*fulfils exercise 14
Last Saturday I went to my first ever Australian sporting event, and no it wasn’t rugby. I’m talking about Australian Rules Football (or footy). It was the perfect weather for a sporting event. After a streak of fifty degree weather, whipping wind, and random rainstorms the sun had finally made its return and there was only a slight breeze to interfere with the beautiful seventy-two degree day.
The Carlton Blues were playing the Adelaide Crows. Being Americans we didn’t know who to support. We’d never seen an Australian Football League (AFL) match before. We weren’t familiar with the teams. How should we decide? Answer: Always support your professor’s team on class trips to the footy (hey, it couldn’t hurt). Rob (I’m still getting used to calling professors by their first names) had said he supported Carlton so we decked ourselves in blue and hopped on the train to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
When we arrived at the MCG we made our way through the crowed and stood in line brimming with excitement. Unlike other trips we’d been on, we wouldn’t be surrounded by tourists here. This would be a taste of the “real” Australia (as I’d imagine as baseball game would be for tourists in America). Our shoes clicked up the stairs, sticking to the beer stained ground as we made our way to our seats high above the stadium and we shuffled sideways one by one down the first row of the section that enough seats for the six of us: Bianca, Katie, Hailey, Rebecca, Cassidy and I. Even from our seats near the top we could smell the telltale aromas of french fries and pizza wafting through the air.
Rob had explained the basics of scoring to us on the walk from the train station where’d we met him but looking at the score board we were confused. We knew that goals between the two larger uprights were six points and if it went between a large upright and a small upright it was one point but what did all the numbers on the board mean? Without Rob, sitting nearby we had no idea how to read the score board. Luckily, a group of Carlton fans sitting in front of us heard our hushed debate and took pity on us, explaining that the first number was the six point goals, followed by the one point goals, and finally the team’s current score.
Once we had a basic (very, very, basic) understanding of what was going on again, it was fun to watch the game unfold before our eyes. It was unlike any sport I’d ever seen (in person or on television). First of all, the field is a circle. I’d seen rectangles before, even diamonds but never a circle. Second, the players have designated positions but can pretty much do whatever they want (a theory Rob confirmed for us). At any given time all of the players on the field would be clustered in one general area of the circle, and not because play had stopped. Play doesn’t stop even when a player appears to be injured and the others seem not to notice, dashing around the injured player in pursuit of the ever-moving ball.
With thirty players on the field at a time not to mention umpires and runners (people who bring the players instructions from the coaches) it can be hard to keep track of what’s going on and which team has the ball, especially if you’re as unfamiliar with footy as we are. The ball can be kicked or thrown (though it has to be kicked in order to score a goal). We watched the fast-paced game in shock barely able to follow the ball with our eyes as it spun and spiralled and whizzed this way then that with no discernible pattern to its movements.
As far we can tell Australian Rules Football has no close relatives in any sport (with the possible exception of rugby) but rather has elements from pretty much every sport known to man. My understanding of the game was far from perfect but the crowd around me certainly understood the game and that added to the excitement in the air around me. From the beginning Carlton (the home team) had the upper hand and liking the game better than some of the American sports I could mention, we whooped and cheered Carlton to a 115-83 victory (a surprisingly high score for someone used to American sports).
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