Three tips for Carlton fans to get through the week.

Three tips for Carlton fans to get through the week.

GuyWhoLikesSport

Like what you read from our new columnist?
Follow @Guywholikessport on Twitter or check out his FULL BLOG HERE 

Welcome, Carlton fans!

Take a load off. Relax. You’re finally here. Remember last Friday night?

Jacob Weitering doesn’t, but you do.

He got a concussion test after the game while you got a Hydralite.

You were as woozy, delirious even, as each other in that moment.

You long-suffering supporters are finally back in a prelim after too many scandals to count.

Brian Cook, who has success following him like a disaffected teenager following Andrew Tate, is at your club, and all of a sudden here you are.

Welcome to the lounge. What lounge?

The Lounge of Long-Suffering Supporters Who Are Finally Having Some Success.

It’s not a great name but we do what it says on the box.

Since I started the lounge in 2017 as a Richmond supporter, I’ve devised some tips on how to get through the various finals weeks.

Sadly, I’ve not had to use them very much because we won so many in such quick succession.

In between our run, West Coast won but they weren’t that long-suffering since their last premiership year started with a two.

All the Melbourne fans were already in another, more exclusive lounge.

After that Geelong won and again, they weren’t that long-suffering.

Anyway, not the point. It’s nice to have you here. Here are three tips for you on how to get through the second half of a very stressful preliminary final week.

(1) Don’t act like you’ve been here before

You haven’t!  At least not for a long time. Who knows when you’ll get back? What are you? Denzel in The Equalizer?

The experience is meant to be cool, but you aren’t.

Watch all the AFL360 montages (which are outrageously good).

Get swept up in it.

Have a coffee on Lygon Street before work.

Wear a Blues beanie while you’re there.

Beep at kids in Carlton guernseys.

This isn’t just another week, it’s better.

Everyone is talking about the blue wave. You can genuinely feel it around town.

All anyone is talking about is Carlton.

Sing Stand By your Man like Sticks.

Tuck into one of Kouta’s souvlaki’s

Sing DeKoning’s in the air just like your number one ticket holder Robbie Williams.

Lap it up.

Or Matty Lappin’ it up (see what I did there?)

Tell them why Matt Cotterel is actually a little better than Charlie Cameron if you look at the underlying numbers.

Talk about how Blake Acres could have been Nat Fyfe if he was just in the right system (“same size mate”).

99% of following sports is absolutely miserable, so when your team is doing well you might as well just enjoy it.

It’ll go back to being shit soon enough.

By Round 4 next year you’ll have traded Charlie Curnow because he’s still hungover from the Mad Monday he’ll inevitably have.

This isn’t a “job’s not done” situation for you.

You aren’t actually playing so you might as well enjoy the week.

(2) Subscribe to Great Man history

This is a confusing one, but I’ll land the plane.

Great man history is a kind of discredited, but easy-to-understand history.

Its believers will boil extremely significant historical events down to the actions of one man who is usually widely considered to be some kind of genius or force of nature.

Winston Churchill’s winning WWII for the Allies on the back of his speeches is a good example of a great man in history.

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat - International Churchill Society

“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in Brisbane, we shall fight on the forward and back lines, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air (with Tom De Koning, we shall defend our lead, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the corridor, we shall fight on the home and away grounds, we shall fight in the footy field and Lygon streets, we shall fight in the Lions; we shall never surrender,”

Sir Winston Churchill, Carlton fan. 

For you, Charlie Cameron is a great man.

Boil all of your anxieties about Brisbane – from their dynamic midfield that matches up beautifully against yours, to their explosive forward line compared to your relatively weak forward line – down to one person.

The task at hand gets less daunting if it’s just one bloke you have to beat.

For me in 2017, that player was Toby Greene.

I was petrified of him but I told myself, again and again, if we find a matchup for him we’ll win the game.

In the end, we smoked them because we were a better side, but that approach helped me to feel like the task was smaller.

When I got to the ground, I focused on who went to Toby.

I watched him for the whole first quarter, as if not averting my gaze would somehow make him play a worse game. (He kicked no goals so maybe it worked?)

I don’t know, nor do I care, who you should fear on Saturday afternoon.

It could be Josh Dunkley who you might want to try and curse so he can’t put a body on Cripps, it could be Lachie Neale and it could even be a McLuggage type.

For me, it’s usually a forward.

The matchups are normally clearer to see and they’re easier to keep an eye on.

Great man history is your friend this week.

(3) Don’t consider losing

This might seem like a strange one. Don’t you want to prepare for heartbreak ahead of time? Just in case?

Brother, you barrack for Carlton.

You’ve been preparing your whole life for this to come down like the house of cards that you deep down think that it is. It’s like Russell Brand’s pivot to the right when he presumably could see that the winds of investigative journalism were blowing in his direction.

In your heart of hearts, you think you know what’s coming so it’s better to prepare early.

(As an aside, isn’t it funny that the show titled House of Cards actually came down like a house of cards after the Kevin Spacey issues?)

I know because I can relate to that, I figured Richmond would lose in 2017 at every juncture.

I spent too much brainpower rationalizing what I thought was an inevitable loss that never came.

So no, don’t happiness hedge and bet on Brisbane.

Bet on Carlton.

If you win, there’s your Grand Final ticket paid for.

Get cocky with your mates.

Tell them on Thursday to come over for a Barbie on Grand Final day if you can’t get a ticket.

Slash a Pies fan’s tyre in preparation for the possible Carlton vs. Collingwood Grand Final.

You know, do guy stuff.

(Okay don’t slash the tyre but you get my point.)

You’re ready to lose this game.

Losing to Collingwood in round 23 last year got you ready.

The salary cap scandal got you ready.

The Malthouse failure got you ready.

Image

The Bolton failure got you ready.

The Teague train derailing got you ready.

The three Number 1 picks in one team and still being bad got you ready.

AFL Draft: Carlton select Sam Walsh with pick number one | Sporting News Australia

The start of this year got you ready.

You’re not going to get any more ready to lose than you are now.

Just imagine winning.

Like what you read from our new columnist?
Follow @Guywholikessport on Twitter or check out his FULL BLOG HERE