THE MCG - The People's Ground

by RICK KANE

A FEW Saturdays ago I was at the MCG, which, incidentally, is known as 'The People's Ground'. I guess this means that this place is for the people. I know it's 'The People's Ground' because they advertise it on the ticket you purchase before you enter the stadium. To enter, you must scan the ticket bar code across a sterile machine while a human quality assures the process. If you're ripped, like I was, you may try to force your ticket into the machine. At this point Quality Assurance man steps in and assists. Other than for tasks such as that his job appeared superfluous.

Once you're permitted into 'The People's Ground' courtesy of the cool calibrations of technology the MCG is indeed a many splendid thing. It takes your breath away. That's due to the awe inspiring panorama of a dreamed and realised Australia as an indisputable site for a contest and also, because of the amount of concrete left, right, front, back, above and below your own rather small and insignificant body.

Now to find a seat. This place can hold 100,000 people, give or take some 1000s. The more obvious choice for the average punter is to park arse in the Great Southern Stand. Even arriving half an hour before the first siren we still had to trek up to the nose-bleed section of this great stand. High up in the stand allows you a flying bird's view of the action but it would never be a fan's first choice. The fan will go where he/she can.

You see, the thing is, unless you are some sort of member, of the teams playing, of the MCG, of the AFL or some other mysterious designation, you can only access about half of the main stand of The People's Ground. Watching a game on telly you might assume that people like to gather behind and near the goals. Wrong. They are forced into that arrangement. From my vantage point, serried together with the people for whom this stand was built, higher than a man without wings needs to be, I gaze despairingly at the vast emptiness of this great (southern) stand. I imagine sitting over the wing. That is where I want to watch the Mighty Hawks gather the ball out of the centre yet again on their way to complete and utter demolishment of the Tigers, that oh so sad and graceless excuse of a jungle predator. But we cannot sit just anywhere in the Great Southern Stand, even though, for the duration of the match, it remains half-empty. We decide to move to another part of The People's Ground.

We weave our way through the tunnels under the stands past food outlets, jostling with other travellers seeking nothing more than a reasonably comfortable seat in this, The People's Ground. In the Northern Stand we find some solace. Seating here consists of old wooden benches, which means a lardarse like myself can plonk himself down. This seating is a little more comfortable than fitting into the moulded seats that seem to be designed for 12 year-olds. The Northern Stand offers a good view of the ground/game, but it is not undercover. Footy is a winter game and it rains in winter. It rains on this day, approximately 24 minutes after we get settled and so we move again.

We finally settle in the terraces, under The Great Southern Stand. This part of the ground offers the most restricted viewing (you can hardly see a scoreboard let alone the big video screen), is standing room only, contains more knuckleheads per square metre than any other space in the whole kingdom of footy (except The Footy Show, of course) and, if you haven't already got the point, is brutally claustrophobic. It is also the most enjoyable vantage point to get involved with the game. People are yelling and heckling and laughing and spewing, literally. Think of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre mixed with the early cinema barns mixed with the mosh pit experience and you're almost there. The air is electric and not just with the tension of the game at hand. In a space (MCG) where it seems that every attempt has been made to control, contain and domesticate the fans, in the terrace it is as if everything is coming undone. I watched Hawthorn defeat Richmond to the tune of 58 points and I would have enjoyed that wherever I was sitting at the MCG. Would I have been so open in my expression of delight had I viewed the game anywhere else in the ground? I don't know but I don't think so.

Standing in the terrace, (mid strength) beer in hand, at the end of the game I wonder how yet again the world is made to seem upside down. I believe I am standing with the true, die hard fans of the game and yet they are afforded the least comfort, viewing capacity and consideration. They are in The People's Ground, they might even be the mythical 'people' in the designation given to this ground but they are, in some way, invisible. The energy surging through the terraces is, however, indivisible to The People's Game.

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