Brookvale Oval sort of looms on you. You walk out of the pub, look up, and there she is, over you, this colosseum of concrete. It’s smack bang middle of Brookvale, nestled between the red-brick rooftops of the ‘burbs and the semi-industrial bad-lands of mechanics and steel-fitters, and more brothels than an Abbott-voting electorate probably realises are there.



We’re here for the Monday night mash between beloved local Manly-Warringah Sea-Eagles and visiting Knights of Newcastle. It’s a still and mild evening on these Northern Beaches of Sydney, and we begin our pilgrimage, as many do, in the pub.



The Brookvale Hotel welcomes visitors with the enveloping thick funk of man, of eau-de-tradie, of old beer and new, of Tooheys New. It’s all maroon carpets and brown wooden seats, with the feel of a saloon or a tavern, or a bad 1980s ski lodge. Bar staff are all young women in tight white T-shirts. Patrons are 99% men ordering schooners and ordering themselves: don’t look at their breasts, don’t look at their breasts.



And, like these Northern Beaches, it’s all Sea Eagles.



Outside and we’re past a sausage-seller and hot dog guy on the corner, their fading signs the same since 1988, their patter of hot-doggy-hot-doggy rippling through the wood-smoke like ancient rites, something like it. It’s footy-fare, quality tucker, in context.



Manly have played rugby league at “Brookie" since 1947 and the joint has changed glacially since. And the problem (for progress, anyway) is said Abbott-voters. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that so blue-rinsed, blue-ribbon, blue-blooded are the locals, that the Liberal Party don’t have to promise anything. Why pork-barrel a watertight seat? Why tell people you’ll “fix up Brookie" when they’ll vote for you anyway?



But they did promise $10m to makeover the ground, after the Labor Party promised the same amount to do that, for reasons known only to the Labor Party given it changed their vote in Warringah not at all. Indeed it went down, if that was possible. Australia’s most monocultural electorate hasn’t voted for anyone but Abbott since 1994. The NSW Premier, Mike Baird, is a member of Queenscliff Surf Club, as is Abbott. Bronwyn Bishop has an office up in Narrabeen. The prime minister’s office is just off Manly Corso. He’s a member of Davidson volunteer firies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.



And so we’re into this beating blue heart of Abbott Land and we’re checking out the Sea Birds, the gyrating gal-dancers, all legs and midriffs, and teeth that could illuminate the ground by night. Some years ago, cheerleaders were girls with pom-poms and perms. At their most risqué they might get about in spangly cowboy boots. Then some time in the late 1980s, I think, Balmain Tigers turned out dancers not far from a professional troupe from Kings Cross. They were women, dancing pros, all giant hair and sex appeal. And here we are.



Brookie? Older style grandstands, but they’re close to full and noisy. It’s a “close” atmosphere here inside. That said, Monday night versus the Knights? Not so much. “Night-time’s just a relatively shit time to play footy,” says my mate Hally. “Play this game Sunday arvo, they’d have got 16,000. Monday night? Yeah-nah.” Great old footy ground, though. Grassy hill covers the entire eastern and northern sides. There’s a big television screen and a funny old digital scoreboard, and a lot of people standing about drinking tinnies of XXXX Gold. They’re playing the Eagle Rock song. But atmosphere? As they say: Yeah-nah.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jorge Taufua of the Sea Eagles crosses the line. Photograph: Renee McKay/Getty Images

And there’s kick-off and the full-bodied Knights winger Akuila Uate sets off on one of his patented, hard-boned and laser-beam straight runs … straight into Eagles hard-acre Anthony Watmough – Whack. And the force of it, the sound of it, you can hear from a hundred metres away. it’s meaty, visceral. Immovable object meets Fijian rock at high-velocity. Whack.



A bloke in a Knights jumper and jeans, and the biggest and reddest mullet since teenage John Connor’s mate in Terminator 2, wanders by with three mates, of lesser importance. The 2IC has various metal in his face. There follow two smaller, quieter ones, smoking durries with shifty eyes. It’s clear it’s their first time at Brookvale, and they’re sort of expecting it to be another world, perhaps with agitation. But no-one cares.



And so to a beer and a giant black mark in thickest black texta against Brookie, and it is this: the evil of mid-strength beer. And not just any mid-strength evil but XXXX Gold mid-strength evil. And there’s a long line-up for the stuff. For mid-strength piss from Queensland.



“Welcome to the Nanny State,” says my mate Hodgie. And you wonder: What trouble are authorities expecting Monday night at Brookvale? Do they need to sell beer with 2% less alcohol per can and 100% worse taste? Whose idea is it? What country are we living in you can’t go to the footy and drink a can of full-strength beer? The ground isn’t even half full yet they’ve under-catered for staff and sold adults under-strength beer. Is this the freedom our grandfathers fought for at Gallipoli? If they’d tried this on veteran Anzacs there’d have been riots. There were, I read it.



“I blame Tony Abbott,” I tell my mates, who to a man voted for Tony Abbott. “This is his Australia. I hope you’re all happy now.” To a man they tell me to shut up. I move on to gripe about the rubbish food, the giant “Buddy” Cokes, the chips, the bain-marie pies. “There’s no soul in this tucker,” I opine. “At least the toothless derros hocking the hot dogs, you can see what they’re doing.” I am told to shut up again.



The crowd? They reckon there’s 8,655 here. I reckon if you started counting everyone you’d get to about 6,500 and find there are fewer in actual attendance. Sometimes they count arms and legs in the NRL. It’s a Thing.



The game? Damp squib, for the most part. Because the Knights play with such control. They’ve been travelling like busteds, as they say, with the news that their magnificent benefactor Nathan Tinkler has been late with their salaries yet again. But maybe there’s something in it, maybe the overhanging threat of their next pay-cheque being their last fires up the Knights because for 70 minutes they barely make a mistake. They hit hard, they run hard, they keep deep into Manly territory, penetrate the heartlands. And after an hour they’re up 14-2.



And then lots of things happen. And the Manly crowd roars their team home, and they know: it’s good to be a fan.



David “Wolfman” Williams makes a super break, runs maybe 60 metres. An old bloke in front of us, maybe 65 years old, jumps up on the railing and punches the air three times – yes, yes, yes.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Robbie Rochow contemplates a cruel defeat to Manly. Photograph: Matt King/Getty Images

Jorge Taufua smashes his way out of trouble. Manly force a drop out. Uate is bashed into touch. Dane Gagai steals the ball off Steve Matai, runs 70 metres to score.



A rookie, Jake Mamo, cute like a boy from One Direction but with very muscly legs, he makes a hot dash out of danger. He beats one. He beats two! He screams out into space and looks up to everlastin’ glory. But you’re in first grade now, son, and up here front-rowers can run a speed man down, as Manly prop Josh Starling does. He lassoes the punk and drags him kicking and screaming into touch right in front of the main grandstand. And there is a roar like Starling’s won the Melbourne Cup and everyone’s backed him.



Then: Taufua touches down in the corner; Jamie Buhrer scores closer in; and Matai converts. And it’s 14-14. And for the last five minutes you wouldn’t be anywhere else. Because this – this – is what is great about being a fan. It’s your club, it’s at your ground, and it’s your team trying to win for you, for everybody. And we’re all in it together. (Well, not me. I follow the Raiders.)



And when Daly Cherry-Evans, the sunniest, nicest piece of Queensland between the Spit Bridge and Barrenjoey Lighthouse knocks over a 40 metre field goal that sails through the sticks as time ticks over to full-time … well … The old joint just about shakes off its concrete-cancerous foundations.



Good. Freakin’. Times.