By Daniel Lo Surdo and Cindy Yin
Bec Skilton, the granddaughter of Swans legend Bob Skilton, loved Aussie Rules from birth. Melissa Doyle, the GWS Giants’ number one ticket-holder, didn’t touch a Sherrin until her mid-30s.
How they came to love AFL couldn’t be any different, but both are desperate for their respective teams to win the qualifying final at the SCG on Saturday afternoon.
Bec Skilton stands next to a sculpture of grandfather Bob at Melbourne’s Lakeside Stadium, where he played almost half of his 237-game career.Credit: Simon Schluter
It no longer matters if you’re a Swans diehard from the south Melbourne days or a Giants fan riding the infectious orange wave. The passion is what counts.
Take Doyle. Like many Sydney children of the 1980s, rugby league was the only sport she knew. She was dragged to Brookvale Oval each week by her father to see Manly play and only picked up Aussie Rules decades later when her son started Auskick.
Doyle became the Giants’ number one ticket-holder ahead of their inaugural 2012 season when they were no more than a bunch of teenagers representing an area many thought would never warm to AFL.
Some of those young faces will be the ones leading the Giants onto the SCG on Saturday afternoon.
Melissa Doyle has been the Giants’ number one ticket-holder since the club’s inception in 2012.Credit: James Brickwood
“To watch them blossom as players, to watch the trajectory of their professional sporting career, has been such an exciting thing to see,” Doyle says. “To see them married now and holding babies, it’s really lovely.”
Many of Skilton’s earliest childhood memories were steeped in red and white, with grandfather “Bobby” in arm’s reach.
“Our life revolves around footy,” Skilton said. “When I was in university I lived around the corner from him, and if we weren’t there, I used to go around to his place and watch it together.”
It’s a “little bit harder” nowadays for the Skiltons to watch the Swans, with Bob, 85, in aged care.
Skilton, who lives in Melbourne, is at the SCG whenever she can be. She said Sydney’s round-22 win against Collingwood, which snapped a disastrous run of form, was a turning point.
“I’m not a particularly loud supporter at the game, and the people I was sitting with, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them as animated as what we were for that game.”
Skilton, who was named the Swans’ number one ticket-holder for their 150th season, said it’s the Giants’ unpredictability that worries her ahead of Saturday.
“I’m always a little bit nervous playing GWS, they’re always pretty incredible games. You never know what you’re going to get playing them.”
When Doyle is asked her dream scenario for the game, she says a last-minute Giants goal to sink Swans’ hearts would do the trick.
“You want a cracking game, you want it to go down to the wire … you want people to come out and have a good time and love it,” Doyle says.
“Sydney loves winners.”