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In a simple world
like that of my 60's youth
you hated Richmond 'cos they were dogs who belted better players (notice Sheedy took this philosophy to the scum! God I hate him; the bumbling, babbling buffoon, coaching blatant bashers and somehow taking credit for the elevation of blackfellas to Koori within our society!)
You hated Collingwood because your Nan barracked for Collingwood and made you touch that damn magpie statue on her porch every time you visited and besides, every scary kid you ever met in a dark alley on your way home from a card night with pockets full of two cent coins who looked at you with yellow or missing teeth and clenched fists, every single one of them barracked for Collingwood!
you hated Essendon* because every big flower with bobbing curly hair and a mum that kissed and cuddled him so he strutted like his pants were too tight, every kid who had a new bike and the first pair of levis and who was liked by teachers for being a suck and got all the best party invites barracked for Essendon*!
The rest were unthought of, irrelevant except in how much Carlton beat them by.
So hate was easy and simple and clearly defined, like the open ditches that were dug in all our back yard when we were kids for the sewer; the ditches were easy to spot, hate was like that. It was easy. It was black and white or yellow and black or red and black. Basically it was everything but Navy Blue. Simple and easy.
Not so now, now some of us hate Campo - I understand, gees I hated him for not picking up Gary Ablett jnr in the Geelong game earlier this year - slackness draws forth a special kind of hate - certainly when your team is being bashed from pillar to post - but it is a sad day indeed when we hate someone wearing the Navy Blue. Like Whits - now I get it, okay, I get all the arguments, all the fat jokes and slack jokes and too little too late jokes, still, the man is in a Navy Blue jumper and we are meant to love that jumper aren't we?
So in times like these little boy years float around in my chest so my heart is cast adrift and my soul sobs like a lost God stranded on the Rocks of despair.
So now some hate Pagan, blame him, cast aspersions and asparagus and anything else close at hand at him. Poor Denis, does he not coach us? Is he not the Barass of the new Millenium? It was always for others to hate their leaders while we at Carlton got on with the tricky buisness of winning premierships. Seems that's not the case anymore. Now like savages we tear at the heels of our own.
I remember Hulmey! A pup cast adrift because times change and even Carlton has changed, become as feral as any mad dog manure dumping Tiger supporter.
Once upon a time the sun shone, mothers kissed our foreheads and dads were not six feet under ground. Once uopon a time I hated the others and loved the Navy Blue with a fierce, dog with a bone, passion - even in the hard times I held pure in my hate and love and shared a beer with dad and tomato soup with mum and listened to the radio and sang the theme song.
Hate and love were unblemished.
Nowadays hate is a machete that cuts through the fabric of my heart; I dream of discarded Carlton jumpers, battered lockers with erased numbers and I feel like standing beside my dad's grave and asking where did it all go wrong?
'Cept I wouldn't expect an answer.
Heaven, under this AFL regime, is in tatters.
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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!
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