Now I’ve witnessed a Swans car crash, I can finally call myself a proper fan

Something peculiar happened late in the third quarter of Saturday’s grand final, as all hope of a Swans comeback faded. I found myself quietly egging on the capitulation. Blow out that margin, baby. If we’re going to lose badly, let’s break some records.

Looking back, it was the moment I finally became a proper Swans fan. Because it was only then that I got to participate in the club’s most esteemed of rituals: watching a grand final drubbing in person at the MCG.

Credit: Getty Images

Foolishly, I stayed home in 2022, opting to watch that catastrophe from the courtyard of a Sydney pub. But it’s not the same. To really appreciate a loss of that magnitude, you have to be there. You have to travel.

As a relative newcomer to footy fandom, I could only sit and listen as friends reminisced about the other great grand final losses of ’14 and ’16. Some had managed to attend all three. I wasn’t going to miss my chance to join in the tradition.

Despite some early signs that things might be amiss, with Will Hayward and Tom Papley nailing the first two goals and Sydney looking dangerous, normal programming eventually resumed. No amount of early-season dominance, no late-season return to form, no minor premiership was going to stand in the way of our customary car crash in the granny.

And so it went. Depressing though it is to spend the week – nay, the year – getting excited, hop on a plane, battle the airlines and fork out for a ticket, only to have your team annihilated to a humiliating degree, there is solidarity to be found in the experience.

In 2022, after boasting I was glad I stayed in Sydney and dodged a bullet, a friend mocked me for being a classic fair-weather fan. Real fans want to be there, win or lose, he said. I think Saturday’s events might have tested his commitment to that maxim, but it’s true.

It was true for the retired couple from Merimbula beside us in the standing-room-only, obscured-view pen at the back of the MCG, who had schlepped to Melbourne for their first grand final. No regrets, the lady told me. “It would have been the same result if I’d watched on TV ... At least I’m here.”

Later, at a pub in Collingwood, talk turned as it inevitably does to blame. Some wanted to sack the coach. Others grimaced about the players choking. The consensus was the loss felt worse this time, having been preceded by a season of such lofty expectations and a real finals surge.

It has been a year of ecstatic highs and horrific lows. It’s bizarre a team capable of producing such brilliance could be crushed by Port Adelaide to the tune of 112 points, or show such grit and steel in the qualifying final but fail to match that in the big dance. It seems random and unpredictable; and yet the Swans’ grand final performances have now become, sadly, all too predictable.

On Sunday morning, I trudged through the Melbourne rain, sans umbrella, to collect my bags from where I’d stored them after landing on an early pre-final flight. It felt like a grim and fitting walk of shame. I couldn’t quite bring myself to wear my Swans scarf.

At Southern Cross I saw my fellow Bloods wheeling suitcases toward the Skybus, its brilliant red a sad reminder of a team they might like to forget for a few days. But there they were, in their Swans caps and hoodies, still happy and proud (or maybe just cold).

In the afternoon I put the scarf back on. After all, I’m a proper fan now – with the scars to prove it.

Michael Koziol is Sydney editor.