Finals the best time to indulge a passion for footy

Football finals time excites everyone in Melbourne, and before anyone goes to register their objections in the comments section below, I don't mean to suggest that everyone in this city is a football fan.

Of course, if you love AFL then you more than likely love this time of year (regardless of whether your team is in action), but for those who aren't, the month-long climax to the football season represents something else, something completely unmarketed though no less anticipated than a fiery finals clash — the season's end.

Personally, being a Hawthorn supporter, I can't help but get excited by what lies ahead. But my excitement is not just about the prospect of my team winning in the preliminary final tonight (which is good given that I don't think their chances are great against last year's premiers Collingwood), but more to do with the feeling that it will all soon be over.

You see, being a football fan often sits uneasily with me. Put simply, I like it, but I don't always like the fact that I like it.

For one thing, football exerts way too much influence over my life. Like author Nick Hornby, who dedicated his 1992 book Fever Pitch (about his obsession for the Arsenal football club) "to all of those who, in the middle of a conversation, find their minds drifting off to a 25-yard left-footed curler from 10 or 20 years ago", my mind is similarly often taken over by thoughts of football.

As much as I try to pave over it with other interests, it always grows back through the cracks, putting down its stubborn roots in the recesses of my mind.

I know the trouble is brewing when I start flicking over to watch football panel shows, then it escalates to me checking tips, team line-ups and injury reports. At this stage I know the dam walls are about to break and the end is nigh.

When they inevitably do, important national and international news, insightful opinion and cultural events don't even get a cursory glance. There are more pressing issues: will our star forward be fit, will our midfield be ferocious at the footy, and do we have the key defensive matchups?

But I don't gloriously sink into a football stupor. Always lurking next to my desire to know this "critical" information is the tormenting question: why must I care about these things?

It is during these guilt-ridden moments that I hear the description of football by star recruit Geoff Hayward from David Williamson's 1977 play The Club ringing in my ears.

"You chase a lump of pig skin around a patch of mud like your life depends on it and when you finally get it you kick it to buggery then you go chase it again," fumes Hayward to his incredulous coach.

It's a description that cuts close to the bone, especially as library books get returned, unread.

This brings me to another reason why I am a self-flagellating football fan – that the game is considered by many to be an intellectual-free zone.

While each season throws up plenty of examples to support this assertion, the argument is still prejudiced. But it pervades nonetheless, especially in my own mind.

Whenever someone declares to me "sorry, but I don't follow football", I can't help presume they don't follow football because they're too busy practising Mozart's fifth violin concerto. Not, they don't follow football because they're too busy watching Top Gear.

The reality, though, is that football is covered by some of Melbourne's best writers and journalists. While you often have to wade through copious amounts of prosaic punditry, examples of football writing that illuminate the game, the emotions and personalities of those involved are abundant. The high quality of football journalism in Melbourne is the one thing that gives me a guilt-free excuse to jettison every other part of the paper on a Saturday morning.

But here we are in preliminary finals week with only three games to go. If you're anything like me, it's time to indulge your football passion and feed the beast. There are absolutely no grounds for self-reproach when you find yourself watching the entirety of a coach's press conference or analysing those all important player stats. Save that for trade week.

Jeremy Loadman is a freelance writer.

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