That funny round ball
BY NICK CHURCHOUSEI drove past Wellington Airport this morning and there a Gulf Air A340 Airbus sitting there, resplendent in its golden livery and Arabic script on the fuselage.
The Bahrainis have arrived.
It's a big weekend for sports fans in the capital, and even for non-sports fans.
In New Zealand, relatively speaking soccer has been a bit of a non-sport.
It's a non-sport only in the sense that it doesn't rate up with our premiere codes, pull big numbers at matches, or demand oodles of pointless television programming speckled with former players, pseudo-experts and Mark Ellis and Ridgey.
But the times are a-changing and thank the giddy gods for that.
All Whites vs Bahrain, tomorrow night, Westpac Stadium, full house - it's gonna be a rip-snorter.
Lane and I are going, along with a bunch of other strange looking lads. Some of them have been sending out chant sheets for the match, and revving each other up for the day. I don't even follow sports that much, I tend to go to the ballet instead. But this is going to be good.
John Key, our super nice guy Prime Minister, just sent out a press release giving a boom boom hurrah for the All Whites - he's in Singapore at APEC but hey, he says he's going to be thinking about smashing the Bahrainis.
The city is quite a-twitter, hotels are bursting at the seams, souvenir shops have doubled up on their usual stock of greenstone tikis and restaurants are translating Fish of the Day into Arabic.
It's exciting, and it's exciting in a way that I've not felt about a rugby game for a while.
The game of soccer on a global scale makes rugby look like a rare strain of Bolivian pro-wrestling, but here in Niu Zilli we like to commit at least 15 per cent of our GDP to promoting the game with the oval ball.
Our rugby editor asked me the other day if I thought Kiwis were a bit over rugby. An hour later I let him leave, promising to put more tennis, handball and pole vaulting in the sports pages.
Maybe it'll never happen, but if the verve sparking about this city over a game of soccer is anything to go by, Kiwis are just gagging for a bit of variety.
It helps that it's a World Cup qualifier, and that Westpac Stadiium is the prime sports venue in the country. It also helps that The Lost Boys are going, there'll be a bit of hype about that of course, we'll have Tom on speaker phone from the stands (he's on standby to become a Dad - any day now).
But the essence of it is this is going to be bigger than any rugby or cricket or netball test match we've had in this city, and I think it's a watershed for how we look at sport in this country.
If the All Whites pull it off, and it's a big ask with the odds stacked against them with how the qualifying scenario goes, they'll be national heroes in the way the All Blacks have not been for a long long time.
And rightly so.
Mind you, if they botch it, we'll verbally tear them limb from limb and decry that soccer is finished in New Zealand and turn our backs on them in that traditional show of winners-only-support that we do so well. Let's hope we can ditch that with our preoccupation with rugger.
What is your code of choice this weekend?
- © Fairfax NZ News
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I can't help but think this game has been-overhyped and the game itself might end up being a bit of a fizzer. Sure I want NZ to win and get through to the world cup but the hype has been too big - just liek it is for EVERY AB's game.
New Zealanders are over rugby! The problem is that its played 10 and a half months a year and all the players (generalisation) flounce around NZ like total toss heads. We loved it when they played it for free and we loved it until they started playing for any team in the world. If our rugby players aren't loyal to us then we don't give a toss about them!
This weekend I'm going to watch my baby brother play waterpolo, which I'll admit doesn't sound as fun as the soccer!
Good luck boys, will probably watch but only because of the occasion, like, I suspect, a large proportion of NZ. It's a great game to play but even I get horribly bored watching it on the box (love the highlights though). Think half the problem is that telly follows the ball, so you see seemingly pointless tapping about, without seing the whole positional picture you get watching from the stand...?
One thing I have never understood is the vehement anti-rugby outbursts from the round-ball followers. Yes football is a far bugger game world-wide, isn't that enough? I don't see the reason for the hate expressed by some because rugby is more watched in NZ. If it's not your thing, nobody forces you to watch it...
On that note, I switched from the rugby (Welsh test) to the League 4-nations game last weekend. Gotta say, I would prefer watching football (soccer) any day to the predictable set piece that is league. But each to their own eh, GO NZ...
I will watch it and be right behind our boys, but rugby still wins. I gotta admit though - I was living in melbourne when australia was doing well at the world cup and the place went crazy! Lets hope NZ gets that kind of hysteria as well (even though I'll always like rugby better), it'd be good for us.
Code of choice? I'd say alcohol. Probably at home since its not safe on the roads when "major" sporting fixtures are on. I currently have zero interest in anything involving Kiwis and balls. And oddly enough even Tom's immminet baby would also fit under that description.
I'm not really a soccer fan (fell asleep during the FA Cup final one year, it was that riveting) but I just hope that the Kiwi fans are gracious in defeat if we lose. It's embarrassing hearing my compatriots booing the other team if they win. If they play better than us, they deserve to win and we should applaud that. We can moan about it between ourselves but at least let's show Bahrain that we're not sore losers.
Anyway, go the All Whites!
Ooops, far-BIGGER, not far bugger ;-) unfortunate typo there sorry...
Go All whites i can't wait for this game Football is my game of choice Get very bored watching rugby would rather watch league but football will always be my number 1!
Going, and willingly paid $63 for two adults to go. Thats SUBSTANTIALLY less than you would often pay for Hurricanes tickets, let alone All Blacks. Yay for cheap tickets! :)
The sheer volume of rubgy being played is off-putting as well. I used to be quite the rugby fan, but I have to admit that Jess is right - I'm sick of how much of it there is now!!! And NOW we get a super 15 next year - we are nearly at the point of it being a 12 months a year sport at elite level... too much.
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My code of choice this weekend is staying the hell out of Wellington central. I've served too many drunk Yellow Fever members to want to be out there amongst it, regardless of the outcome. But as my awesome taxi driver said yesterday, 'all that money is going straight into the coffers of bloody Terry Serepisos and we can't pay our bloody rent!' Not sure if he is technically correct on that call, but it sounds like a good enough reason to me!