You’ve got to love footy in suburbia.
By Matt Webber - Exclusively for GoldCoastFC.com.au
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It’s the smell more than anything. The liniment as you walk past the players’ race. The stud-chewed dirt. The devilish waft of a lukewarm Four’n’Twenty. And no closed rooves or air-conditioned corporate boxes here. Just open air standing room, the odd temporary sponsor’s tent and the feeling of real weather on your skin.
The umpires take the field first and zig zag a jog-sprint warm up ritual. The Hawks hit the paddock to a rousing yell. Franklin, Roughead and Hodge run out together. Brown leads Lions. Black looks fit. Merrett looks big.
3.30pm on a Friday afternoon. Kids are on the school bus or stuck in traffic with their parents. And the worker bees still have an hour and a half to go. So it’s no real surprise that the crowd’s a bit of a trickler early. Still, the pre-match mood is buoyant and the banter runs thick between the early arrivals. Hawks jumpers have the numbers over the Lions two to one in the outer.
Big Fev lines up a practice shot on goal. He anticipates the left to right swing on the wind and splits the sticks. The apparent irony of his superb judgement doesn’t go unnoticed.
A lonesome Crow stands outside the entrance gate. An Eagle wanders by. Inside there’s a bunch of Saints, a squadron of Bombers, a few Magpies, and more than a significant handful of Doggies. You can’t help but wonder how many might jump ship when the Gold Coast runs out in the big show next year. Even if they don’t, all these people will still be there. Nothing surer.
Brent Staker kicks beautifully for the Lions’ first. The Hawks hit back quickly with a scrambled effort that reeks of good fortune more than good management and then Franklin fluffs a dolly walking into an open goal. The crowd lets him have it.
The wind’s playing havoc on the field and off. Down there kicks are missing targets by days. Up here there’s loose paper flying and the bloke whose job it is the film the action for the Umpires Association is having a hell of a time keeping his cameras steady.
Quarter time and it’s the Lions 2.1 to the Hawks 1.1. Coach Clarko doesn’t look too troubled by it all. In fact, the Hawks look pretty loose generally. Lions on the other hand are locked in tight as Voss lays down the law. He’s a threepeat Lion. Losing even a trial game just won’t do.
Behind the southern goal posts kids are kicking wobbly floaters to each other over the heads of the other spectators. No one cares when a kick gets sprayed. Everyone’s happy enough to return the ball so they can sneak in a drop punt or a handball of their own.
Just on half time Hawks’ midfielder Jordan Lewis tumbles through an absolute fluke from 40 metres out. Hawks are somehow up by three. Roughead comes off injured. Maybe an ankle? He looks sore. The game lulls into a defensive, flood-addled slog. The siren sounds.
A bunch of little Cats lining up against an equally small team of Saints in a half-time NAB AFL Auskick grand final re-enactment. Who’ll they all be watching next year? Will they long to be Brandon Matera or David Swallow or Charlie Dixon or Marc Lock? Will it be an imported player looking for a new start, or a marquis signing setting Carrara alight with his best season yet? And the thing is this isn’t pipe-dreaming. This will happen. A year from now it’ll be the Gold Coast’s own team using a preseason to fine tune its game plan. It’ll be Shaun Hart or Ken Hinkley having a trial run as senior coach. It’ll be Guy McKenna rationalising the importance or not of March form. It’ll be Gold Coast jumpers in the crowd, red and yellow everywhere.
Local boy Dan Merrett catches an invisible elevator up Franklin’s back and pulls down a screamer. The crowd lets out its first legitimate roar for the afternoon. The siren halts things pretty much there. Three quarter time and it’s the Lions in control.
‘Who’s your best for Brissie?’ asks one journo of another. Random names are spat until there’s consensus. Staker, Black, Merrett and the unheralded Banfield for the Lions. For the less impressive Hawks, the decisions seem harder. Mitchell maybe. Franklin maybe. Lewis maybe. The journo’s might be winding things up, but downstairs no one’s leaving. As far as they’re concerned, the game’s still up for grabs.
Young Banfield bobs up inside fifty, twists himself around a defender, and takes an extraordinary mark. He kicks straight. They’re going off on the hill. Friends? Family? 5.13 49 plays 4.8 32.
The ball squirts around at the foot of a pack. Jared Brennan slides in and collects something audibly hard. He charges from the field with a good bottle of burgundy spilling down his forehead and cheek. A lady near the fence brings her hand to her mouth.
Staker extends the lead further when he slots his third. Hawks kick the last two through Brown and Buddy, but it’s too little too late. The more organised Lions win a dour, wind-tainted affair 7.14 56 to 6.9 45.
As 4500 punters saunter home, you can’t help but think an era’s ended.
That’s it for AFL for this year up here. And next time it comes, there’ll be people yelling for a home team.
So no more unkempt Carrara and its shadowy antiquity. No more Kangaroos and the whole ‘will they, won’t they’ shtick. No more token home games snaffled by teams needing a few extra bob in the coffers.
And while the romantics might feel sadness at the loss of standing room and muddy shoes and kick to kick on the hill, the fact is those days are done.
So as one era ends, the countdown to another beginning all of a sudden becomes very, very real.
Roll on 2011.
