Is it the Ground?

By the time I reached Henson Park, the game had already started.

That was entirely my fault. I had stayed longer than planned at the NPL Women’s grand final at Jubilee Stadium, taken an Uber across to Marrickville and arrived just as the second quarter was beginning. The Swans had not waited for me. Their AFLW side had already built a comfortable lead over GWS.

I was annoyed to have missed it, but not especially flustered. I had made the decision to stay at Jubilee and knew what it might cost me.

What caught my attention almost immediately was something else.

Henson Park did not feel like watching the Swans.

There was red and white everywhere. More than 7,000 people had turned up, enough for a record crowd at the ground, and the Swans clearly had the larger share of them. GWS supporters were visible and noisy too, but the first impression was still one of red, white and people spread around a suburban oval.

It was my first visit to Henson Park, and the place looked as though it had been assembled gradually rather than designed all at once. There were old stands, newer stands, low rows of seating near the fence and a large grassy embankment rising behind them. Food trucks and sponsor tents sat along the top. Families had spread themselves across the hill.

The grandstands were already busy, so I ended up sitting low, almost at ground level, looking across the field and slightly into the sun.

For more than twenty years, my version of watching the Swans has mostly involved the SCG. I usually sit higher up. I tend to buy better seats. The sun is generally where I want it. The screens are easy to see. The sound system works. The whole place quietly helps you follow the game.

Henson Park did not do that for me in quite the same way.

Temporary speakers had been set up around the ground and some of them sat directly in the sightlines. The sound was loud but not especially clear. The scoreboard was small. The television screen was in a position that made it almost useless from where I was sitting.

I had also left my glasses at home, which was not Henson Park’s fault.

What surprised me was how much I missed the replay screen. I had never really thought of myself as someone who relied on it while attending live sport, but apparently I do. Replays, close-ups and confirmation of what had just happened are simply part of the experience at the SCG, and I had stopped noticing that.

The height mattered too. Sitting almost level with the players made the game feel closer, but not necessarily easier to follow. The ball disappeared behind bodies more often. The shape of the field was harder to read. I found myself squinting into the sun, hat pulled down, trying to pick out players from much lower than I normally would.

The ground was changing the game without changing anything happening on it.

Around me, it was changing the crowd as well.

There is something about a grassy hill that seems to loosen everyone up. Kids were moving around, kicking footballs and drifting between families. People were talking through passages of play. Food trucks, marquees and sponsor activations gave the top of the hill the feel of a small festival rather than a tightly controlled sporting venue.

None of it was unpleasant. Quite the opposite. The SCG tends to organise people. Henson Park seemed to let them arrange themselves.

That difference was probably helped by the game itself. Sydney were already well ahead when I arrived and never really gave up control. GWS would answer occasionally, but the Swans kept extending the gap. By halftime the AFLW derby was comfortably heading in one direction.

That gave me plenty of time to look around.

I had arrived feeling fairly ordinary after the earlier match, and sitting in the sun actually helped. It was warm enough that I eventually took my jacket off and sat there in a T-shirt, happy just to absorb the heat.

Then sometime in the third quarter the sun went behind cloud. The warmth disappeared almost immediately, and so did whatever temporary improvement it had given me. The shaking came back and the jacket went on again.

Henson Park also offered things the SCG does not. The crowd felt closer to the players. Families had room to move. The hill had a relaxed, communal feel. After the siren, Swans players stayed around the boundary signing autographs and handing things to kids. People began lining up for kick-to-kick while the team remained visible.

A long injury stoppage late in the game briefly quietened the ground before Sydney eventually closed out a 31-point win.

Beating GWS helped.

I still refuse to acknowledge them as a Sydney team.

After the game I stayed long enough to watch some of the Swans players come over towards the crowd. Kids gathered along the boundary waiting for autographs and for their chance to get onto the field, and then I started making my way out.

I would come back to Henson Park. Next time I would arrive earlier, probably try one of the stands or at least choose a position with the sun behind me, and remember my glasses.

But the thing I kept coming back to was the SCG.

When you have been going somewhere for more than twenty years, you stop appreciating some of what is always there. The SCG has changed plenty over that time, but mostly in small, incremental ways. Better screens, better sound, better seating, better sightlines. Each improvement just becomes normal.

It took sitting somewhere else to notice how much of that I had started taking for granted.

I had spent years thinking that was simply what watching the Swans felt like.

Apparently, some of it was the ground.