A Night at the Footy

Tonight was a big event for me - I got to go out for the night to watch the footy with Aaron, Jay and Harri! I don't usually get to go as it's hard to find someone who is comfortable looking after Noah as Mum and everyone usually goes to the game as well. When they announced that there would be an twilight ANZAC day game in Launceston, and that Hawthorn would be playing, we thought we would make an effort to go together.

We asked Di a while back if she would be able to babysit Noah and Kobe for us and she was more than happy to. I was really looking forward to going, but also found it hard to go and just enjoy it as I felt bad for leaving Noah with Di as she wasn't officially working, but doing it as a friend. I feel like Noah (and Kobe) is our responsibility and he has so many additional needs which I feel isn't fair for others to have to deal with, but it's nice to know that we can leave him with someone like Di who knows him well and loves to be with him and isn't phased by things that he needs doing like suctioning, tube feeding, giving meds, giving nebs and dealing with the things he has to have done regularly.

Once I left the house I started to relax a bit and was really looking forward to just spending the night with the two boys and Aaron and watching the game. The first stop was at the merchandise stand where Harri wanted to get a couple more badges for his scarf.

I loved the atmosphere as soon as we got there. For me it was just as fun as going to the MCG as I haven't really been to a game like that for years and since the Hawks are now down in Tassie so much there are so many Hawthorn supporters.

As we were walking around to find our seats we were watching the team who were out warming up and saw Pete who works for Hawthorn. Our friend Marlo knows him from Melbourne and introduced him to Aaron a while back (she told Pete about Aaron and he made a special effort at a game last year to come and say hi and gave him some Hawks tops). Aaron has seen him at all the games since and finally I got to meet him tonight. He is a tactician and has worked with them for years. We love watching the games on TV and spotting him while they are in the huddle.

Being ANZAC day the Last Post was played before the game.


We had really good seats. We usually sit in the Gunns Stand, but because we have a different membership package this year we had to buy different seats. They were great though and we were lucky to be undercover as it rained on and off all night. Although we did have some very rowdy people (Kylie, Shayne and the kids) two rows behind us who kept yelling out to Brad Sewell all night! It must have spured him on as he ended up winning the Frank McDonald medal.

I probably only watched half the game, and just spend the rest of the time watching the crowd and everything going on! It was so funny seeing how passionate everyone is about football (Aaron included!). We were lucky in that three quarters of the crowd were Hawks supporters, but we had a few Eagles supporters around us who would yell out a bit and then Harri would yell 'go Hawks, Eagles suck!'. Harri was so good this time. Aaron said every other time he has gotten bored really quick, but he was loving it and kept yelling out - even knowing some of the players names (must be the glasses helping him!). At one stage he yelled 'go Sammy Mitchell'! and I was shocked that it was actually Sam Mitchell who had the ball.

It was a very low scoring game, but we didn't care because in the end the Hawks ended up winning, so we had some very happy boys singing the Hawthorn team song at the end.


At the end of the game it started raining again which the boys thought was heaps of fun to stand out in!

It was a great night and a great way to finish off a very special day. These very fanatical and happy Hawks supporters are already hanging out for the next live game.