The Last Post

Glenelg v West

Richmond Oval (26 August 2017)

There’s a weird, dead-looking tree on the eastern side of dreary Richmond Oval (see main image and below) that struck The Varnished Culture (in attendance to see the Tigers win, or at least draw against the bottom-paced Bloods and so make the finals for the first time since 2009) as quite like a hanging tree. On match day, Westies had thoughtfully provided a bouncey-castle for the kiddies, which ran out of puff sometime in the 3rd quarter (see below).  These metaphors – these hanging, out-of-gas, images of failure, seemed a grim portent.  And so it proved.  Slow out of the blocks (again!), failing to match West when it had the advantage of a slight breeze, scissoring-across the oval to negligible advantage, being out-marked consistently, failing to maintain positional discipline, wasting possessions through deplorable disposals, playing catch-up football when it should have been driving itself into winning finals form, the Bays drew level late in the last quarter and then subsided, to lose by 13 points, blowing a chance at the Elimination Final, and dropping to a pathetic 7th place for the season. Should anyone care – we suppose a West supporter might be interested – the scores were:

First quarter: West 4.1  Glenelg 2.3.  Second quarter: West 5.5  Glenelg 5.3.  Third quarter: West 9.7 Glenelg 7.5.  Final scores: West 14.8 (92)  Glenelg 12.7 (79).

There are so many reasons why the team ran out of steam in the second half of the season – injuries, bad umpiring decisions, other teams improving whilst we deteriorated, general incompetence, a culture of defeat.  One only had to glance at the social media pages of other Club’s fan-bases to see how the rest of the competition drips with contempt for Glenelg Football Club.  Particularly savage (though fair) were Norwood fans, doubtless angry at us that we’d robbed them of an easy start to their finals campaign by ceding our place to Central Districts, who will pose a tougher (and dirtier) challenge.  But as one bright correspondent said, with perhaps a touch of prescience: “We won’t have the Bays to kick around for much longer.”

If we had to bet – without any supporting evidence, just “The Vibe” – we’d guess that the SANFL’s immediate priority is to stage-manage a Port / Sturt Grand Final (with Port winning on the last kick of the day, from a dubious free), the merger of West and South in 2018/19, and the winding-up (in insolvency? Incompetency?) of Glenelg FC.  Guess it might put everyone out of their misery!  Perhaps a feeder side could be assembled for a suburban league – the ANZ / City of Holdfast Bay All Stars, maybe?

Anyway, crying tiger fans can tap along to this scanning doggerel, written with apologies to William Blake:

Tigers! Tigers! Burning bright

On football grounds by day or night,

You’re fighting fit – your skills amaze

So why no pennant for the Bays?

You left the blocks like Kingston Town

And stared the mighty magpies down,

When the Blues had you on the ropes

You snarled and sprang and crushed those dopes.

Then beat the dogs – though narrowly,

And held a place in the top three,

Yet by the end of autumn’s gloam

You proved useless away from home.

Success against some easy-beat

Was not so easy to repeat

And in the season’s second half

One finds a gloomy epitaph – 

9 games but wins, only a brace

And shame upon the corporate face.

Early holidays again:

We lick our wounds, despair, and then

We sign-up for more agony:

And marvel at our malady.

Tigers! Tigers! Burning bright

On football grounds by day or night,

You’re fighting fit – your skills amaze

So why no pennant for the Bays?