Adam Cilauro is lifelong football fan who’s grown up as passionate supporter of the Essendon Football Club.
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But, now his interest in the game is waning due to the seemingly never-ending drugs scandal surrounding the Bombers.
He no longer seeks out the company of others to talk about AFL or visits football chat rooms or forums but he has opened up to Fairfax Media about his thoughts this saga is having on the innocent people involved – the fans.
Football isn’t the most important thing in the world, but in the city of Melbourne it comes close.
But, as one famous coach from another football code once said “football is the most important of the less important things”.
This city breathes football – it’s tribal.
You are born into bloodlines that carry you though a football-supporting life until you pass them onto your kids.
There’s no changing it, there’s no supressing it, it’s there for ever, like a splinter in your soul. Of course it ebbs and flows; as a child it’s your whole world and those players are like gods among men.
As a teen it ebbs a little while you find out what’s at the bottom of a brown bottle and the allure of the opposite sex … but it’s still there.
You can pretend not to care but when a news report about your club comes on you stop to listen. You still get the adrenaline during a close game or feel the eyes welling up at a close loss.
It’s also a social binder - people are known by who they support sometimes more than by who they are.
Football is a leveller and it’s not uncommon to see blue collar workers, white collar workers, scholars and immigrants all sitting around one bar table discussing football. These are things that don’t normally happen in society, but for our game.
I was in a happy little routine as a proud Bombers supporter, I’d go to work and debate all day long about the state of the game – who was good and who was bad. Quite often with people that I didn’t even know by name, only by which team they supported was.
The best part about these arguments is there are no winners. There is no wrong answer – it’s all about opinions. Your rebuttal can go back to having won 16 flags, to how good the kids on your list are or to the time you beat their team by a point after the siren.
These moments of football banter got me through the long days and long weeks of work that are sometimes mundane. It was my escape.
Then something happened – the so called worst day in Australian sporting history.
As a Bombers fan this was our twin towers, our Bali bombings, the day we lost our innocence and as it happens our ability to hold any moral ground in any footballing debate from that point forward.
As a Bombers fan this was the day we lost our innocence and our ability to hold any moral ground in any footballing debate from that point forward.
The anger builds inside me as I try and make my point when I hear from the other side of the table, “well at least we aren’t drug cheats”.
There are “know-it-alls” trying to tell me why I should hate Hird because they read the latest newspaper article. Know-it-alls who are suddenly experts in biochemisty or contract law.
Journalists strum our pain with their pens as they skirt the lines of propaganda while they push forward the rhetoric of whichever side they are leaking for.
The club with its back to the wall, bound and gagged and looking for any angle of retort.
This has turned into a media war with leak and counter leak, spin and counter spin – to a point where the original points of debate were lost months ago.
As with any war it’s always the same, there is collateral damage and the innocent people are the ones to get hurt.
This saga has been reported to saturation point via every possible angle except for one – the Bombers fans.
Nobody has stopped for a single moment to think or report on how this has been for us.
What were we supposed to do?
Of course we had to stand by our club who told us the truth will come.
But, the longer we waited the more abuse we received from everybody in society who has been against us from the start, while their anger was being fanned by the daily papers.
Kids in school being teased as drug cheats – before they should know what drugs are.
We have been marooned like hapless fools while the club made promises and each weak move by the club’s wobbly board has made us look more the fool.
The strong among us kept up the fight for months and we believed the truth would come despite the bombardment from all angles.
But after a while it became too much, repeating the same answers to the same accusations from people believing every aspect of what they were being served up without an ounce of free thought or perspective.
Well I am tired.
I can’t do it anymore and I know I’m not the only one. I no longer seek out the people in the work corridor to chat about football, I no longer visit the football chat rooms or forums because it’s too painful.
I used to love reading the paper from the back in the morning – I no longer buy it. The sports report on the news? Change the channel.
I am at my lowest ebb as a football fan, the flame is flickering. I know for a fact this is happening across Melbourne and not just from the red and black end.
This needs to end before the damage is irreversible. Please put down your guns and put your proof, if any, on the table ASADA and end this so we can all move on.
I know this stain will always be there, and if an argument gets hard the supporter on the other side will always bring up the drugs, no matter if we are found innocent or guilty.
But I can wear that – it’s the price we pay for what’s happened.
Let’s finish this so I can get my footy life back!
What do you think? Has the Essendon supplements scandal dampened your enthusiasm for the Australian Football League? Post a comment below or email tcarrier@fairfaxmedia.com.au with your thoughts.