Sports Pages (or, Support the Team in Green)

It's very strange, having a football team and then not having a football team.

I spent two years of my life reading the sports pages of the news papers looking for any reference to the A-League and caring where people were on the ladder. Now I still feel vaguely compelled to read the sports pages, but I can't say I actually care about any of it.

Especially the A-League. Before they gave me a football team and then let it whither and die, I more-or-less followed the Brisbane team and was vaguely interested in what happened to them. Then there was My Team, and Brisbane didn't interest me as much anymore.

So, now I read news about this competition, to which I paid an insane amount of attention for two years, and I can't figure out if I care about it or not. It's as though part of me is compelled to know what is happening, but the compulsion wears off within seconds after I remember that I don't have a team in that competition any more.

And I have developed an irrational hatred for Melbourne Heart. I don't see why they should still exist when My Team was so brutally put down. If they couldn't afford to keep My Team afloat, then they had no business supporting another team in Melbourne. They should have put that money and energy into making the Fury work, not starting another expansion club.

The sense of ownership (My Team) that I once gave to the North Queensland Fury has been more-or-less transferred to Canberra United, which is in the W-League, so you never hear about them in the sports pages anyway.

I'm thinking of joining the club, though. It's much cheaper than joining the Fury would have been (and I was going to do that if they were still around), and then I'll get a hat and a newsletter. Also free admittance to all of their home games... which would probably be more useful if I lived in Canberra.

When FFA decided to torture the Fury to death, they lost a lot more than a team - they also lost a lot of the supporters of that team, who now harbour not-very-pleasant feelings about Australian football. Thankfully I found the W-League, which is keeping my footballing interests onshore.

Now, if only the sports pages would actually report on women's football occasionally, I'd be happy.