In my first stint as president back in the ’90s, my approach to umpires and opposition players during the course of a game was utterly shameful. There was no term of abuse I was not prepared to give voice to, and I never judged a free kick to have been awarded fairly against my team.
After I was relieved of the post in 1997, the following years enabled me to assume a zen-like calm during games. When the board of the Western Bulldogs asked me to take the job on again in late 2012, I secretly thought people would see a calm and composed Peter Gordon – even during the tensest of games. This is an approach you need to adopt when you’re meant to be hosting pollies and sponsors and people who may not take kindly to the unhinged venting of spleen.
Macca has this year introduced a team mantra of “stronger for longer”. Taking his lead, I have introduced my own personal game-day promise of “calmer like an embalmer”. It’s worked tolerably well, with some very clear learnings to be taken out of the 2014 season, including:
1. Any free kick awarded to Nick Riewoldt, no matter how obvious, will elicit dark memories of 2009.
2. Never watch a game in a corporate box with only Simon Garlick for company. Who even thought he was capable of language like that!?
3. Resist the temptation to believe there is a special interpretation given to deliberate out-of-bounds for Western Bulldogs players, COMPARED WITH EVERY OTHER TEAM IN THE FRICKIN’ LEAGUE.
4. Sorry about that last line … stronger for longer … calmer like an embalmer.
5. Put Steve Winwood’s Arc Of A Diver album on the Christmas lists for yesterday’s field umpires and a certain Kangaroos forward.
