Empty Guernseys: Who Fills The Big Numbers This Year?

Every off season it’s teh same ritual. Blokes we loved hang up the boots, a couple of superstars walk out the door to chase a flag somewhere else, and suddenly there’s a famous number sitting in a locker with nobody’s name on it.

It happens at every single club. Doesn’t matter if you’re top four or bottom four, somebody retires and leaves a guernsey behind that feels bigger than the bloke who’ll eventually wear it next.

Why This Stuff Actually Matters

Some people reckon jumper numbers are a non issue. Just fabric, right? Wrong.

Footy fans are sentimental creatures. We remember numbers the way we remember songs. Say ‘9’ at Hawthorn and half the state thinks of a bloke who could read a game better than anyone going around. Say certain numbers at my beloved Pies and you’re talking premiership history, flags, pain, the lot.

When a legend retires, that number goes quiet for a bit. Clubs usually wait a year, sometimes longer, before handing it to a rookie. Carn the Pies, we’ve done it properly plenty of times over the years – respect the bloke first, then move on.

Collingwood’s Situation

Let’s start at home because that’s where my heart is.

With a few of our senior blokes easing out of the system or moving on in recent seasons, there’s always a guernsey or two floating around that carries some weight. Our list bosses aren’t silly about it either. They don’t just chuck a big number on some kid in his first pre season and hope for the best.

I reckon that’s the right way to do it. You earn a famous number at Collingwood. You don’t get handed one because the laundry needs it filled.

Would I like to see a promising draftee eventually grow into one of those old numbers? Of course. That’s half the fun of September dreaming in March – picturing some kid in a few years time wearing a number that meant something and making it mean something all over again.

The Big Clubs Always Feel It Most

Go round the competition and it’s the same story everywhere.

Clubs with long histories – your Carltons, your Essendons, your Geelongs, your Hawthorns – they’re the ones who feel vacant numbers the hardest. When you’ve got a hundred plus years of history, nearly every low number has already been owned by somebody legendary.

Newer clubs like the Suns and GWS don’t have that problem yet. Give it another twenty years and they will. Numbers only get heavy with time.

Is it harder for a kid walking into a club like ours compared to walking into an expansion side? Probably. Nobody’s whispering about the weight of number 4 when you’re building a list from scratch in 2011. Give it a few decades though and watch how precious it all gets up north.

Clubs Are Smarter About It Now

Back in the day clubs would just hand a vacated number straight to whoever needed one in the locker room. These days list managers treat it almost like a PR decision.

They’ll sit on a number for a season. They’ll ask the retiring player if they’ve got a preference for who inherits it. Sometimes a mentoring relationship forms out of it – young fella comes through, old head gives him the number with his blessing, and suddenly there’s a lovely story for the members mag.

Good on them for doing it that way, I reckon. It shows some respect for the history of the jumper, not just the asset management side of footy.

Fans Always Have An Opinion

Here’s the thing about vacant numbers though – everyone’s got a view on who should get them, and nobody agrees.

Drop a famous number on a kid too early and the keyboard warriors go off. Drop it on a journeyman and people say it’s wasted. Leave it unused for three years and fans start asking why the club’s being precious about a piece of fabric.

You genuinely cannot win. Which, let’s be honest, sounds a bit like being a Collingwood supporter dealing with the men in the middle most weekends. Can’t win there either, if you ask me, though that’s a rant for another day.

What Should Clubs Actually Do?

My view – and I reckon most Pies fans would agree with this – is you let the number breathe for a season, you talk to the player who wore it if he’s still involved with the club in any capacity, and then you give it to a kid who deserves a crack at carrying some history.

Not every retiring legend needs a statue moment every single time a number gets reissued. Sometimes it’s just a guernsey. But the big ones, the ones that meant premierships or Brownlows or just decades of consistent excellent footy, those deserve a bit of ceremony.

Clubs that get this right build culture without even trying. The kid who gets handed a legend’s old number understands straight away what’s expected of him. That’s not nothing. That’s actually a real coaching tool if you use it properly.

Carn The Pies, And Carn The Tradition

At the end of the day footy’s about more than stats and tactics. It’s about memory. It’s about blokes wearing the same four digits as heroes from decades past and trying to live up to it.

Every club across the competition is dealing with this right now in some form. Numbers going quiet. Kids waiting their turn. Fans arguing about who deserves what.

I’ll be honest, I love this stuff. Probably more than I should admit. But that’s footy for you – even the jumper numbers come with history attached, and at a club like ours that history runs pretty deep.

Should of written more about the actual list of numbers maybe, but you get the idea. Keep an eye on your own club’s vacant guernseys this pre season. You might be surprised who ends up wearing one.