CHEERING FROM THE SIDELINES

I’m only his stepmother and I can’t profess to claim any part of his success, nor can I pretend that I’m a lover of football – the opposite, in fact – but that doesn’t stop me from feeling proud. And right now I’m the proudest stepmother of all time, as Jack, my 18 year old stepson has been selected to play AFL football with the Melbourne Football Club.

The news was met with cheers and tears; it’s been a gruelling few months, speculating over his probable future somewhere – anywhere – in Australia that was to be decided on the morning of Election Day. I’d gone to Daylesford to finish writing a book; bad timing on my part, when I could have been one of the criers and cheerers at his mother’s house, along with his seven siblings (five of them my stepchildren), his father, stepfather, and stepsister – my daughter, who, unlike me, is a mad keen football follower.

But on Saturday 25th November I was a long way from home and a long way from football mania, telling Jack’s success to any strangers who’ll listen and any shop assistants who have to listen.

Jack was eleven years old when I first met him. He was a mini-me of his dad, and now, as a young, tall, athletic adult, he is his clone. Jack was always playing footy: inside, with a small, soft and spongy red and blue football , or outside, with his leathered Sherrin football in shivering winter and blasting summer, kicking and marking the ball as he commentated to an imaginary crowd: ‘And Grimes gets the ball. What a mark! He kicks… it’s a goal! The crowd goes wild!’

Whenever I asked Jack what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would always say ‘play footy for Melbourne’; the standard dream of all my stepsons.

It’s been a curious, anthropological study for me, this observation of sports-mania. I’ve never played competitive sport in my almost fifty years and I’ve never understood the oxymoronic term ‘football game’, as it is, at any level, far from a game. Footy is serious stuff. It’s rough and it’s for the tough. Winning is the goal; defeat is to be avoided, or at least endured. ‘Loser’ is a common word flung about.

I remember once, for a short time, every one of my stepchildren – six in all, stepdaughter included – played football. Their dad (now my husband) has been treasurer for the local football club since I’ve known him. He’s driven children to various games, some at the same time, to locations that were neither close nor well timed, in the wettest and coldest of mornings. I’ve watched him scrub filthy, mud-packed footy boots, which then stood like battle-weary soldiers on the laundry window ledge, drying in time for footy practice. As a football father, he’s tended more than his fair share of bumps and bruises, treated groin injuries and sore muscles; called me from hospital when on more than one occasion an injury from a ‘game’ has ended in an ambulance. And I’ve watched my stepsons slump into listlessness once the footy season is over. It consumes them. Devours them. Football is them.

I can count on one hand the number of football games I’ve been to in my life. I’m the black sheep of my family: my parents and siblings are all footy supporters of varying degrees of madness. I’m also the black sheep of this ‘blended’ family: I’d rather watch a movie or read a book, knowing that no matter how tragic or triumphant the story, it’s still fiction and the punches aren’t real. However, I can confess that I once attended a Grand Final at the MCG. But only until the game started: me and the rest of the choir were shuttled off before the starting siren blew.

But from now on, as an official football stepmother, you’ll see me in the stands, watching Jack play, cringing and worrying when he gets hurt, wanting to defend him when he’s abused by strangers, or worse still, by fellow footballers. However, the experience will be bittersweet, as there will also be acclaim, cheers, encouragement and reward. But most of all, what I will be seeing is my stepson living a dream.

No matter what my stepchildren’s dreams are –whether they be in art, sport, trade, academia, parenting, travel… the list is endless – I’ll be on the sidelines, cheering them on, and boasting of their successes to any who’ll listen.

And even though I may only be the stepmother, I’ll be as proud of them as I will be of my own children. Just like I am now, of my stepson Jack.