Finals Fever

September is footy finals month and if your team happens to be one of the lucky ones to make it, it's a pretty exciting time.
Like I've mentioned before, pretty much everyone has a team they barrack for (even if they aren't major fans of the sport).

Our team (The Bulldogs) made it into the finals again this year so we went to the September 5th game (first game of the finals) against Collingwood where we unfortunately lost. Luckily we finished in the top 4 this year, so we have two chances. If you lose the first week, you can come back in the second week to play another game (it's an elimination game from then on).

Western Bulldogs vs Collingwood Sept. 5th 2010
66,545 people in attendance

We also went to the September 11th semi-final game against Sydney where we won!!

Western Bulldogs vs Sydney Swans Sept. 11th, 2010 39,596 people in attendance

There's a very interesting dynamic between supporters and certain team's supporters have certain reputations (I won't go too much into this because it's of course all subjective but if you ask people, they'll have an opinion about which supporters are considered the worst/most intimidating). When you're at a game with 66,000 people and your team is losing (especially if you're playing Collingwood), it's a pretty lonely place. Even yesterday at the Sydney game, when they were winning they were LOUD and it didn't sound like there were a lot of Bulldogs supporters there at all\.

The atmosphere at these finals games is incredible. This is my first time going to finals games (we went to the pre-season NAB cup final earlier in the year which was awesome too but this is even crazier) and you can definitely tell that there's something different about these games. Every time we go to a big game I'm amazed at how many people are there, hearing the roar of the crowd from the other side of the grounds. Incredible. The fact that 66 thousand people all turn up to watch something (there's usually 25 thousand plus at regular season games -- and there's more than one game on per week!) amazes me.

The opening bounce
Western Bulldogs vs Sydney Swans Sept. 11th, 2010

Last night was a real nail-biter so if we play well next week, I'm sure there will be a lot of excitement!


Temperature: +13C
Sunrise: 6:26am
Sunset: 6:08pm