Support Collingwood in the grand final? Tell 'em they're dreaming!

One thing that binds almost every football fan, Collingwood fans excepted, is a deep and abiding dislike of … Collingwood.

The Magpie army...

The Magpie army…

So when The Age published an article yesterday quoting Magpies star Adam Treloar wanting Victorians to put aside their historical antagonism and support the local team, the response both on the Age website and on Twitter at @agerealfooty was swift, merciless and often hilarious.

Many readers quoted Darryl Kerrigan from The Castle: “Tell him he’s dreaming.”

One tweeted, “Most people go for their own team and anyone playing against Collingwood.” Another wrote: “Tell him to get a life; there is no way in the world I could barrack for Collingwood. Rather, I’m hoping for a dodgy free kick on the final siren giving the Eagles an after the siren win – heaven.”

Some people might see this as particularly graceless and narrow-minded, a sign that football is far too tribal and insular. Surely, we should admire and applaud skilful play no matter which team is displaying it.

Not a fairytale...

Not a fairytale…

After all, two years ago, when the Western Bulldogs beat my beloved Swans in 2016, many Victorians loved the fairytale of Bob Murphy and the battlers winning the flag while even last year many grudgingly accepted that the Richmond victory was well deserved.

But Collingwood is a different matter as the biggest club and with Eddie McGuire its high-profile president.

The response to Treloar’s plea for local support is a sign that Australian culture has deep roots in ironic anti-authoritarian humour. This is often played out on our sporting fields. At the Sydney Cricket Ground in the 1930s one spectator, known as Yabba, became famous for his humorous insults. Today there’s a statue of him at the ground.

Fierce barracking for our team over another also shows that the game belongs to us in the stands and in the outer just as much as to the players, the coaches and the administrators. Each of us has a deep emotional connection to our team even if we have never laced up a boot. We know our history but also have a stake in its future. The football ground, like the beach, is one of the great democratic sites in Australian society.

Football needs the noisy drumbeat of supporter passions because without it, all we might have is the dull corporate hum of a game run by and for marketing gurus and administrators, where all that grace, skill and effort are calculated only in dollars and cents.

Of course, on occasion passions can go too far. At the ground we always have to be aware that our children are watching us. And without doubt, any racial abuse, but particularly of champions like Nicky Winmar, Michael Long and Adam Goodes is totally unacceptable and shameful. It has no place in the game.

So keep up the larrikin anti-Collingwood spirit. It’s a reflection, not of mean-spirited parochialism, but rather of the epic passions that lie at the heart of our great indigenous football code.

And besides, if your team was playing in the grand final do you think that Magpies supporters would be barracking for them?

Duncan Fine is a lawyer and Age columnist.

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