Grand Final musings, 2

After the Geelong v. North game in the first week of the finals last year, I was moved to write to Stephen Gough, Secretary of the MCC, to complain about the blood pouring from my ears as the Geelong theme song crescendoed again and again at the end of the game. Thankfully, for the remaining finals the sound guy managed to avoid hitting Spinal Tap's famed Eleven.

Not so however for the 2008 Grand Final. After almost bearable sound levels in the preceding weeks, Grand Final day dawned to reveal a sound system tuned to rock concert standards with a bass overload to push your sternum in by a good few centimetres. Suffice to say that barely anything resembling English could be discerned through this din. Ian Moss and Powderfinger may have gloried in such overkill, but ground announcements were a melange of cacophany out in the cheap seats.

Then, in case we hadn't noticed, the opening bounce is hyped by some maniacal babble, followed, at each break, by this voice repeating the scores to us and describing a highlight from the preceding quarter. The only disadvantaged people missing out were the blind, who could not see the action. Even the acutely deaf would have heard the ground announcements — not understood, mind you, just heard, like the rest of us! And Rob Waters graced the big screen to read selected statistics as they were displayed on the big screen. All of this is happening at a volume of twelve (remember the Spinal Tap gag...).

So loud was all this amplified nonsense, I could barely make myself understood to my companion in the next seat. Take off the ear muffs when doing the sound check next time guys!

By the way, when the Great Southern Stand is refurbished, could someone please wave a magic wand and arrange for knee room for persons over 150cm on the upper level? The poor chap in front of me got bruised shoulders from the many collisions with my knees.