This feud is brought to you by the Scratcher Neal t-shirt in Nankervis Brothers Navy (also available in Goggin Grey).
Those old Pivotonians, they’ve had the wood on us. It’s been a rather large lump of lumber recently, old Tigger, wielded our way. We gave them Brad Ottens, in a trade for their benefit. We’ve given them goal kicking practice. We gave them a leg-up for their first premiership in goodness knows how many years.
Oh, we’re a benevolent club at Tigerland. Remember round 6 of the 2007 season – how could we forget? They had 20 goals on the board up to half-time, winning by 157. Some wag recently sent me a YouTube link to the first quarter. How quaint. It was our home game. It set a new benchmark; as Richmond’s highest score conceded (11 points more than the 211 Geelong kicked against us in 1989), and as Richmond’s biggest losing margin. Ouch, doubled.
Brett Deledio played that day. He had a kick. That’s it – he had one kick for the afternoon. But the thing is, up until they played us, Geelong had had a middling season. We ran them into form and never have they looked back. We taught them how to win. We practically arranged a dynasty and three premierships for them.
No need to thank us. Do we get any credit?
Remember Gary Ablett’s feats against us? He kicked 14 goals against us one day, playing the first half on a wing. Most blokes would be happy with 14 kicks, but God had to go and get 14 goals. In his 20 career games against Carlton, he kicked 58 goals. In 20 games versus North Melbourne, it was 88 goals. In his 20 games against us (18 wins, 2 losses) he booted 117 goals. We offered target practice. We gave him bagfuls.
Tony Greenberg, Richmond’s resident sage on all matters football, sent out a Tweet this week. Abletts v Tiges: Senior 18-2: Jnr 11-2. 29-4… It’s not a pretty scorecard, not for us Tiges.
Last year I caught a train to Kardinia Park and enjoyed the day. It was like a country carnival. I’ve not seen so many woolknits at the football for such a long time. I got to meet Billy Brownless. And the Geelong mascot. And mingle with the fans. And in the third quarter I was consumed by the smell of fried calamari wafting across the stands and thought for a moment I must be in the Greek Isles, a place I’ve never been to, but imagined it might be like this. What I can say about the day is that their home ground is picturesque, their fans are happy about life in general, and they have the best in-ground catering in the league. The calamari – Humboldt squid, I was told – was lightly fried, and salted, and cooked by retired husband-and-wife school teachers, and was delicious.
On the train on the way home I met historian Geoffrey Blainey. He barracks for Geelong. In ‘Football the Way it Was’, he wrote about Corio Oval and its heady aromas. “From the fires that cooked the saveloys came the scent of wood smoke, and it mingled with the tobacco smoke and beer.”
In that essay he offers also the perfect line on how our code has never stayed the same. “The game, in every generation, gains something and loses something.”
If a generation is 30 years, what have we gained recently, my dear Tigers? What good tidings have come our way? How much have we given? How generous have we been?
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰
I have been a Cat, and have the photographs to prove it. I played half a season for the Cooma Cats, at centre-half-back, in the lowest rung of the Canberra and District Football League, and was runner-up in the B&F count held at the local bowls club. I still have a pair of blue-and-white hooped socks, somewhere in a bottom drawer. I remember the season fondly. I remember it snowed at the first training session I attended, and half the team turned up wearing balaclavas, and I thought I’d joined a team of bank robbers.
There are few other footy clubs in the country like the Cooma Cats. There are few other footy clubs where such a cold wind can blow from the mountains late in the last quarter. Their home ground isn’t called Snowy Oval for nothing.
The Geelong Cats are altogether a different proposition. I have never been comfortable with them. I have hot-flushes whenever we come up against them. I am traumatised by recent results against them.
I cannot say I have any confidence for this Sunday’s game. I am numbed by the prospect. I’m not sure I want to be there. I am hoping for a miracle. I am heartened that no Ablett is playing.
Often, in games like this I make secret pacts with myself. If I do this, my team will do that; or vice versa. I set myself challenges. Goals. Targets.
So here’s one for Sunday: if my beloved Tigers get up and beat the Cats at the MCG, I will put on my new pair of Richmond socks bought recently from the Tigerland Superstore ($18, and half-a-size too small) and walk from Punt Road to Kardinia Park. Go on, Tigers! Make me do it! Make me go on a long walk, meditating all the way on all the little joys of being a Tiger.
This book of feuds is now closed.
The Geelong – Richmond Prelim Final of 1995 is always my most vivid ‘Geelong feud’ memory.
Getting beaten, no- soundly beaten, in the rain -the ever constant rain- of VFL Park that day ended the Tigers finals tilt that year. But after 13 years without a September soiree, us Tigers remained resolute, proud, loyal to the lads that played that day. Down by 10 goals or more, we sat, soaked and sodden and sang through the last quarter… “Oh we’re from Tigerland…”
We thought we were B.I.T (back in town), but it was the first of a few false dawns.
Ah TKYC, that’s the spirit! Singing in the rain, the cold September rain, and in the face of adversity. True Tiger spirit, we salute you!
TTBB
The only solace there was that if we had won that final, I think we would have the living suitcase knocked out of us by that Carlton team, men on a mission. And that would have been unbearable.
Hey Dugald-
I also remember the match at Kardinia Park when the Tiges won, under Terry Wallace – i think 2007. If I’m not mistaken, Nathan Brown was interviewed after the game and said something like, ‘it just goes to show we are on the track and we’re on to something’.
Andy
Ah, TKYC, such memories.
Do you also recall how the team, battered and worn down by two previously hard-fought finals and missing some top players, came across and clapped their supporters who stayed on until the bitter end?
I think that was the first time a team, victorious or defeated, came across and acknowledged their supporters after a game. At least, I’d like to think it was.
My small satisfaction with all the defeats we have suffered at the hands of the Cats is that, in some small way, they seem to think it makes up for losing that 1967 grand final.
Do you know what? It doesn’t come close!