So, I went to the football yesterday. Optus fricking Oval of all places, and what a complete and unmitigated slum it is. Interstate readers will probably not understand just how shonky and evil this facility is because on the off chance that they actually come over to watch a game there the crowd will always be at manageable and comfortable levels. When you put two Melbourne teams together, even one with no fans like ours, the place becomes a nightmare. I showed up at 1.30 (yeah, arrive early be damned - I only woke up at 12:30 ok?) to find all the general admission tickets were sold and I had to pay through the nose for a seat in the "Legends" stand. As much as the idea of helping to pay off John Elliot's folly of a construction deal distressed me greatly I couldn't stand to miss Melbourne so I forked over $25 (thanks student concession card. Muhahahahaha!) and took my seat.
Now, I thought I had it bad getting in there five minutes before the first bounce and having to sit amongst a bunch of idiot Carlton fans but when people were still coming in and taking their seats 29 minutes into the first quarter it made me feel a whole lot better about my situation. The place was absolutely packed. It reminded me of the time at work when we were doing some point duty shit at Optus before a match and the supervisor went "They're expecting a big crowd today, something in excess of 45,000" and I said "Well, that'll be impressive considering it only fits 30,000". Much hilarity ensued, but as I packed in with every man and his/her dog yesterday I wondered whether or not they actually had found a way to shoehorn 40,000 people in.
So how many people were actually in this crush load, near capacity, hand over all your valuables and mortgage your kidney for the right to have a seat audience? 25,000. People laugh when we get that crowd at the MCG, but here it was like being herded into a prison train and transported halfway across Europe. May we never set foot in that stadium again.
There was, however, one shining light to our days experience. After racking up a 27 point lead at 3/4 time Carlton shut up shop and we stormed home to win by seven. It was very much reminiscent of that final in 2000 when they did the same thing before Brad Green went ballistic in the last quarter and we won. He kicked the winning goal again yesterday, Carlton fans must be having nightmares about him. Neitz kicked five goals, four points, one out on the full and one inexplicable pass to the worst kick in the team Simon Godfrey (who is still a genius). The old man Mick Martyn was completely overwhelmed, and bizarrely enough Pagan didn't take him off the goalkicking machine until the fourth quarter avalanche was well and truly in action.
Two in a row. Are we bound for the finals? Not in the slighest. Could this be saving Daniher's job? Possibly, though I'm still convinced we'll benefit from a new coach at the end of the year. Who cares for now? We'll show up and play North Melbourne next Sunday and, depending on whether we play like the 1st, 2nd and 3rd or the 4th quarter yesterday, we'll see just what our season holds.
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