The Day Punt Road Nearly Burned Down

“The seed of revolution is repression.”

Woodrow Wilson said that and he was only one of many politicians, playwrights, philosophers, revolutionaries and rascals quoted in Richmond last Sunday afternoon. Chairman Mao, Che Gueverra, Fidel Castro, John Kennedy, Tom Stoppard, Napoleon; their spirit and words were well and truly channelled in the heart of Tigerland in the lead-up to Richmond’s clash with the hapless Melbourne Demons.

The sentiment was clear: a loss to the Demons and Punt Road would burn. The bayonets would be out and scalps would be had. The mob would not quieten until total control had been wrestled from the oppressors. The white picket fence palings would be the tools of impalement. The clubhouse would be nothing but smouldering cinders and rubble. The roads would be lined with bones and the streets would be red with blood. The Bastille would be stormed, the General Post Office would be taken and a great leader of men would declare a new dawn for the Richmond Football Club.

At the very least, it would be Lahore after a Pakistan World Cup failure with poorly constructed effigies and an angry mob demanding change.

Clusters and posses formed across the many hotels and public houses throughout Richmond in the lead-up to a clash that should have been a nothing match but all of a sudden was one that would have significant ramifications. At the All Nations, Mick Molloy held court. The London was filled with a wild-eyed crew in yellow and black demanding Terry Wallace be driven out of town if the Tigers were not ahead on the scoreboard at around five o’clock that afternoon. Caroline Wilson scouted out the score at the Cricketers Arms and secretly wished all those keen to see the blood flow the best of luck. George Pell sent his blessing through an emissary at the early St. Ignatius Sunday morning mass. Even at the Royal, attention was turned away from the junkie strippers passing the jug around, the skimpy version of the collection plate, to talk Wallace and Richmond and the consequences of defeat.

Tensions were high and were increasingly fuelled by alcohol, frustration, the mob mentality, the Sunday sun and the nearing of The Hour.

By two o’clock, most of the Tiger faithful had gathered at the MCG. Few seemed particularly happy. There was plenty to lose and not a lot to gain. The Tigers were winless through three matches and had shown very little in the way of improvement outside of a solid effort in the middle two quarters against Geelong. Terry Wallace was reported to be on “Death Row” and most Richmond fans were not particularly upset: the club seems to have made little progress in his four years at the helm. The optimism that overcame most Richmond supporters following the fine finish to 2008 and the signing of Ben Cousins had once again turned into yet another false dawn. Another year was headed for failure and the success promised under Terry Wallace would never eventuate. Five wasted years and the need to start all over again…

A win against Melbourne was merely expected. A loss and the catastrophic days of 2009 would reach a new depth of despair. It was not an ideal situation for the Tiger faithful but it was not a position totally foreign to those who called Punt Road home.

The game did not go as expected, at least according to the betting, though many sitting in the Richmond Members precinct would tell you the match went exactly as expected.

The Tigers kicked the opening two goals of the match but were behind at quarter-time after another pathetic display of poor decision making and basic football skills. The second-quarter was worse, the Demons kicking 8.1 to 3.3 as the Tigers continually ran themselves into trouble with an inane display of handballing and poor kicking. Matthew White continually took the wrong option and should have been dragged but Wallace persisted with the player he called “the most improved in his five years at the club”. Jordan McMahon continually sent the ball away from what can only be assumed was his intended target and then showed no hustle in the recovery. Troy Simmonds allowed the Demons to win virtually every ruck contest. The entire Richmond backline with the exception of Joel Bowden looked so bad that it appeared as if the ball would never leave the Tiger half. Often, it didn’t.

Terry Wallace instituted a plan to make the Tigers an agile and skilful unit. What he has achieved is sending a team onto the paddock who, for the most part, cannot kick, handball, run, make decisions or use the ball.

The Tigers were so bad in that second quarter-and, for most of the day, truth be told- that sixteen random men aged between eighteen and thirty could have been plucked from the stands to join Richo and Joel Bowden and they would have turned in a performance at least on par with what was shown in the first half by these so-called professional footballers.

The faithful were restless by this stage and when any form of comeback looked hopeless in the third quarter, plenty of anger and frustration was let go. Labourers who had had their balls busted by their boss all week, literary types who had been dumped, housewives who had received little attention from their husbands…they all stood up and vented and pointed fingers and demanded answers.

By the fourth term the situation appeared dire. And it was. The Tigers provided a snifter of hope but once again that hope was dashed. Sadness and anger were etched on the faces of all those who had attached themselves to the football club. Melbourne had defeated Richmond by eight points.

The revolution seemed inevitable.

When the fulltime siren sounded, however, the anger dissipated into a resigned sadness. Why had we chosen to attach ourselves to such mediocrity, such despair, such misery? The Tigers faithful just rose lethargically and gathered their belongings and shuffled out of the MCG. Few eyes were raised, most feet were shuffling. Plenty of bottom lips bounced off the concrete. Nobody charged the centre square or stood proud and tall demanding change.

The Tigers weren’t even booed off for their insipid display.

There were no riots, no effigies burned. Nobody stormed the Punt Road offices and demanded action, no hostages were taken. Terry Wallace made it out alive as did the Tigers brass. Revolution certainly wasn’t in the air.

The faithful then shuffled back to the Cricketers Arms and the All Nations, the Swan and the Spread Eagle, the Mountain View and the London Tavern, the Corner and the Royal, where the junkie girls once again had their collection plates quickly filled and their tops swiftly removed as the numb Tigers fans went through the well-known motions of trying to forget.

The closest the planned uprising got to reality were a few angry phone calls to talkback radio and the bitching that took place over the many tear-stained pots consumed at the local public houses.

It wasn’t an apathy born out of indifference but out of futility, the air of hopelessness that a serf or slave feels after generations of servitude with the thought of emancipation nothing but a wistful dream that will never be realised.

Those who call Tigerland home expect mediocrity, failure, disappointment, stupidity and frustration. It has been beaten into us all over a quarter of a century. Whenever hopes are raised, as they were when Ben Cousins arrived, they are inevitably dashed. That is how the scene rolls down at Punt Road. It always ends like Annie Hall. The Richmond Football Club and success appear mutually exclusive, so fundamentally different in nature that they can never coexist.

Alvy, when it was all over with Annie, said:

“There’s an old joke-um…two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort and one of them says ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible’. The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions’. Well that’s essentially how I feel about life- full of loneliness and life and misery and suffering and unhappiness.”

He may have been talking about life but he could very easily have been talking about the life of a Richmond Football Club supporter.