#guess it’s gonna be King’s Burthday holiday now ew

[likesrandomstuff]

Part 2 of my AFLW game day experience

Did I format this last time, idk @heywhereisperry

I had planned my travel to and from the game with minute accuracy with the tools available to me (cough work programs cough). And it hinged on getting this one train from my local station, cross over four platforms in two minutes at North Melbourne, then get off at the station near the ground.

I decided last minute to put on sunscreen. From the free samples I got from a previous game two weeks ago. Why they were handing it out when it poured for the second half and hailed at the end, idk. Not the easiest to get out of the tube, so that put me behind, but I made it to the first train.

You can see the train coming if you zoom in. Got on that, made it to North Melbourne, which is a major train station in terms that a lot of different trains run through it, but useless in my role as you can’t move trains to different platforms or turn them around there. Got to the other platform in time, and the second train was delayed. Which stressed me out a bit, but I saw someone wearing a St Kilda jumper, so my goal was to stalk him when we got off, so I wouldn’t get lost. Thankfully the Melbourne train system allowed me to do the trip with only one train changeover.

North Melbourne Station. Featuring a very nice weather day. This train was late, and then took forever between two of the stops, but considering my back-up plan was the next train, wasn’t too bothered by it.

Once on the train it was my “once every four years” trip to that side of Melbourne via train. Did so at the end of 2014, and mid 2018, so yeah. Get a cool look of the city, then gets boring. Spent the trip listening to podcasts, checking how many stops left, and the score of the AFLW game that was on then. Got to the station, got off, saw the guy from before. Lost him cause my ticket (Myki card) wouldn’t register end-of-trip. I keep the card in that blue case. Basically know that’s not going to slip out of my pocket, and means that I can commute with it in my pocket and don’t have to put it in or out of my bag. There were other people wearing gear so followed the crowd. Crowd sort of all went different ways outside the station. Ended up following throw couple who only seemed slightly more confident of where they were going than I did.

Got to the ground, bag check, ticket scanned, no metal detector though. Passed through. Walked through the building to the field. Was going to do a lap around the ground to check it out, but was blocked off on the left, so went right. Walking to their stand and see someone familiar, I wave, only to register that it’s my team’s co-captain. Not the one who is missing the season due to a knee injury, but the other one. This one wasn’t playing for both suspension and concussion reasons. Would have been her 50th game otherwise. That’s the big game number milestone that players are finally getting to after 6 years. The wave was thankfully not noticed, and I was like “do I say hi or something”, but then I didn’t cause she was in the middle of a conversation and I didn’t think it was worth interrupting. So walked past.

Saw the seats were filling up, so grabbed one and since the game was still 30 minutes away, started reading. Soon after Captain and a bunch of other players out injured/ weren’t picked, had moved over to stand right in front of me, me sitting five rows back. Started holding the book obnoxiously to show the cover and so I wasn’t just staring at them. Soon before the game started they moved to a nearby section, to where I later saw was a reserved section for Collingwood associated people, which made sense.

Part 3: Game Time!