It’s been a few years, so I was glad to accept Ash’s invitation to the Community Cup 3RRR/3PBS/Espy Hotel footy match yesterday at the Junction Oval in St. Kilda. 
Nothing could have stopped me once I saw the weather; a blue sky on a very crisp windless day (pretty much the shortest day of the year) where things peaked at 12.1 degrees at 4pm. On arrival, things were a little different it seemed – all of a sudden there was merchandise (pretty reasonably priced too) – you could get T-shirts, scarves and stubby holders. I don’t remember that at all last time I went. They also had a decent official “Record” with team lists, so we scoured them for our favourite presenters and then went spotting numbers. Tim Rogers from You Am I played, and American Bob Log the Third played the national anthem on a kazoo, whilst a very chilly lady in a bikini stood by draping the Aussie flag in the mud – was that intentional I wonder? A few of Ash’s camping buddies turned up so we rushed to get some seats and found a spot that was soon overshadowed by the scoreboard shade, so we shivered and made bets about how long it would take the sun to creep around onto us. One of the lovely things about the event is that it’s not treated too seriously; plenty of “rock chicks” played and the umpires wore Ramones leather jackets and wigs. There were a billion well behaved dogs which put mine to shame. It was a complete ogle-fest as lesbians pashed on behind us, fashionista’s strolled round looking out-of-place, and plenty of women tom-boyishly kicked footies to each other in the quarter-time breaks. Swoon.
When we left just after the half time band Mach Pelican (who are soon to be deported to Japan after 12 years in Melbourne) it was 4pm, and without lights, the last quarter would surely have been played in gloom and confusion. I wonder who won?