Aussie Rules and Me

My dad gave me a soft, plush black and white foam football before I was 6 months old, and I've loved footy ever since. As I grew up I started barracking for Central Districts. They play in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). AFL had not started at that time and I was to young to care about what was going on in Victoria anyway. My dad was devastated, because he was a Port Adelaide Magpies fan, and was pretty keen for me to turn out the same.

In 1990, the Australian Football League and in 1991 the newly formed Adelaide Crows played their first game. It was South Australia's first team in the national competition and I was right on board. My dad was too, and we went to plenty of Crows games together.

As the decade went on, Adelaide won a couple of premierships but it had changed for me. They weren't the same side anymore because all of the players that I had idolised growing up were retiring. So I jumped off. I had been playing all of my footy in a red and blue jumper, and I'd always considered myself to be a Demon, so I made the only natural choice for my lifelong footy team, the Melbourne Football Club. Some of you who know football might say that wasn't the brightest idea, as Melbourne haven't won a premiership since 1964, and to be honest, they still don't look like winning one anytime soon. But I'm a passionate supporter, and I'll never jump off the Dees.

I'm also a keen tipster, so here are my predictions for the ladder at the end of the AFL season this year.

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