Aussie Rules

I know its Thanksgiving right now, but you will all have to wait a bit to hear about the search for pumpkin in Australia. Its finally time to talk about Australian football. That's kind of thanksgiving-y, right?

Longtime blog readers may recall that Australia has its own version of football, a fact Justin & I didn't discover until we had lived here for a few weeks. So when I say Australian football, I'm talking about a whole new game, that really doesn't resemble either European or American football at all. Understandably, Aussie rules is wildly popular in Australia, but also in Melbourne specifically. The Australian Football League (AFL) has 18 teams, representing areas from 5 different states. Ten of those 18 teams are from Victoria state, and 9 of those 10 are in the greater Melbourne area. Melbourne loves AFL. They love it so much they have a holiday for it: Grand final day. Its the Friday before the grand final (aka championship) game, which occurs on the Saturday.

Justin & I aren't really what you would call 'sports people'. At home, there aren't any sports that we regularly follow, or teams we actively support. But its not unheard of for us to go to a sporting event while travelling. Its usually a delightful show of local colour, especially if its a sport that's very popular with the locals. As good immigrants that are interested in assimilating into Australian culture, we always figured we would eventually go to an AFL game. Somehow, though, we just never got around to it. We don't have a tv, nor do we really ever have opportunities to listen to the radio, so we both just kept forgetting to find out when the games were on. Plus its much harder to get enthusiastic about a sport when you know literally nothing about it: not the rules, not any of the players, not the recent controversies or historic rivalries.

I had found that people at work would occasionally ask me about whether I'd been to a game yet. And people would often talk in the lunchroom about their team (while trash talking others). It soon became apparent that even if you don't care about AFL, pretty much every Australian has a team that they have sworn allegiance to. One day, a couple of months after we moved here, we read a wiki page with all the different teams listed. We couldn't decide which one to pick.

At some point, I think on my birthday, it came out that my supervisor is a Collingwood fan, as is one of his other PhD students. We decided that in a show of support for the research group, Justin & I would also support Collingwood. Their moniker (I kid you not) is the Magpies. Of course, that means their colours are black and white. If you look up the list of AFL teams, you may notice that the list of team monikers sort of reads like a list of kids soccer teams (tigers, eagles, bulldogs, etc). I actually think magpies is one of the better options. It gets shortened to just 'pies, so its not uncommon to hear Collingwood supporters yelling 'Go Pies!' Also just a quick note on Australian slang. While its not incorrect to say you support a team, they also use the verb 'barrack'. As in, Justin & I barrack Collingwood.

Despite picking a team in early July, we still didn't get around to attending a game or even really paying attention to AFL for months. Then, in early September I learned that Collingwood finished the regular season in the top 10, and was headed into the finals. At this point, I kind of started to pay attention. And by that I meant I read a wikipedia article about how AFL finals work and intermittently checked their progress. Once the teams for the grand final game were announced as Collingwood vs Brisbane, Justin & I thought we should finally try to experience this AFL business. A couple that we have been hanging out with a bunch are actually from Brisbane, and while he is a fellow 'pie, she barracks for Brisbane (the lions). We decided we should all find a place to watch the game together. Not only did we expect that watching the AFL grand final at a bar in Melbourne to be a quintessentially Australian experience, but this provided Justin & I with the added bonus of having someone there to explain the rules and what was happening.

We booked a table at the Australian equivalent of a sports bar in a suburb called Fitzroy. Fitzroy does not have its own team, but instead has pledged allegiance to Brisbane. I'm not exactly sure why, but this was a pretty well documented thing that went further back than this specific grand final. And it wasn't just the specific bar we were at. The entire suburb of Fitzroy seems to have decided they support Brisbane. Its somehow locally known and accepted that Fitzroy = Brisbane supporters. There was actually a sign up outside the bar letting people know that this bar's official support was with Brisbane. This is strangely common - there were lots of bars/restaurants/businesses that had flags, colours, or signs to indicate who they were supporting. The actual Collingwood suburb is right beside Fitzroy, so despite the bar's official stance, the crowd was probably 2/3 Brisbane, 1/3 Collingwood.

Prior to the actual game, Justin & I decided it would be good to at least peruse the rules so we would have at least a vague idea of what we were watching. Prepare yourself. First of all, the field is an oval, and its about twice the size of a standard American football field. Each team has 18 players on the field, for a total of 36. The ball is shaped like a rugby ball - its not a sphere, but more of an ovaloid (to match the field, no doubt). There are 4 poles at both ends of the oval, the outside ones are shorter, the inside ones are taller (so it goes short-tall-tall-short). A goal, worth 6 points, is when the ball goes between the two tall poles. A behind, worth 1 point, is when the ball goes between a tall and short pole, or goes through the tall poles but hits the pole on the way through. Hopefully you are all still with me, because its about to get weird. You cannot throw the ball, but you can run with it, kick it, or punch it. That's right. AFL is a sport of ball punching. If you do run with the ball, you have to bounce the ball off of the ground at least once every 15 meters (remember, we are talking about an ovaloid ball, in a game that's played on grass). Contact (aka tackling) is allowed for any players within 5 meters of the ball. There is obviously a lot more nuance I could add, but I feel like I've provided an appropriate level of detail to give you guys the gist of it. Basically its a ton of people on a massive field, punching & kicking a non-spherical ball while also tacking each other.

If you are feeling like these rules sound made up, you are not alone. Apparently, because Australia is really the only place where AFL is played, its not uncommon that the rules will change from year to year. And not in small ways. Even my supervisor, who played the sport when he was younger, has commented that sometimes its hard to keep track of the rules because they change them so often. As we were learning about the game, I texted a friend about how this sport sounds fake. She replied that AFL is just watching really fit 23 year olds awkwardly fall over themselves and chase after the ball for an hour and 20 minutes. After watching the game, I genuinely think this is the best description of what its like to watch.

Regardless of the ridiculousness of the game, we were committed to throwing ourselves into the experience. In the days leading up to the grand final, Justin took a trip into one of the merch stores and got me a scarf (which is the traditional supporter gear) and himself a hat. One of the people we were going with recently invested in some custom made temporary tattoos. He made the design of a magpie eating a meat pie (meat pies are a very traditional Australian food). He wanted to make sure the tattoo was visible, so he decided to put it on his neck for the occasion. It was certainly a look.

So there we were, in a packed bar in the middle of Fitzroy, with our team colours on, watching the game and drinking jugs of beer (jugs = their version of pitchers). Even though it was the first game we had ever watched, it wasn't too hard to follow. It helped that our friends would clarify rules whenever we had questions. Because there were lots of supporters for both sides, no matter who was scoring, people were cheering. The game is surprisingly fast paced. Yes, they do a lot of chasing after the ball, but between the punching, kicking, and tackling, there is a lot of action. Its pretty fun to watch. It also happened to be a really good grand final. There was no one team that was ahead most of the time. I think in the last 5 minutes both teams managed to score a bunch more times. Realistically, the atmosphere probably wasn't that different than a sports bar during a Stanely cup final at home. But there was something very novel about watching Aussies cheer for AFL in a Melbourne bar. When either team scored, the whole bar would erupt in cheers, including Justin & I. The atmosphere was electric, and we got really into it. In the end, Collingwood won by 4 points. So that was exciting.

After the game, we decided to find a new bar to try. Since we were right near the border of the Fitzroy & Collingwood suburbs, we decided to wander into Collingwood. After a drink at a brewery in Collingwood, we wandered around further, and met up with some other friends. By this time, Collingwood was full of Pies fans. There were crowds on the street corners, and surrounding all the bars. There were so many people in the street, lots of people were still yelling and cheering. But it didn't feel dangerous at all. Everyone was in really good spirits, and no one was belligerent. They were all just enjoying the Pies win. It was surprisingly wholesome. We decided to call it a night shortly after that. But I think its fair to say that Justin & I are officially AFL fans. We are going to make sure to actually see a game during the season next year. And we will probably go see the women play sometime this summer.

I feel like there are a ton more things I could say about AFL, but this is already quite long, so I will leave it here for now. If anyone is curious about the game, I recommend watching the grand final highlights reel. Its a good example of how fast & fun the games are. Go Pies!