(The photo above is unrelated to the article below - but possibly gives an example of crowd members on their 'Portable grandstands'.
THE FOOTBALL CROWD
Saturday Afternoon Impressions
WOMEN, BOXES & BARRACKERS
To he regarded as a rod-hot football enthusiast nowadays something more is required than a mild touch of "barracker's throat."
Almost anybody ran shout criticisms and opinions: even a dumb man could signal his contempt for the umpire. But it needs a certain amount of physical skill and endurance to stand for an hour at a time, balanced on the top of a petrol tin or small wooden box. It needs self-control too. because there is obviously a tremendous temptation to leap joyously into the air when one's favorites score; and even quite a little jump on the top of a petrol tin is apt to prove disastrous.
So the modern enthusiast descends upon our football grounds armed with a box or tin respectively disguised in brown paper and .string. When the game starts he stands on it, head and shoulders above his neighbors, At half-time he sits on it thoughtfully munching a frankfort and roll. When the game is over he hunches it, mud and all, under his arm and takes it home ready for next Saturday's game. Portable grandstands of this kind are the fashion this season.
On Saturday afternoon I saw scores of them in use at the Essendon ground. There was one which hypnotised me for some time. It swayed on a foundation of soft mud. On Its top, not more than a foot square, a young man and- young woman balanced themselves precariously the whole afternoon amid the swaying, roaring multitude. They appeared to manage it by clasping each other tightly round the waist and each standing on one leg at a time.
Every moment it seemed that they were about to fall spectacularly, and yet, somehow - well, one has a number of disappointments to put up with even at a football match.
A cab driver who strolled up to the outskirts of the crowd and stood next to me for a while surveyed the line of box- barrackers in some astonishment.
"Next Saturday." he confided to me. I'll drive a load of cases up instead of a cab.. My oath." I shouldn't be surprised if lie did. he had the appearance of a business man.
* * *
Later on in the afternoon one of the box barrackers became tired, or perhaps it was thirsty. At any rate, the opportunity to take his place for a while arrived.
It was welcome. It is astonishing how one loses the finer points of the game, so to speak, when one's view of it is limited to an expanse of blue sky across which a sunlit ball sails now and again near the top of the goal posts. It is possible to see a little more, at times of crisis on the field, by jumping, Jack-in-the-Box fashion. To keep this up for long, however, is tiring to the calves and distressing to one's neighbors.
But viewed from the top of the box - what a difference! There lay the arena, sunlit and criss-crossed by running figures in black and white, and red and black. There was the hall, skimming goalwards like a brown swallow.
"Up you go, now! Stockdale's got it. Great mark - now then, Stocky . . . . . . Stocky,that's. 'a goal- that's a" At this moment the box slipped slightly.
"Let go o' my neck," protested the cab-driver gloomily. And stand still on that box o-yours, or you'll be over."
* * *
After that. I watched the crowd itself for a while. It is a great gathering our typical .Saturday football multitude, and it loves its game and its players.: .Take the women for instance.
There were hundreds round the Essendon ground on Saturday. Their hats and coats and costumes supplied the sombre tiers of spectators with spots of color. Their voices made a treble framework, so to speak, -for the surge and roar of male voices kindly telling players and umpire what to do. Most of them missed none of the finer points of the game and seemed to know by face and nickname every one of the thirty-six players.
They can show the men points in physical endurance, too. There was one frail creature at the very front of the crowd who began to hop excitedly from one foot to the other at the start of the game in a sort of joy-jazz.1 I saw her still going strongly .at three-quarter time, with no signs of fatigue.
There were two mere wisps of girls who clung all afternoon to two or three inches of wooden ledge at the edge of a stand. Their attitudes were neither graceful nor comfortable. But they could see and shout.
And there were many middle-aged ladies who stood tireless on boxes and seats, or craned their necks in the crowd, and gave shrill and pointed. advice with the best of the barrackers. In no other football crowd in the world, I think, could one see so large a proportion of women.
* * *
Then there- were the small boys, of course. Whenever there was a sort of heave and surge visible amid a packed- mass of spectators, you could be sure that presently there would emerge from amid the forest of legs a small boy or two, little ants from out a grass patch. Like small boys everywhere, they managed to be both seen and heard, and to get everywhere and anywhere. They seemed to know almost as much about the game as their mothers and sisters.
* * *
As for the genuine barracker - him, we have with us always. This being the first game, of the season his voice has not yet reached that hoarse and raucous quality which it will acquire presently. His vocabulary is rusty from weeks of disuse. But he is there, and he is doing his best.
We shall hear more of him later on, when the season is older and the football crowd -has worked itself up to the proper pitch of enthusiasm and loyalty which it never fails to. reach.
R.S.
THE FOOTBALL CROWD (1924, April 28). The Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 - 1954), p. 6. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244213313
'Portable grandstands' were prohibited later in the 1920's
SUPPRESSING A NUISANCE
Portable Grandstands
The practice of spectators in the grandstand and outer enclosures in bringing along boxes and collapsible forms on which they stand to obtain a better view of the games has become so common as to be regarded by the management of the Melbourne Cricket ground as not only a nuisance but a source of danger.
It has been decided to prohibit their use tomorrow, and persons will not be permitted to pass through the gates with them.
SUPPRESSING A NUISANCE (1928, May 11). The Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 - 1954), p. 13. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243995261
1920's spectators
