The stadium is filling as Showdown XV approaches. By John Kingsmill.

AT Prospect Oval, a sizeable crowd watched Andrew Jarman’s first game as coach of cellardweller North Adelaide against Glenelg. There were many aged in their fifties, with vacant looks, reliving North’s string of 1980s finals against Glenelg when the Jarman boys were starting their careers.

Jason Roe was Best On Ground; tall, lanky, lean, classy, a McAdam/O’Loughlin love child, a fresh river trout. At the last break, seven goals up, Jarman asked his players to do something exciting or else he’d let them finish the season by themselves. They came out of the huddle laughing and confident. During that last term, Roe took two bounces through the middle and sank a Robranesque 50-metre punt through the dead centre. North won by 33 points and a star was born.
On the mound, a man drinking Jim Beam grunted “Good ball… to the leading forward… now… yes!” He had a pot belly and a prominent nose. At half time he stretched his legs. I identified the crook of his back. “Are you Grenville Dietrich?” I asked. “No,” he said. “If you were Grenville Dietrich, would you tell me?” He stared at me. “No,” he said, with a faint smile around his eyes.

AT AAMI Stadium, season-ticket holders are locked into the same seat, year after year. I’ve been in the north-west pocket at Adelaide games since 1991. One row forward, three seats right. In 1991, she wore soft woollen winter jumpers and thick luxurious hair. He wore a scrubbed cotton shirt, Levi jeans, RM William boots, strong forearms exposed to the weak sun, unshaven, untidy locks. The daughter, eight years old, wore full Crows regalia, wide roaming TV eyes, more out of her seat than in it, unbounded enthusiasm for football.

The years rolled by. The mother’s hair flattened and shortened. Her soft round curves became angled planes. The father became conscious of his grooming. His jeans went, then his hair. One year he wore one earring and a sickly-sweet perfume. The daughter wore off-the-shoulder tops exposing things that didn’t yet exist. In the middle of Blight’s first year, their three seats were absent for two games in a row. The next week, the mother came with the daughter and her friend. The next week, the father came with the daughter and his friend. Football Park became their child exchange zone.

Last year, the daughter and two 20-year-old women friends occupied these seats, with crude laughter when a player lost his shorts, loud makeup, lifted hair and mobiles pounding out text messages to abandoned boyfriends. In 2003, for these young women, the girls’ night out was at the football. This year, she has moved on. Three people from a country town have taken her seats. That chapter is over.

IN 1997, I bought a Port season ticket in the south-eastern pocket and it was a horrible first year. There was a woman behind me with a foghorn for a mouth. She loved her Ports and had the need to tell us loudly, indiscriminately, constantly, even during the mini-league at half-time. A goal. “About fucking time,” she’d say, loudly. The umpires got most of her spray. Or rather I received her spray on the back of my neck and her dumb loud screeching inside my sensitive ears. In round five, at a particularly bad moment, I said: “Have you read the rule book?” She said: “I’ve paid my money. You can get fucked.” Loudly. Later in the quarter, I said: “Please don’t spit on me.” For the rest of that day, this woman made me her target: “There is a traitor in our midst. There’s a secret Crows supporter here.”

At the next match, I moved to a vacant seat three rows away. “That communist down there is trying to escape the heat,” she screeched.

By season’s end, this woman had created an arc of empty seats in front of her. Next year, I asked for a relocation to the outer wing where I am now tucked in three seats from the fence with teenagers, adult males and breastfeeding mothers waving flags and conducting chants as the self-appointed Outer Cheer Squad. I’ve learnt how to ignore the monocultural aspect of their fanism and, instead, concentrate on the football. Away from the members’ side, close to my fence, the players think they are no longer observed. You hear their conversations, as jockeys swear at the 1200 metre post at Victoria Park. Four or five rows up, it becomes the chess set, the televised view, the commentated game. Where I sit, I have the best possible view of the national game.

A FORTNIGHT ago, Showdown XV loomed as a battle between Gary Ayres, a dead man walking, and Mark Williams, a man walking on water. In Round Four, Adelaide’s loss to St Kilda by 15 points wasn’t dreadful but Port’s 53 point thrashing by Melbourne was. The local press focussed on Adelaide’s woes, but the real story in April was William’s failure to learn anything from his defeats. It’s simple. If Tredrea is held, Port folds. Four goals down at the last break against Melbourne, Bishop couldn’t handle Nietz. Williams could have extended Tredrea’s repertoire as Malthouse extended Jacovich in the 1990s.

In Round Five, Ayres put Perrie at centre half back and McLeod into a back flank. Lacking confidence in attack, Perrie won his defensive position with 18 disposals, restricting Ottens to three kicks. McLeod was released from his tag with 22 disposals from defence, which the team hasn’t seen for a while. McGregor stood tall at centre half forward; youth and Riccuito did the rest. Nigel Smart and Ben Hart were not missed.

Adelaide hasn’t beaten Port since 2000 and nothing will change in Showdown XV. Even Adelaide fans think this is Port’s year. They want their little cousins to stay focussed, to not get reported or arrested, to drink their Milo, not get spooked by the media and to listen to their coach. Williams has to become sublime, now. He has the perfect marathon squad for a premiership but still lacks essential knowledge about some players. The season has three five-week semesters where each team plays the other. This is the learning time. The last seven weeks is the study period. Williams has 10 weeks left to self-instruct before the season closes school. His clock is ticking. Ayres has 17 weeks to improve his position. His clock hasn’t started yet.