A Geek Tragedy or just a simple Footy Tragic?

During the winter months when it is dark and cold as you slink out of bed towards the workday and closing in on the same by the time you finally get home, weekdays can wear you down like a rain sodden sweater. Two days and a Friday night take on more import in the rejuvenation of the soul over this period, and there is nothing more spiritually healing mid year than footy in its approach to the finals.

Nicknamed 'the Rat' due to my Johnny
Platten shoulder length curls

I played club footy when I had more hair and carry some special memories from then. Through my twenties however, living in Brissy I found myself in a social circle of freaks and geeks and none of them understood why I was so passionate about 'footy'. As if a love for football in their eyes was reserved only for those who were a yobbo at heart – so what was I playing at? 

Scorned, I tried desperately to defend my passion in terms that I thought they may understand. I compared my love of footy to great tv shows and movie twists of plot that you could never see coming. Footy is no soap where you can spout identical dialogue minutes before the bad actor does. Teams begin each game 0 – 0 and then the mystery unfolds with all its courage and cleverness and heroes and villains.

I compared my love of footy with my love of music. In that in our imperfect works as humans, now and then we reach beautiful heights. That chord progression that sends a tingle down your spine, the chorus which lifts your heart, the harmony that resonates in your gut. These moments are akin to the player that spins out of a tackle, sidesteps and makes the ball talk along the ground from the boundary line, through for a goal. The team of telepaths that piece together a chain of quick look-away handballs in a drive forward against the wind. The young kid on the big stage that goes back and boots the goal after the siren for a last gasp victory. The player that rides the pack for a speckie and is lifted heavenwards on the shoulders of others. Every game is replete with its moments of movement and strategy and skill that bring me joy to have witnessed. Some don't see it, that's ok.

Ted Whitten Jnr and Snr

So where did this love of footy come from? Some traditions hold with me and some do not. My father was an avid Bulldogs supporter as was his father before him and so on and so forth. My father would tell the tale of being a kid and sitting on Teddy (Mr Football) Whitten's knee. Teddy doing his lap of honour at the G still chokes me up because it is forever entangled with memories of my own father. Especially years of kick to kick with a skinless Sherrin in the backyard. My brother and I spent a lot of afternoons trying to outmark that man with his bigger body and his know how in how to position it. He didn't let us get soft marks. It took years but when we finally were able to get contested marks over him, we knew we'd earned it and that it meant something that shaped how we saw ourselves.

I also recall another watershed moment in our family footy life. It happened standing in mud and rain at the Western Oval on the opposite side to the Doug Hawkins wing. We beat the Hawks that day in a very low scoring affair. That was the day my mother switched from being a Hawks supporter and finally made our family of four whole. We were no longer tainted with the poos and wees. Being red, white and blue is a tradition that holds fast with me. Now if I can just convert my wife from those blue and white hoops!

Perhaps I'm drawn to footy not just by my soul but by my body and mind as well. They say (whoever they are) that muscle memory plays a part in your enjoyment of watching sport or movement. You see someone do something and there are corresponding parts of your brain that light up pathways and release endorphins. You don't even have to have performed a similar feat to create the pathways. It is in the power of imagination and why sportspeople often try to visualise what they intend to do before they do it. I intend to do nothing bar watch the visuals however.

So I had my go at playing and I also had my go at being an assistant coach of the Deloraine High Footy team while I was a Chaplain. They were a fantastic blend of misfits and talent and courage but we lost a lot more than we won. Perhaps I was inspired by another. Barry was the Pastor of our church in Brisbane and applied to be Chaplain to the hapless Brisbane Bears back in my youth. I remember standing on the hill with him as he hurled abuse and encouragement in equal measure and with equal delight. One overly exuberant day left him on the walk back to the car with hardly the shirt on his back – his favourite blue check flannel torn to shreds like he'd had an Incredible Hulk moment. I like to think that he thought he had. But a coach I am not – or am I?

is Stevie fit to carry my captaincy?

As a geek that invests inordinate amounts of time and energy on Sci-Fi, indie cartoons, maps and indie music, nowhere is my geekiness more prevalent than in my following of footy nowadays due to Fantasy football. As coach of 'The Krisening' and manager of the 'Every Dog Has Its Day' league I now have a hobby that takes up more than my weekends. It rejuvinates and tortures my soul nearly 7 days a week. Online I have traded my way to a team of premium stars led by Gaz, Rocky, Libba, Stevie J, Swan, Dangerfield, Buddy etc. So when Gaz does his shoulder and Rocky gets suspended for a week I am on the computer, trading and shuffling my team around in preperation for their next conquest.

Fantasy football has its moments where you finally catch up with a mate who has been avoiding you all Monday to bask in the glory of rubbing it in that you knocked them off top spot. Alternatively there are moments of despair where it is you that turns the phone off and stays away from email. Fantasy footy with all its lingo around Pigs, piglets, donuts and ghost kicks has meant more to me than killing time. It is a genuine social network of geeks and characters that helps to sustain me as I reside now in the foreign footy landscape that is Sydney. We discuss trades and encourage each other during the week and then trash talk each other over the weekend. I'm looking forward to besting my best mate 'Rainbow Buttmonkeys' in the finals. Yet as a Doggies supporter I'm more used to losing. So if and when I get bumped out in a preliminary final by a mere handful of points it will feel familiar to languish over the missed opportunities and the injustice of it all. Strangely I can find that just as rewarding as going on to beat one of my mates in the final.

Whether I'm just a footy tragic or exhibit A of a Geek Tragedy, and be it real life or fantasy footy, it's still a bunch of passionate people dressing up in their favourite colours and creating culture as they go. Following the theatre of it all as it is played out yearly and builds on the rich history that is forever present. I love it.