Old Grudges

Sunday, 8 April 2012

I am torn.  On the one hand I really hate North Melbourne. I always have,  well, at least since Wayne Carey's first run-in with the police which I just read on Wikepedia was in 1996.  

On the other hand, we are AFL starved here in Hobart.  The two hour trek up to Launceston is a bit hard to justify for Hawthorn (although I do have a soft spot for them as I supported them when I lived in Melbourne).  

Anyway, for the first time since 1991 (when apparently Fitzroy played a couple at North Hobart) we Hobart people get two actual AFL games a year for the next 3 years.  And the team that has elected to make Bellerive Oval their home for those two games is of course the dreaded North Melbourne. Bugger.

When I heard that the opposition for this year's two games would be GWS and West Coast I was even more disappointed.  One is a  brand new 2nd rate team, and the other one I'm pretty indifferent about.  Still, live AFL is live AFL and although I'd been pretty much ignoring the whole event until a few days ago, the good weather forecast, the fact we had no other plans,  and the eagerness of Zali and Jett to see an actual game pushed us over the edge.

So I got on-line last night and bought 4 reserved seat tickets for $85 all up.  I assumed they would be fairly crap but of course in a stadium that only seats 15000 people, there are no crap seats.  In fact the seats were fantastic. Getting to and from the game was also pretty easy - it took 45 minutes from our drive-way to bums-on-seats and if we'd wanted to we could have even got a free bus from Kingston to and from the game - but I wasn't sure how long the kids were going to last for so we gave ourselves the option of an early getaway (as it turned out they really enjoyed it and insisted we stay until the end of the game).

And the game? Well, it was ok.  It's a shame it wasn't more competitive - as predicted GWS just weren't in the same class and it was a very one-sided affair ending at 170 to 50 or something like that. 

So now I'm finding myself feeling guilty about thinking a bit more fondly of North Melbourne.  They bothered coming to Hobart and so we got to watch some AFL.  Jon has also told me that they eschew any sponsorship from gambling companies which I think is pretty good too.  And Wayne Carey doesn't play for them any more.   I'm not sure they get to be my forth favourite team (After the Swans, Jon's Port Adelaide, Hawthorn) but I can honestly say that I don't hate them as much as I used to.   

You can see Jon there wearing his Port Power cap. In fact we were surrounded by people wearing gear supporting other teams. I guess like us, they came out for the game itself, not for the teams that were playing.