Ben, after eating too many lollies (sweets)
Always keen to immerse ourselves in the Aussie culture, we were really pleased when Ben and Sarah from church offered to take us to an Australian Rules football game. It's huge here, at least as popular as proper football is in England, which is really annoying when you can't make head nor tail of what on earth is going on. So we were thrilled at the chance to be initiated by our local guides at the AAMI stadium, home of the Adelaide Crows.
For starters, the pitch is oval, and so convex for drainage purposes FIFA football matches can't be played there. I can't begin to explain the rules, but there's a combination of kicking and hand passing, and the obligatory rough tackling. It's an unusual game in that you still get a point if you miss the goal, or hit the post. Bonkers.
Once I'd had enough explained to me, it's actually a really exciting game to watch - fast paced, end-to-end stuff, albeit without the finesse and control of football football (I'm resisting the local habit of calling it 'soccer'). The atmosphere in the 40,000+ crowd was great. Bizarrely, in a country where Gordon Ramsey can be heard saying the 'F' word at 8:30pm on the telly, you can get thrown out of the stadium for swearing at a footy match that goes on til about 10:30pm. There was still plenty of 'barracking' as they call it here, but no rude chants, no song about how the referee might spend his spare time, all very family friendly.
Apparently, the match we saw was a really good example of really good team play - by Geelong, the opposing team, who whooped Adelaide by nearly double their amount of points. They got thrashed, and Ben said he'd never take me to a match again, as I was a jinx. I explained that, as a Man City supporter, this was all very familiar. Both teams are capable of great things, build you up to believing that they can reach the top. And then play like a bunch of amateurs, just when your hopes are up.
Go the Crows!
For starters, the pitch is oval, and so convex for drainage purposes FIFA football matches can't be played there. I can't begin to explain the rules, but there's a combination of kicking and hand passing, and the obligatory rough tackling. It's an unusual game in that you still get a point if you miss the goal, or hit the post. Bonkers.
Once I'd had enough explained to me, it's actually a really exciting game to watch - fast paced, end-to-end stuff, albeit without the finesse and control of football football (I'm resisting the local habit of calling it 'soccer'). The atmosphere in the 40,000+ crowd was great. Bizarrely, in a country where Gordon Ramsey can be heard saying the 'F' word at 8:30pm on the telly, you can get thrown out of the stadium for swearing at a footy match that goes on til about 10:30pm. There was still plenty of 'barracking' as they call it here, but no rude chants, no song about how the referee might spend his spare time, all very family friendly.
Apparently, the match we saw was a really good example of really good team play - by Geelong, the opposing team, who whooped Adelaide by nearly double their amount of points. They got thrashed, and Ben said he'd never take me to a match again, as I was a jinx. I explained that, as a Man City supporter, this was all very familiar. Both teams are capable of great things, build you up to believing that they can reach the top. And then play like a bunch of amateurs, just when your hopes are up.
Go the Crows!
Charlie used to coach his lads at this game. He supports Collingwood of course.
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