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Raw Toast
13-12-2008, 06:12 PM
As many of you know I've found a way of combining work and play by writing about footy in my life as an academic.

I recently published a piece on the way footy fans experience particularly distressing finals defeats as if they were tragedies, and as some of the members of WOOF helped me out by letting me interview them, I thought the piece might be of interest to some of the denizens here.

A word of warning first though, much of my paper deals with the fall-out of an event that occurred in 1997, so read it at your own risk. It also contains a bit of theory, but you can skip over that if you wish.

The piece was published in Traffic the Uni of Melbourne's graduate student journal, and you can access it by going to:

http://www.umpa.unimelb.edu.au/traffic/trafficten/issuetrafficten.htm

and clicking on the link to the piece titled:

‘Each time I'm reminded of it, I feel as though I need therapy’: Australian Football, Tragedies and the Question of Catharsis

I've recently also had something published in The International Journal of the History of Sporton the way footy fans love their club. It'll be a bit harder to get permission to re-print that here, but if people are interested I'll try for that as well.

LostDoggy
13-12-2008, 09:07 PM
An interesting read Raw Toast, just a couple of comments.

Firstly, there is no mention that Adelaide had not been in what Victorian's then thought was 'their competion' for a short time - 10 years wasn't it? That really added some salt to the wound for long suffering doggie supporters.

Secondly, I completed some training on debriefing a few years ago now, and what was constantly drummed into me was that language was the 'disgestive juices for trauma', it seems to me that talking about '97 is what everyone is still doing, trying to digest the trauma of it all (and I really believe it was trauma).

Thirdly, when you mentioned Joy Damousi, I had to smile, as during my time at uni - being a committed feminist and a mad football fan - was a difficult mix, however Joy being a passionate Collingwood supporter gave me faith that it could be done.

LostDoggy
14-12-2008, 08:11 AM
I really enjoyed reading this and had to read it twice to get a better understanding. :o

FrediKanoute
15-12-2008, 01:34 AM
Its funny, I was at the 1997 Preliminary final loss and have only watched snippits of the game since......mostly with the same morbid interest a person watches a car crash. It really wasn't until last year that I really understood what it meant. I was luck enough to be at the Spurs v Arsenal semi-final of the League Cup and we won.........the first thing that went through my head was this was how it should have felt in 1997.

LostDoggy
15-12-2008, 06:05 PM
Sh*t, RT. If you didn't just go and reach into my chest and give my poor heart another cruel wrench. It was like a knife twisting in my guts, just reading your (fantastic, by the way) essay. It made me relive '97 in a way I had not done since the immediate weeks following the event.

(Oh, and as an aside, I've been involved with Traffic -- well, the funding of it anyway -- when I was working at the School of Graduate Studies. Glad to see funds going to good causes like this absolute b*tch of an article. Good work.)

westdog54
15-12-2008, 07:01 PM
Sh*t, RT. If you didn't just go and reach into my chest and give my poor heart another cruel wrench. It was like a knife twisting in my guts, just reading your (fantastic, by the way) essay. It made me relive '97 in a way I had not done since the immediate weeks following the event.

(Oh, and as an aside, I've been involved with Traffic -- well, the funding of it anyway -- when I was working at the School of Graduate Studies. Glad to see funds going to good causes like this absolute b*tch of an article. Good work.)

When RT presented his paper, it cam with a warning (aimed squarely at Pembleton and myself) that listneing would probably raise traumatic memories.

RT, do you know of an online version of Tony's paper on Fitzroy's demise?