– Peter Sweeney
A CARAVANNING break for a week has lured Berwick couple Neil and Elaine Rankin away from their sporting love – the Casey Scorpions – for two matches.
WE USUALLY work our holidays around the fixtures for the Casey Scorpions … but something has gone wrong this year.
We cannot remember the last game we missed. We used to be members of the Sydney Swans, but were only watching about five games a year in Melbourne. It was cheaper paying via Ticketek for the games you went to, rather than being members.
So we decided to join a local footy club, where the standard was pretty high. This is our third year as members of the Scorpions.
We go to all the games, and wear the red, white and blue colours, scream out and wave flags. I suppose some would call us fanatical.
If we were home and going to Saturday’s game against North Ballarat, we would either go up Friday night and stay there, or on Saturday morning, watch the game and stay a night.
I’ve (Neil) got a soft spot for (captain) Kyle Matthews and wear his no.1 on the back of my jumper. I felt sorry for him when he was knocked out at a club in the city where the fellas went to watch (former Scorpion) Alex Silvagni playing his first game for Fremantle.
Elaine has a bit of a soft spot for Fremantle, because he’s (Alex) there. We still follow Sydney a bit, but are getting more into Melbourne, because of their connection with the Scorpions.
We watch the game from near the players’ race and I think they recognise us more than we do them – mainly because when they haven’t got the numbers on their backs and they are in normal clothes – they look so different.
Last season, we were at a finals game against the Northern Bullants when our heavily pregnant daughter Ruth, of Cranbourne, sent an sms. The game was being televised and she had seen us.
We left home last Saturday and are presently at Bright. But we knew the score from the game against Port Melbourne as soon as it finished.
Our son Trevor, who used to do stats for the Scorpions, is one of the “waterboys” and he texted us with the scores. And that’s what he will do again this Saturday.
