Finals - Week 2, 2004

 

 

The words “Geelong”, “September” and “tragedy” have become synonymous over the years, and so it was once again last Saturday. Geelong continued its wretched history of September failure, this time being cruelly denied in its gallant efforts to throw away the game against Essendon in the last quarter. Despite the Cats’ best efforts in giving Essendon five goals in the last ten minutes, they once again came up short at the business end of the year.

 

So hard was Geelong trying to let Essendon back in that even Jobe Watson started to look good. In the battle of the Sons of Champions on Saturday night, Geelong demonstrated than in Ablett Jnr they have the football equivalent of Pitt the Younger – he may never fill his old man’s incomparable shoes (because no one can) but he still has his own distinct brand of brilliance and is surely destined to rise to the same lofty heights as his father. The Dons, on the other hand, showed that in J. Watson they have the football equivalent of John F. Kennedy Jnr – less substance, less ambition, and destined to be famous only for looking pretty and having a famous name.

 

As one of the 53,000 masochists who braved the frozen conditions (wettest and coldest September weekend on record – thank-you Melbourne) footballinvective.com once again had cause to reflect on the genius of the AFL and its scheduling policies. Leaving the MCG vacant on a Saturday afternoon yet scheduling finals on the freezing Saturday evening - all for the sake of appeasing Channel 10, who kindly returned the favour by not even broadcasting the game in the ‘key development markets’ of NSW or Queensland, instead dazzling Sydney audiences with ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ (we kid you not).

 

Yet even this further example of the AFL’s exquisite judgement was overshadowed by the latest clanger by Andrew Demetriou and AFL chairman Ron Evans, who chose to nick off from the G at 7:30 to attend the Andrea Bocelli opera show across the road.

 

Its reassuring the see that the powers-that-be in the AFL have such strong faith in their own organisation. Whilst they were happy to condemn faithful Dons and Cats supporters to a sodden Saturday night in a vain attempt to produce more frozen corpses than the battle of Stalingrad, these two clowns showed their solidarity with mainstream sportsfans by snubbing their own big game and heading off to the opera instead.

 

Such behaviour, however, should not come as much of a surprise, for it is hardly out of character for Ron Evans. His list of ‘achievements’ whilst AFL chairman makes for pretty abysmal reading:

• his own catering company got given the rights to manage Colon Stadium (hmmm, no conflict there, Ron?) only to have its ‘services’ terminated one year into the 30 year contract because it was so appallingly bad;

• the AFL did not even provide a space for its own members at its own new stadium (unlike the evil, stubborn, intransigent MCC, which kindly gives AFL members 20,000 seats – one Prelim final each year isn’t asking too much in return now is it?)

• Evans and co also showed where their real priorities lay when they established the $5,000 a year Spiv Club at Colon Stadium, with exclusive rights to queue- jump fair dinkum club members into grand final tickets at the MCG. 

Ah, Ron Evans, truly the Battler’s Friend. A man who really has the grassroots of the game close to his heart. Unfortunately for football, up-market types like Evans seem to be completely oblivious to the state of football under their reign – the strategic direction of the AFL under his ‘leadership’ has been all about honest battlers being either priced out of big games or not even allocated tickets, whilst the Corporate Spivs, Sponsors’ Wives and Assorted Hangers On (CSSWAHOs) get all the benefits. Look at the average Grand Final crowd over the past five years – all full of CSSWAHOs, with barely a normal supporter in sight. The average crowd roar at a grand final when a goal is kicked is restricted to the one token pocket of club supporters, as the rest of the crowd either have no allegiance to either team, or know nothing about the game. Evans is of the same ilk as the likes of Ross Oakley and Patrick Smith who speak of football games as “product” that the AFL is producing for the corporate world. That’s right folks, “product”. Football is just “product”.

 

Mr Evans voted with his feat on Saturday night, clearly preferring Bocelli’s exotic Italian “product” to his own. As depressing as this state of affairs is, it is the inevitable result of the way Evans and his ilk have treated normal supporters in recent years.

 

A tragic, farcical, yet highly hilarious illustration of the depths to which football has descended was broadcast on ABC radio on Tuesday night this week. Footballinvective.com had the misfortune of sitting through a talkback session on 3LO hosted by one Jane Clifton (who?) in which listeners were invited to ring in to respond to the following proposition: 

“Should you go to the Grand Final if your team is not in it and you don’t care about football?”

 

Let us repeat that again, just in case you didn’t believe it: 

“Should you go to the Grand Final if your team is not in it and you don’t care about football?”

 

We kid you not, this was the actual topic of conversation on ‘your’ ABC. It’s reassuring to see that ‘your’ ABC has clearly identified its target audience – CSSWAHOs only; honest battlers need not apply. For those of the high class CSSWAHO set, who just take it for granted that a CSSWAHO grand final ticket will come their way each year, the social dilemma of whether to attend the grand final if you don’t care about football probably rates just below the really important dilemmas in life, like whether to wear a hat or a fascinator on Oaks Day. Or whether to choose Aspen or Switzerland for this year’s skiing holiday.

 

While you’re at it ABC, why not have another talkback session on the question of “should they also have valet parking at the MCG to park the Wange Wohvah, followed by complementary strawberries and champagne when you get to your seat, Dahling??”

 

But it gets better. After inviting talkback calls on her social dilemma of the day, the ABC host then got a bit of unexpected comeuppance, as she took a series of incredulous calls from honest battlers (including a fired-up Dale from Vermont) who railed against the manifest unjustness of her proposition and the rank out-of-touch snobbery that would prompt the question in the first place. After the first indignant caller pointed out the absurdity of CSSWAHO types facing this dilemma whilst genuine passionate supporters missed out, a somewhat taken-aback Clifton replied to the indignation with the response of “yes, but you’re only saying that because you’re a football fan…”

 

As John McEnroe would say - "You cannot be serious!"

 

At the end of several strong sprays, Clifton still just didn’t get it, concluding that she was really surprised that “no-one rang up to defend going to the grand final”.

 

Well, actually Jane, they ALL did…

 

The mindset of the CSSWAHOs who appear on the ABC is truly amazing. I’m sure that Ms Clifton and assorted CSSWAHOs wouldn’t be so snobbish and dismissive of the aspirations of normal people to see their team in the grand final if they themselves were denied the chance to attend their favourite Bocelli opera show because tens of thousand of footy fans thought it was socially hip to monopolise all the opera tickets and then turn up to it in footy jumpers drinking VB. Then again, perhaps that’s exactly what Ron Evans and the rest of the opera-going, ABC-listening CSSWAHO set that currently run the game need in order to give them a good reality check.

 

But the funniest bit – and the ultimate illustration of just how out of touch the ABC is  - was when Ms Clifton first announced the social dilemma talkback topic. Without a hint of irony, and without even pausing for effect, she said “I want our listeners to answer this question: should you go to the Grand Final if your team is not in it and you don’t care about football? And by the way, if any listeners live near Boronia, be careful because there’s a traffic alert on Boronia Rd”

 

Well footballinvective.com had to clean up a puddle afterwards when we heard that. Having grown up next door to Boronia, on the border of moccasin territory, where you can be forgiven for thinking you were passing through Port Adelaide, we can categorically guarantee that there won’t be anyone out that way who is lucky enough to face the dilemma of whether to go the grand final without caring about football. If the ABC is pitching at the CSSWAHO audience, there sure as hell won’t find many of them anywhere near Boronia. (“Boronia? Boronia Dahling? - Isn’t that the new winery in the Hunter Valley?”)

 

So this is what the football world has come too. This is the sort of world that custodians of the game like Ron Evans have bequeathed to us honest battler footy fans. All they care about are their own opera tickets and the superboxes and the grand final tickets of the CSSWAHOs. As for the battlers – we’re just expendable cardboard cut-outs who exist only to freeze our asses off whilst providing a backdrop in the two giant television studios in Jolimont and the Docklands, watching 44 overpaid pretty boys serve up more “product”. 

 

Let the War Begin.