The glue that binds – footy
A day at the football, just for two, to continue a tradition that has been in my family for more than 100 years.
Martin Flanagan is a journalist and author who writes on sport, Australian culture and the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia.
A day at the football, just for two, to continue a tradition that has been in my family for more than 100 years.
In New York two weeks ago, I found all the bars were televising the European Cup, even to the exclusion of Major League Baseball. "Oh yeah," said an Irish barman I discussed the matter with over a bold American pale ale, "the game's growing over here".
If any team has been under my footy microscope these past eight years, it's the Dees.
I have now sat in AFL coaches' boxes on game day with four clubs.
Neville Jetta is standing in front of the 10 players added to Melbourne's list this year.
Billy Jennings says following the Bombers this year is surreal. He has a name for the experience - Zen footy. "You go to games with no expectations."
It was one of those games when the football world changes shape before your eyes. It's not enough to say Greater Western Sydney beat Hawthorn last Saturday – the Giants were superior in every aspect of the game.
If I am asked to talk to young Australian men about World War I, I get one-third of them to stand in a group. To them I say: "You're the ones who came back with your lives and bodies intact." To the other two-thirds I say: "You're the ones who were either killed or maimed or wounded."
I almost couldn't watch the Bulldogs v Hawks game last weekend. It was too intense.
Alicia Sometimes, co-editor of From The Outer: Footy like you've never heard it before, has been one of my favourite footy poets for years.
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