Greetings fellow Dockerlanders!

In the last few weeks, I have celebrated a personal milestone by reaching my 25th birthday. Whilst I have full confidence that I will possess my own teeth and hair for quite some time yet, in the life of a footballer the age of 25 usually represents the midpoint of a professional career. You're not a creaking veteran yet, but neither are you a freshly drafted rookie with a decade ahead of you.

You become more aware that time is passing - especially if you've yet to taste genuine success in this great game of ours. Many of the Fremantle regulars who were the young brigade when I turned 20 have either reached this milestone, passed it or are nearing it - Pavlich, Hasleby, McPharlin, the Carr brothers, Headland, Grover, Hayden, Crowley, Peake, Sandilands, Webster, Thornton, Dodd.

These guys - "my generation", if you want - are realising that the clock is ticking. The Connolly Era saw them all emerge as players of distinction for us...but only the captain seems to have truly earned the respect of the football community at large. As Mark Harvey takes the reins for his first full season, now is the time for the other loyal soldiers of the Imperial Purple to fulfill their capability, to prove to the world that Fremantle runs deeper than Pavlich at centre half forward, to firmly grasp the period of prolonged success twice promised.

And I will be there with them. Not wearing a GPS device and a black tape armband, mind you - but following the Dockers around the country, attending each and every interstate fixture during the season at my own expense in my personal initiative to help Fremantle reach its destiny in 2008.

Join me here as I report my observations and thoughts during a year where my Freo passion will flow more extensively than ever before (mop and bucket hopefully not required). From biased media coverage to encounters with rival tribespeople, to those fragments of bliss which the boys will provide on the field, The Jester is reporting for duty. Go Freo.