"He ain't heavy, he's my brother."I DON'T think The Hollies would have watched much Aussie Rules in their day, but their sentiment is easily adaptable to our game. One of the great things football has always done is bring people together.

The football landscape thankfully has always been filled by a social demographic that spreads across class, colour and creed to a blur, a beautiful texture of humanity where the only identification worth its currency is the colour of your scarf. But back to He Ain't Heavy: what is its meaning, and how is it adaptable to the modern game?

Songs, like football, can be ruined by an over-eagerness to break them into tiny parts, to analyse and package them into mathematical scenarios. A bit like statistics. (Don't tell me who had more inside 50s and I won't tell you what The Hollies' lyrical intention was.)

To quote my favourite Australian poet, Tim Rogers, "That's a simple way of looking at things, but I'm a simple person." Rogers was referring to his beloved North Melbourne's plight on the eve of a possible move to the Gold Coast, but somehow I don't think he'd mind me using it in the fight against statistics overload.

In truth I have no idea what The Hollies meant, but when I heard it as a seven-year-old I thought it was about me and my brother, that if either of us fell over we'd pick the other one up. I've never cared to go back and search for anything deeper than that, for fear that I'd ruin the song for myself.

It brings me to this week's topic, though, and that is this notion of help. As I get older it feels that life is forever becoming quicker, and with demands increasing daily, it's a relief that every day at five o'clock I can still stop for a cheese and biscuit to assess the day's profit and loss.

I went to see the new Rolling Stones documentary/concert/movie this week, and as I was watching the "Glimmer Twins" do their thing up close, it had me wondering about all the help they must get to put on a show like that, night after night.

A good rock 'n roll band is not dissimilar to a football team, or so I've been telling myself for a while now. We all watch the finished product through the drizzle on a Saturday, marvelling at the skills and courage of the players, but we see very little of those who have helped them get there. Rewind two weeks, to when I was paying homage to my criminal Irish forefathers.

While watching from the outer I was about 10 seats away from the family and friends of debutant Callan Ward. Taking up a good part of the Docklands wing, they were extremely vocal and beamed with pride as they watched their boy play like a man in front of a national audience.

It struck me immediately that, here before me was the throng of people Callan will represent for the rest of his long career.

Not simply his teammates or club in the red, white and blue; they are a given. What needs to be understood is that every player who walks on to the ground to play for their team also carries the privilege of playing for a host of other parties who often go unrecognised.

There are your ancestors, your school, partners, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters and many more.

A boxer fights for the cause of being world champ, but also for the faces in his corner. As players, our cause is to win for our club and hopefully win the big prize as well, but we also have many, many faces in our corner who take each hit with us.

For the most part these are people who would cut off their big toe to be able to join their man on the big stage, but settle for watching on with a glint in their eye as they enjoy a loved one do it for them. Thoughts of who we play for made me look a little more inwardly at my own corner. My first coach taught me the game and made it fun, lessons that have been valuable.

I think about him quite a bit, and also the mates I played all my junior footy with as a kid. I don't get to see my old mates as much as I'd like to, but before a game I'll often think about them and wonder if they are watching or listening to the Dogs.

And when the game is over and we've sung the song, it's all about cuddles with my bird and my little boy.

Yet a player's corner can be so vast, it can feature people he might not even know. I found out through some back channels this week that my opponent last Saturday, Joel MacDonald, is a classic example. Apparently a woman in Altona makes it her duty to cut out any newspaper clippings of Joel, and posts them to a distant relative in Western Australia. From there this second party, who is related to the MacDonalds, sends them back across the country to his grandma in Brisbane.

After starting a new campaign in last week's column, I'd also like to commend Joel MacDonald for shaking my hand before the game.

"Operation handshake" is only a week old, but it was a success and I can feel a buzz in the football community. I look forward to the day that we can all shake hands before the first bounce, but I would draw the line at picking each other up off the ground — even though The Hollies would love that.