Closer than you probably think, dear.

Even after an insipid performance against a genuinely impressive Richmond, things aren't as bad as some people would have us believe. And certainly things are nowhere near as bad as they used to be.

We're bordering on moderately pathetic, as opposed to our historical position of utterly rooted. And yet perhaps bizarrely, I'd still prefer to be a Freo fan than any other. Why is that?

Big wins or narrow losses, as well as the odd huge upset are just part of the fun and frivolity of throwing your lot in with a footy team.

There will always be bickering about the sanity of selectors and whether or not the latest series of clangers will be worth giving the perpetrators a run in the WAFL or sent back to Victoria.

And just because some people seem to channel the pain better than others, doesn't mean we ‘aint all hurting any less.

Unfortunately nothing is or ever will be perfect, and whilst one obviously massive ultimate achievement remains to be achieved at the Fremantle Football Club, have a look at everything else in between.

Such as:

As it stands today and indeed over the last five years, it's not unusual to expect and receive a home-ground win. And as a result of this, and despite Subi being well past its use-by date (actually, did it have one?), home crowd numbers remain impressive.

Players and supporters are now very, very proud of their club and expect success to continue and grow. That's why so many tend to predict continuing doom when expectations aren't met to their satisfaction.

Look at how many people are now so proud of the jumper and the colours. Despite some initial trepidation from earlier designs, how many kiddies do you see these days getting around in imperial purple? It's a freaking plethora. Everywhere.

And anchors are cool, despite what anyone says. Every navy in the world agrees.

The threat of insolvency is a distant memory and our membership numbers are impressively grand. Believe you me, followers of other football codes realise how important this is. I even saw a book once about defunct rugby league teams. Defunct !.. An entire book! It was a hardback too.

The playing list is the strongest it has ever been, and so is the administration and staff. Improvements will always be demanded, people will still come and go and even though Schwabby leaves us later this year, it's fair to say we should have more measure of faith these days that the club won't hire any Hardie-brains.

The senior coach not only looks the goods, he is the goods and knows what the players are capable of. If we see a lack of effort by a player on-field, make no mistake, so does he. How much he can extract from the playing group will be the benefit of hindsight, but no-one can question his ability and commitment thus far. It's up to him to fire them up or chop ‘em, so place your trust in Harvs.

Our captain is an all-round champion; pure and simple. No arguments.

This is doubly impressive, given that the same goes for our preceding captain, whom we are all so glad is still running around in the same team, yet with none of this garbage from anyone about retaining any so-called ‘spiritual leadership'.

Yes we do cop flak from eastwards too, but we're slowly getting there. What always needs to be remembered, though, is that outside the club and its supporters and perhaps the AFL administration, no-one gives a rat's about Freo. Apart from where to go to get the best beer in Australia, there's no reason or motivation for non-supporters to try and make a balanced judgement about the place.

Yet despite this, non-Sandgropers are increasingly referring to Derby games as ‘derrr-bee' instead of ‘daaah-bee'. And even more encouraging is that less people seem to be announcing that Freo is their second team. We don't want any part-timers.. Bugger off.

We're hearing a lot more of "I really hate your mob", and except when it's an umpire saying it, this is a beautiful thing. That's a form of fear you're hearing.

And even if they have no particular love of the purple, encouragingly also is the fact that the rest of the country now agree with what we've been saying all along: that the mob up the road are a bunch of tools.

You know what else is nice? When passing in the streets of Freo, or in any corner of the country - or indeed world - fellow supporters still acknowledge each other with at least a wink and a nod. Even the odd "let me buy you a beer/donut/legume" is not unusual. Otherwise, remember these people are complete strangers.

Now I'm not suggesting this behaviour is limited only to Freo supporters. Our club in no way owns the monopoly of this strand of familial sporting comradeship; it's just that it happens often enough not to be surprising anymore.

As for the old chestnut you might still hear regarding notoriously poor youth development: well rest assured you can consign this to the domain of the purely anti-Freo and or the ill-informed ignorance brigades. We have made mistakes. Clangers, in fact. So have all clubs. But compare the youth development and recruitment lists from recent years with the current core playing group and it will now prove otherwise.

But at the end of the day, if you're just plain done with arguing; just laugh, give ‘em a knowing wink and a smile and move on. You're unlikely to make any conversions anyway. We are not Mormons.

And don't forget.. The essential nuts and bolts of this current team was only one game, one heartbreaking quarter if you will, away from a Grand Final in 2006. And it would have been against a team, it is not outlandish to say, we knew we could beat. And somewhat frustratingly, in this way, we continue to beat.

Which leads to that one obvious thing remaining to be achieved - perhaps we should refer to it as the P-Word?..

And as distant and improbable as it may feel at the moment, even if sometime soon we're able to contest a P-Word in September, at least Port Adelaide have already recorded a seriously huge losing margin in a GF that will be hard to surpass.. Even Freo could not top that one.

Surely?