One win in 24 matches is bad, but this moment showed the joy was gone from Essendon |
One win in 24 matches is bad, but this moment showed the joy was gone from Essendon
May 26, 2026 — 7:06pm
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Two weeks ago 25,000 people turned up to an Essendon home game at the MCG.
It was a Sunday, it was wet, it was Fremantle. Previously, none of these things would have mattered because it was Essendon. It was a club that knew whenever they played they had 40,000 people as a starting point queued up and ready to walk through the gates.
But they stopped coming in those numbers. Of course, they turned out for the Dreamtime Game last week because it was an event, and besides, they thought they might win. Then they lost and lost four more players to injury doing so.
The malaise about Essendon was becoming endemic. One win in 24 matches spanning two seasons, and that win interstate, in Adelaide during Gather Round, left the Bombers’ home supporter base starved of any moment of joy for a year.
They had not one game to get excited about for a win, and increasingly very little to get excited about within the game. There were no thrilling surges of five- and six-goal quarters, and few tight finishes to give hope and energy. Instead, the pessimism grew with the despondency of reading the same script of runs of opposition goals.
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