Ah - the sweet joy of a new arrival. Pats on the back and cigars all round. Pretty soon we'll be welcoming more additions to the family. That can only mean one thing. Starry-eyed youngsters keen to decipher the mysteries of life, asking the question we've been dreading for years: where do A-League clubs come from?
You know the feeling - the sudden rush of blood to the head. How much do they need to know? Can they handle a blow-by-blow account of modern football reproduction? Will the graphic details destroy all hopes of forming a healthy life-long bond with an A-League club later in life? Perhaps. Those steering us through hostile waters certainly seem to think so.
Having flushed out 11 teams from sterile boardroom incubators it seems the governing body can't get enough of the pitter-patter of new football boots. Just so long as they haven't trodden the hard yards. New football comes without baggage. It arrives on your doorstep with the FFA's blessing and a birth certificate stamped 2005. The progeny of the Crawford Report and the recipients of a heavy broom: clean boots and a clear conscience.
It makes you wonder whether A-League clubs truly are the sea monkeys of the sporting world. Have we finally devised a sporting competition where, with a handful of magic crystals and a jug of water, life can spring from nothingness? Sure that's intriguing when you're six-years-old and dabbling with the usual pre-pubescent God complex but how long does that last? About as long as sea monkeys I imagine.
So what's the alternative? This is where you reach for the can of worms, bottom shelf, just behind Pandora's box. You might be out of stock. I cracked open my last can during that Mrdja transfer fiasco. Even if you can get your hands on some contraband, expect to come under friendly fire. It's not so much that the FFA distrusts football as it does the fans. The average punter isn't deemed able to handle the game's colourful past - an intoxicating brew concocted as a salve to immigrant longing. We can honour their role in building a bloody big hydroelectric scheme but recoil at celebrating their contribution to the world game.
Johnny Warren told a cracking yarn about the ticket tape parade to welcome home the 1969 national team. The crowds didn't so much throw out the welcome mat as beat him about the head with it. At one point he recounts that spilling out of a "pub's doors were tank-topped, steel-cap-booted, tattooed workers quenching their thirst after the dust of the day's work. 'Fuckin' poofters,' some hooted at us. 'Dago bastards,' followed others." Brings a lump to your throat, doesn't it? The FFA is still gagging on it.
But the recent unearthing of that Latvian tragicomedy Akermanis' Closet shows that modern Australia isn't at all put off by difference. What it craves, above all, is an authentic experience. Football has it by the bucket loads. Yet how many times do we hear the words "new" and "fledgling" in relation to Australian football? It's as unremitting as a chorus-line of vuvuzelas. There's a downside of course. By perpetuating this myth we undercut football's legitimate inheritance in the Australian sporting landscape. We hand the baton to the AFL, League and Union who are quite happy to smack us with it. The A-League may be the new kid on the block but football has been around it quite a few times.
What we need now is a cultural revolution (I'd bypass the Chinese model because, let's face it, who wants to rock up to a home game in a military jacket?). The lifeblood of a football club is tradition and those in the A-League will take decades to create their own. In the meantime they need to find simple but meaningful ways of reconnecting with the game's roots and recounting that story to new generations of converts not born with a footballing DNA.
Bottom line: Australian football didn't spring to life in 2005 and sea monkeys, as much as we want to believe otherwise, are really just another form of brine shrimp. The real deal is something much more fascinating. Okay FFA over to you. Abandon the stork and cabbage patch fairytales. Leave the sea monkeys for the back page of the comic books and let's say where football really comes from. I'm revved up. Bring on the sheilas, wogs and poofters - I'll hang the mirror ball.
