Originally Posted by
Doctor J.
I was also at that game and I don't remember a thing about it except the small crowd and the fact we lost. I used to stand behind the goals in front of the social club, and you could turn up to every game and the same people would be standing in the exact same places. These people were my Saturday afternoon football friends, passionate South Melbourne supporters who were there every week and followed South Melbourne unconditionally. Over the years we became good friends, that would meet every week and talk all things South Melbourne and hopefully cheer our team on to victory, then when the game finished it was a simple see you next week and off we would go to our lives outside of Saturday afternoon footy. The only thing we knew about each other was our names and we supported South.
I do remember when the game was over, a group of us hung around for a long time and talked about what the future would be like. I think we all realised that our Saturday afternoon football would never be the same again and that we would have to catch up at away games now.
I remember walking out of the ground thinking to myself that I had lost something more than just football at the Lake Oval, I'd just lost a good group of friends. That turned out to be true. Whilst some continued to go to away games, it was never the same, and some struggled to come to terms with the move north and were lost to the game or they may have just chosen to become a TV fan. Over the years I've bumped into a few of these "friends", but its not the same. The Lake Oval was our home. The place where our heroes provided us with so much pleasure, where we poured our emotions into support for South and where we embraced anyone who wore Red & White and everyone who did was your friend.
I too am glad they have kept the old grandstand, and now that there is a running track around the ground the oval configuration has sort of returned to the ground. Its just a pity that the ground couldn't be retained as a football ground and some other features be kept, like the press box scoreboard and the boundary picket fence.
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