I love to watch sport, to play sport (but only with a round ball), to talk shit about sport (and attempt to keep up with the sport-shit-talking athletes that are my friends).
And while I think that Australia, and more specifically The Boy Factory, puts too much credence on Sport in general, I do think it is important. It is a pretty amazing feature of our culture. A unifying force in a community. Sport has the ability to create a sense of Belonging (there's that word again...), a sense of family, a sense of common purpose. And yes, it is a crutch that we as a young nation lean upon too heavily to define ourselves. And yes, there are many other facets of our culture and our community that deserve as much or more airplay than sport does.
But I still love it.
And the game I think I love the most, is the Real Football. The one you play with your feet. The World Game. Soccer.
I was once a Sweeper for the Avalon Open Womens seconds team (and later played this for Baxter College girlies). I have never had a huge amount of pace, or ball skill. But I like to think I made up for this in determination to defend - which I can't seem to summon in attack (turns out I work better under conditions of desperation) - and my ample voice - and ability to boss people around.
One of The Most Disappointing things about moving Back To West Bubblefuck is the fact that there is NO women's soccer comp. And while I always talk about West Bubblefuck being a backward hick town (as, indeed, I am right now), I actually think it is big enough to support at least one division of women's football. (Yes, there is a mixed indoor comp, which reminds me I should try to reconnect with that...).
And in order to get a fix of football in my life, I am the Proud Coach of the Mighty Under 13s, who are actually not doing all that badly considering they haven't played together very long, and they don't play as a team until about half way through the second half. I love my boys, and I love prowling the side line on a sunny winter's day, belowing instructions. Even if it does mean a death to weekends away for duration of the season.
West Bubblefuck, and again, in particular, The Boy Factory, doesn't hold Soccer in the highest of esteem. It is "the pussy sport", "the girly game", "faggot ball". This same level of scorn is only reserved for gAyFL. Not only does it show their small mindedness when it comes to sports of the less ruck-and-maul nature, but it also reveals their less-than-latent sexism and homophobia.
The only other fix is watching the game on tele. And seeing as pay tv is a bit like a dirty word in our house, I can't watch the A League. And bloody Fox poached the World Cup Qualifiers from SBS, thwarting my democratic right to watch my national team play.
They have never been a pretty team to watch. Scrappy and argy-bargy with barely a tenuous hold on the ball everytime it comes their way. But I love them anyway. I missed the Qatar game, mostly because it was after my bed time. And I missed the Bahrain (sp?) one because I was exhausted, it was the middle of Report Hunting Season and our family fleet of cars was so depleted that I couldn't get into town to a pub if I wanted to.
So then we played Japan. The Rivals of the Pacific Rim. And despite the fact that friends to accompany me to the pub are fairly thin on the ground in Tamworth, I was determined to watch it. So I took my dad to the Longyard for an overpriced steak, to sit in front of a flat screen to watch the game.
We were the ONLY ones watching it in the first half. For the first 15 minutes, we couldn't get a picture for more than 2 and a half minutes at a time, interspersed with info screens about faults of smartcards of some bullshit. Faulty Austar smartcards (misnomer, anyone?) would NEVER happen during a Socceroos game. But in backwaters like West Bubblefuck, the chances of watching Your National Team play one of the other biggest teams in Asia (cause we're in Asia, now, didn't you know?) whittle away to zilch. Finally Dad got the ex-student from behind the bar to accost another customer into solving the problem.
And the game was as I expected. Scrappy. Messy. Frustrating. A little bit like watching the Mighty U13s, with the big kicks forward to nobody, and the honeypot bunching. Japan were a better team on the day. Our goals were incredibly lucky, with Timmy Cahill - or as Pim calls him The Phantom, or as my Sidekick Supercoach says "he deserves a lycra suit and a cape and a big S on his chest" - being in the perfect place at the perfect time with the perfect hit.
But then the Japanese goal was similarly lucky.
I went home a happy little soccer fan.
Let's hope tomorrow brings a similarly happy soccer Supercoach!
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