It is the classic mantra of the sports fan, the phrase that launches a thousand stories: “I was there”.
I was there on 8 March at the MCG, just nine short weeks ago, though it feels like another lifetime. My five-year-old daughter and I made a last-minute decision to fly from Sydney to Melbourne to see the Women’s T20 World Cup final on International Women’s Day.
It was a costly and complicated exercise, involving a 4am start on the Monday to get back in time for work and school, but as we hiked our way up to the top of the stadium and turned to face the magnificent field, I instantly knew it would be worth every dollar and every bit of trouble.
Our feeling of being two of the 86,174 fans filling one of the world’s most iconic venues in a celebration of women’s sport was overwhelming. The crack of the ball hitting Alyssa Healy’s bat as she effortlessly guided another delivery to the boundary was echoed in stereo by the roar of the crowd. The eclectic mix of spectators – female, male, young and old, from countless backgrounds – were all in tune as the Mexican wave circled the stadium again and again.
It was by no means a close game, not one that came down to the final ball, but it was historic nonetheless. A genuine I was theremoment.
Then, swiftly, everything changed. Within five days, no one was “there” at all. Half-hearted banter and weird elbow bumps echoed around empty stadiums. Another two weeks and there was no longer a there at all. Nowhere to be but home, sweating on a yoga mat in time to a jumpy Zoom exercise class or on the couch in my pyjamas watching a replay of the 2006 Ashes with a bottle of panic-bought pinot grigio.
At first it was a bit of a novelty. Stumbling along trying to follow athletes’ home workouts, and taking the opportunity to rewatch some classic games from years gone by had its appeal. But despite all my best efforts, all I felt was an overwhelming sense of loss. It was a strange kind of loss – I know logically that there is no safe way for sport to exist right now and I’m fully supportive of those measures to keep everyone safe.
But for many of us, our identity is intertwined with our sporting passions. In a world without sport, we lose that easy shorthand of understanding who we are. I’m a cricket lover and a netball tragic – the kind of person who flies interstate for 24 hours just to watch a game, who has sworn allegiance to Nat Medhurst and thinks playing wing defence is a personality trait.
When I tell other rugby league fans that I follow the St George Illawarra Dragons, they understand something deeper about me than just that I wear a red V on the hill at Kogarah Oval. They know it means I hate myself just a little, that I’m an eternal pessimist, that this was something I was born into because it’s not a fate anyone would choose for themselves.
With all this swept away, I’m faced with a sense of identity that is more complex, that requires more introspection than I feel comfortable with. It’s not something to be proud of, but when your work, volunteering and leisure time are so tied up in sport then it’s hard to find your feet when those rugs get so swiftly pulled from under you.
Compounding that loss of identity is an aching for the safe uncertainty that sport provides. When I walk into a stadium, I can’t know for sure if the team I’m there to support will crush all before them, take a close and measured win or suffer a heartbreaking last-minute loss.
The losses hurt, of course, but I’m prepared for them. I know all the possible outcomes when I walk in – it’s enough uncertainty to keep me on the edge of my seat, but not enough to keep me lying awake at night wondering what the future holds.
While the current situation has reduced each individual day to the crushingly mundane and the global future to the terrifyingly unknown, sport offers just the opposite. It allows us to feel as if anything is possible, while also gently corralling us along to the reassuringly timed finals series. A sense of chaos within a perfectly controlled situation.
When all this is over, when the world returns to some form of normality, I hope we will see significant change in sport. I want to see it become something I can proudly tie my identity to; that it will be more humble, more inclusive and more progressive.
But that feeling of unpredictability on game day, where the stakes are high enough to get my blood pumping but low enough to stave off a panic attack? You can pry that from my cold, dead hands.