Most Heartbreaking Loss

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Son_Of_God29

Son_Of_God29

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Hi Cats Fans,

Was just thinking about our Worst Losses over the years, I think that 2005 V Sydney and 1997 V Adelaide were the only times that I shed tears @ the ground - both matches that I mentioned we deserved to win but just could get over the line

Wanted to know what my fellow Cats fans though was our most heart breaking loss?
 
Son_Of_God29 said:
Hi Cats Fans,

Was just thinking about our Worst Losses over the years, I think that 2005 V Sydney and 1997 V Adelaide were the only times that I shed tears @ the ground - both matches that I mentioned we deserved to win but just could get over the line

Wanted to know what my fellow Cats fans though was our most heart breaking loss?
Click to expand...

Agree with both of those!


Obviously the 2008 GF.
 
Yeah Adelaide in 1997 is one that gutted me the most I think, I knew that year was our last chance for the foreseeable future at the time. 2008 GF is still just numbness, the capitulation against the Eagles in 2006 was one that gutted me too and especially being from Perth....glad I flew out to the World Cup the Monday after.
 

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2005 SF :(
Absolutely gut-wrenching finish to the match, I really thought we'd just hang on and win it in the finals seconds by a couple of points....looking back at the game though, it was a blessing in disguise as it proved to be the fire in the belly for many of Geelong players even though they still felt it the following season, losing matches like that when the stakes were at the highest made them the players they are today.
 
Mine is a little odd, and I swear this is a memory that has never left me. I was listening to a game on the radio v North around 1985-6, we were 11 points up in the third quarter, and my young teenage self fell asleep because 12 hours a night just wasn't enough for a growing Beth.

I woke up full of giddy anticipation to find we had lost again. Im pretty sure I threw my hand held donkey game against the wall in disgust. My Boy George wearing a kimono poster was ripped, and I genuinely believed we would be also rans forever I was just that disappointed....little did I know I would only have to wait another 22 years...at least I had Culture Club's long and illustrious career to tide me over.
 
Reading a similar thread on the Pies board. It sort of resonated with me that their history is far more like ours than most other clubs. Compared to the Dogs for instance their pain has been the pain of starvation where as ours has been a more brutal, heart ripping , throat gouging , eyes popping one.

For me , 92GF was awful. After 89 It was thought to be only a matter of time before we got one. Yet 90 was a wasted year , 91 the emergence of WC saw us gain another hated foe and saw us lose to them both in the finals. The 2 points to the Hawks was tragic. In 92 we were good enough to win it , were in front at half time and yet it set the trend for the other losses. It was the tipping point for the 90's. Looking back we may have been better if Blight had left then rather than wait anther two years , it wasted the list we had , luckily something that we have not done this era with Thompson going earlier than expected.

The 05 Semi was probably the most glass smashing , blood boiling , rage at the world loss that I have ever experienced. To be deprived like that one did , one did start to question if the footy Gods hated Geelong.

And 08GF , the loss of this game still gnaws at me like a dog on a bone. We should be acknowledged and confirmed as one of the best ever. That single loss has probably deprived us of that clear cut definition. That we lost it to THEM , was even more mustard on the bleeding sore. There is probably a degree of envy involved for them to winning 9 Flags in my life time , far too much success for my liking. No matter if we win another with this group or not , I will always feel like its the one we wasted an opportunity to permanently rectify our club's history and become the club we should be know as.
 
Only the '89 GF has evoked so much sadness in me that I had to blink some dust out of my eye. 05 v Sydney was harsh but seeing how many players got themselves injured in that game on top of the ones already on the sidelines we were no chance that year. 08 was our own fault - took injured guys in, shanked crucial shots and the hawks seized all opportunities to put it out of reach.
 
The 2005 semi final is the most heartbreaking loss for me for one simple reason - that night I seriously wondered whether I'd ever see a premiership.

2008 GF hurt, but we all knew what it felt like to win one and just wanted our team to be remembered with a second flag which they deserved.

2010 QF was bad, I'd have rather lost by 20 points than to lose by a questionable umpiring decision. I'll never forget celebrating Ling's "goal" for a good 20 seconds before I realised it hadn't been paid.
 
97 - had me in dis-array

2005 - I was in tears.. a grown man, in my mothers lap weeping... looking back now, that was truly pathetic of me lol
 

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1 / 80 and 81 prelims. Easily. I only felt like I got over those with 5 minutes to go in this years GF.
2/ 89 because it was the 1st GF I'd seen us in. I never expected us to win that day. But I was shattered at 1/2 time.
3/ 97 simply because we were ripped. (but we were the idiots who lost week 1)
4/ 05 because I was screaming at the tv not to go defensive and they kept doing it. Named my son Davis so I'm not about to forget it either :D
5/ 08 didn't hurt. It's just a bit annoying.
 
'92 GF we were 4 goals up at half time but the match up of Matera and Bairstow ended up being the difference of the day. Still maintain if Blighty had made a move to tag him with someone with a bit more toe we might have won the flag.

'05 SF Just hearing the words "Nick Davis I see it but I don't believe it" are enough to send me into a funk, goal side Josh you need to stand goal side at a ball up on your own kick off line
 
For me it was 1994 and 1995. In 1989, I was still in my teenage "Geelong supporter since birth and would never change teams, but affecting a cool lack of interest" phase, and also I thought, "well, we're up there now, we got to a GF, it's only a matter of time." I don't remember 1992 affecting me much either - I was disappointed of course, but still optimistic about "next time."

1994 was hideous though; I was in the US on exchange and was watching it in a pub with a group of other Aussie students plus some curious Americans, on Friday night Californian time. A couple of hours before it started, I'd spoken to my dad, who was off to the game with my brother and little sister (who was then in her early teens). My sister was so excited to be heading to her first grand final, and she proudly told me that EVERY single item of clothing she had on was navy blue and/or white, and she'd done blue and white makeup, hair ties and nail polish.

I can't describe how excruciating it was, watching the horror unfold on TV while some git kept peppering us with dumb questions about the game and informing me, "I'm rooting for the West Coast because I'm like Californian and Californian is on the west coast of the YOU-nited States!" Meanwhile, the students from WA were gloating mercilessly - I was the only Cats fan in the group. I'd been away from Melbourne for nine months by that point, and that night was the most homesick I'd felt all year. I wanted my family and Cats-supporting friends, and I was stuck with ex-pat Eagles fans and Annoying American Surfie Dude who just would not shut up and let us pay attention to the game. As soon as the result was beyond doubt, I left as soon as I discreetly could!

1995 was MY first GF that I'd ever attended, and after three losses in a row, my brother and I had convinced ourselves that surely this was our year. Having lived through the recent era and seeing the calibre of players it took to win us a premiership, I now know we probably were kidding ourselves. But watching that at the ground was soul destroying. I completely lost the plot halfway through the third quarter and bawled my eyes out, much to Mum's embarrassment!

Strangely, I was able to be pretty philosophical about 2008 - the win in 2007 made it easier to accept. Then of course 2009 was the redemptive win, and 2011 just magnificent.
 
Surprised no-one has mentioned the 1995 grand final yet. That's it for me, by a long, long, long way. I still remember watching the grand final footy show that week and, still being a little tacker, the fact that Sam Newman guaranteed that they'd win made me especially confident. In retrospect, you've got to say 1989 and 1994 (regardless of the results), the Cats were happy to be there (I remember that when they were starting the 1989 finals, there were only about four Geelong players who'd played a final prior to that). In 1992, we'd already lost to the Eagles in the finals series. In 2008, we'd just won one and Hawthorn was always going to be tough.

1995 just gutted me though. That started twelve years of wondering if we'd win one in my lifetime and, as I've said before, if up until about August 2007, if you'd offered me the option of taking one (and only one) guaranteed Geelong premiership for the rest of my life, or seeing how it played out for my remaining days, I'm not sure which I would have chosen. By the time 2005 came around, I was expecting something to happen in that semi final. 1995 made me a pessimist for well over a decade. I went to the 1997 final against North Melbourne expecting to lose, even though we finished second and they finished seventh. That's just how it was. It wasn't until we smashed North in the 2007 qualifying final that I truly believed in my team again.
 
Easily the 81 prelim final against Collingwood -a shocking loss-totally dominated the game -when Daicos marked and played on around I Nankervis and sealed our fate -never felt worse
Back then we had a woeful record at Waverly but a great record at MCG -anyhow we should have at least made the grand final

Alots been made of the Sidebottom disaster -still dont know what the truth is there -but Goggin did hate him -because he was a ratbag off the field -but if he had played we certainly would have won . Plus for some reason Billy also dropped David Clarke -who had kicked 3 or 4 goals in our 2nd semi final loss to Carlton and was in our best 3 or 4 players . Mike Fitzpatrick the Carlton captain at the time said the ommission of Clarke for that Collingwood game was riduclous and i agree . Billy fecked up big time in that game
 
Has to be 2008 for me.

I was at 81 and it was shocker alright.
I was there in '92 as well against West Coast. Was obviously gutted.

But 2008 I rocked up ready for a party. After nearly two full years of domination I had finally lost that nagging voice that told me never to assume we were going to win any game of football, let alone a granny.
What a fool I was!

That day the horror show returned. The old Geelong returned - the one that lost games they should have won, the Geelong that couldn't get over the line when it mattered, the Geelong that just ran out of luck, the Geelong that just left you scratching your head saying 'what the hell happened?'.

It still absolutely guts me to see any footage of that game.
I have Stewart Dew nightmares.
I read somewhere a while back that Cam Mooney kicked a ripper goal that day - and sure enough did a search on youtube and found him slotting a beauty from the boundary line in the 1st quarter I think. I had absolutely no recollection of it from the game.
I think I'd tried to erase the entire day from my memory.

Maybe it's a time thing - maybe in 20 years I'll be able to look back on '08 with some kind of objectivity like I can at '92.
But I seriously doubt it.
 
MC Extra Dollop said:
Surprised no-one has mentioned the 1995 grand final yet. That's it for me, by a long, long, long way. I still remember watching the grand final footy show that week and, still being a little tacker, the fact that Sam Newman guaranteed that they'd win made me especially confident. In retrospect, you've got to say 1989 and 1994 (regardless of the results), the Cats were happy to be there (I remember that when they were starting the 1989 finals, there were only about four Geelong players who'd played a final prior to that). In 1992, we'd already lost to the Eagles in the finals series. In 2008, we'd just won one and Hawthorn was always going to be tough.

1995 just gutted me though. That started twelve years of wondering if we'd win one in my lifetime and, as I've said before, if up until about August 2007, if you'd offered me the option of taking one (and only one) guaranteed Geelong premiership for the rest of my life, or seeing how it played out for my remaining days, I'm not sure which I would have chosen. By the time 2005 came around, I was expecting something to happen in that semi final. 1995 made me a pessimist for well over a decade. I went to the 1997 final against North Melbourne expecting to lose, even though we finished second and they finished seventh. That's just how it was. It wasn't until we smashed North in the 2007 qualifying final that I truly believed in my team again.
Click to expand...

Perfect. My thoughts exactly.

Also, after the 95 GF, you just knew it was over for that particular group of players.

In that instant, the harsh gut reality of knowling that I'd never see Ablett, Couch, Budha etc.... raise the cup; well, it was horrible. Actually made me feel physically sick. And just as MC Extra Dollop said, I thought that I'd go to my grave without ever getting that winning feeling.

But those lows have made these recent highs all the more sweet. And for that reason, I wouldn't change a thing.
 
Would have to be 08 GF. I watched the whole game and I honestly now couldn't tell you a single play I remember from the game. I have repressed it forever.
 
vinum coupe said:
We were never going to win in 94 or 95 guys.
Click to expand...

Fair call in hindsight. But I was just a kid at the time and, as kids do, I put more currency in things like our home and away game against Carlton at Princes Park and our impeccable form in the early finals (compared to Carlton's scratchy win over Brisbane), than they should have received.
 

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