A Grand Final - Why You Just Have to Go

The theme of this I have posted in other places, but who cares.

I'm going to be at Footy Park on Sunday, and I'm pumped to be going. How could any fan not be excited when your team is in a Grand Final?
The closer Sunday's game between Norwood and Westies approaches, the more excited I'm getting.
I've seen Norwood play live on exactly two occasions since 1991, having been away from Adelaide for a full working lifetime now. I've got no idea about any of the players who will wear the guernsey this weekend, but it's going to be special because of where the game will take me.
The fact that there is a Gallagher and an Aish playing, albeit they won't be wearing 11 and either 8 or 43, makes it a bit easier to re-connect with my childhood, but the simple fact the jumper will be on the ground, will be enough to re-light the fire of a thousand wonderful childhood and teenage memories.
As someone effectively removed from the SANFL for two decades, and who thinks of the competition only through its (Golden in my view) Age of the 70s-80s, Sunday is going to be about being young again, before a life of choices, responsibilities and outcomes.
In the period 1976-88, I reckon I averaged 14-15 Redleg games a year and was privileged my club did well, and provided memories that stick with me today.
No matter who has the ball in hand, I will be be transported back to watching Aish and McIntosh do their work in their square, to watch Michael Taylor repel attack after attack and to see Keith Thomas deliver the ball beautifully to Neville Roberts on a fast lead.
Footy Park in the Septembers of 78, 82 and 84 (and the massive effort of '80 to do so well against such a great Port side) was the cream on the cake after spending a year always expectant at the Parade that we would probably win, while making the journeys to enemy territory from the Ponderosa in the North to the Bay in the South, and everywhere in between.
It goes without saying that the wins at Alberton were the most special, and names and numbers still randomly jump into the mind at the oddest times - Michalanney, Jenkins, Button, Armour, Thiel, Turbill, Fienemann, Payne, Hein.
Sunday and the prospect of a Grand Final prompts me to thinking back to what makes you pick a favourite player, and why you ride his ups and downs as if it was your lifestory. Roger Woodcock was my guy, and I still think he's been robbed of a rightful spot on the flank in the Norwood team of the century. He'd turn onto the left foot, and you could mark down the goal, even before the man between the big sticks had signalled the major. I couldn't really appreciate the enormity of how it important it was that he kick two goals in a tight, tough low-scoring encounter in 1975, but I certainly appreciated the brace of goals he delivered again in 1978 in a one-point result. I also remember crying when he did his knee in 1981 and his career was over. I never wore another number again to a Norwood game.
While Woodcock was gone in 82, and I had resolved to go numberless on my jumper, this new guy McIntosh was very easy to love and it seemed amazing he was just four years older than me.
Childhood passes in a blink and then the world arrives at your door and everything changes. From those great days of watching my team whenever I wanted, suddenly other responsibilities come to pass and the years quickly years rush by.
You can't get to games, you lose track of players, priorities seem to change. But the love for the jumper and the heroes of your childhood remain, even as those players ALL disappear long into retirement.
I couldn't get along in '97 to see us belt Port (a record losing margin for them) and suddenly its 2012. Time moves fast between potential premiership opportunities as you age, something you never think possible as a teenager.
The names are different but the jumpers and the numbers are the same. For a Cachia, I see a Craig. For a Jefferies, I see a Wynne. For a Chippendale, I see a Payne.
IF the opportunity is here, you owe it to your favourite memories to find a way to the game.

Go you Legs on Sunday and can just somene turn onto the left from 40 metres out and drill it for me for my Woodcock moment.

There was only ever one John Wynne. Remember seeing him as a kid at the Pizza Palace on Anzac Highway with Phil Carman one Saturday Night after footy. Could a more menacing pair ever enter a public establishment?
When he walked by it felt like the lights went out. He just looked that huge.

Who else would have shirt fronted Jack Oatey - I mean pick on someone your own size!
...And that is all I will say on '78.

If it is mentioned again, I will hunt the person down and suck their heart out through a straw!
Ok, joking -

...I come in peace!