Like Madison Square Garden is “The Garden” and The Oval is “The Oval”, the Melbourne Cricket Ground is “The G”. And just as you don’t have to ask which oval when you’re talking about The Oval because you know it’s the one in south London near the great thumping gas-works – What do you mean what oval? The Oval – you don’t have to ask which “G”. Because you know. It’s The MCG, the grand old dame, the mother-of-all Australian sports stadia.

We’re looking over the mighty old ground and the greater part of Melbourne Town and Port Phillip Bay from The Lui Bar on the 55th floor of Rialto Towers on Collins Street. Over a tasty German wheat beer and a coffee-infused vodka cocktail that people are looking at given it’s taking 20 minutes to slow-fuse through a special vodka-coffee fusion device, the word from my man “Lolly” – a mate I’ve seconded as a “photographer” for this gig though he’s actually a FIFO metallurgist – is that if you’re in Melbourne and want super views across the city, instead of spending $25 to access Rialto Towers’ viewing platform, put $25 over the counter at Lui Bar and get the same view but with bonus alcohol. Important tip. Thanks, Loll.

So sated we head to a tapas bar in an alley off Flinders Street. They love alleys in Melbourne, they’ve made a thing out of it. That’s top marketing, convincing people eating in alleyways is desirable, and chic, and that you should pay excessively to do it. Certainly there’s a line out of Movida, and we drop a hundred each on red wine, pork belly tidbits and sardine surprise.

Soon enough we’re into a bar or pub or … something called Section 8 which looks like a boozer as imagined by runaways from a boy’s home. It’s all graffiti and steel drums and chain-link fencing, with odd bits of wood that might be seats or weapons or both. Funny little joint. Cold beer, though.

And so we’re off to The G for one of the year’s blockbusters – Carlton v Collingwood. This is Liverpool v Manchester United, Yankees v Red Sox, Spy v Spy. They’ve been going at each other since 1892, a long time in Australian years given the country wasn’t even federated until 1901.

Storied, famous, incredibly popular (or completely loathed, there is no grey area), the teams have played in a combined 72 grand finals, won 31 premierships between them and still debate whether Carlton’s Wayne Harmes whacked the ball back into play before Ken Sheldon kicked the match-winning goal in the 1979 grand final.

Magpies fans show their support during their team's clash with Carlton. Photograph: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

And so we join some of the 68,251 folks who’ll make up this great human migration of our modern times. They’re a different sort of crowd from a Sydney or Brisbane rugby league one, given Melbourne people wear hats. Fashionable hats. And gloves, and great-coats, and cashmere scarves. And they look quite cool – sort of European – and in context given the weather can be colder than Krakow by night.

Not tonight though it’s mid-autumn and just a little brisk. We hop onto a full and bubbling tram running up Flinders Street. We don’t pay because we’re only going a couple of stops and you sort of don’t pay on some Melbourne’s trams after a while, you work things out. It’s a Thing. And it’s not like you’re greasing politicians for favours in terms of criminal acts (you venal whore-beasts stop it at once).

And so off the tram and … there she is: The G, glowing like a massive, pulsating white orb, a gleaming leviathan, a mothership in a movie with Tom Cruise as a deadbeat dad who becomes a hero to his son after rescuing the family from mechanical killer aliens that eventually die of the flu. It’s a bloody great big ground.

On grassy knolls fathers and sons kick footballs to each other. Glow-in-the-dark footballs. They love Australian rules football in Melbourne like Mormons love a tabernacle choir. We pass statues of champions – Betty Cuthbert, Don Bradman, Ron Barassi, Dennis Lillee frozen forever like Han Solo in his classic delivery stride. Cricket nerdos could look at him forever.

And then … we’re in. And it’s like that movie Ants but with people. It is teeming with human kind. We find a crusty old bloke on a stool, ask him directions to the TAB so we might gamble.

“Down the escalators, boys,” he says.

“Who do you like tonight?” asks Lolly.

“Collingwood.”

“You follow ‘em?”

“Ha! Fuck off!” he barks, laughing, and we do too. Love this stuff.

And so we test out our press credentials by opening a gate and walking onto the ground. We’re quizzed. But seems we’re good to go. And so we hang around on the field as the players run about, warming up. The cheer squads come out with their massive banners, haul them up with ropes like they’re fighting a mainsail on The Young Endeavour. Lot of work’s gone into these massive messages, and when the teams run out and slide through them – in Collingwood’s case through a little, curtain-like slit in the bottom – rather than bursting through like wild beasts and tearing them to shreds, it’s … well, it’s underwhelming.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mick Malthouse: 'silver-haired and foxy, with a cool moustache and a bit of Paul Newman about him'. Photograph: Joe Castro

The coaches stride off, important men on important tasks. Carlton’s Mick Malthouse, silver-haired and foxy, with a cool moustache and a bit of Paul Newman about him. Collingwood’s Nathan Buckley strides by, barrel bodied, chunky arms – Buzz Lightyear in black-and-white. The supporters wrap up their giant signs and we head to the bar to settle in.

And so to the Members and a beer and … NINE DOLLARS? NINE DOLLARS A BEER! For a mid-strength Asahi decanted into a plastic cup? YOU WANT NINE DOLLARS? WHAT IS THIS THE LAND OF EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE BEER WITHOUT THE QUANTITY OF ALCOHOL TO MAKE THE BEER TASTE AS NICE AS IT SHOULD? HMMM? Who are you people?

We do have a couple, though, so can’t complain, one supposes.

And so the teams line upon one another, and push and jostle in that ritualistic sort of way. And this before the game’s even started. And then the umpire – one of about 38, it seems, all in lime green – holds the ball up, the siren blows, and he bounces it high it into the air. And the big men fly. And the players go at it like 36 seagulls fighting over a hot fat chip.

But not really. It’s actually a high-skilled and high-paced outing, at least early, with men sprinting and bumping and spinning off one another, and scrapping for the ball with skill and body. They shoot perfectly weighted punt kicks onto the chest of giant flying men with wombat beards. They’re acrobats, these people. And they run all game. How they run. They’re like 1500m athletes minus the really thin limbs. They run, at speed, all game.

And some of is flat-out spectacular.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mitch Robinson shows Tyson Goldsack how it's done. Photograph: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Early in the first quarter Carlton’s Mitch Robinson gets what is called “The Sit”. The ball arcs down from midfield and the 24-year-old described by the Blues as a “tackling machine” times his leap perfectly to ride the back of interestingly-named Tyson Goldsack like a surfboard atop a wave for a beautifully pregnant half-second before clutching the ball onto his chest. Wow. What a grab, as they say. And the big crowd roars: Oh yeah. Then he kicks the goal. Oh yeah.

The rest of the game? Yeah, not that great. Bit of a squib. The Magpies are clearly more powerful and harass the Blues like a very fit cat on a young dopey dog. Carlton have a crack, sort of. But sometimes they forget how to kick. A couple come off their shins. At other times they’re so heavily pressured by the Magpies that they kick it to the Magpies. That’s harried, when you forget who your team is.

But then Collingwood don’t exactly light up the medieval streets of Krakow by night, and after two hours of grapple-action and grinding, of long kicks and short, of goals and behinds and various penalties for various things, the siren sounds for full-time and it’s Collingwood 14.20 (104) defeating Carlton 10.10 (70).

And then we go to the pub.

Haven’t caught a game at the G? Bucket list it. Cricket or footy, it’s Australian sports gold.