TRIBAL WARFARE
My father used to tell it thus: The greatest man in this land is one in a black jumper with a gold sash; the greatest sight in this land is eighteen men all in black jumpers with gold sashes [we used to refer to "gold" in relation to Richmond's colours as yellow had connotations of cowardice].
In those days in Melbourne, if you journeyed far enough, you would finish up in "strange" places. The customs, and the language, were the same, but these people worshipped gods in unusual colours. It was best to walk through these areas in a brisk fashion and only speak if spoken to, and even that did not guarantee safe passage. And getting back out could also be tricky, especially if those men in strange colours were beaten by the men in black and gold.
More than once, I witnessed people being chased onto trains or trams. It was common to see fights on railway platforms. As for the footy, well, there were more scuffles in the outer than on the field of play. "But it's the Black and Whites you have to look out for" my father would drill into me. He could never say "Collingwood", always the "Black and Whites"
I don't know exactly why he decided to follow the Tigers. He came to Melbourne in the mid-1920s, fresh from England, with an accent as broad as a Bourke Street bus, he would say. He immediately got into an argument over being called a bloody Pom, well, his speech gave him away, didn't it. In spite of this early setback, he quickly fell into the Australian way of life, the beer, the beaches, the race-horses, and sport. So well did he fit in that people took him for a native-born son. His accent became just like every other Australians' - now only heard in old movies of George Wallace and Mo, but that was how all men that I knew spoke in those days. Being raised in working-class Coventry by his grandmother, he had no love of the aristocracy and he said that out here everybody lived a freer kind of life. He was an avid cricket devotee, especially when we played the Poms, the "Old Enemy", he called them, but footy was his passion.
Somehow, in those early days as an immigrant, he finished up at Punt Road oval one Saturday afternoon, homesick, a stranger in a strange land, and he asked who were those men in yellow and black [o.k. it's hard to keep saying black and gold!]. Maybe, the fact that they lost, made him feel kindly towards them, but from that day on, there was only Richmond for him and all else were godless heathens, to be pitied or hated - especially those Black'n'Whites!
Much is made of Collingwood's golden run of premierships, those four flags won consecutively, a feat that will probably never be equalled now, much less bettered. "Yes," Dad would hiss, "and you know who was runners-up in three of them grand-bloody-finals don't you? Yes, poor bloody Richmond!" The way Dad told it, Richmond should have had a string of flags, at least seven or eight, right up to 1934. It was all the fault of those Black'n'bloody-Whites!
Footy back then was a very tribal thing. Suburb against suburb. Why you could lean over from Richmond territory and spit into Collingwood. Just a little further up the road, was Fitzroy; and a short tramride away, the other way, was South Melbourne, and even St Kilda. Hawthorn would never account for much with that funny outer of theirs; Footscray was out there, pointing westward, passed North Melbourne, over the swamp. Carlton, well they came a close second in the unpopularity scale, usually accompanied by a spit, and Essendon? too bloody far away to really be in the competition, at all. As for Geelong, well playing them should only be treated as a day out in the country, like a race meeting, but not to become a regular thing.
Back then, all was right with the world. So, wars came and went, so what? There were twelve teams in the VFL, just as it should be, "a dozen's a good number," said Dad. All teams played on a Saturday, as it should be so that the Sporting Globe could come out on the Saturday night with all the results. Sunday, for Dad, was a bottle of beer in the shed with some of the neighbourhood men who believed in the sanctity of suburban sheds where the intricacies of the League Ladder could be shown all due reverence. One of Dad's favourite sayings was, "Last week's League leaders, this week's on the peg behind the lav door." Those not versed in the ways of outdoor loos and under the age of thirty should ask their Grannies about paper hanging on a nail in the toot.
As my father mellowed, he would talk about the gangs, the larrikins, and how football was a safety valve for the worse things in life. He was always contemptuous of Melbourne, the footy club, not the city. Melbourne FC was a nebulous sort of thing. All other clubs had an actual suburb, a territory with their name, a turf to protect. Melbourne had...well, the MCG. You couldn't actually stand at a certain spot and say this is Melbourne and that's their ground over there. Oh, one could go to certain parts of Victoria and say "this is Melbourne territory, this is where they get their players from", but it wasn't a tangible thing, as far as we were concerned. And they had amateurs playing for them, dammit, doctors and such! "Bloody Fuschias!" Dad would snort, this in the days before they became the Demons - now there's a bit of marketing for you!
However, Melbourne won back-to-back premierships, and Dad began taking notice of them. When they won again the following year, Dad developed a nervous tic. Melbourne had done this before, in 39, 40 and 41. Now they were on the threshhold yet again. Could this be what his beloved Tigers had missed out on doing, could Melbourne equal the Black'n'White's four-in-a-row?
1958, I remember it well. There was a buzz around football circles, could Melbourne do it? The rest is history, Collingwood got up and beat them, protecting their record of consecutive flags. Dad was shattered. When Melbourne went on to win the following year and the one after, Dad's dream of Collingwood's achievement being forever shattered lay in ruins. He didn't care what team managed it, as long as the Magpies no longer held it.
Ah, it's just a game, Mum would sigh. She never understood the passion, the patience required to get through season after season without "making the Four". The promise of a new year of football. Attending the practice matches, sussing the likely team for the real thing. Crowded transport. Appalling conditions for the spectators, especially in the outer of most grounds. Running the gauntlet of the victorious home side followers as they lined up to "see us off" their turf. Standing in the outer, rain trickling down my neck, a redhot pie in one hand and a footy record in the other. And my Dad going, "Carn, Tiiiiigers! Eat 'em alive"
Ah, Dad, the good old days, eh?
