Give Us a Sporting Chance

I'm going to take off my obscure Music/TV Series/Books hat off for a moment and throw a particular scarf around my neck and pull a gurnsey over my chest and wear some colours proudly.

Yes, I am a supporter of a particular sports team. In fact, I have a few sports teams in different codes that I follow. That's because I love sport.

I love the feeling of winning. I love cheering until my throat goes hoarse. I love sitting amongst a crowd of thousands and feeling like my willing them on equates to me playing a pivotol part in their victory. I hate the losses and knowing I feel them harder than the players do. I love watching history happen every weekend.

On an average day I can sit down and watch darts, snooker, cricket, soccer/football, NFL, Rugby, Athletics, curling or lawn bowls and enjoy it. I go bunta during the Olympics and Paralympics when there are sports I don't see every day - like Goalball or the Modern Pentathlon.

The sport that consumes most of my attention is Australian Rules Football, affectionately known as 'footy'. It's traditionally played on cricket grounds, has 2 goal posts and 2 point posts, and is very different to the European code of football - and no, it's not Rugby. There's a footy oval in just about every suburb and on a winter's day you couldn't drive anywhere without passing a game. It's hard not to be pulled into the frenzy that is football.

My club is Port Adelaide Football Club. I support the local league (SANFL) team - the Magpies, and the national league (AFL) team - the Power. Two different names and uniforms, but the same club.

I grew up in the Port Adelaide area, my parents grew up in Port Adelaide; my grandparents migrants from Italy and Belgium and embraced the local team. It's a common story for many sports: barracking for the local club because that's what you do.

Being a real supporter isn't about going where the success is; it's about pride in your home town no matter where you are in the world. Having said that many people go for teams in a city they've never been to: fine by me so long as you don't turn your back on them because they're not winning. A team is for life, not the fair weather.

The Port Adelaide Football Club's Magpies team - SANFL Grand Final, Football Park, 1999

The Port Adelaide Football Club's Power team - AFL Grand Final, Melbourne Cricket Ground, 2004


Two different teams - both are one club.


Right, moving on:

For all its good points about pride, passion and local patriotism, sport sometimes resembles an atomic bomb sitting on a coffee table and a few people sit around it. There'll always be one trying to poke the button that sets the bomb off. Those kind of people make me enjoy sport a little less. They take great pleasure in the misery of the opposition. There will never ever be an acceptable excuse for bullying supporters or making them feel unsafe at a game. There are certain games of the year I do my best to avoid because of horrible experiences I have had with opposition supporters, and I'm not saying all those in my club's colours are angels either. It's sad when a day out with the family turns into a horrible time for all concerned especially when sport can be so much better.

Australian football has recently tackled swearing and inappropriate behaviour at games and it's improving. They are now addressing acceptance of homosexuality and an increase of female umpires at national level. This is a sport I get behind because of the social responsibilities the league (not always the teams themselves) accepts. For kids to see women involved in the matches or hearing their heros tell them being gay is okay - it can only be positive.

The involvement of females at top levels of Australian Rules is increasing.

Sport is one of the best things we have to prove humanity is worth having faith in. If aliens came from on high and demanded evidence our selfish lives are worth saving, I'd enter sport as Exhibit B. It's a unifying experience. See the Olympics and Paralympics as a prime example of what we're capable of. Warring sides embrace one another in mutual respect long before political leaders do (or ever will).

I'm no expert in every sport, but I follow what I can where I can. News that affects a team on the other side of the world sure as hell captures my attention. I followed and put in hours of research into the Hillsborough inquiry when that exploded through international news. There was a trickle on our side of the world but most of it I got from twitter. The Premier League isn't just half a world away from me geographically, I couldn't tell you a key player in any team and I could possibly list off maybe four teams I know of in the League. Still, as a sports fan, it mattered to me.

At the same time - literally the same week - as the inquiry's findings were published, a player from my club died suddenly in tragic circumstances. As the news spread supporters and players from other clubs offered their support. The AFL finals were still being played but finalists offered their condolences to the club and its supporters. I was contantly faced with news updates, some media speculating drugs were involved, graphic descriptions of the death from witnesses. And in the middle of the shock and grief there I was reading about 96 supporters killed in a tragedy 23 years ago. I could only imagine what it would have been like 23 years ago. No matter the fenzy in the press, in both instances the players and supporters rallied. And they always will rally when something terrible happens to one of their own.

A sporting tragedy should affect every sports fan.

Then there was the Bali Bombings ten years ago that killed 88 Australians and 202 people in total. Several footy players of various grades celebrating their end of season were caught up in the blasts. Some country clubs were completely torn asunder. Their communities banded together and even top level players raised money to help out the families affected. One AFL player was horribly burned but managed to couragiously return the following year, proudly wearing the number of Aussies lost over his heart. The crowd at that comeback game - didn't matter if he was on your team or not - were on their feet. Not a dry eye in a stadium of more than forty thousand.

I was touched when I read of London Bombing surivors competing at the Paralympics.

It's in our genes no matter who or where we are.

Sport does that to us. It pulls us from the worst times of our lives to achieve the greatest triumph we could imagine.

I belong somewhere in an army of thousands, in a sea of teal, black and white.

Why I love my sport so much is because at the best of times I can go to a game, sit beside a supporter of the opposition, and no matter the outcome we talk about the game and leave with a smile. I belong somewhere in an army of thousands, in a sea of teal, black and white.

I could be the only one flying the banner for my cause; but no matter what, I'll never walk alone.