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Dad's side of the family are mostly swampies from Invermay, so if you know what that means you'll understand they all barrack for North Launceston and that's a big thing in this family!  However, Mum's isn't, and somehow a few of us slipped through the cracks and became East Launceston supporters, with one also City-South.  My uncle was also on the board at Woodville straight after being on the board at East and then moving his family to SA.  My cousin Michael got the call up to play for the NTFA on the same day as his wedding, and after refusing the invite he was on the outer with the selection panel forevermore, despite a couple of years up top of the league goalkicking and retiring later as East's all-time leading goalscorer.

1986 is my favourite all-time footy season, not only because the Hawks won, but because Tasmanian footy went through some huge changes, and the national league was all the rage.  East (inexplicably) got into the newly formed state league, and the notion that we'd have an AFL team soon had our interest.  So I was covered...and around this time I'd gotten right into sporting stats.  This being pre internet, it was all VFL and cricket - I have every Richie Benaud yearbook, plus a pretty decent library.  I bought Footystats, which is a media release AFL book in 1999, and then got the idea to do this for Tassie, and that's where it's gone ever since.

I moved to Qld in 1996, and pretty much my entire social circle had moved there at the same time...we're all musicians, and had this notion that we'd surf by day and gig at night for the rest of our lives...most of us moved back and became working plebs again!  I stayed and joined Education Qld, which moved me from the Coast to Brisbane and then a decade ago Mission Beach, just down the road from Cairns.  All the way through, I've always been marooned and not Maroon, never a Qlder, just a displaced Tasmanian.  When the Devils were announced, an old mate reminded me of a conversation from around 2006, where I said I wanted a home grown team and not a relocation, and would drop the Hawks as my team once they joined...thanks for the memories, but it's not a marriage, I was a member when it was hard and before they got good again, and I totally get the dilemma WA and SA supporters would have felt in 1987 and 1991 respectively.

Still a musician, and I'm about to launch my bid for the Devils club song...not mucking around here, I've got a score and the necessary musos and facilities and now all I need to do is put together a slick presentation and get them to fund it...if they like it of course...which they will...!  And me and the wife want to go back to Tassie...