South Sydney - Part Two.

At some point, my excitement for South Sydney stopped being just a moral crusade and became part of my lifestyle.

(NB When I typed the above, it had a typo, so it read Oral crusader - a very fine title for a porno!)

I have always enjoyed surprising people with the maleness of some of my attitudes and interests, and when I fell in love with Souths, I felt as though I'd hit the jackpot.

Conspiracy theories, instant red and green family and sense of community, an enemy or ten, family outings, being able to shame large men with my superior knowledge of next week's team, innumerable opportunities to insert Up the Rabbitohs! into conversations and birthday cards inappropriately, the feeling of contributing to the restoration of something marvellous...

But if I'm 100% truthful, most of what I love about Souths is the fans.
The Cleveland Browns too, but I'll get to them later.

With everything the South Sydney club and it's fans have been through, and I won't go back over it, it's too awful, the people who have stuck with them have just got to be the most amazing folks in the world.
To me anyway.

That personality type is my absolute favourite.
And I'm talking about the ones who are more inclined to turn up when they're dead certain the team is going to get hammered.

The supporters, not the band wagon.

You know that expression - show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are?
When I look at my football friends, I swell with pride and I know that I'm doing something really right.
Actually, when I look at my friends in general, I feel as though I've found that bonus level in Super Mario World and I'm spinning around ecstatically making weird noises.

It wasn't long in my supporting history before I was pressuring Hell Boy to go to every home game, despite that ghastly hour getting out of the "car park", the incredibly long trip home with that empty, gutted feeling and the whole week following, having no possible way to excuse such a display, before starting the mental preparation necessary to back up the next week.

It wasn't long after that that I met a Souths legend through work. A man who had played in a three winning Souths Sydney grand finals!
The first player ever to win two Rothman's (now Dally M) medals!

This guy is not only a Souths legend, but he is a monstrous smart arse as well. Sag too from memory. Cat lover. Recently rifled through his shed trying to find me a pair of his grand final socks so I could frame them... I was planning on giving one to Jo...kinda like a demented friendship locket.

One day he dropped into work to get something for his dog's sex drive... and I bailed the poor guy up and talked Souths at him with such violence, that he actually had tears in his eyes from boredom.

At this very moment, I realised that I needed to find other Souths people to talk at, and not just pest the people around me.

And so I had a look at the Souths forum that both Hell Boy and Yoga Boy had been using.

I had never used a forum and I found it incredibly confusing for a time.
But I soon discovered that I could pick a pleasant personality out of the mix with very impressive accuracy.

Upon organising myself a Burrow jersey, I met Jo /Jobear. I had liked her from the very first time I heard her voice.
She is now technically my sista and has agreed to sing Glory Glory at my funeral.

We became friends so quickly and with such ease that my brother cautioned me...sleazy internet relationships and all that.

Well really, that depends on where you meet, doesn't it?
I suspect you're likely to experience shorter odds if you meet someone on a site where you're deliberately looking to sell yourself in order to find a relationship.
Everyone has a few hilarious RSVP stories they can tell at their friend's expense, but I've now heard a few good ones too.

Anyway, suffice it to say that Jo and I will never run off together.
Unless it's to a Tupperware party, a Souths fan day or some sort of baking expo.

Jo organised for our season tickets (I finally insisted we get them) to be with hers. Best seats in the house...right behind the bench.

When Game One rolled around and I was shyly passing around home made muffins from my Tupperware container with the green lid, Yoga Boy looked up, saw Jo passing around her home made rabbit shaped cookies from her matching red lidded Tupperware container, shook his head and said something to the effect of,

"Oh, I see."

Many, many times since then, I have dragged myself and my beloved boys to the game just to support Jo and the host of other beautiful friends we have made through this club.

Last Sunday was just such a day.
The team we were playing (smelly old Manly) had declared that they were just going to be using the game to improve their for and against.
We believed them.
We showed up anyway.

I like being one of those people and I adore having friends who are just the same.

We were rewarded by seeing Souths pulling the bastard's pants down and spanking them in front of all of their little friends, possibly costing them the minor premiership.

No muffins though. I'm off sugar.

On the very same forum that I met Jo, I stumbled into the social section one day, only to discover someone purporting to know more about tragic 80's music than I did.

The effrontery!

Three years on, we're still locked in a stalemate. Or at least I allow him to think so.

We even did a recent "resource swap", which in truth was just a nerdy showing off competition.
I won.

A few months ago, as I opened the cupboard that is home to our Souths gear (and the vacuum cleaner), one of my signed jerseys popped out.
And the first few names on it chilled my blood.

Adam MacDougall - let go by the club for being a dick head, went on to make fun of us and Rusty
Shannon Hegarty - aged me 1o years last season alone
Paul Mellor - played for us as a junior, left to play all his good footy elsewhere, returned to play in his dotage with us.

No no no no no NO!

Not good enough.

When I sacrifice a jersey, I want to be able to look at the signatures in years to come with absolute confidence that the people who signed it are going to make me feel proud.

So I changed my tack.
Screw the players, I'm only asking fans to sign it.
They're the real heroes.

The first signature I collected was Bob Log III from Tuscon Arizona... a one man band who gets women to stir his scotch with their boobies. OK, he'd never heard of Souths, but I think he's great. Even drew an arse hole on the bunny for us.

Next up was Hell Boy, a disgruntled Yoga Boy and then Jo.
I passed it around Bay 131 and all my bruddas signed it too. Plus a couple of forum people I like as well.
It's looking pretty good now, but there are at least a dozen more peeps who need to be on there, so it now lives in my bag every game day with a laundry marker - like I'm some 12 year old kid.
It's coming to Cleveland too.

Probably that will be what I'm wearing when they finally torch me.