Footy Madness

The Grand Final is this week and Melbourne has gone footy mad. Australian Rules Football is the sport of Victoria and Melbourne is THE city for all footy excitement. It seems like everywhere you turn there's stuff going on about the footy. One day last week, The Age's front page headlining article was about the St. Kilda Saints having beach practice with all the Saints coming up from the water showing off their footy muscles. This is the front page Melbourne's major paper. Most of the other day's front pages have had some footy article as well.

There's endless talk among my roommates about who will win and how the game will go. I'm for St. Kilda, Rob my roommate's team, as they haven't "won the flag" as they say since 1966. The Geelong Cats will be tough competition though partly because they are just bloody good, and partly because they've won or been in the premiership the last three years. Their experience will come through I'm sure. But it's the Saint's time. 1966? This is the kind of sports matchup that makes Australians, just like Americans, sports fanatics.

Last week the St. Kilda Saints and the Geelong Cats beat out the Western Bulldogs and Collingwood Magpies, repectively, to come head to head for the premiership game. The Grand Final is held here in Melbourne every year at the Melbourne Cricket Ground which holds nearly 100,000 fans. In the past, they've had over 100,000 people attend the game. Rain is forecasted, but that won't slow down the fans, I'm sure of it. This week the Brownlow award was given out to a Geelong Cat adding pressure to the Cats for a victory this Saturday. The Brownlow is the approximate equivalent of the Heisman trophy for footy. The ceremony was broadcast on TV and branded like the Academy awards. The event was a great way to recap the entire footy season as they read off votes for best man of the match by the umpires for each game played. Reading off votes is painstakingly boring at times and really not good television, but you catch the highlights of each week for the footy season which began back in March.

Unfortunately for me, I'll be missing the game. I probably couldn't get tickets anyway seeing as you must be a club member to get them and the waiting list to become a member of the MCG is decades - people sign up their unborn children for membership. Plus I don't know any members who are going who can score tickets. Instead, I'll be visiting Sydney over my break from classes. My spring break is this week so it's time to leave droll Melbourne and surf some waves in New South Wales. Maybe I'll hit up Bondi beach again and check out the surrounding countryside of Sydney. I do hope the Saints win, though. They deserve it.

Go the Saints!