AFL players should officially thank the fans when footy returns this week, writes Mark Robinson
Footy fans will be eternally thankful of the players for what they delivered during the lockdown hell. Now it’s right that the players say thanks in return.
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Thursday night and on Friday night and before every match to open the most yearning for AFL seasons, the players should gather in the centre of the oval moments after the coin toss.
They then, as one, should turn towards the crowd in the grandstands and clap, soccer-style, to the very people who deserve the most hearty of thanks.
The fans.
It would be a small gesture, a couple of seconds at most, but it would be immensely symbolic and respectful.
The players have said they missed the fans, but I’m not sure they’ve really understood how much the fans missed the players and the game.
Fans and footy are like a marriage.
There’s those familiar feels, immersed in consciousness after years of loyal interaction. The noises, the smells, the sights.
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Close your eyes and cast back to your first day at the footy.
Mine was at Waverley. Carlton played Essendon on March 25, 1975.
I can’t remember anything of the game, but there’s shards of activity. The people and sounds. And you couldn’t see the other end of the ground.
There’s so many emotional highs, such as when the siren sounds and you’re a point up and the body almost bursts with emotion. It’s unadulterated joy for the adults and the kids.
There’s the other days, though, when you have driven from Shepparton, or Mount Gambier, or flown in from South Australia, and your team is belted by 12 goals.
You sack the coach and 10 players in your head, but you get over it.
“I’ll pick you up next week,” mate says to his mate.
Last year, the marriage became a separation.
It wasn’t a case of irreconcilable differences. Nuh, we didn’t hate each other. It was COVID-19
In Victoria, the heartbeat of football, the players left home and we, the fans, were left to ride out winter in lockdown.
Despite the distance between us, football on TV became our friend. A comfort blanket for families.
Kids stayed up later, teens came out of bedroom hibernation and parents latched on to an escape from, at times, the realities of suffocating curfews.
Footy became a family gathering in isolation. For that, the fans were thankful.
The players deserved it. Their salaries were slashed and they had to endure emergency evacuations from their states.
Loved ones were left behind. Partners and kids. Mums and dads. Four weeks become 16 weeks in hub life. It wasn’t supposed to play out like that, but play the players did.
My God, we thanked them.
So, it’s time the players thanked the fans. The people who stuck fat with their footy clubs.
Some fans wanted their membership money back. Most didn’t. They understood the colossal financial drain on the game and their footy clubs, and, after all, footy clubs in most footy homes are part of the family.
Then this year. Those same fans who in 2020 weren’t able to catch a tram to their favourite ground — cheers, Greg Champion — are back to fall in love again.
Memberships are paid, scarves are out of the cupboard, kids are excited about getting their faces painted and debate will re-emerge about whether men over 45 should be wearing their footy jumpers.
The AFL is emphatic that it wants a return to rituals and traditions
It’s why they wanted a day a Grand Final and it’s why, every day, Gillon McLachlan checks the community transmission number.
The longer it remain at zero, the more the chances grow that there will be 100,000 fans at the MCG on Anzac Day.
There is no greater ritual in footy than fans pouring through the MCG gardens, having arrived by car, train, legs or tram.
Indeed, the first sight of the MCG every time still wows us.
You check you have your ticket — for the fifth time — and there’s that soothing relief when the bar code prompts a green reaction.
Then it’s to your seat, a pie, a beer, a softie or sandwich on the menu.
This time last year, Richmond and Carlton entered the arena with such a lack of fanfare.
For the hundred or so in attendance, they won’t readily forget the isolation and the numbness.
Nor would the players. They are footballers and entertainers. It was like Phantom of the Opera at an empty Her Majesty’s Theatre.
The game was less soulful.
Footy is not proper footy without the fans.
It’s the same game, of course, but not the same event.
On Thursday night, the likes of Dusty Martin and Patrick Cripps, and over the weekend, Nathan Fyfe, Liam Ryan, Patrick Dangerfield, Robbie Gray, Toby Greene and Marcus Bontempelli, will help reignite the rituals of 150 years.
The cheering, the jeering and the exaltation of winning before a crowd at the final siren.
Again, the fans will be thankful of the players.
Before it all starts, though, the players should thank fans.
Because without each other, it’s a marriage of vast inconvenience.
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