This night in 1996....

[F111]

...the lights went out at Waverley!

It was a Saturday night then, date the same.

Who was there?

[BenDoolan]

I was there! I had just returned from an overseas cricket tournament (in Antigua) and it was my first game back. I left after the Centenary game against Geelong (what a spectacle that was!) and returned to the "Lights Out" game. Unreal!

[Gimps]

...the lights went out at Waverley!

It was a Saturday night then, date the same.

Who was there?

I was there. Very interesting night that one. A liitle bit scary when the lights went out, didn't know what the f*** was going on.

[BERT]

I was there. Sitting in the pocket at the small scoreboard end.

It was bizarre. No one knew what was going on. If the game was going to continue. How long the lights were going to be off for.

It was Bomber Thompson's last game.

Who went to the conclusion of the game on the Tuesday? I was working in Clayton at the time so I went up after work.

[BenDoolan]

I was there. Sitting in the pocket at the small scoreboard end.

It was bizarre. No one knew what was going on. If the game was going to continue. How long the lights were going to be off for.

It was Bomber Thompson's last game.

Who went to the conclusion of the game on the Tuesday? I was working in Clayton at the time so I went up after work.

Was that Bomber's last game? I don't recall that Did he get injured and call it quits?

Didn't go to the conclusion. I think there was something like 38 minutes remaining (two 19 minute halves) to be played on the Tuesday night. Can't remember if they televised the remainder or if I listened to the radio

Laughed my head off when Rex Hunt and his team gave James Hird 3 votes for the game and he only played the remaining 38 minutes. A Saints fan went absolutely nuts outside their commentary box screaming abuse about how Nathan Burke has 35 possessions and was clearly BOG for the entire game. Rex yelled out "PISS OFF" on air. Funny shit!

I remember sitting there with my mates thinking "WTF" when the lights went out. We all sat there waiting for an announcement or the lights to come back on for ages. The players had no idea what to f****** do either. Soon realised after a behind post was removed and a nice camp fire was lit on the field that no further play would be possible

[ZeroEffect]

I was there. Sitting in the pocket at the small scoreboard end.

It was bizarre. No one knew what was going on. If the game was going to continue. How long the lights were going to be off for.

It was Bomber Thompson's last game.

Who went to the conclusion of the game on the Tuesday? I was working in Clayton at the time so I went up after work.

Was that Bomber's last game? I don't recall that Did he get injured and call it quits?

Didn't go to the conclusion. I think there was something like 38 minutes remaining (two 19 minute halves) to be played on the Tuesday night. Can't remember if they televised the remainder or if I listened to the radio

Laughed my head off when Rex Hunt and his team gave James Hird 3 votes for the game and he only played the remaining 38 minutes. A Saints fan went absolutely nuts outside their commentary box screaming abuse about how Nathan Burke has 35 possessions and was clearly BOG for the entire game. Rex yelled out "PISS OFF" on air. Funny shit!

I remember sitting there with my mates thinking "WTF" when the lights went out. We all sat there waiting for an announcement or the lights to come back on for ages. The players had no idea what to f****** do either. Soon realised after a behind post was removed and a nice camp fire was lit on the field that no further play would be possible

Lol, great memories. I only went to the conclusion of the match on the Tuesday. I'm pretty sure on the way home listening to the radio either Rex Hunt or Shane Healy gave Hird 1 vote... not 3. Still a fair effort.

[Ronny Rotten]

Yeah i was there at this historic game. Sitting in the AFL members area on the wing. Saw the players of both sides huddled around their respective benches. But quickly moved inside when the crowd invaded the ground.

Crowd went beserk on the ground , i belive they tore apoint post out of the ground & carried it around the boundary line , an idiot set fire to some banners or papers , causing mayhem , i think from memory it was near the aint's cheer squad.

The worst part was trying to find my car in the car park as there was no lights. Took me ages to find.

Went to the conclusion on Tuesday . Remember Sheeds saying it was the best training session he ever had.

[BenDoolan]

Remember Sheeds saying it was the best training session he ever had.

=D>

That's right!

[boncer34]

The ball was in our pocket about to be thrown in when the lights went out. Sheedy said in the news that meant the game should resume where the play had been. Everyone in the news and around at the time who wasn't an Essendon fan went, "Lol Sheedy crazy man being silly." And the ball went to the middle.

Nobody's given me a reason why that happened though.

[robrulz5]

I went to the 2nd part of the game and it seemed a bit like one of the lightning premiership games we had played earlier in the season.

[nomolos]

Was there and the 2nd night.

[robbie67]

I was there. Had to fly back to Canberra the following night. Blumfield made his debut on the Tuesday night. I stayed at the old Duke of Wellington that trip, and got drunk with Noah Taylor that night.

[rockhole]

Bloody amazing scenes. Blokes hairing around with lit dunny paper. Someone tried to knock off a point post. Most of us looked on with semi amazement and 7 I think tried to beat it up as a near riot!!.

If you do a straw poll now of who was there, the last count was 123,000!!!. I remeber thinking who the f*** woud turn up to see a bit over a quarter of footy.. Off course I did and I think another 30,000 maniacs.

From Wikipedia:

"In 1996 an unexpected pitch invasion occurred when the lights went out at the stadium in a night game between Essendon and St Kilda, during the third quarter . After declaring the match finished for the evening the AFL commission held an emergency meeting to decide what should happen as there was no provision in the official rules for an event like this. They decided to continue the match three days later. Essendon kept their winning position comfortably, starting with a 20 point lead and winning with a 22 point margin. Controversially, the Bombers made five changes to their line-up between the two parts of the match.[3] One of Essendon players, James Hird, managed to pick up match votes in some of the media awards. Prior to the match, St Kilda coach Stan Alves complained about the situation and stated that his team is "not going to go kamikaze" and risk an injury when they don't have much chance of winning. The AFL subsequently decided on a set of rules to be applied for incidents of this kind, those being that if a game is not started, the league in control of the match shall determine the result. Games that start but are interrupted prior to half time are deemed to be drawn if the game can not recommence within 30 minutes, while if the game is interrupted after half time, the scores at the time are deemed to be final."