Relax

Craigs arrival, Sydney

On Tuesday afternoon, I strolled back home, unlocked the front door and said hi to Craig. An old mate from my Thurrock Council days, and the first visitor to my new home from my old home.

Now, some of you may well know Craig, and you'll certainly know that he's not the errm, how do you say, 'busiest' of people, well you can imagine how he'd be with 11hours worth of jetlag to cope with! Of course I jest, I'm sure anyone woulda been the same ;)

So as the week developed, I gave Craig his first experiences of Australian football - or soccer as it's known more commonly here. First off, we played - at my regular game each week with my old work mates. Then second, at the Aussie Stadium.

The game was a real tantalising prospect - the Asian Champions League first group stage round matchup of Sydney FC Vs Urawa Reds (Japan). The creme de la creme of Asia-Pacific club football.

The Aussie Stadium was used in the 2000 Olympics for the soccer events and again in the Rugby world cup 2003 for some of the pre-final games. With a capacity of over 40,000 it was certainly worthy of the matchup. Tonight it was just over half way full up.

As I caught site of the turf, a tingling sensation came over me, it was only then that I remembered how much I used to enjoy going to see live football back in the UK. We bought some grub, then found some seats down near the away fans as they were going nuts even before the kickoff.

I've never come across fans like it in fact, the Japanese were going crazy every time there players scored a goal - in the pre-match kick about!

So finally kick off came, and within 1minute, Sydney FC took the lead with a pretty well worked goal. The stadium went crazy - including the Japanese fans - it seems they can't be distracted by the odd goal against them. Within another 10minutes, the ref awarded a penalty Sydneys way which they duly converted. It was about this time it went downhill. I won't talk down the Aussie/Asian game too much, but once the initial adrenaline boost had subsided, the game was scrappy and quite frustrating to watch. The score ended up at 2-2 with a horrendous blunder by the Sydney keep handing the Reds an equaliser.

Those Red fans though, kept going like no fans I've ever seen. Even 1-0 down, then 2-0 down, it took them all of about 10seconds to get their noise levels up again. Not even a chance to sing "You're not singin' anymore". They even managed to sing a slightly incomprehendable Japanese karoake version of "1-0 to the Urawa boys".



The weekend came and it was time for Craigs intro to a Sydney night out - we met with my usual crew of ex-work mates and went about things with all the usualy low-carb intentions. A miniature pub crawl that didn't really end up anywhere good finished us off for the night.


The following morning I showed Craig down to my old neighbourhood of Coogee where we grabbed a great brekkie whilst soaking up the morning rays and keeping cool with a perfect breeze. A little wander around showing off the cliffside wonders and the midday sun peaked off at 34degrees. Not bad for an Autumnul day if you ask me!


Craig split for some lawn bowling action, myself and Aaron headed down to Maroubra, our new local beach - for a dip. We got more than we bargained for as the surf was up and for the 10minutes we were in the water for, got belted thru and thru by the unrelenting waves. The lifeguard had to whistle us out after the rip carried us out of the safe area. Oops...