The Australian Football Loser

The AFL - The Australian Football Loser

Am I the only person in Victoria, with breath left in my body and
excluding say those who must live in a bubble, whom has never been to
an AFL game in the birthplace and indisputable home of the most revered
cultural icon, the institution which is actually more a highly
organised, extremist religion? Am I indeed such a rarity that Museum
Victoria could classify me a freak and non-conformist? A few centuries
ago, I would have been drawn and quartered for such atheism.
Having lived in Melbourne for four and half years, I am at a loss to
explain why I haven't savoured the delights of freezing my tits off at
a game in which I don't seem to have enough eyes to even follow the
oddly shaped ball - the real Victorian cross. Perhaps it is just a lack
of opportunity. After all, I live about three kilometres away from the
MCG, and about two and half from Optus Oval. Distance is obviously an
issue, as is the lack of willing participants to accompany me on my
cultural journey. Finding any companion to listen to his/her shouting
alternate cheers and abuse is like finding hay in a haystack. If the
truth must be known, I'm actually really scared that if I enter a place
of worship, I'll be re-christened, engulfed by a force so strong no
amount of NSW deprogramming would return me to heathenism.
I have been to a game in New South Wales, but upon confessing as much
to Melburnians in a desperate need to conform and to be accepted, my
lonely experience has been dismissed. The game was in Sydney, the year
was the first the Swans flew north for the winter, their swan song
having already been well and truly belted out according to most South
Melburnians, and I can't even recall whom they played. I had no idea
about the state of play, but as a superficial teen, was happy to
indulge thigh gazing and neck appreciation. After all, footy players in
NSW have concrete pylons in place of legs, and I'm still yet to
discover one with a defined space between his head and shoulders. One
kindly Melburnian acquaintance actually stated I could consider myself
a born again footy virgin, having only indulged in petty foreplay.
Would the full service lead to devotion, the loss of my virtue?
Those in other states may worry about religions conflicting in a
multicultural society, but Victorians experience no such fears.
Victoria would arguably have to have the largest organised and
multi-denominational religion of any nation. What is needed then is a
secular view of weekly services, and I'm just the heathen to do it. I
have decided to become a kind of football, xenophobic, atheistic social
anthropologist. Having watched and listened for nearly five years, I
feel I am now in a position to comment on the festival of light that
envelopes all Victorians for what seems like eleven and a half months
of the year.