Mediaboss Marketing

PM Julia Gillard congratulates the Bulldogs after their match against Greater Western Sydney at Manuka Oval on April 28. Photo: Getty Images

I LOVE airports, but I can't be precise about why. It's a bit like a love of football in many ways.

An old friend's ex enjoyed airports so much she would sometimes drive out to Tullamarine just to sit in the departure lounge and watch planes take off and land. Whenever I go to an airport I make it my business to get on a plane, or at the very least pick up a friend who needs a lift home. I'm a bit old-fashioned like that.

A modern footy season is full of contrast. In the space of six days, the Dogs took on the oldest club in the land (Melbourne FC) at the most famous of fields, the MCG. Then we fronted up to a ''franchise'' so new it still had that fresh-paint smell. And the game was played in Switzerland - actually it was Canberra - but neutral turf anyway.

Advertisement: Story continues below

Despite their repetitive nature, no two games of football are the same. They're like the faces on a packed morning train - each one kind of the same, only different. A player's diary of a road trip during the season is a bit like that too - you've read them before and I've written them before, but like the sullen faces of the morning commute, no two road trips are alike.

First things first: Gia wasn't on last week's flight, which was a concern for me. I don't need a schedule on trips away because I usually have Danny, and Danny is never late. He leaves the room for dinner, I leave the room; he books in for physio; I book in for massage; etc. He rarely lets on that all this annoys him, but I know it does. It must.

As I'm one of the more senior Dogs these days, my reward is a seat in the exit row. I take out my book, Rake At The Gates Of Hell, a biography of sorts about Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan. I like that it's a look at his life in the context of Irish history, making sense of why this eccentric man is the way he is. Well, in the context of neutral ground, this famous Irish folk song had me thinking, then laughing out loud. It's about a young lad with parents on either side of the Catholic/Protestant coin:

One day me mum's relations,

They came to visit me.

See the original post here:
Ready for take-off, hoping to fly high