The red and blue life
Steve Healy is 14-year-old. His team hasn't won a premiership for 45 years...
I AM looking for my Melbourne footy in the backyard.
It’s not a special footy, just the synthetic type you get at K-Mart for $20. This footy has stuck with me for the last few years and it’s had about four different copies. Every year I find myself in the same position, searching for the footy. It usually signifies that the footy season is truly on its way. The NAB Cup may have already started, but every fan has a point when their footy season devotedly starts.
Being a Melbourne supporter all my life I have seen the good and the bad. At age 14 I may not have seen the best or the worst of the club to come yet. I’ve slogged through the last two years, watching a lot of footy, and trying to get my head around the problems the Demons have had.
It’s Friday, the 30 March 2007. I will never forget this day. This day is the first game of the 2007 season, with Melbourne taking on St Kilda under lights at the MCG. I am standing under my garage roof and thinking about the game ahead tonight. I reflect that the Melbourne Football Club have a big season ahead this coming year. They had shown much promise the year earlier, just breaking down in the semi final but they were in the top four for most of the season. I expected big things for 2007. I asked my older brother to come to the game and he has reluctantly accepted. Gladly, he is a Demons supporter like everyone else in my family (to an extent) but he hasn’t been a very big fan of the club over the last couple of years. We take the train to the MCG.
We arrive at Richmond Station and watch the sea of fans flock into the ground. We buy a footy record, and then take our seats behind the goals at the Punt Rd end. As expected, Melbourne gets off to a good start and kick the first three goals of the game. I am sitting there, thinking that this could be another good season. I was wrong. St Kilda worked harder in the game and ended up winning comfortably by 31 points. It didn’t stop there. We didn’t win a game until round 10. We lost three times in four weeks by a goal or less. We got ravaged by injury. We lost our 10-year coach. We won five games for the season, and a couple of them weren’t convincing as they were against Carlton. We lost to Essendon in the final seconds by two points in Round 13 which was Neale Daniher's last game as coach. Most weeks I sat through this, most weeks I didn’t care. We finished 14th on the ladder in front of Carlton and Richmond. It wasn’t a good season.
Last year saw plenty of more promise, but still no success. Melbourne lost the first six games comfortably and then came back from behind to beat the Dockers in round seven. Our next win came at round 14 and it was only by one point. Our other win came in round 20 when we comfortably beat West Coast at the MCG despite being murdered in the free kick count. There were a few similarities between these games: They were all afternoon games at the MCG, I attended them all, they were all against interstate clubs and they were all played in front of small crowds. The average attendance for our wins for the year was 20,220. Our average attendance in all games for the year was 30,178. In 2007 these figures were 34,501 and 32,155. Our average winning margin for 2008 was 13.7 points and in 2007 it was 25.2. These figures tell us that there was a bit of contrast between the two years.
But when your team is travelling badly, you get used to it. You come to the footy every week not expecting to hear your team’s song at the end and you expect the stands to be quite empty. But this is all worth going through. You get to see young players develop, players like Brad Green, Cameron Bruce and Brock Mclean (when he’s fit) shining and running through the midfield. I look back five years or 10 years ago to when my whole family used to go and watch the footy together at the MCG and the Demons were successful and used to be a major contender for the finals. Looking back at these times, it reminds me that they’re not over yet.
The 2009 season will hopefully bring some fortune to the club. The Dees fell on their faces in the last quarter and lost to Hawthorn by three points after controlling three quarters of the game in the first round of the NAB Cup. Last week they played Sydney and lost narrowly and tonight they face the Lions up in Cairns. I look forward to round one when the Demons play North Melbourne.
Now, back in the present time. I have found my footy straight away. It was hiding in a bush, next to the fence, where I expected it to be. It has spent the whole summer lying there, waiting for my judgement on when the footy season starts. I take the ball inside and give it a clean. Its whole backside has been faded and it looks dead. I pump it up and then give it a kick around.
That night, it becomes very cold and rains a lot. I realise I have chosen a great day for the footy season to start.
I hand pass the footy onto my bed.
• The red and blue faithful watch David Neitz at the MCG in 2004. Photo by Les Everett
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