to the work and vision of its current leaders: Peggy O’Neal, Brendan Gale, Damien Hardwick and Trent Cotchin. Add to this list, too: Neil Balme, Justin Leppitsch, Blake Caracella, Xavier Clarke. The team’s journey to the Grand Final is not a fairy tale; it’s just the result of playing and working smarter. Last year, there were indeed some rumblings from fans and there was a hapless short-lived challenge. I too had some issues with the Club: one being the relative rarity of representatives being elected to the board; and the manufactured passivity of the fan base. Being a supporter of a club has to go beyond merely showing up at games and buying the merchandise. Many Richmond fans do this. There are blogs, podcasts, websites, forums, Facebook groups, countless twitter accounts, and of course, there is the Richmond Football Club museum founded with material from its fans and curated by Mr. Roland Weeks. I had no real criticism of Damien Hardwick other than to think ‘he needs to find a few more tricks’.

This sudden arrival in the Grand Final is a curious blip on the narrative of the recent Richmond story. Aren’t we meant to be perennially struggling? Endlessly creating new ways to lose? This team has been curiously consistent all season: some surprise wins and then some resilience after some horror losses. The emphatic wins of the last round and the two finals show a strange hunger to dominate games. If it all ends in glory and more glory year after year before we fall in a heap after numerous premierships, well, I’ll be able to cope with that. Let’s just remember that what makes this club so legendary, is its tradition, values and connection to society beyond the limits of the footy field.

A tiger in his natural habitat, amongst enormous durians.

With a couple of minutes to go in the third quarter, I left the top deck of the Ponsford Stand and walked down the stairs. I heard some cheering as I reached the second level and then some angry shouting. A goal had been denied. I reached the exit and started walking around the southern concourse to go and sit on the ground level, behind the goals at the Punt Road End. I recognised a fan from other games; he is also someone who the TV cameras occasionally focus on. The man was wearing blue jeans and some kind of black Richmond training singlet. He’s well-muscled and has short black hair. He was shouting at anyone near him. ‘These fucking umpires, they’re not AFL standard.’ Blah blah blah. And then a response, ‘it serves us right. We’ve been playing like absolute arrogant dickheads for three quarters.’ He was a few meters ahead of me. He repeatedly shouted f#cking this, c#nt-ing that. It was a little troublesome. The man was seriously angry. The siren went for the start of the final quarter; and, in too much of a hurry I tried to enter the AFL Reserves only to have my ticket rejected. And by the time I entered through the right gate, I briefly saw a replay of Daniel high-fiving some other players. A good start, but I wasn’t going to get excited.

I had watched the first two quarters from the ground level at the City End. I was a few meters from the fairly well-represented Freo cheer squad. Behind me sat a row of casual Freo fans. A Freo hipster mansplained to his girlfriend, ‘Richmond fans are the worst. Behind West Coast.’ What the hell have we done to Freo? me thought. Oh yes, footy logic in full-flight: the fans of whichever one’s team is playing against are indeed the worst. Except I couldn’t find any reason to dislike Freo fans or even the Purple Warriors themselves. Next to me were a couple of Freo blokes: one had three children with him, the other had two. One was wearing a woollen Freo jumper: purple, green and white. Freo of the Anchor Era. He didn’t seem the conversational type so I didn’t trouble him for a photograph. The Freo cheer squad during the second quarter: Freo, Ole, ole, ole! Ole! They were seven points up and getting a little carried away. And Tabenar kicked a goal: Ooh ah Tabenar, say ooh ah Tabenar! All of this was hardly original, but they were into it. Enthusiasm and passion trumps originality, it seems.

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Welcome back Titch. Beautiful handpasses. The thrill was back in the final quarter. The Punt Road End willed the team to the lead. I don’t know why the team celebrated Ellis’s goal as if they had won. Keep a grip, boys. A girl in front of me announced to the crowd: 20 seconds to go. I’m not surprised we lost. Who was that player who waltzed through the centre square like a flaneur on a Parisian street? It was wonderful to see the Freo cheer squad erupt in the manner they did. Good for them. This is (partly) what footy is about. We may be the worst fans in the league, but I’m not sure we deserved this. I’m not sure how the team can turn on and off their enthusiasm so quickly. I’m not sure how the coaches can’t have a readymade plan to congest the play in the back-half of the field to at least force one stoppage, which would have been enough to have won the game. Losing is not the problem. It’s how and when we lose. If we had started off with three losses and were now 5:3, we’d be pumped.

I looked around and saw two main postures being adopted by fans. One was ‘the Slump’ and the other was ‘The Explosion’. For the sake of disclosure, I had adopted the slump as soon as Ellis had kicked the goal. If we were to win, it was best to wait before celebrating

The Slump: the fan is reduced to being inanimate. The fan who falls into a slump is unable to move from her or his seat, whether it be at the ground itself or the couch at home or the bar stool at the favourite pub. The fan is overwhelmed with confusion: how could My Club do this to me? The defeat condenses all of the fan’s worries, anxieties, fears, pressures and the fan embodies them in a motionless, blob of a slump. As the Other Club’s song blasts out from the Stadium’s loudspeakers, the fan barely hears it. The song seems to be playing in the great distance, in the empty expanse that the Stadium has just become. The fan sits in what has turned into a vast desert, surrounded by others who also occupy their own deserts. The slumper, will at some point, trudge through the crowd: each step as slow as the previous one. Wanting to escape the scene of the disaster, but also not knowing how to face the outside world beyond the Walls of the Hallowed Stadium. Staying slumped in a plastic seat, in amongst the detritus left behind by the crowd, offers only a temporary refuge.

The Explosion: The fan is upright; jabbing his or her finger at the players. The fan is red in the face. His wild gestures loosen and ruffle his clothes. Spittle abounds. The umpire is a cheat. The opposition players are thugs. The fan’s own players are too weak and played like pussies. The game is too long. The siren went too soon. The fan abuses players standing some 70 meters away. The fan’s abuse is barely distinguishable for the impassive security guards who stare blankly into the crowd making sure that no-one runs onto the field to surrender himself to a $9,327 fine. The fan stomps his feet as he marches towards the exit at the Punt Road End. And while walking, he shouts at the fans from the opposite team who celebrate not only their win, but ramp it up just a little bit to bait those who are either slumped or exploding around them.

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The aforementioned gentleman was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t want to imagine his anger and what might happen in his interactions later in the evening. His explosions at ¾ time perhaps suggestive of his mood at such a game where defeat had seemed inevitable and then victory almost certain only to be handed back to the aforementioned Purple Warriors. The coach says ‘we could have set up better’. The fans are bemused that the Team needs to be coached 20 seconds at a time and that there is no readymade plan in place for such a situation. On the path leading down past the Club, a mother consoles her son: ‘it doesn’t matter’. Nearby some semi-drunken young adults have a push-on with their fellow fans. For the fan who believes their team is somewhat adequate such a defeat had a degree of deliberateness about it. This is yet another defeat to be go straight into the Museum of Inglorious Defeats. The curator is busy.

The Punt Road end of the ground level of the Southern Stand was as good as silent. The ball came down our end five times in half an hour. At the game’s beginning, Jack had won the toss and elected to kick to the city end, meaning we’d be kicking to the Punt Road End in the last. When the Cats drew within 12 points and the impending doom already on the horizon, Jack gave a small gesture to the cheer squad: come on, fire-up, he motioned with his hands. And respond they did with a chant of Richmond, Richmond. But the rest of the pro-Richmond crowd was already aflutter and the chanting was drowned out by general shouting and exhortations. The crowd was a rabble, just as the Team was. I was stuck numb to my seat. I wanted to shout. I wanted to be active: but this defeat was like watching a train crash in slow-motion. Slooowwwww mmoooottttiiioooonnnnn.

Apparently during the last quarter the ball was in Geelong’s forward half 77% of the time; a measly 23% in our forward half. Another damning statistic is that seven players had one or fewer possessions. Let’s not name them. Just don’t say our leaders didn’t stand up – no, that is a great taboo. Just say: we have too few leaders. Just say: we have ‘leaders’ because we’ve got so many ‘followers’.

How do we categorise this loss? Walking home with my friend, an Essendon supporter, I said to him this Club can invent new ways to lose like you wouldn’t believe. I had in mind the Gold Coast loss (aka ‘the worst 47seconds of football in the history of the game) and the Collingwood loss of Round  Two. I said to him: this is what is unique about our Club. In Dimma-speak: ‘the one thing about our club…’. We can lose when winning seems absolutely completely inevitable. We can lose when it seems it is harder to lose than to win. We can deliver victory into the awaiting embrace of the Opposition even when they seem reluctant and embarrassed about accepting such a victory. We can lose a game of footy like no other. And management runs the club in the belief that: ‘Our fans are loyal. Our fans are patient. Our fans are passionate. Our fans have given their money and time. Our fans love our players.’ So, in the seventh year of this current re-building of a team, this loss sticks jarringly in our collective craw.

Our team has not mastered winning. But, losing, we’re pretty good at that. Some of the specialties are:

Implosion. The above described defeat. Games which we have had in the bag. Games in which Collingwood fans have been already at the train station waiting to go home when they’ve found out they have won. The Original Implosion of the Dimma Era was the Gold Coast game.
My favourite of the Wallace Era was the draw against the Dogs at Docklands. So, now we can safely add the loss against Geelong on 14^th August 2016.

We’re Not Really Here.* The kind of defeat in which defeat is conceded before the game starts. I’m thinking of the recent one against GWS. Think also defeats against Adelaide, Hawthorn, West Coast, Melbourne. The list is pretty long. No effort. No fight. No mongrel. No hunger. In some cases, the team may as well have forfeited the game and saved money on the plane tickets.*This is a song sung by Manchester City fans in the Olden Days when they didn’t win. Methinks we should also sing it as our faux-anthem. A means to get us through a dreary loss.

We’ve Turned the Corner. Also known as the ‘honorable loss’. The loss in which the team played well but still lost. For example, the game against the Dogs, in which we only lost by ten points but most experts expected us to lose by ten goals. This kind of loss says more about the opposition and that they’re taking us lightly, rather than being a result of our own good skills. We usually get belted the week after proving that we hadn’t really turned the corner.

Too-Hard Basket. When the season is on the line and scores are still close going into the final quarter. I’m thinking here of the game against Port Adelaide of this season. The game was well-and-truly in reach at ¾ time. So, what did the Tiges do? Ah, scored one point in the last quarter. That’ll do it, won’t it? Port are not a good team and we proved to be even worse. The purpose of the loss was to only give Port a false sense of finals-worthiness. At least bowing out this early in the season meant the players could  save themselves from the ignominy of losing another elimination final.

The Win that Feels Like a Loss. That rare moment when we play a team crapper than us. I’m thinking of virtually every win this year. But against Carlton, Essendon, Brisbane in particular. (The victory against Sydney surely is match-fixing in its purest form.) The win that makes losing seem more like the honest and more desirable trade. The kind of win when we don’t even have the zest for life to sing our Club Song with gusto. The kind of win when we’re not even bothered to dangle our scarves out the car window on the long and silent drive home.

Each loss, each defeat is its own story and the categories are endless. How the Team can endlessly author such defeats is nothing if not an art. The players and the Club we are told ‘do not ride the emotional rollercoaster’. And that is why we never see the players sitting dejectedly in the changerooms at the end of yet another heartbreaking loss. And it is why we never see them jumping on top of each other at the end of a miraculous win (against Sydney). It is why we never see them singing Our Song, arm in arm, lungs-bursting while the shower a new player with Gatorade. No, nothing emotional at all about playing footy. It’s just business.

And suddenly I realised that I have been a fan of the Tiges for 15 years. Probably this is only half as long as that of many, or even less for others, but, it is still long-enough to have some perspective on a club’s trajectory. I haven’t been a member every year for the last few years and I haven’t been to as many games as I would have liked. While living overseas, I’ve watched the games on live-streaming. I had tears in my eyes after that game in which we beat Hawthorn and it meant that Captain Newman would finally play in a finals series. These were games I would have liked to have watched live – in the traditional manner: in a crowd full of shouting and with the ability to hear the players colliding with one another.

I returned to Melbourne recently and the first game I attended was the one against Brisbane. Never had I imagined that I would feel like leaving early during a game in which Richmond was winning comfortably. I sat on the lower deck in the southern stand; warmed in brilliant winter sunlight. I sat alone and occasionally talked with my neighbours: we laughed at the mistakes of our Club and the Formerly Fitzroy Lions. Richmond were terrible. The Lions were far terribler. I was struck by the half-heartedness of the cheering for the Tiges. I don’t blame anyone: I too couldn’t get excited. Not even in the slightest. And this was my first game for years.

The Richmond faithful are not fools and have witnessed their fair share of false-prophets over the last few decades. There were fleeting moments of optimism under Frawley and Wallace; but the down-times were far longer. Dimma: has brought us three failed finals campaigns and now here we sit: 7-11 and not even the faintest flicker of the finals. While watching the VFL game against Box Hill, I heard someone say about Richmond’s list: ‘Dimma is deluding himself’. Perhaps. Probably. Maybe. On Wednesday, at a local footy game, I spoke to a proud man wearing a Richmond Football Club ‘Member’ jacket. He said, ‘at least this year we have failed miserably and we can’t pretend that we are better than we actually are. At least we know we’re crap.’ For all our opinions, comments, discussions in the outer: I know they count for nothing because we are outside the ‘four walls’.

I wandered into the Club’s fanshop the other day: I saw a Richmond woollen jumper for $200. I saw a t-shirt for $40. I saw poorly-made, mass-produced jumpers for $120. I saw baseball hats for $40. I’ve got no cash to throw about, but I thought I probably wouldn’t buy any of those products even if they were half the price. I told the guy working at the store: ‘everything seems way over-priced’. And then we both muttered something about ‘AFL…licensing.’ Needless to say: the store was empty, apart from me and it was stuffed full of yellow and blackish ‘merchandise’. Stock hardly seemed to be flying out door.

I love the Club. Or, rather, I love the idea of what the Club can be and what the team and its players can achieve. Perhaps of this year’s team, only three can stand proud and satisfied: Dusty, Alex and Jack. Right now, I’m of the strong feeling that us fans of the RFC are being taken for fools. Our loyalty is being taken for granted. We cannot have another summer being sold hope by the same old false-prophets. The Club’s off-field stability is reflected in the stability of the team’s under-achieving on-field performance.

I arrived at the Lipsius Cafeteria at Leiden University with around five minutes to go in the second quarter. Hopes were dashed immediately on checking the score: hmmm, down by 50 something points. I had been fearing such an outcome, but hoping that our Tiges would at least still be in it at half-time and be showing some resolve. During half-time, I quickly sent some emails and made notes for small tasks. I tried not to watch the second half and instead get on with my work. But the second half had all the attraction of a ghastly smash on the highway: and I couldn’t look away. I wanted to see how the team would respond. I wanted to see who stood up when there was no hope of winning. Three players: Jack Riewoldt, Alex Rance and Trent Cotchin. The bully-boys of the media, the bully-boys of the crowd get off on criticising individuals and teams when they are at their lowest point. The Richmond Tigers played poorly on Friday night and have been playing poorly for the first month – we don’t need to gloss over that – but nor do we need to beat up on our team through social media.

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I want to say a little bit about Jack. My first impression was that he was a bit of a galah. A little bit too chirpy, a little bit too flamboyant, a little over-the-top. I can remember seeing him jump into Matthew Richardson’s arms after Richo had scored a goal and Richo seemed irked by his puppy love. During Hardwick’s first season as coach, I was sitting behind the goals in the Southern Stand and was watching Jack jump about. This time I bemoaned him for his light frame and lack of musculature. The game was close and the young Tiges did themselves no shame that sunny afternoon. Jack ended up kicking a lot of goals that season. He perhaps took himself for a natural media star, but it took a few loose comments and wild-on-field gesticulations for him to realise that perhaps he is at his best when he lets his actions do the talking. Over the last few seasons he has stopped the wild celebrations and the angry gestures towards his team-mates. He has played in a variety of positions and performs a range of tasks for the team. He has simply become a team-player, who regularly scores or sets up goals. He might not be in the team’s leadership group, but he must be one of the few whom supporters expect to stand up each week.

In January 2015, I met with a Richmond fan who had been to all but one game over the past 30 years. I asked if he thought we would make the finals: he said, ‘no, I don’t think so’. He was so confident that the Tiges would belie the expectations of expert and not make the finals, that he had booked his first trip to Europe with his wife during September. He didn’t have any bad words to say about the team. He spoke highly of many of the players; some he knew and would have casual conversations with. He just thought that other teams were slightly ahead of us Tiges and would push us out of the eight. He stood proudly wearing his Richmond yellow and black polo in the middle of summer; the season still months away. Did his cautious pessissism detract from his love for the Club? No. Now, at one win and three losses, Dimma is telling us we will still make the eight. If the team continue to play like this, no, the team will not make the eight. But let’s hope our resolve as fans and supporters is stronger than those who merely attend Richmond games for some vicarious (albeit fleeting) glory.

“My club” or “My team”. On the rfc_tigers Instagram account, a post was made with the statement: “if you don’t support when we lose, don’t support us when we win”. This is a basic principle of being loyal to a club: as Titus says, it is non-negotiable for real fans. Our Club, Richmond, is in a stronger position than it has been since the competition became the AFL. The administrators at RFC, Peggy and Brendan are principled leaders aware of the Club’s and football’s important social role in broader society. The Korin Gamadji Institute has achieved national recognition for its leadership in Indigenous engagement. Dimma is an astute coach who has dragged the team up by its boot straps and given the Club three (albeit disappointing) finals series in three years. Our support for the Tiges will outlast the careers of the players. Our resilient support for the team and the club will ensure that ex-players too maintain their respect for the club and its supporters.

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I found the loss against the Eagles thoroughly galling. The four key words for the first four games are something like this: (v. the Blues) frustration, (v. the Pies) shock, (v. the Crows) detachment and (v. the Eagles) despair. I am in no mood to watch the game against Melbourne. It chills one to the core to see the Dees making strides while we go backwards. I can’t help but think back to my favourite memory of post-2010 Tiges: Dusty’s goal against Melbourne, I think some time in 2010. It is in this clip, at around 1minute40.

More of this, please, and less, ‘east-west’ ball movement. Goals like this; the saving graces of Jack, Alex and Trent – and Rioli – cut through all the well-intentioned comforting words in press-conferences. We need to see our team play footy, not try in some awkward manner to implement the theories devised over summer.