What makes a 'lucky number'?

As I sat down having breakfast on a Saturday morning looking up at our magnificent escarpment, I started to organise the new set of women’s jumpers that the Tigers would be ordering. With AFL, each player has their own jumper with their own number. Not like NRL, where the jumper is assigned to the position. Once a person has a ‘number’ they usually try and stick with it for their whole playing ‘career’.

So it had me thinking of why people like certain numbers and then sporting superstitions.

For myself I always like wearing the number 24 as it was my mother’s birthday and it was a way of honouring her (she died when I was eight years old). My son likes the number six. He tells his mum he wears it as she was born on the sixth, but really it is because a family friend wore six in his 250 games for the North Melbourne AFL side and he was my son’s favourite player.

A mate who was drafted by Geelong back in the 1990s was given a list of available numbers and he chose 35 as he said it was about the number of phone numbers he received from girls when he first went out in Geelong with all the players.

Some people choose a number as it always has been their ‘lucky’ number. A player at the Tigers liked the no.2 jumper as she is a twin. One of the other girls wanted two, but because it was already taken she chose 22 as it must be twice as lucky and has loved it ever since. Yet some people go the other way and do not want to jinx their favourite number, like a player who did not want to jinx her favourite number six, so multiplied it by six and went for 36 instead.

There are also some weird superstitions among the superstars of sport, like Serena Williams who will wear the same pair of socks for an entire tournament. I remember that as a young bloke living with mates the laundry really was not a high priority and one Saturday I realised I had only two clean pairs of jocks. I needed one for the game and one for after the game. I had these ugly striped jocks that I did not care much about, so I thought I would wear them for the game. Turns out I played pretty well and wore them for the next three years until the elastic decided that 50-odd games in the cold, wet, muddy Melbourne winter was enough and they retired themselves.

Even playing local footy in Melbourne there were blokes who had their own quirky traits. As the players ran out on to the paddock, Micky would always have to be the last player out. The three veterans when I first came into the team would all sit in the corner of the changeroom before the coach’s talk and no one would be allowed to sit in that corner. Old ‘Donga’ and ‘Joey’ would enjoy a cigarette just before we ran out and another at half time, while there were at least two blokes who would put their left sock on, then their left boot, before putting their right sock, and right boot on.

If it works and in their minds gives them a little ‘edge’, then long live the superstitious player!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tony Ryan moved to Thirroul from Melbourne in 2006 with his wife Terrie (Nee Squires) and young children. The Squires family is renowned in the area. Tony’s AFL background is he played over 225 games. He has coached his son at the Tigers from U8s to U17s with his favourite memory of his U17s coming from 20 points down at ¾ time to win the premiership in 2018. In 2020 he took on the task of coaching the U17 girls in 2020 again, culminating in premiership glory. This year he is taking charge of the two senior women’s teams.