I arrived in Australia in 1980.  A very young Welsh boy whose sensibilities and preferences were not yet set. I started Grade 2 in Springvale and during lunchtime on the school oval a wild scrap would begin.  There were four school bags on the ground, set out as goal posts.  There was a ball, a wretched bouncy oval-shaped nugget, a rugby ball I thought.  And there was a mob of kids - kicking, leaping, tackling, yelling kids.  In the late winter of that season, these kids were predominantly in two sets of colours: either a white jumper with black vertical stripes or a black jumper with a sash of yellow.  There were some other jumpers, but it seemed to me that these games were all about the black and white versus the yellow and black.

Those who had no jumper were an odd caste in these scrappy games.  I was one of those.  If you had any ability there'd be a constant battle for your soul. The different colours thundered reasons at you for why being on their side & 'barracking' for their team, was the soundest thing you could do if you wanted any mates. I didn't have much ability - well not for this game - but I could run fast and I had thin floppy hair.  'You can be KB! You can be KB!' the yellow and black kids would shout.  Now at this early stage, who this KB man was I had no idea.  He seemed very popular with the yellow and black kids.  The black and white kids however thought this to be hilarious.  'You can't be KB because KB is not a pommy git!' they'd say.  They seemed pretty rough those black and white kids.  Kind of rabid in their zeal for the love of their team and their hatred of others.  The yellow and black kids seemed much less desperate, much more confident in themselves.  I didn't yet have the jumper but I started playing on their side.

Then the 1980 grand final swept through the school like a ferocious strain of nits.  In the week leading up to the game, the teachers stoked the fever with decorations of white and black and yellow balloons.  During every playtime and lunchtime in that week the pending grand final would be rehearsed. Kids in black and white and yellow and black jumpers would head back to lessons covered in sweaty dirt recounting results and making claims on glory.  Negotiations for best on ground after every contest were fierce.  No one was known by their real name but by the name and number on their back or their duffle coat.  To the mob I was well and truly 'KB' by now even though I hadn't really decided which team was mine.  I couldn't get a kick to save myself in those scratch match grand finals, but fast feet and floppy hair was enough to keep me of interest.

The 1980 grand final was played and won gloriously by Richmond.  KB was a star.  He kicked 7 and took home the Norm Smith Medal.  Back then, no one celebrated goals like KB.  His two skinny white arms would go straight up and he'd run on like a whippet.  It was a gloating joy that intensified as his goals stacked up and as the Tiger lead left the Magpies too far behind.  So, at school on Monday morning during the half hour kick before classes started, there I was running fast, right up to the faces of the black and white kids, my skinny little arms raised straight above my head. 'KB, KB!' I'd yell as the chorus of the yellow and black mob would taunt them on and on with 'what happened to Collingwood, what happened to Collingwood?'.  Scuffles and fights broke out because, as I came to learn over the years, backing a Magpie fan into a corner of humiliation is unwise.  A very heavy Greek boy in a dirty Collingwood jumper tripped me, hurling me to the ground where he sat on me until yellow and black reinforcements arrived.  'How good's KB now huh?' he was shouting at me while his mates tried to dack me.

That was it.  In that short space of my first few months in the land of Australian Rules I had learned everything I needed to know about the choice I faced.  Follow the yellow and black into effortless glory or adopt the black and white to be forever known (by most of the football world) as another foul and desperate Magpie beast.

1980 was a long time ago.  The glory has not been so effortless in the end.  Being in the Richmond barracks has meant many many long afternoons standing to attention on the parade ground waiting for something good to happen.  Well, something good is happening now.  And it would be a marvellous clarion call to any who still doubt that if this weekend we can strike at the heart of the black and white. Not only would we have well and truly announced this season's intentions, we would also send those foul and desperate Magpie beasts into a nervous tailspin.  And when we do my two still skinny arms will be in the air and in their faces.