Agony & ecstasy is why we love footy

ON Friday night, I found myself on level four of the Great Southern Stand drowning in a nightmare.

As a Cats fan, before the game I had worked myself up to being completely convinced Geelong would lose and I would be left glumly watching the final minutes beside overwhelmingly painful Richmond supporters. I was right, but I was also wrong. Something magical kicked in during the final quarter as Richmond burst through the wall of its past finals mistakes and the gleeful feeling wasn’t just on the field.

The Geelong supporters I was sitting with decided to pack it in and get to the train early.

But I stayed glued to my seat, watching the explosion of joy from the yellow and black.

Two middle-aged fellas came and sat in the suddenly vacant seats to be closer to their mates and revel in the joy.

“We love you, Dusty. You deserve this Cotch. Good on you, Rancey. Keep going boys,” they continuously bellowed out.

The phrases didn’t change a lot but the message was clear: after a decade and a half of nurturing potential to see it undelivered, Richmond fans were drowning in their own dream.

About a decade ago, I’d felt the same as the young boy sitting in front of me, gleefully soaking in feelings he didn’t think existed following a major finals victory and the kind of win that makes you believe anything is possible.

Luckily, I had the good fortune of sitting with my family as the impossible became reality for Cats fans in 2007. The same feeling filled the MCG on Friday night.

Young and old, Tiger fans were joined together in some sort of religious epiphany and with a couple minutes to go I decided to walk to the bottom level to stand among the faithful belting out the famous Tigerland anthem.

Awkwardly getting past the newly arrived old fellas, I passed on my congratulations.

“Well done buddy, good luck next week,” one of them said.

There would be no next week for them, just two weeks of sustained joy.

This is why we go to the footy.