Day One

Plans fretted over for weeks were finally in place. Bus booked; an itinerary of sorts planned. The Hellenic Club of Canberra informed of our needing forty-odd seats for lunch. A date with Eamonn of Football in the Capital set up. No turning back now. Skipped the Altona City-Altona East derby game in order to rest up a bit for the overnight coach ride. There’s meant to be a small gathering at a pub beforehand, which turns out to be just that; three of us, a bowl of fries and drinks. This is where I somehow get roped in to helping a mate do his dodgy betting-syndicate work. But more on that later.

After a drink at the Water Rat, we rock up to Lakeside a little early, seeing only a few familiar faces there and a bus which may or may not be ours. About 10 metres away another group stands, like us, waiting, but I’m not sure what for. They’re probably thinking the same thing about us. Slowly more people start to arrive, and then we figure out that, yes, that is our bus. Moving across we greet those already there. The last one to arrive is of course a South board member. Parking permits handed out; names checked off; banners and eskies are loaded onto the bus. Finally on our way, Australian banner with South logo draped over the back seat.

I take a spot right at the back with space next to me, away from the majority of those intending to drink. The climate control chucks it in early. Frost blocks whatever landscape I might have otherwise been able to see on a dark and overcast night. Not sure if anyone can see the flag out the back, but not sure that it matters anyway – its placement being more a symbolic act for those of us on the inside. The first part of the official in-flight entertainment are highlights of South’s early 90s years. From the back of the bus it’s hard to make out if people are appreciating what’s being shown. I wonder what all the complaining is about. If football didn’t start in this country in 2005, did it start in 1996? Perhaps I’m too harsh. Perhaps I have too much reverence for that era. Perhaps people were busy enjoying themselves in other ways.

We stop at places with names and others, like Avenel, where it doesn’t seem to matter either way. Much like my bus trip to the Gold Coast back in 1999, it’s hard to tell whether there’s any civilisation connected to the night-time petrol stations. And harder still to tell what’s on the other side of the embankments, apart from shadowy black hills. The stop highlight is a McDonald’s somewhere still in Victoria – possibly outside Wangaratta – where one cook and one worker on the register who had probably thought this was going to be another quiet night at work are suddenly facing the prospect of feeding thirty hungry South fans. We patiently line up, order, stand to the side while our meal is prepared, eat. It all goes rather smoothly.

At every stop, getting off means getting the blood flowing again, staving off a sleep that won’t come anyway for a little while longer, waiting until morning. It also means dodging cigarette smoke and toxic and noisy bursts of farting. While the early part of the trip has been lively enough, highlighted by Hellas Fan Club chants while travelling through their Northcote heartland and the obligatory 2am phone call to a supporter who pulled out to due to illness, most of us eventually end up getting some sleep.

I’m hoping to see at least some of the sunrise, but the frost, the mountains and the constantly shifting direction of the bus as it winds through looking for an entry point to Canberra defeat me. All in all, the journey is a blast, even if these words may not be capturing the feeling. How can you communicate the already forgotten conversations, the in-jokes, the hilarity of the moment which can’t be transcribed, only experienced? Oh, and the multiple renditions of Frozen Tears’ ‘South Melbourne’, which everyone will be thoroughly sick of by the end of the trip, but will treasure in their hearts regardless?

Day Two

Just before 7am the announcement is quietly made: we’re in Canberra. I’m wide awake but that’s no defense against the near freezing conditions. It’s worse for those who didn’t bring enough warm clothing, or who happen to be coming down from the artificial warming effects of a night’s alcohol consumption. A barbecue on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin sees people huddled under one of the park’s gazebos, trying to find some sort of shelter from the cold. Sausages, bacon, bread, sauce, orange juice.

Maybe it’s my being a morning person with senses fully intact, maybe it’s memories of sausage sizzles at Melbourne Uni, but I restrict myself to a cup of juice. A small kick around in one of the sunny spots helps warm up a half dozen or so people, but care must be taken not kick the ball too hard or in between two people as the ball will find a way of running away. I don’t suffer the fate of needing to chase, and that’s a good thing.

Somewhat fed and a little less cold as the sun eventually gets to work, the group proceeds towards Canberra International Airport with hopes of greeting the soon-to-arrive team. There is scoffing at the smallness of the facility, somehow not befitting a capital - though I’m about to learn that Canberra is a capital much like an American state capital; somewhat in name only, akin to an Albany or Annapolis.

We pass a very small group of Melbourne FC fans who’ve come up for their game against Sydney at Manuka, and families waiting for diplomats or whatever to turn up. The squad is just about to leave the departure area, and the fans chanting with the last vestiges of sleep still manage to turn a few heads, and mingle briefly with the players, who appear either a little confused or completely at ease with the situation – though Sam Poutakidis is more than at ease. Supporting South is a state of mind perhaps now more than ever. Early morning airport sojourn dispensed with, it is time to see more of what the city has to offer.

For the benefit of international readers, Canberra has a liberal reputation, a town where the purchase of items such as fireworks and pornography is legal, unlike the rest of Australia. So off we go to one of the two districts which can legally sell porn, Fyshwick. Some of the more juvenile travellers have been looking forward to this for a while. Parking in front of one these infamous sex shops, it comes as little surprise to me, but perhaps more so to others, that it’s just like any other adult superstore – more sterile than a hospital ward (which at least has plenty of signs of life). I wander the aisles trying to figure out what the fuss is all about. Is it perhaps the lack of stigma attached if you visit a sex store 500 kilometres from home? Isn’t this stuff available on the Internet at comparatively next to no cost? Or am I lacking the connoisseur’s eye? The highlight is the group photo outside the store, with one of the more creative minds inside the window display, wrapping a South scarf around a mannequin.

The next stop is Parliament House. Throughout our travels in the city, the lack of traffic stands out. Yes: it’s a small city, it’s winter, and it’s a Sunday; but there’s still for me a slightly unnerving lack of people, of movement. After having taken the requisite group photos, some supporters play a six on six soccer match on Parliament’s front lawn under the watch of the Australian Federal Police, while more highbrow fans take a tour of the building. This is my time to duck out and see Eamonn so we can do my radio spot. After a quick scan of the periphery, I ask some AFP bystanders the way to the nearest taxi rank: somewhere within the underground carpark where the bus was parked. Walking for what seems a while in the massive underground space, I eventually find the payphone/waiting bay. I make the call and wait.

A white haired British Isle-accented driver picks me up and we start chatting, but it’s one of those forced conversations that you have with a driver so he doesn’t think you’re a serial killer. He parks in the driveway, and Eamonn’s already there, and reimburses my fare. A good start. Inside the studio, I get the rundown, a quick practice run to make sure everything’s recording, and then we’re away. Going through the past, present and future, all in ten minutes, microphone slipping, Gary Hasler mentioned alongside Trimmers and Boutsi. But at the end of it, a good feeling. I haven’t said anything stupid. And my voice (as well as my face!) is made for radio anyway. I’m filled with a quiet sense of accomplishment as Eamonn drives me back to Parliament House, where people ask where I’ve been.

Following is a long lunch at the Hellenic Club. Some people allegedly can’t handle the long line - which really wasn’t that long - and go elsewhere. For what it’s worth, my ‘Mexican’ chicken is quite nice, and we have a prime spot along the window, with plenty of natural light which isn’t as bountiful as in other places. Overall the decor and environment is a bit gauche. I suppose they had to include the ‘Greekness’ in somewhere, but it just doesn’t fit naturally for me. Having planned to be on the bus by 2 o’clock, we board about twenty minutes late. We’re left with a bit of rush to get to the ground

So we’re on the bus trying to figure out where the ground is, getting directions from a couple of kids who have come up with their dad in their own car - one of whom is doing one of those vocalised/mouth noise guitar solos to Frozen Tears - but who are hitching a ride with us to the game. Good thing they are there too or else we might be looking for the place for days to come. We eventually find the place, and are early enough to co-ordinate a dramatic entrance - by Canberra standards - taking up a position on the hill. All except myself: roped in to do the dodgy Asian betting thing, I’m off to the halfway line.

To explain what that’s all about: betting firms of indeterminate legality in a place which or may or may not be called China hire people to hire people to ‘call’ or ‘commentate’ VPL games. Except that it really isn’t commentating in an Andy Paschalidis kind of fashion, more stuff like ‘away danger’, ‘home corner’, etc. There are differing levels of detail required depending upon the company you are working for, but the main thing is that the gamblers and those listening to your commentary don’t really care about South Melbourne or Robbie Wynne (for example) as individual entities. They care about them as agents in an over-the-phone, online, and imagined tug of war.

I have agreed not only to do one game of commentary with one guy on the line saying ‘OK’, but also to have another guy on another phone just listening. My instructions are not to talk to him even if he talks to me (which all got a bit difficult when the game is delayed because not enough pegs are holding the goals – something that would normally be checked during half time in the reserves, except that the AIS’s reserves play in Victoria, and they’re not really their reserves, they’re just the VIS). Anyway, the guy who I am talking to seems to understand that there is a delay - which just keeps dragging on - but the listener keeps asking for information on who is attacking and such.

He must’ve hung up, as I receive a call from my boss for the day, some guy called Jerry, getting stuck into me, telling me that I am not doing a very good job as his client isn’t getting the information needed. I’m a little miffed because I have told the guy on the hands free and the one on my own phone that the game has been delayed and the reason for it. After explaining it to Jerry his tone changes fairly quickly and we’re back in business. The game eventually gets under way and apart from a few early teething problems – the sun in my eyes, and a linesman doing his best to block out my view – it’s going okay.

At the end of the first half, which I find out later has lasted only 40 odd minutes, I notice that my battery has gone down to one bar. Will it last to the end? A mad rush to find someone to swap sim cards with ensues; incompatible carrier; seemingly impossible to release sim card; I decide that I will just try my luck with what I have. Of course the confusion caused by the 40 minute halves starts to kick in during the second half. My ‘listener’ calls a few minutes in, and my talking ‘ok’ guy drops out entirely, and doesn’t call back.

Persevering to the end, seeing the game from only a limited perspective, I wonder whether it has all been worth it, and whether I will get paid! The players go over to the supporters and high five, shake hands and say thanks for coming. Despite coming in a little late, I get a gloved hand to Goran Zoric’s and then get my head shaking in annoyance on camera at the farce of it all, having driven eight hours and with the return to come for 80 minutes of football.

Time to get back on the bus, with the previous night’s missed sleep starting to catch up with me. There’s still the travelling humour, but people are tired and sleep takes over. I start drifting in and out of consciousness from Albury onwards. Easy listening music drifts across, most of it dross, but there’s the brief flicker of outstanding respite with Springsteen’s ‘The River’. More Acropolis Now episodes are played – at one stage the DVD sticks at the menu screen, playing the theme song about 12 times in a row. Most of the complaints are coming from the back. The hellish torture of the song itself is magnified by the fact that there’s almost no way of getting past so many arms and legs stretched into the aisle in order to turn it off.

We stop at a few places, service stations, roadhouses. I buy myself a bag of marshmallows and the most crappy banana flavoured milk I’ve ever had. Not wanting to get a carton which I know I’ll spill over the seats, it’s the only thing in a bottle that isn’t some variation of coffee. Someone as a joke buys a forbidden dim sim. Just outside Seymour a car is flipped onto its roof, a police car behind it. Someone is dropped off in Wandong. Someone else on High Street. Finally back to where we started, a quick clean out of the bus and then time to go home. I’m considering catching a taxi, but it’s insisted that I get a lift with somone –someone who can’t quite grasp the purpose of speed bumps or roundabouts. But there’s no complaining as I’m expected to be grateful. And when I get home in one piece, I am.

Paul Mavroudis is a die-hard South Melbourne fan and author of South of the Border. He is also a regular contributor and Associate Editor of Das Libero. This post originally appeared on South of the Border in three separate parts.

Photo credit: Paul Mavroudis