Football, Before Anything Else
Before I write more about governance, I want to remember why I love this game and why it is more important than meetings, policies or power.
Because football is not a document.
Football is not a spreadsheet.
Football is not an email chain.
Football is laughter.
It’s the kind of nerves that make you hide in the changerooms, not because you don’t belong, but because you care so much it’s almost unbearable. It’s the nerves that make you find something practical to do, like taking photos, just to keep yourself steady.
Sometimes the best way to cope with the moment is to give your hands a job so your heart can calm down.
Football is the most dramatic emotional training ground you can imagine.
Winning at the last minute.
Conceding at the last minute.
Turning up expecting to lose because everyone has tipped you to lose, then somehow, unbelievably, you win.
Pride and relief and disbelief all at once.
It’s hugging friends at full time.
It’s receiving messages you never expected, the kind that remind you people noticed and people care.
The Purest Bits
Football is also the small, ridiculous, beautiful things.
Five-year-olds running the wrong way and kicking a goal into the opposition’s net, then celebrating like they’ve just won the World Cup.
No embarrassment.
No self-consciousness.
Just pure delight.
Football is wet grounds and muddy boots and the smell of dirty socks in the car after a long weekend away. It’s the gear bag sitting in the back a day too long.
It’s excited chatter.
The banter.
The noise.
The endless energy.
It’s the food at games and the small moment of giving myself permission to just eat the hot chips. Not because it’s healthy. Not because I’ve “earned” them. Just because football weekends are long and joy is allowed.
Football is a sunset at Launceston City on those 4:45pm kick-offs, when the light goes gold and the game feels bigger than the scoreboard.
It’s stepping onto the fabulous surface at Lightwood Park and thinking, this is what football should feel like.
The Things Only Football People Understand
Football is checking Tassie Football Central because you just have to know what is going on at other grounds.
Not because you’re nosy.
Because you’re invested.
Because football is a living ecosystem and you can’t help caring about it.
Football is Brian welcoming me with, “What news?”
Not hello.
Not small talk.
Just straight into it.
Because in football, you don’t just attend the game.
You live it.
Football is Clare making sure everyone is decked out in merch.
Wearing our colours.
Looking like a club.
Football is Darrin volunteering, and somewhere along the way becoming a friend for life.
Football is going to Valley Road and bringing home three points when it is so damn difficult to do.
Football is also the generosity of other clubs.
The food for the opposition.
The kind words offered after.
The moment where you remember that underneath the competition, football people understand each other.
Football Is Identity
At some point, football stops being something you do.
It becomes part of who you are.
You don’t just go to games.
You plan your weekends around fixtures without even thinking.
You know which grounds are windy and which ones are cold.
You carry the game with you all week.
Football becomes a second language.
And one day you realise you don’t even know how you would live without it.
Not because you can’t.
Because you don’t want to.
Football Is Pride (And Time)
Football is pride in your club.
Pride in your team.
Pride in the kids you’ve watched grow up from tiny uniforms into young adults who can handle pressure, disappointment, responsibility.
Pride in my family too.
A family that has lived football properly, not as a hobby, but as a craft.
Advanced coaching qualifications.
Decades of learning.
Decades of teaching.
Decades of giving.
And then one day you look up and realise football has become generational.
Players you once coached are now bringing their own children to training.
Kids are turning up with the same surnames on their backs.
Old stories are repeating in new ways.
It makes me feel proud, and it makes me realise just how long I’ve loved this game.
Not just watched it.
Loved it.
Football Is Quiet Service
Football is also the work nobody sees.
It’s washing bibs.
Sorting balls.
Packing cones.
Unlocking sheds.
Chasing keys.
Borrowing equipment.
Marking lines.
Texting team managers at night.
Trying to solve problems before anyone else even realises there was one.
It’s volunteering for things you don’t actually want to do, because you know if you don’t do it, the whole thing falls over.
It’s being the person who holds the detail so others can just enjoy the game.
And most of the time nobody notices.
But clubs are built on this kind of quiet service.
This is what football is made of.
Football Is Women Carving Out Space
Football is watching girls fill the grounds.
Not being included.
Belonging.
Owning space.
Some chasing high performance.
Some just there for fun.
It doesn’t matter.
They’re there.
And every season it becomes more normal.
More expected.
More obvious.
Like it should have been all along.
Girls in club colours.
Girls with confidence.
Girls with swagger.
Girls who don’t ask permission.
That makes me happy.
Because once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it.
This is what the future of football looks like.
Football Is Legacy
Football is the generosity of people who understand that clubs outlast all of us.
Tony Chaffey remembered the club in his will.
Such a generous thing to do.
Not for attention.
Not for applause.
Just because some people love football so deeply they want to protect what they helped build, even after they’re gone.
That stays with you.
Football Is Memory
Football is being able to laugh about how absolutely shit Manchester United are at the moment, while still remembering how glorious they were when Sir Alex was in charge.
That era wasn’t just winning.
It was identity.
It was standards.
It was belief.
And sometimes football is ridiculous in the best way.
Like when the underdog does you a favour and takes points off your nearest rival.
You don’t even pretend to be neutral.
You celebrate like it was your own win.
Football Is Big Days and Old Stories
Football is Launceston United and the brilliant Hudson Cup days.
Football is the Hobart Cup.
Not just as a tournament, but as an experience.
A weekend where thousands of children get to feel what it’s like to play in something bigger than their own weekly routine.
Rain, hail or shine.
It doesn’t matter.
They turn up anyway.
Umbrellas blowing inside out.
Freezing hands.
Freezing feet.
People huddled on the sidelines trying to look like they’re coping.
Volunteers who looked half-frozen but kept going anyway.
That weekend is exhausting.
It is also magic.
Football Is Chaos, Courage, and Characters
Football is red cards and big moments.
Jimmy James taking heart medication at Kingborough because we just have to win.
Goals scored from halfway.
The kind of goals that make everyone stop and look at each other like, did that just happen?
Football is Richard yelling “Carn Souf”.
Not in a polished, corporate way.
In the real way.
The way that sounds like home.
And football is 63 games undefeated.
Then finally breathing a sigh of relief when Eagles beat us.
Not because losing is good.
But because the weight of defending that record every week is finally gone.
You can breathe again.
Football is also John Boulos sitting at Mt Nelson with the League Winners trophy.
Not knowing whether to go South or East.
Kick-offs at the same time on the last day.
That moment where the whole season squeezes into ninety minutes, and everybody is waiting, and nobody wants to be the one who says it out loud, but everyone knows what is at stake.
Football is suspense.
It’s nerves you can barely contain.
It’s hope that feels reckless.
It’s people holding their breath together.
Football Is The After
Football is also what happens after.
The silence in the car.
The replaying of moments you can’t stop thinking about.
The anger that fades into perspective.
The sadness that sits quietly next to you on the drive home.
The win that doesn’t even feel real until later.
The tiredness.
The calm.
The reflection.
And sometimes the message that arrives that night, long after the crowd has gone.
Well done.
Proud of you.
Thank you.
Football doesn’t end at full time.
It follows you home.
Why This Matters
And this is the point.
When you’ve lived football like this, when you’ve watched it build children and friendships and belonging in real time, you stop being able to tolerate governance that treats the game like numbers on a spreadsheet.
Because football isn’t a product.
It’s people.
It’s volunteers and families and kids in muddy boots.
And if the people who sit above the game can’t see that, or won’t protect it, then it becomes the responsibility of those of us inside it to speak up.
This isn’t complaining for sport.
This is advocacy for the thing that deserves better.
Football is too important to be governed poorly.
So yes.
I’m going to talk about it.
Because I love this game.