Aussie Rules football and MCG

The Melbourne Cricket Ground. Behold its awesomeness!

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "I demand Melbourne retroactive post day 2!"

This is basically it. I went to an Aussie Rules match for Day 2. So, we're all happy.

Australian Rules Football is an outstanding combination of being one of the strangest sporting events I've been to and one of the most exciting. Here's what you need to know rules wise in order to follow an AFL match.

1. The field is an oval. Not a rectangle. Hooray for cricket influences.

2. No offsides. Whee! Players can go wherever they want.

3. You can run the ball, but must bounce it on the ground every 10 meters. Or you can sort of punch it to one of your teammates. Even better, kick it to them. If they catch it cleanly, its called a mark, and they can get a free kick.

4. Don't get tackled. If you get tackled, the umpire does a bounce.

5. Kick goals, not behinds.


Here we see a picture of an AFL goal. The two tall posts in the middle are what players are aiming for. Kick it in between those and you score six points ( a goal). If you kick it between one of the large posts and one of the outer small ones...its a behind. You missed, you suck, but you earned a point.

Kicking behinds are referred to as misses. So, please, kick goals.

Now that you're caught up on the rules of the AFL, its time to discuss the MCG.

My cricket knowlege is...how do we put this...not great. My AFL knowlege, probably less. But still, when I came upon the Melbourne Cricket Ground, you can feel the history of the building. Its just one of those places that just has that majestic feel to it. I've only experienced this at one other stadium, that being Notre Dame Stadium. You may not be totally aware of the history of the place, but you know that , sporting wise anyway, its an important history.

Then you see the statues.



Sir Donald Bradman...knighted for his cricketeting abilities.

All around MCG are statues of cricketers, footballers, and a sprinter. All depicting the greatness of Australian athletes. One of my favourites was the statue of an original Austrain Rules game.



Note the headgear and clothing. Slightly different from what the boys wear today.

MCG was also the main stadium for Melbourne's 1954 Olympics. Lest you forget, here's a giant plaque commemorating the event.



It has all the gold medal winners from that Olympiad. Something I probably would have paid more attention to had it not been for the fans.

AFL fans are crazy passionate. The paint faces, wear costumes, are loud, and make walking around the outside of the ground a fun experience. I didn't take pics of the fans (don't ask why...I just didn't think to) but here's something interesting. At least to me.

In the AFL, there are 9 clubs based out of Melbourne. They are the St. Kilda Saints, Western Bulldogs, Collingwood Magpies, Hawthorn Hawks, Richmond Tigers, North Melbourne Kangaroos, Melbourne Demons, Carlton Blues, and the ESSENDON BOMBERS.

The match I attended was Carlton vs. Essendon in what the AFL termed the Rivalry Round. So, a good crowd was expected with both sides having pleanty of supporters. And what better way to support your club then to become a member?

Choose wisely.

Divided only by a path, are booths set up to become a member to Carlton or Essendon. A member, from what I gather, is kind of like getting season tickets in some ways, but in others its supporting the club. When I purchased my ticket for the match at Collingwood headquarters (considering that rivalry, it got a strange look, but thats where the Ticketech office was) I took a look at the Members options, but was still a bit confused by it. At any rate, becoming a member supports the club financially, and you get a hat out of the deal. I chose to pass.

As you can tell from what I linked, I'm an Essendon Supporter. This is due mostly to one of the main guys at the International Office being a Bombers fan, and so I followed suit. Doing research on Wikipedia I found that they're one of the most successful clubs in the AFL, having captured 16 Premierships (tied for most with Carlton). As a result, other fans refer to them as the 'Evil Empire' (well, I read that in the game day program, anyways) a term reserved for a baseball team I don't care for all that much. In addition, they're affiliated with Manchester United. So, how can I remain an Essendon supporter? Doesn't this have bandwagoner and evil written all over it?

Possibly, but considering they finished 15th last season, bandwagon is low. Plus, Steve Irwin was a fan. Got to do it for Steve. Also, everything I read about coach Kevin Sheedy has been awesome.

Sheedy is outspoken and quite the character. My favourite tidbit about him is he'll refer to "Martians" costing his side the game. The Martians are the officials, and he avoids fines. Brilliant.

Anyway...back to the game. Pie and chips in hand, I enter the MCG, and marvel at how big it is inside.



Not sure if that does it justice. It seats 100,000 people. There were about 65,000 in attendence for the game.

The atmosphere at the game is great. The crowd is into it the entire time and overall, there's kind of a college atmosphere to the game. Remember in high school when the football team ran through a paper banner on homecoming? That happens at AFL games!




OK, the players more or less run out from underneath it, but its still cool.

After the teams run out...its time for the bounce.



To start the game, the umpire bounces the ball off the ground, and then it kind of works like a tip off in basketball. By the way, the ball is that red thing thats level with the second tier in the stands. They get good height off of this thing.



An AFL goal judge signifies a goal by Essendon. This was a common site in the first quarter. Which resulted in seeing this...alot.



Club supporters use these gigantic poppoms to celebrate goals. The size of these things is scary. Now that you're frightened, here's possibly the funniest part of an AFL match.



When the ball goes out of bounds, the umpire faces the crowd and then flings the ball over his head. The two clubs then battle for possession. To see this is simply amazing. Of course, can you think of a better way to determine possession? Its more fair then a rugby union line out, and where's the fun of just giving it to one team. More power to you, Aussie Rules.

At this point, I'm greatly enjoying the match. I somehow got front row seats for thirty bucks (did I mention that? That was sweet, though next time I want to be higher up so that I can figure out whats going on) my team was up by 48 points, and I was going to finally see a club I chose to support win the first time I saw them play in person.

Wrong.

Carlton staged the largest comeback in their history and Essendon lost. Though considering the final score was 125-122, I can't say that I wasn't entertained. That was possibly the most fun I've had at a sporting event, and if its not at the top, its up there. Throw in the fact that the crowd was literally a fifty-fifty split between Carlton and Essendon fans, and the crowd was into it the whole game, and loud the entire fourth quarter (quarters are a half hour long, by the way.) it was an outstanding experience.

Anyway, as you can imagine, Carlton supporters were quite happy. I'll be a good sport and put up the pic, because its kind of cool.



The flags are really cool, and I wish we had this in America. At NRL and AFL matches, fans bring club flags to the game. Trust me, when a sea of flags comes up after a try or goal, its really cool, and I'd have to imagine a tad intimidating.

Day three pics coming later...possibly tonight after touch footy. Sorry for the abrupt end to the post, but it was long enough.

See the Bombers fly up,

Alan