This Friday marks nine years since South won the 2006 VPL grand final against Altona Magic. It had been seven years since we'd won our last league title - and eight more years would have to pass before we would win our next one, though who knew the travails we'd have to deal with then? - and though it was no national league championship, it still meant a lot to those who were there. My feeling of the day was that, give or take the odd person on board for the bandwagon, this was a title that was best shared with people who'd done the hard yards during the season, who'd stuck by the club in its most desperate hour of need. But back to the artefacts. In the lead up to the game, a group of South fans had made a run through banner for the occasion, South fans had of course had an old irregular habit of creating run through banners for games - 1991 grand final, last game at Middle Park - so this was something of a revival of that habit.
Unfortunately, years of know how as to how to make these banners had disappeared, and so our run through banner was less than impressive in both size and construction. The elements, too, didn't help our cause, as the strong winds on grand final day threatened to rip apart the expression of our love before the players themselves could even get to it. Thankfully, they made it there just in time, tearing apart the banner if not in an expression of fearsome hostility, nor even respect for the effort, than at the very least out of pity. Now to be allowed on the field in the first place to hold the banner, one needed a special pass granted by the FFV. Having volunteered to be one of the banner holding up people, I was lucky enough to be one of the people allowed on to the field, and thus become the recipient of one of these passes. And while certainly the memories of the day, and the camaraderie of those that were there are precious in their own right, a little bit of memorabilia is also a nice thing to have.
The funny thing is, I don't even remember what the banner said.
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