Sport and LIterature

I have been thinking for a while now about the lack of good writing about sport in Australia, and because of my own personal interest, football in particular.

I don't mean sports reporting, or opinion, but the bigger picture stuff, the literary stuff that has a shelf life of longer than 24 hours.

Melbourne is meant be a city of literature and books or some such, yet in the currently occurring Melbourne Writers festival there was only one event that discussed sport, and it was a comedy debate. Don’t get me wrong, it was an enjoyable event, but why don’t Melbourne writers take football more seriously (or less seriously) as an area of consideration?

This has coincided with me reading an article about Jews and baseball in America.* The author offers a litany of authors, books, plays, and songs written by Jews about baseball, but remarks upon how few have become elite players, and the generational struggle that played out over baseball - the second generation trying to assert their ‘americanness’ with the game.

The author argues that it was partly because they were immigrants that they wrote about the game. It was through trying to understand the nation that they came to write about their own experiences as a new citizen and that led to experience with sport and baseball.

So why is the same not true of Australian writers and football? Are we not allowing migrants to Australia to write? Are we not allowing them to experience football? If not migrants, why haven’t other authors spent more time thinking about the influence of football on culture in Melbourne?

Not surprisingly I don’t have the answer to these questions. All I know is, I would certainly like to read more literary writing about football, because I am pretty sure it would be a worthwhile field of endeavour.



* the article was Eric Solomon, “Jews and Baseball: A Cultural Love Story” in Eisen and Wiggins (eds.) Ethnicity and Sport in North American History and Culture, Greenwoon press, Westport Connecticut, 1994

Time and tide

A week is a long time in football, or so the well-worn cliché goes. Last week the Melbourne footy club were being accused of tanking, sending players off for surgery, and ‘experimentation’. This week, the collective football community has conceded that Melbourne are not tanking, they are just that bad. The less said about the North Melbourne v Melbourne game the better.

I went to the friday night game at the MCG, Geelong v Blues. I made the journey with two cats fans and was looking forward to a win. I thought it would be fun to see what its like for fans who win on regular basis! Sadly it was not to be. I fear the cat’s era of domination cannot hold much longer, injuries are mounting and age is catching up with some of their biggest stars.

And while I know the ebb of this Geelong side will upset the many loyal cats fans I know, their tide will rise again. That’s one of the things I like most about football, the ebb and flow of teams. And while they undertake the inevitable ‘rebuilding phase’ their absence from the top of the ledger makes room for other sides that desperately deserve some time in the sun. Melbourne, Fremantle, North…



Actually, we all deserve some time in the sun. It was frickin’ freezing at the football on Friday night, despite the six layers of wool I had on, and I am afraid I wont ever feel my toes again. This cold and windy winter has brought me more misery than just endless dees losses and frostbite and I, personally, am ready for it to be over.

Bring on the sun, bring on the bbqs, and, most importantly, bring on the finals!

Blah, Blah, Tank, Blah, Blah, Blah

Seriously who really cares? I am so monumentally over all of this talk about tanking.

I like that we have a competition that is designed to try and keep competing clubs as close together in ability, resources and opportunity. It makes sure that we do not have the same team winning each September.

Did you get bored with Brisbane won 3 in a row? I did. Are you bored now watching the fluctuations in Hawthorn’s form and the sudden rise of the perpetual promisers St Kilda? I’m not. What are the chances everything will change completely by the time finals 2010 roll around? Pretty good, actually.



There is an incentive to lose. So what. There really isn’t any great incentive to win for any of the clubs outside of finals contention. Better they get their guys patched up and ready for a good preseason than have them play injured for another month.

There is an incentive to experiment and play people out of position. So what. I doubt many of the players object - it might be their one chance to prove themselves to be the gun forward/backman/midfielder/ruckman they always dreamed of being. Good luck to them.

And OMG, is it really that difficult as a supporter? It just means I am happy either way. I am happy when we win, because winning is what we are here for, and I am happy when we lose because it gives us the opportunity for more wins in the future.

It is true that I have lowered expectations – its what you do to survive tough times at your football club. Maybe I would feel differently if I was a Collingwood supporter and I always expected to reach September. But I don’t. And I trust that the peeps who run my football club are trying their hardest to make sure the club sticks around, not just this year, but for decades to come.

To those muppet Dees supporters who sang the Richmond club song after the game (there were probably two people if we are honest and not looking for a good headline) just STFU and go back to the pub, you are just encouraging the hysteria.

End transmission. Let us speak of tanking no more, lest my head explode from rage.