Aussies love their footy more than
Utahan's love their fry sauce! And that is no understatement!!! Footy is a way of life here, it is something that Aussies eat, sleep and breathe. Especially when it comes down to the grand final time of year (which just happened to be this weekend for country players) and in a couple weeks for the pro teams. So it came as no surprise that
Darran and I got caught up in the country footy grand final fever and spent the weekend attending several grand final games.
The first of many was our friend
Lochy's grand final game. He and his brother play for the
Wonthaggi Power, who according to all the other teams in their league are too good and the teams are trying to get them kicked out of the league. Well, this grand final didn't disappoint. It was a close nail biter of a game, with
Wonthaggi coming out on top to win the cup.
Here is
Lochy with the ball (in the black shorts). Notice there are no helmets, no pads, just shorts, and footy jumpers (tops) and mouth pieces. It is a physical fast paced game. One that has hard hits, fights and lots of excitement.
These are the goal posts. There are four of them. The two on the ends are worth one point and the middle goals are worth six points. The guy in the orange (in the middle) is one of the umpires. He stands there to signal what type of goal has been scored. He has two flags to signal that they just scored a 6 point goal. He uses one flag to signal to score a goal. In order to score you have to kick the ball through the posts. If it is hit with your hand through the goals it's only worth one. The ball is kicked from player to player, rather than passed like in American football.
The next day we headed up to
Ballarat (about 3 hours from our house) to watch our friends Josh and Sam's (the twins) footy final. We had a great drive up there and enjoyed the time we got to spend together in the car. I had packed a fun picnic and we both had a lot of fun laughing, talking and eating. When we got there, we noticed that there was a change in the weather from the day before. At
Lochy's game, the sun was out, it was about 75 degrees and I got a bit of sun burn. In
Ballarat, it was cool, over cast and windy. We still had a fun time, despite the weather, and the fact that the twins lost.
This is the grand stand at the East oval in
Ballart, it was built back in the 1850's. It was one of the first Cricket/Footy ovals in Victoria. It was beautiful! I felt like I was sitting in the grandstands where Babe herded the sheep in the sheep dog competition in the movie Babe. See that tree to the right of the grandstand? It is a maple was planted in 1847. How cool is that? What a weekend of footy! Looking forward to the
AFL (pro league) grand final in a couple weeks!
The first of many was our friend Lochy's grand final game. He and his brother play for the Wonthaggi Power, who according to all the other teams in their league are too good and the teams are trying to get them kicked out of the league. Well, this grand final didn't disappoint. It was a close nail biter of a game, with Wonthaggi coming out on top to win the cup. 
Here is Lochy with the ball (in the black shorts). Notice there are no helmets, no pads, just shorts, and footy jumpers (tops) and mouth pieces. It is a physical fast paced game. One that has hard hits, fights and lots of excitement.
These are the goal posts. There are four of them. The two on the ends are worth one point and the middle goals are worth six points. The guy in the orange (in the middle) is one of the umpires. He stands there to signal what type of goal has been scored. He has two flags to signal that they just scored a 6 point goal. He uses one flag to signal to score a goal. In order to score you have to kick the ball through the posts. If it is hit with your hand through the goals it's only worth one. The ball is kicked from player to player, rather than passed like in American football.
The next day we headed up to Ballarat (about 3 hours from our house) to watch our friends Josh and Sam's (the twins) footy final. We had a great drive up there and enjoyed the time we got to spend together in the car. I had packed a fun picnic and we both had a lot of fun laughing, talking and eating. When we got there, we noticed that there was a change in the weather from the day before. At Lochy's game, the sun was out, it was about 75 degrees and I got a bit of sun burn. In Ballarat, it was cool, over cast and windy. We still had a fun time, despite the weather, and the fact that the twins lost. 
This is the grand stand at the East oval in Ballart, it was built back in the 1850's. It was one of the first Cricket/Footy ovals in Victoria. It was beautiful! I felt like I was sitting in the grandstands where Babe herded the sheep in the sheep dog competition in the movie Babe. See that tree to the right of the grandstand? It is a maple was planted in 1847. How cool is that? What a weekend of footy! Looking forward to the AFL (pro league) grand final in a couple weeks!
1 comments:
What FUN! I have been curious about Footy ever since Daz brought the first one to the states. So very cool and great pictures, did you take the action shots Jen? If so, WAY to go!
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