Why it’s much more than a game
How a beloved football team fares can have a profound psychological effect on fans - and their everyday spending, write John Elder and Jacinta Hannaford.
DEPENDING on how the Cats go in the finals, the city of Geelong will either go off like a two-pot screamer or sink into a collective depression. And to some degree, the rest of Victoria, having lost “our” game to national ambition, will follow suit. Will a Victorian win in this year’s final be good for business?
It’s part of footy folklore that when Geelong does well on the field, the locals spend up confidently in the shops. “It seems that people start to feel lucky that their fortunes have changed,” says Deakin University anthropologist Rohan Bastin. “I’ve been living in Geelong for two years and one of the things I’ve wondered is whether you could generate the data to see an increase in people buying Lotto tickets on Saturdays (during the long winning streak).
“I’ve been in a newsagent after a win game and they’re busy as blazes. There’s a real buzz: ‘The Cats have won and I’m going to win too.’ The people who ran the newsagency didn’t have to listen to the radio to know Geelong had won. There are really very strong markers of the mood.”
Because Geelong has previously ridden the roller-coaster of looking certain to win the cup only to crash on grand final day Dr Bastin suggests the team, along with the township, is protecting itself emotionally by keeping their claims to victory low-key. “They’ve been so accustomed to being disappointed, when they’ve been the best team and got to the grand final and been flogged. This year they’re the best team and they’re keeping the lid on it. If they win it, there will be unrestrained exultation.”
Anthropologists call this “collective effervescence” a term coined by Emile Derheim 95 years ago to explain religious fervour. In short, daily life is a grind but when we gather around the fire or television set in the name of a higher power, a sense of excitement takes over.
“Collective effervescence is how forms of human solidarity manifest,” says Dr Bastin, a Hawks fan.
“In primitive societies, where effectively everyone is leading the same kind of life, the solidarity that exists tends to work itself out on kinship lines. In complex societies (some people earning millions, others on the dole) people belong to segments that fit together like organs of the body. The forms of solidarity work themselves out through more complex arrangements. Central to this is celebrating rituals, where you abandon the normal social conventions and the usual barriers come down. Like on New Year’s Eve where everybody kisses everybody else.”
What about collective misery in the face of defeat? “Looking beyond Geelong if we end up with a West Coast versus Sydney grand final, the despair has a fantastic potential to reappear. There will be royal commissions. We had the situation early this year when (AFL chief Andrew Demetriou) was demanding an inquiry into why Victorian teams weren’t doing very well. As soon as the Victorian clubs started succeeding, it stopped being an issue.”
On the darker side, personal despair over a sporting loss can be fatal. “If you look at the history of the World Cup and how Uruguay, having won cups in the ’40s and ’50s, then failed to qualify and there were suicides, I get concerned at those sorts of stories ”
Community psychologist Heather Gridley says the dark side of losing, from a fan’s point of view, can lead to “kick-the-cat syndrome”.
“I’ve heard reports from the refuge down there that domestic violence goes up whenever Geelong loses. Not that it’s contained to Geelong. Somebody has to lose every week and there’s been documented reports of domestic violence spiking in northern towns in England during the football season,” Ms Gridley says.
The link between domestic violence and sporting failure is a contentious one, but it bobs up regularly in Europe and the US without the support of hard data. It’s largely anecdotal. Leaving violence aside, the dashed hopes of an ordinary fan in Geelong where the Ford factory is cutting hundreds of jobs will be keenly felt. “It’s a sudden return to reality that can’t even be put off until Monday,” says Ms Gridley.
Sometimes a community’s need for a boost seems to galvanise a team to heroic action.
Ms Gridley points to Iraq winning the Asia Cup, and to England winning the Ashes just a few days after the London bombings. “You’d imagine there was a huge boost in morale.”
What’s the psychology of the boost? “Men in particular identify with their teams. Women get excited too, I’m a bit of a tragic myself (Carlton). But men like to take the credit for a winning game. It’s revelling in reflected glory, as if they were out on the field themselves. If you’ve got not much else to feel great about football is what you’ve got left.”
Do Melbourne and Victoria at large stand to gain emotionally from a Geelong (or Hawthorn) win?
Heather Gridley doesn’t want to “count the chickens” by hoping too loudly for an all-Victorian grand final, “but wouldn’t it be lovely? If it happens there’ll be more people on the streets, more people wearing scarves, more people selling pies. All of Melbourne will go off.”
Arthur Veno, honorary research fellow at Monash University, says fans take pride in supporting a winner they believe they have done their bit to get the team over the line. Recently honoured by the Australian Psychological Society for his distinguished contribution to community psychology, Dr Veno says: “There’s a correlation in terms of pride, self-respect and having something to barrack for. Sport provides a collective goal among many diverse subcultures and many communities.
“The amount of professional women that talk about the teams is astounding to me. It’s something that’s really deep within us, that gives us a feeling of the ritual of warfare played out on the field. It moves the various members of the community to put aside differences and join in by supporting and rejoicing with their teams.”
Sociologist Tim Marjoribanks, who backs the Adelaide Crows, says “even though footy is now a national competition, there’s still a tribal feel operating at a state level”.
“It’s a genuine concern for people as to who has the bragging rights.
“If Victorian teams are doing well there’s a perception that Victoria is doing well. This translates to a sense of wellbeing,” he says.
