Ever thought of getting up at 3 in the morning to drive 50 miles to a pub to watch the live footy from 14,000 miles away? Our Down Under correspondent gives you the lowdown on the good and the bad of footy in Australia.

“Aw mate, see the footy soccer footy on the TV last night mate?”
“Yeah mate - awesome, Aussie won the World Cup with dot shots”
“Yeah - first time Aussies’ won the world cup since 1974”
“First time Uruguay have lost it since 1934 mate”
“Fair dinkum?”
“Fair dinkum mate”

Thus went several thousand workplace encounters the morning after Australia squeezed past Uruguay on penalties in November last year. At least the level of cogniscience is slightly advanced from 1997 when some 90,000 Australian fans exited the MCG after a 2-2 draw with Iran, largely oblivious (either through complete ignorance or apathy) to the fact that their beloved Australia had just failed to qualify for France ’98 on the away goals rule. Try explaining that one to someone who thinks a tackle entails wrestling your opponent to the ground and punching him (or her) repeatedly in the face until dragged off by the local constabulary.

Football is getting a toe hold here. At least it is called football now that Soccer Australia, their equivalent of the F.A, has changed its name to the Football Federation of Australia. This is great because no-one will now get the beautiful game confused with football (Aussie rules), or football (Rugby League) or football (Rugby Union), all of which are still far more popular than the game where you spend most of the time actually kicking the ball with your foot. But this is Australia and there are several laws dictating that you must take an interest in all sports in which your nation is represented, therefore even the 92 year old spinster down the road knows who Harry Kewell “Harry” and Mark Viduka “Mark Viduka” are, even though they may know little else.

The coverage, if you have cable, is phenomenal. Foxtel screens five or six premiership games live every week, more if there are midweek fixtures, plus a highlights package, plus Golazzo (a world round up) plus an occasional Champions League magazine. ESPN carries international friendlies and the F.A Cup. SBS, which is free to air and used to be jokingly known as the Soccer Broadcasting Service, screens four hours every Sunday with a heavy emphasis on South American, German and Italian games plus two live champions league games which brings us to tomorrow morning and Chelsea v. Barcelona and a slight dilemma. SBS begin coverage at “06.30hrs all major centres - kick off 06.45hrs” which means 06.45 wherever you happen to be. Now, Australia is very big and has five, yes five, timezones and while 06.45 is live in Sydney and Melbourne, in sleepy old Brisbane where I happen to be, 06.45 is an hour into the game.

I’ll explain - even though we’re more easterly than those two cities, Brisbane is in Queensland and we do not have what they call ‘daylight savings’, so while the Victorians and New South Welshmen shift their clocks twice a year, we resolutely stand firm and refuse. So what I will see is an hour old. The last time this happened I logged on to a subscriber internet commentary via Chelsea TV and listened to the second half as the first half kicked off in front of me……and we lost to Liverpool and went out of the Champions League. My internet connection and TV are now in separate rooms so it’s going to be 1st half internet and then the full game on the box. ‘One sleep to go’ as they say in these parts…