Last weekend was the Australian Football League Grand Final. It's a bit like the Australian Football equivalent of the Superbowl or the F.A. Cup. But what made it especially exciting/nerve-wracking for me was that my team, Collingwood (the mighty Magpies) was playing - and going for back-to-back premierships.
For those not in the know, Collingwood is the biggest and most strongly-supported football club in Australia - which means of course that they're also the club that is most disliked by everybody else. But there's one thing that Collingwood is better at than any other team and that is losing Grand Finals. No other club has made it such an art form. No other club has found so many creative ways to steal defeat from the jaws of victory (with the possible exception of St Kilda - but that's a whole other blog post).
So there they were, actually managing to go against tradition and come out on top last year. Admittedly, they did try their hardest not to - they actually managed to draw the game last year after being in a winning position, but came back for the replay the next week and won (admittedly, they were playing against the aforementioned St Kilda).
And so last Saturday, they fronted up again after reaching the heights of success last year. Of course they didn't win. Not for lack of trying, but they came up against a ruthless machine called the Geelong Football Club - one of the greatest teams ever. What they discovered was they were no longer the best, and it was going to take a lot of work to get back up there again.
Seeing my football team being brought back to earth made me think about the experience I'd just had with my book sales. As I mentioned in my post last week, I had the most amazing run of sales a couple of weeks ago and found myself high up the Amazon "ladder". But it didn't last too long, and things have definitely slowed down now.
And, like the mighty 'Pies, I'm not just going to sit back and accept it. I want to climb back up the Amazon charts, and I'm going to work really hard to get there. Because the eternal cry of the Collingwood supporter might be "there's always next year" but I don't want to wait that long.
I'm going to finish this up by posting some highlights from the Grand Final replay last year - the one that we actually one. I hope you enjoy it. I know I will.
For those not in the know, Collingwood is the biggest and most strongly-supported football club in Australia - which means of course that they're also the club that is most disliked by everybody else. But there's one thing that Collingwood is better at than any other team and that is losing Grand Finals. No other club has made it such an art form. No other club has found so many creative ways to steal defeat from the jaws of victory (with the possible exception of St Kilda - but that's a whole other blog post).
So there they were, actually managing to go against tradition and come out on top last year. Admittedly, they did try their hardest not to - they actually managed to draw the game last year after being in a winning position, but came back for the replay the next week and won (admittedly, they were playing against the aforementioned St Kilda).
And so last Saturday, they fronted up again after reaching the heights of success last year. Of course they didn't win. Not for lack of trying, but they came up against a ruthless machine called the Geelong Football Club - one of the greatest teams ever. What they discovered was they were no longer the best, and it was going to take a lot of work to get back up there again.
Seeing my football team being brought back to earth made me think about the experience I'd just had with my book sales. As I mentioned in my post last week, I had the most amazing run of sales a couple of weeks ago and found myself high up the Amazon "ladder". But it didn't last too long, and things have definitely slowed down now.
And, like the mighty 'Pies, I'm not just going to sit back and accept it. I want to climb back up the Amazon charts, and I'm going to work really hard to get there. Because the eternal cry of the Collingwood supporter might be "there's always next year" but I don't want to wait that long.
I'm going to finish this up by posting some highlights from the Grand Final replay last year - the one that we actually one. I hope you enjoy it. I know I will.
No comments:
Post a Comment