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Interesting live sporting experiences


Shahanga
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Forum pre-season blues so I thought another thread to liven things up would be a good idea. The inspiration for this comes from a couple of "one-downmanship" posts jw and i exchanged in regard to bad (live) sporting experiences last year.  So this thread is the flip side - stories of the really interesting stuff you have experienced.

Here's mine:

Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea - reckon it was 1998.  The SP Cup semi final: Mendi Muruks vs Enga Mioks, venue Minj, Western Highlands Province.

The SP Cup (now renamed, still exists) is the premier rugby league competition in PNG (RL is the national game of PNG) with teams from all the bigger towns.  The nature of PNG and PNG football followers is that in the interests of safety etc there are no home games in the highlands.  Thus Mendi, from the Southern Highlands, were playing another highlands team, Enga, in the neutral venue of Minj, a small town in the Western Highlands.  Now the people from both provinces are renown through out PNG for their volatility (most people say Engans are worse, but I'm not sure, met some real nut cases from the Southern Highlands).

At the time I was working in Mt Hagen, about an hour's drive away.  A few blokes at work were keen to go and so I agreed to tag along.  The weather was Highlands normal, so a heavy downpour was expected in the arvo (game time).  I thought about taking an umbrella but opted against - most Papua New Guineans didn't have them (can't afford?) and I thought "I didn't want to stand out". 

Arriving to Minj I got my first hint of what was to come- just outside of town we saw Enga warming up - surrounded by a heavily armed police guard.  Just getting into the ground was hard- a narrow passageway with all these people funnelling into it- was daunting and dangerous.  At this point I realised my "not standing out" plan was a bit pointless.  I was the only caucasian in the ~5000 crowd (more than the population of Minj) and thus attracting plenty of attention, mostly from people who I'd rather not get to know!  Anyway at least I wasn't particularly worried, the blokes from work were the kind you wanted around in a crisis and were also not easily intimidated.

Once inside, the place was packed and the atmosphere was a powderkeg.  The ground was just a field surrounded by grass "hills" on all 4 sides.  The one little building (some sort of shop i think) had coppers with shotguns on the roof.  I was starting to wonder if coming was such a good idea.......Just before kick off the heavens opened and given the average rain drop in the highlands is about 1 litre, we were pretty much instantaneously drenched.  I was cold and wet but the crowd seemed to go from "powderkeg" to "electric", which i figured was not such a bad thing.

The game then started and that's when I got the biggest shock, despite the wet conditions, both teams played open dry weather football, throwing the football around with abandon and not seemingly having a single problem with the ball having had (or should have) turned into a bar of soap.  It was a high scoring see-sawing classic game, with Mendi ended up just winning, courtesy of having the best player on the field*.  I gathered talking to people afterwards that "normally" the coppers have to let off tear gas to keep the crowd in line, I think the rain spared me that! 

Glad i went though - good football and a unique cultural experience, wouldn't have missed it for the world.

* Raymond Karl. Karl later got a contract in the NRL, but probably found the culture shock too much and went home after a season in reserve grade, he went on to play for PNG.

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I'm actually currently watching Fiji V Australia in Fiji. I'm the only Aussie here and am surround by about 25 of the staff.

Its pretty cool. They're obviously very passionate, banging their chests during the national anthem and going nuts when Fiji collapsed Australia's scrum.

still haven't worked out wtf Bulla means exactly, even more confused after hearing it being yelled at the TV.

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Last season of playing u18's footy, went thru undefeated and made the granny so we went and watched the prelim. Day carrys on and the whole team there sinking piss as we watch the seniors play. Camped behind the goals and being the sick lads we are, start feeding it to the star full forwards. This carrys on for most the quarter and then someone yells out something bout one of their mums, unbeknownst to us that she had recently pasted away. Next thing they are both over the face running straight at who said it

I vividly remember one of my mates with his head underneath his car while one of those players laying his boots into him. Crowd flew onto our little pocket of the ground trying to get a piece of the action. 

Best thing is not only did we win the granny by 10 goals. Our seniors beat the blokes who we had a barney with. And everyone had ice cream

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Only two I can think of off the top of my head were watching a test between Aus and India on what seemed like a 12 inch tv with about 50 Indians in Delhi. People joke about how it's a religion over there but when you actually see it it's insane. Every run is cheered like a six and God do not start them on Sachin.

The other was in 2012 going to the All Blacks v England at twickenham literally hours after stepping off my flight. Got off the tube and got to my uncles who asked if I wanted to go, stupidly said fuck it why not. Back on the tube and across London to the game. Atmosphere was still the best I've ever seen at a rugby game. What made it interesting though was the complete lack of sleep turning my emotions up by 1000.

Edit. Oh and Milwall away, the den not even once.

Edited by thisphantomfortress
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My fourteen year old brother annoyed that Shane shane Woewodin who had returned to East Fremantle and was picking up around thirty touches a game at half back for some stupid reason was not selected by then Subiaco Coach Peter German for the state side... this was prior to German coming to Melbourne for a number of VFL coaching gigs.

Anyway he and his mates made a sign saying "German Retire" and kept holding it up in front of the bloke's coaching box at game that we (Easts) were getting predictably flogged in as Subiaco dominated the league at the time. At 3/4 time German runs out the coaching box and in front of the Easts Members pushing my brother straight over which lead to several East's Diehards trying to get close to him.

The story ended up on the News and German had to say in the media how he regretted his action write a very poorly constructed letter of apology to my brother.

..........................

Also my favourite Port Melbourne game after the GF in 2011 was in the PF in 2008 when Peter Street kicked a goal to put archenemy Williamstown up by five or six goals in a final with about ten minutes to go in the second term at North Port Oval. The Feral Borough Boys in the pocket gave him heaps of sht prior to kicking the goal as everyone was livid at the game seeing as we had been the league's best side in the H&A Season all Season.

Anyway Peter Street in his wisdom as a Police Officer (Not a popular choice of occupation for club famous with an association with the Painters and Dockers) at the time decides to give us the finger... about three minutes later some very smart Borough player decides to start a all in brawl and not an stupid AFL one either, not even a genuine VFL one with a few punches but one that even involved trainers and some fans running on for a go.

LOL - I dont know why as they have always been a very professional side but the brawl completely sent Willy into their shell and we ended up kicking something like seven unanswered goals and winning the game by three goals. The funniest part was that with the game sewn up Street had to keep rucking in pocket in front of the Feral Borough Boys and the shit he coped in those last five minutes was just beyond hilarious

 Also humorous was in a game Sandy were completely controlling earlier that Season was also flipped on its head by a pretty full on but nowhere as brutal brawl... so I often wonder if it had been an instruction from Gary Ayers himself for the Port players to start one.. 

NOTE: Also funny was a couple of years ago when the now defunct Bendigo Pioneers were getting pumped by Port from the moment the match began the boys picked out a bloke on the field with a stupid name and decided to abuse him the entire match out of boredom.

Anyway after the match the bloke (A pretty short twenty year old) literally tries to come over and offer the 20 guys giving him shit a fight... he actually had to be restrained by his teammates.

Edited by cadete
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NOTE: Also funny was a couple of years ago when the now defunct Bendigo Pioneers were getting pumped by Port from the moment the match began the boys picked out a bloke on the field with a stupid name and decided to abuse him the entire match out of boredom.

Anyway after the match the bloke (A pretty short twenty year old) literally tries to come over and offer the 20 guys giving him shit a fight... he actually had to be restrained by his teammates.

Pretty sure they were calling him Bindi Irwin. It was hilarious.

Also worth a mention is the time a certain forum member was told at Frankston v Port to "fuck up idiot" 

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Pretty sure they were calling him Bindi Irwin. It was hilarious.

Also worth a mention is the time a certain forum member was told at Frankston v Port to "fuck up idiot" 

You forget to mention that it was by a their ruckman... after he had said "How good is this" and I said "Rare" and I had reason to be pissed off seeing as we only just lost and we would have won if North Port had not been fucked up by the Cricket Club and we could have played our home game against them where they never win not down there. (And I would have been home in fifteen minutes not an hour).

My favourite banter that I have had was with that chubby Willy player a couple of years back when I said to him: "Well done you fat fuck" after he couldn't stop the ball going out to which he replied "Yeah, fuck of you kent" which I then replied "Make sure you jump of the bridge on the busride home".

Also FWIW it's going to the battle of the VFL's biggest kents on Sunday...

I dont want Boxthorn to win for obvious reasons but I also dont want Willy to be able to put a proper flag next to the Division Two Flag that they still pretends counts... FFS even Sunshine and Waverley won a Division Two flag.

Edited by cadete
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It's definitely a tough call this weekend. If I had to, I'd side with Willy only on my pure hatred of Boxthorn but it's really hard cause OTOH Willy already get most of the good players by having pokies money and it'll make it easier still if they can brag that they're the reigning premier. Tbh I don't care for either of them. I'm more disappointed that Dan Noonan is leaving but that's a subject for the VFA thread 

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Shanghai Shenhua v Beijing Guoan derby a few years back. Didier Drogba had just signed for Shanghai and made his pregame intro to the supporters about 10 minutes before kickoff. 

 

Shanghai proceeded to kick the shit outta Beijing 5-0. Funny things were the Shanghai supporters spent the last 10 minutes chanting "we want 6", and that my brother and I got trollied after we openly took 8 pint size cans of beer each into the ground in shopping bags. Ground staff couldn't have given two fucks. 

 

For memory there was only about 10,000 fans there but felt like 3 times that noise wise. Puts many a league games to shame. 

Edited by mattyh001
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my cousins grade 6 teacher at spotswood primary was on the news footage for that one. 

Needless to say, ol mate bogdan was fired on the Monday. 

I was pretty young and me and couple others clambered up onto the toilet block and watched the nonsense unfold. Rarely in those days did we get any coverage but on this occasion we happened to be the match of the day. From memory the dog squad was involved. Good old Schintler reserve.

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