[My daughter cried when she read this. It's just a moment in time, not forever. Read the postscript...]
The last time I received mail from the Collingwood Football Club, it was a package from beyond my father's grave. My 2016 season's cap and scarf arrived in a padded envelope in early November, 2015. Meanwhile, my dad's ashes sat in a box in a funeral director's home. He had paid for my membership as a present before he died.
But suddenly, this last week, I'm just not sure I can stick it out with the 'Side by Side', and this is truly disturbing, on a very personal level. The recent behaviour of Collingwood President Eddie McGuire, in the now infamous MMM commentary segment about Age journalist Caroline Wilson, has made my Maggie loving blood run cold. Ice cold. It's not just the disgraceful comments made by McGuire, and others, about holding Caro underwater and rallying the crowd to join them, but the way the Club has handled it since.
There was Eddie’s qualified apology, then a half-hearted update, then the Board backed Eddie, and he made a seemingly more sincere video apology. Meanwhile Collingwood footy club supporters ranted on Collingwood’s Facebook page that Eddie ‘should never have had to apologise’. I couldn’t find any rebuttal of these supporters’ opinions from the Club. We're all supposed to get over it, and move on.
Though I could never change teams, it does feel like my heart is waning. I hope it's just a momentary lapse. But with Eddie at the helm, it is hard to feel the passion of old. Do I want to be surrounded by supporters, many of whom feel this was all just a bit of a joke, and we should ‘get over it?’ Do I respect a Club that seems to be minimising the seriousness of how language works to perpetuate disrespectful attitudes towards women? Enough has been written about that this past week. For me, this is now a gut thing.
I was born into the black and white, and have loved them with all my might-through the years of Daicos, Mark Williams, Rene Kink, Peter Moore, Billy Picken, through the drawn Grand Final of 77, to the victories of 1990 and 2010.
We grew up watching footy with dad on the wooden benches of the MCG. Our cathedral, where the souls of fans made up a large, messy family. Go Collingwood! dad would yell, in a guttural mangle. Wearing his beige overcoat, and with his member's cap on, he would yell both support and condemnation. There was a bond that came with this joint barracking-an 'in it forever', love you always, forgiving, long-suffering, celebrating, dreaming, hoping, ecstatic belief in the team.
When I was nearly a teenager, I ripped the stitching on my denim skirt to bits, as I wrestled with the tension of watching Twiggy Dunne line up and kick to give us a draw in the Grand Final against North Melbourne in 1977. In the 1990 Grand Final, I sprawled, massively hungover, on the top deck to see the Pies beat Essendon. It seemed like just me and Dad, up there, up high, on top of the G. The roar of the crowd, and our victorious team song, sort of flew away, into the sky.
Through two back-to-back losing Grand Finals against the Brisbane Lions, the 2002 game with my first child, 3 weeks old, strapped to my front, and clad in a black and white onesie. The boy slept until the game became dire in that final quarter, then his wailing began and my milk and tears began to flow too. Wasted. We both cried that day, him from hunger; me from a different hunger. I trudged, beaten, from the ground.
And then there was 2010. The original Grand Final against St Kilda, which Dad was too sick to attend, and the famous replay which gave us our first premiership in twenty years. Our whole family was there. My daughter and I had front row seats, and as the players ran their victory lap, they stopped to embrace my 6 year old girl. ‘Sweetheart!’ said Darren Jolly, as he stopped to hug her.
So, here we are, at the end of this week, and there's black and white mail for me. It hurts to see it. 'Supporting our Players and the Club you Love.' I can't bring myself to open it. I have picked it up, and turned it over. I feel ripped off. Can't rip the plastic off. I am trying to imagine my whole heart barracking at a game for our boys, but I'm not sure I can feel 'side by side we stick together'. In fact, even thinking of singing our song makes me feel sad. Our song.
‘Go Pies!’ I like to yell at the game. But, no, for now, I'm going. For now, I'm hanging up the hat and scarf. My heart has turned cold, and the mail will stay unopened. Sorry, Dad. I hope it’s not forever. It can't be forever.
Good Old Collingwood Forever...
Postscript: Since writing this, the team has played a game and won, and when the team song came on, I sang it with gusto, in a taxi, with a full heart. It had been a twisted gut feeling, but I know the Club is bigger than the President. Go Pies!
Since published on esteemed AFL fan website, The Footy Almanac.
************
The last time I received mail from the Collingwood Football Club, it was a package from beyond my father's grave. My 2016 season's cap and scarf arrived in a padded envelope in early November, 2015. Meanwhile, my dad's ashes sat in a box in a funeral director's home. He had paid for my membership as a present before he died.
But suddenly, this last week, I'm just not sure I can stick it out with the 'Side by Side', and this is truly disturbing, on a very personal level. The recent behaviour of Collingwood President Eddie McGuire, in the now infamous MMM commentary segment about Age journalist Caroline Wilson, has made my Maggie loving blood run cold. Ice cold. It's not just the disgraceful comments made by McGuire, and others, about holding Caro underwater and rallying the crowd to join them, but the way the Club has handled it since.
There was Eddie’s qualified apology, then a half-hearted update, then the Board backed Eddie, and he made a seemingly more sincere video apology. Meanwhile Collingwood footy club supporters ranted on Collingwood’s Facebook page that Eddie ‘should never have had to apologise’. I couldn’t find any rebuttal of these supporters’ opinions from the Club. We're all supposed to get over it, and move on.
Though I could never change teams, it does feel like my heart is waning. I hope it's just a momentary lapse. But with Eddie at the helm, it is hard to feel the passion of old. Do I want to be surrounded by supporters, many of whom feel this was all just a bit of a joke, and we should ‘get over it?’ Do I respect a Club that seems to be minimising the seriousness of how language works to perpetuate disrespectful attitudes towards women? Enough has been written about that this past week. For me, this is now a gut thing.
I was born into the black and white, and have loved them with all my might-through the years of Daicos, Mark Williams, Rene Kink, Peter Moore, Billy Picken, through the drawn Grand Final of 77, to the victories of 1990 and 2010.
We grew up watching footy with dad on the wooden benches of the MCG. Our cathedral, where the souls of fans made up a large, messy family. Go Collingwood! dad would yell, in a guttural mangle. Wearing his beige overcoat, and with his member's cap on, he would yell both support and condemnation. There was a bond that came with this joint barracking-an 'in it forever', love you always, forgiving, long-suffering, celebrating, dreaming, hoping, ecstatic belief in the team.
When I was nearly a teenager, I ripped the stitching on my denim skirt to bits, as I wrestled with the tension of watching Twiggy Dunne line up and kick to give us a draw in the Grand Final against North Melbourne in 1977. In the 1990 Grand Final, I sprawled, massively hungover, on the top deck to see the Pies beat Essendon. It seemed like just me and Dad, up there, up high, on top of the G. The roar of the crowd, and our victorious team song, sort of flew away, into the sky.
Through two back-to-back losing Grand Finals against the Brisbane Lions, the 2002 game with my first child, 3 weeks old, strapped to my front, and clad in a black and white onesie. The boy slept until the game became dire in that final quarter, then his wailing began and my milk and tears began to flow too. Wasted. We both cried that day, him from hunger; me from a different hunger. I trudged, beaten, from the ground.
And then there was 2010. The original Grand Final against St Kilda, which Dad was too sick to attend, and the famous replay which gave us our first premiership in twenty years. Our whole family was there. My daughter and I had front row seats, and as the players ran their victory lap, they stopped to embrace my 6 year old girl. ‘Sweetheart!’ said Darren Jolly, as he stopped to hug her.
So, here we are, at the end of this week, and there's black and white mail for me. It hurts to see it. 'Supporting our Players and the Club you Love.' I can't bring myself to open it. I have picked it up, and turned it over. I feel ripped off. Can't rip the plastic off. I am trying to imagine my whole heart barracking at a game for our boys, but I'm not sure I can feel 'side by side we stick together'. In fact, even thinking of singing our song makes me feel sad. Our song.
‘Go Pies!’ I like to yell at the game. But, no, for now, I'm going. For now, I'm hanging up the hat and scarf. My heart has turned cold, and the mail will stay unopened. Sorry, Dad. I hope it’s not forever. It can't be forever.
Good Old Collingwood Forever...
Postscript: Since writing this, the team has played a game and won, and when the team song came on, I sang it with gusto, in a taxi, with a full heart. It had been a twisted gut feeling, but I know the Club is bigger than the President. Go Pies!
Since published on esteemed AFL fan website, The Footy Almanac.
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