Embracing the Church of Satan

A Religious Examination into the Melbourne Football Club’s 2017 Season

“The Satanist, realizing that anything he gets is of his own doing, takes command of the situation instead of praying to God for it to happen. Positive thinking and positive action add up to results.”- Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan.

This year the Melbourne Football Club fell agonisingly short of their first final appearance since 2006. As a lifelong Demons fan, my initial reaction was to spend yet another Summer crying onto my cheese platter and questioning whether supporting this team is having an adverse effect on my long-term mental health, but there was something different about the Demons this year. Melbourne’s season was not without the classic inner-capitulation that they are renowned for, however there was also an underlying spiritual ferocity that has slowly emerged, and that same hungriness may just hold the key to unlocking a 2018 finals campaign. So instead of falling back into the patented Melbourne Supporter Shell of Despair, I decided to do some religious-like soul-searching. What is the Melbourne Football Club missing?

Part 1: The Book of Ninth

The Demon’s 2017 campaign showed that we are capable of playing the roles of both David and Goliath. In round 8, we faced the Adelaide Crows at their home-ground Adelaide Oval. At that point in the season, Adelaide were the Goliath of the AFL: undefeated at home and holding down the top spot on the ladder. However the Demons proved that given the right game plan, they are capable of taking down an opponent much bigger than themselves (reminiscent of David).

In the opposite and more popular end of the Melbourne Football Club Spectrum of Success, the losses to Fremantle, North Melbourne, and Collingwood proved that the Demons still haven’t quite shaken their tendency to fuck up their own shit when touted as favourites (reminiscent of Goliath).

Inconsistency has been an issue for Melbourne in recent years, but inconsistency is bound to happen when you have such a young team, at least that’s the sentiment that Paul Roos drilled into our heads at every press conference following a demoralising Melbourne loss. But youth is not an excuse for lack of discipline, and the 2017 season featured more undisciplined acts than a Coleman Medallist at the Brownlow after party.

Melbourne’s most high-profile suspensions appeared in the form of the Holy Trinity of Cuntiness: Bernie Vince (missing three matches from two separate suspensions), Jordan Lewis (who received a three match suspension for fracturing Patrick Cripps’ jaw in round two), and Tomas Bugg (suspended for six matches after landing a mean left hook on Callum Mills’ pretty face).

So where does the Melbourne Football Club go from here? We have the talent and the tactical know-how, but where will Senior Coach Simon Goodwin find the answers? Where should a team look when they themselves stalling mentally and physically? The answer is simple. We must turn to the metaphysical: God.

“There is a beast in man that should be exercised, not exorcised.”

Part 2: Football Vs. Religion

I’m aware that the idea of combining the world of football with the world of religion might make a few Australian Facebook commenters a bit uncomfortable. But let’s face it, religion has it’s place in our culture.

As Australians, we’ve always had a somewhat curious relationship with religion. Christianity still holds a firm grasp in the Australian religious landscape, and has done so ever since we got here (and in true Australian fashion, I’m going to quietly ignore the religious beliefs of the original inhabitants of this land because it doesn’t quite fit into the narrative I’m trying to push in this article). I grew up Catholic and although I have since parted ways with my faith, I’ve always thought that there was nothing more Australian than gathering together a bunch of Irish-descendant alcoholics on a Sunday to hand them free goon. However Australia’s relationship with religion does seem to be on the decline. According to the 2016 Census, more and more Australians are identifying as ‘non-religious’. Meanwhile the AFL has been increasing its following, this year seeing its highest recorded attendance for the home and away season.

While I no longer pray to the Catholic God, in late August of this year I did find myself praying to the Football Gods. Every fibre of my being prayed that the West Coast Eagles would miraculously shit the bed and allow the Demons to sneak back into a top eight finals spot, but thanks to some divine intervention from Lewis Jetta and Jack Darling, the Football Gods proved yet again that they are indeed the cruellest Gods of all (Other fun examples of the Football Gods being cruel: the Stephen Milne bounce in the 2010 drawn Grand Final, Richmond losing a final to a team that finished ninth place, Basil Zempilas becoming a regular commentator on Channel 7, etc.).

Although the Footy Gods persevere to continuously fuck my team in the asshole for no apparent reason (see: the story of Job or the story of Jobe), I still think there’s room for religion and football to play nice with each other.

There are already numerous instances where religious themes have seamlessly integrated into the football world. For example, we have Good Friday Football, Brownlow Medallist Gary Ablett Jnr is often touted as the football equivalent of Jesus, and Paul Roos’ three-year tenure as the coach of the Melbourne Football Club was affectionately dubbed as the “Paul Roos Resurrection”.

Most people that subscribe to a football team or a religious ideology didn’t choose their respective following of their own will, they were more than likely born into a family of supporters. So what if the Melbourne Football club partnered with a religion of their own will? What if Melbourne treated a religion as if they were major sponsor? Which religion could the MFC proudly display on their football jumpers? From this point, I think we can safely rule out Christianity or any reliance on the Football Gods.

Other AFL teams tend to partner with institutions that share a common sense of values or history. For example, it makes sense for the Ford Motor Company to sponsor the Geelong Football Club because both institutions share the common history of being based in the city of Geelong. This year the Richmond Football Club announced a partnership with Swinburne University of Technology, another logical choice given that Richmond and Swinburne are both historically responsible for large communities of long-suffering people that are starved for success (citation needed as this statement is only based on my personal experience as a Swinburne graduate).

I spent two weeks trawling through the depths of Wikipedia to find a religion suitable for the Melbourne Football Club, and I found there is only one logical answer to this problem: The Church of Satan.

“It is always a villain, however, who becomes the catalyst for change.”

Part 3: The Church of Satan

Now I know what you’re thinking. There is no way that the Melbourne Football Club would affiliate itself with an institution notorious for sacrificial lambs (not counting Jack Watt’s debut against Collingwood on the Queen’s Birthday) or debauchery (not counting Garry Lyon). But what I’m proposing is not just a marketing stunt, this would be a partnership based on values and spirituality. Anton LaVey, who founded the modern Church of Satan in 1966, had a surprisingly rational philosophy. LaVey taught the importance of focusing on personal development and embracing the reality of one’s true self.

Say what you want about Demons fans, but most of us are somewhat realistic about Melbourne’s true self. We know exactly where we stand as a football club. We were a club that made terrible decisions for years, but since then we’ve slowly made the transition from the status of basket-case to a developing club that is 50% talent and 50% undisciplined brain-farts. This is why The Church of Satan is a perfect fit for the Melbourne Football Club, not only because they are already nicknamed “The Demons”, but because the Melbourne Football Club are lacking the exact same values that Satan promotes.

Let’s take a look at a few of the Satanic Statements found in The Satanic Bible:

1. Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence!

Nothing is to be gained by denying oneself pleasure and the MFC know all about denying oneself pleasure. Recently the Melbourne Football Club have become somewhat notorious for over-indulging in our victories. That’s not to say that Melbourne shouldn’t celebrate their wins, but Satan also knows that the most important aspect of indulgence is to always be in control. There’s no point in mindless indulgence. For example, you shouldn’t ask St. Kilda players about their September plans before we’ve solidified our spot in the finals, or send out congratulatory emails to members before we’ve solidified our spot in the finals, or mail out congratulatory letters to our members before we’ve solidified our spot in the finals, etc.

3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit!

Satanists recognise the value of gaining wisdom through hard work. Learned knowledge. The Melbourne Football Club has had to gain a majority of their knowledge by learning some very important lessons. For example, this year we learned it might be a bad idea to let Clayton Oliver interact with opposition fans, or that it might be a bad idea to let Clayton Oliver have a Twitter account, or that it might be a bad idea to let Clayton Oliver drive.

It’s been a good year for lessons.

4. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates!

$cully.

5. Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek!

If you perform as badly as the Melbourne Football Club performed from 2007 to 2013, you end up making a lot of hoodoos. You lose to a lot of teams, in a lot of different places, a lot of times in a row.

However since our ‘Paul Roos Resurrection’, we have naturally begun winning more games and breaking those said hoodoos. This year we finally beat the Saints at Etihad Stadium after a 14 match losing streak. We also won our first game in Perth after 17 straight losses.

However we are still to beat North Melbourne in the last 17 matches. We are also yet to defeat Sydney from the last 8 matches. If we want to play finals, the Demons need to seek vengeance upon those teams (but we also need to seek vengeance upon Collingwood and West Coast. And you know what, Adelaide too. Would it have killed you guys to kick a couple more goals in round 23?).

6. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires!

It turns out that giving the responsibility of captaincy to a 20-year-old Jack Trengove and a 22-year-old Jack Grimes was probably a bad move. This has since become the poster-child of bad decisions made during the Mark Neeld era, and unfortunately both players have since been delisted.

Thankfully we have learned from those mistakes. At the beginning of this year, Simon Goodwin gave the co-captaincy responsibilities to Nathan Jones and Jack Viney, a move that any true Satanist would have respected. And while their 2017 seasons were disrupted by injury, both co-captains were unquestionable in their leadership.

“If you’re going to be a sinner, be the best sinner on the block.”

Part 4: Time to Raise Hell

Satan promotes discipline, reality, wisdom, leadership, responsibility, and development. It turns out that the ultimate villain is actually a pretty good role model.

Let’s face it: Melbourne already are Satanists in the eyes of the rest of the league. This year Melbourne were cocky, arrogant, and really seemed to enjoy punching people in the face. But at the same time, this is the closest they’ve gotten to finals in 11 years. So why stop now? With a few Satanic tweaks, Melbourne could truly be on the cusp of something great.

They say that when a dog bites your hand, the best defence is to shove your hand further down it’s throat, and the dog will naturally let go to keep from choking. Melbourne is going to get bitten either way, so why not see how far they can push it? Sure, they might end up with a bleeding hand and dog-vomit in their wounds, but they’ve definitely been through worse.

Hail Satan.