Radio Interview - ABC Sydney, 28/9/2026 - Facebook Link to Interview
The psychology of home advantage, Wharfie Time, goal songs and whether 50,000 screaming supporters can actually change a game.
My first real memory of football psychology is the 1970 Grand Final. Collingwood had been miles ahead at half-time, yet somehow lost. My father came home, parked the car, and sat in it for hours.
I vaguely remember him lying on the floor, crying later, though he now denies it. He barely spoke for days. Who says men can’t show emotion?
We know football affects supporters. The more interesting question is whether supporters affect the football.
The Crowd Is Not Decoration
Home teams certainly seem to have an advantage. There are obvious explanations: familiarity with the ground, less travel, sleeping in your own bed. And then there is the crowd.
COVID accidentally gave sports psychologists an extraordinary experiment. Professional football competitions continued, but suddenly the crowds disappeared.
Researchers have now analysed thousands of those matches. One study of 4,844 games across 15 European leagues found that home advantage fell without spectators. Another analysis of more than 4,000 matches estimated that removing supporters reduced home advantage by about a third, through a combination of poorer home-team performance and changes in refereeing. A later systematic review of 28 studies broadly confirmed the effect.
So the crowd is not just decoration. Apparently Herb in Row 44 really is contributing something.
Too Much Help?
The obvious explanation is arousal. Fifty thousand people roaring as you chase someone down probably helps you find a little more effort late in a game. The complication is that more arousal does not always lead to better performance.
It can help effort and highly practised automatic behaviour, but pressure can interfere with precise skills. A crowd might help a midfielder make one more desperate sprint, then make life considerably harder for the forward standing 35 metres out, directly in front.
Everyone goes quiet. Everyone expects you to kick it. Try not to think about your kicking action.
What About the Umpires?
International research suggests home crowds can subtly influence officials. Nobody needs to be corrupt. Humans simply make difficult judgements under social pressure.
So I had a look at the AFL numbers. According to AFL Tables, across the 2026 home-and-away season, designated home teams received 116 more free kicks than their opponents, a little over half an extra free kick per game.
Some teams fared better than others. Fremantle was the standout. At home they had a free-kick differential of plus 27. Away, minus 27. That is a swing of almost five free kicks a game.
Before anyone declares this proof of a conspiracy, an AFL study examining more than 8,000 umpiring decisions found no effect of crowd size or home ground on decision-making accuracy. The 2026 Freo advantage was probably a fluke, or more likely just represents the fact that Freo played better, cleaner footy in 2026.
So the AFL numbers are interesting. They are not proof.
Wharfie Time
Back to Freo for a moment. Late in close Fremantle games at Optus Stadium, a gong sounds, the lights flash, AC/DC’s Hells Bells starts, and the crowd erupts. Fremantle introduced Wharfie Time as a stadium activation in 2024 and uses it sparingly in tight games.
I suspect the clever part is not what it does directly to the players. It is what it does to the crowd.
Normally, 50,000 supporters are 50,000 individuals. Some are watching closely. Some are eating pies. Some are yelling advice to professional footballers despite having last played in primary school. Then the gong goes, and suddenly everyone knows what to do: stand up, make noise, expect something.
The stadium has turned thousands of separate spectators into one coordinated group. That surge may then feed back onto the players, the opposition and perhaps even the officials.
Does it work? Impossible to know. If Wharfie Time starts and Fremantle kicks three goals, everyone remembers it. If nothing happens, nobody produces the commemorative DVD.
Country Roads
Brisbane has a different ritual. Players nominate their own goal songs, most famously Charlie Cameron and Take Me Home, Country Roads.
Obviously the song did not cause the goal. But it turns an individual achievement into a collective event. Cameron scores, the opening bars start, thousands sing, and for thirty seconds player and crowd are doing the same thing together.
There is good evidence that music can influence mood, motivation, perceived effort and some aspects of physical performance. But I suspect Brisbane’s songs matter more as ritual than sports science. They strengthen identity, reward the player and keep the crowd emotionally involved.
Nobody has proved Country Roads makes Charlie Cameron a better footballer. But it certainly makes the Gabba feel like Charlie Cameron’s ground.
Then Comes the Grand Final
The MCG will hold around 100,000 people, but the Grand Final is one of the least conventional crowds of the season. Competing club members make up only part of the ticket allocation. There is no Wharfie Time, no Gabba goal-song ritual and usually no overwhelmingly partisan home crowd.
But the pressure does not disappear. It gets bigger.
For many players, a Grand Final will be the most important sporting event of their lives. Win and you are a premiership player forever. Lose and you may never get another chance. That knowledge can play havoc with psychology.
Skills normally performed automatically become things you suddenly think about. Attention narrows. Muscles tighten. People rush, hesitate or choke. The crowd still matters, but perhaps not in the usual home-ground way.
So the Grand Final strips away one form of psychological pressure and replaces it with another.
During the season, the crowd can make the moment feel bigger.
On Grand Final day, the moment is already enormous.