On the Queen’s birthday yesterday, Gianni took all of us (Pål, Ina, Jonas and me) to a footy match. It was Melbourne vs Collingwood. Ina and Pål being from Trondheim and all had to go with Collingwood since their black and white like Rosenborg (the soccer team in Trondheim). Jonas and I cheered for Melbourne, and Gianni sat there with his Rosenborg scarf like a true Norwegian patriot.
First of all I’d just like to say that the field was huge! The arena seemed smaller since the field was so big, but it is apparently the size of the Barcelona FC station. The whole show started out with a parade of important people trough the footy time walking around the arena. Then the players finally entered the “stage”, blasting trough this huge Volvo banner. I quickly realized that it was going to be an insane amount of people on the field. I counted around 40 people on the field at once! Seven of them where judges one at each goal and the others running around the field. A bunch of players of course divided equally on each team. That is the people you can kinda count on going to a match like this, but from time to time there were a lot of other people running out on the grass on different missions. There was at least three “water-boys”, as we liked to call them, for each team running out on the field giving the guys a sip of a water bottle. I don’t know if it was to spare the players from unnecessary running, because it is an insanely long time they’re playing, or if it was just fun for the “water-boys” to get a run on the field.
The match lasted for two long hours divided in 4 quarters with short breaks between them. I recon 2 hours is a long time for the couch to shout on the sideline, so they’ve put in what’s apparently called “runners”. They are nothing more than messengers for the coach running back and forth with messages to the players.
To keep the score they have made it really easy, or not for us outsiders with no footy education. The score is posted like this: 3 - 4 – 27. What you say? So did I. 3 apparently mean they have 3 one pointers. 4 means 4 six pointers and if you add that up it is supposed to be 27. It could be the other way around, but this is written from pure memory. The thing is, when they kick the ball between the poles they get points. If they kick it between the two in the middle they get 6 points, and if they kick it on one of the sides within the outer poles they get 1 point. But sometimes the team that is supposed to defend the one side throws the ball in and gives the other team a 1pointer, I think it’s a strategy to prevent the other team from getting the 6 pointer. When one of the teams gets a point or six the ball is brought to the center of the field. The odd thing is that all the players are still scattered around the field on both sides. Then one of the many judges slams the ball (did I mention it was a rugby ball?) to the ground so it bounces high in the air, and who ever catches it first gets it. And now they have unleashed the beasts. The guys playing are massive muscle bunts wearing no protection what so ever hitting, crashing and jumping on top of each other to either get the ball or prevent the one having the ball to get anywhere. But it is no secret that event if you don’t have the ball or isn’t even near it your still in the zone of getting punched or run down. Even if you bleed from your head you get a bandage and you’re sent out there again. There is no mercy!
So this is how my impression of footy is after my first game, without any form for real footy education just guesses and assumptions. Gianni who is usually our local guy of knowledge don’t know anything about footy so we had to teach ourselves. We knew this in advance though so no hard feelings Gianni! Just big thanks for taking us to the game.
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