The Big Gee

We are Geelong , the greatest team of all

We are Geelong ; we’re always on the ball

We play the game as it should be played

At home or far away

Adam Gee was murdering the club song to the tune of Bizet’s Toreador song as he and his father, Byron strolled along the forecourt of the MCG.

Melbourne without football would be Los Angeles without Hollywood. Byron looked at his son and smiled, bumping shoulders playfully. Adam had inherited the football gene, and a team, from Ruth, who grew up near Geelong.

Byron had no such gene, but years ago, when starting out in law, he knew he should barrack for someone, and it should probably be Melbourne – the Demons. Even though he was a Christian Hong Kongese, the idea of a team of evil football deities tickled some mischievous Buddhist part of his soul.

A friend at his firm had insisted on putting his name down for ground membership, and a couple of years before retirement, Byron had found himself a fully-fledged member of the MCG.

He and Adam enjoyed the strangeness of going into the Members’ enclosure and sitting amongst the upper-class. It was, he thought, an endearing eccentricity of Melbourne that it professed to be classless. He supposed the Roman patricians would have argued the same as they entered the Coliseum two thousand years earlier.

‘We’re going to kick your arse, old man!’ Adam grinned. ‘Even though the umpires will be working for you.’

The vast parkland surrounding the Gee was thronged with spectators wending down to the ground’s various entrances. Clear of cars, the park was a delightful autumn swathe of variegated green tinged with occasional reds and yellows.

Cars – with the exception of those with disability permits – had been banned for more than ten years. A combination of drought and climate change awareness had brought on the ban. If you couldn’t find public transport to get you to the MCG you weren’t really trying, the Mayor of the time quipped.

The MCG Members, of course, had been outraged. But public opinion, including the added voices of a handful of environmentally aware football players willing to speak up, had carried the day.

As with many things, the actual problem of removing cars from the parklands they were killing proved not impossible, once it was decided to solve it. Around 15-20% of patrons at the football preferred a car to public transport. The usual weekend schedule of public transport was boosted to full weekday peak hour service for the period of the match, plus an hour before and after. Improvement to the outer urban Hurstbridge line, the east-west train tunnel, plus inner city signalling upgrades meant services could be improved, easily taking up the extra demand caused by eliminating cars.

As they took their seats, play had already commenced. Byron noticed Adam pull his beanie down very low and wrap his scarf high around his neck.

‘You OK?’

‘Yeah, dad. Fine.’

Byron shrugged, taking a moment to review the interactive screens arrayed above the stands on the southern side of the ground. He popped in an earplug and set his mobile phone to the ground’s induction loop so he could hear the match commentary.

By halftime, Byron was smiling and Adam looked shattered. They shared a beer at one of the bars. Byron couldn’t help noticing that as soon as they were inside, Adam removed his beanie, scrubbing his wild hair to ease the prickling in his scalp.

‘What are you wearing that for if it is so irritating?’ Byron asked.

‘Gotta look the part, man.’

‘You’re wearing it so low, you look more like you’re hiding from the cops,’ Byron joked.

From the sudden expression of concern on Adam’s face, Byron knew he had touched a nerve.

‘What is it, son? You’re not in trouble are you?’ He just managed to resist adding ‘again’.

‘No man, not really.’

Byron waited.

Adam rolled his eyes. ‘Look, it’s nothing. Really.’

Byron waited.

‘Alright,’ Adam sighed. ‘We didn’t do anything. We were just thinking about it. Anyway, it’s not a crime to think things.’

‘Depends,’ said Byron.

‘We were horsing around at Southbank. Blake spotted one of those new camera set-ups with the risk software…’

‘Adam…’

‘I just want to keep a low profile for a bit. They use them here at the Gee now to manage the crowd. The software analyses facial emotions. If you pop up too many times on their radar, they come asking questions.’

‘Not if you haven’t done anything,’ Byron said sternly.

The RMCs (risk mitigation cameras) had been in use for a couple of years around the City centre. Using digital recognition software developed originally for tollways, the cameras could identify and match individual faces in a crowd. This was then added to experimental work being done on emotional telltales as precursors of violent of anti-social behaviour. The trials in the nightclub district had been incredibly successful, patrolling police were alerted to trouble before it started, and were able to defuse situations very quickly, often merely by their presence.

‘You don’t want to get on the database, Adam.’

‘I know dad. Look, I swear I wasn’t doing anything.’

‘Anyway, let’s head home,’ Byron said. ‘The pussies are done, it’s just a question of the final tally.’

‘Sorry, dad,’ Adam said. His words belied by the mischievous grin he wore. Byron cuffed his son and hugged him around the shoulders as they headed for the exit.