Footy

People have differing opinions of football (I'm talking about aussie rules here, all other codes have glaring deficiencies), for some people it is a complete waste of time. Some people actually find it offensive. Others think that the world was created as a stage for football to be played on (I know that sentence is structurally unsound, but I don't care, I don't do grammar). The majority are somewhere in between.
In the days of my youth (when the sun was always shining and the magic lantern show was only a farthing) I was something of a football fanatic. I lived and breathed football. I was in training eleven months of the year. I worked harder at football than I have worked at anything before or since. I wasn't very good, it took me until my twenties to realise this. I made rep teams regularly, mainly because I was fitter (and smarter) than most bush footballers, but I was never going to get any further.
I wasn't upset when it finally dawned on me that I was doomed to the bush leagues, I had fun while it lasted. I tried coaching but I couldn't understand that most people just didn't want to work as hard as I did; foolish people, enjoying themselves.
Likewise people have differing reasons for supporting their chosen clubs. Some are born into it, either through location or through belonging to a dynasty of, say Collingwood supporters. Some people are followers of success (witness the explosion of Essendon barrackers in the Sheedy years), still others have their club chosen for them. My father, f'rinstance, grew up in a bush town in the thirties. His family shifted to the northern suburbs of Melbourne in the late thirties. At school he was asked who he followed in the VFL. He'd never heard of the VFL. They told him to follow Geelong as a joke. He's been following them ever since. Another bloke I know, a ten-pound-tourist, was thrown to the ground on his first day of school. His attacker knelt on his chest, grabbed him by the ears and, as he belted his head into the ground, chanted "Barrack for The Bloods, barrack for The Bloods!" He's followed the Swans for thirty odd years now.
As for myself, in my childhood I made the decision to follow Essendon. I could tell you that this was because our local club played in the Essendon and District Football League, but that would be a lie. I was just copying my older brother, which I did in everything. This habit of mine embarrassed my brother so, in my first year of school, when the footy season started he banned me from supporting Essendon. Essendon were playing Carlton that week, so I decided to follow Carlton out of spite. Carlton beat them, then went on to win the premiership. Yay us. I only found out when I was nine years old that I was born in Carlton.
So, for thirty six years I've been following Carlton. There won't be a thirty seventh. This weekend Carlton plays it's last game at Princes Park, after playing there since before the VFL was formed. I have been steadily losing interest in the VFL/AFL ever since the eighties when South Melbourne became The Swans. This continued when the push to get rid of Fitzroy was on, ditto Footscray (at least they survived). I think a national competition is a good idea, I just don't like the way they have done it. I don't understand why we have to sacrifice tradition in order to expand.
lets face it, how many Melbourne players were born in the CBD, how many Hawks come from within spitting distance of Glenferrie road. Without any ties to a given area through its personnel, the only way of differing between clubs is the location of their home grounds. Without a base in their nominal homeland a club becomes generic. It is becomes a choice between different colour Holdens; they're all Holdens.
I had more to say, but I've got to go to work.