I have a love affair with the underdog.

I can't explain it rationally but then who can explain your allegiance to a professional sporting organisation?  The whole concept of being a fan is such a full blown, contradictory, hypocritical mess of non-logic to begin with.

Gone is the age of supporting your local team; and alas, belonging to you local community is much more abstract because of it.

 Sure, you can still see the local team  supported in  regional cities. A part of my suburban-bred heart is envious of that; but even here the local team plays a different role then simply being your only team. Everyone follows a 'big' team as well. 

By 'big,' of course, we mean professional. And by professional, we really mean- I support a jumper.

Everything else in this professional age is up for grabs. Players get drafted and traded. Coaches get hired and fired. Administrators run a rule over the books and make the ends meet without concerns that selling 'home' games to Darwin might make it harder for fans to go to the 'home' match.

 It is simply following the trend. While we long for the golden age of Saturday afternoons, 2pm, the truth is, without the evolution of the professional age, we wouldn't have a team to support. Commerce saved clubs from themselves.

 My ole' dad was born and raised in Sale in another age. He vividly remembers the football special, a train that took the locals to away matches played by the mighty Sale Magpies. His world of sporting fandom revolved around that simple joy- Support the local lads.

Even so, he made a decision on which VFL team he would support. Even in this bucolic vision, the big league had appeal...

 A big lump of a local lad by the name of Alan Morrow got the offer to head to the big smoke and try his luck with the St.Kilda Football Club. The day he left Sale my dad had a Melbourne team... or so the tale has been passed down to me.

As a child, the decision felt pre- ordained. I thought nothing of taking up the reigns and joining the Saints canter.

 The  choice of whom you barrack for is a relatively simply process after all. At least it appears to be.  Growing up in Melbourne your choices were simple:

- Family tradition, which was my route.

- Family connection, which can get slightly tricky. 

My good mate in high school, Morry had an Uncle playing for Essendon. Decision made...except, when his older brother was growing up, uncle Peter played for Carlton...oh and their dad supported Carlton. Then his cousin, uncle Peter's son played for Geelong. Given Peter was  his mum's brother she of course followed her nephew and roared on the Cats....Then Adrian Hickmott got traded to Carlton. Full circle. Did you follow that?!

-Location, which of course used to be the only choice but is now more often the route of first generation Australians.

 I worked with a Vietnamese woman who barracked for Collingwood because her family lived in the council flats on Smith Street on their arrival in the city. I might also add, she is a typical Collingwood supporter. Scary how quickly it occurs....

- The older sibling.

 They are prone to telling younger brothers and sisters what to do and that, more often than not, results in a team being chosen for you. My brother-in-law forced his younger twin brothers to support Carlton, they obliged, even though his father is a St.Kilda man.

- 'Look at the pretty colours/ I like Lions!' OR The pick at a whim.

One of my favorite tales, is from a New Zealand girl I know. The first time she went to the football, she was taken with her younger sister.

 Before the game began, her sister turned to her and innocently asked-

'Karen, who are we going to support?'

Karen hadn't even thought that far ahead and simply replied, with the faultless logic of a kid-

'Well, we're Kiwis, so the team that is wearing black for the All Blacks will be the team we support.' 

Just like that, decision made.

Then Essendon and Richmond* ran out!

Karen's sister just looked at her as if to say- what now? Thinking on her feet Karen sealed the deal-

’Well, I like red, so we are supporting Essendon' ...and they still do.

- Finally, there's Glory hunting, which as you are about to discover is what this blog is alllllll about!

 Like I said, it seems so simple....but life always does.

This is all a preamble btw. I told you all of this to explain why, after a childhood of following St.Kilda, I now have the uncanny ability to pick the underdog and bring them into the stable.

 My sporting obsession spans the globe and I now live in a age where it pays off.

The ability to follow a team halfway across the world got easier than going to the Library and reading out-of-date newspapers. It can now be sated by the instant gratification of the world wide web.

It is not just yours truly either. It has reached such a critical mass that teams across the globe have gone from catering for their international supporters, to embracing the more lofty ideal of 'growing their brand worldwide.'

 Teams like Manchester United and Real Madrid market themselves to the global marketplace and cash in BIG time. They count fans in the millions and sell merchandise everywhere.

Once it was simply a matter of giving accreditation to a supporter group, like- 'The Manchester United Fans of Hong Kong.' Now it's opening a branded bar in HK called the 'Manchester United Cafe' and selling souvenirs a'la Hard Rock Cafe.

I can thus see how easy it would be to chase the glory of Old Trafford- Theater of Dreams and yell C'mon you Reds....but something inside me refuses to.

No, I have selected my little stable of sporting associations with haphazard, yet strangely logical deliberation.

 I support Barcelona because I read Jimmy Burns' excellent book 'Barca'

It also helps that Barcelona is one of the great cities of the world. Awash with the living, breathing art  of Gaudi and Dali. 

I feel queasy being a Barca supporter at the moment because the discussion has gone past them being modern day champions, to talk of greatest club side ever. Bizarrely, a part of me doesn't want to deal with that....

I support Fiorentina because I fell in love with the city of Florence on a family holiday.

I support the Azzuri, the Italian national football team, because on that same trip I decided to chose a team to follow in the World Cup.

While on the ground in Europe, I figured the passion I was looking for would reveal itself. England, France and Denmark never stood a chance in hindsight...and the Italians don't really care about the Azzuri, at least not as much as their club sides.

But passion is passion. Italians know passion!

Even more random is the tale of my father becoming an artist in residence at Sheffield Polytechnic when I was four. Of the two choices I could make there, Sheffield United never stood a chance!

How could a four year old resist the idea of a football team with a day of the week as it's name? Sheffield Wednesday also have an owl on their club crest, I've always liked owls.

Then there is the  tale of one of my father's colleagues from America, a wonderfully mild-mannered Minnesotan (possibly an oxymoron!) by the name of Karen came to stay with us in the early 90s.

Her passion for baseball convinced me, against my better judgement, to get on board with the World Series  champions- the Minnesota Twins. I did just that, with the whiff of glory chasing in my nostrils... they have never been back to the World Series since!

   Being me though, I have taken it one step further. I now have a strange affection for Minnesota.

I have never been there and know very little about it that you can't learn on Wikipedia. I know the twin cities of Minneapolis and St.Paul are divided by the Mississippi. Bob Dylan, Prince, Garrison Keilor, Terry Gilliam and the ficticious Marshall Erikson come from there and that Jessie Ventura, a former professional wrestler was Governor. 

  This lack of working knowledge of all things Minnesotan, has never stopped me supporting all their pro teams though- The Vikings in the NFL, Timberwolves in the NBA and Wild in the NHL.

All, to a team, underdogs.

Minnesota  s what American sports executives refer to as a 'small market town.'

That suits me perfectly.

I don't want the easy satisfaction of following the big side. If I wanted that, I would  have stopped putting  my hand up feebly in primary school, when my teacher went for the cheap laugh of asking who we all barracked for.

 'Who follows Richmond?' Half a dozen hands.

'Carlton?' Ditto.

'Geelong?' Only a couple of hands this time.

'And....St.Kilda?' Yep, that would be me, laugh it up.

  While all my class mates watched Richmond win the 1980 Grand Final in a canter and jumped on board (only to change to Carlton a year later) my loyalty was forged in the grim, desperate doldrums of the Saints in the eighties and it stuck fast.

All that has followed is, in a sense, my strange affection to the little guy. The down-on-their-luck, punching-above-their-weight, having a dip, little battler.

I love the scrapper.

 I can't change who I am. Theory goes you are fully formed as the person you will be pretty early on. By the time you reach adulthood most of the choices you need to make are made.

Still, the heartbreak of watching the Saints lose three Grand Finals in a row almost broke my heart.

I wanted just one. Just a little reward for my loyalty.

Selfish I know; but fans are. We want the reflected glory of a victory from a team we support. Mainly so we feel we belong to something important.

That's why glory hunter exists in the first place. Everyone wants to back a winner and if you get a guilt-free choice of any team in the whole comp, why wouldn't you support the Los Angeles Lakers?

You don't have to 'root' for the home team if you've never lived stateside. I can see that; and I don't judge you for being a Chelsea supporter either. You get to win shiny trophies and bask in the glow of glory.

I just feel sorry for you.

You arrived right in the middle of the book and missed all the charater development. One of the favorite chants at English football grounds to freshly-minted rich sides like Chelsea is-

'Where were you when your team was shite?'

If you jump on the bandwagon, you carry that load.

I avoid bandwagons, always have.

What it all boils down to is this-

Even if I was offered a guilt free do-over to change allegiances from St.Kilda, I'd proably pick the Western Bulldogs or North Melbourne anyway.

That's just the way I appear to be built.

My name is Tommy and I'm in love with the underdog. 

*I think it was Richmond, sorry if I got that wrong Karen!