About a week and a half ago, I went to my first-ever footy game at the Westpac Stadium. After spending two weeks in the Salient office listening to boys yell “footy” every five seconds, I decided it was about time to see what all this fuss was about. The tickets were free, what can I say?
Now is probably a good time to indulge you, dear readers, in a run-down of what I get to put up with on a daily basis in the Salient office. Most of the time, I’m the only girl around. To put it bluntly, the Salient office is one huge sausage fest. I can say crude things like that because I’ve been hanging out with boys all year and thus have been desensitised to unlady-like language.
As I am the only member of the so-called “weaker sex” in the office, I am, more often than not, a target for abuse and mocking. Apparently it goes without saying, or that’s what the boys tell me. This week, everyone’s favourite way to wind Sarah up is to conspire via Gmail chat to ensure that one particular song is played at inappropriate moments throughout the day over and over again. HARDER BETTER FASTER STRONGER. You know who you are. Fuck you.
I know I’m meant to be writing about sports, but hey, I’m a woman, I’m allowed to change the subject. So back to that sport thing. During “peak Salient week”, aka that carefree week of never-ending footy jokes, I had several pieces of sporting equipment fired at me from the other side of the office from a makeshift slingshot. This was all while the boys were yelling “footy”, alternated with caveman-like grunting noises. I know, you’d think I’d have had enough by now. Wrong. I jumped on the footy bandwagon instead.
Soon enough I too was throwing our little footy ball across the office. I even learned how to make the ball spin when I passed it. The boys would praise me every time I managed to successfully catch the ball. They’d praise me some more when the ball managed to hit its target. Patronising arseholes. I’m from Feilding, man. I know how to throw a fucking ball.
About that footy game I’m meant to be writing about… Yeah, I’m getting there. Women have a tendency to avoid talking about what they’re meant to be talking about for a while, until it can’t be put off any longer. It usually goes badly from there. But this is no place to talk about failed relationships. FOOTY! Just think of this as the lame pre-match build up.
The Salient family outing to the rugby was, well, kind of eventful. Someone mentioned something about a shield. I didn’t know they used shields in footy. I didn’t see any shields. I only saw people wearing yellow and black, and some other people wearing yellow and blue chasing a ball around a paddock. I was informed that it was an Air New Zealand Cup match between the mighty Wellington, and the not-so-mighty Otago.
The game had started by the time we took our seats. Quite frankly, I was bored from the start—until I realised that Wellington versus Otago was kind of like Salient versus Critic. According to my tweets, I realised this at 7.57pm, when Otago was winning. All of the sudden the game took on new meaning. But that could also be attributed to the beer. Wellington had to win. For Jackson’s sake.
The word “obstruction” kept flashing up on the big screen throughout the game. I asked one of the “footy experts” whether obstruction in footy was the same as obstruction in netball. He didn’t know, but thought probably not. I didn’t think there was any three-feet rule in footy. Distance before hands, you know, that sort of thing.
It would appear from my tweets that at half-time Otago was in the lead. I lamented this to my followers on Twitter, as it had dire consequences for Salient in the battle of the student media heavyweights. Halftime entertainment was provided by some small children playing footy with tags hanging off their shorts. Apparently kids don’t play tackle footy anymore. They rip tags off each other’s shorts instead. Complicated much?
I’m sure I started cheering when Salient and Critic took the field after half time. By this stage, I’d got my alcohol blanket on and, surprisingly, my enthusiasm for the game of footy had doubled. Perhaps even quadrupled. According to Twitter, at 9.03pm Salient scored a try in the corner, and then some guy kicked the ball through the posts. Huzzah! 20 to 14 to us!
Not long after, according to my tweets, Salient scored a drop goal with six minutes to go. And then, the unthinkable happened. Amy Joseph scored a try. But it wasn’t enough. At full time I jumped out of my seat and did a dance in Jackson’s honour. 23 to 19. Salient got to keep their shields. And I could now legitimately claim that I too had witnessed the spectacle that is footy.