Boring as it is, I'll say it yet again

[thejiggingsaint]

I am a Sainter till the day they close the lid on me. I emigrated here in 1990, with no knowledge/interest in Australian Rules Football, other than watching the games with curiosity/amusement. I arrived with no loyalties for any team and could have had my choice of any one of the Victorian clubs, I came to support the Saints because of my little mate Les, a guy who carried the nickname: "nipper". Les was St Kilda through-and-through, each monday (usually after his team had copped a towelling) Les would front up to work and cop the scorn and derision of the other workers who happened to follow the Pies or the Bombers, in all that time I never saw Les lower his colours, NOT ONCE! My little mate was a friend indeed to me, helping me negotiate my way through the routines of a new job, in a new country far from home. The fact that he stuck fast with a club (seemingly) so far removed from success that it had become a joke with the rest of the world, impressed me. There again, I guess I just simply liked my friend, he was a good egg. In 1991, Les was diagnosed with lung cancer, he took the news in the same way that he took his football results; right on the chin, asking for no sympathy, and with a wry grin on his dial. I remember the time i visited "nipper" at Dandenong hospital; I drove past Waverley Park where Hawthorn would win the flag that year, and where Les had last seen his beloved Saints playing, my little pal was in a bad way, but still smiled when he saw me. Les passed away shortly after this, and I wept as I'd not done since my da died. When attending his funeral service at Springvale crematorium, I was amazed to see so many Saints players in attendance. As the coffin, draped in his St Kilda jacket disappeared from my view, I knew then that I was to pick up the baton from Les, and would forever be the "Saints man" on our factory floor, I have never regretted it, NOT ONCE! So folks, as boring as it may be to hear me say it, GO SAINTS! It can be no other way for me, to drop just one iota of commitment for this club is unthinkable for me. ............ I would be letting down my friend!

So, to those who think that it's all "just too hard" read the story again, Les did it! We can do it! I WILL do it! support this club! get behind the Coach! barrack for the side like never before, not because it's easy...but because THEY NEED US NOW!

GO SAINTS! (to hell with the rest!)

God I LOVE this club!

[terry smith rules]

Beautiful prose

[Bunk_Moreland]

Shut up you bloody Scouse apologist

[BringBackMadDog]

Well said Jiggster, I have loved this club since I first arrived to this country over 40 years ago, I have been a member for over 37 years and will not stop supporting them no matter what. Its very easy to support your club when they are winning, but our club needs our support mrs now than ever. So its time we all hardened up and got behind the team, coach and administration.
Go you mighty sainters!!!

[Bunk_Moreland]

Go you mighty saunters!!!

Terrific zeb FF, but I dont support him as intensly as you do.

[PADDLEPOP1001]

44 Years for me ,5 Losing granny"s ,a few spoons but they will always be my saints!Great story Jiggster we are a loyal and hardened bunch!

[SemperFidelis]

Good on you, Jiggster. Once again.

Fortius quo fidelius. Think I've seen that somewhere ...

[Sainternist]

Thanks for sharing your heartfelt story, Jiggster. I hope your friend's last Saints match wasn't the heartbreaking Elimination Final against Geelong. The win against Carlton at Waverley with big Plugger kicking close to a dozen and Dean Greig's incredible debut would have been a nice place to bow out.

[stevie]

44 Years for me ,5 Losing granny"s ,a few spoons but they will always be my saints!Great story Jiggster we are a loyal and hardened bunch!

Yep, same fan stats for me PP. And a truly i spiring story, Jig!

[thejiggingsaint]

Les was (and still is) an inspiration to me, a tiny man, but as hard as a cats head when it came to facing up to hardship! I don't repeat this story for any reason other than to illustrate why, when most are "down" on the club, there are many of us who simply refuse to be embarrassed to be seen as Sainters (I wore my saints jacket to walk out today as a matter of fact) This does NOT mean that we "accept mediocrity" (the usual phrase trotted out by the "realists" -God spare me from THEM!) I HATE losing! but am pragmatic enough to know that schitt happens, and we stand up for what we believe in at the end of the day, that applies to the times when we are doing it tough, as well as the good times! I think too of dear old Jack Barker for inspiration! need I say more?

[jamesmc]

44 Years for me ,5 Losing granny"s ,a few spoons but they will always be my saints!Great story Jiggster we are a loyal and hardened bunch!

Yep, same fan stats for me PP. And a truly i spiring story, Jig!

+1

[cwrcyn]

I thinks it's time we got our kilts on and get the Jigging Wing started. All on favour say Och Aye.

I also came from another country (Wales) and fell in love with this football club, as did my late father who, upon seeing the game for the first time called it rubbish ( or in Welsh "Swbriel gwaedlyd"), but a just a few years later was a Saints man like me and just loved the game.

[Spinner]

I am a Sainter till the day they close the lid on me. I emigrated here in 1990, with no knowledge/interest in Australian Rules Football, other than watching the games with curiosity/amusement. I arrived with no loyalties for any team and could have had my choice of any one of the Victorian clubs, I came to support the Saints because of my little mate Les, a guy who carried the nickname: "nipper". Les was St Kilda through-and-through, each monday (usually after his team had copped a towelling) Les would front up to work and cop the scorn and derision of the other workers who happened to follow the Pies or the Bombers, in all that time I never saw Les lower his colours, NOT ONCE! My little mate was a friend indeed to me, helping me negotiate my way through the routines of a new job, in a new country far from home. The fact that he stuck fast with a club (seemingly) so far removed from success that it had become a joke with the rest of the world, impressed me. There again, I guess I just simply liked my friend, he was a good egg. In 1991, Les was diagnosed with lung cancer, he took the news in the same way that he took his football results; right on the chin, asking for no sympathy, and with a wry grin on his dial. I remember the time i visited "nipper" at Dandenong hospital; I drove past Waverley Park where Hawthorn would win the flag that year, and where Les had last seen his beloved Saints playing, my little pal was in a bad way, but still smiled when he saw me. Les passed away shortly after this, and I wept as I'd not done since my da died. When attending his funeral service at Springvale crematorium, I was amazed to see so many Saints players in attendance. As the coffin, draped in his St Kilda jacket disappeared from my view, I knew then that I was to pick up the baton from Les, and would forever be the "Saints man" on our factory floor, I have never regretted it, NOT ONCE! So folks, as boring as it may be to hear me say it, GO SAINTS! It can be no other way for me, to drop just one iota of commitment for this club is unthinkable for me. ............ I would be letting down my friend!

So, to those who think that it's all "just too hard" read the story again, Les did it! We can do it! I WILL do it! support this club! get behind the Coach! barrack for the side like never before, not because it's easy...but because THEY NEED US NOW!

GO SAINTS! (to hell with the rest!)

God I LOVE this club!

Well said!

[thejiggingsaint]

Onya Spinner appreciate that!

[Austinnn]

I came from sunny Somerset and moved to Australia and didn't pick up on AFL immediately, but when I did, I plumped for the red black and white. We were underdogs then (1995), and guess what, we're underdogs now. We won one game that year, against the team that would win the premiership, those horrible bluebaggers. I lived in Carlton then and I have to say even for a pommy novice to the sport, I understood how sweet that victory was. David Parkin did very well to stop the veins in his neck from bursting.

But the Saints have always been a different club, with many similarities to my EPL team - the famous reds of Liverpool, (sorry Jiggster! But I am a big fan of all things Merseyside and unlike many reds, I am happy to see Everton do well), and the supporters are unique. We're getting the rough end of the pineapple at the moment but the wheel will turn just as it always does. Forums aren't the best place to be if you're emotionally fragile and neither is the StKFC. I hope we all remember these days, because when we rise, we will rise like a tsunami and even when we become unbeatable like we were a few short years ago, we should remember how brief these moments are and drink it in. For now, we can enjoy watching AFL without the pressure of hoping our team don't drop a game. We can enjoy watching our younglings develop and find their feet and start putting performances together.

I look at it like this: with all the youngsters we have in our team, we are pretty similar to the expansion teams who are starting to build something. They may get there faster, as they are a few years ahead of us on the premiership clock, but when they get there, they still won't have enough supporters to really make any noise about it, no matter how hard the AFL tries to tip the scales.

When we rise again, all the dormant disillusioned supporters will get on board and the comp will have to go back to hating us 'arrogant' supporters again instead of taking us in and giving us soup. I. Can't. Wait.

We missed our last 3 opportunities in 1997, 2004-5 and 2009-10, lets hope we don't miss the next one.

END OF PART ONE...

[Austinnn]

PART TWO, THE RANT, CONTINUES...

My only hope is that when St Kilda rises again, we have a decent infrastructure to capitalise on it commercially so we can build instead of the monkeys we've suffered in the last 10 years. Here's some of what the people in charge should be sorting out:

obviously the stadium deal.

The Seaford/Moorabbin/Junction situation.

The cheersquad and matchday events organising needs an overhaul. Even ideas like Eastern's for the last season were a step in the right direction but we need to get more of our fans into supporters and more of our supporters into members. The more supporters we have, the more hype we have. The more people watch our games on TV, the more the club will be rewarded in the fixtures. It all helps.

Our marketing and merchandising has traditionally been woeful, I don't know what it's like now, but it needs people who have a clue about the modern world and are creative. Look at the ads on our website for LEDified. What on earth? Did people actually get paid to make those? It reminds me of the homemade ads that the cinema used to make for local advertising in my youth. Not professional enough.

Our web identity again, has generally been very poorly executed. One of the few decent things the Saints offered on YouTube - Lunch with Lenny - was replaced with the lamentable Schneiderman clips (Adam Schneider may be a great attacking midfielder but a TV presenter he is not; he makes Garry Lyon look like Jon Stewart) - having said that, what's on offer on Youtube these days is much better than a few years ago.

When Grant Thomas was running things, we were pioneering, trying things that other clubs laughed at until they started doing them themselves, like the conditioning trips to S Africa and captancy rotation. We are still pioneering - first NZ presence, first female Assistant Coach, but I'd like to see that pioneering spirit back in the coaches methods, instead of just going to Arizona because the pies won a premiership the year after they went, etc.

Us fans have to do our bit too. Without us this club won't survive. We have to give more than our membership dollars, we are all club representatives. When little kids see Saints supporters, what do you want them to see? A rag tag bunch of fickle insecure miserable bogans, bitter at the AFL and ourselves, or a battle-hardened pride of bulletproof positive reliable supporters who aren't afraid of the past or the future like the Jiggster here? We can get more people into the club if we make the club a place to be. We know our culture is fine, but the public need to be shown. It can be done, and we can do it. It starts here on this forum even.

I divided my original post into two halves, first the point and second the tub-thumping digression. Sorry again to not be more brief.

[thejiggingsaint]

Austin! Well said! Proud to stand in the trenches with you! This club will outlast us all! We can ALL do OUR bit to change its history for the better! Go Saints! ( to hell with the rest! )

[Toy Saint]

Thanks for sharing jigglingsaint. When I started primary school in country Victoria in 1961 Hawthorn was on the up, so when the kids asked me who I brarraked for I said Hawthorn. But then I became best friends with a kid called Danny. He was from a StKilda family and before long I was converted to a StKilda fan. By the time we were in 2nd grade my friend was diagnosed with lukimia and he died about six months later. In 1966 I was only 10 years old and still in the country and I never got to the grand final, but in grade 6 we moved to the city and I've been to the majority of games ever since. In that time I've been to the grand final in 1971, 1997, 2009, 2010 & 2010 replay. Especially on grand final days I remember my childhood friend.

[evo]

I thinks it's time we got our kilts on and get the Jigging Wing started. All on favour say Och Aye.

I also came from another country (Wales) and fell in love with this football club, as did my late father who, upon seeing the game for the first time called it rubbish ( or in Welsh "Swbriel gwaedlyd"), but a just a few years later was a Saints man like me and just loved the game.

Similar story to yours tomcat and "cymru am byth". Migrated here in '62, supported the Saints since "64. Work commitments in Adelaide stopped me from seeing the 66 GF - was not worried, figured there would be many more flags from that team. How wrong was I ? !!!! After all the heartbreak of the last fifty+ years I still think I would do it again.

[thejiggingsaint]

evo! you beauty! your blood's worth bottling!

[fugazi]

Lovely Story Jiggster

[cwrcyn]

Diolch yn fawr Evo. Santau am byth, eto!

[perfectionist]

Go Santau!

I suppose while many come to barrack for the Saints as adults, most of us were brought up to follow the Saints. I must admit, when I see a young child taken the footy decked out in full Saints gear, the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" does spring to mind.

[thejiggingsaint]

[SunburySaint]

Great Stories Guys!

I guess mine is a bit different as my late father migrated from Germany as a 5 year old in 1960 and when he was old enough to watch and understand footy became a fan of Essendope..... he met my mum in 84 who followed Essendon like my grandmother and my pop was die hard South Melbourne (Still called them South Melbourne up to his death in 2012).... Mum later transferred to Wet Toast (don't know why) anyway, when I was 4 my grandmother wanted me to have a footy team and it had to be essendon.... she went out to buy me some footy gear... came back with St Kilda socks (I think all the smoking and brandy must of gone to her head) and I have followed the Mighty Saints ever since.... wouldnt change it for the world! Even converted my dad right up until he passed earlier this year...