Over their 40-year existence, the Canberra Raiders have inspired some extreme acts of devotion.
One of them has been Tony Wood's creation of Victor the Viking, the mascot whose antics have been synonymous with the Raiders since 1983, the club's second year of existence.
Wood has donned the Victor costume at Raiders games ever since to entertain and energise the crowd.
He came up with the idea after seeing a game with the Western Suburbs Magpies' avian mascot.
He could see how this livened things up, maintaining spectator interest through the dull spots and keeping them involved in the game.
"When I got back in the bus I thought, 'We need something like that'," he says.
On his own initiative, and in keeping with the Raiders logo, he designed a Viking costume and headpiece.
Fellow Raiders supporter Bronwyn Huxtable, who ran Caryna Activity Therapy Centre, had her clients make the original outfit and only then did Wood contact John McIntyre - "the Kerry Packer of the Raiders" - to pitch the idea.
McIntyre gave the OK, and Victor the Viking first took to the field on June 15, 1983. The costume has changed over time but it's still the same Victor who entertains the crowd without detracting from their enjoyment of the game.
The original papier-mache helmet disintegrated long ago was followed by a fibreglass headpiece - less fragile but heavy - and later a cloth and leather one which offered the best of both worlds, light but durable.
Various versions of the Victor costume, showing its evolution, will be among the items on display at the Canberra Museum and Gallery exhibition Canberra Raiders: 40 years in the limelight which opened on Friday.
For Wood, Victor was a labour of love. All he received were two match tickets for himself and his brother, who helped him put on the costume.
"From 1983 to 1997 I didn't get paid. I didn't want to - I did it for love of the game."
When Rupert Murdoch's Super League began, everyone on the books had to be paid, and Wood was given what he calls "a small contribution". Despite offers from the Raiders, he's never accepted a raise.
"My saying is, 'I'm just a regular supporter of the club who's got the best seat in the house'.''
A couple of years ago the Raiders introduced Velda the Valkyrie, Victor's sister, played by Emily Gaggledonk, who joins in the crowd work.
"She was introduced as part of women's involvement in rugby league," says Wood, who welcomed the move to provide a female figurehead for the sport.
"One of my many highlights", Wood says, was the 2019 preliminary final the Raiders won against South Sydney in front of 24,000 people at Canberra Stadium.
"The euphoria was unbelievable. I felt like a king."
Or at least a Vi-king.
Wood is one of the Raiders' most fervent fans, one of people who, as the saying goes, bleeds green and who made an exhibition like this one possible.
But some hopped aboard the Green Machine later.
Hannah Paddon, the new senior curator of social history at Canberra Museum and Gallery, had not been a Raiders fan: tennis was more her game.
But, she says, several weeks of immersing herself in the upcoming exhibition about the team's 40th anniversary made her see the (lime-green) light.
Paddon took overfrom now departed curator Sharon Bulkeley, who had undertaken the initial research into the project.
There was a callout eight months ago to the Canberra community for submissions, Paddon says.
"The response was absolutely fantastic - we heard from more than 50 people with objects."
These will help tell the history of the Raiders from their early days to their current status as a beloved Canberra institution.
After an inauspicious start in 1982, when they came last, the Raiders developed into the "Green Machine" - nicknamed after their lime-coloured uniform - and competed in six grand finals between 1987 and 2019 and won three - in 1989, 1990 and 1994. And, of course, there's always the possibility of more to come.
The Raiders are more than a sports team. Over the past four decades they've established themselves in the heart of Canberrans. They support local children's sport and do a lot of charity work as well as being the team to barrack for at Canberra Stadium or on TV during game season.
For Canberrans, a little whimsy - red wigs honouring former captain Alan Tongue, green food and drink when the team is doing well - has long been part of the fun.
There will be plenty of evidence of Canberra's passion for the Raiders to see at CMAG.
Among the more than 100 curated items on display are costumes of team mascot Victor the Viking, a corflute depicting superfan Sue Washington's lime-green Raiders-themed car - Viking proudly emblazoned on the hood - uniforms, awards, photographs and other memorabilia.
As an historian, Paddon was interested in going back before the Raiders to the early story of rugby league in the ACT region in the 1920s.
Canberra teams such as the Sewers, the Powerhouse and the Brickworks played teams from Bungendore, Yass and Queanbeyan, among other towns. After a hiatus caused by World War II, the Queanbeyan District Rugby League Football Club was formed in 1959 and when New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) wanted to expand the competition, one of the new regional teams formed was the Canberra Raiders.
One of the things that struck Paddon in preparing the exhibition was, "I really found this symbiotic relationship between the Raiders and their fans and the wider community of Canberra ...They really do bleed green."
Sue Washington's support is regularly on display around Canberra: her car is decked out in Raiders colours and images and has been since 2017.
She's done school pick-ups, birthday party drop-offs, school formals, birthdays, and weddings, among other occasions, as well as charitable excursions.
"One [charity trip] that will haunt my memories forever is during the fires of 2019," Washington says.
She went to Coffs Harbour bearing members' gear from Raiders headquarters and says this "absolutely did the trick at the country schools and fund-raising events I visited".
Washington remembers a mother of four whose house and sheds has been destroyed, "hugging me and saying thank you with the biggest smile I have ever seen. I saw so much devastation and cause for heartache, visited so many people that had lost everything, saw carnage I will never forget but marvelled at the resilience, empathy, and compassion I also witnessed."
Among the players Victor the Viking was supporting in the early years was Angel Marina, one of the first players. Marina says he had been playing locally for the Queanbeyan Blues when the Raiders were being formed.
"I was with the Raiders from 1982 to 1984 and played 100 games for the club."
He played first grade and loved the game and the camaraderie. But as the Raiders grew and began recruiting more seasoned players from interstate clubs, he found he "wasn't going anywhere" and decided to focus on his regular job and his family. But he remained a fan.
"I did a stint with Tim Gavel - 17 years on ABC Grandstand - it kept me involved around the football scene."
When the exhibition callout came, Marina dug deep into the mementos he'd kept. Among there were a Queanbeyan Blues jumper, his 1982 first grade Raiders jumper, and a "quite retro" track suit.
One of Marina's fondest memories is preserved in a photograph from his first year as a Raider.
"I got a letter from a young man, 12 years old, named John Lussick... We've been friends ever since."
Lussick asked for an autograph and Marina not only gave his but obtained others from teammates for the boy.
Asked why he was such a fan of Marina, Lussick says, "He was a winger - I like to see the fast people who score all the tries."
Lussick, like Wood and Washington, is a contender for biggest Canberra Raiders fan.
Born in Canberra in 1970, he says he always loved rugby league but his personal experience of it didn't last long.
"I only played under nines - I copped a pretty bad gash that needed 120 stitches in my shin. I was close to getting plastic surgery. it curtailed me from any future playing."
No fair-weather friend, he's been to Raiders games every year since 1982.
Among his contributions in the exhibition are a program from the Raiders' first match against Souths - "I got a number of Raiders to sign that" - a grandstand entry card from 1982, and a token with the Raiders emblem from the same year.
The tokens were inserted into a turnstile for entry. Lussick managed to keep his by squeezing in behind a friend who entered in the usual way. But that was a one-time thing, done solely to keep the token as a souvenir.
He has an original 1982 jersey as well as inaugural bottle of port and the ports from each of the three premierships - all unopened and "never, ever to be tasted".
Raiders head of communication Ben Pollack has been working for the team since 2006. He's looking forward to the opening of the exhibition to kick off the club's anniversary year.
"I think there was a famous quote, back in 1989, [saying that] when the Raiders won their first premiership it gave Canberra a soul," Pollack says.
It's that intangible quality about the Raiders in Canberra, the emotions and memories and feelings the team calls up, that the exhibition evokes.
Canberra Raiders: 40 years in the limelight is on at Canberra Museum and Gallery from February 26 to May 21. cmag.com.au.
