A September to remember (part one) ...

It wasn't that long ago, but I imagine I'll be talking about September 2007 for years to come. Indeed, it was an exciting time, as both my teams - Geelong and Manly - descended deep into their respective football finals. Expectations were high and a big Hawaiian holiday was also on the horizon. I was in my element housesitting for K-Beezer and Cameroon who were also in their element, galavanting around Europe for a month.

There is no photographic evidence that I attended the first week of Geelong's finals campaign with Poppa Blog (who is also overseas) to see our Cats bounce the Kangaroos from the MCG in front of a big crowd on a Sunday afternoon. So I made sure that, following the team's week off, that the Canon was in my pocket for what was the biggest game of football I have ever been to, the preliminary final between Geelong and Collingwood on a Friday night, with more than 98,000 in attendance.

The day started off well when the Murf Man invited me to the Hotel Spencer for a Chicken Parmagiana (I believe that dish deserved capital letters). There were a couple of guests: one was a fellow writer from the esteemed broadsheet, and like Murf, a fellow Pies fan. But to even up the Heath Ledger, the other lunch guest was Mark Wilson, bass player from the band Jet. Mr Wilson and yours truly have a few of things in common, like growing up and barracking for Geelong and even going to the same primary school. So there you go. It's a small world.

The only bad thing that occurred was the amount of beer I consumed over the course of the afternoon. Upon leaving the pub with a few Coopers Pale Ales above my belt, I went to see Rogan Josh at his new inner-city abode before going to another fine drinking establishment, and in turn, getting to the game just before the singing of the national anthem.

The dynamic duo of K-Lenko and C-Bas joined me. The latter, a Western Bulldogs fan, joined us because he actually wanted to watch some good teams play when it counts, in September. More beer was consumed and despite what I said earlier - that I drank too much, hence missing key parts of the game - it may have helped time lapse much faster and I did learn from it the following week. Before you could say "Collingwood suck", Geelong had won a game that they didn't deserve to by a small margin of just five points.

So there it was, Geelong was off to a grand final and following the match between Manly and North Queensland the night after, so were the Sea Eagles. And I got tickets to both matches. As I said, it certainly was an exciting time.

To be continued.