As a passionate Hawk supporter since birth I strongly believe that “the outer” is where you make it. In my case, I’ve lived in the Territory for 30 years so for me it’s the sports bar at the Nightcliff Sports Club here in Darwin, where about twenty or so (more are welcome) fellow Hawk tragics meet every week to watch the mighty Brown and Gold on the big screen.
Our group is unofficially known as the Darwin Hawks and our spiritual “leader” is a true Hawk fanatic, Glen Dooley, an eternal optimist no matter what the state of the game. Formed at the beginning of last year after a visit from Gary Buckenara, we have slowly but surely built up a band of loyal supporters to whom watching the Hawks has become an almost religious experience.
Living in the Territory means that the opportunities to watch our beloved Hawks play live are few and far between. This doesn’t mean we are any less fanatical, in fact Lucio, a long time Territorian and his wife Catherine are flying down to watch the Geelong game for their first wedding anniversary. You could say they’re passionate supporters in more ways than one.
It’s Saturday and my son Ryan and I get to the club just before the first bounce. There’s a great turnout today (about 30 or so) and believe it or not our membership scarves will be really useful on a dry season Top End day like this when the air-conditioning is turned up too high.
As usual our confidence is subdued but you can sense amongst us an air of pride in the boys no matter what happens today. We’re undefeated, we’ve reached 40000 members and Cyril Rioli is flying the Territory flag with honour. Bring it on Doggies!
The Hawks start well with Cyril setting up Buddy and Roughie for our first but the rest of the first quarter we seem to be chasing tails. We’re all sure they’ll run out of legs and in usual 08 Hawk style we’ll overrun them when it counts. The quarter time buzz is still one of confidence.
It didn’t happen in the second quarter though - with all the luck going the way of the Dogs. We seemed unsettled and missing the steadiness of Hodgey, Crawf and the Goo (Guerra). We might be behind on the scoreboard but our half time raffle raises almost $400 for the Peter Crimmins Cancer Fund so it’s not all bad news.
A bright start to the third sees us getting close and the crowd starts to get excited. It’s short-lived though with the Dogs controlling the rest of the game and handing us our first loss. We all feel very flat afterwards but console ourselves that perhaps this was the loss we had to have.
I’ve always told my son Ryan that to be a true supporter, no matter where you live, you must be there in “the outer” to feel the collective pain of a loss before you can celebrate the wins. Today was a loss but there’s always next week. We all grab our scarves and head home smug in the knowledge that we too are paid-up, proud and passionate members of the greatest footy club of all.
Steve Davis & the Darwin Hawks - From the Outer
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the Hawthorn Football Club.
If you would like to be our next From the Outer contributor write us a short email on watching the Hawks in Tassie to fromtheouter@hawthornfc.com.au
