Dees finally deliver again

I have been always a Melbourne supporter since my father, also a Demon supporter took me to the preliminary final between Melbourne and Collingwood on Saturday September 25, 1948.

We watched Melbourne thump Collingwood by 65 points with a score of 25 goals 16, 166 points, to 15 goals 11, 101 points.

This was a winning score at any final up to that year.

The next 16 years to 1964 I was to enjoy Melbourne Football Club to win six more premierships after their triumph in 1948, but the past 57 years have been painful indeed with wooden spoons in 1969, 1974, 1978, 1981, 1997, 2008, and 2009.

When I got married in April 1965, Melbourne won the the first eight games up to June.

Then came the crash, they lost the next three games and then the sacking of the coach Norm Smith on July 22, 1965, a very wet Thursday it was.

The club never recovered after that unbelievable sacking, a football tragedy said Ron Barassi.

Although Norm Smith was reinstated a few days later the permanent damage had been done.

During Melbourne’s success this year I was praying and hoping that the 73-year cycle of success when I saw Melbourne easily beat Collingwood in the 1948 preliminary final would actually happen on grand final day on Saturday, September 25, exactly 73 years later.

I became very uptight after half-time when the Bulldogs got ahead, put my ginger cat Roma outside and then at last came a flood of goals, the cat came back inside and we won by 74 points.

My bridge club friends, Peter Holmes and Tiger Morton, both Demons supporters, were delighted as well.

— Peter Nelson, Benalla