A Tweet received on Anzac Day from Edstar: I fear we’re only a loss away from another Chickenpoo episode.

Fan dissent. Mick Molloy offered his home-truths on breakfast radio. All in the outer are disappointed and angry, asking questions, looking for answers as how clubs like Melbourne, the Western Bulldogs, GWS and most others have passed us by. There is no unity in a crowd. There is nothing the club can do about this heartache except, perhaps, to acknowledge it, and embrace it, respect it. Mike Sheahan’s confected breast-beating of the club’s 50 best players in 50 years reads as a hollow exercise. Who cares? There is a bigger picture, and all us fans know it. It’s not looking in the rear-view mirror; it’s confronting the here-and-now. It is being honest and truthful, and treating a shared anguish with respect. The only tonic, of course, is with the winning.

If not that, all we can ask for is courage and bravery, and doing something – anything – to turn this around.

Many at the club, and probably many fans, might be critical of the person who dumped a truckload of chicken manure by the front door of the football club’s offices. I offer a counter argument.

If the passion of Richmond fans is one of the club’s great attributes, then this goes both ways. It was direct action, an expression of frustration by one fan about the performance of the team. Sure, it was a public humiliation; but none were hurt, none harmed, none singled out for abuse.

It’s also become part of the folklore of our football club, and of barracking, and of this city and its home-grown sport. It was a Monday morning, after a loss to Geelong, playing away, when the Cats kicked seven goals in the last quarter. Richmond had slipped to four wins, five losses. The unknown driver edged forward to drop his complaint; what was said to be two cubic metres of chicken shit.

But what happened next was revelatory: Richmond beat Fremantle away, then Carlton and Sydney, and a four-game winning streak turned into a season of wonderment. Never mind the impolite end – a 68-point drubbing in a Preliminary Final in Brisbane, to a team twice as good who went on to win the first of three consecutive premierships – Richmond were alive in late September. We were contenders. For the shortest time, we could believe.

A sullen morning in late May, a querulous fan offloaded his complaint. Attention was taken away from the players. A passion was expressed. And the coach of the day, Danny ‘Spud’ Frawley, the son of a potato grower from Bungaree in central-west Victoria, understood the protests potential. He bagged much of it up for his garden.

If anyone knows anymore about this incident, if they were part of the club at the time, could they please contact me (call me on 0425 005 531 or dugaldjellie@gmail.com). I’m curious about it, for a manuscript I’m working on, about the cultural history of barracking.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Joy was had in being at the game on Sunday night. It was in standing among Melbourne supporters and voicing my passion for Richmond. It was in standing up for my club, for what it might represent, for what I think it is to be a Tiger. I’m not going to go quietly into the night, that isn’t our way. It would prove nothing; achieve nothing.

At half-time a bloke grabbed my arm; his name is Glen, and three years ago, when for a while I had brief access to the change-rooms after a game, I met him among the crowd. Something about him intrigued me. Like me, he was alone, not part of the group. He didn’t look as though he belonged. But each week I talked to him, and came to understand many of the players knew him, and one pre-season he joined the players at their training camp in Cairns, and ran with them. Not much about Glen looked like a footballer.

Three years later we cross paths, and I tell him that when I go on my runs – trying to stay fit, keep lean – I sometimes think of him, a middle-aged bloke like me, trying to keep up with elite young athletes. It doesn’t get any easier.

And I remembered he’s a mechanic by trade, who runs his own business, working on Range Rovers. I joke that all his customers are likely in the crowd. And they wouldn’t be barracking for our boys.

Blue collar grunt, lads, that’s what it is to be a Tiger right now.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

During the game I met with Robyn Meggs and her daughter Emily, to take photographs of them, for a fan profile I wrote on Monday, late into the night when our young boys were asleep. Hopefully it will be published on the football club’s website. Read it, if you can. Maybe stories like this can turn a season. Ordinary fans, with extraordinary stories; stories that acknowledge how so many of us may feel.

Late on Monday night Robyn emailed me some photographs that lifted my spirits. They are black and white, and beautiful. They tell of the history of the game, of what it might mean, of how it can involve us all. One is of her father, lined-up in a combined police team, wearing the Richmond colours and led by our very own Captain Blood. The other is of her recently deceased mother and father, at a game in Moorabbin, in 1977, watching Richmond, barracking as both of them did.

All the passion is with her mother.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Commentators, ex-footballers, dismissed it as frustration. It was more than that, it was violent and malicious. Unlike when Tyrone Vickery swung a clenched fist at Dean Cox, the ball was nowhere in the vicinity. At the game, standing among Melbourne supporters, it was embarrassing and unforgiveable. Imagine if someone did that to Jack Riewoldt, imagine how we would feel and react.

Memories in football are long. An unreserved apology is a good start, but much trust needs to be earned, again. There is penance to be paid, purgatory. Forgiveness takes time, and a decency.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

In the darkness, beneath trees in Yarra Park, walking alone on the grass on the way home, draped in my hand-knitted scarf, feeling sadness in our crowd, watching as a young woman in Richmond colours was pinned to the ground by four police officers and then put in a prison van, I stopped to send a Tweet: I cry for our Tigers, I weep for them, a dream is over. It is lost.

At that moment I encounter Mandy Woodward, and her husband Ken, in the inky darkness, each carrying a cheer squad flogger back to Punt Road Oval, like the burden of Atlas with the world on their shoulders. We stopped to talk, to share our misery, our disappointments. It felt good to be with brethren, to be with people who understand.

All we have is each other. A grief shared, is a grief halved. We’re all in this together.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

On Tuesday morning, before school, I showed our six-year-old boy footage of the Bulldogs’ Jake Stringer bursting onto a loose ball in the forward line, skittling three Brisbane Lions players, turning and kicking a goal. It is inspirational stuff. Our boy was incredulous. He went off and told his mum, in the shower all about it. Listening to him recount what he had seen – what these football god-warriors of ours are capable of – was delightful.

Later in the day I sent a Tweet to tell others about is, especially Bulldog fans, who deserve all the winning that comes their way. Think we’ve been hard-done by? I have a one answer: 1954. If you think our longing is great, imagine theirs. Two Grand Finals, one premiership. Yes, I cheer for them.

My Tweet: @Bulldogstragic showed footage to Mr 6yo this morning, his response: “wow, he’s got jet packs on!”. Then told mum in shower all about it.

Another Bulldogs fan read the message and thought @JStringer9 may appreciate it.

Later that night I looked at Jake Stringer’s public profile on Twitter. On his page he has a photo of his partner or wife holding their child in a kitchen. In the background is a microwave, with a sign above it that reads: ‘If football’s just a sport then the heart is just an organ”.

Fans like us love this passion, we love watching what young men, fine athletes, can do.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Plans are unconfirmed, but I hope to be at the game on Saturday night. I’ll be standing in the outer, alone, and again standing up for something I believe in.

I don’t want to turn my back; I’m not ready yet to give in.

I want to see leadership, I want to see response to adversity, I want to see responsibility, I want to see teamwork. But most of all I want be there to show an appreciation; for Jack, and Cotch, and Sam Lloyd, and Kamdyn McIntosh, and Bachar, and Dave Astbury, and Dusty, and Titch, and all others selected in the team.

I want them to make us proud, and I want to be there to be part of it.

Tiger tiger burning bright

Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com

Twitter: @dugaldjellie

Facebook: Dugald Jellie

Postal address: under the railway bridges on Punt Road, in the lowlands.

Saturday morning, in a fog, after a night like that. Count the ways our football team bruise us. The game is brutal, with no respite in the watching. Is it a failure in recruiting? West Coast footballers look bigger, stronger, faster. They boss us. Hope is torn.

Consolations come from cookery, gardening, in being moderately useful.

Kick the ball in a park with Mr 6yo. He talks about changing teams; “in three weeks”. Why three weeks? What does he know that I don’t?

As parents, we encourage independence, personal responsibility; it’s his life to lead. We want our boys to be happy, fulfilled. But what of the buzz word, ‘resilience’? Nothing’s more resilient than following Richmond.

But Richmond footy cards remain on the first sleeve of his album. He’s still his mother and father’s son. He reads out the names of his favourite players, adding emphasis: Bachar Houli, Jack, Dusty, Trent, Ty, Nick Vlastuin.

The Chris Yarran card looks a cruel joke; a photo-shopped montage.

His favourite non-Richmond players: Nick Nat, Eddie Betts and Nick Riewoldt. Grade 1 schoolyard currency. I’d have them in my team, also.

Monday, after-school kick-to-kick in the backyard – three boys and a ball – and I think of words I want to say to our players, to encourage them. Their confidence is gone, the trust is broken. Fingers are being pointed, names named. There is division, resentments. In the four games this season, I reckon only one player can hold his head high. He had an ill-timed defensive punch in the last 40 seconds of the Collingwood loss; but at least he took the personal responsibility of being there, of putting his hand up, of trying to make a difference.

Too much sideways and backwards passing; moving responsibility elsewhere, putting the pressure on the next player, then adding some.

Sunday night is our crucible, and much needs to change between now and then. All we can ask is that our players play for each other. Block out all the chatter of the football media, the anonymous scorn of the fan sites. Know that we are a club, and all supporters want only the best for you. Take the game on. Be strong, be bold. Fortune favours the brave. It is no time to shirk a contest.

Backs to the wall stuff; we’ve nothing to lose.

 

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Sunday afternoon, after a loss, met with a fan at the Shrine of Remembrance to ask of his Richmond story, then drove to Castlemaine with the family looking for inspiration. Off to see the artworks of Ben Quilty, commissioned by the Australian War Memorial as an Official War Artist to record and interpret the experiences of Australians deployed in Afghanistan.

Three seasons ago when I approached the Richmond Football Club to write for them, in a letter of introduction I mentioned the role of Australia’s official war artist; of interpreting the chaos of battle, giving form to a shapeless pursuit. It was an idea; one I hoped might be of benefit to the players, to the team. I believe in the power of words, in the clear logic of storytelling.

But for whatever reasons, I was never allowed access inside the “four walls”. I remained on the outer, watching with the crowd, lending my voice with all others.

This season, curiously, Richmond do have a writer in their midst – ‘embedded’, in combat speak – as a fly-on-the-wall. He’s documenting a season. His job got harder last weekend; the narrative shifted.

Quilty’s artworks remind of Irish painter Francis Bacon; the imagery is bold, abstract, unsettling, emotionally charged, raw, verging on the grotesque. The most affecting works are figures with blank stares, black splodges that could be exit wounds, contorted male torsos. They seem studies in masculinity, national identity, mortality.

There is brutal honesty in the brushstrokes; no glorification of the horrors of war. It is truth-telling.

 

 

 

My viewing was curtailed by our two young boys, hanging off me, clutching AusKick footballs, wanting to return to the park for kick-to-kick.

Much of our half-day in Castlemaine was spent in Victory Park, the Botanic Gardens, and by goalposts at Western Reserve. Before driving there, I knew this was where Dustin Martin grew up, where he played football. I visited the town’s footy oval, but it was busy with a car swap-meet.

Late in the day, having our last kick before heading home, an older boy joined us from a nearby skate-park, wanting to have shots on goal. A left footer. He hadn’t tied his laces up; his shoe kept coming off.

Asked him who he barracked for. “Richmond,” he said, “and also Collingwood”.

Asked him if he he’d ever met Dusty. He said he played at Campbells Creek, out of town. As he turned and left to join his friends in the skate park, he called out: “And he once asked my sister out”.

A young man, a boast.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

A war story.

Many years ago, before children, I travelled with my partner to El Alamein in the Western Desert in Egypt, to visit the last great killing field of Australian men. I wanted to offer respects through telling their story, of a place that since childhood I wondered about, mostly because of a branch line on Melbourne’s rail network.

Also, my partner’s mother was born nearby in Alexandria; her mother was a nurse during the war. She met her husband, a member of the Polish Army fighting with the Allies in North Africa, in a hospital.

Visiting the Commonwealth War Cemetery at El Alamein, wearing boots and football socks, was profoundly moving. Contemplation among all the neat rows of headstones; perpendicular blocks, each engraved with a ‘Rising Sun’ shield and a string of names, ranks, units, ages and fatal dates.

Most were no older than the 44 footballers who’ll take the field this Sunday night.

Australian men, who had travelled so far to fall in such sparse country, now entombed forever in soil the colour of cinnamon. They were buried as they fought: together, in four plots on the western flank, nearest the front line with the Axis forces. Australia’s heroic Ninth Division comprised about 10 per cent of the Eighth Army’s strength, yet accounted for more than one-in-five of its casualties.

Of the 7970 men buried, 1234 are Australian, with a further 655 chiselled in limestone in a cloister honouring Allied servicemen who “died fighting on land or in the air where two continents meet and to whom the fortune of war denied a known and honoured grave”.

Lest we forget? I deplore the idea of war and am often uneasy about its commemoration – too often the remembrance turns into flag-waving nationalism, turns into xenophobia, turns into misguided loyalties – but I can never forget the young men of the Australian “Ninth Div”, buried in such dreadful numbers in shifting sands in a faraway land.

A mood of melancholia has taken hold, again.

Times like these, I need to chop wood.

Or I need our football team to win, letting the spirits sing again.

I’ll be at the game on Sunday night, my first for the season. It shall not be my last.

Tiger tiger burning bright
Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com
Twitter: @dugaldjellie
Facebook: Dugald Jellie

Friday night, and all of us know these emotions – finding defeat in the most improbable of ways; a dull resignation, the disappointment that takes days to lift. But does it really lift at all? Or is barracking for Richmond an emotional scab that adds new layers with each macabre loss?

Oh Richmond, why is it so often thus?

History books say other clubs have had lesser success, but we all know history is bunkum. No other football team in recent times has perfected failure like Richmond. This is not opinion; it’s fact. Look back over the past 30-odd years. We all know what’s happened.

Because of our shortcomings, for so long Richmond has been a popular “second team”. Other supporters have willed us to do well, if only because easybeats are always easier to like.

But after Friday night, frittering away a win with panic, even other supporters have given up on us. They’ve tired of us, tired of the waiting for us to come good.

Western Bulldogs are now crowd favourites.

This is not analysis; it’s the way it is, the way human nature works. People want their “second team” to at least squeak past Collingwood, when they’re down for the count, on the ropes.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Our Mr Six-year-old finds my phone by the bedside on Saturday morning. He turns it on, looking for the football score, for the result on Friday night. He loves reading out the scores of all the matches played, announcing each venue, and the home team.

“Aww, we lost,” he says, walking down the hallway.

“But only by one point!”

I am pleased he is pleased by such a narrow loss. What he doesn’t know will not hurt him.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Richmond supporters remember well out first wooden spoon in the era of the national draft, a recruiting system designed to equalise the competition. For finishing last we got first pick, a leg-up. The brains trust at our club chose a six-foot-seven-and-a-bit ruckman from Adelaide. Two years later he made his debut, played four games, kicked five goals, the team again finished last and our great hope returned from whence he came, never to be seen again.

His surname, it rhymed with ‘flounder’.

Richmond people know of five-year plans, and false hopes, and what it is to be ninth-best when only eight teams make the finals.

We know how a game can be lost after the siren to a team from the Gold Coast, from the boot of a rugby league player.

We know what it’s like to watch the right leg of the team’s star goal-sneak break in the middle of the Telstra Dome on Friday night television; ending his season, and ours. And how it feels to lose to Carlton, then wake up on a Saturday morning to news one of our key-position forwards, recruited from Fremantle, had run into a tram after the game. He was in hospital, in a coma.

It has been death by a thousand cuts, a long and slow humiliation, and frustration.

“The worst 30 seconds of football,” as Paul Roos, in the commentary booth, dubbed our second loss to Gold Coast, keeps repeating itself.

The loss to Fremantle three seasons ago, playing away, after we got our noses in front. And the loss to the Dockers last year, leading all afternoon at the MCG, then a schoolboy error gave the ball back to them, and they won it on the siren. And then last Friday night, and 40 seconds, and Collingwood, and an oh-so familiar agony.

Our loyalties as fans are true enough, but our belief is loosened, our trust weakened, until proven otherwise.

This is not hearsay; it’s an emotional response to profound disappointment.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Many thanks to all who logged comments on the blog last week. Vince Morton, Laraine, Donnie, Skippygirl in the forward pocket, Alison from Chifley, metasayer, Chris, Tiger Tommo, Kate, Yogi and Andy. It’s like the old team’s back together, back on the park, topped-up with a few fresh new players. Please take some time to find and read their comments. All are valid.

I had hoped to write some gentle and kind words about our football team this week, but after Friday night I’ve not been in the mood. The missus got home from her night out distraught by the result, finding me in bed, reading a fan forum, wondering what went wrong; sort of disbelieving about what I had witnessed. Soon as the game finished, I turned off the TV. Was in no mood to dwell, time was better spent washing up the dishes.

She commented about how magnanimous I seemed about the loss. I told her, on past record, it was not unexpected.

Earlier in the day I had Googled Tatyoon and learned in the latest Census it had a population of 326, and the township has only one notable resident, who plays for Richmond and played well again on Friday night.

Eight weeks to go, and if all goes well, I’m off to see his home team play in the Mininera & District Football League. I’ll probably take our two boys along.

I’ll do anything to find a good news story.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Andy Fuller emailed from Europe, with a brickbat for last weeks’ blog that needs explaining.
“I was a little surprised to see Daniel Rioli criticised in such a manner,” he wrote.

Rioli’s incident stuck out and was obvious to everyone in the stadium as being a mistake. I had initially thought that tiger tiger burning bright could become a viable medium for expressing valid and well-contextualised observations and where warranted, criticism of the team. The players should be respected and not subject to online bullying and harassment, or ridicule (as Hampson has been on Instagram for instance).

I would also be reluctant to name specific players (and thus I didn’t like the specific Rioli reference): but I do think the coaching staff can be criticised if reasonable and based on a pattern of decisions, rather than just one incident.

I replied to Andy immediately, realising the error of my ways.

“I was meaning to add a mitigation to the piece,” I wrote. “But was written in such a hurry, under such duress, in such unusual circumstances, I plain forgot. I did have in parenthesis ‘inexperience’ or ‘exuberance’.”

What should have been added to the piece is that Daniel Rioli is 18 years old, was on debut, is from the Northern Territory, and has a family name remembered fondly by many at Richmond. Whatever errors Dan made in that opening game, they hardly mattered. I really wanted to welcome him to the club. I was playing devil’s advocate.

And as I added in my reply email: “Of course it’s debatable if Rioli’s shot was ‘selfish’. Could rightly argue he was thinking of team rewards above personal glory. Just an error of judgement.”

My ‘no criticism’ policy is based on the assumption all players are trying their hardest. “No one goes into games to make mistakes,” said Nick Riewoldt, interviewed on The Footy Show last Thursday night.

And the policy is because so much of the game is about confidence. Taylor Hunt and two quick turnovers last Friday night was a rude reminder. If only I could boost the self-belief of our players. Our code of football is the most complex of all footballs – with so many players, played on such a large arena, and with no limitations on where players can be on the field – so I wish to emphasise how a short-cut to success in any team sport is selflessness.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

Shaun Hampson played one of his better games for the club on Friday night, and looked to lift his effort in the last quarter. More, please. And Bachar was our best, as he often is. And David Astbury and Kamdyn McIntosh were dependable all night. And it’s such a shame Jayden Short’s stellar debut – such a good news story – was overshadowed by the loss.

Defeat is a very cold shoulder.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

In email correspondence with Andy Fuller I posed a philosophical question: what is the best way to barrack?

It’s something I’ve been exploring these past few seasons.

By bending words as sweetly as a faultless banana kick, I have wanted to try and help budge my club’s narrative of defeat. In my middling years I cannot sit on my hands, watching mutely, doing nothing about what might pass on the field. I have loved the game and played the game and found meaning in, but for all my adult life my team – our team – has left me mostly empty handed.

Is blind faith the best way to change the fortunes of a club?

Is openness and honesty the best way to budge a narrative, rather than trusting what goes on behind closed doors, between the ‘four walls’?

Is it better to question and inquire, to offer alternate ways, to think of new methods of going about the business of football?

How have the Western Bulldogs, who lost a preliminary final to St Kilda by four goals in 2010, gone about rebuilding their list to play finals last year, and look to be contenders again this year?

The hour is late, self-doubts arise.

All I can do is barrack, with the best of them, and keep looking for all that is good in Richmond.

Tiger tiger burning (not so) bright.

Email: dugaldjellie@gmail.com

Twitter: @dugaldjellie

Facebook: Dugald Jellie

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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”.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

 

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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).

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

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.