ozzieeagle

Well Oz..T I Warrant you one thing. I bet now you know more about UK football than you do about the new A league. Which is incredibly ironic in the scheme of things. Just shows how long you've been away. I'll be dedicating a thread to the whole kit and kaboodle fairly soon.


After 26 Footballless (soccer spit.... hate that word) years in this country, it's a bloody godsend.


We are on the eve.... 7th of March to be precise, of the first fair dinkum, football championship, iwith a established o'seas championship league. The Asian Championship league, Where Sydney FC and Adelaide United, take on clubs from oseas in the first meaningful club competition this country has ever seen.


I'll cut this short, to remind you of the late Johnny Warrens epitath and words that have already gone done in football history in this country.... "I told you so"

Stay tuned mate... It really is happening here

fraser

I may have to pop along to an A-league game. Henry would love it.

Just gutted I can't take him to see the hammers

ozzieeagle

It's a fantastic experience at MV, You'll be suprised fraser, Either my memory is playing tricks on me.... or its really really good.


Will stay in touch with this one mate

fraser

Cool, maybe we can get together

OzTennis

Interesting OE! I actually followed British football from pre-teen years in Melbourne. We used to get BBC and ITV coverage of matches every week (Jimmy Hill, Brian Moore etc). My brothers, like me, just picked a favourite team - NUFC for me, Derby County for older brother, Liverpool for younger brother (pure co-incidence no southern teams!). As it turned out, when I moved to Scotland, one of the first places I visited (playing tennis and sitting some Uni of London exams) was Newcastle and it is still the closest P'ship team to me. I stayed in a hotel where the owner had a 'shrine' to NUFC in the lobby (scarf, hat, photos of woor Jackie, Gazza, Waddell, Beardsley, Keegan etc) and his unbelievable enthusiasm for the Mags rubbed off on me although I already had a soft spot for them.

You are right, ironically I know more about Scottish and English football than A-league but I'll follow it more closely after watching Victory in the final. I've followed the likes of the early traiblazers (eg Dorigo) through to the current Viduka, Kewell, Cahill etc here. We have an Aussie at Gretna (my Scottish team) in Eric Paartalu, who used to play at Parramatta (I think) or somewhere West of Sydney. Like Kewell, he wrote to a lot of clubs in Britain begging for a trial and he was going to sign up somewhere else but they had a change of manager and Gretna snapped him up.

Clearly one has to remember that football doesn't mean one thing in Australia. It doesn't mean one thing in Victoria which is the same in NSW, let alone in all the country. So, asSOCiation, union, league and aussie rules have to be differentiated. 'Footy' still means AFL to me and it feels funny using the word for the round ball game. 'Up there Cazaly, in there and fight, up there and at 'em, show 'em your might' etc (do they still air Mike Brady's stirring song?)

One other thing, I played soccer, mainly in Bendigo when we lived there, was Secretary of the BSL and helped get a Bendigo team in the VSF competitions and we used to play matches all over the place, mainly in Melbourne for away games. That was in the days when teams were Scottish, English, Italian, Greek, Turkish and so on - everyone else was but Bendigo was a 'mixed' team of Aussies and all nationalities.

OzTennis

ozzieeagle

Blimey Oz... Your probably know both my Aussie BiL's Huntly players

will PM you.

jond

please give me a call before you go, as I would love to go to a match with some people who know about a good game of football.

John

ozzieeagle

Yes no worries Jond, Next season for MV doesnt start until October though dammit.


Will stay in touch

jond

No worries that will pass soon enough.

I have had a card game tonight with a few mates, Aussies and poms. Me Chelsea, 2 Sunderland, 2 Newcastle, 1 West Ham and a Liverpool supporter.

As you can imagine it was a pretty lively conversation.

But I would love to see a really good live game again.

geordiebloke

Have to jump to the defence of the Toon again mate.
When have the toon ever claimed to be the best supporters in the land ?
(anymore than any other fans do)
Numerically, Newcastle have been the 2nd best supported club in England
in recent years, but this is probably down to being a one club city with
no real competition for fans locally (apart from Sunderland )
As far as away support goes, the toon have nearly always taken a large
contingent of supporters on their travels, for both domestic and European
games. Just ask regular supporters of any Premiership club and if they are
being honest will admit that the travelling toon army are a match, both in
numbers and noise levels, to any other supporters.
As far as the Palermo game is concerned, I think the main reason that
there was such a small turn out by the toon, was largely down to the
crowd trouble at the previous Palermo match, against West Ham, I believe.
Anyhow, prior to that match there was loads on the local TV, from both
the police and the club advising supporters not to travel.

Steve

fraser

Oh dear looks like you just claimed it, btw it's complete bollocks.

fraser

Congratulations on finding two Geordies and mackems in the same room who could count high enough to play cards


*puts on tin hat*

Deadmeat

I explain it by clarifying that I was talking about sport, not sponsored Brownian Motion.

The "win at all costs" generalisation doesn't work either, there are plenty of examples of Australian sportsmanship, from John Landy to Adam Gilchrist.

geordiebloke

Have you ever actually been to a toon match

geordiebloke

I can count to 10 sometimes even 15. Mackems can't manage half that