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Football isn’t Football anymore

Now before I get to the topic at hand I'll fill you in on my day yesterday.

My mum, sister and myself drove upto the CBD (Melbourne) yesterday to initially look at apartments in the Docklands but because someone got up too late we didn't have the spare time to do that so we parked near Federation Square and went inside the flash buildings there. My sister went and looked at some Art Exhibition while me and mum walked around the place. We went to the ACMI and looked at the Video Games Exhibition they had on. There in a small room they had setup all these PCs and Consoles for people to play both new and retro games. It particularly didn't interest me as I play enough games as it is but it was cool to look at all the info they had on display about retro games. After looking at various outher exhibitions around the ACMI we headed back to the lobby and waited for my sister to visit what she was doing. There I saw the most amazing look Japanese chick (there were shit loads of Japanese people around for the F1 events they had at Fed Square including a mini concert, F1 cars on display and Tyre Changing event where you were racing the clock to see who could change a F1 tyre the quickest). I thought heck yer my day is starting off well . After Bec came back we headed off to a Japanese resturant in Fed Square to have lunch. I had Tempura King Prawns in a Broth containing 'stuff' like noodles. It was amazing except for the prawns being fscking hot and me burning the roof of my mouth. Then I had reverse sushi of the crab kind (reverse as in rice on the outside instead of seaweed wrap). That too was quite nice. Oh and I nearly forgot to mention we had a very cute waitress Two highlights so far!

After lunch we got into the car and headed to the Telstra Dome. Once inside (after paying 20 fucking bucks to park, bloody outrage I tell ya) we headed to the nearest set of stairs to get inside the stadium and this is the start of everything bad. Because the dumbshits at the AFL had not sent my sister her membership card we could not get it as they had ticket scanners in the bloody carpark. So we argued with the bastards and they told us to go outside via the entrance to the car park and walk around to Gate 5 where they can help my sister. So mum and bec did that and I went inside the ground and tried to meet them on the inside. When I go upto the Ground level I asked the nearest officials which is the quickest way to Gate 5 and as soon as I walked upto them they proclaimed "No Pass-outs". I was about to tell them "I don't want a fucken passout dipshit" (this angered me because I didn't even get a word in before they told me off) but I cooled my jets and asked them what I intended to. So I headed to Gate 5 where I watched the people at the gate tell my Mum and my sister the membership people are directly opposite the gate. After waiting yet again my mum came to the window and said "Gate 8" where I proceeded to whisper "FUCKING HELL" and raced off to Gate 8. There we went down to the basement level where the Membership people were and argued once again with the Ticket people. Bec got a pass for the day and we proceded to find a seat (FYI on the radio after the game we heard we weren't the only ones outraged by this bullshit and a Telstra Dome employee even rang up under the alias of Jesus (LOL) and voiced his disgust at his employer and said it was a safety hazard that their were no passouts). During the game I was appauled at this new rule where the players cannot touch the back of other players in a marking contest. Not only that but the umpiring in general was unconsistent and distrubed what would of been a memorial game. Now I know my team lost and this may seem biased by I had a supporter sitting next to me who barracked for the other team and when his team got some free kicks he was sitting there shaking his head and saying how awful this is. I found myself confused and angry sometimes when our team got free kicks. My own team for gods sake.

Now in the past I have argued with many that Soccer is not Football but after watching the game last night it might aswell be. There now are too many similarities between the two games... point to point kicking, back and forth, flooding and nooooooo contact. Bloody bullshit! I loved AFL, I played it as a junior and relished the game but now I am finding myself contemplating cutting up my membership cards for both AFL and Essendon but not because of my teams performance. I thought there was some real potential in some of our youngsters and new recruits; Mal Micheal is a great addition to our backline, his defence and reading of the play is phenominal. Angus Monfries booted some amazing goals, he was a youngin last year and to go from strength to strengh I applaud him. But the state of the rules and the game itself is just stupid, it reminds me of the managment of the school I work at. Stupid, illogical and so out of touch of the customers or in this case the players, coaches and fanbase.

We'll see how this new rule pans out over next few weeks. There was enough backlash from the fans at last nights game it scared me. Its not usual for fans from different teams to get along and agree with rulings and its still only Round 1 of the Preseason. Maybe AFL still has time to backflip on this rule and take it out for the real season.

Not bloody likely but one can hope...