It's been a long hard month of football finals. The Swannies finished third at the end of the Home and Away series so their first final was against the West Coast Eagles in WA. They lost that by four points then won the next final against Geelong in Sydney by three points with three seconds to spare! Their next victory over St Kilda put them in the Grand Final to face the Eagles again. In a thrilling game that was undecided until the final siren, the Swans won their first Premiership since they were the South Melbourne Swans in 1933. (They have been a few Grand Finals since - 1934, '35, '36, '45 and '96 - all of which we lost)

I was at the game in Perth, at the SCG and at the MCG for the Grand Final on Saturday 24 September, 2005. I rode my motorcycle down to be there in time for the Friday Grand Final Parade when Melbourne was awash in red and white. The atmosphere for the game was remarkable and thousands cried when we won. I also attended the Swans' Grand Final Dinner that night. Here are some images from the Grand Final events. I hope it captures some of the magic of a wonderful weekend.

The whole of Sydney was behind the Swans throughout the finals and that was apparent when a tickertape parade for them was held the Friday after the victory and Sydney (well the length of George St) was full of red and white. Estimates say the crowd was between 30,000 and 100,000 – it looked more like the 100,000 was accurate with the depth of the enthusiastic people at the barricades the whole length of the parade. That night the Club Champion dinner was held and that was quite an emotional night, too.
 
Although photography is my profession, the Swans enthusiasm is purely for my own infinite enjoyment. If you see any images here that you’d like the original, please feel free to give me a call or an email. I leave for Antarctica around mid November and will be back for a while at Christmas and New Year then in early March, 2006. I’ll be collecting emails (irregularly) throughout.