I write about Australian football a lot on my blog. It's something very special to me. My one truly tangible link to my childhood. I still remember very clearly moving away from Melbourne as a child. It was a devastating experience for me that I didn't get over for a long time. I left my friends and the places that I loved and I found myself in Canberra, an unfamiliar city that I disliked intensely. The people were unfriendly and I went from being in comfortable surroundings into some pretty unhappy situations. Maintaining my "Victorian" roots was important for me and my continued support of Australian football whilst living in rugby league territory was a badge of that for me. Things were different when I was younger as well. Canberra was well and truly foreign ground for Australian football and there was no where near the level of interest in the sport there as there is today.
Even today, the sport still creates a level of emotion for me that I don't experience anywhere else.
An important part of following Australian football has been supporting the Hawthorn Hawks football club. They were the team closest to where I grew up. This wasn't an instance of merely supporting some faraway sporting franchise because I liked a player or a mascot. No, for me this was an old fashioned approach to sports that is often absent in the increasingly internationalised area of sporting interesting. They were my home town team.
So in the middle of year, I found out that my brother would be moving to the UK. I wanted to arrange a nice farewell gift for him, and so I organised for us to go and watch the Grand Final together. At the time of organising, we both of course, had no idea who would be playing in this final game of the season.
As the season progressed and the teams slowly made their way through the finals, we became increasingly excited. The Hawks were doing well. They were doing very well. When the siren sounded for the end of the preliminary final, all our hopes had come true as the Hawks had made the Grand Final! I had been excited enough about attending a Grand Final, and so being able to attend a Grand Final with my own team playing was even more incredible.
On the other side of the game were the Sydney Swans. I don't like the Sydney Swans. Living in Sydney makes me dislike them even more.
I was hopeful of a win, but the Sydney Swans were a good team. There were no guarantees, so I went into the game with the mindset that I was going to try and just enjoy the moment. I was going to enjoy the experience of being able to see my own team play in the Grand Final and that whatever the result, I would be appreciative for that.
Before the bounce, the noise of the crowd lifted to a level I had never experienced before. It was loud like nothing I had heard and yet the moment the countdown hit zero for the bounce itself, the crowd suddenly went quiet.
All of my fears and worries turned out to be for nothing as well. By the end of the fist quarter, the Hawks stamped their authority. The Swans were outfought and outhunted by a Hawks team that seemed intent on hurting their opponent. As the game progressed, the gap between the two teams widened and the Hawks took complete control of the game.
I cheered and celebrated every goal and yet even in such a moment, I couldn't let myself get away too quickly with thoughts of victory. Lingering in the back of my mind was still the thought that there could always be a comeback, there could always be a sudden change which would snatch victory from the Hawks. It wasn't until the last quarter that I truly accepted that it was happening and the Hawks would indeed win. As the crowd erupted in round after round of the Hawthorn club song, it was hard to think that anything other than a victory had been achieved.
It really was the best day ever.
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