Are You Blind, Ref?

A few months back Trixy managed to make me choke on my coffee when he told me he had brought season tickets to the Sydney Swans. Tonight was the first match.

The Sydney Swans are the only team in NSW that plays in the AFL (Australian Football League aka Aussie Rules). Victoria has loads of teams, South Australia and Western Australia have two teams and Queensland have one team, I think. Anyway, it’s a game invented by the Aussie to be played on an oval pitch. I hear it had something to do with being able to use the cricket oval in the off-season. Anyway there are 18 men on each team running around in tight short shorts and tight sleeveless shirts for the duration of the game. That incidentally is made up of four twenty minutes section, called Quarters. They kick the ball and punch the ball, but under no circumstances throw the ball …whatever! Did I mention the 36 hot players in short shorts and tight t’s?

We, that is Trixy, his boyfriend Rachel and I arrived with plenty of time to spare so we stocked up on merchandise. Now covered in The Red and The White (of course T & R got the gayest shirt possible and were matching, darling) we didn’t feel out of place among the thousands of fans who had also arrived early ‘to soak up the atmosphere’ Trixy also consumed his first meat pie in grand tradition of sporting events were the supporters a destined to eat crap and drink beer.

The game started at 7.10pm. Don’t ask me why, I too asked why not 7 or 7.30 … but anyway … it started and seeing as the three of us knew nothing about the game it was fairly exciting. We followed the lead of those around us when they shouted at the butterfinger player who missed a catch. We slapped out thighs heartily when they managed to catch the ball. We cheered when the ball went through the sticks that masquerade as goal posts.

One thing we did do that no one else in the stadium did, was have a conversation about the colour of football uniforms and whether of not it’s compulsory for them to be ugly. The West Coast Eagles seemed to be wearing a colour that was ‘somewhere between violet and indigo’ combined with yellow. Trixy’s eyes were offended :-)

We booed when the other guys scored more goals than our boys.

As the game continued more beer was drunk and Trixy had his second meat pie. I also succumbed and tucked into what tasted like the best pie ever. Maybe it was because the smell had been teasing me for hours or because I haven’t had a pie for years. But it was very good. Sam turned up in the second quarter after being stuck in traffic and having to park in Parramatta.

We cheered, waved our arms about and jumped up and down like idiots when they scored.

By the time the final quarter started we were down over 30 points. I wasn’t looking good for the hunks of spunk in the candy stripes socks. But they clawed their back with some amazing passes, catches and even a couple of great goals. The referee that seemed to have been blind the rest of the match started seeing fouls, he started to see when our boys got the ball over the line and most of all he started blowing his whistle in our favor. The final score was 74 -73 to the West Coast Eagles but it was a really good game. It got the blood flowing and the desire to see them beat the next team they play.

The train trip home saw us dissecting a game we knew about 4 hours earlier. I think we made most of it up, but it sounded good.

I don’t think I’ll be staying in to watch matches on telly, but I’ll be at the ground next time they play at home.

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