Sport did not run in my family. There were no childhood outings to Homebush or the local oval, no Test matches or World Cup qualifiers, no Saturday soccer or swimming trials. The closest I came to understanding the power of footy in Australian culture was observing my grandfather’s adoration for the St George Illawarra Dragons.
As sure as night follows day, at some point after a family lunch dwindled into coffee and chit-chat, he would quietly disappear, only to be heard yelling – or often enough, swearing – at the television from another room.
Swans fans celebrate as Justin McInerney kicks a goal at the SCG and leaves the Pies cold.Credit:Getty Images
This was a foreign world to me for many years. I had but one sporting love as a young man: tennis. I latched on to Roger Federer, and through the elusive beauty of his play (what David Foster Wallace would call those “Federer Moments”), I learnt what it meant to become a fan.
But football – with its grit and masculinity, camaraderie and social eminence – eluded me. I veered dangerously close to becoming one of those people who use the term “sportsball” to signify their disinterest in such shallow matters.
Footy’s appeal hit me as Hemingway’s Mike Campbell went bankrupt: gradually, then suddenly. I tried to follow the action on a TV screen at the pub in Canberra as mates shouted and banged the table and carried on, willing myself to get caught up in the excitement. What did Bob Dylan say? Something is happening, but you don’t know what it is.
I tagged along to a couple of games at the Sydney Cricket Ground, but football does not reward casual acquaintance. It profits those who follow it. And so, like a capricious gym-goer signing up on January 1, I took out Sydney Swans membership before the first game of this season, hoping it would spur me into regular attendance.
I’m there. Somewhere. Credit:Michael Willson/AFL Photos
And what a season it turned out to be. Two weeks later I was on the field at the SCG after Lance Franklin kicked his 1000th goal (against our grand final foe Geelong); in May, a thriller at home against Richmond, followed swiftly by Sydney disposing of the Demons at the MCG.
As a friend remarked last weekend while observing a sea of red filling the 48,000-seat SCG for the preliminary final against Collingwood: this town loves a winner. A lot has already been said about the fair weather Swans fan who, well, swans in when the going gets good. Call it great timing or a happy coincidence; I hopped on the bandwagon just as the winning was about to begin. I had – by accident – fulfilled the stereotype.
But hey, you have to feel for us newbies too. While the basics of the game are easy to understand – you can appreciate a leaping mark or a long, soaring goal off the 50-metre line from day one – other elements remain confounding after countless matches. I am assured the science behind free kicks never really becomes clear.
Then you have to learn the players’ names. There are a lot of them! And a lot of them look similar from a distance. But it’s an effort worth making, if only to help alleviate the next affliction of the fresh-faced fan: newcomer’s guilt.
You deploy the royal “we” – as in “we made the grand final” – with great excitement but also great hesitation. Insofar as any punter in the stands has done anything to contribute to that outcome, it certainly wasn’t some Johnny-come-lately in the Red Zone who still hasn’t mastered the words of Cheer, cheer the red and the white.
Long-time fans raise their eyebrows accusingly. “We”? Where were you, they seem to ask, when we finished third-last on the ladder in 2020? Or lost to GWS by a point in last year’s elimination final?
But of course, we all have to start somewhere. The great thing about football – although seriously marred by the recent allegations levelled against Hawthorn, and previous instances of racism that haunt the code – is that, by and large, it is an inclusive phenomenon. You see someone in a Swans scarf on the street, you give them a little wave. You bond with strangers at the pub after the game. Win or lose, sport brings people together.
Stick around long enough, and you’ll feel the rush that only comes from being truly invested in a team’s success. As our match-long lead against Collingwood looked like disappearing in the dying seconds of that preliminary final, my heart was racing, and my head was in my hands.
It reminded me of watching Federer at the pointy end of a grand slam; that silly feeling that their fate is entwined with yours, that the whole world pivots on what happens in that very moment. It reminds you you’re alive. That’s why I’ll be back next year – fair weather or foul.
Michael Koziol is Sydney editor.
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