28 September 2018, Melbourne Hotel, Melbourne, Australia
Eagles devotee Matt Quartermaine performed this peice for The Footy Almaanc Grand Final Lunch. The Alamanc is a community of writers and sports lovers started by sportswriter John Harms (author Play On, Malarkey Press) . The piece is a parody of Martin Flanagan’s beautiful Thinking About piece, performed by Martin on SEN a week earlier.
Thinking of you West Coast Eagles who came to Melbourne in 1987 the same year as me.
Thinking of you my brother Simon, who was one of the Eagles fans who chartered a plane in 2015 when their Grand Final was over in the first quarter.
Thinking of you Ross Glendinning - barrel-chested champion and first Eagles captain who has a medal named after him and WILL decide who gets it.
Thinking of you John Worsfold Premiership captain, premiership coach and Chemist, hired by Essendon to fix their drug culture.
Thinking of you Paul Peos because no one else will.
Thinking of you Brett Heady who they nicknamed Jobby because... it's a football team.
Thinking of you Ben Cousins, a player so shy he'd rather swim across the Swan River than talk to a policeman.
Thinking of you Scott Cummings because you now look like you ate half your team mates.
Thinking of you Bon Scott - choking back the tears and a little bit of vomit.
Thinking of you Michelle Sweeney - who has nothing to do with the Eagles but she was the prettiest girl in primary school and I still think about her.
Thinking of you Perth the most isolated city in the world because Adelaide is 2,200kms away and they want to know if they can be more isolated.
Thinking of you Barry Cable trapped under a tractor and didn't have a footy to handball into the gear stick to move the tractor forward.
Thinking of you Polly Farmer the footballer and the freeway with easy east/west travelling across the city of Perth.
Thinking of you Chard Haywood- because only in Perth would Dudley from Number 96 get a chat show.
Thinking of you Lillee when you caught Marsh sneaking a ciggie behind the nets and both of you went to put a bet on.
Thinking of you Kim Beazley governor of WA who I spotted after the 2005 grand final wearing a Sydney Swans scarf. Boo.
Thinking of you booing because it gives everyone over East the irrits.
Thinking of you Sir Charles Court premier of WA 1974 to 1982 who pronounced the state WEStern Australia and sent a convoy of drilling rigs and police across a picket line to drill on sacred Noonkenbah land and start the mining boom.
Thinking of you Jan De Jong, Dutch underground war hero, former chief instructor to the SAS and at who's Ju Jitsu school I trained and still got beaten up by bullies.
Thinking of you Rolf Harris the boy from Bassendean- Who tied a kangaroo down sport and then may or may not have interfered with it.
Thinking of you Indian Ocean where the water is wee warm.
Thinking of you Karl Langdon - Na I'm not really thinking about Karl Langdon.
Thinking of you Winged keel of Australia II which won the America's Cup and enabled millionaire owner Alan Bond to bypass building codes and construct a monstrous hotel right on the Scarborough beach foreshore.
Thinking of you Dirk Hartog, Dutch explorer, who in 1616 landed on Dirk Hartog island. Coincidence? I think not.
Thinking of you Skylab which NASA chose to crash a to earth in WA where it wouldn't hurt anyone.