We have been in Melbourne now for seven weeks and I love it. What a fascinating place! Never boring, and as for the weather, it’s so much like me, changeable. But there’s one thing about Melbourne that is beginning to get to me.

Sport, football, horse racing… ho hum. Apparently, there is some important football match coming up this weekend and frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. However, it’s hard to ignore the fact that every day the newspaper’s front page leads with some story about some football player’s injury. People who are otherwise quite intelligent and sensible are talking about the Hawks and the other team from Geelong or someplace. Even I, with my anti-sport bias, am familiar with the name of at least one of them, because of the alliteration factor. I suppose if they represented Drummoyne they would be called the Drongoes.

To me it’s all so silly, especially when fans of the teams say they are into sport, when what they mean is they are into watching someone else who is into sport while they drink beer, eat crisps and pizzas and get hysterical. And when they talk about their team they say “We will win.” Where in the world did the “we” come from?

Did they train with the team? Can they even kick a ball? What right do they have to include themselves in the team? I know that if I played on any team it wouldn’t have a hope in.. Melbourne… of winning anything.

When I go to see a ballet I never think to myself “Well, I certainly performed well tonight. What grace! What agility! I am sane enough to realise that I did not take part in the concert. And when I enjoy a piece of music it never occurs to me to take the credit for it.

So why do sports fans think they are part of a team? Wearing a scarf in the team’s colours or painting your face in red and yellow stripes does not make you a sportsman. Buying a ticket does not entitle you to take credit for anything but buying a ticket. You bought a ticket, you switched a channel, you wore a scarf. That’s all you did, mate!

The same can be said for those people who speak about the Olympic Games as if they personally won a medal. The media also raves on about how many medals “we have won.” It’s the athletes who won the medals, not the people who watched the games on TV.

In all honesty, there is also a load of B.S about the athletes ‘winning for Australia.’ They trained for themselves, they competed for themselves and if they won, they won for themselves. We are loathe to claim their losses, aren’t we? We never say “they lost for Australia.” I get utterly turned off by fans kidding themselves that they achieved something.

Now I have to sit down and decide which of MY horses will win the Melbourne Cup.