In the annals of Canberra Raiders history, there is a folk hero who has been sadly overlooked. His name is Bruce. Bruce Stadium. And he likes to play Raiders rock 'n' roll.
And Bruce has a dream - a big dream. For his band, Fuzzsucker and the Canberra Raiders, to play half-time at a Raiders home game, in the stadium that bears his name.
"To stand on that grass in the middle of winter where so many legendary Raiders and Raiderettes have stood before, to play for the best fans in the country, hear the sound bounce off the Mal Meninga Stand, it would be better than Lego," Bruce told The Canberra Times in an exclusive interview, making me feel a little like Natalie Barr after the Knights' 1997 grand final.
The band is now, perversely, based in the AFL heartland of Melbourne where its six members spread the love for the mighty milk, converting one AFL fan at a time to NRL and then one Melbourne Storm fan at a time to the Raiders.
It's a calling. Nothing more, nothing less.
Like most folk heroes, Bruce Stadium comes from humble beginnings.
He was born in 1989 - the same year the Raiders won their first grand final - and grew up in Tuggeranong, hanging out at the Hyperdome when he wasn't creating his own music as a solo performer.
Then 10 years ago, he had a premonition to move to Melbourne.
"I had a dream I was playing with the Raiders. Tim Sheens was the coach. I was in the sheds at half-time and Sheens was dishing out some advice: 'Brave the storm', 'Brave the storm'," Bruce explained.
How that became a call to pack up and move to Melbourne was curious, given Sheens coached the Raiders before the Melbourne Storm was founded. But, Bruce did it anyway. He wasn't scared. He had a heart the size of Mal's.
It turned out to be a prescient move because in Melbourne, Bruce was able to create Fuzzsucker and the Canberra Raiders with five mates, all as keen on the Green Machine as him. He'd found his tribe. His team.
"I kind of did things in reverse. After 10 years, bands usually break up and the members go solo. I stopped playing solo after 10 years and joined a band," Bruce said.
The six-piece band are not shy about their love for the Raiders, decked out in Green Machine jerseys and regularly stopping their gig to denounce the Storm, "the cheaters" of the competition.
The music is a heady mix that evokes the organised chaos of a Brett Mullins-chip-and-chase try with the raw power of a shoulder-charging Glenn "The Brick with Eyes" Lazarus.
"It's Raiders rock 'n' roll," Bruce said.
One day, Canberra. One day.
Bruce has also done the hard yards personally. He and his "good friend Nathan" started the fan group "The Sons of Mal". He spent many a "cold and rainy night" watching Raiders home games.
And in the lead up to the 2019 grand final, he didn't take his Raiders guernsey off for a couple of weeks.
"Showered and slept with it non-stop," he reckons.
The Raiders sadly went down to the Roosters in the 2019 grand final. But Bruce believes he and other supporters helped get the Green Machine there at a Melbourne match earlier in the season.
"There was a great group of Raiders fans that turned out and while we were down in the game, an older Raiders fan decided to go to the toilet," Bruce said.
"In that time the Raiders scored a try, so when he came back everyone encouraged him to go back to the toilet so we could get some more points on the board. It worked and we won."
Of course it did.
Get Bruce Stadium a statue at Bruce Stadium.
And there is no doubting who Bruce Stadium will be backing this Sunday when the Raiders meet the Storm in Melbourne.
He'll be "behind enemy lines and spreading love for the mighty milk!".
NRL ROUND 18
Sunday: Canberra Raiders v Melbourne Storm at Melbourne, 4.05pm.
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