The emotion was primal yesterday - the essendon fans were going off and then the Collingwood chant went around the stadium in response. Violence felt imminent. One of the few unscripted moments we have had in many a year in our tightly controlled, sanitised, and increasingly corporatised game. For the youngsters reading, it took me back to Football Park and the 1982 Preliminary against the bays. That was a grey and overcast day and the pall of the 1981 grand final and Grangers treatment of Caldwell hung heavy over the arena. When Granger dealt with Cornes the onfield violence threatened to spill onto the terraces. At one point a story flashed around that Jack Cahill had been attacked by a Glenelg matron as he made his way to the 3/4 time huddle. When Barrets leg was broken someone near me yelled “they’re going to jump the fence”. Never have i felt an atmosphere so charged, so tribal, or so gripping. When we lost by the solitary point I was devestated. But as i made my way out of that concrete wasteland and on the long bus trip home, alone and barely more than a child, I gave my heart to this football club. And thats football, and what it should be, and in my book, if you pay your money, and wear the colours, and sit in the outer, no campaigner has any business telling you how you should or should not behave any more than they should be telling you how to live or not live your life.