Tuesday morning: drop Mr Six-year-old at school (forget his bag, return for that), catch a train to Richmond. Meeting Gavin Juchnevicius (Mr Digital) at Punt Road Oval, talking about fans. Players are on the oval, training. See a TV camera on a tripod on the platform at Richmond Station; filming surreptitiously? Carlton spies?

Hedgerow of black JEEPs in car park. I push stroller beneath English elms into Yarra Park, Mr Two-year-old sings “yellow and black” and “oh, we’re from Tigerland”.

Makes me smile.

Going up ramp into the offices, he says: “Dad, sing the North Melbourne song.”

An aunt of his has much to answer for.

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And so seasons turn, and with it come new hopes and desires. From autumn’s equinox, through to a half-point of spring, we hope to travel on an arc that might be remembered forever.

Young men, a game, a shared belief; and Richmond.

Some things go without saying, but need now be said. These men who pull on the colours of our team and show us bravery, courage and honour, we want only the best for them, in football and in life. We want them to succeed at what they do, because in doing so they take us elsewhere. The narrow upset win that’s better than sex, the run for a premiership that might be better than anything we’ve known in our mortal lives. When “our boys” are on song, working as one, when all goes our way, when the crowd at the Punt Road end of the MCG roars in primordial delight, the football is king and nothing else matters. We float into the night, returning to our everyday lives, our feet unsullied by the mud of winter.

We think about what the players have given us; a pleasure, inspiration, the confidence to try and be who we want to be. The football is everything. 

“For some this was a carnival of pleasure,” wrote Manning Clarke, an inveterate Carlton man (boo! hiss!) of the attraction of our code, in his epic saga, A History of Australia. “Two-and-a-half hours of excitement which lived on in the minds for weeks to come.”

This is how it is being a barracker, and how it is being Richmond.

Forget the last three years, and the three before that. On Thursday night it all starts anew. Don’t fear loss. Think only of all the possibilities of winning. Think of the beauty that can be had in the game.

Be proud of who you are, but also humble and magnanimous in victory. There is nothing more boring than a braggart – in the crowd, or on the field.

Think of Anthony Miles, the sort of no-fuss footballer he is, what he contributes to the team and to a cause. Think of Jack, and how he can rouse all around him, inspiring with his passion and courage. Think of Kane Lambert, and the road he’s travelled to share a stage with household names. Think of where each of you has come from, and where you want to go; together, as footballers, as young men, as family.

You share this time in your lives, as we share our time with you. The bond is of mutual benefit.

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News from the Tiger tiger burning bright home office: I’m half-way through a non-fiction book manuscript about barracking, and Richmond, and belonging. When I told my brother of this book project, his response: “great, it’ll come ninth on the best-seller list”.

He barracks for Essendon. Pity his year.

Many who have shared their stories with me are part of this book. It is, in many ways, a collaborative project; a group effort, as a game of football must be. On Wednesday I rode my bicycle to the Fitzroy Gardens to meet with historian Geoffrey Blainey (a Cats man) to talk about football. The other month I caught a train to Footscray West and walked to Joffa’s house (Collingwood, of course) for a cuppa tea and more footy talk. It is a broad church, our game. But mostly, I preach Richmond.

I will try this season to write regular short blogs, but no guarantees. We have two young boys, and I need to complete this book manuscript, and blog writing is – sigh – a labour of love. If any benefactors wish to support this project, please let me know. I have approached our football club to see if they might publish a blog – support a writer who supports them – but it’s not in their business plan. I’ve not heard back.

Still, I’ve a handshake agreement to write the fan profiles again – ‘Oh, we’re from Tigerland’ – so that’s good. They pay me for this work. It makes me happy. I hope it makes others happy, too.

I’ve not abandoned my colours, and I’ve certainly not given up on our team. In Nick Vlastuin I have complete faith, and when Dusty or Lids get the ball my heart still skips a beat. And I love seeing how the new blokes go about it; seeing if they can find a way into the team, and then keep that spot.

It’s a ruthless business, football, survival of the fittest.

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Close my eyes and I dream of what might happen. It is a long road, but it must be taken. There is no valour in giving up, in opting out. Others have come before you and tried, and the opportunity has come and gone. Chris Newman spoke with tears in his eyes when announcing his retirement. His ache was real and true. Think of Kingy and Jacko and Tucky and Nathan Foley, and how each of them has hurt for the cause, with hearts filled with desire, but how for each the dream fell short. They no longer have the chance. Best they can do now is to join us, in hoping for the best for you.

Our lives are short. Play with a passion and respect for the game; play for each other and in doing so you play for us. Think of the opportunities you have created for yourselves and do not squander them. Make the sacrifices, and all the rewards will come. Put your hand up if you need help. All of us hope for no injuries. Don’t be afraid to ask for assistance in the most unlikely places. Seek inspiration not just from the football, but from all around you. Find beauty in the game. Play with an open heart.

And all season long we will be on the other side of the fence, barracking, believing in you.

Close my eyes and I think if each plays his part, if so much goes our way, on our day none can beat us. All of us know this, and think this, and trust in this. We have seen if before, in the rain and the dry, at home and away, under lights and in the lowering of the winter sun.

Now it is time for us – Richmond – to show the whole city what we can do, and then do it in late September.

We would walk to the end of the earth and back again for you, Richmond.

We will get down on our knees for you, Richmond.

On Thursday night you will mean everything to us, Richmond.

Do us proud Tigers, do us proud.

Go forth and vanquish.

Tiger tiger burning bright

Facebook: Dugald Jellie
Twitter: @dugaldjellie
Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com

Need a graphic design job done? Contact Rees Design

News flash: I’m off to the Dreamtime game this Saturday with Chris Rees – creator of the Richmond Virtual Duffle Coat, Maurice Rioli artwork, the famous Bones McGhie tee – standing in the outer, offering homemade halftime ‘Bachar Houli’ babaganoush. For recipe, details and reasoning, see end section. Join us, to share the Tiger love.

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Interviewed by Dennis Cometti, in the rooms before the Collingwood game, the four walls closing in as a season faltered, vice-captain Brett Deledio had this to say about Damien Hardwick:

“The coach has been fantastic. You can’t ever question how he treats us and respects us as players. We know he’ll always have our backs and back us in. You could never question Dimma’s love for us and want for us to play better footy.”

On Footy Classified on the Monday prior, Caroline Wilson said she thought Hardwick would lose his job at year’s end. Wilson is an award-winning journalist – on so many issues a voice of reason in football – with a rich Richmond pedigree. Her father, Ian Wilson, was president of the Richmond Football Club from 1973 to 1985, a connection that at Punt Road opens many doors.

Ian Wilson, a club life member, is probably esteemed at Tigerland, for his role in the club’s premiership ‘golden years’. And yet still, in my mind, there is a counter view. Club statesmen like Wilson and Graeme Richmond, for fans like me, fans of a particular age who’ve never really had all the September glory, men like these were also wrecking balls.

In good times and bad, till death do us part, us Richmond people have followed our team. So many flew over to see the game on Sunday night; there were familiar faces in the cheer squad, phone texts chimed all night. Last September, for the final against Port at Adelaide Oval, I was part of maybe the largest interstate pilgrimage in Australian sporting history.

We came by plane, by car, by train, by bus; as a convoy. We left the ground, wearing our colours with pride, regardless of the result. We love our team, our players, our colours, our culture, even our history of heartbreak. However we could find a way, we got ourselves to the game.

Ian Wilson was at the helm of Richmond in good times and bad. As a leader, he cannot only claim the plaudits of the halcyon days. He was also at the wheel during our fall. Ian Wilson presided over the club when it was brought to its knees. Five years after he left, fans were left to rattle tins.

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Jake Batchelor kicked the opening goal late on Sunday afternoon, drifting into the forward line to find himself on the end of what is now commonplace Shane Edwards creativity, a beautiful handball into space, and we could hardly recognise him. He had cut off his long hair for this game. It was an occasion. He now looks like the kind of old-fashioned footballer so many of us admire. Nothing flash. As much as we love Shane Edwards’s flair, and Jack’s pomp, and Alex Rance’s regal demeanour, we always respect a hard-working, blue-collar player; the lot of the toiler.

Jake Batchelor returned to the side in last season’s second half, and along with the then rookie-listed Anthony Miles, played a pivotal role in our revival. But last year, he left his worst game until last. I’m not sure he had a single, meaningful, possession in the final against Port Adelaide. He was subbed off the ground.

Last Sunday he took Titch’s handball and kicked the opening goal, then wheeled from the players and pumped both fists. He was pleased with himself, and justifiably so. This meant more than a goal. Here was sweet redemption. We all shared in his pleasure.

Steve Morris played his season’s best game on Sunday, putting behind him indifferent form that led up to last year’s Elimination final. His has been the most public of career changes: from small defender to lock-down forward. Results have been mixed, but signs encouraging. These past few weeks, he has kept ticking boxes.

None could deny his effectiveness on Sunday, returning to Adelaide where he once plied his trade in the SANFL for West Adelaide (winning a B&F before being recruited to Richmond). He flashed into the television footage, down low and hard, reckless with his body, a human cannon ball. All us Richmond people willed him to kick that goal. Not for us – we wanted it for him, for Stevie, our warrior who made such an impact when he first burst onto the AFL scene.

At a time when the game was still in the balance, still there to be won, when legs were heavy with fatigue and minds weighted with a fear of loss, it was our smallest forward who led hard and straight and with conviction. Morris wanted the ball; he wanted to make a difference. In good times and bad, he took the game on.

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Public opinion, the voice of the crowd, looks to have transformed “the Richmond way”. Gone is the sideways kicking, the slow build-up, the crabbing, the long daisy-chains of handball. Against Collingwood, from the centre, led by our captain, when in doubt we looked to bang the ball on our boot, get it going long and forward and quickly, and see what happens. And what happened is our forwards had a sniff.

The court of public opinion says Damian Hardwick got it wrong by moving Alex Rance – our most confident playmaker, and our best defender – into the centre square. Our back-six looked awry. We coughed-up goals. They got the jump and a blowout beckoned.

But a counterpoint is that this unorthodox move may just resurrect our season. Something needed to change. We needed a catalyst. A shake-up was required.

The team was in a rut; and if you keep doing the same things, invariably the same results will follow.

Public sentiment says the move didn’t work. But maybe it did. Rance was switched back into the backline and all at once every player responded with a greater fluency and assuredness. They became unburdened; liberated, freed of an unknowable constraint.

The move of Rance – an experiment – unlocked something. The players found “a Richmond way” that was daring – maybe even strong and bold – that was all about taking the game on when opportunities arose.

Caroline Wilson had offered a very public rebuke of Hardwick on the Monday before the Collingwood game. For that week, Hardwick’s job may have felt as though it might be measured by the volume of a cardboard box. For a coach, as with a player, it is all about the performance on the field, on match day. If results run against you for long enough, all the office trinkets – the family photos, the mementos, the coffee mugs, maybe even the stapler – get put away in a box and carried home.

In the days of Ian Wilson, that was another of the “Richmond ways”.

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Before our loss to Footscray, Richmond fan Matt Stanford sent a photograph of a picture plate his son had made, memorialising a past recent win against the Western Bulldogs. All the colours were there, and the blades of grass, and the shape of the ground, and the final score: 80 to 150. We were almost twice as good as them.

Matt Stanford is a graphic designer, with his own blog, on which (under the headline, ‘The importance of belonging’) he has said this:

I belong to the Tigers. I’ve loved them for almost 30 years of continued, unending heartache and disappointment, but still I belong and always will. That I have paid a membership this year won’t really affect how they play in the slightest, way less than my vote counts in a state or federal election. What they mean to me is almost irrelevant; it’s just that they’re my team.

Matt’s young son is also, presumably, a Tiger. He made a plate that immortalises a game. Like many Richmond fans, I remember that game – where I was, how I watched it – and I remember laughing – yes, laughing – at the skills of Trent Cotchin. He turned them inside out. It was as if he was playing with his own ball. If there were 10 Brownlow votes on offer that afternoon, he got them all. It was the most perfect performance I have ever seen from Cotch.

In the first quarter of the Collingwood game two weeks ago, I stood in the outer with Tigers man Michael Green. No, not that Michael Green; not the former Richmond ruckman and four-time premiership player. This one is a fine freelance journalist – full of ethics and integrity – with a gentle manner, who has a sideline business in baking sourdough bread for his neighbours in Carlton.

He turned to me, as the goals went against us in the first quarter, as all the traffic was one-way, and said it was sad. His lament was for these young and fit men, these fine athletes in the prime of their life, who didn’t look as though they were enjoying what they were doing. For them, the fun had gone out of the game.

In good times and bad, us Richmond people know it is more than a game. It is a passion, a longing, a dream, a hope that one day the wind will forever be at our backs. A hope that one day, we will all be happy, together.

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All of us know how good Shane Edwards has been this year. A TTBB team player, Andy Fuller, wrote a careful and considered piece about Titch and football in North Adelaide, that is worth revisiting in the week prior to the Dreamtime spectacle.

On Twitter, Shane Edwards responded to Andy’s writing, in kind. “Couldn’t be more humbled with the piece you wrote,” he said. “I really appreciate the kind words about me and my family. Loved the art.”

It wasn’t on the field of play, and yet it’s been one of my season’s highlights, so far.

As was the game against Collingwood, with the introduction of Liam McBean and Connor Menadue – welcomed onto the big stage for all of us to see, the FUTURE – with the clutch goals to Deledio, and the leadership games by Cotch and Ivvy and Dusty and Jack.

There’s been disappointment this season, but now there is hope. It comes with Kamdyn McIntosh and his loping stride, with the work-rate and level-headedness of Shaun Grigg, and with Nick Vlastuin and his fearlessness. How old is Vlastuin? I can only see good things ahead for him; wonderful things ahead.

There was Kamdyn’s first game, and the complete team efforts of these past two late Sunday afternoons, and our world has now lifted and our spirits dance.

After Connor Menadue kicked his first goal in league football – wrap yourself in glory, son! – was there any able-bodied Richmond fan not standing in adulation and delight? Such a beautiful kick; so straight and deliberate and elegant; as dramatic as a falling dagger. It dropped into the goals; it broke their hearts and made ours soar.

Can there be a better moment all season? On Monday morning I found myself looking at the footage, over and over again, and freeze-framing the players’ celebration. I look at the image and I cannot help but smile. It makes all us Richmond fans happy. The togetherness of the players brings us together, also. Eighteen Richmond players in a knot of delight, with Menadue in the middle. It is his moment. He made them as one.

In this frame, only Nick Vlastuin stands apart, No. 31, as if marshalling the troops, his back to the centre square, this young man who one day will captain this football club. I believe one day he might also coach it.

Barracking for a footy club, whether you like it or not; it’s all about togetherness, in good times or bad.

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What Brett Deledio said about Damien Hardwick – unscripted, candid, without hesitation – ends any speculation about his tenure. He has the faith of his players, he has their loyalty. They might bare their souls for him, walk through the desert for him, climb the highest mountain for him, go into war for him. It is a symbiotic relationship. He has earned their trust, because they believe he has their best welfare – as players, as young men finding their way in the world – at heart.

I look through the list and think of all the senior team regulars, only Jack Riewoldt might question the motives of his coach. But this is a full-forward’s prerogative. And Jack has shown he doesn’t necessarily need the backing of Hardwick. He plays for the team, and he understands what the game means to us fans.

I love it when Jack speaks on the ground, immediately after a game. Among all the clichés in football, it’s like he’s some kind of truth-teller. It’s as if he plays on our behalf, and he speaks on our behalf, and that is all we need to know.

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This week, I’m grilling six eggplants on the barbeque – the ‘back six’ I’m calling them: Grimes, Batch, Chappy, Rance, etc – and scooping out the flesh, adding tahini, salt, oil, a squeeze of lemon, for a big batch of homemade babaganoush. It is the Dreamtime game, yes, but I am making it in honour of Bachar Houli.

It is nothing special. I have always made babaganoush when holding a party, and after the past two Dreamtimke flops, I am hoping this Saturday night is a party.

Sometimes it is written in the stars. I have a long history of falling in love with women with Egyptian eyes; it is just the way it is. And likewise, I have a long history of burning eggplants until their skin chars and splits. More recently, I have a history of admiring Bachar Houli, a former Essendon player, as an athlete, a footballer, a role-model, a mentor, a man.

I will pack the homemade ‘Bachar Houli’ babaganoush in my vintage yellow-and-black Polar Pack and bring it to the footy in tubs, with rice crackers.

If you can, please come and join Chris and myself at half-time, on the ground level standing room above Bay M50 in the Olympic Stand, by the aisle that’s right beside the gates to the MCC. All welcome, including any injured Richmond players, or coaching staff in need of half-time sustenance.

Chris will hopefully be wearing his new Maurice Rioli t-shirt. I will be in my Tiger hoodie.

It’s a little soiree that we like to call Richmond.

Tiger tiger burning bright

Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com

Twitter: @dugaldjellie

 

We wish them well; we wish them a safe journey.

We wish Tyrone Vickery to stand tall and resolute this season. We wish Anthony Miles further courage in the packs. We wish Bachar Houli’s left foot to be blessed forevermore. We wish all the best for fatherhood for our captain and his wife. We wish Lids to have a safe and healthy baby boy (purely for father-son considerations).

We wish Alex would commit, to us. We wish Jack to run amok. We wish Dusty – our football warrior, our very own Tiger dragon slayer – each week puts his opponents to the sword.

We wish for no injuries, we wish for their rude health. We wish Dave Astbury – a genial bloke from wheat and wool country, playing his junior footy in a land-locked league – we wish he had not dipped a toe into Port Phillip Bay and introduced himself to a stingray.

We wish for a season out of the box; for “our boys” to quietly go about their business in big games under lights, and for the whole city to again consume itself with the story of Richmond.

We wish each player who plays for us Tigers, for this fleeting moment of their lives when they are young and at the peak of their physical fitness, when they are asked to shoulder so many of our desires and expectations, when they become household names and objects of our wonderment – we wish for them to be the best footballers they can be. We wish for their fulfilment. We wish our joy brings them happiness. We wish them not to be burdened by fear of failure, but to be freed by the beauty of the game.

We wish them this winter to be angels on our shared field of dreams.

Truth is, us Richmond people do not so much mind every loss. Over the years, we’ve become accustomed to all the ways a game of football can be given up. This, for now, has been our lot in life. It is part of our story. It is who we are. If nothing else, it has taught us humility.

There was no shame last year, for instance, in losing to Gold Coast away in the warm tropics in March, nor in the loss to Geelong in the wet at the MCG. If there is passion in the losing, if there is courage and bravery in defeat, we cannot ask for nor expect anything more. All we wish for is that our boys love and honour the jumper as much as we do.

Our colours are our sacrament, and our belief in them is our belief in you.

We also understand and appreciate the sacrifices. So many of us think so often about the pain, exhaustion, fatigue and the doubt – always the doubt – that comes with such a brutal contest. On the railway line we see you training on Punt Road Oval under the blunt summer sun, and can hardly imagine the hurt that comes with playing this game at such an elite level.

We respect you, we admire you. Each and all of you can do things on that football field that raise our spirits and lift our hearts. Not all of you can turn a game like Jack can, but not all of you need to. A punch, a smother, a bump, a shepherd; we see these things, we take note, we know what it means.

Most of all we love it when you have the ball and the ball sings and all are involved and the team plays as one and you are untouchable. It is no time to gloat, but it is a time to savour. When the football is beautiful, life is beautiful. When we take on the game, and when all that we touch turns to gold, there is nothing more perfect than being a Richmond barracker.

We do not know you, but it doesn’t stop us wishing all the best for all of you. Let all of us have a year to remember; a season of pride and honour, and respect, and untrammelled pleasure in seeing what a group of 22 young men can do on a grassed field, where all of us gather to marvel in your exploits.

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Olive branches have been offered to Tiger Tiger Burning Bright in this off-season, which is wonderful news. The club hierarchy have given me an opportunity: to write a weekly profile of a Richmond fan, to be published on the club’s website each Wednesday. Please look out for them and spread these stories to all Tigers you know.

My great hope is that in sharing these remarkable voices in the crowd, it somehow makes our football club an even better place. It makes it even more inclusive. It makes it even more accepting. It makes it even more understanding of what it means to be a Tiger.

A football game is nothing without the crowd, and the only crowd that matters for us is a Richmond crowd.

It’s a social project, a community project, that I hope brings people together. I hope also, in the smallest possible way, it may just help the football team we all hold dear.

Football is a game of numbers, and percentages, and set plays, and statistics. But it’s also a game of emotions; it is played in the heart as much as in the head. It’s a game of belief, a game of confidence.

Why couldn’t the stories of us fans make a difference? Why couldn’t our voices in the crowd – our stories of what it means to be from Tigerland – help inspire what happens on the ground?

Every little thing helps, and here is our chance to be in the spotlight, to be on a level playing field with those we go to such lengths to support and see play.

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Thank you to all TTBB readers who submitted photographs of themselves as children, in their footy jumpers, republished on this blog post. Bob Murphy, the football sage and Footscray’s new captain, said he would find a childhood photo of himself in his Richmond jumper but, alas, none has been forthcoming. If any others have old photos of themselves in their footy woolknit to share (and we always do enjoy the yellow and black a little more, but it’s not essential), please do email them in. See the address below.

 

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Chris Rees, a freelance graphic designer in Hobart who’s other significant half of TTBB, has been busy this past week reconfiguring the website that is our very homespun social project. Thank you Chris, for all your efforts, and for the continued glory that is his Virtual Duffle Coat (which over summer had vice-regal consent!). For both of us, of course, this is a labour of love. Our Tiger T-shirt and hoodie fundraising drive last year was a success (although still two XL hoodies for sale!) and reimbursed all our out-of-pocket expenses for running this website for the past two seasons.

To keep us going for this year and next, we’ve expanded our range of TTBB fundraising merchandise. Please keep us in mind when next buying a birthday gift for your favourite Tiger. But be warned, some of the items prrrrr.

Andy Fuller in the Netherlands will continue to contribute words this season, and other ‘players’ are likely to join the fray as the season unfolds. And of course, TTBB readers are always invited to submit any Tigerish writings, poetry, artwork, love letters, etc. We like to share (unless, of course, correspondence is offered in confidence).

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This season I will write only the occasional match report. I’ve purchased a three-game membership, so it may only be three games I attend this year. The past two seasons are over, and with it a part of my life. I need to do other things. Find another way to help pay the bills. And I really ought to put my head down and write something that I hope one day our two young children might be proud of. Each of us have our little life ambitions.

So this season, my offerings will be a traditional ‘blog’; you know, one of those things where people post a few pics and a few words and keep it short and simple. I’m calling it The Tiger Diaries, and it’ll be my unedited musings and stream-of-consciousness about my travels on my bicycle through Tigerland this year.

I hope to find time to visit the cheer squad at its banner making, and see the occasional open training session, and explore a few of the old laneways of old Struggletown.

Please join me from time to time. And make contact with me, and become part of the conversation. We never know where it might lead.

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Wishing all TTBB much happiness this season with whatever our Gods of football bring.

Tiger tiger burning bright (this Thursday night)

Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com
Twitter: @dugaldjellie

And coming soon to Facebook once I work out how it works.

 

Football is a story with no end. It is a bag of air and make-believe, and the dreams of all looking over the fence. Our code – Australian Rules football – reflects who we are, what we want to be, and how we’ve created our place in the world.

Melbourne, a bookish city, is considered the sporting capital of Australia, a country where the national gaze is often enough drawn outdoors. We are enticed by feats of the body: the toil of the fast bowler, Cathy Freeman’s stride, wood-cutting at the show, our muscular winter pursuits. Historian Graeme Davison, an Essendon man by birth, coined the “imaginary grandstand”; the bare oval as a crucible for national identity. We barrack, we belong.

Sport is a drama played also in the mind. It is an imagined game. It can be found in books, in words, in ideas. “It goes to my head like a drug,” wrote Barry Oakley in A Salute to the Great McCarthy, published in 1970 and still ringing true. “I see at once the essence of football, it is a performing art, the ball now coming again, lower and faster this time, a level bullet.”

If Melbourne has no book club devoted to one of its enduring talking points – sport – then this need change. So this proposal: for founding members for ‘A sports lovers’ book club (& reading guide) to Melbourne’.

The plan is to meet every six weeks to discuss a text based (sometimes loosely) on sport. Bookshops and library shelves are laden with such tomes: cricket, soccer, cycling, running, baseball, football. Need a prompt to read David Foster Wallace on tennis? See details below.

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My colours are yellow and black but please, dear sports fan, dear football lover, do not be dissuaded. It is my prejudice, my burden, but also my great joy when Dusty has the ball and his chest is open, and a low winter sky is filled with possibilities and all else in the world means nought. For that moment, I am lost in the game.

As with the crowd in the outer, the idea of this book club is to be open to all. Carlton people, even. The game once may have fractured along inner-city rivalries and feuds, or on suburban and country recruiting zones, but it also made us as whole. It is a shared language, easily understood by all who follow the ball’s oval-shape of chance.

Has anyone had the pleasure of reading Miriam Sved’s debut novel, Game Day, tracing the season of an imaginary AFL club in Melbourne? The club is short on success and stuck in memories of faded glory and I am sure she based her book on my club, Richmond. Others may have come across Paul D. Carter’s Vogel-winning debut novel, Eleven Seasons, about the hopes of a young man growing up in Hawthorn’s recruiting zone. And I’ve only ever heard good things said about Nathan Buckley’s autobiography, All I Can Be.

So, yes, a sports fans’ book club, with a leaning to the local game.
Expressions of interest from Footy Almanackers and all other readers of the game (and other sports) are called for. The inaugural gatherings will most likely take place on a Thursday night, probably upstairs at Young & Jacksons, for reasons of historical curiosity. It’s where the committee of the Victorian Football Association in the late 19th century would group and tabled their annual report. It is also rather central.

The proposed first text is not a book, but a play: David Williamson’s The Club. For many, it might be an opportunity for a re-visiting – a fresh look at a 1978 classic comedy (readily available in libraries), an easy introduction to the literature of sport.

Anyone who’s interested in being part of this regular sports talk-fest, please email me on the address below. Once we have numbers, a format and process can be agreed to.

For now, a last word on football goes to Richard Flanagan, writing on kick-to-kick in a Launceston school yard, in The Narrow Road to the Deep North:

“Kick it! he heard someone yell. Kick the fucker before the bell rings and it’s all over.

And in the deepest recesses of his being, Dorrigo Evans understood that all his life had been a journeying to this point when he had for a moment flown into the sun and would now be journeying away from it forever after. Nothing would ever be as real to him. Life never had such meaning again.”

The Club is about the hangers-on, the end of loyalty, the coming of professionalism, big business and massive transfer fees. It’s about each and every club in the League.

 

Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com

Twitter: @dugaldjellie

I caught a train north, through flat grasslands, stopping at Craigieburn and Donnybrook, passing a firewood yard at Wandong, on my way to a gothic bluestone church on a mercilessly hot summer’s morning. Headed for Kilmore, I wanted to find belonging on a heartless day, at the funeral of a woman I couldn’t know.

Her name was Carolyn Gaunt and in her life there was a story about football.

She was a Richmond supporter and had had cancer and I was told by her daughter, Alicia, that her coffin at the funeral would be carried through a crepe paper banner. Melbourne’s rituals of football life were to become a ritual upon death. I needed to be there. I wanted to be part of the crowd.

A cruel wind blew from up country, from a thirsty interior. It was thirty-two in the shade by nine. The air burned, searing with contempt.

Trout waited on the platform at Kilmore East. We met and he apologised for the colour of his wife’s car. The air-con in his yellow-and-black 1978 Holden Premier didn’t work, he said. We drove to St Patrick’s Catholic Church beside the gates of Assumption College – known for its fine footballers, some of whom I played against as a schoolboy – in a vibrant pink car.

On the way, Trout talked of Carolyn. “She always brought joy to everyone,” he said. “We were lucky to have her.”

Outside the church, on a gentle rise above Kilmore, labourers worked on rebuilding a road. Dust swirled in hot wind. Excavators grumbled. Inside, yellow roses rested on a coffin as men with rounded shoulders bent themselves respectfully into pews.

Most wore black, but there was also yellow: in the bouquets, and in ribbons and ties worn by many from Richmond’s cheer squad. They had come in carloads; as a family, a community, sharing in bereavement, saying last goodbyes.

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Carolyn Gaunt (nee Palmer) was a Malvern girl, a first child with two brothers, born on 10 March, 1953. She loved the outdoors and enjoyed her sports: swimming at Harold Holt pool, tennis at Kooyong, being anywhere on the netball court. Her schooling was at St Joseph’s Catholic primary and Kildara Convent Secondary College.

As a young woman she worked for the Department of Agriculture and on weekends followed her mother, Brenda, to the football. After games she found herself often at Punt Road Oval where, in 1970, as a seventeen-year-old, she first met under-19s player Graham Gaunt. Two years later, in round 20 against Fitzroy, he played his first senior game for Richmond.

In the weeks before the 1976 season – and Graham having returned to Richmond after a stint with Oakleigh in the VFA – he and Carolyn married, in a union that bore two children and a home life at Brighton. Long after his playing days, the two of them moved to a farm at Springfield where she tended to her rose garden and, among other activities, worked with special needs children.

“Her other love was her Tiger family,” said Stephen Dale, giving a eulogy. “Every weekend she went to Melbourne to see her boys play, and on Wednesday nights she was at banner making where often she wouldn’t get home until one in the morning.”

Her husband was to move to Melbourne in 1978 where he played 69 games and kicked 32 goals in five seasons, but Carolyn’s stripes never changed. Once a Tiger, always a Tiger. Her heart remained true.

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The parish priest, Father Grant O’Neill, talked of the question of death, and how the spirit of a person might become a story, an explanation, that could endure and be kept alive. He pondered: “There has to be more to life than football?” None under the vaulted ceiling offered a response. Most fanned themselves with a copy of the liturgy.

Vince Morton, a Richmond cheer squad stalwart, stood and said a prayer for many in attendance. “Lord, we ask you, on behalf of Carolyn’s family to watch over and keep safe her supportive friends and Tiger family.”

It wasn’t the time to ask for a premiership. Hearts were already heavy enough.

To the sounds of James Blunt’s ‘Goodbye my lover’, a montage of photographs of Carolyn’s life were screened – family portraits; wearing a Richmond blazer; standing in front of a 1973 Weg premiership poster; with Nick Daffy; holding up Richmond numberplates – and in the parched midday heat there wasn’t a dry eye in the church.

She looked a beautiful woman, loved by all who knew her.

And it’s true, by the front steps of St Patrick’s Church in Kilmore and under a fierce blue sky, in languorous heat and with the road workers’ heavy machinery for now stilled in respect, the Richmond Football Club’s theme song rang out and a crepe paper banner was raised.

Between a bluestone arch and a waiting black hearse it was held aloft with august ceremony by her cheer squad friends. It meant so much for so many; this last walk of a Tiger, a last slow procession from the ground, the last rites of a fan.

A veil of black-and-yellow crepe paper, a passing – a deliverance – a home-grown memorialisation of death.

The priest in white robes swung his chained thurible under an unforgiving sun, blessing the scene with burning incense. Pall-bearers readied the coffin. A hot wind tugged at the banner.

And in a moment, in the tearing of paper, the crowd were as one and a death became life and life turned to death. And there was her epitaph, writ large, capitalised, in yellow, on a banner:

CAROLYN GAUNT – A TIGER FOREVER.

CHEERING ON THE TIGERS FROM HEAVEN.

Carolyn Gaunt (10 March 1953 – 7 January 2014), was farewelled at a funeral service at St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Kilmore, on Tuesday 14 January 2014. Carolyn’s mother, Brenda Palmer, works at Coles in Malvern where Dugald Jellie often shops. He seeks out her check-out, wanting to talk all things Richmond.

Photographs courtesy Vince Morton.