Paulo Snr, Paulo Jnr and little Maurizio are first, second and third generation Italian and Melbourne to the core. And I don’t mean the City, I mean the Footy team. This is a City obsessed with Australian rules football. A City that provides 10 of the 16 teams in the league and where everyone, from descendents of Captain Cook to fresh off the boat immigrants like me have to have a team.
But in this cockpit of obsession, only one team gets to call itself by the City name and that is Melbourne Football Club. They reckon it’s the oldest football club of any code in the world. Which makes you wonder whom they played in the early days if they were set up before everyone else. They play at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which is a little 90,000 seater place in the heart of the City and they have a huge fan base that covers all demographics. The only problem is, they are shit. I don’t mean a little shit. I mean worse than my team (Carlton) and that takes some doing, 15th in a league table of 16 teams and would have been prime relegation fodder for the past few years if the AFL hadn’t realized that relegation was a threat to their megalomaniac franchise building.
But that didn’t stop the two Paulos and little Maurizio from heading to the Telstra Stadium last night to see their team take on the North Melbourne Kangaroos. North Melbourne are in much better shape at the moment, with serious aspirations for the overall title. But you could see in the stadium that they have no history like Melbourne. And little or no support. It was their home game, but the stadium was less than one third full, which was partly due to their poor support and the fact that even ‘new to the game’ people like me knew it was a forgone conclusion. But the three Italians behind me kept shouting till the end, their cries getting more bitter and fatalistic as foregone conclusion became a stark reality on the pitch. Paulo Snr lapsed back into the mother tongue when he was at his most emotional, which was pretty much every time a Melbourne player touched the ball. His invective was directed entirely at the players from the team he professed to support. If they weren’t playing like old women, they had facieses in the cranium area. One particular player in the Melbourne defense was privileged to receive Paulo’s special attention. As the teams trotted off in front of us, Paulo rose from his seat to shout, “Godfrey, you even run like a bloody woman”. The look on young Godfrey’s face was enough to tell me that no greater insult can be hurled at a Melbournian.
Paulo Jnr on the other hand had only positive things to say about the Melbourne players, even when they were patently awful. He saved his abuse for the umpires. Nothing could lesson his astonishment as time after time the umpires would punish his team for minor indiscretions like kneeing somebody in the head (he was going for the bloody ball!) or taking their head off with a right hook (he pulled his shirt first, he’s entitled to defend himself!). Paulo Jnr sunk deeper into a pit of paranoid despair as the game went on as the three Umpires (hence the conspiracy theory) exacted increasing levels of injustice upon him that would have rivaled the case of the Birmingham Six.
It was hard to judge who was crazier. Paulo Snr for hating everything about the team he loved, or Paulo Jnr who thought that his team’s performance was caused by the refereeing and not by the fact that his team are rubbish. Young Maurizio, as it happened, was the only one wearing club colours. Paulo Snr probably hates the strip and Paulo Jnr doesn’t want to give himself away too soon when he mugs the umpires after the game. Maurizio made the mistake of cheering one of the Kangaroo’s goals, much to the disgust of father and grandfather. Like me, Maurizio was only interested in seeing a good game, but like me with Dundalk, he’ll soon have his love of football poisoned by the bitter pill of fate. And if that doesn’t work, a good slapping from Paulo Jnr on the way home will do the trick.
I walked to the match last night, which is pretty much the done thing here. If you have an hour or two to kill on a Saturday or a Sunday you can stroll down to the MCG or to the Telstra Dome (at 53,000 capacity, the newer but poorer cousin to the MCG). Both have train lines and tram stops beside them and tickets cost about 10 euros and can be bought at the gate. The comparison with the GAA could not be starker. You don’t have to contact an obscure number in Portloaise to get a ticket, you don’t have to set off at day-break with 3 day rations to watch a match in Thurles. You don’t have to stand on a muddy bank and you can buy beer at all the matches. Croke Park is a fine stadium but there’s only 1 suchlike in Ireland. Australia seems to have two or three per City.
But there are comparisons to the GAA as well, and this blog seems more about proving that the world is just one big ugly village with a Qiki mart on the edge of town and Irish pub on every corner. Louth played Cork on Saturday night in Portlaoise. I staggered the streets of Melbourne in a drunken haze, trying to find a pub with Setanta Sports. I failed and sat forlornly on a City bench wondering how my beloved team were doing all those miles away. I pictured the scene and in the Portloaise crowd, I could see Paul Snr, Paul Jnr and little Martin. Three generations from Hackballscross and Louth and Proud to the core. Paul Snr would spend the entire game questioning the talent, parentage and mental well-being of the Louth players. Paul Jnr would attack the ref and slyly make plans for an ambush in the car park after the match and a place in the boot of his car for the errant referee. Young Martin would make the mistake of applauding a particularly well taken Cork point, before retreating under his red and white hat as his father and grand father glared. He will learn ultimately that Sport is a cruel mistress. But like all mistresses, we keep going back for more punishment. As Paulo Snr said at the end of Sunday’s match. “ I’ve never seen such a useless shower of idiots in my life. Will we get the same seats for next week?”
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