Australian World Cup Wonderment

I think that the best thing to say first is that I am usually not a sports fan so imagine my surprise, not to mention husband Rob’s when I agreed to go the World Cup Rugby with some friends. Actually, I think that it is because they are  friends and I thought that I would have a good time no matter what, that I agreed to go.

And not only am I not a huge fan but I have never watched a match before and the rules are a closed book! So being thus well prepared, the four of us set off for Melbourne, Victoria. This was a 400 km trip from our hometown of Mount Gambier, just across the border in South Australia.

While we are in the car, I may as well fill you in with a little back story. I am the textbook definition of a nerd. I am science trained and I don't get out much. I love my books and I cannot throw a ball. Or catch one. Or a bat. 

You are not supposed to throw a bat apparently but I would like to point out here and now that the teacher in grade seven may have already had a cracked skull before the rounders game. And some explanation of the rules would have been good. Why did he think that he was safe standing behind me? Stupid man.

I had been scarred by years of PE classes already where I was ALWAYS last to be picked. After the girl who picked her nose and the boy on crutches. The one with the broken leg. 

The sadistic thug of a sports teacher (he knows who he is) would choose his two favourites to be team captains and they would then take turns to pick their teams. There were always a few of us left standing and the teacher would finally direct me into one team or another and this was always greeted with a chorus of

   "Oh but sir, why do we have to have her?"

   "Because the other poor bastards had her last time."

This was Australia in the 1970s and this was a perfectly legitimate exchange between students and teachers. I was a non person because I wasn't sporty. Different story on spelling bee days or science comps though.....

Let us get back to the rugby though, the real star of this story.

In the beginning, I was quite immune to the game. I thought to myself that if all else fails, I will have a shopping blowout (as you do and Melbourne is one of the best places in Australia for this.....) and then come home with the car well loaded. 

But as we got nearer to Melbourne, I could feel something reaching out. It was even coming into the car! And it wasn’t smog. It was the atmosphere of anticipation. And comradeship. You know, the sort of thing that bonds people together knowing that at almost any sporting fixture that you will have something in common with at least half the people there.

I live in a country town and it is not unusual for people in the country to watch things on the television but not feel part of the world at all. It is kind of like the last gulf war. For many of us, it was like Home And Away. It only existed on the TV. If I didn’t watch the news or turn the radio on, the war wasn’t there. 

Life is a bit like that in general in the bush. But we saw the World Cup ads in a totally different way. Husband Rob and I would say to each other…

   “We’re going to that!” 

And we felt just like real people!

But even with all of the excitement and build up, I still couldn’t get too overwhelmed. Until I got to Melbourne that is. 

Now I have been there hundreds of times but the air was different this time – a bit like trying not to be a royalist in London. It could be hard work not liking the royal family when you are breathing the same air as the queen. And knowing that you could see her at any minute twitching curtains at Buck House or whizzing past in a black cab on her way to the Harrod’s sales.

No, Melbourne was different this time. We were bound for a Sunday night match between Canada and Wales. And I am ashamed to admit (here in secret) that I didn’t much care who won. I have no real affiliation to either country and I just thought, two teams of men in shorts. That can’t be bad. 

But our friends are Wales supporters so we thought it prudent to do the same.

And I had no official gear either. I felt that there wasn’t much point seeing as it was so expensive and ‘my’ team (whichever was unlucky enough to have me as a supporter) would be doomed anyway. 

Perhaps I had better explain this! I am a bit of a jinx. It runs in the family actually. No one wins anything and now I am afraid that my bad luck will rub off onto other people. The Saturday night before the match we went to the casino and I naturally lost my allotted two dollars immediately. After that we wandered around a bit (husband Rob had lost too – no surprise there), and at one point, I was asked to stand a bit further away from the tables because people were losing their homes!

So I didn’t buy any tops or flags or anything red and white or with the word Wales on it; I mean, give the poor devils a go!

But then something went wrong with that plan too. I started seeing people in their team’s colours. And they were greeting each other on the street! Our friends had all the bells and whistles sent by a relative in Wales and the obvious comradeship that was found with complete strangers was over the top! I wanted in. The next thing I knew, I was standing in a sports shop buying what felt like one of everything! And I put the t shirt on there and then!

Now I really felt part of the action! I had a flag to wave, husband Rob  had a scarf and we looked as though we might belong to someone.

After a bit, it was time to go to the actual game. With all of the build up, it was hard to believe that there could actually be more, but there was. The purpose of the visit was to watch the rugby.

And this is where I got lost. Totally.

I was OK planning the trip and going to Melbourne. I was quite OK on the shopping trip and dressing up like a fan – pretending to be one too. I was even OK crossing the bridge to Telstra Dome. But then the realization hit me well, like a rugby scrum, that I didn’t know anything about the game. 

I wouldn’t know when to cheer. I wouldn’t know any of the songs (most important that) and I wouldn’t know what to yell at the referee. By the way, is there a more hated creature on the earth than a football referee? Just a thought.

We got to our seats and the security was tight as you would imagine in today’s political climes. There wasn’t much room. I could barely swing the flag. But it wasn’t too bad. And we were early. We got there at four for a game that started at six but that was OK too because watching the dome fill up was more interesting than anything. I was like a child at Christmas. I sat next to my friend’s husband because I thought that he would be a fountain of knowledge about the game. And I was right. He confused me so much that I ended up requesting that he kick me if I was supposed to cheer.

Then all of a sudden, anthems were sung and we were away. And I needn’t have worried about the rules! Hit him harder was the basic one and bring him down! The Canadians played as though they were married. Lots of fighting and hardly anyone scored. 

But what was really amazing was the 24,847 umpires sitting in the crowd. Everyone knew better than the players, they could see the problem coming and not one of them was backward about yelling out their opinion. And the sort of maneuvers encouraged in rugby would earn a ten week suspension at least before the AFL tribunal. 

Then the whole crowd reacted en masse like a Monty Python skit. Spontaneous groans, cheers and what did he do that fors made the whole thing sound like it had been choreographed by John Cleese.

Then there was the singing. Now the Welsh are fond of massed choirs and they would have been proud of the supporters around us. Tom Jones’ Delilah mixed with Bread Of Heaven and the Welsh anthem every time the boys from Wales moved – or looked like they were going to. And as the alcohol levels in the blood topped up, the singing got louder. Actually, the drunker they got, the clearer their Welsh became. 

Not to surprising if you have ever tried to read, much less pronounce the language. I mean, who made that language up? Did vowels cost extra? Do you get some sort of prize for having a whole sentence without one? For anyone trying to blitz a triple word score in Scrabble, a working knowledge of Welsh is invaluable but in real life, a language which sounds clearer the drunker the speaker gets is not as practical as you might think.

And the crowd was quite well behaved too. At least I thought so. They were all there to have a good time and to see their team win – or at least to offer some loud advice on where they thought they were going wrong. We even had a couple sitting next to us who had obviously read their tickets wrong. She had stockings and sensible shoes on with her skirt and he was wearing a tie. And not a supporters one either. It was a bow tie, the sort that Graeme Garden from the Goodies might favour. And they had tea. In proper cups. I decided that they probably won the tickets on ABC FM radio and they thought that they were off to a poetry reading from one of the 19^th century English universities. With about 25,000 rugby supporters.

It became clear at half time that Canada may as well go home. I felt sorry for them at the same time that I felt elated for the Welsh considering that I made my support of them such a public thing. Perhaps that broke the jinx! I should have gone back to the casino to test it.

And now I have decided that I am sold. Not necessarily on Rugby but on live sport. The experience is huge. And you don’t have to have an intimate knowledge of the rules either. You just know when it is going right. And if you don’t, the three rows behind you offering a constant stream of conflicting guidance will soon clear up any inconsistency. I even spontaneously leapt out of my seat and cheered when the winning goal happened. And husband Rob got onto the telly – well they had to film him with the performance he was putting on.

All in all we had great fun. I am now counting the money in the telephone jar to see if it will stretch to a couple of more tickets to see Wales play in Canberra. Not because of the Rugby you understand and not even for the atmosphere this time – but only to justify the price that I paid for the gear.

©Debbie von Grabler - Crozier 2014