No walk down the aisle

ROB McLEAN

AT approximately 2.30pm this Sunday I should be at a friend's wedding.

Instead, I will be decked out in red, white and blue cheering on my favourite football team the mighty Central District Bulldogs at the SANFL grand final.

The moral dilemma has been eating away at my soul for about two months now.

I've asked the advice of friends, acquaintances and even numerous pseudonymous internet scribes about my predicament.

The funny thing is, they all said I should head to Football Park to watch my team fight out its destiny with West Adelaide.

I'm sure if I'd asked the advice of the groom, a friend from junior footballing days, my mother or any member of the cloth, then I would have got a different answer. I didn't ask and I wouldn't because I know what their responses would be.

So, I wrote my mate a kind letter, telling him that I would be unable to make it due to work committments. I was sure he'd understand.

I know that with my own wedding approaching, I'd probably be slightly annoyed if someone didn't come because of a similar reason, but...

While my decision doesn't feel right, it will at about 5pm Sunday afternoon if the Bulldogs are releasing the corks on some bubbly and spraying it all over each other in the way only sportspeople can.

See, I love Central District. I may not get to every game, but I avidly read, listen or watch anything I can about the team I grew up with. My heart will always be in Elizabeth, no matter what anyone says about this maligned part of Adelaide - it's where I'm from.

I am a member of a generation, maybe one of the last, which reveres suburban football - the grassroots stuff that the AFL has almost completely overshadowed.

The blokes in the SANFL are fellas I grew up, went to school with, shared a guernsey with or bumped into at local parties.

In the future they will be the sons and grandsons of those same people.

Unless you walk in charmed circles or know all the Ôhot spots' in the nightclub scene, you can't feel that close affinity with the homogenised stars of your favourite AFL team. The AFL conscription each November ensures that players from across the country represent your colours. Very few sons of the Collingwood, Footscray or Hawthorn suburbs manage to play for the club that they grew up around the corner from anymore.

This is not a rant about the AFL and its powerful grip on our nation's interest and footballing future.

It is a celebration of local football and the people that support it.

I encourage you to at least take note of the result in what is the last official Australian rules football match of the season, a match played on that 'Day in October'.

Oh, by the way...Dave, good luck with the wedding!

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