Almost 30 years ago I moved to the big city from the little farm where I had been raised and was promptly dumped into a new school. The teacher sat me next to a lad named Dave who invited me to “come an ava kick with the boys at lunchtime”. “You beauty” I thought seeing myself taking a few speccy marks and kicking a few long torps to impress the guys. Imagine my surprise when I marched onto the oval at lunchtime. “Oi what’s the story, the bloody balls round?”
So began my love affair with the real game of football and Chelsea Football Club…
Its been a lot easier being Blue lately after the clubs successes in the FA Cup and other competitions over the last few years (still waiting for that flaming league trophy though). I still have to put up with all the silly galahs that follow Manure and Assenal but you get that everywhere I suppose.
The Cup is always a big event here, generating plenty of friendly rivalry and some great nights out at the pub to watch the final. It doesn’t really matter who is playing as most of us are just looking for an excuse to go to the pub and get falling down drunk (it’s a national pastime!). Of course if your team happens to win then the wife and rugrats don’t see you for days (only days?- ed).
The big downfall we face here is the lack of media coverage, especially compared to the more traditional Aussie sports, footy (Aussie Rules) and cricket. Today’s paper here in Adelaide dedicated half a page to local and overseas football results. Compare this to over 2 pages on the cricket and 3 for Aussie rules and its pretty obvious we get the rough end of the pineapple all the time.
Thank god for the Internet. Without it we would all be relying on Joe Blow’s Aunty Doris in the UK for any news on what was happening overseas. As it is I know I can wake up tomorrow morning and get the results far quicker than waiting for the paper to get to it.
The biggest downfall of all with living in the land down under is being 10,000 miles from my beloved Chelsea. Oh how I wish I was in the UK and able to go to matches live and in person. To stand inside The Bridge and watch the Blues run out onto the pitch would be fan-bloody-tastic. To be able to watch my heroes in blue and tell the ref what a low dingo he is.
To be at a Chelsea v Manure match and hang shit on Ferguson, Keane, Beckham and company.
How I envy you pommy bastards!