The Rhino wrote:
I remember every visit to Princes Park up the Mornington Freeway. We'd always get there at 2:05pm, and by the time we found a carpark halfway up Lygon St that didn't look blatantly illegal or at least carried a low possibility of being towed, and walked down to the ground, it'd be about halfway through the second quarter.
By halftime, the old lady had finished arguing with the nice BASS operator, no longer incredulous at the idea that all the decent seats had sold halfway through the game, and the options were standing room on the wing, or in later years, $60 for a seat in the Legends Stand with a great view of the sun and not much else.
I remember the small victories, convincing the family that we didn't need to buy the footy record, there'd always be one to be found on the ground. Very rarely did this theory not bear fruit. Like clockwork, would turn up at the conclusion of the last race of the day, camouflaged in losing betting slips, some pages stuck together with beer from the start of the reserves, but otherwise, a victory in $2.50 saved.
The food vendors would serve food slightly different to what the MCG and Waverley would offer. Long before Ron Burgundy, I worked out that milk was a bad choice on a hot day at the ground, and the sight of a Big M brings back some painful memories still as a result. Everything seemed a bit on the bizarro-world side of things. We didn't serve Four N Twenty, it'd be a lesser brand. We'd have Ross Faulkner signage around the ground, we didn't need Sherrins. While North had the cool Nike gear of the early 90s, we were steadfast in sticking with Adidas. Most of the gear offered, didn't even have the club logo on it, perhaps easier to sneak into a dodgy menswear store at the end of the season. Nike obviously took over soon after. There really wasn't much of an upgrade in hindsight.
I'd spend too much time unnecessarily annoyed by the Sam Smorgon scoreboard. It was, and still is a piece of junk. The "jumbotron" at the G was a thing of amazement, you knew you were at something big when you saw that for the first time. In its place was this relic that nonsensically churned out "GO BLUES!", "FEELING HOT HOT HOT", "KOUTA TIME" at random intervals in the match, and not much else. I remember on rare occasions, you'd get an orange pixelated replay of something really important. It was like deciphering a Magic Eye, and you'd eventually work out that it was a replay of Kouta taking a mark from a quarter before, not Parko in the coaches box.
You'd walk the Bruce Doull suite and wonder just what went on in there. I'd never seen anyone go in or go out there once on match day. At some point, I assumed that Bruce had become the club's curator in retirement, and given his notoriety for taking whatever contract the club had given him, had accepted a one bedroom bedsitter overlooking the ground as part of his salary.
The walk from the back of the Gardiner stand after a win seemed like one giant leap. The walk after a loss seemed a season long. A slow funeral procession behind other stunned supporters that we'd lost at the home fortress.
Coming back to the car, parked conveniently where it shouldn't be on Royal Pde, or in the owner's car spot at the local green grocer, complete with aggressive note threatening violence or things done to the car that were never followed up on. The ride home not having the sights seen that you would coming home from Waverley.
Absolutely hated going to Princes Park.
In hindsight, I don't get that whatsoever. Kids are [REDACTED].
i love that...
thats why ur up there
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