NeuroDojo

Up there Cazaly

I was never a sports fan until I lived in Melbourne. But enthusiasm really is contagious.

Melbourne is arguably the most sport-mad city on the face of the planet. Put two teams in uniforms, and people will show up for it. And Australia rules football is the Melbourne game. I caught the bug while I was there, and now footy (as it is otherwise known) is the one sport I actively follow. I decided to become a Melbourne Demons supporter, because I thought of myself as living in Melbourne rather than one of the many suburbs with their own team. (Fitzroy, where I was living, had merged with Brisbane some years before I lived there). Now, I may be the only person in the lower Rio Grande Valley to watch the footy games shown on Fox Sportsworld. Even though they show the games almost a week after the fact, not live. Even then, I probably still don't qualify as a real footy fan, since I only watch the weekly hour-long highlight show.

I bring this up because this is a much anticipated weekend in Melbourne: the start of the new home and away season. This article examines how footy takes over the minds of people for half the year. I note with a sense of relief that a neurobiologist is one of them.

For my part? "Go the Dees!"