So, you're an alien, recently arrived in Perth to study us humans. Firstly, welcome, secondly, congrats on being smart enough to avoid landing in South Australia, good forward intel I would assume.
Anyway, now you're hear, you'll need to assimilate. May I suggest one of the quickest ways to do this is to get involved in the dominant local custom, that being AFL. To best achieve this you'll need to pick a team so I thought I'd run through your options for you.
Below is an unbiased list of each of the teams with a quick rundown on them and what you'd be in for if you fix their colours to your mast.
1. Adelaide Crows.
As your research may have shown you, Adelaide is the capital of Australia’s biggest “Meh” state. If it weren’t for the 2 teams in the AFL and the fact that 8 of the 13 notable South Australians in history were mass murderers, I think we’d have forgotten they exist long ago.
Why support them? It may be a good disguise to go with early on as you try to assimilate and build your knowledge of the game. Outside SA, if you tell anyone you follow the Crows, within a few minutes you’ll be talking about something else entirely. This team, to quote from your Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is, “mostly harmless”.
2. Brisbane Lions.
Where people from SA can be a bit strange, those in Qld make strange an art form. They took it to a new level over the summer by appointing a fanta pants as coach. Not only is this Ranga untried in coaching, since his playing days (which were phenomenal) he seems to have been drinking too much from Clown River and has begun referring to himself in the third person. His new found Bozodity may ruin his club, or it may launch them on to new successes.
Why support them? They are a team that formed from the stench of 2 disastrous clubs to form an eventual powerhouse. They have 2 players in the top 10 of the game, and another 2 in the top 20. They played fierce, flowing footy and could once again become a dominant force. Or they could be a bunch of has-beens and kids being lead to the cellar by a Bloodnut. Tough call to make at this stage.
3. Carlton Blues.
If, on your planet, you had a group of people who lied, cheated, stole and hung around wearing velvet tracksuits in the middle of the day, then this is who they would have liked. Once perceived to be a powerhouse of the league, in reality this was only due to lack of recruiting rules and then a strong will in policing them. In addition, no team has a bigger percentage of bandwagon followers, which is always nice.
Why support them? They have the league’s 2nd best player who really is great to watch. They are on the up, although they will probably never make it all the way. If you like short cuts, cheap wins and shallow triumph, this team is one of 2 that fits the bill for you.
4. Collingwood Magpies.
Whereas the previous club is the embodiment of organised crime in the AFL, Collingwood is everything that is DIS-organised crime. They are a particularly feral bunch of hooligans with faces resembling the smashed rear end of a baboon with worms and the personalities of a very upset rat, and that’s just the women. When the tooth fairy for kids of this club comes calling he pinches the tooth, leaves a half empty packet of fags and spends the rest of the night seeing if the taken tooth fills any gaps in the mother’s mouth.
Why support them? You’ll always be able to get news on them, they’re the 2nd most overly reported-on team. You’ll have ready access to “new” DVD players, car stereos and iPods at all supporter functions. Even if you’re a 3-headed, wormy type alien, you’ll still be amongst the best looking supporters and will therefore need less of a disguise. If Jabba The Hut rocked up on Earth wearing a number 5 black and white jumper and landed at the Lexus Centre, those supporters that noticed would probably only try to root it.
5. Essendon Bombers.
The most successful team in the league’s history is potentially the least successful in the league’s future. You will always find someone else who supports this mob if you choose to do so, whether that person is someone you want to spend any time with will be highly debatable. They are poorly lead on-field and poorly coached off it.
Why support them? If you don’t particularly care about winning and you just want to see lots of scoring, even if it’s the opposition doing it, then you’ve found your team.
6. Geelong Cats.
They have played in 100% of the last 2 Grand Finals. They have won 50% of them. This is a HUGE improvement on this teams history in big games. Presently, they are well coached, well run and have a reasonably low number of knobs on their playing list. However, those poncy buffoons that do exist are at the top of the league’s tree in that respect.
Why support them? For the next couple of years you are sure to have much success during the season, even probably another flag or so. However, the rest of the league used to pity these supporters, and for good reason. That should not be overlooked and could easily return as soon as next season.
7. Hawthorn Hawks.
This is the reigning champion team. They are well coached, well run and are young. The best player in the league is still only a baby and calls Hawthorn home. They even have very few pricks on the list. However, they have the worst colours for any sports team not playing French Rugby.
Why support them? Good history, good future and largely they do things the way you’d like them done. These guys are easy to follow, and therein lies the rub. Does anything truly worthwhile come easy? In addition, you’re new here, do you really want to be trying to assimilate whilst wearing brown and yellow? I didn’t think so.
8. Melbourne Demons.
One of the league’s oldest teams, and one of its most pathetic. Even its number 1 icon left them at the peak of their powers back in the 60’s. They never recovered. In world of AFL, if you do word association you’ll find “hopeless”, “rabble” and “irrelevant” written in red and blue.
Why support them? A Demons supporter will always have an interest in the draft period because you will always have a high pick. This fact extends interest in AFL goings on into the offseason trading and drafting period. Unfortunately, it also means that the actual season is slightly less enjoyable than suffocating to death.
9. North Melbourne Kangaroos
Behind the appealing colours you will find a team that usually punches out of its weight in terms of wins and media exposure. Run on a shoestring budget, the recruiting for the team’s sports medicine department this year consisted of interviews at immigrant detainment facilities and low cost retirement homes looking for people who could apply an ice pack whilst also supplying the ice.
Why support them? They are a team that will usually give you a valiant effort and will often pull off a surprise or 3 throughout the year, often leading to finals appearances. More often than not you’ll be proud of your boys. Unfortunately, once there, they will usually not do the job in the finals and you’ll be left with precious little. You also have one of the league’s and the media’s biggest clowns as your President and a Coach who makes the refrigeration unit on your space ship look like a world class entertainer.
10. Port Adelaide Power.
You have no idea of the horrors that wait you behind the teal, black and white curtain. Every negative present at Collingwood is present here as well, sometimes moreso. There really is nothing to like about this mob. In addition to all that, these people have chips on their shoulders that would choke the Hncredible Hulk.
Why support them? If you’ve had your favourite or only child kidnapped and they will not be released unless you agree to undertake brainwashing to become a Port supporter, then so be it, support them. If it’s not your favourite child or you have other children, stand firm.
11. Richmond Tigers.
No team has a bunch of supporters with less appeal. No team is run as badly or has as deplorable a culture as Richmond, happily though, it’s about to get worse. This club holds the record for most number of women to represent an AFL club, 2 of whom made it to Captain the club not so long ago.
Why support them? Perhaps you will, in the future, need to score an 8-ball of illicit substances for research purposes. Perhaps you’ll find yourself in some exotic fireball that can only be put out by 20000 people spitting on you. Perhaps then you should choose Richmond. In all other circumstances, I would counsel avoiding them at all costs.
12. St Kilda Saints.
Although a godly sounding name, do not be fooled by the cover of this book. Behind the heavenly façade hides a sorry history, a sorry present and a sorry future. The supporters, for the most part, are a hardened bunch of quirky diehards. Gallows humour was developed and refined at St Kilda Members meetings.
Why follow them? As well as the supporters being a pretty reasonable and enjoyable bunch, they do have some promise. If that promise comes off and they win a flag, it will be a party for the ages and one well worth being a part of.
13. Sydney Swans.
The Swans are the only team (for the moment) in the country’s biggest and fruitiest city. They have had recent success and play a fierce brand of footy that appeals to many. According to some though, an ageing list and the very few games that have been played by the next level of kids indicates a slide is coming, and coming soon.
Why support them? They play an appealing brand of footy that keeps you in most games. Although lacking aesthetic it has the added appeal of annoying the league’s Fuhrer. In addition, if you want to annoy supporters of the West Coast, and you probably will, choosing only 1 other team will do the trick as well as this choice.
14. Western Bulldogs.
This is a team that turned its back on its geographical location to distance itself from its region. Noone blames them one little bit. As depressing as their armpit of a home-town suburb can be, the history of this bunch of “triers” is only slightly better.
Why support them? They are reasonably young, reasonably entertaining and are perhaps the least offensive team in the league. You won’t get in to many arguments supporting these guys and will likely get some back pats and pity high fives. You’ll also be irrelevant to the rest of the league for the vast majority of the time.
15. West Coast Eagles.
Only in this research paper will you see me or any non-supporter refer to this team in the manner seen in this title. They are usually referred too as the Cheats, Fowl, Budgies, Scum, West Coke, Wet Toast, Wet Bloat, or a range of other insulting terms. None of these adequately describe the lack of redeemable features that exists within the walls of this hideous collection of fwits and lickspittles.
Why support them? Supporting this team says something about you, and what it says is ALL wrong. In the interests of balance, I have come up with 1 reason to justify supporting them. You have a terminal illness after your long voyage here and want something worse to compare it too and therefore numb the pain. In that situation you will be a WCE supporter, but you’ll be dead soon so you have that to look forward too.
16. Fremantle Dockers.
By now you have read this and are confused as there seems to be no real acceptable choice to make. It’s a case of choosing the best of a bad lot isn’t it. You’re considering walking away from the game and refusing to get involved.
Wait. There is a choice, there is some hope.
Fremantle the city has always been a place of coming together. It is a place where differences are expected, respected, encouraged and then embraced. It is a place where the people have done it tough and done it that way by choice. Doing it tough means demanding the best rewards from your endeavours, and that is what they have got for themselves.
Fremantle the club is a place of potential, pride, passion, promise, and purity. The club springs from the fiercest of rivals in the true home of football in the country, a place where that ferocity has been enhanced to provide a club on a mission of principled pursuit of honorable victory, and it is a victory that is in sight.
This is a group who have seen the tainted baubles of shallow victory and spurned that path in search of greater things.
Why support them? I once read that people join clubs because of the aspirations they have for themselves and how well those aspirations are met by the qualities of the clubs they examine and the people within those clubs. There is nothing you can do whilst visiting Earth that better tells others you are made of the right stuff than joining the Fremantle Football Club. The supporters (excluding about 37 MoB knobs) are the gold standard of intelligence, wit, character and principle. Even the worst are better than the best on offer at other clubs. The onfield is about to match what exists off it and provide tribute to that which came before it. Hop on, sit down, strap in and prepare yourself for the thrill ride of your life.