Best on Ground – Great Writers on The Greatest Game

I contributed to ‘Best on Ground – Great Writers on The Greatest Game’ (Penguin, 2010, ed. Peter Corris and John Dale). My piece is called ‘An Affair to Remember’ and charts the highs and lows of my lifelong love of Hawthorn.

Other contributors to the book include David Williamson, Don Watson, John Harms and Sophie Cunningham.

For more details, click here.

My piece begins as follows:

1. Matchmaking

It was like racing for the taps on an overflowing bath.

‘Ay yay yay yay yay,’ I bellowed, at a volume that surprised my wife, Tamsin, and scared our daughter, Polly. Tam thought my behaviour ridiculous, completely inappropriate from the father of a two-year-old. I thought I showed considerable restraint, given the urgency of the situation. I mean, I didn’t tackle them to the ground, did I? I just yelled a little. And jumped between them. And okay, perhaps my hands ended up over my daughter’s ears. But what was I supposed to do? The taps were running. Somebody had to turn off the taps.

What Tam had been saying – patiently, and with the best of intentions – was this: ‘Now Polly, there are a lot of footy teams you can barrack for. There are Lions and Tigers, and Cats and Dogs and Kangaroos …’ I’m not sure she got as far as ‘Kangaroos’. From half a room away, I began the shouting and hollering. Oh my God! She’s telling her about the high-end mammals! Never tell a two-year-old about the high-end mammals!

‘What? Why shouldn’t she get to choose?’ Tam asked, bewildered, after my bellowing subsided.

‘Because she doesn’t get to choose!’ I exclaimed. ‘Because on a level playing field, she’ll never choose Hawthorn. I mean what two-year-old girl in her right mind is going to choose yellow and brown and a second-rate bird of prey that never gets a mention on Play School?’

‘She might choose Hawthorn,’ Tam said. ‘If you’d let me finish, I was going to tell her that Grandpa played for the Hawks.’

I was suddenly filled with a tidal wave of regrets. Why hadn’t I insisted on the yellow and brown doona cover with the tasteful insignia? Why hadn’t I invested in the ‘I’m Small But I Know My Footy’ romper suit? The marketing people down at the club had tried to smuggle some traces of navy blue into the designs, and had I supported them? No[AS1] . I’d guessed that Tamsin wouldn’t like yellow, brown and traces of navy blue any more than she liked yellow and brown straight up.
‘Which teams did you mention?’ I asked, moving into damage control.
‘I’m not sure. Lions and Tigers. Cats and Dogs perhaps.’

‘Jesus, Tam. Couldn’t you have thrown in a low-rent Crow? Or a Docker? Why couldn’t you have made it a simple choice between swooping hawks and heavily unionised singlet-wearing stevedores?’

She told me that I was being ridiculous. That choosing a football team was just that – a choice.

‘You don’t get to choose,’ I said.

‘You’re being silly. It’s just a game. Next thing you’ll be telling her what party she can vote for.’

I bit my tongue. I didn’t have a political intervention scheduled until Polly was twelve. Nor is footy ‘just a game’. This was Hawthorn Tam was talking about – my first true love – and although I may have moved on in the sense that I no longer passed time on road trips recalling A–Zs of Hawthorn players by given name and surname (A is for Alle de Wolde, B is for Bernie Jones, C is for Colin Robertson … where was Xavier Ellis when I needed him in the mid-eighties?), I still cared enough to limit my daughter’s choice of football team to a field of one.

‘Polly, you barrack for the Hawks, don’t you? Like Daddy? And Grandpa? And Granny? And Aunty Sam? And Aunty Pippa? And Uncle Ned? Hawks are fantastic big birds. Really fast. If you say you barrack for the Hawks, Daddy will go and get you a Hawks footy.’

‘I barrack for Hawks,’ Polly parroted. ‘Like Daddy.’

I stared at the floor, unsure whether I felt shame or relief. Either way, it was mission accomplished.

‘Pathetic,’ Tam muttered under her breath.

‘You don’t get to choose,’ I repeated softly.