Titus O’Reily might not be related to the mighty Geelong Cats full back from the early nineties, but he too knows what it takes to get the job done. That sentence may play with your mind for a moment. There is a splash of truth in there. For Titus, he attempts to speak what he sees is the truth, in a comedic tone.
Plenty of ex-players and people in the media who are all in that football bubble would like to say what the fans think and what we all think about sport. Titus goes ahead and jokes about it all.
For Titus, not necessarily agreeing with what the media are saying works for him. It has clearly struck a chord with footy fans across the country. There’s not a lot of coverage where people are open and honest, saying things that your friends would mention about sport. Doing something slightly different stands out.
A passion for comedy has always been front and centre, but he was fortunate to fall into this comedy caper. Working other monotonous day jobs, he was looking to have some fun with friends. On a whim, he started a twitter account and a blog. Thinking he would do it for five minutes before being completely bored with it. This new venture became a fun and creative outlet. It then started to resonate and build to what it is now. He was able to quit his day job and go straight down the middle to focus on his satire.
The footy world is so serious now and people have access to news stories at any given time. Titus brings some balance and relief for those looking to enjoy the game. For those who love sport and love football, feel free to let yourself go and embrace everything that comes with that. On the other shoe, Titus sees how ridiculous the entire aspect of it all could be viewed. The fact people spend all week upset because a group of people in their twenties lost to another group of people in their twenties is a nonsensical situation to be in.
It reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld’s opening monologue in ‘The Label Maker’ episode:
‘Loyalty to any one sports team is pretty hard to justify. Because the players are always changing, the team can move to another city, you’re actually rooting for the clothes when you get right down to it. You know what I mean, you are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city. Fans will be so in love with a player but if he goes to another team, they boo him. This is the same human being in a different shirt, they ‘hate’ him now. Boo! Different shirt! Boo.’
This is where we currently sit in the world of football. It is a very weird phenomenon. It naturally becomes more problematic if you’re a fan of a bad team. If you don’t laugh, you will go slightly insane. When the teams who have dominated for lengthy periods of time over the years lose two or three in a row, you start to wonder if it is even legal.
Titus is a fully pledged Melbourne Demons fan. He is thankful for this for many reasons. The most important reason would be that he wouldn’t be doing the job he is doing now if he supported a team who had tasted success on a regular basis growing up.
The new book and stage show takes a look at what sport means to Australians and the craziness of it. Covering every sport in the country, the history of it and why we are what we are.
When the show was on during the comedy festival, the ball tampering debacle was taking place in South Africa. He jokingly gave a nod and was looking into giving a co-author credit to the Australian Cricket team for providing so much material throughout the festival.
Release: A Thoroughly Unhelpful History of Australian Sport is out now.
Written by Sam Young
Photo by Jay Hynes