When Your Team Lets You Down

This week’s On the Mones is a little different.

After a deeply disappointing week for Sydney Swans supporters, I wanted to talk about what happens when a club you’ve believed in, and whose values you thought reflected your own, lets you down.

I’ve always bought into the idea that the Swans had a different kind of culture: one that respected women, welcomed the queer community and stood for something beyond football. So the recent scandal has felt surprisingly personal.

But I also don’t want the actions of a few people to define an entire club. I believe in consequences, but I also believe in second chances.

And then something quite extraordinary happened: a record crowd turned up at the SCG to watch the Swans women play and to keep supporting the wider club.

Did the women’s team somehow give supporters permission to feel proud again? Did they, in some sense, “save” the men’s team, or is that completely the wrong way to think about it?

After my introduction, we head to the Dinnertime table to talk it all through, along with Audrey smashing her longest run yet, a 21st at the Sydney Aquarium, Obi becoming qualified to care for injured possums, why sugar gliders smell so bad, and another fairly disastrous attempt at the Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend Quiz.