The things we do for our children. My husband, who has never watched an entire AFL match in his life (see “This Non-Sporting Life“), tried to sit down with his son to watch the Grand Final. When the siren blew after the first half hour, he was excited. “We’re halfway there!”, he exclaimed, pouring himself another fortifying beer. I pointed out that it was only the first quarter and I think, if the television wasn’t up so loud, I would have actually been able to hear his spirit officially break.
If it weren’t for my uncharitable remarks during the ad for Erectile Dysfunction (“Those ad sellers certainly know their audience!”), he might have gone on to lay slumped in a drunken stupor for the remainder of the game. Instead, he slunk off at the first opportunity with his tankard of beer to get the BBQ ready, where he conveniently busied himself for the rest of the afternoon (“Sorry, son. These sausages aren’t going to cook themselves…”).
Soon thereafter, when I wandered off to get the salads ready, Mr Justice complained. I promptly gave him a bowl of Smith’s finest to keep that complainin’ mouth busy – but knew, in my heart of hearts, that I couldn’t just stuff him with junk food for the next few hours. He’d fill up at one point or another.
Luckily our fellow non-AFL abiding friends turned up shortly afterwards to help us ignore the football. Touchingly, KC (not affilliated with the Sunshine Band) had tried to get into the spirit of things by making Hawthorn-themed cupcakes. This put Mr Justice’s nose a little out of joint – after all, he’d declared the house a Geelong zone by putting up his own home-made “Go Cats!” sign on the front door. KC tried to explain that yellow and brown were the only colours she’d had in the house, but the damage had been done. The adults were banished outside to chat amongst themselves, while Mr Justice stayed in to barrack for his precious team alone.
And so the afternoon progressed pleasantly, with much food, wine and conversation. Mr Justice ran out periodically giving us enthusiastic updates such as “Geelong is catching up!”, “Hawthorns [sic] are getting lots of points!”, “I’ve made a poem: ‘They’re strong! They are Geelong!’” and, almost ecstatically, “One of the Hawks has been injured!!!”.
Out of maternal love, I went in to watch the final four minutes with him – even if it was just to see how many ads Channel Seven could shoehorn into the breaks between play (The answer? An unsurprisingly large amount). As that final siren blew and I turned to Mr Justice to commiserate, I saw tears welling up in his eyes. Gee, he’s really feeling Geelong’s defeat deeply, I thought to myself. But, as it turned out, it was only because Tiddles McGee had just bopped him a good one on the head with a hard plastic light saber and, after a quick recovery, he was off to play on the computer.
Our BBQ continued without any of the adults really making any reference to the result. KC and my husband talked world politics and the global economy (la-di-dah!) and MM and I went back to chatting aboutthe wonderful world of blogging. Only Uncle B went and kicked the rubber footy around with the little kids for a bit. After all, as the only Victorian-born adult amongst us, his indifference to AFL must make him a little like a lapsed Catholic and so he had to pay some form of penance. In any case, I think we all enjoyed our virtually football-free Grand Final BBQ immensely.
As for Mr Justice… As I put him to bed that night, he asked with wide eyes: “Mummy, which team do you think tried the hardest?”. It was definitely Geelong, darling. “Good”, he said, satisfied. “I think I’ll go for Geelong again next year.” They’re strong, they are Geelong, indeed.
I feel obliged to offer the following information in my defense:
1) Up until Friday I had no idea there was a grand final being played;
2) The arrangements to ‘come on over’ for the BBQ were not made until the morning of the day itself and I was not advised by the NDM that Mr Justice had a particular football team preference (“Go local sporting team!”) prior to the event;
3) The NDM and family live nowhere near Geelong; and
4) Have you ever tried making NAVY BLUE icing as opposed to yellow icing dusted with chocolate?
The defense rests….
And of course, Mr Justice had been a staunch Bulldogs supporter up until Friday when he realised they weren’t in the finals.
Still, the deed has been done now KC.
And we know – we know! – that by your choice of icing colours you determined the result of the match. At least, that’s my theory and I’m willing to test it again next year, if you are.
A word of warning, Not Drowning Mother, don’t say around here that the Bulldogs weren’t “in the finals”. They were, and they made it to the final four. They didn’t make the Grand Final, and hence weren’t “in the final”. You may think me pedantic, but the presence of that “s” might incite a group of angry pitchfork waving locals.
Think yourself lucky, I am not only a AFL follower but a Hawks fan (that’ not why you shold think yourself lucky, that was just a point of reference )and we watched the game in the “good room” at a friends…..but there was a very large notice that advised a NO TALKING DURING THE GAME policy! I had to argue that “theoretically” we should be allowed to talk football and the ensuing game in particular, and thankfully the sign was ammended!
I had a Cats supporter tell me they should have won, and would have, had they kicked goals not points (no his name was not Cletus).
Didn’t seem too happy with my response………. “but they didn’t”
There was a football match on?
Meanwhile, here in London I only knew that the Grand Final was on because I heard a bunch of Australians in a bus near Hampstead talking about it the weekend before last. For the first few years I was away from Melbourne I was mildly scandalised that it wasn’t quite the major international sporting event I’d been led to believe by the over-enthusiastic Channel Seven commentary team.
They don’t seem to be playing their annual end-of-season fixture at the Oval this year, either. Perhaps that’s just as well. I’ve only been dating my (English) girlfriend for two months now and I’m not sure she’s yet ready to experience ten thousand drunken Australian expatriates bellowing “baaaaaaaaall” for no apparent reason in the direction of a 40-man melee.