There’s so much about the AFL footy season that I’m looking forward to | Amanda Blair

She may be in the minority when it comes to missing Brian Taylor’s commentary. But Amanda Blair says after initially hating footy, she’s now a true convert. Here’s why.

This column may shock you. It will certainly shock my husband who introduced me to the subject 26 years ago.

I showed little or no interest, preferring the action in my novel to the action in the midfield where he’d trot around.

“Yes, darling, of course I saw your goal”, I’d say unconvincingly after the games and before the obligatory beer and chicken schnitzel at the Edwardstown Club rooms.

Eventually he gave up and I was footy free. Then I birthed two boys who showed a keen interest in the oblong pigskin and so I finally got to live my dream (cough) and spend my weekends driving around in a Tarago searching for footy boots, lost socks, suburban ovals and boiling water to mould the emergency mouthguard.

Still I didn’t really watch the game, rather was more interested in my iPhone searching up ways to prevent frostbite and chilblains from standing outside, bored witless, in inclement weather.

After initially not being a footy fan, Amanda Blair says the community of the game is intoxicating. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images

At home the footy would always be on the telly as a background to domestic life, the noise akin to the buzz of an annoying blowfly.

I ignored it for as long as I could but eventually I realised everybody else was doing it so should I, particularly if I ever wanted to see my family again.

So I became a footy fan.

There’s a school of thought, mostly propagated by men, usually former coaches, suggesting women shouldn’t comment on football because “you haven’t played the game”.

True, I don’t know how great it is to slot a checkside from the boundary or the thrill of removing a sweaty jock strap from my crack at the end of a hard-fought contest.

But, as the creator* of “Bernadine from Alberton” who coined the phrase “Caaarn the Pear”, I’ll answer that, as she would, “YOU CAN GET STUFFED”.

For me it’s about the C word – community. Football is the great unifier of us all, the only place left where we can emote freely without fear of cancel culture.

Amanda says a Collingwood loss, of which there haven’t been many of late, can pick up most footy fans who don’t support the Magpies. Picture: Michael Klein

Going to an AFL match is like walking into a giant conference of Karens – everybody is just having a go at whatever they want to have a go about, loudly.

There’s shouting and swearing and constant streams of commentary from all types – fat blokes with man boobs, who, in between chugs of beer and fistfuls of hot chips, shout to young fit players in the forward line to “try harder” and “do better” being a personal favourite.

There’s grandmas under crochet rugs with radios pressed to their ears and Thermoses of hot tea at their feet who would rather miss a funeral than “the boys”.

Families of all sizes and shapes attend and increasingly, a more multicultural crowd which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Incidentally this is how I think Dustin Martin would feel if he’d just respond to my DMs and accept my offer of a Moccona next time he and the mighty Tigers are in town.

Amanda says she’s even missed Brian Taylor’s commentary and roaming the rooms. Picture: Channel 7/Supplied

Supporting an AFL team is a gateway into conversations with people you’d never normally have conversations with.

If you’ve watched a game on the weekend you always have something to discuss with randoms – great marks, bad umpiring, shocking player haircuts, the goal that got away.

A win raises up the spirit of the community, conversely a loss brings us down.

Unless it’s a loss suffered by Collingwood which raises us all up again.

I have NFI about the rules – I just shout out “BALL” when everybody else does.

I don’t know what STAND means or how an umpire can know a player has deliberately put the ball over the boundary line – what are they – psychics?

I do know that I love the tribalism of footy and I’ve missed it.

I’ve missed BT in the change-rooms post-match; I’ve missed the coaches’ press conference; I’ve missed playing BRAYSHAW BINGO where I get a point every time he calls a player a GREAT/GOOD/BIG MAN/FELLA.

This weekend, it returns and I’ve never been more ready for a goal celebration.

* Thanks PAFC for the royalty check and/or statue. x

Originally published as There’s so much about the AFL footy season that I’m looking forward to | Amanda Blair