From The Pocket: Retirement Season Is Footy’s Honesty Hour
Retirement season is upon us again, that funny old stretch of the footy calendar where the fixture goes quiet for a minute and we’re all forced to actually sit back and look at what we’re about to lose. It’s the one time of year the whole competition stops squabbling about free kicks long enough to say thanks.
And can I just say – it’s about time we did it properly.
Why retirement season matters more than the finals hype
Every club’s got someone walking out the door this year. Some are household names, some are the blokes who never got a Brownlow vote in their life but held a backline together for a decade. Both deserve teh same respect, in my opinion.
Footy’s obsessed with what’s next. Next draft pick, next trade period, next big rebuild. Retirement season is the one moment we’re forced to look backwards instead. And honestly? We should do more of it.
Carn the Pies, and carn to every veteran hanging up the boots this year, whoever you played for.
Celebrating the careers, not just the highlight reel
Everyone loves a highlight package. Screamers, goals from the boundary, the big hits. But real footy careers aren’t just the top ten countdown on telly.
They’re the bloke who played half-back for 220 games and never got a Rising Star nomination. They’re the utility who filled ten different positions because the coach needed him there, not because he wanted to be there. That’s footy. That’s the real stuff.
Collingwood’s had blokes like that forever. Unsung types who never got the Copeland Trophy but the fans knew exactly what they were worth. Ask any Pies supporter over forty and they’ll name you three blokes from the eighties nobody outside Victoria Park remembers, and they’ll get misty-eyed doing it.
Retirement season and the mistakes we’d rather forget
Here’s the bit nobody wants to talk about though. Retirement season isn’t just a highlight reel – its a report card. And some of them aren’t flattering.
Every long career’s got a few blemishes. A suspension here, a bad look there, a Tribunal date that didn’t age well. We shouldn’t pretend those don’t exist just because a bloke’s playing his last game.
I’m not saying we drag blokes through the mud on their way out. Far from it. But if we’re going to properly celebrate a 300-gamer, we’ve got to be honest about the whole ledger, not just the flattering half. That’s what separates a genuine tribute from a puff piece.
Plenty of players copped reports over the journey that never should’ve stuck – and plenty of fans reckon the umpires have had it in for certain clubs for years (don’t get me started on Collingwood’s finals record with the whistle). But there’s others where the Tribunal got it right, and a bloke wore it, and fair play to him for owning it on the way out.
The unsung heroes finally get their moment
This is the part of retirement season I actually love the most. For two or three weeks, blokes who never got a mention on the Sunday footy shows suddenly get their dues.
The taggers. The third tall forward who never kicked a bag but always led at the right time. The bloke whose entire highlight reel is basically defensive pressure acts, which let’s be honest, doesn’t exactly get the commentators excited on a Friday night.
Doesn’t matter what colours they wore. Every club’s got blokes like this finishing up right now, and they deserve a genuine wrap, not just a two-line mention buried under the big-name farewells.
Records, stats and the stuff that actually tells the story
Every year at this time you get the stats nerds – and I say that with love, I’m one of them – digging through the archives for the hidden gems. Most disposals in a losing side. Best tackle count by a key forward. That sort of thing.
It’s brilliant because it tells you stuff the highlight reel never will. Numbers don’t lie, even if the story around them can get exaggerated over a few beers at the club.
But here’s my one gripe. We’re definately too quick to rank careers purely on flags and Brownlows. Some of the best footballers I’ve ever watched never won either. Doesn’t make them any less important to their footy club or their fans.
What Collingwood fans know about honouring a career
Look, I’m biased. Everyone knows that by now if you’ve read anything I’ve written. But Collingwood supporters, more than most, understand what it means to hold a career up to the light – good and bad.
We’ve had premiership heroes and we’ve had blokes who copped headlines for all the wrong reasons. We don’t pretend the second lot didn’t happen. But we also don’t let it wipe out everything good a player did in the black and white guernsey either.
That’s the balance retirement season should be striking every single year. Not blind hero worship. Not cheap point-scoring either. Just an honest look at a career, in full.
The real point of retirement season
So is retirement season just a chance for the AFL media to fill a quiet fortnight with tribute pieces? Maybe a bit. But is it also genuinely one of the most important times on the footy calendar? Absolutely, in my view.
It’s the one stretch where we’re allowed to slow down, celebrate properly, and be honest about the whole journey – triumphs, blunders and everything in between.
Every departing player, whoever they played for, deserves that much. Carn the Pies, and here’s to every bloke walking off an AFL ground for the last time this year. You earned your spot in the record books, warts and all.
