The Victory is Coming!!!

Not my best angle by far but still...just excited to be here!

Soccer in Australia has undergone a dramatic change in the past 2 years. Before 2004 Australian soccer was basically a second rate league with teams based on ethnic differences and the game was run by an administration full of dickheads who had no idea how to promote the sport. With our brilliant muilticultural background, there has always been an undercurrent of support for the game yet it was always treated as an understudy to the major sports of Aussie Rules, Cricket and both Rugbys.

Not anymore.

Australian soccer (oh i'm sorry...football) has been transformed since we qualified for the 2006 World Cup and since then the local competition has been scrapped and rebooted to an 8 team competition and thankfully rather than 2 or 3 teams in Melbourne, there is only one. With that move, ethnic tensions have been wiped clean and the whole of this sports mad city is behind the Melbourne Victory. It was my first time to a local league soccer match in my life and Sab wanted to come. Sure we were hoping for some crowd and flare action but although the top of the table Victory were playing the bottom of the table and in financial dire straits New Zealand Knights, i was looking forward not only to a show on the field but mainly off it as well.

The crowd built up slowly and by the looks of it it was going to be the last football game at the spiritual home of soccer in Melbourne, Olympic Park. In a way it was fitting as it could be said that the sport is moving onto bigger and better times as construction of a 25,000 seat stadium for rugby and soccer is starting soon but due to the popularity of the Victory, there are calls of increasing the capacity to 30,000.

I didn't take the pic of course but it shows the passion Melbourne has for their team.

As the match started the Victory seemed a little hesitant to stamp their authority on the match. Considering that half the New Zealand team had to stay home due to stuffed up flights from out of Auckland, the Melbourne boys should have pressed the issue earlier but there was a sense that the floodgates were going to open sometime and boy they opened big time! In the space in 10 minutes the game changed from a 0-0 snoozefest to a 4-0 massacre. The crowd came alive and Olympic Park was rocking and 45 minutes after we didn't know what to expect, we were converted. After the half time whistle the focus of the night switched to the crowd and even though the game had 15,000 fans, it would have had 30,000 fans if it wasn't for Robbie Williams shaking his bootay across town at the Telstra Dome.


The crowd was electric and i have never been in an atmosphere like i was tonight. Everyone at the ground was shouting from which part of the ground they were from, they were giving crap to the Kiwis and supporting their own. The stadium was rocking and when the final whistle went the whole joint was jumping. Sab and I are now Victory fans for life and with Melbourne wrapping up the minor premiership the rest of the season is all about getting ready for the finals which start in Feburary. Yet if Melbourne makes the Grand Final and it's played at home i can't go because Chris is getting married that day. Whoever thought i'd get dissapointed at the prospect at missing a soccer match...how times have changed.