Soccer and Sport in Australia

During our three week sojourn to Australia, we were able to take in two A-League games. The A-League is Australia’s professional soccer league. It is 10 years newer than the MLS and it shows. The quality of play was lower than the MLS and the crowds are still an in development concern.

Pre-game as the Sydney FC hosts Perth Glory:

Cute stadium, a lot of MLS teams would love to have this facility. One thing that the A-League has going for it is the plethora of soccer ready stadiums due to the popularity of the Rugby League and Rugby Union. (Yes, there are two types of Rugby both with their own leagues and rules and such.) But Soccer is a definite outlier in the terms of popularity amongst most Australians. Here is a picture during the game, attendance 6,654.


Keep in mind that the opposition, Perth Glory, has Australian legend Robbie Fowler on the team. This was supposed to be a big game attendance wise. The Sydney metro area has approximately 4.5 million people, the game was on a Sunday at 3 PM in beautiful spring weather (November is akin to May for us) and to only draw 6,654 was pretty disappointing. Especially when you realize that probably 1,000 of the fans were tourists like us checking out the A-League for the first time.
Here is kickoff at the Perth Glory at the North Queensland Fury match from Townsville. Attendance, 4,471:

Sitting on the end zone, beers were flowing:

As you can see, footy in Australia is definitely a work in progress. Talking to people here in the bars and such as far as I can tell the Australian team sports priorities are: Rugby League, Australian Rules Football, Cricket and Rugby Union. Soccer and also Basketball are definitely lower tier sports.

From my limited experience, the A-League is doing what the MLS did Pre-Seattle. (Random tangent: Every MLS reference should be BS or PS, Before Seattle or Post Seattle. Or maybe Pre-Cascadia after next year when Portland and Vancouver join the MLS. I know it’s arrogant as a Sounders supporter, but the goal was moved over the last two years by Seattle and Qwest field.) They are catering to families and the ‘soccer moms’ as their main target market. Time and again, this just does not work. The supporter culture at both matches we went to did exist and in Sydney it lent a tad bit of atmosphere to the stadium, but the F-Troop in Townsville was hard to pick out. I only knew who they were because they were the only ones standing and our resident 8 year old was bugging her “mummy” to ‘go see the F-Troop’. Supporters drive tickets sales.

But the Aussies really love their Olympic sports. In fact they have a great system to discover the next swimming prodigy. In grade four, 9 years old, every child is required to participate in a swimming meet. Each kid has to do at least one race. The top 3 in each distance and discipline per school go to the town meet. The top 3 in each town meet qualify for regional. The top 3 in regional go to State and the top 3 in each state (6 states and 2 territories in Australia) go to Nationals. Keep in mind, this is mandatory participation. It’s a very efficient way to discover those latent swimming talents.

In fact, the Aussies love almost all sports. If we went to a bar during the day (a likely occurrence, have we met?) the telly was always tuned to sports. Whether it was English Premier League, Cricket, Rugby, motorsports or anything else they were used to watching sports at odd hours and always had them on.

In summary, Soccer is down in Australia. But every day a lead on the national news segments is the World Cup 2022 and Australia’s bid chances. Currently at the bookie’s, Australia pays $2.35 for $1 bet. The USA is the favorite at $2. So they have more than a chance, they are almost co-favorites with the USA. A World Cup here would be great to attend and would do wonders for Aussie Soccer. Almost as much good as it would do for the advancement of footy in the US, ALMOST.

Townsville

We journeyed to Australia in part to visit our high school friend Melita. She lives in Townsville, Queensland. It is up the coast from Brisbane, about a 3 hour plane ride from Sydney. It is quite hot there, and we discovered it is also quite tropical. Describing the area as coastal tropics would be apt. Old friends meet up:

After the hustle and bustle of 8 nights in Sydney, Townsville was much more relaxed. It was very hot every day, even when it rained it was still hot. We spent a lot of time in Melita's backyard. I was in charge of cooking, this is literally
Shrimp on the Barbie:

The second day there we visited the Billabong Sanctuary, look below this post a couple for that post. The Billabong was definitely a highlight that deserved it's own post.

Townsville has it's very own hill in town. You can climb up it, taking approximately an hour or drive up (we drove). From here you can see 360 views of the city and just outside the city you can see the virtually neverending sugar cane fields. This is looking out toward The Strand (the beach area), Magnetic Island and the Great Barrier Reef beyond:

The Strand is 2.5 km stretch of beach in the heart of Townsville. But due to 'Stinger Season' you can only safely swin inside these nets:

Stingers are what we would call jelly fish. There are four types of stingers, a few of which can kill a person. The others just hurt like crazy. If you get stung, you need to flush the sting with vinegar for 30 seconds. And just in case you don't have a jar of balsamic ready:

These Aussies take their Stinger's very seriously, every beach without the nets looked like this:


Another thing that the Aussies take seriously is sunscreen and UV exposure. Every morning the radio would report the UV index along with the weather forecast. Each day we were in Townsville the UV index was 16. 0 is night, 11 is considered extremely dangerous and the highest ever recorded is 18. When you are outside and stand still for even a second, you can almost feel your skin burning. It is much more intense sun than we have ever felt. The hole in the Ozone layer that resides over the South Pole is definitely felt down here. Understandably, a lot of the news and papers have daily articles about climate change:

This child's play area would NEVER work in the US. Another example of the 'no worries, mate' lifestyle:

I might print this out and hand out as a postcard for all of you with kids so you don't have repeat:

Overall Townsville is pretty cool. It reminds me a bit of the Tri-Cities (180,000 residents) but with the ocean instead of the river. The town originated in support of the mines with farming a significant portion and a very active port shipping the mines and sugar cane refined output. Plus Townsville is the major city in an otherwise pretty isolated area. They do have teams in a lot of the major sports leagues including the A-League (soccer), NRL (Rugby League) and NBL (basketball). But Rugby along with state cricket is king.

Lastly, they do have these in some yards:

Billabong Sanctuary

Hold a Koala, pet a Wombat, have a Kangaroo eat out of your hand and see huge crocodiles jump for food; is that something I could interest you in?

Then Billabong Sanctuary is just your place. We spent Thanksgiving 2010 at the Billabong in Townsville with Melita and her daughter Jordy. I have a feeling this post is going to be picture intensive. We arrived at 10:30, just in time for the Koala show. Basically Koala’s are very lazy animals. They sleep around 20 hours a day and mostly just hang out in Eucalyptus trees all day. This pic is a mom and baby in the main tree where 4 koalas live.


For a little extra money you were able to hold a koala and get a professional photo printed in a frame. It was $33 for three photos. We were able to take additional photos with our camera as well.


Each Koala had a name, this was Ray Charles. He is basically blind, but the offshoot is he is super comfortable being pet. So while we were only able to hold Annie above for a few minutes, we pet Ray Charles as much as we wanted.

Paty is thinking of leaving me, for Ray:

Next up was the Wombats. This is Tonka:

And Cloe:

This wasn’t a zoo like in the States with a lot of rules. It was more of a ‘no worries mate’ situation with everything. There were geese everywhere in the sanctuary wandering around. And since it was maiting season, they were pretty aggressive. At one point both Paty and I were bit by a pissed off goose while trying to walk by. Instead of freaking out and having a lawsuit if this happened at Woodland Park Zoo, we pretty much just laughed it off.

Next up was the reptile show, not my favorite. Paty tried to volunteer me to participate in ‘What’s in the Bag’ time. I refused, but was able to channel her natural tendency for attention and convinced her to do it:


Four year old salt water crocodile:


Eight year old Ginger, as dangerous as the croc she is holding:

Strange reptile, maybe called a Shingleback:

Forty Four year old salt water crocodile:

There is a reason I am not in this picture, Paty and Melita:

Then it was off to feed the turtles:

Followed by a turtle race:

Suprisingly, the turtles could really move. The one on the right made a straight line to the water and won easily in the 'race'.

Watch out for the eel:


Next it was off to the big daddy’s of the show. The Australian Salt Water Crocs. Apparently, you need to ‘jump’ them or they won’t get any exercise.

Some jump better than others. It was about a 50% success rate on getting the crocs to do anything. This one basically just sat there until he put the chicken on his snout and wiggled it around for a bit. Then it barely leaned up to feign an attempt to devour, still intimidating:


That was the end of the formal show, but that was only about 1/3 of the animals in the sanctuary. The rest was a self guided walk around tour with some animals caged for show, quite a bit out and about and some exceptionally beautiful birds flying around (not including the evil geese):
Red Tailed Black Cockatoo:

And Kookaburras:

Dig I mention Kangaroos?




Huddle up fellas:

The aforementioned evil geese:

At the end of the day, Paty was debating between me and staying with the Joey’s:


All in all, it was a wonderful experience. Nothing against the more loyal readers of this space who missed us on the holiday, but this was a great way to spend Thanksgiving.
(Chris's Note: I'm not able to upload pictures yet to this computer. I know that img 3067 is a holder for a pic on my computer and not a mistake. I'll get it uploaded as soon as I can figure it out from Down Under. Right now I am using a zip drive to transfer things from the laptop to Melita's computer.) And done.

Townsville

Just got to Townsville, the land of Melita.

Currently she has some goofy wireless internet that I am having issues plugging into the laptop we brought on the trip. Basically it connects via an USB cable but there is some missing software. To make a long story short. I might not have a proper post with pictures for a while.

Cheers.

Sydney

Sydney in a nutshell:
There is this Opera House thingy:



A Bridge:



Some Beaches:
Manly:
Bondi:

All based around an immense harbor (Sydney Harbor) that dominates all aspects of life in Sydney: