The Melbourne Football Club

Australian rules football. A game originally designed to keep cricketers fit in the winter. In its origin state of Victoria it’s not unlike a religion. You pay a couple of hours homage each week (at least) and you often (but not always) go for the team whom your parents support. 

I remember trying to describe it once to an American who was visiting Australia and couldn’t comprehend why, if a guy jumped on another player and caught the ball he got to take the kick, but in the same scenario, if he didn’t take the mark it would be a free kick against him. “Look”, I said. “If you start from the premise it’s crazy you’ll soon get the drift. It’s the best game in the world.” By the end of the game this man was a convert. A convert not only to Australian rules football but also to the Melbourne Football Club. 

I’d be willing to bet when Tom Wills established the rules of the game he knew little of the dynasty that would emerge. A powerhouse in the 50s and 60s Melbourne was a force to be reckoned with. Norm Smith and his charges, the likes of Ron Barassi, Brian Dixon, Stuart Spencer, Hassa Mann and John Beckwith to name a few, were the kings of their era. They were formidable and unrelenting, driven by Smith’s philosophy of discipline and adherence to principles. 

More recent decades have given rise to challenges, hurdles and moments of euphoria mixed with despair. But the prospect of winning a 13th premiership has consistently eluded reality. Some say it’s because of the ‘Norm Smith curse,’ believed to have commenced after the legendary coach was sacked in 1965, a year after Melbourne’s last premiership. At the time Smith privately and prophetically claimed that Melbourne would live in the football wilderness for many years. To that end he was right.

Fast forward to 25 September 2021 and Tom McDonald has marked within the forward 50m arc at Optus Stadium and is lining up for goal. There’s only seconds remaining in the last quarter of the AFL Grand Final, the Dees are up by 68 points and everyone in the stadium wearing red and blue (only) is in ecstasy. Fifty-seven years. That’s generations. The crowd and thousands upon thousands of living rooms and Zoom links have gone wild. Siren. As the wider playing group stampedes onto he field to envelope the squad’s nucleus, 57 years of pain begins to seep and reality hits. Premiers. 

Premiers. It’s a delicious word. It’s initially foreign, abstract and doesn’t roll off the tongue easily. It is rightfully attributed to the Melbourne Football Club.

Experts are baffled by the transition from the Demons of 2020 which failed to make finals to the team that not only reached but twirled around the big dance in 2021. The Dees piled on a seven goal haul in the third quarter to set up a MFC final record victory in the fourth. Leaving Jackson in the ruck was a masterstroke, as was Oliver’s sacrificing of his game to nullify the champion Bontempelli, enabling his colleagues in the midfield engine room to go full throttle.

Many players have commented on the team first attitude of the squad. They execute their role and they do what they need to do to support the attainment of the greater objective, winning and building a winning culture. It’s a selflessness underpinned by none other than former captain Nathan Jones, a giant of a human, and instilled by coach Simon Goodwin who exudes humility, exemplified by the fact he found himself in tears the night before the final because he was so proud of these young men.

In season 2021 the Demons were the first in tackles, hit outs and contested possessions. Statistics are one thing. History and legacy are another. Point is. We are the first. The oldest football club in the world. Think about that for a moment. 

There are so many stereotypes bandied about our membership. For the record I struggle to execute a snow plough in a class of six year olds, and up until the beginning of the year I drove a 2001 Ford Festiva (“Felicity”), and I wouldn’t have traded her in for any Range Rover.

The 25th September belonged to everyone who has ever slapped on a bit of red and blue. For anyone who has sat through the wins and more notably, the significant losses on cold wintry Melbourne afternoons, particularly, and who can forget it, the prime time slot of 4.40pm on Sundays. For past players, family and friends, the administration, sponsors, for the Demon Army, coterie groups, Demonland contributors, Barry King / Arthur Wilkinson on the door, Casey Demons and the Western Demons who represented the membership so proudly during the lead up to the Grand Final, and on the day itself (and this list is not exhaustive), this was our moment. 

It should have been at our home, the mighty MCG, of which we are landlords. Thanks to COVID-19 it wasn’t. But the spirit of the Melbourne Football Club is so pervasive it transcends all physical boundaries. It lingers. And by hell it radiated around the country that night. 

The great irony is that more than 50,000 Demons were elevated to heaven on 25 September (some have still not returned to earth). The euphoria of watching a win after living every year in hope that never transpires is indescribable. It’s everything you’d imagine and so, so much more. 

The thing is when AFL is in your blood it’s in your blood and there’s simply nothing you can do about it. As much as you might try and convince yourself that it doesn’t matter, it does. True, in the scheme of life, it involves but an inflated pigskin and 44 competitors and pales in comparison to so many national and global issues. Pales. Does. Not. Register. But there’s something about it that you can’t ignore and you just can’t get out of your system. I remember meeting a friend of a friend at a Dees match. I asked him, “So you’re a Melbourne man?” He suddenly looked crestfallen. He’s an Essendon supporter but he and his wife left their then three month old daughter, now six, with his dad for a night and since then she’ll only get to sleep after being serenaded by It’s a Grand Old Flag.  

Every time I walk through the Parade of Champions, past Norm Smith and Jim Stynes, on the way to the G, I get butterflies. It’s a Stendahl moment. My skin pricks up, I walk an inch taller and I’m almost emotional. It’s the best feeling in the world.

There’s no new flag, there’s only ever been one flag but this one is the grandest of them all. We embrace the rich fabric of our history, the blemishes, the shiny parts, and the learnings, all of it. On Grand Final night, the Melbourne membership and broader AFL community reflected on Demons taken too early; Jim Stynes, Robbie Flower, Sean Wight, Troy Broadbridge, Colin Sylvia, Dean Bailey to name a few. I bet they and all the Melbourne greats teleported themselves from the MCC wing to Optus Stadium and cheered the boys on. I just wish we could sit among them, celebrate with them, and acknowledge their collective contribution. In one sense, I know we did.

Above all else, I’d love to say to the king of Australian rules football, of the oldest football club in the world, ‘Smile on Norm’. 

‘Smile on'.