St Kilda fan reveals highs and lows of AFL’s China experiment
Footy fans will travel anywhere, locals love cheesy mascots and meat pies cost $14 in Shanghai. A dedicated Saints fan who made the trek reveals the good, bad and ugly of AFL in China.
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You’d be forgiven for thinking the AFL’s Shanghai foray was nothing but airborne disease, anaemic crowds and a waste of money by, the way it was reported in the media.
Those are all valid criticisms, but they don’t really convey the real vibe of the thing, such as the noble thrill of battling through the Shanghai humidity in a supporter scarf, or watching as Chinese kids pose for a photo with the Saints mascot.
While many are eager to present the whole Shanghai pursuit as a pointless and flashy cash-grab with no real scope for endearing the game to an ignorant audience, I’d posit that there’s a little more to it than that.
To me, on the Jiangwan ground and in the Shanghai heat, the game looked more like a well-meaning cross-cultural experience that had the added benefit of bringing my bedraggled footy club a few inches back from the brink of bankruptcy.
It was fun.
I navigated dirty tap water, Chinese censorship, $14 pies and a St Kilda loss, emerging, illness-free, to give you the inside scoop on what went down in Shanghai.
THE FOOD
Sadly, there were no halftime dumplings.
Food options were limited and very traditionally Australian, with spring rolls the only “authentic” Chinese option.
They were good, but I felt robbed of a truly Chinese halftime snack.
Hot dogs, hot chips and cans of Coke were all on offer, but the real surprise was the hot pies.
Clocking in at 70 Chinese yuan each, one hot pie would set you back a whopping $14AUD once the exchange rate was calculated.
No dumplings but managed to find some culturally appropriate spring rolls #AFLSaintsPower pic.twitter.com/jzAiCeIfDp
— Sophie Welsh (@soph_welsh) June 2, 2019
There was also no beer as far as I could see, which was a small blessing in that it meant there was no one sloshing a tray of four Carlton Mids around as they try to squeeze past you to their seat halfway through the quarter.
I understand wanting to keep the food as authentic as possible so the local crowd could literally get a taste of Australia, but it would have been great for the travelling crowd to really lean in to the cross-cultural experience and have a few xiao long bao at halftime.
I may just have to smuggle some dim sims into the next St Kilda home game and bring a touch of China back to Marvel Stadium.
THE LOCALS
Yes, locals turned up.
I’m not sure how many received free tickets, but they did show up.
They got excited, they took pictures with Trevor Saint and got to experience the thrill of a football heading straight for your head as it’s kicked through the goals.
Some wore supporter scarfs, some got their faces painted, and all looked genuinely thrilled to be there.
While maybe 30 per cent of the Shanghai crowd were locals, there is still a long way to go in popularising the game to non-Australian audiences.
Say what you will about the AFL’s China experiment - seeing non-English speaking Shanghai locals engage with the game is a real delight, and I was impressed by how many locals turned up just to have a look #AFLSaintsPower pic.twitter.com/flsjq5N4GV
— Sophie Welsh (@soph_welsh) June 4, 2019
If the AFL is fair dinkum about making Aussie rules a real sport in China and not just a one-off spectacle, they’re going to have to stick with it a little longer, and do a real grassroots push into schools and communities.
The problem is, that by targeting a foreign and apathetic audience, the AFL is bypassing and ignoring those who regularly pay to attend games.
It’s a bit of a kick in the teeth for rusted-on supporters who pay good money to watch their team play 11+ weeks a year, to see a new audience get handed free tickets and access just for being a “new market”.
I get the frustration, and agree that the AFL’s money should be handed to other far-off lands (Tasmania), but making fun of the fans who made a huge effort to travel to China and the locals the AFL managed to harness is dismissive and misses the point.
THE CROWD
Good luck getting me to an interstate game. I struggle to make it across town for away games at the MCG, let alone schlepping interstate to Perth or Brisbane.
But China? The home of the dumpling? I’m there.
A fair few people evidently shared my food-focused mindset, and made the very expensive and time consuming trip over to China, maybe tacking on a trip to the Great Wall to really get their money’s worth.
I was genuinely expecting to rock up to Jiangwan Stadium and be the only non-AFL sponsored person there.
Walking up the stairs from the metro station to the stadium, I was stunned to actually see AFL supporters.
They turned up. Thousands of them. They sorted visas, got on planes, booked accommodation and navigated the streets of Shanghai without Google Maps, all at great financial expense.
Sure it’s not the lofty heights of an MCG crowd, but the effort that supporters took to get to Shanghai should be applauded, not denigrated.
The crowd was full of families, retired couples and groups of mates who had all followed their football team halfway across the world for a three-hour game.
They were engaged, passionate, and some even managed a “woo” or two when St Kilda were 70 points down in the fourth quarter.
They were never going to get 35,000+ at an AFL game in China. To judge the crowd against Melbourne crowd sizes is just setting the whole endeavour up to fail.
The reality is that the average AFL fan might not be able to fork out the cash for a club membership, let alone a trip to China, which requires not only flights and accommodation, but a fiddly and expensive visa too.
Rather than scoffing at the low numbers, we should be thrilled that supporters even turned up, which is a testament to our great game and how firmly it is stitched into the fabric of our society.
It brings footy a little bit closer to those comparisons with the other big flashy sports that the AFL seems hellbent on emulating.
THE ILLNESS
Touching down in China on Saturday afternoon, I opened Twitter (with the help of a VPN) to the news that several St Kilda players and the coach had fallen victim to the pressures of international travel.
It turns out no amount of imported yoghurt and hand-luggage Weetbix were enough to keep the Saints players from getting sick.
It does seem odd that Port have been travelling to Shanghai for three years now and have not recorded a single incidence of illness.
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China is not a third world country, and Shanghai is a really clean, well-kept city with an impeccably neat public transport system and strict recycling system.
Perhaps St Kilda’s perennial bad luck extends to random contraction of gastro.
Maybe no one told them not to drink the tap water or order ice-free drinks?
With the help of my special edition hand sanitiser, I stuck to bottled water and ice-free drinks, and landed back in Australia without so much as an upset stomach.
It’s likely that it was just more bad luck for the Saints, adding insult to their injury list.
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