Rob's Blog

Last night was the vote for the fairest and best AFL player of the year. It is one for the die hard footy fan – reading out the votes round by round has never excited me very much. Even in the media, it seems like more of the interest was on what the female partners of the players were wearing. This year the AFL enforced their black tie dress code for the players. Apparently this requirement has been around for a couple of years, but this year they were going to enforce it. The whole thing backfired anyway, as the winner was not present, and was in Sydney at their own function, wearing a red and white tie! For the players, it appears like a good party night out, as every time the camera went on them they were swigging from a bottle of beer. It became a good advertisement for Crown Lager. By the end of the night, many of them probably did not remember if they polled any votes.

Related Pages: AFL, Brownlow Medal

Tickets to the AFL Grand Final are hard to come by. Although the MCG has a capacity of nearly 100,000 people, in this footy-mad city many more than that are eager to go to the game. Even though I have connections to the Richmond Football Club, there were no tickets allocated to the general staff, as all of their tickets go into corporate packages available at thousands of dollars each.

The AFL administration had blocked anyone selling them on eBay, though there were plenty of people asking for tickets there. Our only hope was obtaining one through the extra tickets allocated to the Grand Final participating teams. Both Fremantle and Eagles were chances for the final, and through members that we knew in Perth we were able to put our names down for tickets in case either team made it into the final.

The Dockers failed in their preliminary final, thankfully the Eagles won theirs, and our tickets for the big one came through the following day. We are going to the Final!

Related Pages: AFL, Fremantle Dockers, West Coast Eagles

The Australian Rules Football home-and-away season is over and it looks like it is going to be another finals campaign dominated by the interstate teams. It is an interesting term, ‘interstate teams’, as it is supposed to be a nationwide competition, yet any team that is not based in Victoria is classified as such.

This year, there are only four Victorian teams in the final eight, and after the first week of finals there will only be two left, and they face an uphill battle to reach the Grand Final. In addition, there is only going to be three final matches played in Victoria, with the Grand Final one of them.

It is great for the competition and for the spread of the game, but in the home of football, it is another disappointment for the armies of supporters.

Related Pages: AFL

North Melbourne Football Club, the Kangaroos, have announced that they may be relocating from Melbourne to the Gold Coast in Queensland, which is somewhat of a surprise as they had been pushing into the Canberra market.

I am sure Queensland could handle another team, but there must also be a place for one in Canberra. If the expansion of the Melbourne teams continues as expected, I can see a team in Canberra eventually, and one in Tassie too, it is just a matter of time.

I always feel sorry for the fans of a club that gets up and moves interstate, it must be tough losing a local link to your team and not being able to go to watch a game every other week.

For the Kangaroo players, the Gold Coast is a great place to go to and I don’t think they will complain too much. The fans too may enjoy an occasional trip up to sunny Queensland to see their team.

Related Pages: Australian Rules Football, North Melbourne Kangaroos