ABC News
[ Source: ABC ]
Scott Thompson is an expert on Showdowns, but when it comes to the 39th edition of the biggest game in South Australia, he has seen nothing remotely like it.
Thompson has more experience than most in the rivalry game between the Crows and the Power. The Adelaide midfielder played in nearly two dozen contests between the cross-town rivals prior to July 19, 2015.
That day would be his 23rd time to play in the much-anticipated encounter. He would play two more before his retirement in 2017. But nothing before or since compared to what happened that day at Adelaide Oval.
“Well, Showdowns have always had that fierce rivalry, haven’t they? And I suppose the one glaring thing for me out of that game was the rivalry was put aside,” Thompson says.
“It was certainly a game that I’ve never experienced anything like it beforehand and post that [either].”
Ten years ago today, the two halves of Adelaide came together for the most combustible event on the city’s football calendar, in a game filled instead with an atmosphere of grief, remembrance, celebration and — most of all — a unity unlike anything seen at previous Showdowns.
To understand why, we have to go back in time 16 days.
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