The 2025 footy season is almost upon us!

I am once again asking for help to send Carlie and family to the footy. Many of you will already know I have managed successful fundraising campaigns on here for the past two years, where community has helped send Carlie and her family to all the Sydney Swans home games at the SCG in 2023 and 2024.

The quick backstory is that in March 2022 I bumped into Carlie and family on the train on the day of the infamous game where Indigenous superstar Buddy Franklin would kick his 1000th goal. When I found out they couldn't afford to get to the game, I scrambled to get them 3 tickets that my pal Kieren wasn't gonna be able to use, and so they got to be there for that historic occasion.

Then I managed to scrounge unused tix to other matches for them whenever I could for the remainder of that season. Then starting in 2023, I used this fundraising platform to fund season family tickets for them. They adore the footy, and go to every game! They simply wouldn't be able to afford the expensive annual membership without this help!

I have learnt more about Carlie over the past few years, She is a Pitjantjatjara woman living in Eora/Sydney with her family. She actually doesn't support the Sydney Swans, her team (for some reason) is the North Melbourne Kangaroos who have the bizarre predicament of dragging along the bottom of the ladder in the mens comp but are top of the ladder and Premiers in the womens comp!

I recently caught up with Carlie at a free Swans pre-season game, and this pic above is her happily lording it over a saved pic of the aging but brilliant Swans veteran Luke Parker in his new Roos kit after recently moving to her team when unable to hold a spot on the Swans star-studded mid-field. He will help lift them off the bottom of the ladder!

Her son Matthew goes for the Adelaide Crows because he was born in Adelaide. It's Carlie's parther Elwin that goes for the Swans. But one thing is clear, the whole fam go for footy!

Carlie has a knack for getting selfies with Swans royalty, the other day she managed to get a selfie with the new coach Dean Cox:

...and on the same day with the old coach, John "Horse" Longmire, who still shows up:

The other folks in that pic are Carlie's cousin Susan, and niece Beniqua. They are visiting from Alice and will still be in town for the Opening Round at the SCG, Swans vs Hawks. This is fortuituous for Susan as she lives between two communities, one whose local footy team are called the Swans and the other whose local footy team are called the Hawks.

The aim is to raise enough to also buy Susan a ticket to join Carlie and family at the Opening Round game. Lil Beniqua and even littler Morris (pictured below) will be covered on Carlie's family pass!

Again, I am hoping we can achieve this with many small donations, so please consider chipping in no-matter-how-small!

As Carlie would say in Pitjantjatjara language:

Palya – a versatile word meaning – hello, welcome, good, fine and thank-you; also goodbye and OK.