Another Footy Saturday
July 26th, 2010Saturday afternoon footy, or Australian Rules Football for the uninitiated, has turned into a bit of a tradition. As earlier stated, my first game of local league play was a lesson in passion and good play. With my traditional Saturday morning breakfast (aka ‘brekky’) done, for the second week in a row, I was planning on attending a game - the weather was perfect for footy (think mid October in Northern Minnesota, cool, windy, intermittent sun).
I drove up to Balwyn North, north of the city center, and showed up fashionably late.
Driving up, it was curious to see the spectators and the teams all congregated on one side of the field. Getting out of my car was pretty clear why - the wind was blowing, strong. And while noticeable in the city, in the suburbs, it was darn near gale force. Footy, with the ball kicked into the air through the goal posts, was influenced pretty strongly by the wind…so was clear was going to be a game played on one side of the field this weekend.
It was another good game overall with my friend Tom’s team making some valiant attempts, but though there were some great plays and some great attempts, the visitors this week were a little behind on the score board.
After the game, Tom waved for me to stay. Waiting around, I met two other Aussie’s, who I found out later where the president and treasurer of the club. Each footy club has to pay their own way, and it isn’t cheap, these two blokes make sure that the supporters are in line and the club is in the black.
When Tom came out of the lockers, we hit the visitor’s club house. We don’t have this in the states. Here was the visiting team, the people that had just fought for almost three hours on the field against the other team, the passion sometimes coming to blows and certainly a far amount of pushing and shoving, walking into the visiting player’s sanctum, where they eat and drink, celebrate the wins and mourn the losses.
“Is it typical to walk into the visitor’s club house after a game?” I asked.
“Aw mate, we leave it on the field. In the end, we try to make it to visitor’s clubhouse and have a stubby. We all need the money and it just shows we support each other.” He said.
Over a stubby of VB, Tom proceeded to give me the run down on the clubs and the interworkings, as well as a fair amount of information on farming in Australia, obviously a topic of great interest to me given my background.
The president of the local club then got up to announce some of the game results, congratulate the home team on the win, and thank the visitors for a game well played. Then handed out a six pack to the best player on each team for the day.
Tom got the six pack for his team and promptly replaced the empty in my hand. And it was true - while I’m no expert, the third quarter was a good one for Tom, with some pretty good kicks, catches, and hand balls.
“Tom, this round was on me!” I protested.
“Aw mate. Free beer is free beer.” Tom said. Which I translated as ‘cheers mate.’




