Richmond Football Club

North Adelaide Dreaming

22/04/2015 By Andy 7 Comments

#10 for the Tiges, Titch, Shedda, Shane Edwards, photo by Dugald Jellie

Arms outstretched; the ball falls downwards; hovering in space before being struck with the right foot. So many photos of Shane Edwards evoke the ideal image of the footballer as athlete. Weight shifting, ball tucked under an arm or grasped tightly between two hands, waist high before making the kick. Edwards body is twisting; his eyes looking in the opposite direction to which he seems to be moving. His elbows pointing outwards as he looks up field. Don’t call it just a sport, this is a corporeal art. His masterstroke is that of taking the ball at pace, reading it off a pack and those quick steps which make an empty space for him. A goal or two a match, always necessary. His absence always felt.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Shane Edwards says in a video on the Richmond Football Club website, regarding his experience with the Indigenous All-Stars:

“Drummo has come up. Which has been real important. He is not much of a talker. He is more of a listener. Which has helped make me a bit more of a talker. I was always worried that I didn’t know enough to have an opinion on things.

Learning about who I [am] has had a direct influence on how I play football. Knowing more about myself means that I can be more of myself on the field. It is hard to explain, but … it means, I’ll be the best me out there [on the field] – [it means] I’m not trying to emulate other players. I’ve learned to speak when I should. Give my share when I should. I’m not going to learn more, if I don’t express things. I always have people telling me how old I am, [as] I have been in the system for, going on, nine years. So, hopefully I have learned enough to know a few things.

Arrernte Country, Elizabeth (home of Central Districts, club of Greg Edwards), Prospect Oval (North Adelaide), Punt Road

Telling some mates about where I was going, they said how much fun I would have. But, when I got there, it was this dark, historical place, where some horrific things happened. I was really embarrassed that I didn’t know more. It was such a massive event in my history.

[The week with the Indigenous All Stars] was really fun; it was a really great experience. I have wanted to do it for a long time. It was an honor to be on the field with the other players. Like Shauny Bourgoyne. I was really impressed with Jack Martin.

[…] I was really proud to have the jumper on. My family would be proud of me, all my friends. And all my teammates [from Richmond] would be proud of me. They sent me a lot of text messages before the game. Having the game at the end of the week was a bit of a bonus. The week was a lot more about learning about [our] culture. I formed a closer relationship with every guy there.”

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

The field of Prospect Oval, North Adelaide, is empty. It’s past 6pm and the sun is burning. Night seems a long way off. A lone runner jogs past. The streets are quiet. There is no movement in the air; Adelaide in early January. Overhead some birds tweet joyfully, moving on somewhere else. The field, empty as it is, is in perfect nick. The wings, the Robran end and the Farmer end have become a part of an outfield across which a leather sphere is belted to the boundary. Here is a public facility; a field on which the traces of past legends remain. A green expanse torn by studded boots. The field is an empty vessel upon which mortals pass and in which fans pour their dreams and imaginations, rendering those mortals into legends.

My father tells me, pontificating, ‘that man, Barrie Robran, he was the best. Simply, the best. Gary Ablett Jr has nothing on him.’ I scoff, believing that in his memory Mr. Robran has become somewhat better than he really was. But, I’m uneducated, I never saw Mr. Robran play and the YouTube clips can’t do him justice. My father gets angry at my incredulity. I’ve never seen him get angry in a conversation about a footballer. Never. I seem to have touched a nerve. For him, sport, footy so easily becomes ‘a waste of time’. And then it comes out: ‘those dirty Victorians rubbed him out in a State of Origin game and he was never the same.’ My father, who has lived and made his home in Melbourne for 40 plus years reveals himself to still feel South Australian, moreover, a North Adelaidian. ‘Leigh Matthews did a job on him.’ And, ‘he, Robran, was an absolute gentleman; he played in the true spirit of the game’. Robran turned down many invitations to play in Victoria: he only wanted to play for North Adelaide.

The view from the Robran End, January 2015

I don’t want to argue with my father about Robran’s skill as a player; I never saw him play. And I don’t particularly care; I believe in my father’s imagination. The memories that the ground has evoked are real. I tell him that I believe that Barrie Robran was no doubt a cut above the rest. This is Robran’s beauty. A few weeks later, I meet up with Ned Wilson, a friend from the olden days and he tells me, plainly ‘my dad [Ray Wilson, 1971 Hawthorn Premiership player], says the same’. Perhaps Robran’s greatest legacy is the manner in which he played the game and the respect he earned from other players, and of course, supporters.

Every wing needs its trees

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Again, I want to write about Shane Edwards. Partly because he can stake a claim to being one of the game’s least intrusive figures. He is softly spoken and shy by all reports. His style of play is that of the consistent and skilful. Edwards has a light frame and a calm demeanour: probably outdated statistics have him at 180cm and 71 kilograms. No wonder he was a keen basketball player. His celebrations are never over the top and he appears well-liked by his team-mates. Edwards pops up in the background of the videos the Club puts up regarding the lives of some the Club’s bigger name players. Edwards, still looking young and playing youthfully, has become a senior member of the Club. He is a regular and doesn’t have to fight for his spot in the team. Some time ago, a journalistic mistake was made and it was said that there Troy Taylor was Richmond’s only Indigenous player. The mistake was quickly corrected; Edwards asserted his identity. Caroline Wilson not only apologised to Edwards but also included this apology in her article on Edwards, “Living the Dream” (The Age 19th May, 2012).

Shane Edwards wore the White-V of North Adelaide for 10 games; his father though, played for Central District, but is currently CEO of North Adelaide. Shane’s younger brother, Kym, currently plays for North Adelaide. Who was the scout who saw him at Prospect Oval? What were the impressions made? Punt Road Oval, next to the frequently clogged north-south artery of inner-eastern Melbourne, lacks the old-style grace of a suburban Adelaide oval – with its trees providing shade on the eastern wing. Edwards brings a part of it though, through his polite manner and use of such terms as ‘the pill’ for the ball. Adelaide has its own footy landscape and terminology: the point posts are red and a banana is a checkside.

During the off-season between 2014-15 Edwards was a part of the Indigenous All-Stars team. The Richmond Football Club, whether or not it has x number of Aboriginal players on its list, makes a significant contribution to supporting Melbourne’s and Victoria’s Aboriginal community through its Korin Gamadji Institute. Richard Tambling, now working for the AFL in Central Australia, was a part of the process in landing this facility at the Club, that was eventually opened by the very honourable, very respectful Julia Gillard, Western Bulldogs supporter and former Prime Minister. The KGI offers numerous programs for Aboriginal youth. That it is linked with the Club perhaps makes it both appealing and legitimate for those who are targeted for its programs. Of course, one of Richmond’s most notable former players, Maurice Rioli, needs no introduction. The esteem in which he is held was evident in the moving statements upon his untimely death. The beauty of his skill as a player lives on in the memories of fans, regardless of team; his contribution to his communities continually appreciated and remarked upon.

Edwards Jumpers

The AFL is very pro-active in promoting its openness, inclusivity and stance of anti-racism. Mr.Demetriou unequivocally condemned Matt Rendell’s comments that Aboriginal players might need one white parent in order to be drafted by an AFL club. Demetriou denied that any kind of context could make the comments legitimate. I see the AFL’s pro-active stance towards combating racism, sexism and prejudice in its many forms, as part of a recognition that it failed not only generations of Aboriginal players, but, also that it grossly mishandled the Long-Monkhorst case of 1993. The AFL makes strong overtures at being welcoming to Aboriginal players. The Clubs, for all their efforts too, can’t deny that they’re in ‘the business of winning’ and that selection for the main team is extremely competitive. Players who don’t conform and reach the required standards won’t be selected just because it is a nice story to have them in the team. Richmond has had some notable cases where Aboriginal players haven’t been able to make a career at the Club: Troy Taylor, Relton Roberts, Jarrad Oakly-Nicholls, Richard Tambling. Every year, plenty of players fall by the wayside, and as Robbie Burns has pointed out on the Marngrook Footy Show, ‘it is not just Aboriginal players, it’s many from the country’.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Visiting Prospect Oval in North Adelaide created a new conversation between my father and I. He found a moment to passionately his state his personal experience of watching the game. His father, Bon, my grandfather, had played in the reserves for North Adelaide, and later on, when dad was a boy, they would go to games together. He pointed to the spot on the terrace where they would most often stand to watch games. They would park their car at my father’s grandparents house, have lunch and go to the game. He told me they would invariably walk home complaining about the umpiring. During my teenage years though, he no longer seemed to be into footy, or at least watching it live. Art, was his thing and so it was a surprise to see him claim Prospect Oval as a central part of his childhood memory. I think of him taking my brother and I to games as boys, more out of our demands than for his own wishes. But, perhaps he enjoyed the footy more than he let on.

Shane Edwards – of Arunta and German descent, son of Greg – footballer and Tara – basketball player, and brother of Kym, North Adelaide player – plays the game with skill, balance and poise. Like the imposing Ivan Maric, he speaks softly and only occasionally to the press. He is not given to overstatement, boasting or showboating. But, as with other players likes a goal as much as the next. Footy facilitates a path into the nation’s history; one that involves tragedy, movement and reconciliation. Perhaps it was Edward’s move to Richmond which opened the opportunity for coming to terms with his background. He is proud. Regardless of games played, goals scored, finals won, he will leave a legacy with the Club. The Edwards name will belong to both North Adelaide and Richmond.

Trevor Fuller, engineer and art gallery director, remembers

*Thanks to Swish Schwerdt for pointing out that the Central Districts jumper was different to the one I included above. It was more like this:

This video here shows Greg Edwards playing against the Tigers (of Glenelg). Stephen Kernahan is playing for Glenelg and John Platten is playing for Central Districts. Centrals win by a lazy 100+ points. Bruce McAvaney is the host of The Big Replay.

**My father emailed to say, “I always enjoyed that as an opportunity to be with you both [my brother and I at the footy] and to be able to communicate something around the game; have that fun kicking the ball on the oval afterwards in that cacophony of kids, dads and balls in the fading light and for you to get among the footballers in the club room after and garner a few autographs and have a few words with some stars and favourites.” And, on his taste for footy/sport: “I do marvel at the talent of the sportsmen. I don’t like the aggressive macho overhyped stuff that goes with the mercenary media.”

***Aunty Kip: “Robran was that good. He was like a ballet dancer, with his graceful, humongous leaps to mark the ball. And painfully shy, as well.” I’m into the ballet analogy. Perhaps footy is some kind of ‘heavyweight ballet’.

****Aunty Kip, remembers her experience of watching Barry Robran, Rodney Robran, Neil Sachse and Dennis Sachse, through this video of the 1973 Glenelg v North grand final. She says, “I was there”.

*****Shane Edwards sent a message to say that he very much appreciated the article. This kind of acknowledgement was very generous of him. It also suggests to me that professional footballers might want more out of their careers than just a good salary and adulation.

Footy in January

31/03/2015 By Andy Leave a Comment

The light is sharper and the grounds are dryer. The heat is incongruous with the game. The players train in shorts and boots; training jumpers are quickly discarded. Trays of energy drinks line the boundary. Club websites put up video highlights of players in super super slow motion; spurting their drinks into mouths agape. Sweat drips from brows. The videos show thunderous tackles. An ambivalent moment; fans can either be pleased with the tackle or disappointed that their own player has been caught so easily. Whatever.

Summer is no time for the casual fan; it’s only die hard enthusiasts who are hanging about at the grounds. Trainings happen during work hours. Those who watch are either unemployed, underemployed, students or on holidays. Watching training. And training becomes something off limits as the season approaches; clubs want to protect their ‘intellectual property’ – i.e. their tactics, their systems, their strategies.

At one training, I see a player stop and talk with a young man who has slow and slurred speech. The brief conversation is a gesture; a recognition of a young fan’s enthusiasm for the team. The player knows it is a business, professional, but, for us fans – want to believe that it is make believe. Workers from nearby offices come and sit on the mounds of the old Arden Street ground. The president is in thongs, shorts and t-shirt.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Being absent for the forthcoming season, I tried to visit a number of grounds and training venues. Arden St, Western Oval, Junction Oval, Brunswick St.Oval, Punt Road of course, the Old Vic Park, Gosch’s Paddock (generally for the public). I did some running training at the West Pac Centre oval with Campbell Maffett’s running group Love the Run. I wanted to taste footy. I visited the excellent Richmond Football Club Museum, curated by Mr. Roland Weeks. I gave my $5 donation and felt ridiculous. I dropped by the MCG shop and picked up some retro footy cards, but, didn’t make it to the MCC library or the Museum proper. I regret it. I imagined it required concentration; a few hours for a visit.

The grounds were in varying state of repair; but only Vic Park brought back any real memories of my own attendance at the footy. The Western Oval was being altered so that it could be properly secured and so that people would indeed have to pay to attend the practice match against the Tiges. Punt Road was well and truly closed to the public. I was unlucky and didn’t manage to watch the team train. I wouldn’t have minded a photo with Bachar Houli, Shane Edwards or Nathan Foley, just for the hell of it. Their sessions were either closed, held elsewhere or, I had something else on. No matter. I would have put the photo by laptop; the photo could have been my talisman for the upcoming season.

I rang the club regarding the Korin Gamaadji Institute and was met with a cold response: ‘all the information you need is on the website’. Defence was the default setting. I am writing a paper on ‘sport and discrimination’ and using material from the AFL and Richmond in particular. I’ll get my information from other sources, methought. Shane Edwards has a video on the Club’s website about his experience in learning about his Aboriginal identity. It is something that he has grown into throughout his footy career. Footy has fostered his Aboriginal identity; but once, several years ago, he was mistakenly regarded as not being Aboriginal.

Before popping into Mr.Weeks’s RFC museum, a man in the corridor said to me, ‘there is nothing for the public here’, while talking on his mobile phone. Oh really? A peculiar interaction. I got out of his personal space and waited. Matt Dea (or, I think it was) walked past and said, howareyamate in one syllable and with a half-smile. Polite. Inside, Nick Vlastuin and ‘some other bloke’ were talking with Mr.Weeks. I waited some more. When I finally did enter, Mr.Weeks shared his experiences as a collector and fan and curator. And then, I felt I had to go. I thanked him and left. When I left, Bev (I would later learn she was Bev Brock) was interviewing Roland about his work as a volunteer.

I went up to the Melbourne Sports Book Shop in Brunswick. My father laughed upon seeing that I had paid 20 bucks for Mischa Merz’s excellent book on her training as an amateur boxer. He has no time for boxing and I doubt he has heard of the book. I also paid 10 for Jack Dyer’s book, on the hard men of footy. Both probably could have been bought cheaper online, but, I was in a hurry and I wanted to support a local bookshop owner rather than Amazon.

I went to the ramshackle but charming Fitzroy Football Club in Mordialloc (http://fitzroyfc.com.au/) and bought a replica old-school Fitzroy jumper. The curator said, ‘wear it with pride’. I told him could probably wear it 300 days out of the next year, given that I’d be living in The Netherlands. I have never supported Fitzroy, but, I love that jumper; well-crafted and snug. I put it on and think of the greatness of the Richmond Football Club and that horror-show when the Tiges smashed the Lions at the MCG in their last Melbourne game.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

I met Dugald and Chris and we watched the football (Australia v Kuwait) at the pub on Flinders St. It was an odd meeting; between knowing and not knowing the other. The word in Indonesian is ‘kopdar’, an abbreviation of ‘kopi darat’, ‘coffee on land’. The term is used when people who previously have only known each other online, meet up, face to face, ‘in the flesh’, the old term. I found both Dugald and Chris intimidating in their modesty. Both bigger and older; again I felt an interloper. And I also felt, here are three guys, having a quiet and subdued night out; both three guys who probably enjoy listening more than talking.

I did my footy-traipsing around Melbourne in too much of a hurry. For one reason or another, I bought a three-game Richmond membership. I said to Chris and Dugald, ‘I want to see if it changes my experience with the club’. But, I don’t expect anything back from the Club. I do hope the players don’t flaunt their privileged positions off the field; I hope they don’t get caught up in drugs and betting which influence the game. I hope the club is transparent regarding misdemeanours.

Time for me to come clean: I used to support Essendon up until 2002. I cried during the 1983 GF as the Hawks smashed the Dons. I cried the following year, this time with happiness, as Leon Baker and Timmy started in the last quarter. The 1993 preliminary final against the Crows was an absolute joy. And so was the game against the Eagles, I think in round 16. Strangely I never warmed to Hird. I liked Hardwick. I liked Mark Mercuri and Joe Misiti. Derek Kickett was one of my favourites. But then, after living in Indonesia for a couple of years, I came back to live in Richmond and I ditched Essendon in 2002, because I couldn’t stand their postulating, their grandstanding.

Give me a decade without finals, rather than deception and hubris regarding possible drug use. I hope my club is honest with its fans, listens to its fans, plays for its fans. With each passing year, I realise that I admire the Club, because of the hope it creates amongst its fans. And moreover, I have seen that the culture of the fans has changed over this past 10 or so years. The fans have showed that they’re better than what their worst reputation can be. There is no more spitting at coaches after a bad loss, and, poor players are less frequently berated too offensively (fans always reserve the right to be disappointed). The fans are patient with the players; and the players too need to earn the respect of the Tiger army.

The Club believes in itself and invites us supporters to believe in it, too. I hope for gutsy wins, honourable defeats and less slow-mo and less-razzamatazz.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

There is a grey area between thoroughness, detail and obsessiveness. Perhaps writing about footy in January and visiting old grounds lies on the wrong side of adult behaviour. Being a fan can so easily lead to being scorned and ridiculed. Supporters wear their own suffering as a badge of honour, as indication of their unwavering dedication. I’m trying to take this with a grain of salt. I’m hoping only for steady progress from the team. Give us players who wear the jumper with genuine pride. Let’s be supporters in the ways we’re capable of – lest our club end up in a museum.

Get Your Logo Off Our Jumper

08/07/2014 By Andy Leave a Comment

Chris Rees wrote an article recently, imploring the RFC for the team to ‘go clean’ in 2015. He included a photograph of Trent Captain and others wearing RFC jumpers with the Jeep logo missing. Rather than appearing ‘original’, the jumper appeared a little naked. We have become so used to seeing the jumper adorned (or besmirched) with advertisements that what is actually a kind of visual pollution, has become the norm, rather than the exception. Rees’s argument is convincing. Rees argues that the RFC, in order to win back some credibility after its appalling 2014 season (it was over by June), the Club should show that it is aware of its traditions and willing to give some substance to its forever repeated phrase, ‘like the Tigers of old’. The team of 2014 are not playing to win; not fighting and fighting until the end. They’re soft and indifferent. This is virtually the same team that played so well and captured the enthusiasm of many other teams’ supporters throughout 2013. This is a World Cup year, so there is plenty of other football to watch. But, no doubt many Tiger fans would still prefer to be enjoying their local team playing the local game.

Rees argues that the Club should remove the advertisements of Jeep and Bingle from the Team’s jumpers (front and back) and shorts. Hell, they’re probably on their socks too. Well, if they’re not, perhaps there is more advertising space. Given the Club’s history of ignoring its fans, it is unlikely that Rees’s calmly reasoned, logical argument will be given the time of day inside the (proudly impenetrable) four walls at RFC Headquarters. Perhaps an easier way of convincing the Club to re-consider the corporatisation of the RFC jumper is to first convince the players.

***

The primary problem with this though is that the players themselves already have seemingly direct individual relationships with the Club’s sponsor – Jeep. The players themselves drive Jeeps. For them to be seen in a Jeep furthers Jeep’s image as a sporty, macho and tough car. The late Tommy Hafey also drove one. He was a Tiger of Old – one of the men whose legend is central to the myth-making at Tigerland. Unlike the current team, however, Tommy was resilient, gutsy, and of great integrity. If he received a few easy bonuses late in his great life, well, he bloody well deserved them.

Yellow and Black

Hashim Amla, a South African cricketer, is one player to have stood up to his country’s sporting board and to have asked to wear a shirt that doesn’t bear the logo of a company he doesn’t believe in. Amla is no ordinary cricketer – arguably one of the best batsmen in the world. He has the statistics, reputation and respect of his peers to back this up. He is well-liked in his team and popular amongst his countrymen and cricket fans throughout the world. Why? He is non-fussed and he scores runs easily and plays in the spirit of the game. Because of his integrity, consistency and straightforwardness, the team’s management acquiesced: they let him wear a shirt without the Castle logo. A little earthquake; a small, but bold change.

Winning smile

During the 1990s, former basket-ball player and global icon, Michael Jordan was asked if he would endorse the campaign of Harvey Gantt to become Democratic senator. Jordan simply said, ‘republicans buy sneakers too’. The message was clear enough: Jordan didn’t want his line of Nike shoes to become ideologised. They were to remain neutral. He feared that his endorsement of Gantt would marginalise Republican voters. Perhaps, Republicans are smarter than he thinks and they are actually able to differentiate what is good for their feet and what (they think) is good for the nation. Perhaps they are not smarter than that. Jordan’s loyalty to Nike was such that, when accepting the Gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics he came up with the novel approach of draping himself in a US flag in order to cover up the Reebok logo on the official Team USA tracksuits. A bold nationalist statement was the best way to gazump the demands of corporatism. One doesn’t become a billionaire by accident, shrewdness is necessary.

Convenient Nationalism

And then there is the case of the Algerian national football team at this year’s World Cup. They returned home to a hero’s welcome and no doubt many great financial rewards and opportunities. They rode their bus through the centre of Algiers atop their bus covered in Algerian flags. In the middle though was also a Palestinian flag. The captain would later announce that the team was donating the money to a Palestinian charity. Why? “Because they need it more.” Sometimes such decisions can be made so easily and in an uncomplicated manner. The players no doubt would have been happy with their well-deserved bonus, but, no, they didn’t ‘need’ the money like those who live with daily limitations placed upon them in their efforts to live, to play, to work.

Pride, well and truly in tact

Richmond footballers are rewarded handsomely regardless of whether or not their performances are good, average or below par. The Club accepts money from a problematic sponsor such as Sports Bet. The Club’s main sponsor is Jeep – a macho, expensive and polluting vehicle. Some too might find such cars excessive in a time of environmental awareness, and well, to put it mildly ‘austerity’. I wonder what percentage of Tiger fans drive and can afford Jeeps. Call my work pathetic, but, I’d only have to translate 2,000 pages in order to ‘drive away’ with one of Jeep’s cars, oops, SUVs. I’d love to see my next work of translation to be published by Lontar Foundation with a huge logo on it: “JEEP: We love our Indonesian Literature as much as we Love the Tiges”.

At the same time, I wonder, does the Richmond Football Club have players making a stance in the manner of Hashim Amla who can reject the Club’s sponsorship or the entire Algerian football team who forego the payment of bonuses?. Or, does the Club only have players in the mould of Michael Jordan, who are only wanting to protect their financial interests? Come on Tiger players, don’t hold back.

Mozz Confession

23/06/2014 By Andy 2 Comments

Mozz: exert a malign influence [on someone]; jinx. Australian informal. Etymology: mozzle, from the late 19th century, Hebrew, mazzle for ‘star’ or ‘luck’.

Mid-week viewing for the Tiges?

I have a confession to make. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Late last year, I was making my plans for where I would be in 2014. I was speaking with my mother – calling her from Leiden, Zuid Holland, The Netherlands to Glen Iris, 3146 Victoria, Australia. ‘When do you think you’re coming home?’ she asked. I thought home was where I was calling her from, but, no, she was right, ‘home’ is not only about the past, but, also about where one imagines to be in a few years and where one can imagine the delightful and oppressive thing called the future. (‘Home, pick me up and take me there’ – David Byrne sings in his Talking Heads song, This Must Be the Place.)

Home: 3/10 Rolls Court, Glen Waverly

But, forgive me, dear readers, this is where I made my mistake. Forgive me: I made a mozz. From nowhere, from out of the blue – like a Gowser long ball to Timmy Cahill right after Arjen Robben’s goal – the mozz descended and I verbalised it, without realising what I was doing. I said. I said it. I. Said. It. ‘Probably around late August, early September, for around a month.’ I was timing my stay in ‘Melbourne Home’ to coincide with the bloody finals. I said it: ‘and I can’t even begin to mention what I might happen then’. A gentle mozz, indeed. But, my mother knew what I was talking about. What I was imagining was this: a Brett Deledio long bomb on the run sailing through the goals at the Punt Road end to confirm Richmond’s place in the Prelim and thus giving them a shot at the Granny. Not so much to ask, imagine, hope for, really?

From another galaxy, far far away

I should have just bloody said it literally: I’m coming back to Melbourne in September 2014 to watch the Tiges play in the finals. I expect them to reach the preliminary final at least and I expect it to happen at the MCG and I expect myself to be there, replica jersey + scarf + whatever else. I expect to drink a beer served by a breasty blonde at the Royal beforehand, even though I don’t drink, just to gauge the mood of the fans. I expect expect expect demand demand demand. I expect to meet TTBB founder and champion Dugald and Collaborator Chris and commentors and others.
But, my plans for August/September 2014 have changed and I won’t be in Melbourne. And so have the plans and expectations of Bachar, Ivan, Brett, Trent , Steve and others. Not to mention esteemed Damien and venerable Peggy. Brendan, I guess he would have been planning to be in Melbourne too. Methinks there isn’t another World Cup happening in Brazil in September. But, maybe there is. Perhaps there is a handball world championship happening somewhere else. Perhaps there is a Real Tennis world championship – perhaps Mr.Rob Fahey already wants to defend his title only after a couple of months and break with long-standing, anachronistic tradition. I’m not coming back to Melbourne for the Flower Festival, the Comedy Festival or the World Championships for Best Bloody Barista and Coffee Artist. I put the mozz on the Tiges and I apologise. Moreover, I didn’t even stick to my own schedule of August/September 2014 – do I really have any right to expect them to win 12 ++ games? Why should they stick to the schedule I imagine for them, if I’m not even able to stick to my own schedule. Richmond FC, Damien and Trent and Brett in particular, I ask for your forgiveness for mozzing you. For befalling that mozz upon you. I repent. I apologise.

***

And so we, yes, we – all of us – all 40 odd players, all hundreds of staff, all 60,000 members, all of those who pressed the ‘like’ button on the RFC Facebook page, we’re now 3 and 10. If you asked me before the season what 3-10 was I’d say it was the train departing Richmond Station for Glen Waverly from platform 9. I’d say it was the price of coffee at Flavours of Lakhoum on Swan Street from a few years ago made by that master Barista Chris Phillips who can’t help himself but draw portraits on your cappuccino or long macchiato. That man’s a genius let’s not muck about. ‘3-10 to Yuma’ is a film by James Mangold and gets a score of 4 stars on IMDB. I’m not sure what the hell 3-10 helix is but Google and Wikipedia tells me that such a thing exists. Do we, all tens of thousands give a damn? Let’s look at that roll-call of glory. Lame losses to Gold Coast, Western Bulldogs, Collingwood, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Melbourne, Freo and the latest to the team formerly known as South Melbourne. And let’s not forget the lameness of those three wins: fledgling GWS, who-knows-what and who-knows-when Carlton and wooden-spoon favourites Brisbane Lions. What the heck it was probably the Brisbane Lions who mozzed the Tiges. Let’s imagine their board meeting last years: ‘wow those Tiges down south are doing great. Let’s get their defensive coach as our main coach. Woooh-hoooh! Hello September!’

The 3:10 to Flinders St

But no, seriously, I need to think about this thing called ‘the mozz’. The mozz exists. The mozz is real. Hell knows commentators are always talking about it. Not just commentators too but those folks in the stands: ‘you mozzed him’. ‘You put the mozz on him.’ I did what? Where did I put it on him? How come I can’t see it? It’s abstract, invisible, intangible. A curse perhaps. A curse? My god, are we all potential witch-doctors in waiting? But, being a witch-doctor is no ordinary skill. It takes years of practice and learning to be able to keep Cristiano Ronaldo out of a World Cup with a knee injury. Or, at least, threaten to ruin his world cup by giving him knee problems leading up to the World Cup. Come one: some guy sitting up in the Northern Stand saying, ‘I reckon he’ll kick this’ is hardly equal to some sturdy knock-about fella who can walk on hot coals and not get burnt, sleep on nails and swallow poison without becoming sick. Nup methinks that fine art of witch-doctoring is something else.

Let’s not forget the ‘reverse mozz’. This is something I learnt from the esteemed anthropologist Dermott Brereton. I think he is a Professor, so he no-longer bothers with the titles of Dr or PhD this or that. Anyway, Brereton theorised the possibility of the ‘reverse mozz’: this is what happens when, rather than talking up one’s chances of kicking the bloody captain’s goal, one utters a statement which denounces its likelihood of eventuating. ‘The ball shall not sale through the uprights’. ‘His legs are suffering from a temporary inflammation caused by over exertion. The trajectory shall be wayward.’ I can’t remember in which journal the article appeared – forgive me – I aint not a scholar. But Brereton said it and I believe it: the reverse mozz is just as likely, but a whole lot rarer, than the typical, traditional, conventional, orthodox mozz.

Dermott Brereton, anthropologist, doing his fieldwork

‘The mozz’ is most generally used in the phrase ‘to put the mozz on [someone]’. Or, in the Tiges case, a whole bloody team. When Richo played, I made sure I never watched him kicking for goal from a set shot. I’d look downwards or towards the pockets and wait for the crowd’s reaction to tell the story of whether or not the Pig Skin had penetrated the Uprights. I admit: on one or two occasions I had such unflappable belief in his right-leg that I would watch him project the Egg-Shaped Ball towards the Perpendiculars. Maybe it went through; probably it didn’t. Such occasions only reinforced my suspicion that I shall not watch him. Fine, if he kicks a goal on the run – spontaneously and accidentally – all well and good – I can watch that; that, afte rall, leaves no moment for a mozz to be placed on him.

***

And this is what I couldn’t believe: throughout the whole 2013 season I kept on putting the mozz on the Team in one way or another – believing we could win when it seemed obvious we would cave in at the last moment. Watching a game live when it would have been safer to check the score first and then watch the replay in the safety of knowing that we had won. I mozzed them repeatedly. But the team bucked my mozz; they were impervious to it. Until that bloody second half against those spoilsports from Carlton. I sat in dumb silence at the sheer bloody pleasure of that first half. The Tiges, oh Richmond, playing like Bloody Geelong, Sydney or Hawthorn – at home in the mild September warmth on that manicured surface of the Em Cee Gee. Oh you beauty; oh what a schemozzle. And I so I thought, no problem, I’ll just go and tell me mum that I is coming back in August/September to watch those Tiges in September and give myself the chance to go to a home final and, if lucky, a home-preliminary final. I mozzed them because I believed in them. I believed that I was insignificant. But this is how the mozz works: the more insignificant one is – in the whole bloody scheme of things – the greater the power of one’s mozz.

Peggy, Damien, Brendan, Trent, Brett, Ivan et al. I apologise. So – no, us Tiges haven’t lost all of these games because of missed goals, missed tackles, dropped marks etc etc. It’s because, me, I, myself, mozzed the team some time back in November 2013. My apologies, guys. I know it sounds self-important of me. But, that’s the reality. Hard to believe that my mozz could be more powerful than Brett Deledio’s biceps, Dusty Martin’s core, Ivan’s chest (let alone mullet). But it is. ‘It is what it is.’ ‘It is what it is.’ (Hehehehehe. I even know how to talk like a footy player.) I apologise to you too Dugald (next year’s No.1 Ticket Holder), Chris, Skippy, Trout, Glen, Mark, John, Peter, Roger. Whoever else. Those kids who were jumping up and down in the second quarter. You blokes in the cheer squad. You sheilas and fellas making the banner in school halls on lonely, rainy Wednesday nights. One and all. Apologies. My fault. My bad. The mozz it happens and once it happens it cannot be undone. Someone please, someone else, unmozz the mozz I carelessly, shamelessly, put – placed upon the venerable Richmond Football Club, the Tiges, our beloved Tiges.

What us fools, those outside of the four walls, think