She had been seated next to Dan, at a table made up of the club’s past best and fairest players and had felt a little surge of pride when she read in the program that Dan was the only player, until this year, to also hold the association best and fairest trophy. She was even more impressed to learn that meant he had been picked as the best player of all the teams that played against each other. Her man had many talents.

The others around their table were mainly men. Only a couple of other wives had come along and Paula had initially been excited to meet some new people, but she soon discovered that conversation was almost impossible.

“You did it, boys.” The loud shout boomed from the microphone again. “You are the best bunch of bloody footy players in the club’s history.”

Another booming volley of cheers went up and the others around Paula on the table clapped loudly. This kind of thing had been going on nearly all night. Paula was feeling weary. She had been on her feet most of the day at the lamb sale and now her ears had been blasted most of the night by over-excited football fans with a microphone.

She looked back at the man on the podium. His hair was slicked back from his florid face, which was split with a huge grin. He had been introduced as a past patron of the club. Paula was concerned that ‘past’ would come true: he looked a prime candidate for a heart attack.

They had been welcomed at the start of the evening by the club president and early in the proceedings the club awards had been presented. Then each member of the premiership team, wearing their clean guernseys over their shirts, had been given a medal and lauded on the podium. Tom was among them of course, quickly accepting his medal and finding a place at the back of the group.

Since then, Paula had lost track of how many times the club song had been sung and how many men with some connection to the club had come to the microphone. Nearly every one of them had repeated the excited shouts of the previous speakers. The only exception had been Katherine Melton. Paula had slipped her hand into Dan’s as his ex-girlfriend had been called to the podium. Evidently her father had been a patron of the club. She was carrying on the tradition and had made a presentation. Paula didn’t like Katherine but her smooth tone had made a change from the over-excited male voices booming into the microphone.