Passion Play

A while ago i wrote about a paper written by Matthew Klugman. Klugman has now written a book about aussie rules “barrackers” (as he calls them) called Passion Play. I am a friend of the author, and as such have been lucky enough to look at an advance copy of Passion Play.

I am a passionate football fan living in Melbourne. Superficially, this means that i am fortunate, as ! am surrounded on a daily basis by copious amounts of material dedicated to one of my passions. Unfortunately, the majority of that material is exceedingly bland and lacking insight. If you can be bothered to sift through the material, and find the nuggets of gold that certainly are out there, you will still find very little written about the experiences of the football fan (John Harms is a notable exception), despite football fandom being such a big part of the cultural identity of this city.

Just about every article and book relating to football is about footballers, and increasingly written by footballers. Obviously the players are the stars of the show, and that is as it should be, but the odd affliction of being a dedicated supporter warrants more attention than it gets. After all, the vast majority of people involved in footy are involved as spectators, and it is us, and our irrational loyalty to our favoured team, that underpins the strength of the sport (or any other sport for that matter). Thankfully, Passion Play helps fill the void, as it focuses only on the experiences of us “barrackers”.

Klugman takes us through the rhythms of a footy season, insightfully teasing out and explaining different aspects of a barracker’s experience. There are many things about being a footy fan that you come to understand only when you have reached a certain level of commitment to your team.

I came to know Klugman through our shared passion for the Bulldogs, and so i know that he has firsthand experience with the material that he covers in the book. I suspect that someone who did not have that experience would not be able to so accurately get to the heart of how it feels to be a “barracker”, which is something that Passion Play does quite well.

There is some good humour along the way, often provided by the “barrackers” themselves, who are quoted extensively throughout the book. The funniest part of the book is the section devoted to straight male supporters professing their sexual desire for their favourite players. The apparent willingness of some Bulldog supporters to be paired with Daniel Cross, as well as a Geelong supporter’s feelings about Garry Ablett jnr, makes for some fun reading.

There is also chapter that draws largely on the material from the paper focussed on tragedy. Inevitably, these meant reading about how fans have dealt with, and continue to deal with, the Bulldogs loss to Adelaide in the 1997 preliminary final. You would think that familiarity with this topic would mean I have developed an emotional detachment to it. Sadly this is not the case, and the painful feelings that surround my memories of that day were quickly at the surface.

Despite nearly bringing me to tears about a football game from nearly 12 years ago, I would recommend Passion Play to footy fans and sports fans more generally. I would also recommend it to non-sports fans who are interested in the irrational behaviour of their otherwise sensible “barracker” family and friends.

PS. I neglected to mention that crikey’s firstdogonthemoon has contributed to the book, with a sickening show of man-love for his favourite player, Nathan Eagleton.