Round 1 – Richmond v Carlton: Nando’s, Tigers, other things, and the Season For Beanies
It’s a Thursday, early afternoon emerging. Melbourne is dressed in confused early-Autumn, dithering between February open-oven heat and the uniform of young people who populate the city as it hurtles toward Footy Season – jeans, t-shirt, hoodie, no socks, low-cut sneakers. From where I stand, the corner of Swanston and La Trobe, it is all I see, a horde of young people waiting on cooler weather, the Season For Beanies.
I am with an old friend. Jonah and I shared high school, studied similar topics in same-minded classes, jetted off to Nepal as a conclusion. We are swimming through a crowd to the waterhole: at Melbourne Central, we seek an oasis called Nando’s.
We are easy. We run into people.
“What are you up to?”
“How are your folks?”
Our walk is laidback; we shoot the shit and find ourselves finding laughter.
Nando’s. I eat a muesli bar while Jonah purchases a chicken wrap and chips. The topic of conversation? How my friend deals with the ‘mild’ sauce he drowns his meal in. I watch the perspiration accumulate on his forehead and giggle away as he renounces all appreciation for the food.
Jonah moves from the chips to the wrap. I nibble at my bar. Our world changes.
NBA player Rudy Gobert is ill: today his lurgy will be confirmed as COVID-19. The Association is suspended indefinitely in response. Tom Hanks makes a statement – Rita Wilson and he have the virus as well. Donald Trump at some point on Thursday bans all travelers from Europe entering his precipice-straddling state. The WHO declares Coronavirus a pandemic.
I am sitting in Nando’s. I open my phone. The first notification is ESPN – the Jazz @ Thunder game has been postponed. A quick search on Twitter finds speculation that Jazz centre Gobert’s illness that kept him out of the game. It also turns up a short video of the gargantuan Frenchman touching reporters’ microphones in jest at a press conference only a few days ago. In the time it takes me to summarise the situation, Gobert’s positive test comes through. The NBA’s corner of Twitter implodes. It’s not a few minutes before the NBA pulls the pin.
I am staggered. My support of the NBA stems from mucking about on computer game NBA2K with my friends as 14-year-old on the back of dingy classrooms. I breathlessly relay the news to Jonah, who’s started at his chips again after defeating the wrap. I look down at my phone; Tom Hanks’ statement finds me at a canter.
The Coronavirus pandemic was always there, in articles we read and podcasts we listened to. This trip to Nando’s on a warm Thursday was when the virus reached from abroad and introduced us to its calamitous reality. I have always been drawn to sport both in what is almost religious observance and distraction: nothing empties the mind of fear like bellowing at 22 yellow-and-black athletes haring after a leather bag of air. COVID-19 got real when my annual pilgrimage, or separation, was prevented.
I am dragged, writing this, to football as I often am. The MCG was my playgroup, is my church. I take my observance of Richmond once a week, usually content in M14, crying out as a We and a Many.
I will walk across Fitzroy Gardens, a shiver as I gather my step. I will fumble through the turnstiles, “’scuse” myself into the throng. I will take it all in.
It is a Thursday night now; the Tigers are on. I’m watching them run and flee and kick the ball. The We are not there, and the players fill the void with their own music. Daniel Rioli and Shai Bolton are dancing, scything. Jack Martin wriggles around, kicks four in a quarter while Paddy Cripps bullocks around and looks for an audience like ‘Tiger’ Crosswell.
Look around and you’ll see me, clutching a record. Find me in a Richmond pub. Talk to me about the Tigers.
I am dragged into The Wrong Thursday like being pulled over. Sirens flashing.
We leave Melbourne Central. Outside, people mill about as they did before. The narrative has changed. It is still warm outside; the sun is beating down. It will get cold soon. The Season For Beanies approaches. I am unsure what that means now.
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About Paddy Grindlay
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Certainly strange watching the game with an empty stadium on TV! Something we will have to get used to I’m afraid!