Football Capital = Melbourne

It has been a good year for Victorian football teams this year. In the rugby league this year the Melbourne Storm won, beating the Manly Sea Eagles. I was on my way to watch it, yet the heavens opened and I didn’t feel like going to walk through the rain. I took the rain as a good omen, and thought the storm would win, not only because they were the best NRL team throughout the year. The Melbourne Victory (soccer) also won this week after 6 games, yet they are undefeated.

Yet more importantly for Victorians was the AFL grand final. In Melbourne, I have found if you know nothing about this game then there is nothing to talk about. I think it is crazy. I have been keeping tabs on the results so I don’t look like a complete fool when the topic comes up, except when asked to rattle off 5 players from a team. Well the grand final was between Geelong (Victorian) and Port Adelaide (South Australian). There is rivalry between these states like that between Queensland and New South Wales. All week there was nothing else happening in the world, and in Melbourne it was important that Geelong wins, since a Victorian team has not won for over 5 years.

How crazy people get for the AFL

I noticed how everyone thought Geelong would win, yet I was thinking that this might not be the case. Port looked good all season and beat them a few weeks before the finals. I wanted Geelong to be victorious only because it was the lesser of the two evils, since Geelong is not really Melbourne.

I went to watch the game at my Dad’s house in Rosedale, and it was easy to watch as that was all that was on TV. As the game started Geelong looked good, and stayed good throughout the game. By half time you wondered if Port even showed up. I was relishing in their defeat, as Port has to be the team I hate most, or equal with Adelaide.

According to trivia, the final score was quite symbolic – 24 goals (6 points each) and 19 points for a total of 163 versus 6 goals, 8 points totalling 44. 163 is linked to the year Geelong last won the premiership in 1963, Port’s score of 44 years is the length of the wait for the premiership, and 24 and 19 are jumper numbers of the players on the roster who missed out on a flag this year.

Lastly, I found it interesting that now that the football season is over people will have to fill the void somehow, so some physiologists think that office chat will turn nasty. Great! Let the gossip begin.