THE PASSING OF SATURDAY. - memories of the SANFL circa 1969
Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 9:11 pm"THE PASSING OF SATURDAY" - memories of the SANFL, circa 1969.
Chapter One:-
It is Saturday. Somewhere in the dusty, dour, beautiful backstreets of old suburban Adelaide, the normally placid atmosphere is rudely interupted by the sound of roaring, barging motor vehicles. The air is filled by the beckoning aroma of jasmine and log fires, and red and white geraniums sprawl uncontrolled through decaying wooden fences. On a footpath, a bewildered old woman clad in ethnic black, stands like a sentry in front of rickety drive-way gates, for she knows if she leaves her post, some indifferent, alien motorist, too lazy and too late to search for a parking spot any longer, will claim her little frontage until dusk.
Not far away, an event of great importance is in progress. Even before the great, foreboding, red-brick grandstand comes into view, one can hear the muffled roar of 15,000 people, rising and falling with the winter wind. Drawn, as if by a massive magnet, people are coming from all directions laden with thermos-flasks, rugs and gaily coloured scarves which draggle behind them in the dirt, disappearing rapidly through clicking turnstiles into oblivion in the shoudler-to-shoulder throng. A child, overwhelmed and excited by it all, outnumbers dad's steps three to one..........
Within these walls, for the next two and a half hours, the great Australian game of Football will be mercilessly devoured in a multitude of different ways. Herein lies a whole world within a world, revolving like a captured planet around an all-empowering sun...........
Chapter One:-
It is Saturday. Somewhere in the dusty, dour, beautiful backstreets of old suburban Adelaide, the normally placid atmosphere is rudely interupted by the sound of roaring, barging motor vehicles. The air is filled by the beckoning aroma of jasmine and log fires, and red and white geraniums sprawl uncontrolled through decaying wooden fences. On a footpath, a bewildered old woman clad in ethnic black, stands like a sentry in front of rickety drive-way gates, for she knows if she leaves her post, some indifferent, alien motorist, too lazy and too late to search for a parking spot any longer, will claim her little frontage until dusk.
Not far away, an event of great importance is in progress. Even before the great, foreboding, red-brick grandstand comes into view, one can hear the muffled roar of 15,000 people, rising and falling with the winter wind. Drawn, as if by a massive magnet, people are coming from all directions laden with thermos-flasks, rugs and gaily coloured scarves which draggle behind them in the dirt, disappearing rapidly through clicking turnstiles into oblivion in the shoudler-to-shoulder throng. A child, overwhelmed and excited by it all, outnumbers dad's steps three to one..........
Within these walls, for the next two and a half hours, the great Australian game of Football will be mercilessly devoured in a multitude of different ways. Herein lies a whole world within a world, revolving like a captured planet around an all-empowering sun...........
