Crows vs Eagles

Two Sundays ago I, for the first time in (I think) 17 years, I went to a game of AFL – and, as the title would suggest, it was the Adelaide Crows versus the West Coast Eagles. I went with Rochelle, my girlfriend (who's somewhat of a Crows fan), and two of her friends who are Eagles fans.

I'm mostly uninterested in football¹. There was a time when I paid attention to it, but that was a while ago and now I'm barely aware of who's playing well and who's not, other than what I might hear mentioned as I wander the corridors of the office. And, given that few of my co-workers (that I've noticed at least) are super-keen, that's not very much.

Why, then, did I go? Well, I like doing something different, and I knew that Rochelle wanted to go, both to see a game and spend some time with her friends. I also hadn't been to the Adelaide Oval since it'd been redeveloped², so there was that as well.

The timing could have been better – I'd been out quite late the night before at the cast party for The Lion in Winter and hadn't had anywhere near as much sleep as I'd have preferred. But I didn't feel too bad, and I was fairly sure I wouldn't feel asleep at the game.

So, we trekked into the city, parked - this went a lot more smoothly than I'd expected - and walked down to the oval with the many thousands of people heading in the same direction. After climbing stairs, riding an escalator, climbing more stairs, walking around a while and then climbing even more stairs (this really isn't much of an exaggeration; we were in the second row from the top in the southern section - that's pretty high up), we sat down.

Here's a picture I took at quarter time:

Despite the fact we were so high up, I could still see pretty much everything. Well, everything that happened down at our end at least. And, given that we were at the southern end of the ground, we saw a great deal because that was the end to which Adelaide were kicking - and the Crows kicked eight unanswered goals during that period.

It slowed down a bit after that, but Adelaide dominated the match and ended up winning 126 to 69. Not so great for the West Coast fans, but it certainly made the (apparently record) crowd happy – and seriously loud when the final siren went.

So, while I'm probably never going to be a convert to the religion of the four sticks, I did have a good time. And though it's probably not something I'd do every weekend, I'll definitely consider going again before too long.

¹Really, the only sport I pay much attention to is cricket and, to a lesser extent, tennis.
²Technically I had; my work Christmas function was held there last year and we could look out onto the grass during the pre-dinner drinks section – but it's not the same as being in the stands to see something.