BULLETIN - POST ROUND 2

It takes effort to refashion ourselves.

When you get a new haircut or you start to wear skirts when you’ve always worn pants, make-up when you’ve always gone ‘au naturel’ … people get unsettled. They are generally uncomfortable with small scale adjustments. They fear them as tremors for greater quakes to come.

This week, I tipped against my team for the first time ever. (Well, I employed Travis to tip against my team on my behalf.)

Now, I know that those of you who have been around a number of years will argue that this is no small scale matter, because I have often beat my bulletin drum for the rewards of loyalty, the significance of tribalism and have many-a-time guilted ‘deserters’. So the backlash received was not unanticipated. I was accused of deserting, of succumbing to greed, of being ‘contaminated’. My choice was described as ‘an act of extreme disloyalty’ and ‘reprehensible’. I was even called ‘traitor Thilde’ … in 48 point, red, bold oblique type.

So, let me explain. Here was my thinking.

I am at a point in my tipping career, where I need to make a change. My current approach is not working. The most obvious thing that needed addressing was whether I could afford to continue blindly tipping the Swans.

For the past two pre-seasons, Swans supporters have been cautioned to steel themselves for bad years ahead. Last year’s unexpected effort only made this year seem more ominous. As I came into this season, with my team supposedly ‘transitioning’, I found myself faced with the dilemma of how to behave. I have become accustomed to success, to easy faith. The extravagant fruits of consecutive finals experiences and Premiership glory, have left me unable to remember what it is like on struggle street, how one should hold oneself, what to wear to be best protected, how to play best defence.

This year, I decided I had better put in my own pre-season. Part of the training was to read American writer Richard Ford’s trilogy of novels which begins with The Sportswriter. On page 59, the character, Frank, a sportswriter, observes: ‘Years of athletic training teach this; the necessity of relinquishing doubt and ambiguity and self-inquiry in favour of a pleasant, self-championing one-dimensionality which has instant rewards in sport.’

So when I looked at the fixture in Round 2 and saw my boys were coming up against the Premiers, the Twin Towers, the Zone – I saw it as a bright opportunity to put some of my pre-season work into action. Even the coach and the club were tipping Buddy to sell the fixture!

Before I handed the baton to Travis, knowing he would pick the Hawks for me, I asked myself the big questions?

What, in the world of footy, is the nature of loyalty?

Is loyalty believing that your team will always win? Or is loyalty knowing they will sometimes (or often) lose but standing by them nonetheless? Or is loyalty, not worrying about whether they will or won’t win and just being there? Aren’t these all versions of ‘tipping your team’, no matter what?

‘Perhaps I should just tip the Swans,’ I hesitated.

But if I go to the match on Saturday night, I’ll be there, right? – a loyal club member, just like it says on the back of my cap. We all know that I am vulnerable to footy team ‘affairs’ … but as far as the long term goes, I’m just like Buddy – I am a one club girl. I did not cancel my membership this year, though there was plenty of incentive; I go to Homebush by train; I have fridge magnets; I knit red and white scarves for the O’Reilly boys; I continue to try to convert the next generation. No one can question my loyalty to my team. Or can they? Will they? Do your club loyalties and tipping loyalties need to be aligned? Does it make a difference if I go to Saturday night’s match suspecting they will lose, having tipped them to lose?

Is desertion a condition of the mind or the body or both? If you have left someone in your mind, have you already left them? Or are you still with them so long as you are physically there? Is your presence itself the belief that you will return in mind as well?

From the eye of this storm of doubt and hesitation, I reached out my finger and hit ‘send’ on the email request to Travis. Back came the reply: ‘Hawks. Good luck though.’ Just like that.

The Swans were never supposed to win. I outlined to Toby, on the train to Olympic Park, my preparations for the after effects of my decision in the context of a Hawthorn victory. Tipping against the Swans was never going to be a change of heart on the position of contra-team tipping (or CCT). I was not about to turn my spots into stripes and decree that a life of tipping treachery is finally for me. I simply wanted to try it on, see what it feels like, wander around in the shoes of the self-serving opportunist – not for a win, not for the points, not for the money – for the experience of seeing if I could be someone who lived life in this way week-to-week, if I could be self-championing rather than team loyal, one-dimensional instead of muddled by ambiguity, to see if the hat would suit me, if it would help me keep warm this winter.

Once the Hawks had won, I would be vindicated but feel no better. I would accept the success of the experiment, lament the success of the experiment, remove the gold lamé jacket of self-serving one dimensionality and hop back into the tracksuit pants of loyalty. No one would remember what I had done, least of all me. My night of dressing dangerously would be swallowed by the slow, chilly, ticking days of a long winter.

But, the Swans won … which left my CCT standing naked, out in the cold.

I spent the night wondering what would become of me. Could – would – my fellow tipsters ever accept my Round 2 tips as a meagre dalliance, a flirtation with the other side? Or would it be a long lasting black mark? Was my credibility shot or could I still recover? How would I get back to being me? Would it be time on the bench, time with the comp psychologist or time with Danny Green in my local area? Would it be punishment and the talk show circuit or Mallorca in a wheelchair?

By morning, I was receiving messages of condolence (I think it was condolence?). ‘Poor Thilde’ they cried. But I felt so good about the win. ‘Bet you regret that tip!’ they jeered. Yes, I did. I felt sheepish at what I had done. But it did not prevent the joys of victory - Goodesy’s hanger that sparked the Swans, the ruck domination, the accuracy on goal, the recovered run off half back, the clean skills, the cold beer in plastic cups, a visit in the stands from Bernie, a raw, sore throat from cheering, a rolled up record, tattered from being belted into the palm of my hand and three choruses of ‘Cheer, cheer’. ‘Yes, but it’s tinged’, they commiserated. And, if I am honest, it was. I’d like to say it wasn’t, that I can quarantine my footy pleasure from my tipping. But, if I am honest, I can’t.

Footy and tipping are so different – one is about the team, the other about the individual. Footy is about observation and participation, tipping is about judgement and competition. Can you ever fulfil the ontological aims of both activities at once – to support your team at the footy and to tip as many correct teams as you can? To be true to both is surely to wear two hats at once.

Self-championing one-dimensionality may have instant rewards in sport, even in tipping … but I, personally, went unrewarded by the experiment. I missed out on the 100%, untainted glory of my team’s victory on Saturday night for the 50% chance of getting the tip right. As Tim Watson said in his commentary on Channel 7 on Sunday afternoon: ‘Fortune favours the brave, but you still have to stick to the percentages.’

For me, this momentary foray into CCT has taught me to know which hat suits me. I tried on the ‘bonnet of betrayal’, wore it out in public for a night and was ridiculed. It wasn’t comfortable. It doesn’t suit me. I cannot wear it with the conviction it demands. The best place for it is in a vacuum-sucked ‘Spacebag’ under the dresser with the summer clothes.

With regard to Travis, his contract will be terminated, but he will be privy to a handsome renumeration package. With regard to the refashioning of my tipping style, the challenge becomes how to score well enough around my loyalty to be at the top. It must be possible. Who top scored last week? Toby the Loyal. And with regard to my personal refashioning – well, I’ll have to find other ways. I am thinking of wearing electric blue and magenta this winter. And I might cut my hair shorter again.

Happy tipping!


AND:

Don't forget, Round 3 starts tomorrow (Thursday) night. Tips due by 7pm, Thursday 9th April.

Weekly features over in the pocket.

Always worth a look and a quote: John Harms in the AGE on a Wednesday.