​The players have their rituals to mark the passing of the year that was: strange dress ups and mysterious in-jokes. But for the fans there is no ‘Mad Monday’, no clear delineation to mark the passing of an ultimately unsuccessful year, and definitely no opportunity to declare ourselves a bit ‘stale’ and request a trade to another club where our particular barracking talents are more in demand. (Or indeed for the club to force the issue, crafting a tactful and diplomatic message thanking us for our efforts, now no longer required, and wishing us well in our new careers as ambassadors for GWS).

Instead, we kind of…’skulk’ is the word I’m looking for…throughout the tedious off-season. Snippets of news about delistings and defections filter through: sometimes we’ve become resigned to their inevitability months earlier. We can only wait with a mix of anxiety and boredom, hoping that the right - the wise - decisions will be made. 

We also feel relief when we survive an off-season with that ominous combination of words: ‘naked’ … ‘vomiting in the street’ … and ‘Bulldogs’ …referring to a rugby team in the uncivilized northern states.

And then we – I mean I - drift back into our post-season twilight zone, only emerging to be outraged that Essendon have got a new blockbuster match (Good Friday), and channelling that outrage into following a twitter account, which lifts my spirits by posting a daily tally of the number of days since Essendon won a final (well over 5000 now).

For those fascinated by arcane systems of picks and compensation points, an abomination known as Trade Radio exists. Some fans are enthralled by every machination, sub-plot and possible trade scenario; many have been analyzing and calculating the possibilities since well before the season ended. 

The Bulldog Tragician, with a mix of hypocrisy and stubborn denial of reality, somehow wishes for two simultaneous yet conflicting outcomes: that NONE of the 2016 premiership heroes will ever play elsewhere, while wanting bold steps to be taken, so that success, and the euphoria of 2016, comes again – speedily too. My mindset is like Woody Allen’s famous saying: ‘I’m not all that scared of death – I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’       
                                                   
Maybe for the seasoned pros, such as the fans of clubs wearing brown and gold, all the horse trading comes naturally. Getting rid of beloved premiership heroes - well, it's just the cost of doing business, a profit and loss transaction (you just know they have a disproportionate number of accountants among their boringly smug  ranks). We’re a little – okay, a lot – less skilled in pragmatism. We’re still able to be brought to tears by some snippet of 2016 dreaming; the speedy fragmentation of the premiership team never featured in that fairytale script.

We’ve tried, of course, to grow thicker skins. Last year we made epic efforts to hastily recast  Jake the Lovable Lair into Jake the Arch-Villain. Fortunately his hairstyle choices, mysteriously bad tattoos and the sheer fact of his appearance in the dreaded red and black eased the breakup pain. 

But at the end of the 2018 season, the earthquake tremors became a tsunami. Premiership heroes indeed fell like skittles! (I admit, I become rusty with my choice of metaphors throughout the dreary off-season).

There were brittle, hollow jokes about Luke Dahlhaus being no longer ‘motovated’ as he left for more money (in truth our club was far from determined to keep him), squabbled with Bob (BOB!!) Murphy on social media, and posed in the Geelong hoops; yet our attempts at indifference struck a feeble note. 

There was jittery waiting about the re-signing (that all important hyphen) of Mitch Wallis and Tom Liberatore. Bewilderment that it took so long.

It's not all one-way traffic of course; there are new recruits in our colours. We tried to latch onto their words of praise and admiration about their new home.  Naturally, they are energized, enthusiastic, love the ‘vibe’ of their new workplace, are in awe of the wise and super-approachable coaching staff, and have already shared copious amounts of coffee with their welcoming, friendly, lovable new team-mates. We ignored, of course, the fact that our own former players were making identical statements - there'd obviously a template for them - which their new clubs were rolling out to inspire feverish optimism among their own fans.

As we heard the news of Jordan Roughead seeking ‘new opportunities’ elsewhere, we  tried to shut out those abiding images of his stirring efforts in the 2016 finals series – in Perth, when he quelled our nerves with a strong grab, wheeled around and kicked a goal in the run, or THAT grand final mark which announced that whatever malign fate or AFL conspiracy hovered over us, our destiny was still in our – well, his – hands. It’s even harder, for the romantics in us, to shut out the touching memory of him as a quality, beautiful human being as well, bringing along to the Brownlow glitz his ‘date’, a young guy that Jordan mentored as part of his work with the charity Ladder.

Meanwhile the one-man band that put on the "Great Wall of Biggs Cameo" in the last quarter of the grand final has retired in a way as enigmatic and perplexing as the fact that it was this unlikely, off-beat player who found reserves of courage and determination that you might have expected from Daniel Cross, in the most intense and enthralling moments of the Bulldogs’ last 60 years. We didn’t cheer Shane Biggs off the ground one last time; he did not appear in a Grand Final motorcade, did not record a message for the fans on the club website. He just flashed briefly through our lives, and our club’s history. 

Sometimes it feels like we the fans are the true and only keepers of these stories. Like mothers we hold close onto those memories while they leave us, going on to build new lives and new stories. But they hold memories that we can’t fathom too. Of the moments that they gather in the race before they emerge to face the menacing roar of an interstate crowd. Of how it feels to train in 40 degree heat while we the fans turn on the tennis and cricket. Of the quiet struggles of a team-mate, his desolation in the hard times and injuries; they alone know what he might be overcoming just to be out there each week. Of how it felt to run out onto the MCG, into the wave of emotion, on October 1 2016. 

In time, they will gather for milestone reunions, reconnecting about these things only they can know. I try and imagine a paunchy Marcus Bontempelli and a balding ‘JJ’ sharing a beer and reminiscing about that thrilling moment they broke the game open in the 2016 preliminary final. 

I envisage Dale and Riley Morris – the first father-son combination to take the field simultaneously (what, you thought Dale would retire?) –  re-enacting the elder Morris’s famed tackle on Buddy Franklin, to the raucous and appreciative shouts of the group.

Towards the end of festivities, perhaps current day captain Jarvis Murphy will drop in and lead the now slightly maudlin men of 2016 out onto Barkly Street, where they will pose together – even Jake the Former Lair - in front of a statue of Bevo Our Saviour giving Bob his medal. 

I sigh and shake my head, flooded with nostalgia. This is really no way to visualize a new future. I should be looking forward, not wallowing in the past; it's time, surely, to move on, to begin crafting daydreams about heroic moments in the years ahead. Perhaps that new recruit, some bloke we got from Hawthorn (his name will come to me in a moment) will run down some Essendon player I don’t like (could be any of them) in an epic final, and the ball spills free to, um, Little Red Richards, who snaps the winning goal in the 2019 Grand Final?

‘I’m not as … excited…about footy any more,’ I complained recently to Libba Sister Two.

She rolled her eyes. ‘You say that every year,’ she reminded me.

She could be right, I reflected, as I skulked around, checking the name of that new recruit from Hawthorn on the Bulldogs' website, and pressing ‘like’ on the number "5182" of the Days Since Essendon Won a Final twitter account.

​It's half time at Docklands. The Dogs are 28 points down. It's a disappointing outcome, which doesn't reflect our effort, the commitment of our players, or our overall domination in most measures.

It's unfair, but that's the Bulldogs' 2018 season for you.

To add to the ever bulging injury list, Zaine Cordy is now off the field and in the back of an ambulance, with a broken forehead, which I didn't even know was a thing. We've valiantly driven the ball into our forward line time and time again - unfortunately more LIKE a Valiant than a smooth-running Mercedes - but unless we're trialling a new game plan called Kick and Hope, the results have, er,  left quite a bit to be desired.

Looking back at the first half, I develop a theory that, in some sort of inversion of the Talia-gate scandal where our game plan was pinched by the Crows, there's been Shinboner infiltration of our club. By methods unclear, a Brad Scott-instructed mole has silently and stealthily breached the coaching inner circle, and each Bulldogs' player has been instructed to kick it to Majak Daw at every opportunity. 

For all our bravery, the spirited efforts, the multiple but fruitless forward entries, we've been let down by a lack of what Bevo Our Saviour calls 'qualitative sheen.' Hard-fought territory would be gained, players would be running hard, and then we'd unleash an ugly high floating kick to the tallest player on the ground Majak Daw, who would mark it just like The Chief in One flew over the cuckoo's nest.

It's unlikely we can recover the five-goal deficit. North have plenty to play for, a spot in the finals up for grabs. And our third quarters have been abysmal. Okay, we broke that pattern with a sizzling, attacking third quarter against the Saints in last week's match, but surely that was more of a reflection of their forlorn season than an indicator that our best, premiership-winning footy had finally returned.

In last week's rather unexpected blitz, one man more than most displayed qualitative sheen aplenty. I may have mentioned him once or twice on these pages - a player wearing number four, a bloke called Marcus Bontempelli. The Bont has had a curious season, patchy in form by his stellar standards, looking sometimes lame and unfit, perhaps even burdened by the leadership that has been thrust his way prematurely by the avalanche of injuries. And that was how it had seemed early in the game against the Saints, where his head was often bowed, his steps slow and uncertain, his instinct for footy dimmed. But for champions, the tide can turn quickly. He caused sudden mayhem with his raking left foot, his vision for the goals reminding us that if he wasn't a pretty handy midfielder, he'd be a nightmare matchup as a permanent forward. 

We'd only managed four goals in the first half against North, but two of them were from the Bont, those elegant entries into the huff and puff of the game that are his trademark. He looks, this afternoon, to be running more freely. And maybe with the recent slow clawing back of the injury carnage - with  seasoned bodies like those of Dale Morris, Tory Dickson, Jackson Trengove and Jordan Roughead finally stringing some games together - there is less of a weight on the shoulders of the Bont, the guy who is still - STILL!!!!- eligible for the Under 22 squad.

Who knows what happened during the half-time break - maybe someone finally cottoned onto the North subterfuge and confiscated the 'Kick it to Majak Daw' game plan - but suddenly the Dogs went berserk. The team that has battled this season to painfully construct even one goal began piling them on.

It was exhilarating. It was unexpected. It seemed like a physical breaking of the shackles that had bound us this year, where footy became a chore for players and fans alike.

For the first time since records were kept, three players from the one team racked up more than 40 possessions: Lachie Hunter, whose relentless and selfless running has been one of the few highlights of 2018; 'Celeb' Daniel, motoring smoothly out of the backline with his deft kicks; and predictably, Jackson Macrae, whose competitive nature has never flagged in even the most miserable of our dreary performances.

And of course there was The Bont. He didn't manage over 40 possessions but let's face it, Bont at his best needs much fewer than that to scythe through an opposition and turn a game on its head. His are creative, seeing possibilities others don't; they open up the game, they lead to goals.

For some reason he has always performed brilliantly against North, which may reflect why the Shinboners' squad of Fake Tough Guys - including their latest recruit in more ways than one, Shaun Higgins - has always been determined to try and physically target Our Golden Boy up, and at the same time the reason why those efforts will always fail.

Meanwhile Dale Morris, 35-years-old and with a battered and beaten up body, played a game that was like a time capsule of his career. Others may dream, in their milestone matches, of being the centre of attention, doing the showy, the spectacular: kicking the winning goal, flying for a specky. Even one of our most dour defenders, Matthew Croft (it's his late-arriving fist that you see trying to spoil Wayne Carey time and again in the 90s) played his last game in the forward line where he managed five goals and lairised with an inside-out banana kick. Dale's fantasies of how his milestone game might play out, you imagine, were of a different ilk. They would have involved moments like the third quarter when he made that characteristic Dale lunge on the goal line to thwart a North goal; or when, as only Dale can, he beat two North players half his age in the last quarter to win a critical contest. And that's not even mentioning the multiple, unobtrusive, sacrificial acts that we have seen in every single one of Dale's 250 matches: the support for a team-mate, the willingness to offer his body as a battering ram, the ability to extract the energy for one last determined punch of the ball, one last super-human tackle.

The Dogs registered an unexpected win, one that makes you dream again of what could be possible sooner rather than later, even though it's only our seventh win of the season (for the never magnanimous Bulldog Tragician, solace is taken by the fact that two of those wins contributed to the wrecking of the finals chances of teams coached by the petulant Scott brothers, while another was against the Bombres).

When the siren sounded, Dale was instantly mobbed - not by his premiership team-mates, but by the young defenders who've been privileged to play alongside him, who've seen at close quarters the courage and commitment of one of our all-time greats. The others soon followed. Their love and admiration for Dale had surely helped our team over the line.

Dale's 250th match had a distinct lack of qualitative sheen, but it was, said The Age, 'brutal and important.'

It was, said Bevo Our Saviour, 'a pretty good eight-possession game.' 

The 'old boy', said The Bont irreverently, 'is simply inspiring.'

We all stayed in our seats to applaud him, to give thanks. The players formed their guard of honour and we waited to see who would hoist Dale on their shoulders and carry him off the ground. Unexpectedly I felt a lump in my throat when I realised one of them was Roughy, the heart and soul player who grew up barracking for the Dogs, who risked his sight to play in our premiership win, who as one of our more senior players had played alongside Dale in lean years as well as good. The man who some say will part ways with our club at the end of the year. The other is our captain The Bont, his smile broad, his spirit light. Bont later shared a photo of the moment he and Roughy carried off the warrior on Instagram, with two perfect words: 'Precious cargo.'

​One day when my children were young, we were visiting friends. Embarrassingly, as we were eating, ants began to march across their dinner table. While we diplomatically ignored it, my youngest son exclaimed: 'Look there's some ants!'

Into the awkward silence he added, with the artlessness of a three-year-old: 'Mummy calls them by their first name. Bloody ants!'

He's travelling through Europe at present, but as I contemplated, with some degree of gloom, our prospects against the Cats this week I realised some things hadn't changed. I definitely call Selwood and Dangerfield by the first name of 'bloody' whenever I think - make that fume - about their irritating skills, their cocksure talents, their endless capacity to run rampant against a team wearing red, white and blue, whatever the venue, whatever the occasion.

As for 'bloody Geelong': they've thrashed us when we were ordinary. They've thrashed us when we were under the illusion - until we came up against the men from Kardinia Park - that we were pretty good.

By some miserable quirk of fate we've played more finals against the Cats - ten -  than any other team. In one year alone, 1992, they demoralised us with two ten-goal finals drubbings. Yes, with the way finals were then set up, we played them twice in the same finals series, losing on each occasion (you've got to admire our consistency) by 60 plus points.

I don't like paying squillions to sit in their taxpayer-funded stadium. I irrationally resent that once they broke their premiership hoodoo, they - unlike us -  went on to create a dynasty. And there's the fact, which surely can't be overlooked, that their coach is a Scott brother.

I don't like bloody Geelong very much at all.

There are no signs that Friday night's game will depart from the hackneyed 'Geelong-handing-out-a hiding' script. We're fielding, yet again, an extremely young team. Our injury woes show no sign of clearing. The Cats are top four contenders, fresh from the bye. Their midfield still glitters with stars. 

It's unclear how Our Boys will respond to last week's loss. Our season is down the drain. I'm worried that the last gasp errors, and Bevo's uncharacteristic fire and brimstone reaction, may have demoralised them, eroding the confidence of a group that are unsettled, have not yet had a chance to gell and work together.

The match falls on my birthday. Many would say there must surely be better things to do on your birthday than sit and watch Our Boys, who've now lost five on the trot, get mauled again by our bogey team. Some would point out that it's likely we will yet again endure a ten-goal loss, that to venture out on the coldest day so far this year, only to see the smug countenances of Bloody Selwood and co, and the 'We are Geelong' music blaring out, is a form of self-inflicted torture.

Such people actually make a lot of sense. Yet still, I know I have to be there.
.
Because - you never know - it's possible, theoretically possible, is all I'm saying - Our Boys might be so inspired,  if news filters through about my attendance - that they could feel so motivated by my commitment, my tenacity, my sheer selfless heroism - that they could play out of their skins and WIN.

(I'm not saying it's likely, by any means. It's just a random thought, to throw out there into the universe).

Our team takes the field, running past some lit torches. I'm not sure if these are an oblique tribute for my birthday or just a way to keep us all warm.

I anxiously scan the Cats' lineup, looking for confirmation that Mackie, Scarlett and Enright have definitely retired; I wouldn't rule out them returning for a one-match frolic against us. I don't see them, but in the backline there is a Harry, and a dazzling newcomer called Narkle. And initially, I think there's even a Kardashian; disappointingly, it turns out it's Kolodjashnij. And Gary 'Voldemort' Ablett - a footballer I've never warmed to - is out there too, part of their so-called Holy Trinity. Their midfield cupboard is overflowing; ours, wrecked by injury, is threadbare.

Lin Jong is a late change into the team...so late that he had to borrow Shane Biggs' jumper, though I guess it could be part of a cunning strategy to bamboozle the opposition. The game hasn't been going long before he is dumped in a brutal tackle. We see almost immediately that Lin's shoulder - the one that probably cost him the chance to be a premiership Bulldog - has been injured. Our team's appalling bad luck continues. But for Lin himself - well, it is devastation beyond imagining.

Our Boys make a terrific start. I can't believe the transformation that's come on over the past couple of weeks. We're playing free-flowing footy, but we're just as good in locking down the contest. We've finally rid ourselves of the slow ball movement, the plodding entries into a stagnant forward line. We even kick straight. At last the painfully inexperienced group are developing a chemistry; it's reassuring to glance into the backline and see the sizeable figure of Marcus Adams in our defence, alongside the ever-reliable Dale Morris. Geelong still seem able to score more easily. But at least, if we lose this match, it won't be from the lack of effort.

At half time, we are one goal up, and my questions about whether the team will be scarred, or motivated, by last week's loss, have been answered. Our Boys form a close huddle in the middle before they leave the arena. Addressing them in animated style is the guy whose mistake in last week's loss has been endlessly analysed, the guy some say will not be at our club next year. His team-mates seem to be hanging on Mitch Wallis's every word. (I can't be sure, of course, but it's quite possible there was some mention of my birthday, just to provide the troops with that extra sense of urgency).

The team trots off, a united, determined group with a galaxy of stories. Three teenagers; ten others including our captain Bont who aren't yet 23. A bloke who couldn't get a game for Carlton. Rookies who've toiled away, wondering if they'd ever get this chance; highly rated draft picks who've been criticised and derided for not immediately delivering on inflated expectations. A heroic veteran, the only 'survivor' from the last time we beat the Cats, way back in 2009.

And inside the rooms is a luckless footballer who can't return to the field, who's broken his collarbone for the second time, who lost all of season 2017 after he ruptured his ACL, who's only been able to patch together 58 games in the seven years he's been at our club. Who's now facing more time on the sidelines, and an uncertain future after that.

The motley group have absorbed whatever Wally exhorted them to do; they come out breathing fire in the third quarter. There's a storm of goals, even some electrifying 2016-style footy where the ball gets swept down the ground, players overlapping, men sprinting hard to make an option for their team-mate. It's hard to believe Geelong will be able to withstand our intensity. But, of course, being Geelong, they do. In fact, it's depressing, how it is so easy for them to strike back. The treetrunk legs of Patrick Dangerfield aren't troubled by the prospect of a kick outside 50, after the three-quarter time siren. He inevitably converts. The Cats, older, stronger, more experienced than the Saltwater Lads, are two points ahead with one quarter to play. Maybe we've fired our best shot.

The Cats are fresh from the bye; we'd given everything, and then some, in our match against North. We have been down a rotation since early in the match. A valiant loss tonight will still draw praise, still bring optimism at the future ahead. But that's too far away for Our Boys' thinking; in fact, they aren't thinking that at all.

The way the goals come in the last quarter is in itself a portrait of the new energy centres in our team. There are two exquisite, opportunistic goals from Little Red. There is a 'Jake Who?' scissor kick goal from the guy who polarised our fans earlier in the year like no other since Nathan Eagleton: that Carlton reject, Billy Gowers. He's rewarding the coaches' faith. He's earning our respect, even our love, converting us  with his bristling energy, his enthusiasm, his care for his team-mates, his increasing footy smarts.

We have a ten-point lead, but in the stands, our nerves are jangling. It's impossible not to have flashbacks to last week's disaster. The boys look more composed in their approach, but still as the clock runs down under two minutes, so much - and not just the sight of a scowling and petulant Scott twin in the coaching box - is identical to what transpired against North.

The tension could have blasted off the Etihad roof.

'They'd need to score two goals within 48 seconds,' the Other Libba Sister says. She means it to be consoling, but almost instantly, the light glints off 'Voldemort's' bald pate as he speeds through from absolutely nowhere for a goal.

The arena seems to ripple with our simultaneous emotions, as the ball is bounced with 30 seconds to go and us clinging to our lead.

Get it out of the centre boys. PLEASE just get it out of the centre boys!

There's a free - you knew there would be - to Selwood. There's a scrambled kick into their forward line. Everything unfolds in slow motion. Despite half our team being in the backline Harry Taylor cleanly marks the ball.

The words that spill from my mouth are not: 'Bloody hell.'

Years of Tragician agony mean I am in no doubt that he will go back and steer the ball nonchalantly through the big sticks, and heartbreak will be ours for the second week in a row. I was there - of course I was -  for the hideous moment in a 1994 final when Billy Brownless kicked a goal after the siren to snatch a win; I've long been haunted by Sandy Roberts' famous shriek: 'Billy you are KING of Geelong!!!'

It's like a punch in the stomach, knowing that ignominious scenario is about to be repeated. There's despair, the worst kind of despair, as the siren sounds and we know Harry's kick will decide the match. My niece is crying. We are all, instantly, bereft, grieving in anticipation, knowing the embarrassment, the recriminations, the agonising post-mortem to come. 

But a wall of Bulldogs has materialised behind the mark where Roarke Smith, in just his seventh game, is standing. They begin jumping around like marionettes. Thirty-five-year-old Dale Morris, 19-year-old lifelong Bulldogs fan Patrick Lipinski, our captain Bont, first-gamer Bradley Lynch. Tom Boyd, who has carried the ruck on his giant shoulders and played a massive game, isn't too tired or too cool to wave his arms around like a maniac. Someone is surely yelling: 'Chewy on your boot!' They're creating, with their enormous energy, their big hearts, a mysterious barrier that Harry T can't breach. The ball wobbles, veers lamely to the left. It's as though Bob Murphy is standing in the crowd operating a remote control device to steer it out of harm.

Can you believe it? Harry Taylor fails to make the distance!!

Our celebrations, in the stands, mirror our team's. We leap around, we hug, we are joyful, alongside them in their delight as we suffered with them last week in their dejection. We see Lin Jong come out, in his tracksuit, his broken wing tucked inside, a determined smile on his face; Brad Lynch, hearing what his latest injury is, plants a kiss on his cheek. Our Boys look as though they are just as dazzled, as surprised, as us...that we have vanquished Geelong at last.

We stay, everyone of us, until they go into the rooms. Then we wait.

We want to watch them sing our song.

Dale Morris, smiling like a kid, is interviewed. His desperate efforts on the last line had saved a goal, for the zillionth time in his career, during the frenetic last minutes. He says he doesn't have 'the ticker' for this sort of stuff any more. I never would have picked Dale Morris for a bare-faced liar.

As we file out, exhausted, elated, hoarse, and proud, our mood could not be more different than last week's devastation. To many, the blame for that loss lay squarely with one man, Mitch Wallis, who had kicked out on the full amid the chaos of that final minute.

Some argued that there were hundreds of other mistakes throughout the course of a match, and why should Mitch's error alone be singled out?

Others made a counter argument: that not all actions are the same throughout a game; an error in the first quarter can't be seen as equal to one in the most high-stakes moments of the match. A mistake, in the final moments, is so much worse, that line of thinking goes: because it reveals a crack under pressure, an inability to make the right decision when everything is on the line.

When Harry Taylor marked the ball, many hundreds of actions had already taken place over the previous 120 minutes and during four bruising quarters. Countless decisions were made; to centre a ball, to kick long, to handpass instead of kick, to shepherd, to take an opponent on. To punch or try to out-mark; to leave an opponent and run at one racing towards goal; to lead out in the forward line or wait for it to be crumbed. To run, even if you feel you cannot.

Coaches scanned the list, worked their whiteboards, made rotations, evaluated how the tide of play was flowing, decided who to clamp down on, who to back in for a centre square bounce or kick out. 

The umpires blew their whistles, or called play on; video technicians made examinations, scrutinising the tiniest of millimetres to adjudicate a score.

The medical staff decided that Matt Suckling wasn't right to play, and pulled out a number 24 jumper for Lin Jong; he could have been watching the match safely from the grandstand, instead of his shoulder hitting the deck at the most vulnerable point when he was tackled.

Little Red's kick in the final quarter was a point until it mysteriously (the Bob Murphy theory's gaining traction) did a U-turn and became a goal.

So many actions, decisions, deflections, and yet this much was still true: Harry Taylor's kick was the only one that would really count, the only one that would determine whether we knew the pleasure or felt the pain.

I think about all these things as I make a cup of cocoa at home, finishing off my birthday in quite a genteel fashion for one who'd been screeching like a banshee for three hours solid.

Footy, I think. You've got to admit, it really is bloody fantastic.