Inside the AFL hub: An umpire's view of 111 days on the road

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Ian Burrows has juggled living in the AFL 'hub', running the line for the whole 2020 football season and working as an ABC journalist for more than 100 days.

My partner and I left Melbourne early in the morning of the first Monday in July.

My first task back in early July was trying to organise "working from home" from an interstate hotel at very short notice. With us all sharing the same floor in the hotel and eating breakfast, lunch and dinner together, it was very quickly starting to feel like Year 8 camp with all your mates.As a boundary umpire, a high level of running fitness is key to the job.My boundary colleague Michael Marantelli — who is also umpiring the grand final today — set the record with 21.1 continuous kilometres around the oval during one of his runs.

Often there would be a little bit of jostling in the lines to try and position yourself to get one of the "friendly" testers.The 2020 season has been like no other, requiring us to spend much of it in hotels as part of AFL “hubs”. Hub life meant limiting your interaction with the public, no sitting down in cafes, restaurants or the like, always social distancing and following strict rules on which umpire colleagues you could hang out with.A lot had gone into working with governments and other stakeholders to make sure the season could continue safely.

 

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Maybe you should interview some of the sailors who just spent about 120 days underway at sea protecting this nation.

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