How do you choose a football team to support? Without local connections, family ties, kinship, deep knowledge of the game, what makes you decide?

This is my challenge when it comes to AFL – and I need your help.

I moved to Australia six months ago, to launch the Guardian here. I enjoy football (soccer) at home in the UK, but I've never had to choose a team: I am Leeds. It was simple. They were the nearest club; everyone in my town supported them. You just did. But when it comes to selecting a team in a new country, a new sport, where do you begin?

Perhaps you should start with what's familiar. I could look for a team like Leeds: once a bit glorious, but now struggling; despised by everyone else for our carefully targeted aggression; located in a tough working city surrounded by wild countryside. Does that sound like anyone?

Or should I go with the team that's nearest? I live in Sydney, so that would be either the relatively new, plucky underdogs Greater Western Sydney or Sydney Swans, reigning champions, exemplars of anti-racism and team of the greatest living Australian, Adam Goodes. But footy is a southern states sport, isn't it? Aussie Rules is a religion in Melbourne, but just another sport in Sydney. And a trip to Melbourne feels like a holiday.

Supporting the underdog is often a good approach when you're a neutral, so perhaps I should do that. Who's missed out on glory for the longest? If you go for the team at the bottom of the league then any win, perhaps any point, perhaps just turning up, is exhilarating. Are GWS just too depressing? Not that I want to support winners, of course – they're boring too. Glorious defeat with the occasional stunning surprise victory is surely the most emotionally satisfying supporter experience.

Perhaps I should look at the outfits. I like the Fremantle jumpers (purple, lovely big anchors). The stripes of Geelong and Collingwood are the most fun, very this season, while Carlton's oh-so-classy Parisian navy would be the stylist's choice. Essendon: 80s revival, good. Richmond: mustard, bad. GWS: nobody suits those colours. I could go on, but is this really a good way to choose a team?

What about politics? Which is the club with the best reputation on Indigenous matters, say? Definitely not Collingwood, Mr McGuire. Is there such a thing as a progressive club? Shall we mention the salary cap? When I raised this issue on Twitter, Carlton came in for a kicking; a typical appalled response was this from @tip66: “The progressive Guardian supporting a Tory to the bootstrap club like Carlton?” Are Carlton really Tories? One of my Twitter exchanges on the subject was witnessed by Guardian Australia's political editor, Lenore Taylor. She rang to say that whatever I do I must not support Carlton. “You just CAN'T. It would be like supporting Chelsea,” she said, chillingly.

So which is the progressive club? Is it the Western Bulldogs? The Swans? Someone mentioned Essendon, but he was running towards me with a syringe at the time.

Perhaps I should look to the team's celebrity fans. If so, then I'd go with St Kilda (Shane Warne), Geelong (Guy Pearce) or the Sydney Swans (Judy Davis, David Wenham AND Ian Thorpe!) and avoid Richmond (George Pell) or Melbourne (Rupert Murdoch). But should that really be a consideration?

What about the look? AFL is renowned throughout the world for, um, how appealing it is to heterosexual women and homosexual men. It's the sleeveless tops, the short shorts, all that grappling. (Or as a gay male friend of mine put it, 'It's the arms. Oh, the arms.') So which is the hottest team? As a beard-lover, I have my eye on the Carlton hipsters, and Adam Goodes (subs: have I mentioned him yet?). Should teams with mullets be ruled out? Or ruled in? And is this whole paragraph setting back the cause of women sports fans by 50 years?

And then there's the other thing that's necessary for a relationship to work: do they want me? Richmond were the first team to tweet me and to follow me on Twitter. Then Carlton tweeted me, followed me and invited me to a game. “We'll even throw in a tour of the training base, Katharine,” they purred. “IT'S A TRAP!” wrote Crikey's @firstdogonmoon, official cartoonist of the Western Bulldogs. Then Richmond invited me to the Indigenous dreaming fixture against Essendon on 25 May at the MCG. It was a moving night, recognising the contribution of Indigenous players to the game they helped invent; Richmond threw in a three-course dinner with the chairman, Brendon Gale, whose nickname as a player was Tarzan, and “security” from top fans George Megalogenis and Waleed Aly. Of course as a Guardian journalist I can't be so easily bought, but ...

That was good, but arguably better was when an actual player tweeted me: Jude Bolton, from the Sydney Swans. “Please allow @KathViner time to make a sound decision,” he pleaded, clearly concerned that things were not going his way. “And a bit of research ... I'm sure the right team will be chosen #GoSwans.” As Celia Hirsch said: “I have to say, even I, a committed Magpie, would wobble a little if Jude Bolton sent me a personal invite to join!”

When it comes down to it, a decision like this is all about emotion. David Wood (@djwoodeye) cautioned: “You could do without the deep melancholy Richmond provides.” He didn't realise how appealing he'd made that sound, although this was before their recent great run. @andreamaybe (Richmond) joined in – “we crave love”. So moving! And Megalogenis did something underhand: he played the mum card. He said that “New Australians” needed a club such as Richmond – “It worked for my mum.” And then again. “No pressure. If I'm wrong, I just lose face with mum.” Do Richmond have a monopoly on emotional manipulation? Have I been played? I have the words of Jonathan Green (@GreenJ) ringing in my ears: “I'd be wary of that kind of desperation. Just sayin’.”

Aussie rules football is a great sport, frantic and fun, intense and muscular, so I want a piece of the action. I want to care about a team, to belong. Is it down to the Tigers v the Swans? Is my reasoning all wrong? Help me decide!