My walk from the front door to the MCG takes 10 minutes.
Sometimes less, if it’s a big game and the surge is on. Don’t want to miss the opening bounce.
Turning right from the gate, I navigate Richmond Terrace’s dog leg and head west.
Usually down the middle of the street with hundreds of other like minded people who have heard the calling.
The single fronted Victorian terraces have hosted this artery to the ‘G for more than a century.
Aside from the TV aerials, they haven’t changed much – externally at least – since the early 1900s.
Richmond has left its Struggletown roots behind, and these houses are now selling for $1 million plus, but at night, on the way to the footy, among a throng, you could be walking back through time.
Weaving past the all-male line outside The Royal, where Richmond Terrace meets Punt Rd, a sign, in defiance of changing cultural rules, shouts in capitals: TOPLESS BARMAIDS 7 DAYS.
A few years back, a copper mate of mine on his way to the footy observed as he walked past the line: “Fair number of outstanding warrants could be served on this lot.”
Then it’s over Punt Rd, up the hill of Yarra Park, and the MCG lights up the view.
Standing among the faithful, it is like walking towards a cathedral.
Modern Richmond hasn’t lost its community spirit, much of that can be linked back to the Tigers. Most seem to follow the yellow & black. Near the top of my street, lives Richmond president Peggy O’Neal. She loves a stop and chat with the locals. Mick Molloy is a TV star now, but he lives around here too. He can be seen at The London Tavern. Often. For a long time, I thought he lived above the bar.
Mind you, living this close to the ‘G isn’t without its challenges. The old lane way behind my back fence doubles as a public urinal – and worse – after big footy and cricket games. On Grand Final day, the street resembles a human zoo. I returned home after last year’s premiership, to find a bloke pissing like a human fire hydrant on my yellow & black gate.
“C’mon mate, you’re pissing on my gate.”
Without breaking stream, he looked over his shoulder: “It’s OK mate, I'm a Richmond fan.”
For a while now, the opening round of the season has been on a Thursday night. Richmond plays Carlton. On this night, I don’t usually turn right out of my gate.
I go straight up the street to open my footy season with a couple of pots at The London, a 1920s red-brick comfort home on the corner Richmond Terrace and Lennox St.
It’s Richmond’s unofficial fans headquarters. A yellow & black wrapped pole stands in the middle of the front bar.
Heroes of the Tigers’ glory days of the 1970s and earlier – Francis Burke and Captain Blood Jack Dyer – plaster the walls. In the lounge bar, hang the old Herald premiership posters from ‘67, ‘69, ‘73, ‘74, ‘80. Hungry’s 400th game poster is there.
For a long time, it was like that’s where it ended. But now 2017 and 2019 premiership posters have joined them.
Tonight, in this post-coronavirus world, there won’t be thousands of fans jammed into the London, downing beer before heading west along Richmond Terrace for the opening bounce.
Our pub will be limited to under 100 people. Maybe Billy won’t even bother opening.
Hundreds of thousands of footy fans are working out how they’ll watch the footy tonight. I’ll probably sit on my roof, have a beer, and listen to the radio broadcast.
The MCG will be glowing, as it does during round one every year.
But tonight it will be a silent light show.
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