With a nod to Humans of New York, we meet some of our diehard GIANTS supporters as part of #MembersWeek

CLINT JOHNSON

Bertram, WA

My granddad is Percy Johnson, who is a footy legend over here in WA. He forced me to go for the Dockers when I was younger, so I was a member and would go with my mates, but I never really felt comfortable being a Dockers supporter. It was a team that never really fitted for me, so I ended up jumping ship to the GIANTS.

My son Tate was born in 2011, and I thought something a bit different to do would be to have a foundation membership of a footy club in the year that he was born. I thought it could be something we could have and share as he grew up, renew our membership together every year. So it was about making him a GIANTS member more than anything, but all of a sudden it kind of took over my life. By the end of 2012 I was a mad GIANTS fan. In those early days it felt a bit like watching your own kids play junior footy. I wanted to get behind them and support them and after seeing the little bits of improvement and starting to know the players and to care about them, it didn’t take long for the love of the club to kick in.

My daughter has gone crazy on it. She’s 11. Tate is getting a bit more into it, but Bianca loves it and in the last five years she’s gone GIANTS crazy. She was a Dockers member and one day she came to me and said ‘Dad, I don’t want to barrack for the Dockers anymore, I want to be a GIANTS member.’ So of course I said ‘sure!’ She’s mad keen. We were supposed to be over in Sydney for the game this week, so she’s devastated we’re not there.

I started the supporter group over here in 2016. The club did a call-out on the Facebook page looking for people to set up groups here, there and everywhere and I sent an email though saying I’d love to do it. The first couple of years were a real struggle. It took us a while to find our feet with it. Early on I’d only get three or four people to come along to view games as a group, then it grew to five, then it grew to six and seven. I sat down and reassessed how I was doing it, moved venues, which was a blessing, and now we have a list of 50 people and average around 20 for every game which has been great. I had 12 events and viewings planned for this year and it’s a bit of a shame we’ve had to call that off, but hopefully we can get the pubs open over here and get footy going again soon.

I have a shed out back at home, which is all decked out in orange and charcoal. It’s a six-by-six metre shed; I bricked it in, put a ceiling on it and basically turned it into a bar. There’s beer taps in there now and it’s gone a bit gangbusters. I’ve picked up plenty of knick knacks over the years- gnomes, bobbleheads, all my members’ hats – and it’s as GIANTS-themed as I can get it, but always a work in progress. I’m getting a WWE-style belt made up at the moment, so there’s a spot up on the wall waiting for that.

I also have close to 50 guernseys in there now, 41 player issued jumpers hanging up and another 10 or so framed and up on the wall. My goal is to collect one of every jumper we’ve ever worn. There’s at least six a season, so I want to find them all and get them in different numbers as well. It keeps me busy. I think we’ve worn 56 different jumpers over the years, and I have about 42 of them. There’s not many left, but it’s the newer stuff – 2019, 2018 and 2017 – that have been really hard to track down. You just need to be patient and bide your time, and wait for them to bob up. It’s not a cheap hobby, but it’s fun. There’s a lot of people into it, and a good little network has come together with people from other clubs who do the same thing. All of that interaction is really good to be part of.

Because of the supporters group, I feel connected to the team. I pretty much set my timetable around when the GIANTS are playing because of the viewings we organise for everyone. I don’t feel like I miss out on much because of where I live, I still get my footy fix by going to other games over here, taking a couple of trips a year to see the GIANTS play and making sure I have nothing on when we’re on the TV. Some of the supporters over here love the trips to Sydney, they crave the idea of getting over to see a home game, so that’s always fun and hopefully we can all be back together soon. I know we can’t get to games but if we can get back together to watch and enjoy them together, then in the years to come that will be something nice from this time that we’re able to look back on.