Yes, Australians love their sport. Don’t come between a mullet and his footie, it could get ugly (uglier!). For those who don’t know, the most important thing in Australia is sport – all sport. Just to educate you in case you’re not Aussie, there are lots of types of sporting relief one can get when down under. If you wear your hair in a mullet, wear a singlet and have any sort of Australian oriented tattoo anywhere on your person and drink VB and/or Bundy (Rum) and coke, preferably at the same time, then footie may well be the sport for you. Footie in Australia is Rugby league (NRL). You can always tell when the season has kicked off again, as the headlines start appearing thick and fast in the papers of great footie players and the fact that they are role models for young ‘uns hoping to get into the game. Your little Danny can grow up to be just like them, accused of gang rape, defacating in hotel corridors, bashings, drink driving, but wait little Danny, you don’t have to choose one, you can potentially do them all if you wish.
Whatever you do, don’t confuse footie with soccer, if you’re from the UK, and don’t call footie rugby, because Rugby Union is Rugby, not Rugby League. Then of course there’s Aussie Rules (AFL), which, some say was brought over here by those drunken Irish convicts and is a strange combination of footie, rugby and soccer. Others believe it has its roots in Aboriginal football (Marn Grook), whilst there are some who say it was simply derived from soccer. It is, as those who have seen a game, very similar to Gaelic football and also the Irish sport of hurling. So similar is it to Gaelic football that, a match is held every year between Australia and Ireland, known as International Rules Football. Post match drinking competitions are taken just as seriously as the game itself, with both sides of the world trying to beat the other. Aussie rules basically stands for – no rules! Hit, punch, preferably whilst flying through the air, as hard as you can. This is done on an oval pitch and has just as many officials on the pitch as players. These boys have also been known to be fine role models for the younger generation too.
Next we come to cricket, which has been described by some all as one of the most boring spectator sports there is, sharing the paint drying category with lawn bowls and golf. The only way to overcome this boredom is to add beer, copious amounts of beer. I reckon at least 1 case per woman and 1 ½ per man should almost be enough to get you through a day watching a test match. For those of you not familiar with the game it is a slow moving beast comparable to a sloth or tortoise. So slow, the game’s commentators, in order to stop themselves from nodding off need to commentate both on-field and off-field occurrences, even if they are not really part of the game. They will count pigeons, point out the technique of copulating pigeons, the speed and agility of the streakers (there is a least one at every cricket game held in Australia). Cricket produces many great Australian heroes especially Sir Donald Bradman who is considered a legend, more important than God and that’s even if you are a practicing Christian. The modern day hero of Aussie cricket is Shane Warne, but unfortunately he decided to give up cricket because the time spent both playing and training started to encroach on his main love – SMS’ing. Not only this, his bowling technique started to be adversely affected when humungous calluses started to form on his texting thumbs, a choice had to be made, so he decided to continue speed texting and give up speed bowling. Let’s just hope he has enough money tucked away to cover his monthly phone bills or he will be on the streets in a few short years.
If you like sitting in 40 + temperatures watching a ball being hit over a net, then head to Melbourne in January, where, if you are (un)lucky, you can watch Lleyton Hewitt try to convince all Aussies that he is still a great player – unsuccessfully.
Then of course there’s surfing, where bronzed bodies stand on a long piece of material and float on water! If you can’t ever see yourself doing this, you could just lie in the water and hold onto a ‘boogie board’ and float around and generally piss off surfers. If you are even too lazy to do this, you could try your hand at ‘the idea of surfing’ (see blog with the same name).
Whatever your sport, you can be sure to find it in Australia and, as long as you have a healthy hatred for New Zealand and the English teams, you will be welcomed into the TAB (betting corner of the bar) with open arms.