There are no colours today. It's just all black, and to paraphrase Don McLean, this is the day football died.
In 42 years of writing football never has this game been dealt such a crushing blow that has been felt throughout every club and supporter base. People here are laying flowers in respect for Phil Walsh, who died of multiple knife wounds. His son has been charged with his murder.
There are calls for fans to lay their club scarf or flag across their front fence as a mark of respect.
Hundreds of thousands of people in football are also quite rightly talking of their treasured and cruelly shortened association with Walsh, the self-labelled football bogan from Hamilton who made good at Collingwood, Richmond, Brisbane Bears as a player, at Geelong as a fitness coach, an assistant coach at Port Adelaide and West Coast, and this year as coach of Adelaide. He was seen as the man who could take the Crows to a premiership.
Within eight hours of his death at 2am, the front door of the Crows' administration block was steadily becoming a shrine, and after arriving at 7am players began filtering behind walls of tears from 11.30. Staff could be seen releasing their emotion, too.
But beyond all of the heartfelt words of pain and praise, how the football community would cope and, in particular, the players, other coaching staff and administration who adored Walsh, and whether Sunday's game against Geelong should go ahead, lay the real tragedy; how his dear wife, Meredith, and their daughter will cope. Their lives have been wrecked, and it has nothing to do with football. At long last maybe the television commentators will stop referring to a player suffering a hamstring injury during a game as a tragedy.
Walsh was one of the most likeable blokes in football. He was a consummate professional; a friend to all in the media. He referred to the scribes by name as a matter of courtesy; he asked about your life but generally kept his private. His sincerity and, at the right time, dry humour was infectious.
These things are never easy to cover, and there have been many. Of course, none so shocking. There is this sense of numbness, and when you think of his daughter travelling alone from the US right now you know that the pain goes much deeper than the game itself.
People will say we will move on, that Walsh will always be remembered like his great mate Dean Bailey following his death from cancer in March last year. Maybe that is so – but right now it is not about just football. The bigger picture lay with domestic violence and mental health. The good thing is that football has the vehicle to carry us all through.
Like so many victims, Philip Walsh deserved better. He was a good bloke, but everyone knows that because he touched the hearts of everyone in our football family. God bless him.
