SPRINGTIME. The birds are out, the sun has begun to shine and the AFL season is coming to a close.
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Which can mean only one thing – the Brownlow Medal telecast.
You either love it or hate it.
I, for one, love it. It’s one of my favourite nights of viewing every year.
For those of you not educated in the ways of football’s night of nights, here’s my guide to the Brownlow.
The red carpet
Or blue carpet. Or whatever colour they choose to make it different (read: tackier) to your stock-standard carpet.
Normally on the red carpet you have fashion faux pas, an on-display g-string or two, and ample use of the words “fabulous” and “just gorgeous”.
There’ll be plenty of witty one-liners by the WAGs along the lines of, “He took longer than me to get ready!” or, “He was hogging the mirror all for himself!”
I also really hope there is a return of last year’s bizarre whizzy-dizzy-type creation designed to show off the ladies’ dresses from a 360 degree view.
The WAGs hopped on the rotisserie and were spun around while looking confused, scared and a bit motion-sick.
It looked like something created by a merry-go-round attendant with a fetish for Wheel of Fortune and spit-roasted lamb.
Brownlow gold!
In-house entertainment
Once inside, the movers and shakers of the footy world will be entertained by some washed-up performer or a former Australian Idol contestant, who will attempt to get the hundreds of people in attendance to partake in a group singalong of That’s The Thing About Football. They will fail.
It will then move into countless “the year that was” montages, with obligatory slow-motion close ups that display the agony and the ecstasy of football.
The count
AFL head honcho Andrew Demetriou will make his grand appearance and begin to read the votes.
He will no doubt pronounce a few names wrong and say Carlton, “Carrrrton”.
One of the good things about the night is that they read out the first initial of the name and then the last name, ie: G Ablett.
One of my favourite games, and something you too can do at home, is to take the first letter of the name and add it to the last to create another hilarious word!
Some all-time favourites of mine are Steven Hocking (Shocking), Cameron Ling (Cling) and Brett Kirk (Bkirk).
I’m still waiting for the year that Frank Rendless, Louis Oozer and Bruce Ooger get drafted into the league.
The after-party
Footballers and their WAGs are let off the chain after a night on supplied booze. Cue disaster.
Brendan Fevola’s performance at the 2009 Brownlow was definitely a defining moment in Brownlow history. Unfortunately that year I was otherwise preoccupied travelling Eastern Europe.
I was in a small town in Bulgaria and started talking footy with another Aussie couple, who gave me a rundown of Fev’s behaviour at the Brownlow that year.
They described how he interviewed distinguished guests with two Crown Lagers in hand, paid $500 to a confused waiter who gave him alcohol (which was supplied) and sung DJ Otzi’s Hey Baby acapella to a bemused crowd at the after-party.
He was last seen vomiting into a pot plant.
To prove their point, the couple put on a YouTube clip.
After three minutes, we had gathered quite a collection of international backpackers, who were wondering what this cacophony of debauchery could possibly be.
“That,” we said, “is one of the highest paid players in our national football league. An elite sportsman. The Lionel Messi of Australia.”
The look on their faces will stay with me forever.
So that about sums it up.
If I haven’t tempted you to turn on the telecast on Monday night, I don’t know what will.
Join the singalong, combine some football names and enjoy.