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Birth trauma - forceps too vigorously applied.

Greg Parke and Greg Wells visited the primary school I was at bk in 1970 when I was 10. Greg Wells smiled at me and patted me on the head. That was my fate sealed .. the laying on of hands was complete…the curse officially laid.

Decent pre-season article on us. Recruit, young gun early standouts as Dees hit track, forward in full training

I arrived in Australia back in 2015. I am originally from Mexico. I am a sports junkie so of course I started to check the local "eccenttric" sports (eccentric to me at least 😬). Found AFL and started following in 2016. Then 2017 comes and I decided I had to choose a team, and the natural choice for me was the Demons since my hometown's soccer team nickname is Red Devils. Besides I love the colours 💙♥️.

someone gave me $5 in year 3 at lunch time to go for the Dees. Im still mates with him today :)

All this thread had told me is that I'm probably the youngest person on here.

My old man who was a Collingwood supporter was recruited to Melbourne from Dandenong High School as a 15 year old and went on to captain the under 19s in the mid 50s. He went on to play reserves for the club during the golden years but sadly never managed to play a senior game. He then left to play for Springvale in the Premier League. The rest is history and I was born with a hand knitted red and blue jumper. It’s a love hate relationship.

Came to oz in 06. First game I went to was queens birthday that year. I decided whoever won that game I would follow. Dees won and the rest is history. I shudder at the thought I could have been a pies supporter and thank my lucky stars every day that we won that game. I have indoctrinated the kids as well so we’re a 100% red and blue household. If anyone tries to switch allegiances it’ll be immediate eviction and excommunication.

McAdam will be a bargain recruit.

In my little hometown of Whyalla, South Aus i played for South Whyalla Demons and the SANFL i followed the Norwood Redlegs. So i always had a leniency to the red and the blue, but never followed the AFL super closely. But then a good friend of mine (Issac Weetra) was drafted to the Dees which sealed my loyalty and on going membership.

I should have been a Geelong fan. No one in my family was into football at all, with one exception - my grandfather who was my hero. My dad nominally supported the tigers, but was never a really a fan and wasn't even really a football fan (i went with him to two games - the 1978 Grand Final. I sat right behind Mike Willisee. And the tigers game, I think against the Hawks where Roach took that pack mark screamer). Mum couldn't stand football, or sport for that matter, as much of her youth involved waiting for her dad to finish cricket or football training. My grandfather was a gun footballer. Right before WWII he trained with the Bombers. The war skuppered his VFL career in the short term, but he played representative football in the Army and by all accounts that was a super strong team. After the war there was some VFL interest but he ended up signing for Camberwell in the VFA as they offered him more money than he would have got in the VFL. I'm not sure why he picked the Cats as his team but he wasn't a huge fan of them or the VFL in general. He lived on the Peninsula and never went to the footy, in large part because he played footy well into his 40s so there was no time. We were close, but he never tried to get me on the Cats train. But that might have been because he missed his chance as i became a demon on my 5th birthday. Family friends of ours were huge dees fans. They were the only people we knew who were football crazy like i am now. We went over there for dinner one day sometime around my 5th birthday. For my birthday they gave me a puppy (Patch, coz it had a patch on its eye). But there was strings attached. They also gave me a dees jumper. And the unspoken agreement was that i had to support the dees. I've been a dees tragic ever since. Fair to say the timing wasn't great seeing i got Patch in 1972.

Agree 100% Dazz, but also on what I saw of Billings last Friday, he will also become a bargain basement buy with huge upside! T. Mac down back? well on what I saw I would say if thats the case it's all over, unfortunately just too slow.

funny you should say that. I didn't get on with my old man so I became a Dee supporter to p--- him off -and it did. Job done.

Came over from Ireland about 15 years ago.After learning about Jim Stynes and all he had done on and off the field it was a pretty easy choice to follow the Dees

I was born in 1976, and my dad was a demon supporter. His dad was a demon supporter too. So was his dad. I don’t know about his dad. Needless to say, my 2 kids (teenagers) are Melbourne supporters too.

My dad played for Melbourne in the Norm Smith, Percy Beames era of the mid to late forties. I didn’t stand a chance

I was 5 years old in 1958 when the older English kid in the upstairs flat told me I had to barrack for Melbourne as they were the best. I have never considered changing even though my father followed Essendon.

Ron Barassi giving instructions on the Tarax show back in the early 60's.

Undertook many satanic rituals

Kicking off the 2024 thread with a round up from today’s Herald Sun online edition of each club’s current injury lists:- MELBOURNE Clayton Oliver - Has been in the rehab group after having surgery on his knee in the off-season. He has been doing sprint work and some lighter skill based activities and is expected to ramp up his training in the new year. Angus Brayshaw - Has returned to training but still non-contact for now as he continues his recovery from the sickening concussion occurred in the finals series. Impressed in the Dees 2km time trial. Harrison Petty - The defender is still recovering from a foot injury which ended his season early. He remains on a modified program but will join the main group post-Christmas. Bayley Fritsch - The forward is still being managed after twice hurting his left foot in the second half of the season. He had surgery to repair a fracture in the foot after the first incident in round 16. Fritsch is expected to join main training in January. Jake Melksham - The forward will look to begin running again in coming weeks after rupturing his ACL in the final round of the home-and-away season. However, the 32-year-old still faces a long road to recovery.

When I was 4 we left Australia and moved to Greece 7 years later my parents decided to move back here. As time approached for a return to Australia Mum started telling me about this great game of Football she grew up with. Her team Melbourne had the best colours in the league she said. She couldn’t wait to take me to a game when we got back here she kept saying and was always talking about this great player in Robbie Flower. No chance you’d find a footy in Athens during the 80s so mum showed me how to handball using a plush dog, apparently it was the closest thing resembling a footy. We returned in 1988, first game mum and her mad Melbourne brother took me to was against the Eagles that year at the G. Hooked ever since.

No blueblood Demon dynasty in my family affiliations l’m afraid. Reason l’m a Dees supporter is probably due to Dr Don Cordner, giving a group of young neophyte nurses tickets to attend the footy at the ‘G. My mother was training to be a nurse at the Royal Women’s Hospital Melbourne at the time and was a recipient of of Don Cordner’s largesse. Fast forward to the Ronald Dale’s appearances on the Tarax Show live at the Channel 9 Studio in Richmond. Although the only time l saw him play was at Princess Park, my Dad was a Blues supporter. Of my three daughters only the youngest is a true red and blue Demon. But we both enjoyed the pleasurable catharsis from MFCSS by attending the 2021 Grand Final together.

Born into it. Dad was a massive Melbourne supporter, and all of Mum's family Hawthorn. We could pretty much choose who we wanted to barrack for when we were kids, my brother and I both chose Melbourne, my sister Hawthorn. I think I chose Melbourne for the following reasons: - I idolised my big brother, and I pretty much copied everything he did; - I was Daddy's little girl, and worshipped the ground he walked on; - Even as a kid, I figured Dad was more into footy than Mum was, and if I had much of a chance of going to the footy, I best choose his team; - I did waiver a little in the late 70s in later primary school years, mainly because kids in my class laughed when I said I barracked for Melbourne, but then I figured that because my primary school colours were brown and yellow, I had enough poo and wee in my life already. 2024 marks 39 years of being a Melbourne member. I'm pretty much dyed in the wool now.

Its the off season, its midnight and i cant sleep and got suddenly curious as to how we all became dees. For me it was my cousins who were up the road who are all mad dees and that was 35 years ago and the rest is history. So how did you end up a dee?

The first point to make is that when you are a kid you are highly impressionable. And football games for boys at a young age can be excessively addictive. So when we got the massive TV aerial put up in central Gippsland all of a sudden it was Ron Barassi mania. Sometime in '63 l must have chosen Melbourne, because there is a wasted part of my brain that remembers channel 7 replaying ad infinitum Ron "decking" Roger Dean, which we all know didn't happen. There is another wasted part of my cerebellum which recalls highlights of Melbourne wiping Collingwood in the '64 second semi. Strangely enough l don't have any highlight reels of the GF. But my English father took me to see Everton v Australia that year at Olympic Park and the green'n'gold were smashed 8-2. Funny that l have supported Everton since that day, as well. (And it is wonderful to see them climb out of adversity this year, culminating in a 2-0 thrashing of Chelsea overnight). So l caught the very tail-end of Demon Greatness, then proceeded to spend fruitless decades turning up at the G. For me though, the 2021 flag trumps all misfortune. And it is a timely reminder that Gods do do indeed, exist: Petracca, Oliver, Brayshaw, Bennnny Brown, and Bayley Fritsch. To name just a few. Truly from the top shelf.

Just got my membership package - 37th consecutive year as a member 🫠 And it’s all Big Bob Johnson’s fault! If my then 8-year-old Dad hadn’t met Big Bob, and Dad’s mean sectarian grandmother hadn’t said ‘Johnson can’t be your favourite player, he’s a Catholic’ we wouldn’t be in this mess 😂

I just came across this board one day and started posting.

Lachie Hunter looks visibility lighter and more fleet of foot.

My fathers side and brother are St Kilda. Mothers side all on the Tiges. I was on the fence until 1991. I was 7 years old in 1991, a certain Irishmen won the Brownlow and I just thought his accent was the best. I started going for him and then afterwards the dees. I slightly recall this, but my dad tells me after Echuca (were I grew up) played Shepparton United (dees colours) that I strolled into there room and tried to pinch the 11 guernsey from whoever the Shepparton United player was which quite a few of players had a laugh when I got busted. The United property steward at the time gifted me a kids woolen guernsey with no number on the back which really was a lovely gesture. I went home that night and cut 2 straight lines out of white t-shirt and got some wood glue and tried to apply them to the back for my magnificent number 11. Sadly, the glue didn't work but I still loved my un-numbered Shepparton United guernsey.

I was seven years old and it was at the matinee session of our local cinema where they used to play Cinesound Movietone newsreels (boring) and cartoons (yay) before the feature film. On this occasion, they showed colour footage of a Melbourne v Collingwood game and I was simply entranced by the red and blue of our guernsey. I was hooked and became a Demon supporter, despite urgings from my old man (Collingwood), brothers (Footscray and North Melbourne) and neighbours (Essendon and South Melbourne). It was late 1964. Had I known it would be a 57 year wait for a flag, I may have reconsidered.

Grew up in the 1980’s in Sydney when we would wait for the mail to read newspaper clippings sent up from Melbourne by extended family who took pity on us. As for why, well that’s easy. I was told it was the Demons or you can move out of home. Fifth generation - the family story goes that a Collingwood supporter hit my great great grandmother with an umbrella in 1904 and the rest is history.

My father chose the dees in their successful era (in amongst a Richmond supporting family) but I have two older brothers collingwood and Richmond. I grew up without access to a television so would pick between whichever two teams featured on the Saturday radio broadcast each week. After barracking for every team at various points I settled on Carlton early nineties. But their cheating to win a flag burnt me and I didn’t follow a team for a long time after. But when Jimmy put out a plea I jumped on the demon wagon and rode through the lows. Unless they burn me like Carlton (or the Aussie cricket team) I’m here for life.

If only everyone in Melbourne had such a thought process, our membership would be through the roof! New membership strategy based on this thread: Put a membership delegate at the Irish embassy. Find a way to reach out to influential older siblings in families likely to produce several children (and then occasionally check in to make sure none are secretly harbouring disloyalty!) Have a "give your neighbours a scarf" membership option. (After googling what the "Tarax Show" was) get a Dees player on an episode of Bluey ASAP. Seek out regional/international sporting teams with the same colours and convert on that basis. Reach out to players with short or non-playing careers and cement the friendship for generations to come, so no one can question the validity of their claims. Give junior members money for playground bribery. Start enforcing the "no choice" clause when it comes to house-kicking-out. Pets with red and blue strings attached.

Love the thread 👏 Ferndale park circa 1992. First day of (what was then) VicKick. I had chosen to follow Mum and support the Eagles (vomit) but the old man cunningly chose to put me in his old Dees jumper. When it came to my turn in saying who I barracked for I didn't want to look like an [censored] so said Melbourne. Paid off 30 years later

1958: I was eight, had lived in OZ for 2 years, Western Suburbs, my grandma was one of the first to own a TV in North Sunshine and every Saturday afternoon I took my brother and sister to my Oma's to watch Zig and Zag etc. In late September Oma turned on the TV and there was a game I knew nothing about in progress. We watched till the end. I sensed the team in Red and Blue was losing and naturally, being a graduate from the Academy of Underdogs - being wog or such in 1958 was a tough gig - I barracked for the losers. It was, of course, the 1958 Grand Final. Been a fan ever since, especially when my friend at Our Lady's Sunshine asked who I barrack for in 1959 and I replied, Melbourne. He said, Oh. They are a very good side...

Big year for Bill Laurie, a lot of competition for spots and I worry his lack of pace will see him never consolidate a half forward gig and lack of size will hurt him in the middle. But his game against Sydney as the sub was really good, he’s got some real class. Hopefully he can keep impressing on the track.

I sold my soul in order to become the handsomest,wittiest man in the entire Prahran region when I was a boy. Needless to say I met the devil at the crossroads (High and Chapel st) in the mid '80s. I fulfilled my half of this Faustian pact,racking up admirers along the South Eastern seaboard . It took the Devil many years to repay my sacrifice.

Like other family ties. Grandad played two games for the Dees in 1927. Went on to captain the Zebras and had some success there.

My late grandfather went to his first game as a late teenager ( was born overseas) and it was melbourne V Collingwood. His friends all went for Collingwood and said he needs to pick a team, his friends assumed he’d pick Collingwood but he wanted to be different and picked Melbourne. Then his kids went for Melbourne and now us grandkids are all Melbourne and my baby has no choice but to go for Melbourne!

Grand fathers and GranMa's are always to be believed, no matter the stretch Wonderful people

Inherited from father. Only many years later did I find out how he became one. Our neighbours across the road were Melbourne which I thought was just coincedental. It seems my father was a Footscray supporter, despite once being on the Collingwood supplementary list. I'm unsure he even pulled on a Collingwood jumper though, tbh. He was a Preston player and post career involved in coaching the 3rds and 2nds, so the VFA was his focus. Anyway, the neighbour convinced Dad to go to a match at the MCG to see the Dees and he told me the MCG was so much better to watch footy at, that he switched. Pretty superficial reason I thought, but a sliding doors moment I'm glad happened. ❤️💙

Was a Hawks supporter until Grade 3. Made a bet with my Grade 3 teacher - who was a fanatical Melbourne supporter - that I'd follow the team that won the H&A game between Hawthorn and Melbourne. Round 7, 1988 changed my life. For good or bad, ill leave that up to you all.

I followed my dad, he loved Checker Hughes, Norm Smith and the whole Romance of RDB Junior he had a lot of passion for the MFC. My older brother went for the Bombers but I have stayed with the Dees through thick and thin, whereas my dad followed RDB to the Blues and znorth. Unreal Lol.!!

Interesting story Beetle. I grew up in Dandenong in the early 60’s & followed the mighty redlegs. They wore the same jumpers as the Dees so it was an easy decision. Geez Dandy had some great players - Alan Morrow, Hughie Mitchell, Rodney Evans, Frosty Miller et al.

Sorry, are you annoyed about the sub situation from the semi finals? I couldn’t tell. It’s the first time you’ve ever mentioned it.

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