If all goes as hoped, I will cry Saturday
Updated: 2011-09-30 08:32
By Tym Glaser (China Daily)
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Nostratymus can see the future all so clearly.
I know exactly what I will be doing this Saturday.
I will be at a bar in Lido (pronounced lee-doo to taxi drivers) called Frank's Place, I will be standing at a table with a bucket full of VB, I will be looking at a large screen and I will be gnawing my fingernails down to the first knuckle joint.
I can foresee all this because I am Australian and also, more importantly, a Collingwood fan and October 1 is Grand Final day and the Magpies are back in the Big One to defend their title against a nasty, nasty rural Victorian team called Geelong.
Papa Wood always told me I had black in one eye and white in the other as I was an unreasonably passionate fan of the Port Adelaide Magpies in my hometown and, much to his chagrin, did not continue the family string of barracking for North.
The state changed from South Australia to Victoria in my late teens, but my non-colored eyes stayed the same as I attached myself to another flock of Magpies with the same zeal.
I have covered a soccer World Cup, numerous Test cricket matches, Davis Cup ties and pretty much every other sport you can think of during my ... ahem ... 30-plus year career in this game called sports journalism but, when asked, I always say the greatest sporting time I ever had was back in 1990 when Collig-wood broke its 32-year premiership drought at the MCG and I was there to see it among a crowd of nearly 100,000 Magpie and Essendon fans.
When the final siren finally blew, unbridled joy and years of frustration were released all at once. I cried, my friends cried, we hugged, we jumped up and down and sang the club song along with the hordes of the Black and White Army.
We partied hard into that night and, with nary a taxi in sight, I late at night, walked a few miles from the Magpies' nest at Victoria Park to my home in Northcote - adrenaline is a wonderful thing. Fast forward 20 years, and I was at Frank's last year to watch the Pies draw and then eventually win the premiership in a Grand Final replay. In a crowd of about 300, there were about 10 Collingwood supporters as we are the team others love to hate.
We didn't mind; we hugged, jumped for joy and there was also some eye dampness when that siren blared and the bubbly burst forth.
It wasn't like being at 'The G,' but it was pretty close.
I hope to feel that way again on Saturday, but the result is one thing Nostratymus can't see.
Tym Glaser is a senior sports copy editor who will not be hard to find at Frank's Place on Saturday. He can be contacted at tymglaser@hotmail.com.
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