Well I went to my first A-league here in Oz yesterday as precursor to the text majic that Jim and Maria served up. Cheers guys that was great!! Still buzzing....
It was at the telstra dome which is a 55,000 all seater stadium and very astetic, located on the West side of the city, with the Melbourne skyline right there it looked brilliant. Even though I was nursing a quite spectacular hangover due to the game being a 7pm kick off I new a couple of beers and Id be alright....
So I went in, I was with a couple of Italian guys I now and met a few of the regular goers and was in singers, with Banners and flags maybe about 200 singers... To be fair I was quite impressed they had a bloke with a megaphone, ala some of the European teams and due to a dispute in seating as it was the new season they were basically demanding that people sang or get out the area. there was also quite a funny bit when the old bill turned up and started videoing everything and everyone got there phones out and started videoing back, to a chorus of "You can stick your camera up your ar#e"
As for the standard of football, to be frank it is very poor somewhere between division 4(whatever that is now) and Conference standard. A lot of the better players seemed absolutley aware that to lose posession in a dangerous part of the pitch wouldnt result in a disaster as the opposition doesnt have the quality to punish ... that went for both sides...
Perth had there gameplan and pretty much had Melbourne sussed and with a bit more balls could have won... no one really stood out and the game finished nil-nil.
The attendance was 32K which is another example of how it is growing here and the fans I was with were adamanet that they will sing for the full ninety minutes... I also enjoyed the fact you could drink bourbon and coke in your seat in a plastic cup, so I basically got tanked to take the edge off the night before.
As I left the stadium someone let of a flare and a few songs were going on as we were walking down the causeway...
Overall I thought it was alright, nothing on going to Charlton obviously, but I think for a first game and for a first experiance of something I didnt think would be that good I was quite impressed...
First game of the season.... Id be interested to see what its like when theres actually soemthing riding on the game and game against Sydeny could be good... Ill be going a bit I think this year....
Also got Australia vs Argentina next week which should be good...
Any body else been to games outside of Europe??
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had a box at sydney last year,from what i discovered the fans have a hell of a passion for thier clubs BUT....
the quality of football is piss poor,But the aussies they seem content,
the best game i have been to here was when australia qualified for the world cup, everyman and thier dog was on cloud nine ,it was as if they had won the world cup,
But yeah nothing beats being at SE7 Watching the boys........
The bloke on the mike was shouting through the mike " If you don't f^&&%%g sing then Pi## off to another area"
the standard was very low... and the stadium too big...
but any ways its football
there was people from the bottom tier trying to out sing people from the top tier.......