All aboard toot toot! Mark Stevens number one!

Will Mark Stevens ever get to write about anything other than an AFL game from Etihad or a training session from Geelong. Nice one Mark, bring it on...and put away your passport you'll never need it.

Why would you mention football unless as you say the AFL game was "hardly full of highlights" surely not a boring game Mark, so boring that all you can talk about is one man who stood up and then sat down.

Mark Stevens wrote:
This is what he wrote, in a national newspaper, I kid you not!

BRACE yourself for an onslaught of artificial passion.

Everyone is about to become an expert. The Socceroos are about to play in a World Cup. Everyone is about to become an expert.

Those who could not give a toss about Australia's best soccer players for months on end suddenly will become flag-waving fans.

There are genuine supporters out there, of course, but the bandwagon will be full of part-timers.

It is all about national pride, agreed. But it is a matter of life or death for most? No.

Passion can not be turned on at the flick of a switch. It takes years to build, on a week-by-week basis.

It is precisely why club sports, built on tribal rivalries, produce the real emotion.

One scene on the siren at Etihad Stadium last Saturday night said it all.

A middle-aged North Melbourne fan sprang from his seat on the outer wing, punched the air and then slumped back in total relief. It was so animated, so joyous, you could not miss it even from the press box on the opposite wing.

North had stumbled home after running out of gas. It was hardly a game full of highlights but, for the bloke in blue and white, it was as sweet as it comes.