Coronavirus and the global shut down

The air in Hong Kong has been exceptionally fresh.  It is incredible how clear the skies have been since China shut down.  Looking out of my window, I can still clearly see the hills in the New Territories.  This is normally something you don't see until an intense tropical storm of typhoon clears the haze out of the city.

When I first arrived in Hong Kong, I found myself still clinging to some of my old habits from Australia.  I was still searching for the same foods, the same activities to continue with.  I also found myself watching Aussie Rules most weekends rather than going out.  It wasn't a great habit, but even now it's nice to be able to watch a game in the same timezone.  My brother often has to wake up in the early hours of the morning if there's a particularly important game he wants to watch.

I started my Sunday like I did many others.  I slept in, then I migrated over to the couch to watch some Aussie Rules.  The first game came and went and then my beloved Hawks came on.  It was the first game of the season, a season which looked to be in danger from the moment it began as travel restrictions and bans on gatherings had started.  The games were already being played in empty stadiums as large gatherings were now considered to be too dangerous.

As halftime approached, the commentators announced that there would be an emergency press conference with the CEO of the AFL at halftime.  The voices of the commentators betrayed what they all thought.  My chat groups all lit up as we all started to discuss what we knew wast coming.  The halftime siren sounded with the Hawks and Lions fighting a close game.  The CEO came onto the screen and announced that the season would be suspended at the end of the round for the next two months.

We all knew this was coming, but we had all been hoping to get a few weeks of games at least.  The rest of the game was strange to watch.  Apparently the players weren't told about this news and they fought out the game.  The Hawks slowly took over and pushed ahead of the Lions.  The Hawks midfield looks better than it has been for years, which makes the end of this season even more tragic. Watching an old player like Shaun Burgoyne continue to display his incredible skills also felt bitter sweet, as I thought about whether or not he would still be be able to play once the league resumed.

The siren sounded to end the game and the Hawks had won.  For me, Australia had now truly shut down.

The Gabba

Sometimes timing works out perfectly.

I had travelled to Brisbane for my brother's wedding.  He and his fiance lived in London, but due to family, they decided that it made more sense for them to marry in Brisbane.

By sheer luck, the AFL results fell in such a way that one of the semi-final games was to be in Brisbane the night before the wedding.

It had been a couple of years since I had been able to go to a game and it had been over five years since he had been able to go to a game.  Not living in Australia will have that impact.  It was perfect then for a group of his friends and him to enjoy his final night as an unmarried man watching a game of Aussie Rules.

The Lions were playing the Giants.

It was my first time at the Gabba as well.  It was a very nice stadium, with comfortable seats and great sight lines of the entire field.  I even got to eat a meat pie.

The game was good to watch and eventually the Giants managed to push in front.  Having lived in Sydney, they were kind of my second team after the Hawks, so I was happy they won.

After the game, we joined in the traditional of having a kick on the field.  It was a nice way to finish the game, and also a nice way for my brother's last night as a bachelor to end.  Having a last kick with his friends seemed to be a nice analogy for the end of childhood.

Three peat

The Hawks had won a third successful grand final when I was in New York!  I remember sitting in bed in the hotel with the radio streaming over my phone, listening to the plays being called by the commentators.  The Hawks started out well and by three quarter time, it was clear they had won.  I put my phone away and went to sleep happy.  In hindsight I should have gone and found a bar in the area that was showing the game, but a win is a win.

It had become a yearly tradition for the Sydney based Hawthorn fans to gather to see and hold the premiership cups.  This was a particularly special year, as the Hawks had completed a three-peat.  I had run out of hands to hold all of the cup!

Everyone had huge beaming smiles.  How often is it you get to see your team win once, let alone three times like this?  A lot had happened since the Hawks had last won as well.  The year before, my brother and I had been in Melbourne to watch the Hawks beat the Swans, and now he didn't even live in Australia anymore.

Everyone joked around and laughed.  As people left, we all arrogantly called out "see you next year".  Such presumptuousness!

So much football

When I was young, I always dreamed of moving back to Melbourne when I grew up.  One of the things I hope to do was to live in the city and to be able to go to as many Aussie Rules games as I could.  At one point, I looked into moving to Melbourne for university, but that never happened.  The dream of being able to spend every weekend going from game to game remained sadly out of reach and I had to content myself with the occasional game in Sydney.

One weekend, I found myself in Melbourne and I thought I'd try and experience a little bit of what I had always wanted to try.  I called up my friends John and Marty and we arranged to do the double header.  The timing was perfect, the first game had the John's team the Saints playing and the second game had my team the Hawks playing.

In the early afternoon, we met near Southern Cross Station.  From there we walked over to Docklands Stadium.  All of us were AFL or club members in some form, so we walked into game without any additional cost.  Membership also gave us great seats.  We were seated near the 50m line and were close to where the teams ran out.  Sadly for John, the game didn't go well and the Saints lost to the Eagles.

We left the game and saw a food truck.  The day was cold, so we bought some hot jam donuts to warm us up.  Standing there in the cold eating the hot donuts, I thought back to when I was young and at Waverley Park with my brother and dad.  Waverley always seemed to be freezing and my memory of the place was that the weather was never good!  We had a bit of time before the next game started, so we went to a parmy place that was a favourite of John's.  This seemed to be a true Melbourne experience now, football and parmys.

After dinner, we walked to the MCG.  My team the Hawks were playing the Swans.  It was an incredible coincidence that John and I had both been able to see our teams play on the same day.  Sadly for me, the Hawks also lost.  I still enjoyed the game though.

We had watched a lot of football, and both our teams had lost.  The day could have ended better, but I was still happy with how it had gone.  How often do you get to overindulge in something you enjoy so much?

Super angry

The day started out well enough.

I had gone to watch a game of football with Leon.  The weather was good.  The skies were blue.  Living in Sydney, we were also revelling in one of those rare weekends where we actually got to see our team playing.  On top of that, the Hawks were playing the GWS Giants, who were terrible.  What could possibly go wrong with our lovely day out?

 It turns out quite a lot could go wrong.

It didn't take long before we began to worry.  The Giants had been regularly crushed all season.  They were awful.  It wasn't all that surprising given they were a new team.  Most of their players were still young and they were slowly finding their feet.

This game was different though.  From the very start of the game, the Giants seemed to have a determination about them.  They weren't being pushed off the ball and they definitely seemed to be much faster than the Hawks.  As the game went on, every attack by the Hawks received a successful response.  We all assumed that the Hawks would eventually push the Giants over, but every attempt was met successfully.

As the fourth quarter started, the Giants really started to push ahead.  They started to take a lead and nothing the Hawks did seemed to make a difference.

The Hawks were going to lose to the Giants...

We were seated in the Hawk members area, and Leon was not enjoying himself.  There were a few Essendon fans seated in the crowd who were having a great time at our expense.  This infuriated Leon and he let fly with abuse after the game was over.

The joys of being a football fan...

That one day in September

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.

Through the pouring rains

I've witnessed something historic.  I've witnessed the first ever win by the GWS Giants over their local rivals the Sydney Swans.

Being involved in something that is the "first" is special.  It's something that can never be taken from you.  Things which are the biggest, the best, the greatest or the last.  Those things can change.  They are things that may not necessarily remain so forever.  That's the the case for firsts though.  There is no rewriting and there is no improvement.

The entire crowd gasped as one when the stadium was hit by lightening.

The rain became so heavy that what I could see in front of me gradually faded away.  First the buildings on the other side of the stadium disappeared behind the curtain of water.  Then even the other side of the stadium itself became a shadow. 

The siren rang for quarter time and the players pushed their way through the curtains of water into the change rooms.  This was a rarity as players normally stay on the ground at the end of the first and third quarters.  Sitting in the grandstand, we chatted as waited for the players to return for the start of the second quarter.  Nothing happened, we looked at our watches and started to wonder whether they would come back at all.  The rain was still heavy and the players were still nowhere to be seen.  Eventually the rain started to slacken the players emerged.  I've been watching this game for a long time and I can't remember the last time the restart of a game was delayed for so long.

The Giants wanted the ball.  They wanted the win.  The rain seemed to give them a strength to their legs missing from the Swans and they gradually overwhelmed them.  Their first win over the big brother happened on this rain soaked day.

Finals Fever

I never seem capable of expressing the extent of my love for AFL.

It elicits an emotional response from me that I never experience in anything else.  I think it's because it helps me to tap into my childhood feelings and memories more easily than anything else.  When I'm at game, I lose my usual calm and collected demeanor and I scream and curse with the angriest fans.  It's probably cathartic for me and it definitely helps me to relieve some stress.

Going to games that don't involve the Hawks are also usually better for me as it reduces my passion levels and lets me enjoy the spectacle of the game itself.

That is when there is actually a spectacle there to be enjoyed.

I went to the finals game between the Swans and the Blues.

It was possibly the worst finals game I have had the personal misfortune of attending.  The game was over after about 15 minutes as the Swans overwhelmed the Blues and the game died a slow death over the next two hours.

Thankfully, there was a group of Melbourne boys sitting in front of me.  They had flown up for the match to the support the Blues and the shift of the game against them led to a stream of abuse being hurled towards all the Swans fans in the area.  Most of the Swans fans laughed it all off as "banter", but the hatred in the eyes of the Melbourne boys spoke of this as being far more than a mere joke.

It made for excellent viewing.

Social Sports

I will always love Aussie rules football.  I know that.  It's too ingrained in who I am.  It is too much a part of my personality for me to give it away.

Sadly, I think my ability to play it seriously is finished.  My body can no longer handle the rigours of the game and I have had far too many injuries for me to be effective for any prolonged stretches.  My last season playing seriously, I found that my recovery times had made it near impossible for me to play week to week.  In the past, a bad hit would leave me sore, but I would usually be recovered by the Monday or Tuesday.  My body had changed though and now I found myself struggling even late into the week.

Happily, I found a replacement in AFL 9s.

 This was a non-contact social and gender mixed version of Aussie rules football.

With skills and speed being a premium in this game, it was suited to my strengths.  The lack of any major physical contact or tackling also meant I was able to give my shattered body the rest it finally needed.

It was sad that my Aussie rules days were behind me, but I was having fun with this new form of the game.  I had been fortunate to find this new substitute and I couldn't complain too much.

Feel the pain

This is an awful feeling.

It feels pretty similar to a break up or a pet dying.  I don't make this comparison lightly either.  There's definitely a combined feeling of pain and sorrow that I want to be rid of, but I know that I'm stuck with.

All because of a game as well.

My beloved Hawks have lost the Grand Final.

I didn't even watch it till the end.  Once the result was confirmed, I calmly turned off the television, placed the remote control on the table and then proceeded to throw an almighty temper tantrum.  It didn't really help to calm me down though.  I'm normally a calm person who is well in control of my emotions, so this kind of release is anything but satisfying.

To be so severely impacted by something as inconsequential as the result of a sporting match seems to be a character flaw, and yet this is something that has indeed become part of my character itself.  The Hawthorn football club has become a part of me since my childhood.  I have come to associate myself with its culture and I have come to love its story.  It is one of the few things besides my family that I have truly held dear and close to me for my entire life.  Through the travels and through the relocations, it was one of the few things that I was always able to take with me.  Even as a small child removed from my familiar surroundings, I was able to hold onto the club in my mind.  This club has remained my connection to my past and my connection to my first home in Melbourne.  I have cherished their successes and I have truly suffered through their losses, so much so that even colleagues at work have said to me that my mood is noticeably worse in weeks where the Hawks have lost!

Yet I wonder whether I would have remained as committed to this club had I remained in Melbourne.  I wonder if I would have held on as tightly to one of the last reminders of my Southern home had I not been forced to say goodbye to it all those years ago.

Undercover football

Visiting Melbourne is something I don't do anywhere near enough.  For me, going to Melbourne for work meant being able to get a fix Australian football that doesn't involve the Sydney Swans (something that is a rarity for me).

So after work on a cold winter's night, my friends and I from work all made our way on the tram down towards Etihad Stadium down at Melbourne's docklands.  It was still relatively early, so we went into a pub next to the stadium for a beer and a dinner of chicken parmigiana (I was trying to keep things nice and Victorian after all).

The atmosphere was good.  This was a standard Friday night in Melbourne, and the crowd was slowly gathering for the game. At the pub, supporters from both teams as well as the non-partisan like myself were laughing and talking.  I was surprised by the mix of the crowd.  There were the usual groups of men engaging in the light hearted banter, but there were also groups of women having dinner all decked out in their supporters' apparel, families, couples as well as people from all different ethnic groups.  It was a refreshing thing to see and once again reaffirmed my view that sport (at its best) can play a truly uniting role in a community.

As game time approached, we made our way with the crowds through the cold winds and into the stadium.  This was the first time I had ever been to Etihad Stadium, so I was looking forward to seeing what it was like for myself.  Aussie Rules fans love the MCG, but are generally ambivalent about Etihad.  One of the common criticisms of the stadium being that it lacked the atmosphere of its more illustrious older brother.

Personally I thought it was great.

I was watching Carlton play Geelong, so I had no vested interest in the match and I was able to sit in the perfect climate controlled stadium without feeling the least bit cold.

Looking around the stands, it was also perfectly clear to me that this stadium offered excellent views to the crowd no matter where they were seated.

The modern touch of this stadium is a far cry from my childhood spent shivering in the miserable wet and cold of Waverley.  It is more clinical and sterile than the football I remember, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  My memories are probably seen through rose coloured glasses as I don't seem to remember the painful trials involved in watching football such as trying to find your car after the game at Waverley.  Still, it was nice to be able to reconnect with some things that don't seem to change as one of my mates and I grabbed a bag of hot jam donuts to eat while we watched the game.  

Giants awaken

How often do you get to attend something truly historic?

How often is it that you are able to attend an event that you can say has never happened before?

You may think that this may occur when you have attended the "last" of something, but very often those things can change or revert.  My university days are a good example of that.  I thought I was done and dusted when I walked out of my final exams.  I celebrated, I partied and I even spent moments contemplating the time that had past.

This was a short lived "last" though, as within three years, I was back at a different university doing my masters.

Being at the FIRST time for an event, that is an entirely different situation.  Nothing can take that "first" away.  Once it's happened for the first time, it's locked in.  There can be no reverting and there can be no going back.

I was very excited to be at the very first AFL game for the Greater Western Sydney Giants!  A new franchise entering the AFL.

I was also fortunate that I was able to share this event with my good friends Philipp and Dana.  I had met them both through my LLM studies.  Having come all the way to Sydney from Switzerland, they were keen to get more of a taste of Australia.  Attending AFL games would be perfect for that.

So I had two firsts all set up.  The first ever GWS Giants game in the AFL and the first ever AFL game for my Swiss friends.

The day went off without a hitch (except for the crushing defeat of the Giants).

I had been part of something historic and I had been able to introduce my friends to something new, and incredibly, they loved it!

Hilarious....

At the end of every football season, it is traditional for there to be a black tie formal event called a "Presentation Night".

This evening brings the season to a close and provides an opportunity for all the players to celebrate the achievements of the year.

It also gives the club an opportunity to celebrate some of the other things that happen during the year....

This year, it was my turn to be one of the "other things".

I was still on a crutch at the time, and I found myself in a room full of footy players being presented with the award for the most physio used all season.....

.... basically I was given the award for being the most injured player of the season....

It's good to know the guys care.

Just one more game

Damn Hawks.

I've never quite known why the fortunes of the Hawks impacts my mood so much, but it does.

The Hawks had somehow managed to lose their finals game and so I was guaranteed a week with a foul mood.

I had to console myself with attending the game between the Sydney Swans and the Carlton Blues instead.

The Hawks may have been knocked out, but there were plenty of teams I hated who I could cheer against. The Blues would be a good team to start cheering against.

One enormous downside was that I would need to go to ANZ Stadium out at Homebush.

I hate this stadium.

It's cold and unfeeling. There's a disconnect between the seats and the action on the field.

My boss refuses to even go to it.

And that's before you even start thinking about the annoying trip required to reach it.

However, that wasn't going to stop me enjoying the game.

And what a game it was! A tight and close encounter that lasted until the very last moment of the game. The Blues lost, which was fantastic. The Hawks may be out of the finals, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of teams for me to barrack against.
I love being at the footy.

There isn't anything that compares to the roar of the crowd at an AFL game. The Sydney supporters were out in force for once and provided one of the few occassions where the atmosphere at an AFL game in Sydney was actually a positive.

But, for every winner, there must be a loser.

Watching the Blues drop their heads into their hands, I almost felt sorry for them.

.... until I remembered who they were, at which point I burst into hysterical laughter.

Classy seats

I went to a Aussie Rules football match a few weeks ago.

My beloved Hawthorn Hawks were playing up in Sydney, so as a Hawks member, I was able to get my fix of football for the year.

Sadly the result didn't go as I had hoped.

So I won't be discussing it.

In fact, as far as I'm concerned, the result never happened (and I didn't spend the end of the game screaming abuse the players as the ran off the field).

A few days ago, I was given the opportunity to watch a game minus the personal interests affecting my mental state and judgement.

The added incentive was that I was being offered SCG members' tickets.

The seats were fantastic, with the added bonus of a conveniently placed bar that served a far wider range of beers than in the general admission areas.

They also had a lovely selection of cakes.

I found myself in a strange situation I had never been in before.

Sitting at the football, drinking beer that wasn't awful and eating a slice of cake.

It seemed a world away from my usual cup of tea, meat pie and obstructed view.

The game was also significant because it was the last time that the Swans captain, Brett Kirk, would ever play at the SCG as he was headed towards retirement.
It was a fantastic way to watch a game.

From outside, we always used to yell at the Members... but it's hard not to be happy once your in the comfortable confines this section.

Trumper Park

I love aussie rules.

I really do. Great game to watch and a great game to play. It's the game of my childhood. I grew up with this game. Many of my childhood memories involve being taken to school on a wet weekend morning to play games or going to watch my team play at Waverly Park in Melbourne.

I finally decided to be less lazy this year and to start playing again. So, I found myself a nice club and joined up.
The home ground of the club turned out to be the amazingly picturesque Trumper Park in Paddington, Sydney.

It really isn't a bad place to run out for a game at all. In fact, I would say it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen to run out for a game of aussie rules.

The old pavillion looks out onto the nice picket fences and the hill. Off to the side the ground is surrounded by rows of the old terrace houses that this part of Sydney is famous for.

I love going to the game

God it's fun going out to watch a game!

Sam and I took the drive up to Sydney to get in a game between the Hawks and the Swans, hoping for a nice day out.

With a beer and a pie to go with a beautifully sunny day, what more could we want?

I'm a Hawk fan, ever since I was five years old. It was good to see Croady run out for this 200th game!!!!
Sam.... unfortunately he's a Swans fan...... still, he seems happy enough.
The game was going badly for the Hawks.... very badly....

I was pretty sure of this when I found that I was getting more entertainment from laughing at what must be the GREATEST MUSTACHE EVER!!!!!!
.... the Hawks were thumped.....
... it doesn't matter... it was still a nice day out.