Somehow, I’m not sure how, I’m doing really well at the footy tipping at work. Okay, it’s only the third round, but I’m leading the competition, with 18 games tipped (out of 24). It’s the first time I’ve even entered footy tipping, and I can’t for the life of me work out how I’m doing so well. On Monday morning we all pore over the results. People have been asking me how I tipped so well – I tell them I don’t know, I really don’t.
The thing about footy that perhaps some people from outside Melbourne don’t understand is that even if you’re not a footy fan, you have to have a team you support. And that your loyalty to your team is absolute, and lifelong.
Choosing a team might not be an easy or straightforward process. It could come about in a million different ways. I’m a Geelong Cats fan. Always have been. It started when I was a kid. My best friend was a North Melbourne Kangaroos fan. So I thought "hmm.. maybe I should be a Kangaroos fan too". My mum took me to Myer’s to buy a footy jumper, but they were out of North Melbourne. I liked the Geelong one, so I got that, and from that day on I was a Geelong fan.
Once you’ve chosen your team, you can’t change. It’s been studied, and they’ve found it’s scientifically impossible for anybody from Melbourne to change teams. Your team might never win a game, they might continually make it to the finals and then bomb out, but they’ll always be your team until the day you die.
All that changes of course, with the tipping. Loyalty to your team goes out the window. You might support them to the core, you might be willing to donate a kidney to see them win the Grand Final, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a realist. If they’re going to lose, that’s no reason to give away a point in the tipping.
We’ll see through the year if I manage to keep this up. Bet I don’t.
