The Ashes have been reclaimed, the tennis is all over, and now we officially begin footy pre-season. It's a magical time of year where every footy fan dares to dream. Miracles happen! Your team that missed finals last year may burst out and go all the way! (Yes, even you North!)
Humans have evolved to forget many traumas of childbirth and the relentlessness of raising a baby. Which is a cunning trick by nature to trick us into having multiple children. It's the same with footy, during the barmy nights of February when we read of our heroes training the house down with their elite muscular pre-season bodies, we forget that for the majority of footy fans 2026 will end in frustration.
A large portion of that frustration will be directed at the men and women in flouro. So just to remind you that footy fandom is a cruel existence, I've researched the worst umpiring decision against each club for the 21st century:
*The point of this article isn't to name and shame umpires who've made errors. We all know it's a hard job and we're all human. Don't get personal, just yell into the abyss like a well-adjusted grown up.
Richmond
Nobody does Hulk rage like Richmond fans, and before 2017, it was great fun watching it. However most of the time it was self-imposed and not an umpire's fault, but not in the 2007 Dreamtime match, when Matthew Richardson got pinged for that baffling hands in the back rule, which was popular for a while. But on review, clearly Richo's hands weren't on his defender's back. Richo immediately spun around and kicked the winner, but because the whistle had been blown, he gets a 50m penalty against him. Bombers go on to win by two points and Tigers fans have a decade more of pain ahead of them.
