October 6th, 2019
It’s 9:30PM on a Sunday night. I’ve got dinner in the oven and I’m preparing to go back to uni after a two-week break. Just an hour beforehand, I’d got back in after spending essentially all weekend away with someone. Overall it was a wonderful weekend, but you probably don’t want to read about that and I won't give you a bar of what happened. I’ll get straight to the point instead.
Over the course of the weekend, I had been thinking about writing journal entries on my life for a little bit – just for me. I thought it’d be a good mental exercise to keep track of the thoughts and musings that go on in my head and in my life.
As I was sitting on a bench in the kitchen, the idea of writing a journal, combined with the passion and love for the AFL off-season was conceived. I thought to myself ‘Why the fuck not?’ It's been a key quote in my life this year. To say my 2019 has been a rollercoaster of a ride personally would be an understatement, I’ve ridden some highs and in turn, endured some pretty rough times during the process.
I want to give this a crack. Not just for those that frequently read my match previews/reviews of my Western Bulldogs and everything else in between, but for me – to try a different style of writing that I don’t find myself doing that much – trying to intertwine my thoughts about football with my own life in the text formation. Thus, the creation of the AFL Trade Journal.
For the next week and a half, I want to write down all my thoughts, possible trade scenarios and try to write about through the eyes of me and try and include somewhat of a personal anecdote in there, to make it feel like you’re there with me. I don’t know how it will go, but as I’ve always done when it comes to my writing – I’ll give it my damn best.
The Free Agency window started on Friday and I caught word through my colleagues and good friends at the A3 Footy Podcast on Saturday about Cam Ellis-Yolmen and Brandon Ellis making the move to Brisbane and Gold Coast respectively. I also read about Joe Daniher requesting a trade to go to the Sydney Swans.
I’ll cover these tomorrow as I want this introduction piece to be brief – and it is also 11PM as I write this and I have to get up pretty early to go to Uni tomorrow. It’s going to be a long one: 8:30am start but I have to be there a bit earlier to try and nab an all-day parking spot as they are few and far between at Swinburne.
Until tomorrow, I’ll close on this: There’s going to be a ton of players set to change location and many draft picks to be exchanged. There’s also plenty of intangibles to happen as well. I talk about the impending exodus in Adelaide, plus the fact they still need a head coach. I talk about Tim Kelly requesting to go to West Coast again, and all the stories surrounding the drafts in both the men’s and in the AFLW.
Hell knows what else the next nine days will hold for us in the trade period, but whatever the outcome is, I don’t think I can be any keener. By the way, this was pretty good to write out so expect another entry tomorrow.
Until then, keep it 100 folks – it’s the only way.