12 JUNE 2002
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Subject: World Cup 02 Date: 12 Jun 2002 From: James Clark
NOTICE The Bitter Taste Of WoodNever in the 138 glorious years of the club have Carlton "won" the wooden spoon. With a record 16 premierships, the best jersey in the league, probably the world, and located amongst the finest coffee houses of Melbourne, why would go go for any other team?So this year it has all gone pear shaped. Halfway through the year and in the unfamiliar position of last, I am starting to taste wood. It hurts, even at 17000 km's away. I stopped checking the results on the net as I have enough well meaning friends who tell me all about it, and the last time I checked www.afl.com.au the weekend headline was "another loss keep Carlton rooted to the bottom". Note the use of the word rooted. The World GameBeing in Dublin during the world cup has put my Australian Rules Football worries into perspective. Soccer, as the Australians, Americans and Gaelic strongholds of Ireland call it, is the world game, and their indigenous games matter not outside their borders. Gaelic football is a great example. Most people can tell you that Uruaguay won the first world cup, but do people really give a crap that Tipparary has won 6 Gaelic football Championships? Point made. The world cup is the biggest single event in the world, and Ireland are participating after an 8 year hiatus. Dublin is awash with the Irish tricolour. There are flags and banners on houses, cars and anywhere else that has hanging space. I'l be the first to admit I'm not an expert in the game, but I have come down with football fever. Ireland got off to a bad start before they even started. Irelands best player, Roy Keane, was sacked from the team 10 days before kickoff for dissent with the coach Mick McCarthy. For those who came in late, Roy Keaneis the captain of Manchester United, so he is a true international star. Oh yeah, and he is the captain of Ireland. Everything in Ireland for the next week was all Keane v McCarthy. There was a 16 page liftout on the crisis in the Irish Sun, and even the quality broadshhets such as the Irish Times had a ten page indepth analysis on the crisis. Just the day before he was sacked, the Irish Government had given asylum to two Palestinian terrorists/freedom fighters who were in the church of the nativity seige. The media were all primed to make a big story of this, then Roy got the ass and they were relegated to a paragraph in the middle of the papers. Everyone was talking about the Keane affair. Even at the cubicle farm that I attend from monday to friday, I overheard two women talking about Keane, both of them unaware that there were men within earshot behind the partition. Roy Keane had done what man has been trying to do eversince man first inflated a pigs bladder and started kicking it around - get girls to talk about football. Pledge Your AlleiganceSeeing that Australia has only qualified once for the world cup, and I was only two at the time, I do not know the feeling of supporting my country in this tournament. The only benefit of this is that you can go for a few countries without getting too emotionally attached. I have been going for Ireland, of course, and I hope they go well, though I haven't been here long enough to to care if they do well. I have been supporting any African team (except South Africa) and the USA, seeing that this is one of the few events where they are underdogs. I have been giving most of my support though to England, which seems natural seeing that St. Georges Cross is buried in the canton of the Australian flag. Caution needs to be used when publically supporting England here. I watched the England v Argentina at work and I thought I would be safe as there are at least a dozen English people there. I didn't realise though that is is sacreligious to work on the day your country is playing, so when Beckham scored, I went apeshit and the whole room was silent. Everyone turned around and gave me a glare of disgust that I would support their arch rivals and former oppressors in their presence. I at least had the good sense to support Sweden against England. Not that I had much choice in the matter as I was watching the game with camp Sweden, so I was strong armed into this alleigance. Well, Ireland are through, and so are England...we're half way there James |
