It’s September 3, 2022. One whole hour until first bounce of Geelong’s Qualifying Final against Collingwood at the MCG.
Freezing, shaking. Shaking because of nerves, because of the heartbreak of coming so close, so many times in the last 11 years.
My Dad Nic and I meet with Uncle James and Aunty Maz, who has just had foot surgery and was sitting in the accessibility seats up the back.
As if it was fate, an elderly Geelong man struggling with a walking frame, with his daughter rolled up next to the four of us. Naturally, we get talking and find out the man has Parkinson’s Disease.
A Cat man with Parkinson’s Disease. Dad looks at me.
It reminds him of his own father, a Cats man who had Parkinson’s Disease and passed away in 2019.
At half time, Dad takes the man to get a coffee. He takes it black, just like my Papou did.
A sign? Dad’s father? We believed it.
Gary Rohan dominated.
And then, just like that, we won. We actually won.
We bid our farewells to the man with Parkinson’s Disease and looked ahead to the Preliminary Final with the same hope.
That preliminary final was scarily enjoyable. Almost too good to be true. Was this our Grand Final?
Then it really set in. No more “at least we don’t have to worry about Grand Final tickets”, that my Uncle James and Aunty Penny would always say after every Preliminary Final loss.
There were a lot.
And then, just like that, we were in the Grand Final. We were actually in.
I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed the week lead up.
In 2020, when we lost the Grand Final, Dad and I made a promise that if we ever got there again, we would fully embrace the week before the big game.
Maybe that was our over 200-day Melbourne lockdown brains talking, but in 2022, we just couldn’t do it.
Superstitions are a weird thing, but something our family places value in.
Dad went to the 1994 Grand Final Parade and then the Cats proceeded to lose to the Eagles.
He’s never been again and never taken me.
When my Dad, Uncle James and I secured our Grand Final tickets, but my Aunty Maz didn’t, it had shades of 2008, when she and James missed out on tickets and the Cats lost.
Then, as if the Footy Gods were finally giving us our chance, Maz and her daughter Tarsh had tickets.
And then my hope grew a little more.
And then I didn’t eat for the rest of the week. Too nervous.
On the morning of the Grand Final, Dad and I took a detour past our Greek Church to light some candles. (If you ask him now, he’ll tell you it definitely helped the Cats).
We also stopped by my Papou’s grave on the way to the MCG and said a prayer. We hoped he was listening.
The car ride to South Yarra station was silent.
I understand Dad’s hesitation and worry. He saw us lose 1989, 1992, 1994 and 1995 (and 2008 and 2020). He waited 44 years to see the Cats win a flag.
Unlike my Dad, I waited just six years to see my first flag, and have been extremely blessed with the Geelong I’ve grown up with.
The Golden Years. The Power House. The Destination Club with once-in-a-lifetime-players in the blue and white hoops.
No longer the sleepy hollow down the highway.
We sit on the train in silence (again).
Then we walk harmoniously, with Swans fans into the place where half of us will be crushed and the others on a forever-high. Those Swans are so jovial, respectful and a joy to watch football besides.
We take our seats and the sun is beaming down hard. Don’t Geelong play better in the rain?
Dad and I cry arm in arm to “Up There Cazaly” and I tell him how blessed we are to just be here.
We watch the Lap of Honour of retiring players.
Then we see Robbie Williams take over. He was better than Meatloaf.
Only some were there to tell the tale of the 2011 Grand Final…
He plays “Angels” and I think my Papou and my Aunty Maria, another die hard Cat, who also we lost in 2019, are here with us today.
And maybe, our Cats heard “Let Me Entertain You” and decided then to put on a show.
Can it start already?
And then it does.
That Hawkins snap replays in my mind often. He does it twice after a tough early tussle.
And then, little by little, the floodgates open.
The group of guys in front of us slowly get more intoxicated and start celebrating.
In the first quarter.
The eternal realist in my Dad, Uncle James and me jokingly tell them to keep a lid on it.
I sit crossed legged for the entire game, because after Isaac Smith kicked his second, I couldn’t mess up the balance in that very moment.
We are all over the Swans. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Stengle slots two right in front of us.
Zach Guthrie lays a hard bump. He’s everywhere.
Sam De Koning competes and wins every contest like he’s Matthew Scarlett.
My Mum Jen and brother James are texting us from home “is the lid off yet?”.
Maybe.
At the beginning of the final quarter, my Uncle James turns to me and says “you can enjoy it now, Anna.”
We proceed to cry and cry and cry during the final term. It’s one thing to win a Grand Final, but to KNOW you are going to win so far in advance is an absolute privilege.
We even had the privilege of discussing who would win the Norm Smith Medal. Dad reckons Dangerfield. I say Stengle. I don’t even really mind.
We’re about to be Premiers.
That Parfitt goal is forever etched into my mind. The whole game is, really.
But the moment before it, Brad Close’s over-the-head blind handball to create the magic is vastly forgotten.
And then there was Joel, and Jeremy Cameron and everyone else.
When the siren went I embraced my Dad. It felt just as good as it did in 2009 and 2011.
Maybe even better.
And the signs kept on coming. The day after the Grand Final, on our way to Kardinia Park, we found a perfectly new Geelong car flag on the side of the road.
We grabbed it and on our way home and stopped past Papou at the cemetery.
And what did you expect? It fit perfectly right next to his photo with the 2011 Premiership Cup on his headstone.
Months later, it’s still sitting in the ground, perfectly.
Joel Selwood post-match was asked about his career, but, in selfless fashion, said something along the lines of “everyone here has story.”
And he’s right. Every player, staff member, coach and supporter has a story about what this Premiership means to them.
The Cam Guthrie and Mark Blicavs heartbreak of five Preliminary Finals losses and a Grand Final loss, just to get here.
The Dangerfield story. Reaching Everest.
The Tyson Stengle turn around.
Even the Josh Jenkins story behind the scenes.
For me and Dad, it’s signs.
The Cats man with Parkinson’s Disease at the Qualifying Final.
Our whole footy gang getting tickets to the Grand Final against the odds.
Finding a car park immediately at South Yarra station before the game.
Seeing our friends, the Edwards sitting just rows in front of us on Grand Final Day.
Running into the Mescher Family, Nick, Ben, Pete and even Laura, who made the trip from the US, just to be here for this very moment.
Seeing our Irish friends Sean and Louise outside Gate 7, while they’re in tears.
Seeing the Capuana family on our big lap of the MCG post-game.
We even run into our boy Mitch Harrison, who sits with us at Kardinia Park.
Football to us is family and tradition. But that extends further than blood. Another good football sign is when we run into all of them.
It must have worked on Grand Final Day.
My blue coat being saturated the night before the game, by total accident, so I was forced to wear my other Geelong jacket to the Big Dance.
Dad wearing his famous ‘27’ jumper that has only ever seen Geelong Premierships.
My Uncle James and Aunty Maz wearing the same outfits three games in a row.
Deciding to walk underneath the sculpture in front of Gate 6 at the bottom of the stairs, just because.
It may have meant absolutely nothing, but to us, it was everything.
And that’s the thing. Football can mean everything and it can mean nothing.
Some say it’s just a game.
But, on that sunny September 24th in 2022 at the MCG, when we finally held that Premiership Cup aloft, it was everything we had hoped for, and more.
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