Maybloom (September)

Grand Final Day today. It is cold and windy this morning and if it rains at the ground the conditions will favour Fremantle, not Hawthorn. Or so they say. Australian football is often talked about as a religion amongst its followers. Even outsider sociologists are quick to note the devotion with which it is attended and the inability of some of its worshippers to talk about anything else. Nevertheless this religion analogy does not survive close analysis. The seasons come closer to explaining the special feeling in Melbourne at Grand Final time, than the trope of religion. It is about Spring. Between the Finals and Melbourne Cup Day Melbourne emerges from Winter and the Grand Final is one of the great unspoken triumphs of nature overcoming the gruelling struggle for survival. It is a rite, albeit a rite in which women are largely absent from any main participatory role. Stravinsky is not the half-time entertainment, but the colours are there, each year a different colour to celebrate the fecund multi-coloured beauty of the world coming back to life. The air is fragrant with blossoms as the people go down to the ground of festivity, or enjoy watching it on colour TV in the refreshing atmosphere of their own gardens and homes. Each of us waits our turn to be once more the main totem, in my case that of the tough and proud harbinger of Spring, the Magpie. Interestingly though, none of the big football teams have a flower as their moniker. There are things that fly high (Eagles and Bombers) and plenty of felines (Lions and Tigers), but the most recent additions are macho titles: Power, Suns, and Dockers. It was not always so. In the early days the Melbourne Demons were known as the Fuschias, probably because of their colours, and Hawthorn were the Mayblooms, the English name for the hawthorn flower. The brown and gold colours of the club are taken from the maybloom and not from hawks, a moniker only introduced by popular usage in the 1940s. Although the hawthorn may bloom twice a year in Australia, the month of May is the least likely time. The maybloom is classified as a weed by authorities, hardy and cheerful enough making hedgerows in city and town. Australian footballers do not take a flower as their symbol, not even the native plants that surround them with palpable and emotive meanings, and must look to the thugs of rugby, who chose to call one of their teams the Waratahs. Yet still the colours of Spring come out onto the ground every September to celebrate overcoming the tests of Winter.