When my best mate moved to Sydney in February, I was a little flat. I think. For about an hour. Then I got back to whatever else I was doing. Probably tweeting or something.
But when footy season rolled around, my sadness finally kicked in.
See, my mate Bill is my footy companion. In fact, we became mates because of the Blues, in a way. We went to Deakin Uni in Burwood - a fairly bland suburban uni with not a lot going on. But doing our guided tour of the campus, we were shuffled through the human movement department, who should wander by but David Parkin - Carlton’s coach at the time and a lecturer at the Uni. My eyes widened. It was Parko! Where was the vein? I looked around the group to see if anyone else had noticed. I saw one person with eyes as wide as mine. That was Bill.
So we bonded over footy and other nerdy topics and became fast friends. And we went to a lot of games. We were there when Fev kicked that point against Hawthorn. We were there to see the boys flog Collingwood by 111 points. And, being earlier this century, we were there for a lot of hidings.
You get to know your footy mates. And they get to know you. Your guard is down. You’re shouting obscenities. You’re hollering with a mix of delight and relief as Juddy breaks another pack and sets up another goal. You can’t just do that with anyone.
So when round 1 rolled around, I was left scratching my head, thinking ‘who the hell do I go with?’ There are other mates we go with - the belligerent yellers, the intellectuals, a motley assortment of other club supporters. But there was always the two of us at the core.
But it’s not quite the same. So if you see a guy sitting on his own sometime, yelling to himself, singing ‘Eddie and the Betts’ to the tune of an Elton John song and tweeting, come say hi. I’m in the market.
Who do you go to the footy with?
Ben Birchall is a writer, musician and co-hosts The Breakfasters on 3RRR in Melbourne
