26cm high, rated to 150kg, and it rides on your shoulder until you sit.

The size goes first, because stools like this get bought off a photo and sent back off a tape measure. Set up, the Sideline is 26cm high, 28cm wide and 26cm deep. That is a low seat. Sitting on it, the knees come up and the grass is close. If the job is a seat at kitchen-chair height, this is the wrong stool, and the right time to know that is now.

If the job is having somewhere to sit where there is nowhere to sit, nothing else in the boot does it as well.

The seat is the bag

It folds in three and the padded seat closes around the frame, so the stool becomes its own carry bag. There is no drawstring sack to lose under the car seat. The strap clips on, goes over your shoulder, and both hands stay free for the drink bottles, the oranges and the kid who stopped walking halfway. Shorten the strap and it carries by hand.

Saturday, under-10s, a ground with one bench and a long walk from the car park. The dad who left his camp chair in the ute because of that walk is standing through the second half, shifting from one foot to the other. Two metres along, the mum beside him lifts a bag off her shoulder, unfolds it, and sits. Car keys zipped into the mesh pocket across the seat, phone in the side pocket instead of the wet grass. She watches the rest of the game at the same eye level as the kids.

Where it earns its spot in the boot

• Junior sport on grounds where the bench is taken by quarter-time.
• The hour of waiting before the Carols, the parade or the fireworks start.
• The riverbank or the jetty while the line is in the water.
• Around the fire when the visitors outnumber the camp chairs.

Which colour

Black, A$46.95. It sits on wet grass and dirt every time it comes out, and black is the colour that doesn't show it. Olive Green is A$45.95 and the same stool in every other way.

Free shipping anywhere in Australia, packed within 1 to 2 business days. If 26cm turns out to be wrong for the way you sit, send it back unused within 30 days of delivery and we email you the return label.