The perfect day

[Here It Is]

I took my nearly 74-year-old grandfather to the grand final on Saturday, it being my first ever grand final and his first since 1951 - the year John Coleman was suspended and Essendon lost the grand final to Geelong.
We had a terrible position in the standing room area of M10 - unable to see the screens, the time clocks or anything above the top of the goalpost padding.
We were standing on a slope that left our legs like jelly and rendered them almost totally ineffective (they are only just recovering today).
But once THE MOMENT - 5.16pm, Saturday, September 24, 2005 - finally arrived after 72 years and we both finally saw the flag come home for the first (hopefully not the last by a long way) time in our lives.
We both started crying uncontrollably and continued for more than hour.
I have since teared up every time I have read, heard or seen mention of the fact - and am doing so right now - it is just the greatest feeling someone can have.
Singing the song and cheering until we were hoarse after the game (I still am), was just amazing, as was walking around the ground afterwards in the dark, just soaking it all up.
And then something happened which just topped the whole thing off.
Walking past Gate 3, on our way to Punt Road Oval at about 7.15pm, two hours after the siren, Richard Colless came out of the ground and interrupted a mobile phone call to approach us, thank us personally for keeping the faith and staying true to the red and white, shaking my grandfather's hand and then giving me a big hug - having something like that happen was simply unbelievable - it just doesn't get any better than this.
The fact that the Premiership Cup is finally where it belongs is something that still hasn't sunk in and probably won't until the flag is unfurled at the SCG at the first home game next year.
Once and for all, it's been an amazing ride and there's not much more to say than . . .

CHEER CHEER THE RED AND THE WHITE
HONOUR THE NAME BY DAY AND BY NIGHT
LIFT THAT NOBLE BANNER HIGH
SHAKE DOWN THE THUNDER FROM THE SKY
WHETHER THE ODDS BE GREAT OR BE SMALL
SWANS WILL GO IN AND WIN OVERALL
WHILE HER LOYAL SONS ARE MARCHING
ONWARDS TO VICTORY

For the final word, look below the line.


__________________
5.16pm Saturday, September 24, 2005: The single greatest moment of my life.
The single greatest moment in the history of sport in NSW.
All hail the living legends of the Sydney Swans / South Melbourne Bloods.
Knighthoods all round.

 

[CharlieG]

Just on the sig, mate, it was September 24th.

Cheers for the nice story.

 

[Here It Is]

Whoops!!

So excited I don't know what day it is.

Thanks Charlie.

 

[music_2000]

yesss!!!!! when I saw Leo Barry take that mark tears welled up in my eyes and I sang that song! cheer cheer the red and the white..... and then I thought of all the old bloods fans and how they must feel after all this time!!! I then remember reading the book "plugger and the mighty swans" a month earlier (it was written immediately after 96). the guy who wrote the book jim main was a lifelong swans fan and I thought that he would be overjoyed. finally I remembered all of the swannies fans I met while on holiday. (i wore my then new swans beanie in melbourne and ended up meeting a couple of them). they would have been overjoyed and ecstatic. and now for the past few days I have been watching the greatest grand final footy moment of all time. by that I mean Leo Barry's mark of the century in the last second of the game

 

[Michaelg]

At last, at last. So many stories of old South fans who died before it finally happened, but so much joy as well. We were there, my son and I, and my sister with four of her kids. The tension of that last ten minutes was like nothing I have ever known before. The drama was incredible. God knows why it matters so much, but it does. As I said to some Eagles tosser who was trying to tell me they aren't South, they're a new club, they have no history before 1982: Tell that to my guts! I wept so many times on Saturday night, and Sunday, and it won't be the last time.



We went out to the Lake Oval to pay our respects later, then on to Clarendon St and the South Town Hall, that most gorgeous of Melbourne's lights hidden under a great big bushel. The Town Hall was draped in red and white, and Clarendon St was pumping. I got to talk to some old South guys who told me they could die now, one guy who was a bowling partner of Bob Pratt jr, another who had an uncle who got reported in the '45 bloodbath, then went out on the town with some other players and got in a brawl with some Septic servicemen. People who'd waited all their lives for this, like me; people who'd been broken-hearted when they left for Sydney, who'd given up footy for 23 years but who had been drawn back to it, almost against their will, in that last quarter on Saturday.



The romance and drama of it was palpable, but I am constantly astonished at what a real force it is in people's lives, all the more so after what happened to South in 1982. There were 10 000 people at Albert Park on Saturday morning at 8.00 to see the players, including 3 idiots who had set out from the arse end of Ballarat at 6.00 in the morning, having slept for 4 hours the night before.



It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. They could win a million flags but there will never be another one like that one. My 83-year-old dad was in Ireland, having flown out with Mum last Tuesday. But he saw it on telly and was just as thrilled as all of us. Brett Kirk's statement on the dais that "this one's for the Bloods" was the clincher for me, and I'm guessing for Dad too.



Football fandom is such a mysterious phenomenon to me, a delicious agony. Sometimes it feels like a chronic disease, but right now it's one I'm glad I got.

 

[Buddhy]

Yep, brilliant day. Especially watching it with a whole bunch of eagles supporters.