Players from the 10 Melbourne-based teams will again lace up the boots to tackle the eight interstate “raiders” on the cusp of another expansion of the national competition, tipped to be as soon as in four years time.
The supporter base of many existing AFL clubs may be watered down slightly with the impending arrival of a Tasmanian team into the competition as the apple isle’s state government considers a $750 million dollar stadium investment.
The Riv last week reached out to supporters from all 18 clubs to garner their opinion on the premiership chances of their team this year and also probed a bit further to find out just how that particular individual ended up donning the colours of their beloved team.
Football and passion walk hand in hand, never too far from the minds of those supporters that briefly spell from the rigours of supporting their team in October before immediately jumping back into it for the November draft.
The draft rolls into the pre-season, which rolls into the community series matches and before we know it the new season has arrived.
I grew up in football change rooms, not literally, but it was where dad was a trainer and I established my initial interest in the sport,
That’s probably not true, it was probably being given a couple of dollars and sent to the Tongala cafe — while dad enjoyed a frothy at the soon to be re-opened Tongala pub — to grab a couple of footy card packs.
Be that as it may, how we ended up barracking for our respective teams always has a story and you carry that with you, in most cases, throughout your life.
My cross to bear was black and white, passed down to me directly without me even realising.
Never was it a case of barrack for Collingwood or you don’t live in this house, I just can’t remember not barracking for the Magpies.
I think, as an eight-year-old on the small family hobby farm at Wilson Rd, Wyuna East, it was set in concrete.
It was grand final day, I was at the channel — probably yabbying — and knew it was almost time for the game to start.
Collingwood was playing North Melbourne in the 1977 VFL grand final, so I mounted the bike and started to make the short ride home.
Then disaster struck, in my haste I ended up in a ball of arms and legs in the gravel of the road which was directly outside home.
That pain probably dissipated quicker than it would have if the Magpies weren’t on the television. I’ve never forgotten that day.
As it turns out the game was a draw and my enthusiasm to get a seat on the couch — in front of the television — was misplaced as the game was replayed a week later.
I never did forget the name Twiggy Dunne though. He was the man that kicked the goal to draw the game, but a week later the Pies lost by 27 points.
T-shirt Tommy, Pants Millane and Lou the Lip have all passed since the days of me being an “all in” supporter, Bucks and Eddie are now watching on from the sidelines and my time is now spent on “De Goey watch”, hoping that his headlines are from on field activities rather than off it.
I do feel lucky though, the Pies have been a constant, never under threat of extinction and more often than not at least getting a week or two into September.
I haven’t had to watch on as Don Scott presented a hybrid version of a Melbourne and Hawthorn jumper, never had to rattle tins in the street like the St Kilda faithful, haven’t had to rely on a white knight and a name change like Footscray and not had to watch on as my team re-located to a northern state — as was the case in 1982 for South Melbourne supporters, when their team moved to Sydney.
Nowadays there are teams with as little a history as 10 years, Greater Western Sydney joined in 2012, the Gold Coast team is only one year older and then of the more established interstate teams — this is Port Adelaide’s 25th season in the competition.
Brisbane Bears and West Coast Eagles followed Sydney as the next “non Victorian” teams in 1987, then it was the Croweaters turn in 1991 with the Adelaide Crows.
Four years later, in 1995, Fremantle managed to achieve the feat South Australia had not been able to and received a second AFL licence.
Then, in 1997, the hostile arrive of Port Adelaide into the AFL — already with a hatred of one team in the competition after claiming its place in the national competition had been stolen away several years earlier.
Whichever way you swing the new AFL season brings with it plenty of excitement — at least until your team heads south on the ladder — a new Supercoach season and the obligatory football widows, who are now responsible for carving pathways to the various mancaves of our readership area to deliver sustenance to their other halves on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
