Gather Round – North Melbourne v Brisbane: My Unicycle Tyre is Flat

 

 

Noon and I am at Barossa Park after a voyage by foot, tram, train, and bus. My unicycle tyre is flat. As she’s today’s Auslan interpreter, Claire arrived separately, around breakfast, for a succession of production meetings. My journey’s highlight was, of course, the psycho-geographical pull of the Womma train station and its triumphant desolation.

Lyndoch #2 hosts a gluttony of food trucks — or as they were known effectively for millennia, stalls. A stage awaits the post-match concert. The coffee van’s doing a brisker trade than Pirate Life. As the official beer of the Fringe and now Gather Round, these ale arrivistes are everywhere. Once compulsory at Adelaide events, Coopers is now vanquished. But not on my Friday veranda.

It’s 9 degrees with an apparent temperature of 2.9. Gloomy clouds are menacing over Nuriootpa. When I was a kid, this was always the way. Last year Gather Round witnessed cricket weather. I’ve missed the footy’s start but large screens —are these Jumbotrons? — show the Fox telecast. On the wing, an opportunity for face-painting. I resist.

Inside, the crowd throbs about the fence. The scaffolded stands have empty seats. Brisbane gets a goal although I can’t see who. I know neither the goal celebration song grab, nor the player for whom this is an aural tattoo.

I circumnavigate the ground once known, with admirable topographical honesty, as Lyndoch Oval but now recast for the viniculturally vulnerable of the eastern seaboard as Barossa Park.

On a grassy expanse called the Barossa Terrace, I note outdoor lounge settings along with bar tables and stools. Of this languid arrangement, I approve. Wine barrels punctuate the vista.

There’re additional purveyors of sauerkraut and shiraz (not in the same glass). I’m pleased that the local footy and cricket clubs have fundraising booths providing tasty grub. But I wonder how much they had to pay the AFL for the right to do so on their own ancient soil.

Beyond Kangaroo blue and white and Brisbane Lions jumpers and scarves, the bouncing throng is flecked with Freo colours and Carlton kit, Hawks beanies, and the clashing colours of the Crows and Power. Gather Round might be the truest meeting of all the tribes. A bloke on the concourse sports a retro tracksuit with Fitzroy Runner on the back. It could only be improved if he were in Ciak shoes and dragging on an Ardath.

I’m tracking towards the south-eastern goals when an arm shoots out of the crowd and apprehends me. A voice then chirps, ‘How are you, fella?’ A circle of chaps, some of whom I’ve not seen in a decade. We’re all burdened by antique hair but otherwise are in acceptable nick, given weight for age (WFA) provisions.

I talk to Jason about recently completing the New York marathon. I ask if he hit the wall.

‘Yeah, about thirty-five k in.’

‘You got through it?’

‘The worst bit is the finish. You go over a bridge, look up and there’s a sea of bobbing heads. It’s a really cruel hill.’

I offer, ‘Nothing like making it easier at the end.’

Meanwhile, as Stephen Colbert says (at least for a few more weeks), the footy continues. Swells of pop songs tell me Brisbane is surging. If I were a Lion and launched a successful bomb from twenty-five, could I use Frank Zappa’s Billy the Mountain? I imagine rookies have had Kevin Bloody Wilson rejected.

I chat with Fish about the charms of country footy, especially when you’ve no investment in either team. Squally Saturdays, sitting in the car, wipers slapping, honking appreciation before a half-time canteen dash.

Fish and his wife have taken in local footy on the Yorke and Eyre Peninsulas, the Clare Valley, the Riverland. He tells me, ‘We kept notes for a while on the various pies and sausage rolls and if they’d Southwark Stout in the bar.’ I say, ‘There’s a book in this.’ Fish nods.

After the final siren, I glance up at a big screen on my way to Gate 2. Charlie Cameron’s being interviewed. On the other side of the host, my wife is interpreting. I pull out my phone to take a photo of nine-foot Claire. It’s flat.

But I’ve got a shot of Womma. That might be enough.

 

 

 

Read more stories from Gather Round HERE.

Read more from Mickey Randall HERE.

 

 

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