AFL Gather Round 2023: A look at every game through the eyes of club cheer squads
An AFL club cheer squad is made up of people from all walks of life – and they have plenty of stories to tell. Matt Turner was at all 9 Gather Round games to find out more.
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The AFL had never staged all games in a round in one location until Gather Round.
It begged the question – had anyone ever been to all nine matches in a weekend before?
AFL reporter Matt Turner did so these past few days, driving, using taxis and Ubers, as well as calling on lifts to get to each game.
Having two Adelaide Oval double-headers helped, but overlapping fixtures, the 90-minute round trip to Mount Barker and a lack of parking near Norwood Oval made things tricky.
With the new round being for the fans and about bringing people together, Turner sat at every match with club cheer squads, most of whom had travelled from far and wide.
This is how Gather Round unfolded, through the eyes of some of the AFL’s most passionate supporters.
* Carlton said its cheer squad did not want to speak to the media as part of this story.
Thursday night, Adelaide v Carlton
Adelaide Oval
Eddie Betts is wearing a suit and preparing to do a segment for Fox Footy when he suddenly darts towards the fence.
The retired Adelaide and Carlton star has spotted Crows cheer squad treasurer Sue Retallick and gives her a hug.
Betts has a strong relationship with this section of diehard Crows fans.
When he played for the club from 2014-19, he would sometimes bring his family to banner-making nights.
The former goalsneak also arranged for the cheer squad to have dozens of tickets for his last game at the ground – against Port Adelaide in 2021.
As he approaches, the group chants “Eddie, Eddie”, as if it is 2015 and he has just kicked Goal of the Year from his pocket at the other end of the ground.
Betts coming over only adds to the cheer squad’s jovial mood.
Adelaide has opened Gather Round in emphatic fashion, kicking eight goals to two in the first term against the unbeaten Blues.
“It was electric,” decade-long Crows cheer squad member Craig Hissey says.
“I’m lost for words.”
As the cheer squad’s drummer, Mat Monti was getting sore, thumping after each goal.
Monti, who studies music at university, has been coming to Crows games with his mum, Michelle, since moving out of home in 2018.
Cheer squad president Peter Kauschke has got a new drum for him, one so big that it requires its own seat.
And so loud that Monti’s music teacher can hear his beats from the other side of the ground. “It’s really exciting because we’ve been long suffering since 2017 (grand final loss) … the rebuild’s been going but seeing that quarter just then, it felt like 2017 again,” Monti says.
You quickly learn sitting in a cheer squad that they all try to put off opposition players kicking at goal, standing up to wave flags, floggers and pompoms.
Kauschke’s grandchildren, Annabelle and Sophie, 10 and 12 respectively, are involved, waving cut-outs of Taylor Walker and Rory Sloane’s faces.
When Josh Rachele boots a goal, one of the girls imitates his boxing celebration.
There is little to laud at the northern end.
Carlton’s cheer squad is frustrated at a late tripping free kick paid against Jack Silvagni and some of them take it out on the umpire.
It is not their night.
Friday twilight, Fremantle v Gold Coast
Norwood Oval
Norwood Oval is packed for its first AFL game, a thrill for those who love local footy and a challenge for the Dockers’ cheer squad.
“Normally we have a designated area so our equipment doesn’t go out of it,” Melbourne-based Fremantle fan Darren Chinnery says.
“This is a bit more chaotic and we’re trying to keep track of everything.”
Like a lot of clubs, Fremantle’s cheer squad has a set number of items.
Today it is six floggers, seven large flags, 10 small ones and nine pompoms, paid for by the Dockers.
“We decided not to bring our really big flags today because we knew there was going to be a big crowd and thought it would knock someone out,” Chinnery says.
Chinnery calls being a Fremantle supporter “one of the toughest jobs in the AFL”.
“We get used to the digs of ‘you’ve still got nothing in your cabinet’,” Chinnery says.
“But it’ll come one day.”
He then says “probably not this year” and chuckles.
As for being in a cheer squad, Chinnery calls it “fun and exhausting”.
It can also be hazardous.
Megan Bignell says there have been three concussions among the group from being hit by balls in post-game, on-ground kick-to-kicks as they pack up.
“There were balls flying everywhere, it was ridiculous,” Bignell says.
Bignell is an ex-Hawthorn fan, having switched allegiances after Trent Croad’s trade from the Hawks to the Dockers in 2001.
There are a range of age groups in cheer squads.
Xavier, 5, is part of Fremantle’s for Perth games, has his own Instagram page and has struck up a friendship with Dockers defender Luke Ryan.
He wrote Ryan a letter before Christmas, later receiving a bucket hat and signed jumper in return.
Xavier is wearing the defender’s No. 13 guernsey at the match.
Australia’s reigning national open water under-18 champion is in Gold Coast’s cheer squad.
Dylan Thompson quit school to focus on swimming, eyeing the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The 17-year-old describes supporting a team that is yet to make the finals as a rollercoaster of emotions.
So too is watching your team play a close game and not being able to see the last column of the scoreboard because it is obscured by a Norwood Oval light tower.
Coughing up a half-time lead to lose irks the young Suns cheer squad, who are desperate to see their side reach the top eight for the first time.
“I don’t care if it takes 80 years to make finals, I’ll stick by them,” Thompson says.
Exiting the ground is manageable despite the sold-out crowd.
An Uber is booked a short walk from the ground, heading to Adelaide Oval for the night’s main event.
Friday night, Richmond v Sydney
Adelaide Oval
Bruce Korun is keeping an eye out to see when Maurice Rioli enters the game.
Rioli is the Tigers’ substitute and Korun has his No. 10 guernsey in his bag.
The jumpers of 21 members of Richmond’s starting 22 are on Korun himself.
“I left (Ben) Miller home – I forgot him,” Korun says.
“I’m a bit upset about that.”
Korun started donning four guernseys at games in 2007, taking one off each quarter.
Since 2017, he has been wearing the jumper of every selected player, removing one every time the Tigers kick a goal.
“He’d come looking like the Michelin man,” cheer squad treasurer Mandy Woodward says.
“When we kick a goal in Melbourne, people will say ‘Bruce, take it off, take it off’.”
The guernseys are not worn in any particular order.
“People up in the grandstand all have bets who’s going to come off next,” says Korun, who estimates he owns 100 jumpers.
Richmond is trailing by 21 points at half-time and Korun has removed three guernseys.
He remains very optimistic.
Seeing a swag of premierships will do that.
Korun has been barracking for the Tigers since the age of 11, having fallen in love with the colours and emblem.
The 1982 flag was the first he saw live but 2017 the most special.
Korun thinks Richmond will claim this year’s premiership, despite its poor form.
After some goals, he gets up and turns to the crowd to yell “To September again”.
“Bruce, no more September, we’re not going to get there this year,” Woodward says.
When Marlion Pickett kicks truly on the run, Korun stands again and off comes Hugo Ralphsmith’s guernsey, revealing Jacob Hopper’s underneath.
Korun hardly sits in his seat, but soon is scrambling under it.
Rioli has replaced premiership captain Trent Cotchin, so Korun reaches opens his bag and grabs the second generation Tiger’s guernsey to put it on.
Later in the term, a Liam Baker major brings the Tigers to within two goals – and prompts an excited Korun to remove two jumpers at once.
Doing so appears to be bad luck.
Tom Papley answers for Sydney 90 seconds later.
Swans goals are met with the sound from two drums.
One has been lent by the Crows’ cheer squad, which has also helped Sydney get its banner up – an example of the collegiate vibe between fans this week.
Mitchell Round plays a tambourine-like drum, while Chris Goodwin hits Adelaide’s.
Melbourne-based Goodwin and his partner, Julian Farrell, took a coach from the Victorian capital to Melton, then a train to Ararat then another bus to get to Gather Round.
Rain falls when the siren goes and the packing of flags – both red and white ones, along with others featuring splashes of rainbow – immediately begins.
The group is glad to have seen their team bounce back from the thrilling SCG loss to Port Adelaide.
“Last week sucked but we learnt from our mistakes,” Farrell says.
Saturday afternoon, Brisbane v North Melbourne
Mount Barker
The rip in the crepe paper is initially no more than 20 centimetres.
Quickly, it becomes a concern.
Brisbane has invited me to help hold up its banner at Gather Round’s only regional match and a major tear going viral on social media has been on my mind all morning.
The hole – actually make that a plural, there are three of them now – worsens just as the Lions song comes on and fireworks go off.
“Oh no,” two people say, almost in unison.
As the players emerge from the race, the wind picks up.
They stop just before the smaller-than-usual banner.
Everyone holding the poles must be thinking ‘I really hope this stays up and none of the team is clotheslined’.
Thankfully, it remains upright and the side gets through unscathed.
Brisbane would normally use plastic as banner material for outdoor games, rather than crepe paper, but did not have any.
“When we were poling it across the road I put my hand through it so many times,” cheer squad boss Jacinta Galanos says.
Galanos says big rips on the standard large banners are disheartening because “it’s a couple of hours work gone down the drain”.
North Melbourne has erred with its banner, overlooking Daniel Howe’s 100th game.
“We didn’t know if he’d be selected,” Kangaroos cheer squad member Ashley Warner says.
Brisbane’s contingent sits in a temporary stand, while North’s is on the Adelaide Oval-like mound behind the goals at the other end.
Galanos is a third-generation Lions cheer squad organiser.
Her grandmother, Lorna Duncan, was one of the first women in the VFL/AFL to receive a club life membership.
Galanos’s mum, Lorraine, ran the supporter group for about 30 years, introducing her daughter to it as a baby.
“It’s pretty special knowing the passion for the club and football in general has cascaded down through the generations,” Galanos says.
Galanos was 10 and had a Lions cub membership when Fitzroy merged with Brisbane.
She was in a guard of honour in 1996 for Fitzroy’s last game in Melbourne.
“Mum and grandma were a mess,” she says.
“It’s almost like losing a part of your soul or a loved one.”
The trio transferred memberships immediately to the Brisbane Lions.
Together they attended the hat-trick of Brisbane premierships from 2001-03.
Lorna, who had also seen Fitzroy’s last flag in 1944, died in 2011.
The four premierships that North Melbourne has won are tattooed on Warner’s left arm.
“I had a dodgy old tattoo underneath it that looked like a prison tattoo and was a home job, so was just waiting for the right inspiration to cover it,” Warner says.
“I thought ‘what am I never going to get sick of’ and I can guarantee I’ll never be over North Melbourne.”
The 46-year-old Melburnian is one of only a handful of Kangaroos cheer squad members at the game.
It is tricky to tell how many North fans are there in general because Mount Barker’s local team has the same colours and nickname.
The novelty of the game being in the Adelaide Hills leads me to stay until the final siren before returning down the freeway to the city, a 45-minute drive away.
Saturday twilight, Essendon v Melbourne
Adelaide Oval
Archie Perkins snaps a left-foot goal in the rain at the northern end and Glenda Wade claps through her black jacket.
She remembers cheering for the legendary Dick Reynolds.
Wade is 79 and has been a Bombers supporter since sitting on her dad’s shoulders at Windy Hill.
She is chief organiser of Essendon’s cheer squad, part of it for about 35 years and goes to every game.
“I do it to support the boys,” Wade says.
Having seen plenty in football, Wade was intrigued by Gather Round
“It seems like a success, I just don’t know about the prices of flights and accommodation,” the Melbourne-based septuagenarian says.
To save money on travel costs, fellow cheer squad member Chris Burke flew from the Victorian capital into Adelaide on Saturday morning and was set to depart that night.
Heavy rain begins to fall and Essendon is playing the conditions better, on its way to an upset.
“I like the pressure, the effort, the consistency, but now I’m starting to get nervous,” Burke, 33, says.
A Bombers player getting tackled around the neck without a free kick being paid annoys the Essendon fans.
One thing all cheer squads have in common is a frustration with umpires and belief their side is often hard done by.
Back-to-back goal line reviews that do not go the Demons’ way rub salt into the wounds of what is eventually a 27-point defeat.
But if you had been watching Melbourne’s cheer squad without knowing the score, you might have thought they were in front, such was the constant chanting and supporting.
“That’s probably one of the best parts about being in it – no matter if we’re winning by a hundred or losing by a hundred, we’re always trying to egg on our team and stay until the end,” Mitch Cawsey says.
Once the final siren goes, the Demons’ cheer squad cordially swap seats with their Port Adelaide counterparts, moving from behind the goals towards the pocket.
The second game of SA’s first AFL double-header is not far away.
Saturday night, Port Adelaide v Western Bulldogs
Adelaide Oval
Teal flashes from a circular drum emblazoned with Port Adelaide’s new emblem.
Electrian Myles Neale has added the feature so it lights up whenever the instrument is struck.
“I don’t know how to play drums, I just hit it and everyone goes along with it,” Neale says.
Neale’s face is also covered in teal, as well as white and black.
It takes him about 30 to 45 minutes to cover his face with washable paint before each game.
He is a lifelong Port Adelaide fan who has been in the cheer squad for about five years.
Just as a frustration with umpiring decisions is universal to cheer squads, so is how they view themselves.
“The diversity of people make it like a big family,” Neale says, echoing similar sentiments from each clubs’ supporter groups.
“I know where I can go if I ever need help.”
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas is a Power supporter and he wins praise for bringing Gather Round to Adelaide.
“It’s been fantastic, absolutely magnificent,” Janine Rafanelli says.
Rafanelli spends long chunks of games she attends not watching, such is her nerves.
Playing the Bulldogs at home brings back bad memories.
“Don’t even go there,” Rafanelli’s friend Sally Ifantis says of the 71-point, 2021 preliminary final loss.
“It was devastating, we were in tears thinking ‘not again’.
“But I think we’re going to win tonight.”
While the Riverbank Stand somewhat covers the Power cheer squad, the Bulldogs’ contingent at the northern end is getting drenched by the heaviest rain of the round.
Chelsea Heath, who is wearing a red poncho, reckons it always pours when her team is in Adelaide.
Heath joined the Dogs’ cheer squad in 2000 to hold up the 50th game banner of her favourite player, Nathan Brown.
She describes going to the 2016 premiership win as one of the best days of her life.
“The cheer squad are the friends I’ve made who are now my family,” says Heath, as that ‘f’ word comes up again.
“You’re together through it all, win, lose or draw.”
And rain, hail or shine.
“I’m about to cover my feet and my legs in a big, orange garbage bag,” Heath says.
“There’s not much more you can do other than sit back, laugh, have fun and get wet.”
A poncho handed out at Mount Barker has got the three votes tonight but sitting in the second row the cover of my notebook still gets saturated, as do my jeans and shoes.
Sunday afternoon, Geelong v West Coast
Adelaide Oval
The skies have cleared up by Sunday but it begins raining goals during the second quarter of the first match of the double-header.
Leah Madafferi-Lowe, a member of the Eagles’ cheer squad, is over from Melbourne and smiling through the Cats’ onslaught.
The Perth-born fan is at the game with her husband, Zeph, a converted rugby supporter whom she met in Sydney on New Year’s Eve in 2000.
They have since been to four Eagles grand finals together – two wins and two defeats.
“I initially thought Aussie rules was a silly game,” Zeph says.
“But she made me watch so much footy on TV that finally when you scream enough, you’re a fan.”
Zeph says being in the cheer squad together is far better than being a couple that barracks for opposing teams.
They are at the double-header with one of those, Adelaide-based close friends whom support Collingwood and St Kilda respectively.
“For us coming over, given Collingwood and St Kilda was on the same day, it was meant to be,” Leah says.
Geelong cheer squad member Steve Joseph enjoys going to grand finals, but loves that the newest slot on the AFL fixture features all clubs in one place.
“We’ve seen Collingwood supporters, Brisbane, Gold Coast walking around today, it’s great for football,” Joseph says.
Joseph is the cheer squad’s chant leader, adopting the Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi oi call after goals, except he uses players’ nicknames.
A Jeremy Cameron tumbling floater from a set shot just clears the line while evading the only Eagles player, prompting Joseph to shout: “Jezza, Jezza, Jezza” to which the rest of the cheer squad replies “goal, goal, goal”.
“When it’s your day, it’s your day,” Joseph says of the scrappy goal.
Geelong is 64 points ahead at half-time when this writer leaves via the east gate, walks to North Tce and catches an Uber to Norwood.
Sunday afternoon, GWS v Hawthorn
Norwood Oval
The Redlegs’ ground looks like it is a Hawthorn home game because of the amount of brown and gold in the crowd.
Unlike the Dockers’ cheer squad, which sits on the terraces, the Hawks’ group stands during the game.
Born in Fiji, Karmen Sharma started following Hawthorn in the early 1980s.
She attended the 1991, 2008, 2013 and 2014 premierships.
The banner co-ordinator says being in the cheer squad, which has eight members at Gather Round, is amazing.
“Being a female, I can go to a game and sit with like-minded people and not worry about being hassled,” Sharma says.
Club tattoos seem to be more common in cheer squads than among other fans.
Maddie Sheppard has ink that says ‘Always Hawthorn’ and another of three premiership cups, marking the club’s 2013-15 three-peat.
She has no hesitation in answering why she got them.
“I love tattoos and I love Hawthorn.”
Foundation GWS member Lisa Cooper has travelled from western Sydney for Gather Round and has chosen to sit in the stands, despite being part of the cheer squad.
“I always do a bit of banner work, I’m a member of the Orange Army but I like to sit where I can see the footy, which makes me a little unusual,” Cooper says.
Cooper grew up with NRL but “got a bit bored with five tackles and a kick”.
She turned to Aussie rules ahead of the Giants’ AFL inception in 2012 when she was an opera singer who would tour Melbourne for several months of the year.
“In Melbourne, if you don’t talk footy, you don’t talk at all,” she says.
“I flirted with following the Hawks ironically, but then when they had a team in Blacktown I decided there was my Sydney team.”
Cooper met her partner, Peter, through Giants fandom.
As she tells more of her story, the PA announcer tells the crowd that SA will host another three editions of Gather Round.
“That’s fantastic,” Cooper says.
“We’ve had a great few days.”
Being so close to the action at a suburban ground with terraces, old stands and plenty of history ensures a brilliant atmosphere at The Parade.
But an overlap with the highly-anticipated final game of the round means this writer departs Norwood during the third term, gets a lift back to Adelaide Oval and misses the Harry Himmelberg-inspired thrilling finish.
Sunday twilight, Collingwood v St Kilda
Adelaide Oval
Myrene Chambers is disappointed, not simply because her Saints are losing.
She had expected a roped off protected allocation area for St Kilda’s cheer squad for the second double-header but that did not happen.
“We’ve ended up with bloody Colliwobbles in our spots,” Chambers says.
“We were told we wouldn’t have to put up with this.
“We’ve been smothered with alcohol by Collingwood supporters and they need to check the ladder and remind themselves who’s on top.”
Just as she says that, the Magpies kick another major.
Chants of Coll-ing-wood start around Chambers and she bites back.
“Laddddddddder, ladddddder,” she says.
Chambers’ experience has made her unhappy about Gather Round coming back to SA for another three years.
Things can hardly be more different at the other end of the oval where the hard-to-miss Feim Hyssoli is raving about his time in SA.
Sporting black and white from head to toe, Hyssoli wears glasses from a party shop, a top hat, a bow tie, a neck tie, face paint and boots adorned with several Collingwood stickers.
The piece de resistance is a jacket with “Go the Mighty Pies” on the back that a personal dressmaker creates for him.
“Dressing up was a bit of a joke that I thought I’d do for the 2018 finals series and from there it took off,” says Hyssoli, who is good friends with Geelong’s Cat Man.
“You’re trying to promote the atmosphere we experience in the cheer squad to the younger generation.”
The sun has gone down, the hill beneath the oval’s famous old scoreboard is packed and suddenly another thriller is on the cards.
St Kilda kicks two goals in a minute to cut the margin to a goal, then has one last deep forward 50 entry.
The Saints cannot find space and the siren goes.
“That was exhilarating to the last second,” Hyssoli says.
“Going back to Melbourne, it’s going to be a great drive.”
Hyssoli will be back in SA in two weeks for Collingwood’s match against the Crows and will definitely return in 2024.
“Gather Round, there’s no better place than Adelaide,” Hyssoli, 49, says.
BEST BANNER
With most cheer squads now club-run and there being rules against bagging opposition players, banners have become more sanitised, less humorous and rarely pointed. Most Gather Round versions were fairly generic, but credit to Hawthorn for referencing the Giants’ theme song in theirs: “The Hawks have arrived to make a big, big sound, we’ll take home the ‘w’, all thanks to Gather Round”. Hawthorn’s banner was a win, even if the on-field result did not go its way.
BEST BANTER
“Where’s Aliir Aliir when you need him.”
Crows cheer squad member Craig Hissey said this when a Carlton goal sailed narrowly over Nick Murray’s outstretched hand on Thursday night, referring to Aliir’s match-saving effort against Sydney the previous week.
BEST OUTFIT
Hard to go past Collingwood’s Feim Hyssoli for pure dedication. And he tells me he has got a new outfit planned for the finals series but for now is giving little away as to what it looks like. Richmond’s Paul Webb, who wears a tiger suit, noodle hat, Richmond shoes, socks and a whole heap else in club colours, is not far behind.
THREE KEY CHEER SQUAD RULES
■ No throwing balls that land in the crowd at umpires
■ No alcohol in the cheer squad area
■ Banners cannot reference opposition players
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