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A casual office conversation about Fremantle's Wharfie Time celebration during the AFL Grand Final caused a Dockers-supporting colleague to become distressed and flee the workplace, highlighting how footy banter can cause serious emotional harm.
An office worker returned to work after the long weekend in Melbourne to find the workplace buzzing with chatter about the AFL Grand Final. Though not usually a footy fan, they had attended a grand final party and watched the game this year, admitting it was very exciting.
Unfortunately, a bad mistake was made on the Monday after when they innocently asked what Wharfie Time was, something they had not grasped on the day. A colleague replied with words along the lines of: It was a disaster, that is what it was.
Then another colleague who was not part of the conversation but was within earshot became very upset. That person has not been seen since. The individual who became upset and fled the scene was unquestionably a Fremantle supporter. The Fremantle Dockers are the AFL's second Western Australian team and joined the league in 1995.
Fremantle Dockers Premiership Hopes
Unlike their larger cousins, the West Coast Eagles, who joined in 1987 and won the premiership within six years, the Dockers have never reached that pinnacle. Saturday's game was their best chance to break their drought. They finished on top of the ladder at the end of the home and away season and at times looked invincible. The grand final was a brilliant, close-fought game.
With less than five minutes to go in the last quarter, it looked like Fremantle had repeated a pattern that defined their season. They had weathered the best football their opponent could muster and had accelerated towards victory. In short: never underestimate the power of football to affect people's emotions. This is where Wharfie Time comes in.
What viewers saw on the telecast was a kind of in-game celebration, referred to by some as an activation, a term that makes the writer want to gag. It could better be described as a crowd provocation in the form of a strange assortment of in-jokes and homages. Until the grand final, it had only happened twice before, only this season, and only at Fremantle's home ground in Perth.
Fremantle sought permission from the AFL to use it at the grand final under the right circumstances, and the AFL reportedly encouraged it. Wharfie is the Australian term for a dockworker, a name originally considered by club administrators as the football club's nickname but sidestepped due to perceived political connotations.
Wharfie Time Activation Explained
In 2009, however, the Dockers captain Matthew Pavlich addressed the playing group before a match while wearing a mic and implored his team to put on their superman capes, boys, it is wharfie time. They lost the game comfortably. The whole thing starts with a baleful funeral toll taken directly from the AC/DC song Hells Bells.
In Perth, the lights go out at this point, and the similarity to the entrance of The Undertaker in WWE wrestling is impossible to ignore. In this way, it is not just sports entertainment, it is a pastiche of sports entertainment. A reference on top of a reference on top of a reference. While DNG DNG DNG echoes through the arena, the words WHARFIE TIME appear on the stadium screen and the crowd goes berserk.
This all happened, with the exception of the lights, at the MCG on Saturday afternoon. A bit of fun? Maybe. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it was certainly ill-advised in a grand final against a team notorious for never being beaten.
In a game where the gods can be so capricious, never tempt fate. Immediately after this iteration of Wharfie Time, Brisbane commenced one of the greatest and probably fastest comebacks in grand final history, kicking an almost unimaginably brilliant four goals in four minutes. After the game, numerous Brisbane players referred to the gimmick as a catalyst for their late surge. So that is the potted history.
Brisbane Lions Rapid Grand Final Comeback
What was accidentally brought about? Football trauma, plain and simple. This is the problem of office footy chat. It is a great tradition in Melbourne certainly, and throughout Australia.
But for those not versed in the intricacies and earnestness of a certain kind of deep supporterdom, and for those who are but have never truly fallen in love with a club, a stray word or off-hand comment on a Monday morning can cause great pain. This was not the fault of the person who asked the question.
It probably was not even the fault of the blunt colleague, although surely if they knew there was a Dockers supporter nearby they could have been a touch more tactful. But it does highlight the fact that a thing undertaken in fun, whether that is a water cooler chat about a weekend event or a premature celebration of a seemingly certain victory, can easily go sideways.
smh
theage:This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
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