Rhod and Anna's World Adventure

Football as I know it involves a round ball, 11 a-side (unless played in a park using jumpers for goal posts) "on me 'ead son" "We was robbed!" "At the end of the day...." Performed at the highest level by million pound earning players and multi-million pound earning better players with supermodel wives/girlfriends. It is also the most simply scored game I can think of. 1 goal equals 1 and the team with the most goals is the winner.

Football to the Americans involves men in Lycra wearing a lot of pads. I've been told by Americans that the game is very tough so they have to wear the pads. I imagine it is tough to run around for 20 seconds and then replace the entire team for the next play! I imagine it is especially tough on the crowd who probably have no idea what is going on most of the time. I may one day need to edit this post as I would like to go and see a game of American football to see if it is a sport or a day out eating hot dogs, nachos and drinking buckets of coke. I hope it turns out to be both.

Football to the Australians is footy. Australian rules football to be exact. Melbourne is the place to watch Australian rules football as the premier league is made of 16 teams and 8 of them are from in or around Melbourne. The home of Aussie rules is the MCG or "The G" as it is known locally. It's a truly magnificent sporting venue all the more impressive since being re-vamped for the commonwealth games. But the place has now been de-running tracked and the grass has returned. Bring on the 18 a-side fighting!

The sport is played by men wearing wife beater tops. For those not familar with the wife beater it is a T shirt with no sleeves and is often sported around the UK by men who spend their summer weekends drinking Stella in a beer garden whilst getting hideously sun burnt. The tops obviously build up the Australian hard man image but that image is not aided by the team song. Every team has its own song which is played before the game and at the end if they win. The trouble is those songs are a little bit camp. I'm sorry Australia but it had to be said!

The sport itself is difficult to follow. I can confirm that it does have rules. I know this because each game has 5 umpires employed to enforce those rules. However, I'm not familiar with them. I imagine that every Australian is born understanding the game so the rules have never needed to be explained to anyone. Luckily the man sat behind us was an expert and could and regularly did advise the umpires of their various, in his view, mistakes. It's refreshing to know that you can travel around the world and still a football fan can see more clearly from the 2nd tier of the stadium than the referee can on the pitch.

The hardest part of the game is to know what to watch. They play on a cricket oval and it really is just too big a space to play one game of sport. How do you know if you should watch the two number 10's barge each other continually despite the ball being either not in play or up the other end of the field? Or should you invest your time wondering where on earth the umpires learn to run backwards so quickly? It would probably be appropriate to watch the ball and try to fathom what is going on. The down side of this being that should anyone score you will be instantly distracted from the game to watch the 2 goal umpires wave flags at each other. Or should you just watch the crowd like at any good sporting event? The die hard fans who are kicking every kick and feeling every tackle. There is just too much going on.

We watched the game with our 'bus mate' Michael (a "3-time uni dropout" as he likes to be known) and our friends Jon and Janine who recently moved to Melbourne from Essex (crazy, I know!) Normally I watch football at home and can remain focused on the game for the full 90 minutes. Not this time. I am ashamed to admit that Janine and I spent the entire game chatting but we made sure that we were always facing the pitch in a vain attempt to look like we knew what was going on. I fell short at the last hurdle however when Jon asked me who had won. I was not quick enough in my response and required a sly look at the scoreboard to help me answer. The most technical it got was when Janine announced that the "players' shorts were baggier than normal" and that "they looked cute in their sleeveless vest tops." I can freely admit that I did not get the most out of the game but the joy of uninterrupted girlie conversation was worth more than the ticket price alone!

Yesterday's game ended Richmond Tigers 92 Carlton Blues 84. Close considering 1 goal (Ball between the 2 tall posts in the middle scores 6). One of the highlights of the final quarter was watching an increasingly frustrated Carlton fan get more and more upset and aggressive with his team. As the final siren approached he had some great advice from which we could all benefit:

"Stop being so F*%&ING $H!T"