The World Cup...

Ok, so I know that the world cup has been and gone, but I did start this blog post during it, and anyway, I've been a bit busy of late, sorry.

Anyway, I watched the cricket world cup when it was on recently. Actually subscribed to the extra channels on sky so I could catch, patriotic little so-and-so that I am. Nothing like an international competition to bring out your patriotic side, hey. For some of the world cup, Mum was still here - and on one of the days (when we played the Poms) we went to watch it in a pub. Fortunately none of the local poms obviously thought they would win, because they didn't turn up to the pub to watch and even the landlord wasn't aware that it was on. Just as well, because the last place you want to be when England are playing in anything, is in a pub. They can be real vicious. I remember watching Euro something or other with my mates Iva and Natali in a pub in Clapham, Croatia was playing (Iva and Natali are Aussie-Croats) and the poms were playing France afterwards. Some poms started calling Iva and Nat Serbians (memo to self: never call a croat a serb) so they decided to support France against England. The scenes afterwards (when France won) were nothing short of diabolical. They chucked beer over us, tried to spit in Iva's hair, challenged the bloke who was with us to a fight... smashed up French cars outside... Anyway. Fortunately for me and Mum we could eat our lunch in relative peace whilst watching a bit of the cricket - might've been a different story if it was soccer...

One of the things I've enjoyed about watching the world cup, other than the obvious fact that we won it (although wasn't that final a shambles in terms of organisation), has been watching the Aussie supporters. There's nothing like being a proud Aussie, in amongst the throng of Aussie supporters, particularly when we're doing well. It made me wish I was there, cheering them on too, and reminded me of the Athens Olympics. I went to see the Aussie women's basketball team play in the final against the Yanks. Surprisingly the game was not fully sold out and I managed to wangle a ticket (actually come to think of it, it wasn't so surprising that the game wasn't sold out because the Greeks shot themselves in the foot at the Olympics, by overpricing their accommodation so that no one could afford to go - at one point I paid £70 for a night in a youth hostel - seriously!).

Anyway, back to the point. The Aussie supporters were all dotted about the stadium. This is not conducive to good Aussie atmosphere, so all the green and golds coupled together and we commandeered a heap of empty seats behind the basket. The Greek organisers tried to chuck us out on account of we didn't have a ticket for the area, but you try and move a bunch of determined Aussies from their seats. Not going to happen. The only thing they could do was prevent you from re-taking your seat if you left it - hence halfway through the 1st quarter some Aussie bird stands up and yells out "Does anyone have a ticket for these seats? I need a toilet pass..." to which one bloke replied, "Only if you'll bring us back a few stubbies!"

The atmosphere that day was amazing, and the crowd awesome. There was the dude dressed up as spiderman, the guys dressed up in women's basketball uniforms (one of the guys was married to one of the players and pilfered her wardrobe), the guys in the bright green and yellow wigs... but the thing that took the cake was the chants. The Yanks might have won that day, but we sure whipped some butt in the chants. All the Yanks had was "U-S-A, U-S-A" - seriously people, how inventive it that? But us, no, we had our top 5:

1. Oh to, oh to be, oh to be an - Aussie!

2. Six foot 2, eyes of blue, [insert players name here] we love you, we love you, we love you, we do!

3. Aussies here, Aussies there, Aussies, Aussies everywhere, with a knick knack paddy whack...

4. Waltzing Matilda (tied for 4th place with "We are one, but we are many...")

and, when all else failed, our piece de resistance was:

5. A-U-S, A-U-S!