By Jevan Collins

AFL’s Gather Round was back for a third annual year in Adelaide, with the whole footy universe descending on the city of churches in a none stop footy fest, and for the third time I made the pilgrimage from Perth over to South Australia to watch 6 massive games with 5 being at The Adelaide Oval and 1 being out in the Barossa Valley.

It all started nice an early on Wednesday morning as I departed Perth, when I arrived, I was greeted by rain this would be the only time that the rain would appear over the weekend. My point of call would be Rundle Street Mall to buy all the necessary Gather Round Merchandise and after all the shopping was all said and done, the AFL personality you run into from Danny McGinley, Dan Gorringe, Riley Beveridge and Cal Twomey from Gettable, Skip and Flanners from Sportsbet.

Thursday started down at the footy fest in Eleder park watching a podcast and getting my photo taken for my very own team coach card, before I went back to the hotel to meet my guest for the weekend my brother, after we did a little shopping for him it was time for lunch and to buy the all-important record, before heading back to the footy fest for my record to be signed by Jayden Hunt, Baliey Williams, Jake Waterman, Tyrell Dewar, Liam Baker and Ryan Maric. After this it was time to head over the Torrens for Adelaide to play Geelong.

Friday started off with breakfast and seeing more AFL personalities before taking the bus to sturt for Eagles opening training session at Unley Oval, Where I was approached by the mayor of Unley to appear in their Facebook post, I proceeded to get the rest of my record signed by all the remaining Eagles players. After the training session I took a bus back to the city to then hop on the train out to Woodville to then walk half an hour to Hanson Rd Pizza to try there 1kg chicken Parmi. After eating the chicken mountain, it was then time to hop on the train back to the city to then walk to the Adelaide Oval again for the Collingwood Sydney game.

Saturday was the biggest day with attending 2 out of the 4 games both at the Adelaide Oval as the Blues took on the Eagles with Carlton running out 71-point winners and then later for Melbourne and Essendon, Where the dons beat the demons by 40 points.

Sunday was a very busy day with trying to get the hour bus out to the Barossa Valley to see Richmond take on Fremantle on a very hot day with very little shade and the mercury getting to a top of 34 degrees and next to no shade at the ground it was a very unpleasant experience for the fans, after that game I then went back to the city for the final game of the round as Port Adelaide took on The Hawks in a rematch of last year’s semifinal, I splurged on the ticket for this game as we sat in the Pepsi Collective which was right behind the goals, and after that final siren went in that game that was Gather around done and dusted for 2025 and I can’t wait to go back for 2026 and do it all again.