I ENTERED a brave, new world on Friday night.
Normally I sit with a mate at Adelaide United home matches, somewhere in the lengthy expanse of the eastern stand, upper level. It provides a great side-on view of the game and one can easily glance across the pitch and take in the goings on of the coaching benches.
As an aside - can someone please tell the ground announcer at Hindmarsh that when one player goes off and another comes on. it's a 'substitution'. It only becomes 'substitutions' (plural) when there is more than one exchange involved. Ground-announcing 101. Anyway, I digress.
On Friday night, Reds against Gold Coast, I found myself mate-less (he'd scampered off overseas). So I decided, in the interests of exploring a topic idea for the blog, to enter a new frontier. I decided that I'd sit amongst the Red Army, the club's main supporter group.
When I say 'sit' I really mean 'stand' because to sit would mean needing to enter a roped off area reserved for official Red Army members and policed by an officious looking security guard. So I stood close by, and watched, and listened. I even clapped and chanted a little, attempting a fast course in understanding all of the words.
It was a liberating feeling. As someone who has been brought up in the confines of attending and supporting AFL football, the concept of singing and chanting is still a bit foreign. It takes a while to get into the swing. The Red Army seem like a fun group of people - a variety of ages and passionately supportive of their team. The night was affected to some degree by the persistent rain that fell but the drums weren't dampened too much and the level of enthusiasm only waned a little. I was impressed.
In the second half I decided to get another view of proceedings and so switched to the southern end. Here there was another group of 'chanters', though with quite a different style. Much smaller in number their efforts seemed to focus not only on supporting the team but also on entertaining themselves, and by default, those nearby.
They held up a large banner at one stage with a panic button painted on it. Very poignant. They sang little ditties such as 'We all dream of a team of Carl Vearts ..' (to the tune of 'Yellow Submarine'). 'Number one is Carl Veart, number two is Carl Veart, number three is Carl Veart ..'. It spiralled me into amused thoughts about what a team full of Carl Vearts would actually look and play like.
It was an entertaining night really. I got absolutely drenched, was disappointed in the Reds only getting a draw, but still enjoyed the experience. Supporters add so much colour to our game.
The only other down side to the night has been not being able to get that damn Carl Veart song out of my head.
