Good evening fellow delegates; I'm so glad you could make it to the 42nd annual Conference of Really Astounding Problems in Medicine. Tonight’s complimentary drinks are of course provided on behalf of CRAP-Medicine magazine, available in all good waiting rooms!

Tonight, we cover a somewhat rare condition - not as ancient as Tablecloth Wearing Psychosis or Sydneyolympicmania, and certainly not as rare as the terrifying Gold Coast Fan Syndrome, but nevertheless an important topic ignored by most of the mainstream media. I am of course talking about the little-known psychiatric profile of PGF, or 'Perth Glory Fan'.

PGF is commonly recognised in the everyday community via some key attributes:

  • A sense of entitlement to all forms of success.
  • Wild mood swings in the presence of officials or administrative personnel.
  • A sense of nostalgia that implies some sort of dementia - the past is quite often referred to as if it is the present, often confusing unsuspecting members of the community who may attempt to engage them in conversation.
  • Accompanying the above, a sort of hyper-cynicism which seems to dictate that the past was, is, and always will be, superior to the present, and all that comes after.
  • Highly critical of others, always accompanied with a near-complete lack of self-criticism.
  • A bewilderingly vocal expression of pride when visiting unfamiliar surrounds, often accompanied with a complete lack of knowledge of the area's customs.
  • Natural gravitation towards individuals suffering the same condition; quite often confusingly combined with insulting language and behaviour towards these same people.

Ladies and gentlemen; I'm sure at some stage you yourself have been in the presence of a person fitting some, if not all, of these descriptors. Often, you may have delivered a diagnosis of Tourette's Disorder or Paranoid Schizophrenia - and I for one do not blame you. It is an incredibly difficult condition to recognise, without some understanding of its background. That, I hope, is why you are here with me tonight - unless you're all here for the free drinks, ha ha!

Phase I: Delusions of Grandeur

What you must first understand about the Perth Glory Fan is that they were indoctrinated, quite often from birth, to believe that their lives were somehow richer and ‘different’ to those of people around them. When Perth Glory Football Club was formed in 1996, it promoted itself on being the new face of soccer in Australia. Everything at the time spoke of a new beginning - even the club’s logo was loosely based on a bright new dawn for soccer in this country. No ethnic ties, a non-traditional colour scheme and logo, and in Perth Oval a home ground capable of producing some of the nation’s best footballing atmosphere. 

Even more important than this is the fact that, for a while there, they were the best. The club’s first seven years yielded average crowds of above 10,000 people, five finals appearances, three grand finals, two premierships, and its inaugural NSL Championship. The atmosphere at Perth Oval was electric; opposition fans longed to play there - until they actually stepped onto the field - and club legends came thick and fast; Despotovski, Miller, Hay, the Navens, the list goes on. But by the time the club won the final NSL Championship in 2003-04, observers didn’t realise - or perhaps didn’t want to - that the club’s crowds had actually been in a steady decline since the halcyon days of the late nineties and early 2000s.

In a way, this initial golden age did untold damage to the psyche of the Perth Glory Fan. It encouraged them to believe that they and their football club were some messianic entity, sent to cleanse the Australian soccer landscape of old, weakened teams and inspire a new breed of club - one which would of course have the Glory as its standard-bearer. You may imagine then, what a rude shock it was when the Hyundai A-League came along, and Perth Glory FC was simply not up to scratch.

Phase II: Denial and Self-Harm

We have previously seen what sort of damage Electroshock Therapy can have if overused on a patient. For some understanding of what the opening years of the A-League were like for the Perth Glory Fan, imagine those electrodes are attached to your testicles instead.

At the launch of the A-League, Perth’s then-owner Nick Tana put on some fireworks and paraded out a new club logo, kit, and lineup. Gone were players like Jade North, Tommy Pondeljak, and Nick Mrdja, the hero of Parramatta. In their place came the experienced Simon Colosimo and young starlet Nicky Ward, a former player with Future Glory, the Perth team’s youth development side (essentially a forerunner to today’s National Youth League). 

Unfortunately, the club’s leaders failed to recognise that a significant shift had occurred in the Australian footballing landscape. By reducing the number of teams in the competition, the national body ensured that the squads were more often than not of a higher quality than those in the old competition. Yet the Glory did not recognise this, and Tana hired a man in Steve McMahon who would not believe that football in Australia could be played above a schoolboys level. The result was a team that lacked quality in depth, and it was only the heroic efforts of players like Despotovski, Mori, and Ward that ensured dead weights like Deane, McMahon Jr, and Fa’arodo didn’t drown the team in the murky depths of mediocrity.

Tana soon came under savage attack from his club’s own fans, and eventually handed the licence back to the FFA. For the next year or so the Perth Glory Fan experienced strange new concepts - disorientation, loss, mediocrity, and embarrassment to name but a few. Never before had their team failed to such a level. For many, it was too much. Losing the faith entirely, they abandoned their club. For others, it meant taking out their rage on the club’s FFA overlords, or the administration that they put in place. Throughout it all, there was a constant feeling that it was all temporary - a hiccup, a mere flesh wound - but three years straight of finishing second last assured the PGF that this was not the case.

Phase III: Reality

As the club has begun to pull itself back together, and has now made the finals for the first time in the new competition, the PGF condition will once again become more prevalent. We note with dismay a re-emergence of the PGF’s typical reaction - the sense of entitlement being reinforced, a nice end to a bad dream meaning that they’re now back to where they belong. But we also notice something completely new - in some cases, the acceptance of a new world order; or rather, a lack of one.

Some Perth Glory Fans are starting to realise that they are no longer the big fish in the pond - but rather, just another average sized amoeba in a tiny oozing puddle of other average sized amoebas. Granted, some are slightly bigger, and some slightly smaller - but the differences are so subtle that it is often difficult to work out who will emerge the strongest in a confrontation. As a result, we are now almost seeing an emotion approaching acceptance emerge in some PGF individuals!

It is this exciting new development that gives us hope that one day, we may find a cure; or at the very least, a better treatment than replaying tapes of the Damian Mori goal from the grand final against Sydney Olympic...

In Summary

To conclude, my fellow professionals, I simply ask you this - when you next see a individual presenting signs of hyper-arrogance; do not simply dismiss them as a know-it-all prick who presents early signs of dementia. No - take a walk in their shoes for a second; imagine all that they have been through. Imagine the highs and the lows, or even the feeling of having a rich history such as theirs. You’ll soon appreciate their pain and suffering, and the wild changes in temperament that can accompany it.

The sooner you can sympathise, the sooner you can reason with them and come up with an appropriate treatment plan. That said, it should be recognised how much individuals suffering from PGF contribute to our society - and each case should be judged on its merits.

Of course, if all else fails, just locate and cut out the part of the brain containing memories of the years 2005 - 2009, and you’ll be set... Enjoy the rest of the conference! Up next, Dr Postecoglou and his presentation on a new form of surgery he calls Public Dismemberment.