The first Tuesday RLA night session was one of the funniest nights at the Australian Open that I can remember. Read on and watch vids to find out why.
I was watching the Monfils Dolgopolov Margaret Court Arena match at home on TV, rather than Tomic’s match in Rod Laver Arena where the crowd were being entertained by the fan group “The Heard”.
The first antic I saw was a snippet on the TV news of “Disproportionate Head Boy” (the name says it all, normal sized body, oversized head) running along the gangway between the upper and lower tiers of seats in Rod Laver Arena.
Watch a hilarious vid on the The Heard’s Facebook Page at the link below
Watch it a few times to capture the initial subtle slinking along the wall and then the full high-armed run.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151419746594882&set=o.409647799110573&type=2&theater
There was also a gag where a magician threw a cloke over the group and they re-appeared as a group of “Where’s Wallys”.
Follow the link below to the Yahoo7 Sport video clip which includes the Wallys and the Runner
http://au.sports.yahoo.com/videos/watch/b9977ddf_cd7e_3aab_ba47_8151abb65a1d/
Here’s a vid of another gag via AustralianOpenTV
After seeing the news snippet I jumped to Twitter to see what I could find out and got connected to @DiggerRandle via the #theheard hash tag. Digger is a member The Heard and did a quick Q&A interview for me about the group.
How long has The Heard been around?
It’s been around for 18 years now. It was started by four loud fun guys who went to tennis wearing what have now become the signature hats. They started chanting in the crowd, had a really good time and it went from there.
Others started wanting to join the group, which was fun but it grew to around 300 people and was hard to manage so now we’re a core group of around 30 friends.
Given that the Australian Open schedule only comes out the day before play, when I see groups of fans sitting together in the crowd, I’m always impressed that they manage to get so many seats together at the right match.
How difficult was it to get a block of seats together for last night’s Rod Laver Arena night session which included both Tomic and Gajdosova’s matches?
Actually we bought the tickets in August so we had to take a punt. We got eight seats together and then we had to negotiate with people in the other seats around us. They were happy to help us out.
Do you have rivalries with any other fan groups?
No dramas, if we’re there and The Fanatics are too we all get along and have a laugh.
Are you planning to go back to the Australian Open again?
We don’t have any other tickets but we might go back if anyone can offer us a group of free tickets 🙂
Fans can connect with The Heard at the links below
Twitter @HeardOfficial
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HeardOfficial/info
Website www.heardtheheard.com
I for one and I’m sure a lot of other tennis fans would love to see more The Heard so please contact them if you have access to a group of tickets for an Aus Open session, particularly if Sam Stosur or Bernard Tomic win their second round matches.
Who knows what they’ll come up with next!
Until next time
Grand Slam Gal