AFL pushing for capacity crowd at Anzac Day clash

The AFL is hoping for a ­capacity MCG crowd at the Anzac Day clash, but this big hurdle stands in their way.

The AFL is hoping for a ­capacity MCG crowd for ANZAC Day as it plans to meet with the Victorian government on Monday to review strict spectator caps.

As Queensland and South Australia prepare to kick off the AFL season at 100 and 75 per cent crowd capacity, Victorian crowds will be restricted to 50 per cent for Round 1.

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan said he was “optimistic” Victorian crowds would be boosted from Round 2.

And he would “really, really love to have a full house at ANZAC Day” for the Essendon-Collingwood blockbuster.

“I’m meeting with the appropriate officials on Monday to review the behaviours,” ­McLachlan said. “I’m optimistic behaviours of our supporters will be right and if community transmission stays where it is, then the numbers can come up quite quickly.”

The AFL wants a full house for the Anzac Day clash between Essendon and Collingwood. Picture: Alex Coppel.

The clash has typically seen the MCG packed to the rafters.

It comes after the AFL on Wednesday clarified a contentious COVID-safe rule that threatened to ban fans from standing and cheering during matches at Marvel Stadium.

Fans were this week sent a list of new rules for the AFL-owned venue, including a directive that they must stay seated at their designated seat “at all times”.

But hours after the Herald Sun revealed the new rules, the AFL rewrote the guidelines and said fans would be allowed to stand and cheer.

AFL Fans Association president Cheryl Critchley welcomed the change but said the league had sent the wrong message to spectators.

“It’s great news that fans can still stand up and cheer after a goal — this is such an important part of the game and adds to the unique atmosphere,” she said.

John Mansfield plays the bugle to an empty MCG on Anzac Day in 2020.

AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan is hoping for a bigger crowd at the MCG.

“We can understand why fans were concerned when reading the original rule, as it said you could not stand up at all while in your designated seat. It would have been almost impossible for everyone to restrain themselves and equally difficult to police.”

On Tuesday night the rule stated: “No standing at your seat, patrons must be seated at all times when at their designated seat.”

On Wednesday it was changed to: “Fans are asked not to stand at their seats for long periods of time, however standing and barracking for their team is permitted.”

AFL spokesman Jay Allen said: “We encourage supporters to continue to get on their feet and celebrate the goals and support their teams.

“We also encourage supporters to continue following the health guidelines to ensure the safety of fans around them in the stadium and those in the wider community.”

MCC chief Stuart Fox said fans this weekend could expect “very similar” protocols to the Boxing Day Test but the MCG was ready to open its doors to more spectators when allowed.

Brodie Grundy of the Magpies is seen in action during the Round 6 AFL match between the Essendon Bombers and the Collingwood Magpies at the MCG in Melbourne, Thursday, April 25, 2019. (AAP Image/Julian Smith) NO ARCHIVING, EDITORIAL USE ONLY

FANS UP FOR FOOTY SEASON

It seems so long ago.

Before the bushfires.

Before a pandemic visited Melbourne, killing hundreds and prompting measures that stripped our lives and our liberties, including the once simple pleasure of going to the footy.

The last time a crowd cheered MCG footy was before Trump got deposed and China got angry.

It was before a Melbourne Cup was staged for the first time without a crowd. And before the once unthinkable decision to lock Melburnians in their homes, under threat of arrest, for their good.

A year that wasn’t, 2020 was very unkind to football fans. We wanted what we had always assumed but could no longer have. We suffered for what the Germans call sehnsucht, a kind of emotional illness brought about by yearning or desire.

Victorians could not attend local games last year. Football was a constant comfort, but it was played from afar, on a screen and without the whiff of spilled beer or banter with opposing team strangers.

There were no guarantees that this remote kind of spectating, snuffed of its roar and protest, would keep going.

We were reduced to watching the 2020 Grand Final, played almost 1800km from the MCG, on the couch – with no more than two house guests.

Tonight, finally, we can get off the couch and go to an MCG AFL game for the first time since Richmond won the second of its three-in-four-years premiership waltz.

That 2019 Grand Final was 537 days ago.

A child born that day, ­September 28, 2019, might attend tonight’s game – as a 17-month-old who walks, talks and sports a club beanie bestowed by an expectant mother or father.

It’s not the same, but fans attending Richmond and Carlton is a big step closer to what was. An overdue chance to tilt sehnsucht to satisfaction.

Jasper, 12, Elsie-May, 7, Jack, 5, Perry, 5, and Allegra, 10, warm up for the return of Auskick at halftime as part of the resumption of AFL at the MCG. Picture: Alex Coppel.

More than 100,000 turned up to the 2019 Grand Final, and more than 85,000 to the same first-round Carlton-Richmond game two years ago.

Only 50,000 can go tonight. Zoned in separate sections, MCG patrons will bask in unfootball-like temperatures akin to a spring day at the cricket.

Supporters must enter at their ­assigned ticket gate and sit in their seats unless getting a drink, going to the bathroom or getting food. To sit at a bar, they must scan a QR code, as they did on entering the ground.

Their bags must fit under their seat. They cannot loiter in standing areas.

Fans will be allowed to stand and cheer, after the AFL reworded its COVID crowd policies yesterday.

But fans have been expressly told to not approach a player or match official, as if the long-held (and overwhelmingly respected) separation between the participants and the audience must be reiterated in COVID times.

There will be no cash transactions, masks will be encouraged in congested areas, and fans will be confronted by hundreds of hand sanitiser stations.

AFL Fans Association president Cheryl Critchley describes tonight as “beyond exciting” for match-starved Victorian fans.

“Last year was surreal for those who love the game and associated rituals such as catching the train, sitting in their favourite seat, soaking up the atmosphere and cheering their team,” she says.

“We’ve also missed the little things, like singing the club theme song together as players burst through the banner.”

Five-year-old Jack Fox, from Richmond, has been practising in his backyard for the long-awaited return of Auskick games on the ground at halftime.

“I like to kick goals like Dusty at Auskick,” he said yesterday.

He’s ready to go tonight. We all are.

As Richmond club chief executive Brendon Gale said this week: “I love this time of year. It’s like the air changes this week. It smells different.”

Originally published as AFL pushing for capacity crowd at Anzac Day clash