From Frisbee to Footy

This weekend I finally got out of Melbourne for the first time.  On Saturday I traveled to the city of Ballarat with a couple members of the uni frisbee team and a few other people to play in a frisbee tournament.  It took about an hour and a half to get there.  Apparently there was gold discovered around Ballarat a while back so there used to be a lot of wealth in the area, but now it’s just like any other small city.  I was all set to play a bunch of frisbee, head to the local bar where the tournament had a small tab, crash on someone’s floor, then play some more games on Sunday.

That is not what happened.  On our way to Ballarat it started to sprinkle.  When we got there it started to rain.  While we warmed up it started to pour.  When we played it started to whatever comes after pour.  Hands down worst conditions I have ever played in.  At one point I think it started to hail.  The entire field turned into a puddle and in some spots the water was ankle-high and I ended up running around in cleats full of mud.  The school where the fields were at had a small wind turbine, and it was going absolutely berserk.  The blades were only a couple feet long, but I’m pretty sure it could have powered the entire neighborhood that day.

At the beginning of a frisbee game there is the equivalent of a coin toss.  I called it and lost, but miraculously the other team elected to receive.  Baffled, Ben and I quickly chose to pull downwind.  Unsurprisingly, we broke the other team on the first point, and no upwind points were scored.  It was just too hard to work against gale-force winds.  With that advantage we naturally ended up winning the game by one point.  I think the final score was 5-4.  I caught two scores, one of which was the final point.  (Yeah, I’ll stick to frisbee.)

That ended up being the only game we played and since it was so early I took a ride back to Melbourne.  The day wasn’t a complete loss, however, as I met Toby, who had an extra ticket to the quarterfinal footy match at the MCG that night.  He ended up having great seats, too; only about ten rows back from the field in the members section.  

Best seats I've had.

The game was a complete blowout but I still had fun and the atmosphere was great.  Since it was a big game there were over 65,000 fans there.  The reason there were so many empty seats in front of us was because most people were back in the covered seats, afraid of the rain starting again.  It held off for the entire match.  The weekend didn’t go as I had planned, but I still had a good time.