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The Blacktown International Sportspark looks like the perfect place for softballers, baseballers, and players of foreign football codes. Situated on a bleak windswept plain forty kilometres from the centre of Sydney, next to the suburb of Rooty Hill and a sign saying Welcome To Doonside, it looks like a gigantic prison with fantastic recreational facilities.
I stood outside the locked entrance staring up at the light towers and flapping GWS banners feeling like the only human in existence until a car appeared on the heat-hazed horizon.
When it finally reached me it stopped and two official looking chaps in Sydney Swans polos stepped out. After a quick perusal of the facility the spies took off towards Doonside, and I was alone again.
My visit to the Sportspark was a complete accident. I hadn’t come to this city to check out the home of the newest AFL invader. I was here to visit my brother and to experience first hand the rugby league land of western Sydney.
I wanted to see the traditional modest grounds that Phil Gould is so fond of. And it was while driving along the Western Motorway towards the town of his new club Penrith that I came across the turn-off to a place with the strangely compelling name of Rooty Hill.
I imagined Petero Civoniceva after his fall out with the Broncos travelling down the M4- staring at the featureless landscape and thinking: “Remember you’re doing this for the family…the family…the family!”, while Penrith officials talked up the place (“It has a Centro and a Westfield”).
Penrith Stadium was deserted, of course, just like the Blacktown complex, because it’s the off-season.
Actually it was Christmas and New Year, meaning no pre-season matches or training. And no supporters. To find them I had to visit the shopping centres.
The last thing I expected to find in Penrith was trouble finding a parking spot but after fifteen minutes of driving in circles I was forced to enter a peripheral carpark containing youths in Bintang singlets, and signs warning: “Lock It Or Lose It!”.
I didn’t expect the car to be there when I got back. I also didn’t expect there to be decent coffee, Portuguese custard tarts or a Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre. To my pleasant surprise I was wrong on all counts.
Inside the mall there were fans in Panthers tops but just as many in West Tigers outfits. Importantly, there were several children who had chosen to wear the jerseys of winners: the reigning Premiers from the north.
This readiness to break the hearts of their parents will have been keenly noted by the AFL.
There were no children in the orange, charcoal and white of GWS but walking around the place one thing did become apparent: kids are more likely to end up with a body type suited to AFL than to rugby league.
Travelling from Melbourne, a city with drop-in cricket pitches, to Sydney, a city with drop-in roads (blocks of concrete whose joins announce themselves on your tyres every ten metres), I knew I had crossed the border when the paper I was reading had an article on Parramatta legend Ray Price and his new job as a bus driver.
Arrival at my destination was confirmed when I found myself having a grand Christmas dinner at the Wests Ashfield Leagues Club, the modern incarnation of the club formed by Western Suburbs in 1955.
Located in the increasingly affluent inner-west the club obviously senses a change in the sporting landscape. An AFL game was being replayed behind the front desk and it encourages patrons to watch matches “no matter what your sport”.
Visiting the traditional grounds in the region you can understand the fondness held for them. Turnstiles that turn rather than scan, lush grassed areas, and open ends that let in the sights of the town they represent.
AAMI Park in Melbourne is a world-class venue: comfortable, well catered and excellent for viewing. But it doesn’t hold a candle to the fifty year old athletics training track next door.
Olympic Park had the Botanical Gardens looking in, the CBD staring down, and a crowd noise that produced one of the most intimidating atmospheres in the NRL.
Despite my movements ( which included rides to Leichhardt Oval on my sister-in-law’s dodgy mountain bike) I haven’t yet run into an NRL player.
I literally bumped into Brendon Julian in the dodgem car pavilion at Luna Park and had a chat in the Lord Nelson hotel with the US water polo team who were preparing for the Melbourne Pan Pacs.
Considering the state some of them were in I can’t see the team going too well in its first match against New Zealand this morning.
I’ve always liked Sydney but my love of AFL meant I couldn’t live here. I love rugby league now but can’t move to Sydney because my team is in Melbourne.
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