Today I Learnt.... Footy Is Better In The NT

Yesterday a friend and I fly to the Nguiu, one of the Tiwi Islands, for the footy grand final.

Now I know nothing about AFL and therefore tend to avoid it at all costs. Well, I don’t know nothing. I know that the whistle gets blown a lot, every time someone catches the ball everyone jumps on them, the players like to punch each other and that if you kick the ball through the middle two posts its 6 points; but that’s about it.

But everyone told me that this event was not to be missed, so I paid my $320.00 for a 20min flight and got excited to learn about AFL (finally).

Nguiu is an indigenous-only island and a government dry zone (no alcohol) which is not open to non-residents except for this one day a year. So I was really looking forward to going there.

The footy itself was pretty much the same as in Victoria, the whistle was still blown every 2 seconds and all the players still jumped on each other every time someone caught the ball; but somehow I had a fantastic time.

It could have been the passion of the Indigenous residents cheering on their team,

or the little white boy who asked the Indigenous elder who was yelling fanatically at the players “are you so crazy because you have no teeth?”,

or the indigenous girl who asked me “if you stay in the sun and all of your spots (freckles) join together, will you have skin like me?”,

or the overzealous lady who had to be escorted off the ground the ground due to foul language (“what do you mean I’m f**ing swearing? You f**ing f**wit!! I’m not f**ing being an f**ing swearer),

or the Indigenous boy who, after asking where I was from and I responded “Melbourne” , then went to on to say “You’re from Melbourne! Do you know Emma? Or Uncle Ricki? Or Aunty susan?” and just kept going until I decided to say “Yes” instead of “No” which seemed to make me his best friend

or the fact that the indigenous players didn’t even notice the stray dogs running on the field and simply played around them

or that you can buy 2L of cold water for $1

or maybe it was simply the fact that I won a free paddlepop icecream

or maybe it was all of the above.

All I know is that it turns out AFL isn’t such a bad sport to watch after all!