Hi I'm Erika and I am proud to say I was a supporter of Beau before all the hype started. I was still in high school when one of my best pals, Nikki (Mad Brissy supporter, Bolts is her fave), had just got the 1999 Brisbane team photo from one of the daily papers, and stuck it in her school diary. After checking out my team first, the Mighty Bombers, I gave Nikki's team a quick scan. My eyes went straight to the middle of the back row, and instead of the usual half a glance after seeing nothing interesting, I saw Beau McDonald. He had 3 games and one goal under his belt at this stage. I have never given anybody outside of Essendon a second glance, but somehow Beau got my attention. Hard to explain. I didn't even know his name at the time! He only played in 3 games in 1999, and I don't remember getting to see him play, (probably because none of those matches were played in Melbourne or televised here for that matter). So I wasn't really given a chance to become a "supporter" till 2000 when he got his big break, and blew the field away with his unbelieveable talent.
Being a Bomber supporter, I only went to a couple of Brissy matches in 2000, but the first one I ever went to (09/06/00), we got seats *right* behind the interchange at Colonial Stadium. If you are going to sit behind a player bench, make sure it's at Colonial. All that separates you from the players is a piece of glass. We were lucky it was the right team that we were sitting behind though (Phew, they were playing the Kangaroos). So yes you can say I went a bit further into my whole "crazy supporter" thing after that day. Yet never did I imagine myself actually speaking to him.


It took us a while to realise that there was such a thing as an interstate team holding a post-match function in Melbourne, win or lose. I suppose it slipped my mind that the Brisbane Lions had a Fitzroy supporter base to look after back in Melbourne.
After I turned football mad in 2000, probably due to Essendon's stellar season, we decided we'd attend more games the next year. Football became an addiction; I had succumbed to what mum had been 'sheltering' me from for so long. I think we planned to go to watch every game Brissy played in Melb for that year (plus other matches in Melb, of course). Early 2001, I had a nasty illness that led to a short hospital visit and so i was unable to see Beau train and then play against Richmond in round 3, but because Brisbane were at Colonial for Round 4, they had to train in Melbourne the following Friday too, so you could say I was lucky. If the same thing happened to me today, the fact that I would be incapacitated would not stop me from going. My addiction still had not reached full extent and even now I don't think it has (it shows that I'm a Melbournite, doesn't it). Oops back to the story.
The training session was quite short due to the lack of goal posts on the oval. After the session i decided to let him know I existed.

The next night at the match, we saw an advertisement on the Jumbo Vision about the after match function for Brisbane, and after a bit of thought, ended up attending it... To my amazement, I ended up talking to Beau, an interstate player, and after that I was hooked. I haven't missed a Melbourne match or function since. We even went to the Geelong match last year, not to mention the fact that we travelled in and out of Brissy every Mon Wed and Fri, in between relaxing on the Gold Coast early this year, to watch the pre season training.

So I made a site about Beau when I got bored one day. I don't really know much about how to make web pages, I'm just happy I can type what I want and stick it in this box thing on the net, so here it is, hope you like it, i'll add news and stuff when i remember, sorry that doesn't happen too often...

Leave a message in Guestbook

Home



















about it all