Should we have a Canberra team in the AFL?

I love winter and I love winter sports. Watching, not playing, of course. There's nothing better than hugging a coffee and cheering on the kids, your breath visible on those bone-chilling mornings.

We parents get the easy part of the deal, with the kids out there on the dew-covered grounds in their thin jerseys, smiles on their faces as the sun tries to break through the clouds.

And, of course, we love cheering on our teams at the national level, the AFL and rugby league and union shoving cricket to one side for a few months.

Canberra sports fans must be among the hardiest in the nation, hardly flinching at the prospect of a numb bum watching the GWS Giants at Manuka or the Raiders at Canberra Stadium on those nights when there's not a cloud in the sky and the temperature is something approximating the cold goods aisle at Coles.

Of course, Canberrans, when it comes to AFL, have been asked to adopt all manner of teams as our own, depending on who's signed the right deal at the time. Remember when North Melbourne was supposed to be our team? LOL. Now, that would have had to have been Really North Melbourne.

Then the team hopped off to the Gold Coast. Really, Really North Melbourne. Then we had the Western Bulldogs and Melbourne Demons (before they were good) playing home games in Canberra, before now a team from western Sydney.

It astounds me that neither Canberra nor Tasmania have their own AFL team.

I lived in Tassie for four years and, believe me, they love their footy there. I was a young-ish reporter on The Launceston Examiner in the late 1990s when I was asked to travel over Bass Strait to Melbourne to interview some of the then AFL stars.

The likes of Nathan Buckley, James Hird, Shane Crawford, Stephen Silvagni, Wayne Carey and more, legends who were all still playing at the time.

READ MORE:

I knew nothing about AFL, hailing from a rugby league-mad country town in NSW, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of my career. I tried to find out a little of the person, rather than the player, and it turned out great. And the access was amazing. We were basically left to talk, with no club media types hovering nearby. Heaven.

At the time, I thought, "Whatever player I like the best, I'll go for their team".

Bloody hell, it was almost Collingwood. Nathan Buckley was very charming, took me to lunch and dropped me back to my hotel in his swish BMW.

But, no, the team I ended up with was St Kilda. Because of a lanky, dreadlocked ruckman called Peter "Spida" Everitt.

He was completely unfiltered and I Ioved him for that. Myself and the photographer met Spida at his house on the Mornington Peninsula and he was a joy. There was no one around telling him what to say and he came across as just a very likeable ratbag. Down to earth and genuine. So, the Saints it was.

In truth, most people are born into their AFL teams and they stay with them for life. So, it's kind of laughable that Canberrans have been asked to switch their allegiance every few years to whatever team is being paid by the ACT Government to play here.

Don't get me wrong, in the absence of our own team, it has helped to grow the number of AFL fans in the national capital and keep us in the mix.

But how good would it be to have our own AFL team? One that was truly Canberra's own?

Tasmania and, now, the Northern Territory are champing at the bit to join the AFL. Where is our lobbying? We need a men's and women's team. A team to champion, a team for our kids to aspire to perhaps one day join.

In the meantime, I'll keep dreaming by the sidelines.