IN MY first FourFourTwo blog just 12 weeks ago, I declared that the only thing that the W-League needed now was a streaker.

To see the streaker...


To see the celebration...

It got said streaker at the inaugural grand final, when a topless chick wearing a bear-head-meets-winter-ear-warmer-thing shimmied over the fence and legged it onto the field.

There weren’t any Andrew Symonds-esque body checks and she didn’t interfere with play, but the security team we’d deemed unnecessary all season were finally called into action to escort her off. And to perhaps help her find her shirt.

I don’t normally applaud streakers, but there was something sweet, harmless, and comical about this one, whether due to the no-one-can-take-me-seriously-with-a-bear-hat-on hat, the completely-impractical-for-evading-security white thongs she wore, the unintentionally upside down ‘Go Roar’ poster she bore, or the fact that it now felt as though the season really did have it all.

I’d been nervous coming into the match that Roar Women had actually played their grand final in last week’s thrilling penalty shootout semi final against Sydney. Would they be flat and exhausted against Canberra, the one team that had managed to stop the Roar Women juggernaut in its tracks?

Thankfully not, and it took just 25 minutes for Roar Women to go 2-0 up: first through man-of-the-match Harch capitalising on a Beutel header that ricocheted off the crossbar; second through Butt piledriving in a clever Harch cut back when everyone expected her to cross into the box.

With approximately 4500 spectators at the match and more signs and face and body paint than I could count, I felt reassured that the first ever W-League had reached an encouraging climax. Sure, Ballymore stuffed up by not having any packets of chips — seriously, those things will last through a nuclear holocaust so there’s no excuse for not having a billion packets available for sale, with the leftovers trotted out for resale in Season Two — but they didn’t this week run out of soft drinks, so things are on the up.

More hearteningly, most spectators knew the players’ names and were cheering them on, and the fit-looking, fashion-conscious girls seated immediately in front of us were discussing how pre-season training was treating them, reminding me that playing and following football are now very much accepted practices.

Granted, one of their later conversations included one girl declaring that she ‘runs around parties in her panties’, to which we in the row behind silently guffawed, but they also kept us amused, particularly when they sticky-taped their mate to her seat with the tape they’d brought to secure their posters to the barricades.

Twelve short weeks in, the far-too-brief season is over, and I’m inevitably thinking about what Season Two will hold. Perhaps by the time it comes around I’ll be used to tweens screaming ‘You’re s%&t ah!’, ‘man on’, and ‘[insert cheer here] girlfriend!’ in high-pitched voices.

Perhaps understudy Roar Women keeper Lara ‘Boonie’ Boon will get her time in the sun, buoyed by her vocal friends who have cheered her each time she’s gotten up to warm up throughout the season.

Undoubtedly I’ll still be angling to catch a glimpse of the allegedly urinal-like, foot pedal-operated sinks in the men’s toilets, which we’re sure at least a few well-sauced guys have mistaken for a toilet over time.

But most of all, I’ll be hoping to find the answer to the inaugural season-long question: Do Canberra do their training in the solarium?

To see the streaker...


To see the celebration...