Growing Up Green: a Raiders fan’s tale

Posted on 2 October, 2019

“The Canberra Raiders has meant more than just following a footy team—it’s the green thread that runs through most of my fondest family memories of the last three decades.”

As a child growing up in the eighties I have many fond memories—cartoons on the telly on a Saturday morning, playing in the streets with the neighbourhood kids until dark, and still believing in Santa Claus.

One other memory is also enduring: the love of our local footy team—the Green Machine aka the Canberra Raiders.

This week, when Green fever is reaching a hysterical 25-year high as the team and the city prepares for the NRL Grand Final clash this Sunday night, I reflected back on how my family’s love of the Canberra Raiders has meant more than just following a footy team—it’s the green thread that runs through most of my fondest family memories of the last three decades.

Alison with her dad and sister Lauren at a Raiders game.

In the mid-eighties, weekends meant my Dad, or my best friends’ Dad, took us to Seiffert Oval in Queanbeyan for the Raiders game. My favourite was always the Easter weekend. The sun would be shining, parents were relaxed and someone would be handing out chocolate eggs to the already sugar-charged flocks of kids. We would hang over the sideline barriers banging on the tin as ‘Big Mal’, ‘Chicka’, ‘Clydie’, ‘Lozza’ or ‘Badge’ went flying past on the way to a Raiders try.

If we got bored we just did what all the other kids were doing—chase the opposing team’s mascot (my favourite was the Magpie, he had taken a method acting approach to his mannerisms) around the concourse hoping they’d trip over—and then it was ‘stacks on’.

My brother and I would push through the turnstiles together each week so we could pocket another gold concession entry token with its famous viking logo. I still have my token which I long since turned into a keyring (sorry to Seiffert Oval management for stealing so many!).

The late eighties and early nineties were, of course, the golden (green) years. Appearances in the ’87, ’89, ’90 and ’94 Grand Finals with success in three out of four. This was the era of the ‘razzle-dazzle’ Raiders: our team of stars basically made up the Australian representative team, and to walk around as a Raiders supporter you had a certain sense of quiet confidence that the scorelines of most games would end up going our way. It was easy being green!

We had long moved from Seiffert Oval to the blustery Bruce Stadium, with its crowd capacity of 25,000 much better suited to our growing member base and city. My family and I happily turned up to be part of the action each week.

Cheering on The Green Machine has become a family pastime.

I can’t go past this point without talking about the ’89 Grand Final—when the ‘best grand final of all time’ was played and the underdog team of the competition, our Raiders, defied all the odds.

I was 14, my parents were out watching the game elsewhere and I was at home with my younger brother and best friend. I’ll never forget the joy of the final siren and the realisation that WE HAD FINALLY DONE IT! Dad came home and took us to the Raiders Club in Mawson, where the windows in the club were practically bulging outwards with the heaving and cheering crowds.

When the team bus pulled up, the place went into meltdown as people screamed, grown men cried and Canberra celebrated a victory that was so sweet—all ours.

The 25 years since our last premiership have been a rollercoaster for Raiders fans, to say the least. Unrealised high expectations, disappointing season outcomes, dwindling crowds and the experiment that was Super League all took their toll—this was a period where it was most definitely not easy being green.

But memories of glory days past drove my Dad, sister and I—and now my son—to front up at each home game in whatever the Canberra winter weather and the opposition dished out to us.  Then something changed—could it have been the arrival of Ricky ‘Sticky’ Stuart, former player and Raiders legend, as our new coach? The last three years have seen a resurgence of the Green Machine’s popularity, along with the crowds and the tantalising post-game dreams of ‘could this year be the year?’

The current team are a wonderful bunch of players and humans who seem to love the community they have built out at their Bruce HQ as much as they enjoy taking the field each week. This feeling has been infectious and has shown them to be a standout group in what has become a rather brutal business.

A new crop of green heroes has emerged: ‘Papa’, ‘CNK’ and the ‘Boys from Britain’: most weren’t born when that last premiership was won in 1994 but they know that the love and expectations of a city of over 400,000 rest on their shoulders this weekend.

So come one, come all and get on the Raiders bandwagon, Canberra. This isn’t just about footy, it’s also our hometown pride, our past and how we come together as a community. Regardless of the outcome this weekend, and how many people make the trek up the highway to ANZ Stadium, nothing will have changed for me since I was a kid.

I’ll be watching at home with my family and my best friend—30 years since we watched that first premiership come home to Canberra—screaming for the team I’ve loved since…well…forever.

And we’ll be still singing that same cheesy song: “We’re the bad and mean, Green Machine!”

GO RAIDERS!!!