It seems a lot of fellow Dockers fans are feeling pretty down this week, and you can’t blame them. I felt like as a group of supporters we deserved better. But as the day rolled on, i remembered this great passage i had read, describing what it means to be a fan of a team.

"It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift."

I, for one, am grateful for the moments of excitement, joy, laughter, nervousness, anger, and oftentimes disappointment that being a supporter of the Dockers provides. Sure, i’d rather they won more, but following a team isn’t (just) about winning. It’s about being part of something bigger than yourself. One day we will win a flag; Perhaps it won’t be soon, perhaps it won’t be as often as other clubs, but it will happen, and when it does, it will be a just reward for all times we sat through games like Sunday’s.

And to the supporters who feel embarrassed by the team’s display, hold your head high. You are not defined by the way the team plays, be it good or bad. What is important is the way you deal with the moments of triumph or disaster played out before you. Perhaps it is naive to think that Dockers supporters are different to those of other clubs, but I think there is a small truth to it. Don Watson once said that history was ‘the tragic repetition of events made sufferable by irony’, and i often wonder if he was talking about the history of the Dockers. But it is that awareness of the irony, the absurdities, and the big picture that sets this purple mob apart. It is the clapping off of a team that lost a final by 10 goals, because we knew where we had come from. It is sticking by guys like Macca, because we can see what playing means to him. It is about wishing guys like Medders good luck on his journeys after he has left our club (even if we hope his new club gets smashed). Do we accept mediocrity, or do we just 'get it'? Perhaps it makes no difference -we are what we are.

It was a shocker of a game, but there are (at least) 15 more this year, and if we don’t turn it around this season, well, there’s a season every year for the rest of our lives. One of them will be ours, and i know i’ll be around to dance and shout with joy over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball.