IF YOU live in Melbourne for any length of time, you will invariably end up at an Australian rules football match. That is if you have any degree of curiosity – I know people who have lived here for 40+ years and not bothered.
But as a journalist, one often feels that one should explore aspects of one’s living environment that wield a fairly powerful spell on people and it was that that drove me to accept an invitation from a close friend to attend a game between North Melbourne and Geelong a few days ago.
The AFL is played as a league of 22 rounds until the end of August; after that in September the teams which have finished one to eight on the ladder play finals, resulting in the champion emerging on the last Saturday in September. It is a massive occasion for the city, hosted at the grand old Melbourne Cricket Ground, a ground that can accommodate 100,000 people.
Continue reading “AFL is not all it is made out to be”