Good ol' sporting Melbourne

The F1 GP in Australia over the weekend attracted a lot of attention here due to the presence of local lad Narain Karthikeyan in the competition. But, I was too busy brimming with nostalgia at the sights and sounds of good ol’ Melbourne. This is a great city when it comes to sporting action. It has played host to the biggest sporting spectacle on the planet, the Olympics, in 1956 and has an action packed calendar of events every year.

The year starts off with first Tennis Grand Slam, the Australian Open. The Grand Slam of the Asia/Pacific is played for a fortnight mainly at the Rod Laver Arena and Vodafone Arena. Australia has a fine tradition in the sport and tennis enjoys a good following here. There is nothing approaching Wimbledon style Henmania, but Melbourne boy, Mark Philippoussis enjoys a strong support from the crowds. The Australian exhortative cry of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” which is followed by the chant “oi, oi, oi” in the exact same beat as the first cry, rings through the stadium during his matches.

The next major event of the year is Formula one racing. The Grand Prix came to Melbourne in 1996 when it shifted from Adelaide. The inner city open spaces of Albert Park are converted to a scenic track every year to host the race since then. It is a four-day carnival of speed and glamour (three practice/warm up days followed by the race on the Sunday) in the first weekend of March. The race in Melbourne is season opener and sets the tone for results to come in that season.

But it is Australian Rules Football or “Footy” as it is called that gets Melbourne going. This game was conceived by MCC honorary secretary and cricketer T.W.Wills in 1858 as a suitable pastime to keep cricketers fit during winter. Due to the risk of injury because of the nature of the game, rugby was considered unsuitable. The objective was to devise a game of football in which the ball would be in the air more and a set of rules that gave birth to the game of footy were created.

Footy many not be an International sport but it is the firm favourite with Melburnians. Ten of the sixteen teams in the competition belong to the city. The season stretches for a good part of the year, starting in late March and ending with the Grand Finale in September. With games being on all weekends and holidays, every weekend is a sporting weekend for six months through the year. The Grand Finale is a must attend event for die-hard fans. An amazing 121,000 people watched the 1970 decider between Carlton and Collingwood at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) far exceeding the 87,000 strong crowd that were present in the stadium for the Cricket world cup finals in 1992.

Melbourne celebrates two sporting events, Cup Day and the Boxing Day test match, with a traditional fervour normally reserved for religious events in other parts of the world. Melbourne cup day is a special Tuesday for the city featuring the “race that stops a nation”. This race marks the high point of the spring horse racing carnival. At 3:10 pm AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time) on the first Tuesday in November, an official holiday in Melbourne, for about four minutes the nation pauses all activity to catch the action live, at a pub on TV or on radio. The first Melbourne Cup was run in 1861 at Flemington racecourse and every year since then it has been a fine Melbourne sporting tradition.

During the racing season fashion, glamour and celebrity watching takes centre stage. The women brave the spring chill and the sharp unpredictable showers, which are a standard feature of the local weather, to display the latest fashion. Milliners make their fortune in those few days alone as outrageous headgear, ascot style, is de rigueur. The spirit of the season was captured by Mark Twain who commented during a visit "Nowhere in the world have I encountered a festival of people that has such a magnificent appeal to the whole nation. The Cup astonishes me."

The Boxing Day cricket test match commences on December 26th every year at the MCG. As a sporting tradition the Boxing Day test match is relatively young. The match date at the MCG was not set and some times even two matches were played in a summer series. It was a doozy of an encounter played between Australia and West Indies out in a match that started on that day in 1981, which made it find its place as a true Australian sporting tradition. (Obviously Australia was the winner of that match)

Boxing day is one of the earliest days of summer after a long winter. The crowd content after the previous days’ Christmas barbeques and happy in the knowledge that long holidays stretch ahead fills the stadium to bask in the glorious warmth of sunshine. It is a day that almost inevitably has a “God is in heaven and all’s right with the world” feel irrespective of what transpires in the stadium. But, this is usually the third match in the series being played that summer and is often an interesting encounter as its result matter a lot.

Apart from the regular events, Davis cup fixtures are routine, a number of rugby matches were played here during the last World Cup and the action continues as Melbourne prepares for the Commonwealth games in 2006.

The best part of it all is the sheer affordability of catching some of this action live. You won’t get creamed paying for strawberries and cream here. I managed well enough even as a reasonably impecunious student living on a strictly limited allowance. Given the most reasonable prices to be a part of world-class events, Melbourne is a sports lovers’ dream come true. And that is one of the many reasons why it is vastly superior to Sydney.