Ungodly hours: An ode to late-night matches

There’s something about those late-night games. The ones that no one else seems to want to stay up for. Cursed hours. Purgatory time slots.

Does one attempt to stay awake or wake up early? There’s no real answer.

It can be a lonely existence.

Another Test match approaches. 3am. The unholy hour. You fix yourself another coffee and temper it with a touch of bourbon. The abode is dead silent, as is everywhere around you.

Living in an old Art Deco apartment in Randwick, my walls and ceilings are paper thin. I can hear every movement, television programme and spousal disagreement. If a cockroach farts upstairs, I’ll hear about it.

But not now. My world is dormant. Whilst everyone lays sleeping, I lay awake. Checking the clock every so often until kick-off approaches. It becomes a small battle of wits. Mind over matter. Yet will the mind succumb to the tired calls of the matter?

Before too long (thanks, Paul Kelly), the time beckons. Settling down onto the couch in pitch black, you flick on the TV, leaving the room drenched in an eerie phosphorescent glow. Adjusting the volume to level 4 thinking even that might be too loud, yet no one will stir to these sounds.

In this moment, you’re in the vacuum. Sound and time do not apply. You check The Roar‘s live blog and see some other sorry souls have decided to punish themselves in a similar way. But for all of us, the carrot at the end is victory. A hard-fought win. Something which makes this arduous slog a worthwhile endeavour.

And that victory makes the Sunday ever so sweeter and the late-night struggle all worth the while.

Only recently, I watched the Wallabies beat Scotland in what was a fairly average game. But we won in the end. So, just after dawn, I wander down King St and stop by a small café to order the essentials.

Bleary-eyed and exhausted, I ask the man with a top knot: “Can I get a bacon and egg roll and a flat white, thanks?”

“What milk would you like?”

“Oh, I only drink pine nut milk.”

“We don’t have that…”

“Regular milk will be fine.”

I take my pine nut milk-absent coffee and B&E roll and proceed down to Centennial Park, navigate past the murderous geese and dodge the horse s–t until I settle down upon a small patch of grass overlooking the lake.

Reminiscing about the game just gone, it fills me with a kind of warmth that the sun and coffee just don’t provide. Dappled light dances around me through the gaps between the large Paper Bark trees.

I can feel the cool from the damp earth underneath me. The smell of freshly mown grass and Jacaranda is in the air. A slight breeze is coming off the water that takes the edge off the heat, now creeping up to 30 degrees. Kids are kicking a footy behind me. There’s a random guy in a Rabbitohs jersey.

Life can be pretty good, you just need to get through the tough times first. Fight through those rough midnight hours and you might find something worth it on the other end.