60 in 60 #22 The 2007 Grand Final

 60 in 60 #22    2007 Grand  Final

I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts in 60 days. 30 about people and 30 about events, places, experiences and entities.

 

I’m writing this a couple of days before Geelong play Melbourne in the AFL Preliminary Final, with the game being played in Perth because of Covid.

I have written about my love for Geelong- the Cats, previously but this chapter centres on the 2007 season and one game in particular, the Grand Final but it's about a lot more than just football, it's a story of hope and faith and little miracles.

The way the 2007 season started gave no hint of how it would end. Geelong lost 3 of their first 5 games including an embarrassing defeat at home to North Melbourne. That proved to be a line in the sand moment. Steve Johnson came back after a club-imposed 6 week suspension. Some key players including Paul Chapman declared they were fed up with mediocrity and demanded improved effort and performance from the team. 

 

Then it happened! The next week Geelong thrashed Richmond by 157 points, the first of 14 consecutive wins that took the Cats to the top of the ladder and become clear premiership favourites. It was a wild and exciting ride as the Cats took all before them and players like Gary Ablett, Jimmy Bartel, Steve Johnson, Paul Chapman, Joel Corey, Corey Enright and Matthew Scarlett stamped themselves as superstars. Geelong only lost one more game for the season, at home to Port Adelaide in a thriller, before finishing on top of the ladder.

 

We were living in Busselton and as the season progressed and the very real possibility of Geelong winning the flag emerged I applied for some overdue long service leave and planned a trip to Victoria with Carolyn, Jordan and Paul to coincide with the AFL finals.

They flew to Queensland to stay with Dad for the first few days while I went to Melbourne and the first final versus North Melbourne. Any nerves I felt were quickly dealt with as the Cats thumped the Kangaroos by 106 points. 

 

I flew up to Queensland to join the family and spend a couple of weeks with Dad. We all went down to the Gold Coast for a few of days to visit the theme parks (mainly for my benefit! I love roller coasters). Our day at Adventure World got off to a rocky start when Dad dropped us off then drove off with our tickets which I had left in the car! We managed to sort it out and had a good day.

 

Prior to the preliminary final against Collingwood I was supposed to enter the members ballot for Grand Final tickets but in the confusion and stress of securing prelim final tickets I missed the deadline! Considering that the crowd for the PF was seven hundred higher than the Grand Final  it was just as well I managed to get the tickets we needed for Carolyn, Paul and I. Jordy doesn’t like football (!) so he didn’t need a ticket. The game was played on a Friday night at the MCG in front of 98,000 people and it was one of the most intense, exciting and nerve-wracking games I’ve ever been to. Collingwood played very well and Geelong lacked the killer instinct they had shown for the bulk of the season. The Magpies hit the front in the third quarter and I began to feel sick!

 

Half way through the last quarter there was less than a goal the difference and I turned to Paulie, who was 9 at the time and said “We might not win mate”. He looked me straight in the eye and said with complete calmness, “We’re gonna win Dad”. I started to reply, “But Collingwood are playing really well…” when he cut me off and said with even greater conviction, “We’re gonna win Dad”. I don’t know where his confidence came from but when Gary Ablett kicked the winning goal with a few minutes to go his prophecy came true! The flood of relief as the siren sounded was even greater than the jubilation. The Cats were in the Grand Final for the first time since 1995. Their opponents were Port Adelaide, the last team to beat them.

 

On the off-chance that you don’t know the sad history of Geelong, they played in four Grand Finals in six years, 1989, 1992, 1994 & 1995 and lost them all. It was a heart-breaking and gut wrenching period and like most Geelong fans, I felt like I would never see the Cats win the premiership in my lifetime. Around this time Guru Bob on the Coodabeen Champions radio show came out with this gem, “Some people are destined to never experience peace, joy and fulfillment in life, for these people God created the Geelong Football Club”. I knew exactly what he meant.

 

I had been to the 1980 GF with Gary when Richmond beat Collingwood, and was lucky enough to score a ticket to the 2005 GF when Sydney beat West Coast in a low-scoring thriller best remembered for Leo Barry’s game-saving mark in the final minute. Now we had made the Grand Final but I didn’t have a ticket! They are notoriously hard to get. Between the MCC members, AFL members and the thousands sold as corporate packages, only about 20,000 are available to each team’s members and I had missed the ballot anyway.

 

We were staying at Gary and Christine’s place for the week and I spent all my spare time hunting for a ticket online, on ebay, on footy websites, in the paper, anywhere I could think of. I made contact with a bloke on the web who said he had a ticket available and we made an arrangement to meet at Flinders Street station at 12.00 the next day. I withdrew $500 which I understood to be the asking price (face value of tickets ranged from $180-350).

I waited at the station for an hour but the guy never turned up!

 

On the Friday before the game we went into the city to watch the Grand Final parade and as we were standing in Federation Square a voice said “Hello Marcus”. I turned around and saw a family from Busselton, the Smokers, who we knew through church connections. They had bought Grand Final packages earlier in the season when it looked like their team, West Coast, might make the Grand Final and had flown over from Perth the day before. Helen asked if I had a ticket and I said no, I was still trying to get one.

 

I got up early on Saturday morning, headed in to the MCG and joined the group of sign-wielding people wandering around the ground looking for tickets. I wasn’t having any luck so I decided to try plan B. I struck up a conversation with a young bloke selling the Footy Record near Jolimont station and quizzed him about how he got in to the ground. He told me he didn’t need a pass or anything because he had the Footy Record jacket and could get in to restock when he needed to. Then he told me he had a spare jacket in the car! I didn’t know whether it would work but I negotiated with him that I’d give him $200 for the jacket if I hadn’t gotten a ticket before the game started. 

 

About half an hour later my phone rang. It was Helen Smoker calling. 

“Marcus, have you got a ticket yet?”

“No”

“Well, I’ve got one for you !”

“You’re joking” I gasped!

“I wouldn’t joke about something this serious Marcus. Meet us at Gate 1 at 12.00 o’clock and it’s yours”.

 

I couldn’t believe it! I rang Carolyn and said “I’ve got a ticket” then I started to cry! 

 

I met Murray and Helen at Gate One at noon. It turned out that another lady from Bunbury who was on the trip with them had woken up that morning covered in a rash. At breakfast she happened to sit with the Smokers and told them she wasn’t well enough to go the game and did they know anybody who needed a ticket?  They did! And that’s when Helen had phoned me. When I asked them how much she wanted for it they said, “nothing, we told her about you, what you do (school chaplain) and how much you love Geelong and she was happy to give it to you”. 

I was stunned, elated, relieved, thankful and speechless! They told me I would be sitting next to the lady’s daughter who was also on the trip and that I could thank her myself.

 

I hung around outside the G for the next hour soaking in the atmosphere, watching the various radio teams’ outside broadcasts, spotting AFL players and celebrities and psyching myself up for the game. At about 1.00 o’clock I went back to gate one and lined up to go in. 

My favourite footy commentator and fellow Cats fan, Gerard Whately

Then something even more miraculous happened. As I went  to go through the turnstile the light on top was already green before I had even scanned my barcode! I hesitantly pushed against the bar and it turned. I was in and I hadn’t even needed a ticket to get through the gate! 

I couldn’t believe it. 

My immediate thought was that I still had a valid ticket and that would enable me to get someone else in. But first, I had to secure my own re-entry to the ground. I set off to find a helpful Geelong fan in the crowd. I approached a young couple in the standing room section behind the goal and explained what had happened. The girl looked at me in astonishment and said

“You were meant to be here!”. 

I asked if I could borrow one of their tickets to use as a pass-out so I could go and find someone to give a ticket to and they happily agreed.

I duly scanned back out of the stadium and went looking for a suitable recipient.

 

I found an old bloke with a Cats scarf and asked if he wanted a ticket. To my surprise he said he’d just been given one by someone coming out of a corporate tent who didn’t want to go the game but he wasn’t sure if it was legitimate. I said let’s go and see if it works and if it doesn’t you can have this one. I stood back from the gate and watched as he entered. My heart skipped a beat when the attendant held up a hand and stopped him at the turnstile but laughed when it turned out he had a bottle of alcohol in his coat pocket and wasn’t permitted to bring it in! Once that was dealt with he was safely into the ground.

 

I resumed my search and soon found a teenage boy holding a “ticket wanted” sign. I told him I could get him in, it wouldn’t be a seat but at least he would get to go to the Grand Final”. He checked with his Mum if that was OK. She asked how much I wanted for it and I said “Nothing’. As this transaction was occurring a voice said “Hi Marcus” and it was yet another familiar face from Busselton, a young bloke called Josh who knew my daughter. The surprises kept coming. 

I took the boy back to the gate, gave him the ticket I had borrowed and he was able to enter the ground. 

Then as I went to enter with my original ticket I was refused entry! My heart sank!

The attendant said I had come to the wrong gate and I needed to go in through gate 5 at the other end of the ground! Relieved, I headed off to find the right gate. As I set off I reflected that if I had looked at the ticket closely I'd have realised what gate I should go in. Because the rendezvous was at gate one I had just presumed that's where I would be entering. Therefore, if I hadn't tried to enter that gate  the first time I wouldn't have experienced the green light "miracle" or been able to get someone else into the game.

 

You’ve probably had the experience of being in a crowded room where lots of conversations are happening and you hear someone say your name and it stands out clearly through the chatter. As I was walking through the crowd outside the MCG I clearly heard someone say,

“Then Marcus Holt gave him a ticket”. I didn’t see who it was or stop to investigate but it was an other-worldly sort of experience.

 

Finally I entered the ground through the right gate and found my way to my seat on level 4, between the wing and the half forward flank. I sat down next to a lady called Dianne, the daughter of my benefactor. I thanked her profusely for her Mum’s kindness and asked if I could give her some money for the ticket. She politely declined my offer. 

I said, “I’ve got a thousand dollars in my pocket and you are welcome to have it all” but she insisted that they didn’t want any money for it and that they were glad I was able to come to the game. Again I was speechless with gratitude.

 

The game was perfect. After a close first quarter Geelong got on top and never looked like losing. At the 10 minute mark of the second quarter I knew that Geelong were going to be premiers, my worries disappeared and I was able to celebrate every kick, mark and goal as the Cats stormed to a record-breaking 119 point victory in the Grand Final. The people around me were all on the trip from WA and instead of being disappointed that the Eagles hadn’t made it, they told me they loved watching me enjoy the game and seeing my team win the premiership for the first time in 44 years. It was a brilliant day in a multitude of ways. When you’re a neutral fan you like a close and exciting Grand Final but when you’ve waited your whole life, and endured so many disappointments, there’s nothing better than winning the flag comfortably and being able to relax and celebrate all the way through the game.

 

After it was all over I thanked Dianne again and swapped phone numbers with her.

When we returned home to WA a few weeks later I asked my Mum to make a special Teddy Bear with a Geelong jumper and a West Coast scarf. I called Dianne and arranged to visit her and meet her Mum to thank her personally. I gave her the Teddy Bear and we relived the stories of Grand Final day. She had recovered from the rash by the following day.

At the end of my visit she said, “I’m so glad I got sick that day”!!!!

 

I stayed in touch with Dianne for the next couple of years and was sad when she told me one day that her Mum had passed away.

NB. Geelong's 2007 season is probably the most successful in AFL history. As well as winning the AFL Grand Final by a record margin, they won the VFL flag, Jimmy Bartel won the Brownlow Medal,Steve Johnson won the Norm Smith medal and nine players were selected in the All-Australian team, a feat that has never been equalled.