Socceroos Cambarrasment

While Wolves were struggling to maintain their lead in the Championship, 10,592 miles away three of us (me, Mark and Andy) went along to watch the Socceroos (Australia) game at Canberra Stadium. They were playing the mighty Kuwait ranked somewhere around 1,025 in the World.

There hadn't been an international football game in the Capital for several years, and combined with the city's bid to host an 'A League' big things were expected.(I was pretty excited about it all)

In the end 20,032 people turned up (pretty impressive for a 'rugby town') and the roads were full to and from the game.

That said I can't really say there was a big-match atmosphere. The noise volume of the crowd ranked somewhere between the Madjeski and the Billy Wright stand (that's quiet). Certainly there wasn't any chanting (from our end of the stadium at least) and we smirked a bit when the ball was kicked into the crowd and everyone leaned to watch, and then cheer, as someone caught the ball (....errm it's not cricket chaps)

Mexican waves abounded - the crowd almost oblivious to the rubbish being trotted out on the pitch. Australia had a chance to take an early lead but their striker ballooned the ball over. Lanky Central coast Mariners striker Simon being particularly poor missing a hatful of chances and looking completely lost throughout the entire 90 minutes.

Kuwait scored on 37 minutes, a stumbled/diving header from a free kick - their small contingent of fans gleefully celebrating the goal. Despite having 50 minutes to chase the game the Socceroos never really came close to getting an equaliser. They were a very poor team playing in a very poor game.

Despite all this, it made a nice change to sit and watch football with a glass of beer (the chips were v.nice too) and the tickets had only set us back $25 (about 12 pounds) which wasn't bad for international football, despite its quality. (It costs at least 16 quid to get into a Cambridge United game)

We wandered away into the night loaded down with a stack of promotional merchandise - blow up clappers, scarves and of course our Aussie hats. Don't get me wrong despite the dire Australian performance my memory is also long enough to remember England going behind against San Marino (and also Sven's 22 players losing 1-0 to Australia). It really is a funny old game.

...or perhaps not