Footballer beneath the Torrent of Rain

And so the rain began to fall on the Queen’s birthday Collingwood v Demons match. Thus transforming a grey football palette into a blur of winter Romanticism. If Caspar David Friedrich was a footy fan perhaps he would have painted Footballer beneath the Torrent of Rain instead of Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (see above). In a sport that has been slowly corrupted by a raft of civilising penalties, such as ‘high contact’ and ‘push in the back’ rules, the raw physicality of man against man no longer defines the game. Likewise with the 'blood rule' duly enforced it now takes a force of Nature (or perhaps ‘brain-freeze’ Barry) to return the game to its primordial roots. Footballers’ rain-slicked bodies, their white shorts stained with mud, turned Monday’s slippery football field into a portrait of man in his surrounds battling against the elements. As the ever-darkening Melbourne skies finally opened in the third quarter, letting loose a violent downpour, it was Brad Dick who became the enduring image of the match: his lean faceless form framed against the posts as he readied himself for yet another goal. In this sublime and inspirational moment, Dick’s seeming insignificance as an individual player was overshadowed by his mastery over the football landscape.