Round 1, 2017: BFA

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‘Was it a painting major she did?’ A colleague at the Museum of Contemporary Art is asking me about another of our co-workers.

‘Installation, I think.’ It’s almost home time. I grab my bag.

‘Wait, what?’ Another colleague is catching up. ‘Does everyone have to have a major?’

‘Well, when you do a BFA—’

‘A broken f*@?ing arm??’

‘—a Bachelor of Fine Arts …’

I’ve just seen the text messages lined up on my home screen. ‘A broken arm! On a chain? Tripped on a chain?? Six weeks!!!’

Right there, while the conversation dims to mute behind me, a deluge lets loose: the loss on Saturday; the already disorganised defence; the midfield that was missing something; the now impending shuffle of men; Jarrad’s calf and Rohan’s back and Isaac’s glands and Dan’s collarbone; the Premiers this coming Friday night; pride; shame; blame. What about that foam sling I pulled out of the garbage bin in the Cob’s study last night, the one he used for a thumb injury sustained while rumbling? I kid you not, I put it round my neck just last night and slung my right arm into it, wondering if I could get away with helplessness at work on Monday.

In the interstice between work and train, a first round loss becomes a snowball season. One man down becomes a bowling strike of bodies. The feeling creeps in me of a chain of events—no! Not a chain!—a ripple effect, breaking something smooth into something very ominous. That one small crack in Dane Rampe’s arm is suddenly magnified into the giant crevasse that lies under the thick skin of the new-season footy lover.

Are we really so brittle?

*

On season’s eve I had chatted with a gallery visitor who was on a seven day camp with kids.

‘Where are you from?’ I asked.

‘Melbourne,’ came the reply.

‘When are you heading home?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Ah good. Just in time for footy season.’

Her eyes brightened. Here in Sydney and someone understood? Her story unrolled. She was a Bombers supporter, buoyed and ready again after all that she had weathered. She had raised her family in Ivanhoe, where a daughter had come home from school one day and announced she would support Collingwood like 99% of her friends. Mother told daughter she could go and live in the garage. It wasn’t until her 21st birthday speech that daughter revealed she had indeed supported Collingwood for two years but had never told her mother.

Richmond are my new Collingwood. I potter through Thursday footy. But Friday grips. The contest is detailed and vivifying. There’s a passage half way through the second when a handball departs the flick of Caleb Daniel and flies through Picken to He’s-Back-Bob who spins the perfect harried kick into a 2 on 2 in the 50 where Johannisen scoops and negotiates the six points. I’m audibly enchanted. The Cygnet’s on the living room floor scoring his music assessment. But you couldn’t score play like that.

I talk to Mum on Saturday morning.

‘Your father asked me what team you would be supporting this year.’

‘What?’

‘I asked him how he could be so ridiculous. And he says, “She derzn’t want to change zis year?” He just has no idea.’

This from my mother who has never allied herself to any sporting team in her life. I’m proud of her. And not so bewildered by the Frenchman. Maybe he’s simply in the rhythm of the French Presidential run up and the increasingly absurd lucky dip of choices from week to week as each candidate becomes less and less suitable to lead the Republic.

I hang up and realise that it’s back. This incredible and unique narrative structure that is the footy season, that underpins and supports life in every genre. If it had a shape it might look like laces, that hold things together, keep things tight.

That’s how I climb into the thronging O’Reilly on Saturday arvo, past the siren by five minutes or so—nobody crosses Sydney in time anymore. The O’Reilly boys are shoulder to shoulder and the ‘family’ is ordered across the rows as we know them. A nod here, a wave.

‘Back for more?’ the gatekeeper to Row U asks as I shuffle and thank and hello and sit. Zak Jones launches the ball from the back. Something just settles. I’ve got a rhythm section again. And I don’t realise how much it holds me, how much I love it until I feel it securely underneath me again.

There’s a fork of a forward line in place. Lance kicks one. Straight. Reid kicks 2 across the body. Reid’s kicking like Lance. Lance’s kicking like Tony. O’Reilly James calls it—‘The Lockett factor.’ And we’re cruising for a quarter or two up in Row U, more engrossed in the embrace of a full home ground, the pale grey twilight and our renewed togetherness. Piqued by the unfamiliars 13 and 6.

‘Who’s got C Bolton’s jersey?’ I demand.

‘Foote,’ says O’Reilly Max.

‘Be better if he had 12,’ quips the Cob. ‘Six foot’s not enough for a footballer.’

‘Where did we get this Reid?’ giggles Max as Sam kicks a stylish third.

But things slip. The clearances turn one-sided. The mids can’t retrieve it or work it. Under plenty of pressure the defence looks atypically unsystematic. And at the other end, the pill’s a pea inside 50 that the fork just can’t trap. I feel almost grateful that the Cob and I have to leave at the third quarter break to retrieve our Cygnet across town. We listen to the dénouement as we navigate and languish in Sydney’s strangled passages.

*

The Cob’s heading off on a Tuesday morning run.

‘Watch for chains,’ I call. I’m sure these things ricochet.

I’m at my desk knowing I must revoke the sadness of empathy, must shun early despair. Must rebuild in a day. Cause I can’t follow the next 22 rounds in a state of premature defeat. Gotta get the metronome out and let it work up the beat again. Let it drive a re-investment in the open wound of optimism, in depth and magic and the tune of ‘opportunity’. After all, Rampe got his start off Johnson’s injury misfortune.

I’m investing in Aliir now, overcoming the ‘tow’ problem the Swans site noted (and corrected) yesterday. He will need to tow in defence on Friday. Because, yes, everyone needs a major in a BFA.

This piece was first published on the Footy Almanac website, 28th March 2017.

Pre-season, 2017: Changing of the Seasons

It’s as dark as night on Wednesday morning in Sydney. A roof has caved in on the main street. Trees are falling out of the ground on the nature strips; they lie wrapped on the footpaths in SES tape. At home, everything is wet: floorboards, shoes, bed sheets, washing. Even the cat feels damp. There’s a sort of steamy glumness to the city.

Last weekend’s Under 14 Division 2 cricket semi was washed out. A few diligent families stood under the awning at Beaman Park on Saturday morning and watched the puddles fill. I turned to the team manager and whispered: ‘It’s not a good sign when you come to the cricket in your gumboots.’ Two delusional coaches stood head to head out in the centre under their umbrellas. We could only assume they were deliberating as to whether we’d get any play in. While the players themselves, shoes off and pants rolled, were frolicking in the drowned outfields with the team’s border collie, Banjo. We were home making chicken stock by 9am. And there won’t be any more cricket.

I haven’t given more than a glance to footy in the off season except to partake in the women’s game. With Dad away on a five week working stint in the USA, the Cygnet and I watched the first ever Women’s AFL match together. We parked devout on that first February Friday with dinner on our knees. We even watched the pre-show. And when the women of Carlton and Collingwood ran up the stairs at Ikon Park and headed for a banner, I cried unannounced tears. For the players – these women – for the moment they were a part of, what it must have meant to them, for the support they were receiving, for the public rituals of the game they were suddenly a part of, for the joy that accompanied their entrance, for the sheer visibility of women doing what they love, with capacity.

We watched the first quarter eagerly. How did they move the ball, how hard did they bump? How well did they know each other? We giggled at the careful treading of commentary, tripping on the odd well-known: ‘Look at D’Arcy. She’s sticking to her man.’ We started to follow a name or two. Hoped for Moana, whooped at Darcy V. And perhaps what was best of all was this – within two quarters, the Cygnet was prone with his book and I was pottering through Friday tidy, the game our background noise. It’s just how we watch all end-of-week footy if our Swans aren’t on the park. Nothing could have been more normal than the girls on a Friday night.

By Saturday in late February, the Cygnet and I came in from trapeze and the sort of conditioning session these girls probably go through. He needed carbs. We settled into the second half of the Dogs v Collingwood. Mo had kicked a goal. Collingwood were up. We watched, we ate. He read. And half way through the last quarter he piped up:

 ‘It’s hard isn’t it?’

‘What is?’ I asked.

‘The game.’

We watched a few moments more as Collingwood forced stoppages midfield.

‘It is, isn’t it? It’s more raw than the men’s game.’

‘I guess they all have day jobs too,’ the Cygnet added.

‘Yup. These girls don’t train full time.’

The Bulldogs moved the ball off a chance but it broke down at half forward.

‘It’s rougher than the men’s game,’ he finished.

‘Is it really?’ I asked. ‘Or do we just perceive that it’s rougher because they are women and we don’t get to see women being publically physical like this.’

‘No,’ said the Cygnet. I completely misjudged him. ‘I mean rough as in not so pristine. Not so slick. It’s rougher and so it’s fun to watch. I can imagine playing that way.’

The women’s game brought weeks of these kinds of subtleties. Weeks of chat about low scores and equal opportunities. Games of semantics with my Cygnet: AFLW versus WAFL – ‘Shouldn’t the men’s game then be AFLM, Mum?’ Weeks of wondering about all the historical ways women have been positioned in versions of non-existence, taught and diligently learnt uncertainty and ­­­self limitation. Weeks of conversations with a 12 year old boy who has just started high school and is creeping towards young adulthood, about what it takes to hone skills, about the amount of support and belief you need, how slow that build can be, how success can be measured by myriad markers.

And now we’re back to the blokes. Full circle. Maybe this season will feel a little different for the pre that has ceded it.

The Swans were at Circular Quay yesterday morning, metres from my workplace. But I don’t work Tuesdays. And I’m kind of glad. I’m like the groom this week who doesn’t want to see his bride until the big day. Not even keen to look at the list. I know the fire-starters Heeney and Rohan will be missing but I hear there are kids already pencilled on the starting line. And we’ll have our new Captain K and our triple pronged vices, our inked in Callum and our inked up Buddy, married and fit. And that’ll do til Saturday.

It’s supposed to rain and storm up to and into game day. There will be umbrellas alongside the beers at our feet. The concrete of the O’Reilly risks to be mossy. But we’ll make our way and start all over again. It’s autumn and Port are coming to play.

first published on the The Footy Almanac, 22 March 2017.

Tiger Diary 23.3.2017

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How many light years does it take to change a Tiger?
How long is a piece of string theory?
Is that the steadily syncopated sound of bongo conundrums I hear calling to me frombeneath the artificial palm trees at Tigerland?
Has there ever been a better time to be a Richmond supporter?
No, fellow backpocketeering tipsters, no, no. 
Because this season at Punt Rd is
'The Year of Answers'. 
Bring it on!