Sport connects
THE recent Geelong Football Netball League grand final day may have been the most perfect “Geelong” day I have ever experienced.
I thought that we were getting to Kardinia Park netball courts early when we arrived at 9am and drove in having paid our $2 to the wonderful Lions Club volunteers but there were already hundreds of cars parked at the courts.
The weather required layers. It was cold and intermittently wet. The signature Geelong black puffer jacket was on, as was the St Mary’s beanie. Halfway through the Under 17 Division 1 netball grand final, the sky opened up and we all went running to our cars to grab our umbrellas. It may have created a crush under the court awning for those who weren’t so prepared but it is not a true GFNL grand final day without wet hair and huddling together under an umbrella on the fence line.
The under 15 netball team that our eldest daughter Bella plays in had not made it to grand final day having lost in the elimination final the week before. This didn’t stop her whole team watching and cheering for their club and for their friends and family who were playing in grand finals in other clubs. This sense of community and friendship across clubs is a wonderful feature of this day and of Geelong. It creates a wonderful sense of connectedness and community for our children during their teenage years when they need it most.
You need cash on GFNL grand final day. I challenge you to have three kids court-side and not end up making multiple trips to the canteen throughout the day. You can’t ‘tap’, it’s old school. There are $1 bags of Mates and red licorice to buy. The smell of bacon wafts through the crowd and, while I can’t get my children to wait patiently for anything, they will happily mill in a queue for 10 minutes for an egg and bacon roll off the grill. The Geelong Centrals Club who staff the canteen and make the egg and bacon rolls are experts. It is worth the wait and is another example of our community raising funds one egg and bacon roll at a time to subsidise the cost of one of the representative netball teams in Geelong.
Mid-morning, we got a call from one of Harv’s friend’s parents to ask if he would like to join them to watch the GFNL seniors footy grand final which was played at Kardinia Park.
When I met them outside De Grandi’s it was fantastic to watch the crowds streaming into the ground to watch community football. It was also impressive that Kardinia Park opened the ground for the match to be played. It values the connection between the Geelong Football Club and community football and allowing access to the ground for this match with a $2 surcharge reinforces the view that the Kardinia Park ground belongs to our community.
The game didn’t disappoint. It was decided in the last two seconds of play. The crowd stormed on to the ground to congratulate the St Mary’s team. They had won their first grand final in four attempts. The commentators were ecstatic. The footage and commentary were so exciting that it made every news service that night. Magic.
The A grade netball final wasn’t nearly as close in score, however the calibre of player on that court was amazing. The vast majority of the players on the court play at Victorian Netball League clubs and cements the GFNL league as one of the highest quality community netball leagues in the country.
As the day finished at about 5pm we were all windblown, wet, tired and happy. We had cheered for friends, team and community. We had the pleasure of watching an incredibly high standard of sport that had cost our community a two dollar entrance fee to watch a news worthy game of footy on an AFL ground. It had cost our community a $2 donation to park at Kardinia Park and watch an equally high standard of netball. And while there weren’t a lot of vegetables or health pyramid priorities consumed on the day it was delicious and our consumption of each egg and bacon roll benefited yet another community club in Geelong.
A great day of brilliant sport and a great day for our Geelong community. Rachel Schutze is a principal lawyer at Gordon Legal, wife and mother of three. [Ed’s note: Ms Schutze is married to Corio MP Richard Marles.]