Let's Go Crows

We received an email about 3 weeks ago informing us of an upcoming footy game between the Adelaide Crows and the Melbourne Bulldogs. This game was pretty important for the Crows it determined if they would be one of the top seeds of the playoffs. We met at the bus station at the correct time and loaded onto the bus where we had to stand because of the large amount of people going to the game. The stadium is not quite as tall as an NFL stadium but it requires a much larger area because the field is oval shaped and has to hold 36 players at a time. Like I said before the game is a mix between football, soccer, and rugby and the fans are more like soccer fans who yell at the smallest plays and start getting loud when players are anywhere remotely close to the goal. It makes for a rowdy crowd as long as you are not sitting in the family section. We originally sat in the family section but noticed plenty of empty seats below, so at half time we moved down to the lower section where they drunken rowdy fans were. This was a much more enjoyable atmosphere where people yelled at the referees and cheered on their Crows. Surprisingly Bulldog fans were pretty well accepted in the area until they disagreed with a Crows fan. We have watched a few games on tv to see what the whole footy game was about and try getting an understanding of the game before we saw one live. The games on tv were much different because they often ended with scores that were about 140-70. The match that we went to ended with a score of 80something-70something, and at one point in the game each team had identical stats. One of the final goals in the game came from the Crows team, but was a very contraversial call. If a Bulldog player punches the ball through their own goal the other team is only awarded one point; while if a Crow kicks it through the goal the Crows are awarded 6 points. A Bulldog player dove to punch the ball just as a Crows player swung his leg to strike the ball through the goal. I agreed with the Bulldogs but kept my mouth shut and started cheering for the Adelaide goal. The game ended soon after this with the Crows winning and us heading down to the field to play a little footy of our own. When we got onto the field there were footy balls flying all over the place, and somehow everyone knew exactly where their footy ball was even if it landed in a huge crowd. We were trying to find a ball to kick around but as soon as it hit the ground the kid who kicked it was ontop of you getting their ball back. Once we had our fun on the field we left the stadium and headed for our bus back to campus. Overall, I enjoyed the footy game and would like to attend another game.