Night Footy at the MCG

This is it, the quintessential Melbourne experience. Not dodging broken glass and syringes on St Kilda beach, and not rifling around behind dumpsters trying to find the bar you’re sure is there. No, I’m talking about Friday night footy at the MCG. It’s September, finals time, the semi-final Western Bulldogs vs. the Brisbane Lions. The stage doesn’t get much bigger than this, well except for Grand Final day, and the Anzac Day clash, and of course when a disgraced former brownlow medalist, premiership player, admitted cocaine addict and wearer of a “such is life” tattoo comes off a 1 year ban. The stage really doesn’t get any bigger.

Pre game drinks will put you in the true spirit

There is a few tricks to making this footy thing memorable, especially if you have no idea what the colours of the Brisbane Lions or the Bulldogs are, let alone what a full-forward is, where the teams are from or why on earth there are so many little men wearing iradescent yellow shirts running around the field. You’ve probably heard of Brisbane, and you’ve almost certainly heard of a bulldog but who should you follow? Well you could just go as a bipartisan, ‘I don’t give a shit I’m just here for the experience’, kind of person, but when you get there you’ll realise that’s probably not the best use of your time. Partly cause there is an old bloke yelling “BALL!” (which of course you don’t have any idea what it means) in your ear every 2 minutes and secondly cause you won’t have anything to yell about yourself.

Part of the beauty of this AFL thing is you see, that all social norms can be thrown out the window. Telling the closest player to you that he’s a halfwit or ugly is actually considered normal and so long as you don’t insult his race or his mother the cops won’t even care, they might even laugh at your jokes. So, picking a team… Do you care? Not really, so drop in at the TAB (betting agency) on your way to the ground and put $50 on either one. This way you’ve got a vested interest in the game, and, when the game is in the clinches you’ll be stirred from your seat, there’s $50 riding on that shot on goal.

Rules: Being able to follow the game is important, and even though it looks like people are everywhere, the rules are simple; forget about off side, and pretty much everything you might know about soccer or rugby, there are pretty much 4 rules that really matter.

1. Kick the ball between the tall posts, you get 6 points. Kick it between the little ones, you get a consolation 1 point.
2. If you catch the ball after someone kicks it, you get a free kick. That’s called a “mark”.
3. You can’t throw the ball. You can either kick it or handball it (punch it out of your hand).
4. Don’t get tackled with the ball. If someone is going to tackle you, get rid of it. See point 2.

Watching from a bar just doesn't have the same excitement! Photo: Monsoon Bar, www.rainforestretreat.co.nz

Tickets: There’s 3 ways to go with tickets. The really cheap, standing-room only seats; the shitty, high altitude seats or the slightly more expensive and really reasonable seats. The standing-room only is good fun, thats where the real supporters are and they’ll probably teach you a few new words and a new appreciation of the word “yobbo” or “bogan.” You absolutely don’t want to sit in the nosebleed section it isn’t pleasant, you can’t see much and you won’t enjoy it. So fork out the extra 10 or 20 bucks and get the better seats. The MCG is a massive stadium and it gets really cold up there with the jetliners and you don’t really want to freeze, do you?

Clothes: It is Melbourne, regardless of where you sit you are probably going to freeze anyway. So rug up, if it doesn’t look like rain now, it probably will - so it might even be worth putting a garbage bag in your pocket as well. Worst comes to worst you can put that on as a makeshift poncho.

Beer: This is pretty much the most important thing, you aren’t going to be yelling abuse at players if you are sober, are you? So you want to get started before the game, a good place for a few pre (or post) match drinks is the London Tavern in Richmond, the crowd is lively and the beers aren’t too cheap. When you are at the game, you want to buy your beer in rounds, buy 2 per person each time you go to the bar and you won’t feel like you spent too much time at the bar. The line up is pretty crazy at quarter and half times, so sneak away a couple of minutes before the buzzer and you won’t have to fight too hard.

That’s all the bases covered. Now you can follow the game, have a great time and, if your insults are good enough, leave with 2 black eyes!

Michael Gall is the sort of guy who drinks Manhattans and hangs around in bars that are too expensive for him but he doesn’t mind drinking goon straight from the bag, spewing the morning after or just getting back on it. He normally writes about food, wine and cocktails and has some great dinner ideas on his blog, My Aching Head.