One town, one team: Hungry Cats create Geelong’s defining era
One town, one team: Hungry Cats create Geelong’s defining era: Geelong is an independent community with its own identity.
Melbourne may continue to expand along the Princes Highway, absorbing Werribee and eventually reaching Avalon, turning the entire route into a monolithic concrete jungle.
People outside of Geelong may not be aware of what makes them special. It’s a cornerstone of who they are as a person.
This is where the Geelong Football Club comes in, down that highway and away from the Melbourne football bubble, providing an important component of the locals’ feeling of self.
AFL
In today’s AFL, a team’s location no longer matters. You won’t find any down-to-earth Italian café owners yelling “Woof!” at Ang Christou in today’s Carlton; instead, you’ll find lots of attorneys and the university-student children of the wealthy.
Collingwood, Richmond, North Melbourne, and Fitzroy’s ghosts have all merged into one massive urban area, with the remaining commission flats forming islands among the hipsters and artists who can still afford it and the rich dullards wanting that reflected coolness while complaining about the noise.
Property sharks would position St. Kilda, Essendon, Footscray, and Hawthorn in the city’s coveted inner core. Most football fans in Melbourne currently inhabit a neighborhood that isn’t typical of the city’s population.
A generic Adelaide squad and an Adelaide suburb were both given to South Australia.
The Western Australian capital of Perth, and later a suburb of Perth, got a generic team. The state of New South Wales has two teams: one representing generic Sydney with a Harbour Bridge theme and another representing the rest of the state from Redfern to Canberra.
City
Metropolitan areas dominate the AFL. Thus, this implies there is just one rural or regional impact.
A city in its own right, Geelong is nonetheless synonymous with the wool industry, the Western District, the Bellarine Peninsula, and the vast stretches of pastureland that lie inland.
Colac, Horsham, Warrnambool, Ararat, down the Great Ocean Road, and everywhere in between are all places where Cats fans are the default.
Billy Brownless kicking a footy over a silo, Gary Ablett driving down from Drouin, Tom Hawkins beaming photogenically at his farm.
Patrick Dangerfield being tempted back by the surf coast of these players have a connection to the country. Now, rather than being a physical location, the Cats stand for the idea of regional identity.
This is why it’s no surprise that Geelong the club is so significant to Geelong the city.
The last surviving intrastate home ground advantage in the league, Kardinia Park, is now full every other week during winter.
The AFL is a barometer of regional power; thus, dominating the league is like planting a flag. This smaller, coherent strength is showing up in the large cities. Such a setting is ideal for fostering community spirit.
Game
More than the game itself, my most vivid recollection of the 1989 grand final comes from seeing Geelong covered in white and blue decorations for the occasion. The solitary brown and gold residence emphasized the totality of the prevailing feeling.
The lone house prevailed, starting a streak of four consecutive years of defeat in the championship game. Although the community took great satisfaction in the Cats’ brash approach to the game, nobody was happy about them not winning the championship this year.
By 2004, a previously forgotten team was again in the finals hunt, and in 2007, they finally took home the trophy. The refrain of “keep the lid on” echoed throughout the season.
During the homecoming ceremony the next day, someone mentioned that the lid was last seen flying above Torquay, but I can’t remember who.
So started the fourth championship game in as many years.
There were three that were won this time around. Those who believed in it could finally find peace. Achieving dominance as a club in other respects was also extremely rewarding.
Policy
With a strict “no dickheads” policy, the ability to draught well depended on more than just brains. The era of scandals has nearly ended.
The league’s best player recruitment and development operation turned draught rejects and undrafted free agents into lethal weapons. The team successfully transitioned onto a new version without losing ground. The company no longer accepts gambling profits.
Native American and Indigenous personnel and players emerged as visible inside the organisation. Chris Scott, the coach, is a man of quiet dignity.
Current captain Joel Selwood’s critics had to witness him win the Jim Stynes Award for 15 years of community work on Brownlow night.
Comments
Positive comments about your club come more naturally when they are founded on reality.
By 2022, Geelong fans are famished again, demanding success for a new era that includes just Scott, Selwood, Hawkins, and Mitch Duncan from the 2011 premiership team.
It’s weird because if the Cats had been average since then, those three championships would still seem very recent. A loss to Sydney this week would seem more crushing after keeping in the race for so long.
While banners aren’t essential, it’s puzzling how one team managed to dominate the sport for a decade without a single flag. Fremantle experienced an unusual upset in 2012, a missed kick in the final minute of the 2013 prelim, a loss in straight sets in 2014, and multiple knockout torchings in the years that followed.
Stadium
The 2020 AFL Grand Final was an oddity, with a third-quarter advantage being squandered against a Richmond team in its heyday, with the game being played in abbreviated quarters in Brisbane under lockdown.
Once again playing at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the Cats have been the greatest team in the AFL this year.
To make this age feel significant, they must bring this one home. However, whatever of the outcome, fans will return to Kardinia Park in 2019. After all, they are Geelong.
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