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I come from a sports mad family, but not a rugby family. Not a single member of my family has ever played a game of rugby.
I myself have played competitive cricket, football, touch, Australian Rules, badminton, tennis, squash and basketball.
My real passion is football. I’ve played since I was six, coached, reffed and nearly failed Year 11 due to basically playing/reffing/coach in every spare minute.
I’ve also represented my state at junior level and reffed the old national youth level at 15. My father is a league fan, and we lived in Canberra during the heyday of Laurie Daley.
So why am I a fan of rugby? Why do I religiously watch games and pay to see whoever play whenever I can?
Well there is a story behind it. At the age of about 14, I was going to a football refereeing course in a union clubhouse in Canberra. I can’t even remember the clubhouse.
But on the way in, I noticed something – a flyer for $2 tickets for kids to watch the Brumbies play.
This was at a time when it was $4 just to park to watch a game at Bruce Stadium. It was $25 to watch the Cosmos lose and $20 to watch the Raiders.
I took the flyer home and showed my parents. They didn’t believe it and didn’t know the sport. But me, being sports-mad, decided to walk to the stadium and check it out.
I got a third row ticket near the try-line for my $2. Gregan, Larkham and Roff were playing. There were four tries in that corner that game, and I was about 10 metres from the corner post.
I was hooked.
The next game, my whole family came along. Granted the parents’ tickets were normal prices, and the food prices were crazy, but the kids were cheap. Cheaper than a cinema visit.
So my parents quickly realised this was a good way to get us out of the house and have a family outing a few times a year which was relatively cheap.
The whole family became Brumbies fans.
When we started watching the Brumbies games, you could turn up five minutes before the game and get good tickets. By the time we left Canberra, you needed a season ticket to get into the stadium.
Then the prices rose. It was suddenly $10, $15, $30 a junior ticket, and more expensive than the cinema.
The Brumbies averaged about 14,000 fans per game this season, with Bruce Stadium’s capacity of 25,000. Now it is not apples for apples, with extra teams now playing and not as long a success run as before, but they finished second and had a 60 percent attendance.
I cannot comment on game day tickets, but season ticket prices for kids are almost as high as adults.
My mother and sister have never been cricket fans – they actually hate it with a passion that is almost holy in its intensity. But somehow, Dad convinced them to go to the Boxing Day Test this year.
I was expecting them to stay maybe 20 minutes and then head to the Boxing Day sales, but watching sport in a full stadium is an unreal experience.
They stayed the entire day, glued to the cricket, and now watch the Big Bash League regularly on TV.
I once took my cousin, who has never watched a major football sporting game in his life to a Waratahs versus Reds game at Suncorp Stadium just after Wendell Sailor defected.
“Wendell’s a w***er” for 80 minutes, and my cousin is suddenly a season ticket holder for the Reds. Still is.
I expect that Canberra will produce a number of very good rugby players over the next few years, and I soundly put some of them down to the $2 ticket and people brought into rugby from it.
Bring back the $2 ticket for the kids. It’s the best way to grow the game and gain lifelong supporters.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.