Rollercoaster

Well, the football season is over for my team and pausing to reflect on the last 22 rounds I find myself not entirely disappointed with this year even though we didn�t make the finals.

Supporting a football team, or any team, is of course an emotional rollercoaster of highs, lows and loop-the-loops throughout the course of any season, and any lifetime. But recently I�m very pleased to say that my team is managing to deliver a great many highs, though not always of the traditional variety.

I have supported the same team my entire life, and my family�s support of the team goes back to its creation. But I am fortunate in that during my 30-some years on the planet have been the team�s most successful years. All four premierships, the record winning streak, and many consecutive years of finals appearances have all occurred during my life.

Of course there have also been some substantial on and off-field lows during that period. I clearly remember the beginning of the 1993 season. I was living in LA and my Dad advised me over the phone right before the beginning of the season that our coach had been sacked, we had no captain and had just lost in the pre-season competition by 200 points. It was about as depressing as it could get. But by the end of that year we were in the finals. And the next year we were a goal after the siren away from a Grand Final. That low point was the beginning of a startling and consistent run that included two premierships.

Despite that on-field success, my club is not a �power� club. It�s not a wealthy club. It struggles to get enough members, and its facilities haven�t really changed since the 70�s except to the extent that the players refitted the gym themselves.

But out of that, starting with the group of players from the beginning of that 1993 resurgence, and picking up the players that have joined since then, has formed an amazing spirit that the football world here wishes it could bottle, and which makes me proud to be a supporter of the team even in a year when they don�t make the finals.

Over the last two seasons the team has endured pretty much everything a team could be expected to endure, and more, off the field. They�ve been broke. They lost their two-time premiership captain and best player a couple of weeks before the season after he had an affair with his vice captain�s wife and no one could play with him any more. One of the players spent 6 days in a coma after being badly injured in the Bali bombing. Their two time premiership coach left them for another club and more money (though he more than got what he deserved when it came to that). Many predicted at the start of this season that they would end up on the bottom of the ladder.

All of that adversity has instead forged a team bond that is palpable and can and has been harvested to bring the team across the winning line on many occasions over the last two years.

It began with the first round of last season. We hadn�t made the finals the year before for the first time since 1992. The few weeks leading up to the season was a non-stop media barrage arising from the biggest off-field scandal in the game for decades, if not ever. A close-knit team, many playing together since they were teenagers, suddenly thrown into turmoil when the captain is found with his vice-captain�s wife at a team function and all hell breaks loose. The captain resigns and leaves the club, and the country, in disgrace. The team rallies around its vice captain. Makes him captain. So much emotion every where that no one really had any idea how it would all translate when they got on the field for the first time. Interstate, against a formidable opponent.

They came out and won, when no one really expected them too. And they gathered on the field, in hostile territory, at the end of the match, and linked arms and marched off together in a triumphant line that gave everyone an idea of how they felt about each other, of the bond. But only an idea.

Over the course of the season there were other victories, other moments, and they battled on and snuck into the finals. They lost in the first final and there was clearly a tiredness about them that showed the toll of the extra difficulties. But there was a pride about the conclusion of the season. They had overcome the loss of their best player, their leader. They had overcome the lack of cash off-field which had been a constant headache and was only just showing signs of turning around. They had overcome.

But then the coach left. They survived the loss of the captain, but the coach? The man that had helped to forge the team bonds? At the beginning of the season a wooden spoon was predicted by many.

Over the off-season there had been another event. The Bali bombing. Many of the victims of the bombing were football players of various codes on official and unofficial end of season trips. One of our players was badly injured. He wasn�t a leader of the team. He was a workmanlike and sometimes undisciplined player � he missed a premiership after clocking someone in the Preliminary Final � who was with his third club and frankly had occasionally been the object of derision.

In the days after the bombing a new image quietly emerged. Of someone, considerably more seriously injured than first reported, who gave up his place on the emergency evacuation plane to allow others to go home. Who arrived off the aircraft unrecognisable even to his father. Who then spent 6 days in a coma, but fought back. Before the season started he was up and around again, in pressure bandages, getting married, getting on with life. Determined to play football again.

And the season started with several wins that I never doubted but others did. A draw with the reigning premiers in one of the best matches of the year. A sign of the team bond, bonded with their new, young coach, who many of them had played alongside. They didn�t play pretty football, but they played hard tough football and refused to let any match go. Six goals down at three-quarter time � the opposition shouldn�t get too comfortable. They stumbled a bit when for the first time they opposed their former captain. They stumbled a bit further when up against their old coach. But they pushed on.

Then came the return of the bombing victim. After a struggle in the seconds, and another injury, and still wearing pressure bandages over his whole body. On a Friday night, the club turned it into an event. There was media and hype. There was a huge crowd. But when it came down to it there was that team spirit on the field. A spirit that absolutely refused to let the occasion, the fans, and themselves down. They scrapped and fought and won by three points. And it felt like a Grand Final. I went out and bought all the weekend papers to relive it like after a Grand Final.

But unlike a Grand Final they backed up the next week and fought just as hard and won again. And the spirit continued to grow.

In the last few weeks they let the finals slip though. They lost a few of the close ones, one point, one goal, that earlier they had won. But they didn�t loose the spirit. They finished off the year with a victory, in enemy territory, against the former captain, and a win of historic proportions over the team of the former coach.

In that final match they farewelled their retiring ruckman. A seven foot tall football cult figure who hadn�t played so much this year but had given it his all. And as they toyed with the opposition in almost comical fashion to ensure he got a goal in his final game one might have thought that it wouldn�t be as satisfying as if he got it without assistance. But the entire team swamped him in celebration, a show of genuine emotion and affection for him and an indication of just what its like to be a part of that team that made for a fabulous end to a season even though we didn�t make the finals.

So its been a rollercoaster. But its great to support a team that can leave you on a high despite a disappointing 10th placing. I don�t think the supporters of many of the other teams can say the same thing.

Next year will be onwards and upwards, and hopefully without any more unnecessary traumas to overcome. Though we know they can not only overcome them, but thrive on them.

So all I can say is thanks for the great year, stay where you are Mr Harvey, and go Roos!