Cats scare Magpies away

This day last week I was in Melbourne. It was Grand Final day. A wet and cold day with dark clouds overhead. Two local teams, the Collingwood Magpies and the Geelong Cats were playing in the Australian Football League's championship match as it might be called elsewhere.

At 3.29pm with the match approaching half time I look out my hotel window and I can see the Melbourne Cricket Ground with it's light towers illuminating the ground. Just a couple of hundred people short of 100,000 are inside the stadium viewing the spectacle.

Not a single car, train, tram or pedestrian is visible outside the ground. Presumably those not present at the stadium are viewing the match on live television elsewhere indoors.

Fast forward to 5.19pm. After three quarters of titanic, even, struggle the Geelong Cats have started to assert their superiority and look to be headed for victory. Spectators, presumably Collingwood Magpies supporters, are beginning to stream from the ground across the rail bridge and trains are moving again.

Now it is 6.04pm and the Geelong Cats have prevailed. The match is over and the victory celebrations are underway inside the stadium. The trams are running and the crowd is dispersing, many of them across the railway line and on to Federation Square where two hours later the victorious team will be presented to it's adoring blue and white scarf bedecked fans.