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.

This week I have been mainly eating rugby league as I was fortunate(?) enough to be invited watch the Broncos v. the Eels from the comfort of a corporate box at Suncorp Stadium. Of course Suncorp wasn’t always Suncorp - when it had terraces and had a tad of character it was Lang park, but then it got a municipal makeover Wembley style and is now a 52,500 capacity all seater stadium-u-like with a San Siro  platform type roof. Unlike most big Aussie Stadia it doesn’t have the mish mash of green, yellow, maroon and blue seats that’s designed to make it impossible to differentiate between half full and just about completely empty from the TV viewers perspective (check out the Gabba and MCG during the forthcoming Ashes, although by the sounds of it they will be full to bursting). Nearly works too when Suncorp is empty, which it often was for the Queensland Roar, who are actually one of the better supported teams in the 8 club national A-League format  (highest crowd last season 23,142, lowest 8,607, average 14,860 – now you can work out how many games they played there!).



But to the Broncos and Eels. Or Brisbane v. Parramatta  as it should be known. 25,000 or so in the stadium, a fairly bitter rivalry and absolutely no atmosphere at all. Let me take you back to May of last year and the beginning of the 2005 state of origin series. This is a best of three series (rugby league) between representative sides from Queensland and New South Wales. It’s called 'Origin' because the players qualify according to where they first played top flight rugby league – not where they were born, although the two are often the same. It is often touted as being the greatest sporting event in the world with the greatest atmosphere to boot, but only by Queenslanders, who are known as Banana Benders by the rest of Australia (think Hick or Country Bumpkin). My brother-in-law, who is a Queenslander, believes the 'origin' atmosphere to be second to none but this is just because he has not had any exposure to real football. To a real football fan the atmosphere is absolutely non existent. Some examples of why they simply cannot hack it;

1 - There are women in the crowd – lots and lots of them, maybe 35%. This diffuses the possibility of violent confrontation (yes - even today sisters) and therefore an integral element of atmos.
2 - There is no segregation (see above)
3 - There is no proper singing.
4 - There is no history.
5 - There is no bigotry.
6 - There are too many cuddly toys in the crowd.
7 - When the camera pans onto a fan whose team is 15 points down in the last ten seconds, they still jump up and go 'whoo-hoo, look at me, hello mum' instead of crying or looking suicidal like all those ‘we got relegated 30 seconds ago’ shots we’ve seen (or have been the subject of). Contemptible – utterly.
8 - They’re not pissed. Unbelievably, given their reputation, it is impossible to get drunk in this country as the beer is served in a thimble and is water weak anyway.
9 - They franchise......and they don’t mind!!! Their club will be transported to a location 35,000 miles away and they don’t care because it’s all on TV and another franchise will come along in a year or two and occupy the municipal stadium the previous lot have so graciously vacated.
10 - They queue to get a beer. Even without prompting, four of five orderly queues will form at a bar under the grandstand.

It’s just not real in any sense at all. It’s not Protestant v. Catholic like Rangers v. Celtic or Rich v. Poor like River Plate v. Boca Juniors or a re-enactment of the Nazi occupation of Holland like Holland v. Germany or the Falklands War like you know what or Two world wars and one world cup doo da, doo da dey.  I could go on...........I will: try explaining that Honduras and El Salvador actually went to war, briefly, over a qualifying game for the 1970 world cup or that the recent Balkan wars were, in fact, sparked off by an incident in a game between Red Star Belgrade and Dynamo Zagreb.  Did Graham Taylor ruin their summer in 1994 by failing to qualify for USA ’94? No - because it doesn’t matter to Aussie’s because they can always go to the beach or slap another prawn on the barbie or open another tinnie. The very sound of sizzle or the hiss of a ring-pull opened is cathartic in itself to most Aussies. The average life in Australia is simply too affluent, too easy for football (of any code) to matter in the same way as it does to Junior growing up in the favellas of Sao Paulo who has got bugger all else (barring Melrose Place, the Bold and the Beautiful and a few other American soaps of course).

Sporting cultural point to take note of - Non top line sport is attended by friends and family only. Everyone wants to be at the Grand Final but nobody goes to see the local town team play. Cricket is a fine example of this; Test matches and ODIs will get good attendances but there will be more people at Duane’s debut for the Rooster’s U14s than there are currently watching the 5-day Pura cup final between Queensland and Victoria at an empty Gabba.  No-one watches the long version of the inter state game and that includes friends and family.  There is no Morecambe v. Lancaster City (and certainly no all weekend fighting to accompany it) because the neighbouring town could be over a million miles away.

Thankfully more and more Aussies are taking in a game on their travels to the U.K and coming back with glamorous tales of being urinated upon and police dogs being kicked to death...

Go you Maroon Grown Heroes! - Google it.

Roobaiter