Aug 26 2007
Queensland Roar Draw - But A Win for Football
I am back in the UK for a few weeks from Wednesday / Thursday depending which part of the world you are in, so this weekend has been spent catching up with people and sorting the diary. Last night I ‘caught up’ with the Queensland Roar who were taking on Adelaide Utd, a fixture I have seen before but with two new look teams it was a much better game.
Still Roar have the knack of creating but not finishing, and their ‘marquee’ signing of Craig Moore ended in misery after he was sent off. Whoops!
Pic: Nathan Richter
Danny Tiatto has signed for Roar and had a great game, along with classic players such as Reinaldo and Marchino! What was great was Micheal Zullo, a local 19yo, making his debut. He does seem a good player if not a little lightweight, and could not help Roar get ahead, rather settling for a hard fought entertaining 2-2 draw.
Watching football down under is a completely different experiance than in the UK, the facilities in the Suncorp Stadium are superior to ‘top’ stadiums such as Old Trafford with excellent food and drink (wine, sir?), proper seats without smacking your knees (talking about you White Hart Lane!) , barcoded tickets to zap for entry, two huge video screens, masses of space etc rather than the pokey rat burger ‘no you cannot take that £8 official red devils budwieser watered down beer out into the stadium‘ quality rip off experiance of the Premiership. Sorry, forgot about the rebranding there, the Premier League!
The supporters are very different in viewpoint, whereas often the UK fans are quite knowledgable and are there for the game, over here many are out for the evening entertainment and treat it as such. A crowd of 17,800 turned up and while there is a couple of areas of ‘hardcore support’ the rest is quite quiet and observational, very much like the prawn sandwich brigade in the UK.
Saying that, if you delve deeper into the post-match bar you can meet some interesting characters. Once you get past them calling Derby ‘Deeerbie’ and other such Queenslander gems they are quite knowledgable. My co-brewer Nick is a Bolton fan, another bloke was a West Ham supporter (whos dad was from around Bala!) and another actually had a fantasy football team going! All quite refreshing and good fun.
So ignoring the air fare, $21 (£8.60!) to go and see a decent game of football compared to £17 to see league two dross or £33 to sit in comparable seats in Mold Trafford… I know what I would choose! Roar have all the chokeability of Wrexham in fluro orange rather than dragon red, yet without the cold trudge home as this is Brisvegas where the sun always shines, even at night 
I will be back over in October , until then I will have to put up with paper banknotes and ‘heat waves’ of 26C!