I fell in love on grand final day but not with football
The AFL grand final holds a special place in my life. Of course for plenty of us it’s a steady marker, like Christmases, or – for political tragics like me – elections. You can usually remember who you were with and how it panned out.
For me, the grand final holds more significance than that. It wasn’t the first one I saw that stands out.
The 2001 grand final turned out to be far more successful for me than for the Bombers, who were defeated by Michael Voss’ Lions.Credit: Pat Scala
That was spent watching a giant screen at Crown as Essendon demolished Melbourne. I was stunned Michael Long wouldn’t be yellow-carded for ploughing through Troy Simmonds. In my defence, I’d only arrived from New Zealand a few months earlier, so was still getting my head around things.
The next year on grand final day, a colleague offered a free ticket to the Royal Melbourne Show.
We tooled around the showgrounds, watched New Zealand take on Australia in the woodchop, took a few rides and enjoyed a couple of beers with the game on in the background.
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It turned out that this free ticket from my colleague was actually a date. That date was far more successful than the Bombers’ attempt to defend their title against the Lions – it led to my marriage.
So while I didn’t fall in love with footy that day, I did fall in love.
Before the marriage, there was a proposal. It happened in Thailand and involved – in order – a squabble, the proposal, an acceptance, a lost wallet containing our passports, plenty of celebratory drinking and the recovery of said sand-coloured wallet from a darkened beach (I had put it down while making the one-kneed inquiry).
“You don’t really care about football, do you love?” my then-fiancée asked the next day.
“No, not really,” I replied.
“Well, it would mean a lot to the old man if you’d go for Essendon.”
“Sure.”
I mean, why not, right? Back then, in 2004, they were riding high. And supporting the Bombers would provide common ground with a man so enamoured of the Windy Hill boys he had refused to push my wife on the swing as a child until she sang the club song.
Through the years I’ve grown to love football – much to my sports-averse wife’s chagrin. Remember, she put her hand up for show tickets on a day the Bombers were in a grand final.
I’m a true Bombers fan too, now, boosted by my son and father-in-law’s enthusiasm.
I was lucky enough to be at the game when West Coast downed Collingwood in 2018. Credit: Justin McManus
I can seem to easily recall what I was up to on grand final days since. I watched leaping Leo Barry at a friend’s house in Richmond, the St Kilda and Collingwood draw at our neighbour’s place, and the Bulldogs’ drought-ending upset at home by myself with little children.
The first one I got to see live was Richmond’s drought-ending win over the Adelaide Crows in 2017, and the following year I was lucky enough to be there with my Magpies-adoring aunt-in-law (is that a thing?) when West Coast downed Collingwood.
Last year, I was at a pub in Yamba in NSW on a road trip with my father and son. It was full of Victorians, and at the end delirious Collingwood fans were being asked to clamber down from the tables.
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Everyone has their own grand final stories, where they were, who they were with. It’s a unique time of year when we come together. Wherever you are, the game is likely on.
Some will watch every minute, others drift swiftly to the deck or the kitchen, attracted back only by commotion or the gathering tension of a tight finish. My girls will be interested only in the half-time entertainment.
At The Age, we know we are a part of marking this occasion. Our writers, photographers, designers and headline writers have the opportunity to define moments in a way that will carry through years.
This match will be no different. We’ll have live coverage online from early Saturday morning right through the game and into the night. Then we’ll be back at it again early on Sunday, so keep coming back to our homepage for fresh updates.
The newspaper team has been planning special wraps for weeks and will once again produce pages that inevitably become collector’s items, especially for winning fans.
The names you want to read will be writing from the ground, including Jake Niall, Greg Baum, Michael Gleeson, Peter Ryan, Andrew Wu, Marnie Vinall, Jon Pierik and Libby Birch, and our gun photographers Eddie Jim, Joe Armao and Justin McManus will bring you all the action in pictures.
At 170 years old, The Age has been around much longer than the AFL and its grand final. I asked Michelle Stillman in our library to dig out our original match report from what is widely considered the first grand final in 1898.
It features some marvellous touches, including plenty of words on the controversial decision to hold the match at the St Kilda Cricket Ground and a disapproving swipe at the proximity of an asphalt cycling track too close to the field of play.
Our correspondent noted the occasion produced a jittery opening: “Each team was distinctly affected by a keen realisation of the importance of the issue, the result being a first half more distinguished by force than science.”
Many games since could be described in the same way.
As many of you will know (but it still gave me a smile at how history echoes in our lives sometimes), the Lions – then of Fitzroy – beat Essendon that day too.
Hopefully, some hearts were filled then as well as broken – that’s how it is on grand final day. It’s why we remember it.
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