Cowboys Anonymous

Hello, my name is Stuart and I’m a North Queensland Cowboys supporter.
Actually, you don’t need to do that anymore. The success of the Cowboys has meant that wandering around in a supporters jersey is no longer the modern-day equivalent of putting your head in the stocks and waiting for the rotten fruit to be hurled.
For those of us from the north it’s been a great year. In ten years of playing, the Cowboys have been a catchphrase for mediocrity. Actually they’ve been positively striving for mediocrity. Just finishing more than two places above last was normally a good excuse to celebrate, so finishing fourth is nothing short of a miracle.
Yet there’s still an empty feeling. The Cowboys pushed the Roosters all the way, and had the ref put in his contact lenses before going out in the field we may well have won. My own view was that there should have been a penalty against Anthony Minichiello for taking out a player without the ball with about 60 seconds left to go. (Funny, I seem to recall Minichiello taking out a player from NQ without the ball before…)
But, I’m afraid to say, this has been a shithouse year for me and sport. Not because the teams I’ve followed have been shithouse, but because their promises of success have generally fallen a few yards short of realistic expectations.
Take the Australian cricket team. At the start of the year they were supposed to comprehensively thrash an Indian side who still hated the ball coming up above the waist. Not only did they not thrash them, but they also came close to losing in final test.
The Queensland cricket team then tripped while taking up the baton. In the one-day final they looked home and hosed against Western Australia before not one, but two main bowlers went down with cramp. WA got the runs and I got the shits.
Then when things looked like picking up, Jimmy Maher decided to send Victoria into bat in the four-day final. Victoria were closer to 1000 runs than 100 by the end of their innings, and Queensland got pumped by an innings and plenty.
State pride was restored a little when the Queensland Reds beat the NSW Waratahs again in the Super 12 rugby union, only to be deflated by The Fluke Of The Century (Shaun Timmins kicking a field goal to win the first State of Origin for NSW). Billy Slater helped to win game 2, only for NSW to do us again in game 3 and thus condemn yours truly to a week of insufferable pain caused by gloating NSW supporters (you know who you are, and you are going to a bad place when you die).
The Canberra Raiders - who had been widely tipped to make the top four this year in the NRL - didn’t even play like the girl with the curls. When they were good it was a bloody miracle, and when they were bad they lost to Manly.
The Brisbane Lions got done in the grand final against Port Adelaide - more guffaws from "friends" who solemnly declared Port were their second favourite team (do I look like I was born yesterday?).
And now the Cowboys’ fairytale is over. But that’s the great thing about sport - there’s always next year, and as a cricket tragic, I hereby declare it to be next year.
And you know what? My name’s Stuart, and I’m a Cowboys fan. And bloody proud of it.