Kangas v Tigers: Same family, different colours
When my eldest sister was born, she could hardly breathe. Unknown to my parents at the time, in a hospital ward in Shropshire, England, in the winter of 1965, she came into this world tangled in her umbilical cord. It wrapped around her neck. In those vital moments of life, she gasped for oxygen and none came to her brain.
My eldest sister lives still with our elderly father, has a part-time job in a supermarket cleaning and stacking shopping baskets, and she’s a whizz at finding the nine-letter word, or remembering numberplates and birth dates, and you couldn’t know of someone more loyal to family. But she has trouble balancing, a poor diet, cannot manage her finances, needs assistance with personal grooming, has a limited social circle, and can hardly look after herself.
Truly, many times I’ve no idea what goes through her head. I worry about her. I’m protective of her. I cannot understand her. She barracks for North Melbourne.
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰
Last season, I received an email from a Richmond fan that stripped me bare.
Sent by Philip Jupp, from his smart phone, he wrote:
I have followed each blog you write and appreciate the love you have for our great football club. That piece this week in regards to Nick’s [Vlastuin] first goal and the gratitude to Chris Knights [knee injury] makes me proud to support the yellow and black. My whole heart goes out to Knighter after the last couple of seasons riddled with injuries, to just get back to near his best and then succumb to another season ending injury brings a tear to my eye. My 12-year-old boy, while mentally as sharp as an axe, is wheelchair bound and suffers from cerebral palsy. For years I was in denial regarding Jayden’s condition, even in the early years selfishly despising him for his condition AS IF IT WERE HIS FAULT. Then one day about six years ago he had somehow grabbed my RFC scarf, tangled it in his electric wheelchair and sped around the house to get my attention and take me to the lounge room where RICHMOND was playing. He pointed and cheered hysterically as the replay of a goal Brett Deledio had kicked was being replayed. From this moment on we have been members and go to every Melbourne-based game there is. The Richmond football club united my son and myself in a way I will be eternally grateful, and I owe them so much.
I just wanted to share this love for the RFC to another person that I know shares it to the same intensity.
GO TIGES
Regards, Phil Jupp
Phil’s openness and honesty, his selflessness – grieved by the knee injury to Chris Knights, when he’s faced with a lifetime of caring for his son – made me gasp with gratitude. There is wonder in this world, there is bravery.
He wasn’t to know of my sister, and her cerebral palsy. He wasn’t to know how having a sister with a disability has profoundly shaped my life and those too, of my parents and other siblings. He wasn’t to know how immediate the issue of disabilities – mindful always of the welfare of another, how society treats them, how they might be unfairly disadvantaged – has always been for me.
Ever since I’ve been conscious to the emotions of others, I’ve been conscious to my sister’s condition. I needed to contact Phil. I needed to tell him this. I needed to look him up. I needed to meet Jayden at the football.
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰
My eldest sister has barracked for North Melbourne since the drawn 1977 Grand Final – the first to be broadcast live on television – which we watched at my grandparents’ house, beside Barongarook Creek on an edge of Colac. Each year, her devotion to the Kangaroos grows only stronger, becomes more committed.
She wanted me to join her to the football on Sunday night, when my heart was hardly in it. She wanted the company. Our father has bought her a reserved seat membership for the past eight years, and she goes to every Melbourne game she can, and family days at Arden Street, where she adds to her autograph collection.
She always goes alone. She sits by herself. And if her team wins, it’s a pleasure that thrills her for a week.
So she asks me to go and I cannot deny her, and on Sunday night I buy a ticket and try to sweet talk stadium officials into letting me sit in one of the many empty seats around her. They say no. My face knots in tears.
For a half a game of football, I stand in the concourse above her, on the wing in aisle 36, before a chorus of royal blue and white, with a cold wind on my back from the railway yards, with my sister below and dressed in all her regalia, and as she always has been: alone. Nobody else in the stadium knows her story. Nobody else in the stadium knows how much I love her. Nobody else knows what it would mean for both of us to sit at the football together – for her to show me a part of her life that means so much to her.
She has the Kangaroos; she has hope, she has a routine, she has everything.
But rules have no room of sentimentality, and I text her and say I’m standing with her up the back, and she should enjoy her seat and come and see me at quarter time. She texts back: “Dugs. Here’s a good race relations tip put Bachor Houli on Majak Daw!!!!!”
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰
All smiles: Jayden Jupp, 12, and his dad, Phil, at the football last season.
I met Phillip Jupp and his son Jayden at the football several times last year, to say hello but also to let them know I wanted to write a story about them. We had a loose arrangement that I’d catch a train and drive home with them after the Elimination Final last year. I wanted to write a story about the joy of leaving the football after a win. I wanted to write about happiness etched on Jayden’s face. I wanted to write about a father and his son, returning home from a game together, floating on victory, their lives removed temporarily from everyday realities.
But Richmond lost, and a dream was over, and all us fans wanted for was solace, alone, to lick wounds. Phillip and Jayden went their way; I went mine. At the time, there was only misery in that loss. Only despair.
I met Jayden first at the Adelaide game last year. He has the sweetest laugh, the sweetest smile. He was parked in a wheelchair bay, alongside his father, and Wayne Bradshaw, 48, from Wonga Park, who explained: “I broke my back 20 years ago and I’ve been coming to the footy ever since. I could never see life after Richo. I’m an old Tiger, I know how my team can break my heart.”
I watched part of the game with them. Deledio lined up for a set shot and Phil asked: “Is he going to kick it, Jay?” Jayden’s big smile of approval had ‘yes’ written all over it. Lids kicked the goal and it was high-fives all around.
“When we’re watching at home its white chocolate after a goal,” says Phil. “A piece of white chocolate. He loves white chocolate.”
Jayden at the MCG with his regular crowd, including Wayne on the right.
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰
Tigerman: A homemade Tiger toy given to Jayden by an elderly fellow Tiger supporter who sits a few seats up.
Standing alone at Etihad on Sunday night, among the North crowd, I warm to the occasion in the second quarter. Richmond kick goals. I see Trout on the TV monitor above. It’s my first viewing of Ivan this season, and this is reassuring. Dusty kicks around his body for a goal and pumps his fist and I pump my fist, too. Shane Edwards is like a pick-pocket up forward. And halfway through the second term I am proud of my team, and of Dusty, and think how so often they seem to play well when they’re off-Broadway – on a Sunday night, away, removed from the spotlight.
“C’mon North, pick up your game,” shrieks a woman nearby.
“Goldie, you’re getting towelled up, mate,” calls-out another.
“Stop whinging Aaron Black and GET THE FOOTY!”
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰
I had hoped to meet Phillip and Jayden at the game on Sunday night, but it wasn’t to be. Besides, I had my sister’s company. At quarter time, I had permission to meet her at the fence, and asked a stranger to take our photo. We must have looked a spectacle. I know she would be happy having such a fuss made over her. Family is everything to her. It is all she has.
At half time, in a light-headed mood, I asked if she’d like to join me in a visit to the Richmond cheer squad. I wanted to show her another football family. I wanted her to see how others celebrate football and the team they barrack for.
I cannot speak for other cheer squads, but what I like most about Richmond’s gathering is that it’s open to all. It is a family that looks after each other, and looks out for each other. I’ve thought often that a team is as good only as its weakest player, just as a club is as good only in how it looks after those most in need. Here is a beauty of football. All of us are equal as barrackers; we are as one in our passion for the game and our team. So long as we do not overstep certain rules and social mores, each of us has a place at the football.
It is a broad church, an accepting church, and a church that shelters so many who otherwise have so little voice in our community. The cliché is true. It is more than a game.
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰
Sunday night lights: (L-R) with big sis in the Richmond Cheer Squad (photo bombed by Yogi);
Ava Hosie, 5, all half-time smiles at the game with her grandparents;
on the wing filled with North members, “like a Tiger”.
For the second half, my sister and I are together at last. We find empty seats at the Coventry End, beside the Richmond cheer squad, and I raise my voice in approval, and my sister joins the orchestrated hand-clapping, and I remind her she need not barrack for my team. What I know about my eldest sister is that she’s easily swayed. She’s an easy target, easy to take advantage of. She wears her colours proudly, as she should. We knock knees. I tell her she needn’t feel afraid to shout out for North.
And this, in the second half, is her great good fortune.
All the play, all the celebration, all the joy and happiness, all the assured football is at their end. Nearby voices in the crowd tell of our sorrow.
“Where’s the microwave?”
“This is a MENTAL BREAKDOWN. It’s a BREAKDOWN.”
“What have they done to us?”
“I can’t see us coming back from here.”
“Bring the other team back.”
“C’mon Tigers, 34 years.”
“It’s a stupid game, anyway.”
Most of the commentary is good natured. There is shared resignation. We might have been up by six goals at half time, but none wearing yellow and black could sit easily with that. We are Richmond. We have history. We trade in heartbreak and disappointments. We can find the most careless of ways to lose a game.
In the last quarter, I find consolation trying to mark the ball behind the goals. I want a touch, a stat for the night. Others find consolation in gallows humour.
My big sister turns, and says: “This is not actually as feral as it is sitting around there in my seat.”
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰
We walk into the night together, my sister clutching my arm, unsteady on her feet, her voice hoarse, and on the way to the train and on the way from the station, I ask her to sing me the North theme song, and she delights in this. It intrigues that its lyrics include the word “recreation”. In an age of corporate football, it seems so quaint, so pure. It reminds that football is at its heart a pastime, a game, a winter folly, a bit of fun.
But there is little fun for us Tigers at the moment.
On Sunday afternoon, Stan Alves on ABC Grandstand radio gave a half-season report card on all clubs, and Richmond was the only team he adjudged a D. Fail. Of all the teams in the competition, we were an exception, as it seems our destiny is to be. Only us Tigers could manage to turn a game of football like that.
At game’s end I made my way to the nearby players’ race because I wanted to see the raw drama of the vanquished leaving the arena. Football, in times like these, it’s a blood sport. I wanted to see the body language of hurt. For these players, there must be a confusion of emotions: anguish, disappointment, shame, fear, resignation. Nothing feels as heavy in a football club as does the weight of loss.
What I hadn’t written in my notebook in the second half, was the invective from the Richmond crowd directed toward one of our own, Tyrone Vickery. Here was my dilemma. What’s to be gained in documenting this scorn? But if I don’t write it down, am I disregarding a truth? In times of recurring defeat, being a barracker is a fraught business.
But a lingering scene from the night came from the player’s race. Most of the participants had left the field. Damien Hardwick walked down the concourse – a lonely figure – and up above an incensed fan gave him a lungful of advice. “VICKERY CAN’T PLAY! VICKERY CAN’T PLAY!”
His voice was filled with venom and anger and spite and hurt, and a desperation that comes when a house of cards falls. His rage was powerful. It was a passion. But it made me think of how this club of ours is in such strife, pulling itself apart, filled with discord, in denial, bereft of answers, and now turning on itself. It was raw, and this rawness was honest and true.
On the way home I sent a tweet on the train: “I have a pain in my heart and its name is Richmond #noknowncure”
When going home, I thought of Philip and Jayden, and wondered how they might be feeling, what their response is to our club falling-in on itself. Would they ever turn their backs on the club? Could they ever look the other way? I think their hearts must be aching this winter.
My big sister came to our place to stay on Sunday night. I set her up to watch the replay of the second half, then turned away and ate half-a-tub of ice cream. She kept shouting out that she could see us in the crowd. She smiled and laughed. I was happy for her.
Tiger tiger burning (not at all) bright
Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com
Twitter: @dugaldjellie
Dugald, I’m pleased for your sister she got to sing the song. The part about out we come to play, just for recreation’s sake and pass the time away is beautiful. It’s the antithesis of eat em alive but still beautiful.
Phil, your son is a ripper. You should be very proud, what a great kid. Stick with the Tigers, Jayden, they really need you mate.
You’re a good man, Chris – and Jayden, he’s a ripper. And so too is his dad, taking him to the footy, as a father-son experience. I used to love it when my dad (a Bombers’ man) would take me to the footy. I didn’t care who was playing.. I must catch up with Phil and Jay again. FRP. Fine Richmond People. My big sister was over for dinner tonight and she’s still got a big smile on her face. She did not poke the bear.
TTBB
Loved your story it touched my hard old heart. I’m a tiger through and through but it let me know that in our own pain someone deserving gets pleasure!
Thanks Robert and yes, my sister is still chuffed about Sunday night. But me and Phil and Jayden, we feel rightly miserable!
TTBB
What lovely smiles on your sister and Jayden. True supporters both of them. I sent an angry tweet to @RichmondFC on my way home from the game and then guiltily deleted it the next day. I felt bad for having sent it. One must look to the bright side, the Tiger Tiger Burning Bright side….
Skip, I never knew you could delete a Tweet. There have been many this year I would care to delete. I think it was only natural to feel some anger on Sunday night. It’s a valid emotion. It means we don;t like giving-up, we don;t like surrendering so meekly. I’m still a bit angry. I should tweet that. “STILL ANGRY” [delete]
feel better now.
enjoy the World Cup
perfect timing
TTBB
Lovely piece Dugald and what lovely characters. Your sister is such a loyal fan and North is lucky to have her. As for Jayden, he could also teach us all a thing or two about loyalty. Let’s hope both get to enjoy a few more wins this year – they deserve it.
Good on you Cheryl, and thanks. Yes, my big sister is as loyal to North as a summer’s day is long. She doesn’t wash her jumper for fear of losing autographs (it does smell a bit). And Jayden, yes, I’m barracking for him and his dad for the rest of the season.
go tiges!
TTBB
I think to myself: For a club that succeeds only in failure – Geez they have some loyal fans!
Tiger Moz, it is in the blood, under the skin, in our hearts. You know how it is.
go tiges!
TTBB
Dugald, another great entry-am really hurting at the moment,cant believe what is happening but unfortunately I half expected it! How dare I have hope as a Tiger supporter.
Dave, getting cold up there in Splitters Creek on nights like these? Grand to hear from you, and hope you and the family are all dong well (despite this cursed football club of ours). What doesn’t kill us, only…
hurts a heck of a lot.
Hope to see you at the footy, if not down by the creek at your place.
TTBB
Great story Duges. A story of acceptance and unconditional love. Maybe its a coping mechanism, but over the years, ive come to understand, that the outcome of matches and seasons is incidental. Try this little exercise. Find an old Fitzroy supporter, and ask them what they miss about Fitzroy and the Junction Oval. There will almost certainly be nothing about winning in their answer.
Sage words, Tigergollywog. We are all but travelers here, it is the journey that so often is more rewarding than the final destination.
But try telling that to a Footscray supporter?
They would take the premierships and be done with it.
I am philosophical about this season.
I have long since turned grey.
It is the children I care for.
Lovely to hear from you, as always.
TTBB
Dugald, once again you worked your magic. I’ve been hurting really bad this week. I suppose one bright spot was that the match was not FTA as, somehow, a loss doesn’t seem so bad when heard on the radio.
The love you have for your sister warmed me and I actually felt pleased for her enjoyment of a great comeback and proud that she was accepted by the cheer squad even in her North finery.
Just on what Tigergollywog wrote – I can recall a game I went to at Brunswick Street (that dates me). It was about 1949 and we had no need to feel confident at that ground nor, indeed, for any time that we played Fitzroy but especially on their home ground. A dear friend of my father was a member of the Fitzroy club and he must have had a bit of pull as he got us into the members’ – in fact, into the grandstand. Any apprehension I had about being amongst so many Fitzroy supporters – I think they might have still been called the “Gorillas” in those days – was balanced against this being the last Tiger game in Melbourne for the year as the final round the following week was down at Geelong.
We led all day by narrow margins and I’m afraid my enthusiasm as a young teenager may have spilled over and was beginning to upset those around us. Seems they accepted my Richmond scarf but weren’t keen on my style of barracking. I was called to order by a hulk whose eyebrows met in the middle and my DOD stepped between us. It looked ugly. Then Hec, who had brought us, stood up and calmed the waters. Seems he was well-known to other Fitzroy supporters. I sat down, a very chastened but still ardent Tiger. We won by a couple of kicks. ‘Ray! It was a very subdued celebration.
As the Fitzroy fans filed out and down the steps, mumbling their disappointment, quite a few congratulated me on the win, including Eyebrows, who said he’d see me next year. I learnt a valuable lesson that day and developed a grudging respect for Fitzroy supporters that never left me even when they reversed the result the following year. I watched this game in the outer.
James, James, I love it when you tell stories like this. They are so full of humanity and civility and care, and I think of them as postcards from a time and place in Melbourne I can only imagine. You are a historian. A REAL ONE. Your stories are living, and they breathe a vitality, and they are filled with so much character I can almost smell the cups of tea being brewed.
I do hope your wife’s op went well, and she’s recovering well. Give her a kiss on the cheek from me.
And yes, the big sis was thrilled that we went to the football together (i spent so many years in Sydney it’s been a rare occurrance: her team has always won!). She is still chuffed, still happy with herself. The football means so much to her: so much more than it ever possibly could to me. I think she likes it because she feels part of it, she feels included, and that means everything to her.
Could you please email me any of your future occasional writings for Y&B. I need to read them. And if we continue TTBB next year (our committee needs to vote on the financial viability of it – that is, I need to give Chris a call and see if he can still spend time doing it), would LOVE to have you contribute for us also. You are our man-in-the-know at Y&B, and I would like to build connections with the fan forums, that hopefully would work both ways. We can talk about it. But your piece on Tommy, for instance, had things about his life and times that I had read nowhere else. Your voice is singular, it is pure, it is true, it is genuine, it is wry.
And your football stories, I read them as poetry.
TTBB
I am hurting for myself, for the fans, for Dimma and the players. I’m struggling to come to grips with the massive anticlimax that is 2014, but there is a faith somewhere inside that wills me to to keep going to every game.
It’s an unconditional love.
Tom, don’t let that love ever burn out. It is a love you can carry with you into your very old age. It is a love that will again provide moments of great happiness. It is a love that never requires overpriced roses.
TTBB
Dugald, you are a champion among men. Somehow, in a season, in 3 decades of despair, you manage to put things into perspective. There is more pain ahead, but this column will continue to numb the pain.
P.S . Don’t forget the Saint Kilda game offer remains, I head over Friday night.
Thank you Boris, very generous and kind of you. I have a bit of a hiccup with the St Kilda game. Have been invited to a wedding. But the invitation was late, and my name was horribly misspelled, and the groom positively detests football, and I am still undecided as to what I should do. I will confirm next week. Mrs TTBB is overseas, and I need to seek advice from her.
My heart says go to the footy with you!
(i’ll be in contact)
TTBB
Lovely story. I often don’t understand the mawkish sentimentality that goes with AFL, but you’re right that the game can bring together disparate people in a single cause, and create an enormous amount of joy. Despite the efforts of Demetriou et al in corporatising the thing beyond belief, and being about shutting people out rather than including them, I think the future of the game as an inclusive, social and sociable beast is assured.
Thanks Pete, and in my year-and-a-bit of writing about football that is the first time I have encountered the word “mawkish”. I salute you! I could write an essay on this topic – football as a sense of belonging (not “mawkish” which I had to look up in the dictionary to reassure myself of its meaning) – but it is getting late and my football team have been rotten to watch this year. And you’re right about the AFL being a wildly profit-chasing entity, which at any chance will try to monetise that wonderful sense of euphoria that all barrackers will surely feel at some time in their life (including Richmond ones). My tonic? Go see a game of country football as far from Melbourne as you can. The further the better. And there you have a community, at play, all gathered around, enjoying each others’ company.
go tiges!
TTBB
AMAZING read. Very difficult to read – even as a non-Tiger supporter. The greatest art for a football supporter is to temporarily ‘switch off’ the passion after a loss. Very hard to do. . . it is always more difficult to enjoy a weekend after a Friday night defeat. Perhaps you could lobby for more Sunday games for the Tiges for the remainder of the year to minimise the damage? Keep up the great writing, we need more of this in the Sunday papers and less stats.
Huge, yes, there are scales to loss, and when it occurs is critical. This is why I worry about Thursday night football. It is a long time for us fans to carry the burden of defeat. It could crush people. It is, perhaps, socially irresponsible. Sunday games are indeed good for Richmond fans, although I am still hurting from a game played on the first Sunday of September last year.
The only cure for this loss is to hug your family, whoever they may barrack for. Your sisters, your brother, and especially your little nephews.
(and babysit them)
TTBB
Dear Tigergollywog. Being a Fitzroy supporter from the Junction Oval days, winning was actually one thing I thought of thinking of the Junction. We made the finals playing at this ground in 1979, 1981, 1982 & 1983. The Royboys had some amazing wins at this ground. Although not in the AFL, we are in the VAFA and play at The Brunswick Street OVAL on Saturdays. The best thing is you can smell footy as it use to be. The mud, the deep heat, the sausage sizzle. So much better. Come down and say hi.
Michael, would you mind if I join you? I love the Brunswick Street Oval, and have played there in my misguided university days. There is a little mound behind the goals up what used to be the railway end, that offers one of the most beautiful views of Melbourne.
And the Roy Boys in the early 80s, there was a team with romance written all over it.
Go Tiges! Go Roy Boys! (or Gorillas, as James fondly recalls)
TTBB
Dugald,
Ripper work. All the people in your story represent the real face of footy as far as I’m concerned and you’ve written about them beautifully. The fact you weren’t allowed to sit with your sister just sums up the soulless attitude the AFL has towards the average punter.
Go Tiges.
Joe.
THanks Joe, and yes, I was very upset I couldn’t sit with my sister. The aisle attendant said they could be sacked if they let me sit with her. I certainly didn’t want to put them in this jeopardy. I spoke with an Etihad Stadium official and burst into tears. Trying to explain to her just how much this would mean for me, but especially my sister, was too overwhelming on the night. I didn’t see this coming. Guess it was a lifetime of a sort of sadness for her limited opportunities in life, and how things are so often stacked against her, and how alone she is in this world. I just wanted to make her happy.
But it all worked out fine. We spent the first half separated, and for the second half I managed to wangle us into some spare seats beside the Richmond Cheer Squad. And my sister loved this. It made her night.
Just too bad in that third quarter all the play was at the very other end of the ground and all I could see were big Drew Petrie’s arms raised in the opposite goal square taking marks.
Thanks for your comments. Like all others. they’re greatly appreciated.
TTBB
Congratulations for the excellent article. Your sister is very lucky to have such a considerate and loving brother. Tiger supporters can take heart from the fact that you still have a footy team in Melbourne, and can enjoy the game , wins and losses, together. My heart belonged to Fitzroy, and the comments you made about supporters being family, strongly resonated with me. I also appreciated the memories of the Brunswick Street Oval, albeit some time ago. Hang in, stick with the Tigers, enjoy all of it, they’ll come good. Thanks again . Julian C
Round 17, Congrat,s to the Tiger,s for winning, I hope your son had a great time at his first footy match. And he can now go to a few more, Tig,s vs Roo,s and bombers!?
Great story Dug, you’re love and support of Sar is inspirational. Not sure about the elderly father bit though….made me laugh. Dad and Fif were talking about this piece at the footy Saturday night, you must have written it when I was OS. Xx
Great win over Adelaide Dugs Hope and pray you get into the eight.
And what a night it was! Can you please make sure your boys get up over Adelaide in Hobart on Saturday. Please! TTBB
Finally the Roo,s season end,s. Enjoy your holiday boy,s and C as well.
I hope you had a dry ride home from your holiday and the boy,s (Your son,s ) are ready to ROARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Go Tiger,s. Aunty Sah.
Good Luck Tiger,s Round 6 2015.
Massive weekend Tigers best of luck. From SKJJ and Ali and Marcus too. (I,m still angry D with certain fan,s of my team).
Speechless, this is a powerful article. Love you bro and Jay Pie, so very proud of you both love auntie Ella xoxo
Good luck next week (Tiger-Cub,s) your eldest one D might have given his aunty a black_eye.SKJJ.?!?!
Well done TTBB peoples you had a fantastic 2015 season. You deserve to be up there in 2016. GO Tiger Roo,s. Aunty Sah.
Enjoy it SKJJ, at least someone in the family still has a team playing on.
Good Luck Tiger,s Hope you thump Carlton to oblivion! SKJJ
Even though this comment is written on part of your “Blog” Dug that is 3 years OLD! “GO TIGER,S”!S.