Wet Asian Cup experience in New South Wales

“You are going to love Melbourne. It is much alike Montreal”. How many times I heard that. Melbourne was going to be a treat and that is the way it turned out to be too. Hot days, watching the Asian Cup and Australian Open, packed streets, heaps of good eateries, multicultural, good street art and roof top terraces. Yes Melbourne was good.
But for many that like(d) Melbourne Sydney was the polar opposite. Other than Melbourne Sydney is supposedly more business oriented where the people are a bit more reserved and there are less cultural events. It was therefore a shame when we arrived at nine in the morning with drizzle falling from the low hanging clouds at Sydney Central Station. With a similar forecast for the upcoming days giving Sydney a proper chance was going to be a hard one as many cities are so different depending on the weather. That evening me and my mate Phil are attending the semi-final Asian Cup game of South Korea and Iraq. Roughly 10 years ago I bought the backpack I carry around. Down in one of the deepest pockets of that bag in a place I never get to I had put a poncho 10 years ago and I never had to use it. However tonight might well be the day that the "oh so charming" water proof one-man-tent will have to come out. In New Zealand I had send my winter jacket back home and as I was going to travel to countries like Australia and Indonesia I didn’t bother buying a rain coat. In case it would rain I would just not go outside too much until the shower was over. This drizzle in New South Wales was here to stay though as there was no wind to be detected anywhere. And indeed that evening I wore my poncho to the game. As it was Australia Day, better known as: "Straya Day Mate”, that day there was party going on the evening. During the day we had seen lots of Straya-Day-related boats in the harbour, but due to the rain there weren’t too many festivities taking place. Sydney would have to wait for a better judgement, because the next morning we would leave for Newcastle and we were pumped to get there.
Newcastle was going to be good fun. We booked a hostel right at the beach. Australia was playing the United Arab Emirates in the second semi-final of the tournament. Plus the small Newcastle stadium, 21.000 seats, was going to be buzzing because of the host country’s presence in the semi-final. At least that is how we imagined it.
The train was in rather good condition for his age. It had some of those pull over seats with which you could change a four seated space into a two seated space so you could sit in any direction you wanted. And although rain water was dripping onto the seat next to us through a leak in the old roof ,the three hour ride was a good way of catching up some sleep for this weekend had not given us that opportunity yet. Due to maintenance of the track we are dropped off in Hamilton a small suburb of Newcastle. Here we transferred to a bus that dropped us right in the CBD (Central Business District). The rain hasn’t really stopped and seems to have gone from bad to worse, although I must say that it did clear up a few times.
Newcastle must be great when the sun is out. However, the sun wasn’t out. On top of that most shops and restaurants seemed to be either temporarily or permanently shut. Everything in the town reminds you of a once flourishing place, decorated in the typical Art Deco architecture. Straight-lined buildings with the shops and property names written in the recognisable font. That was then and now is now. The streets are deserted these days and as we quietly observe the streets and the reflection of the town in the puddles of rain water. We barely see anybody at all, accept for the incidental lunatic that got scared out of his mind when he heard a different voice on the street besides his own. We blame it to the fact that Newcastle is a student town and we arrived in the holiday season. The only people that populate the town now are the retired people and they don’t come out in the rain apparently.
In many towns around the world Tuesday at the cinemas means Cheap Tuesdays. We have a got a few hours to spend before our game starts off and we may just as well head to the movies and then get ready for the game on the main square. Our guess is that in a town like this, with nothing else to do, people will all pull out to the same square prior to the game. The movie theatre itself is once again decorated on the outside in that same Art Deco style. Inside the wide hallways are clearly able to host lots of people, but it doesn’t look like a place where a lot is going on these days. As we get to the actual cinema we are pleasantly surprised. They could easily host 500 people in this massive cinema. Nowadays you take place in a big and rather steep rows of seats that are therefore all rather close to the screen. I don’t think I have ever been in such a long-stretched hall before for the movies. We take place on the highly old fashioned dark leather seats and observe the place before the movie starts. The walls are decorated with curtains to accommodate better acoustics. They are the same long red curtains that I remember hung at my old high school, the Willem De Zwijger College in Papendrecht. Even the smell brings me back the cafeteria. Instead of the build-in Dolby-surround-sound speakers these ones are standing on poles on the side. They are true classics from the 70’s or maybe even the 60’s, white boxes with black speakers on the inside. Besides that the funky pattern gives away that nothing has changed year over half a century. All over the place is in a really good condition apart from some chairs that could use some patching up. The building must be maintained by some genius and lovely charity of cinema lovers because when the lights fade very slowly we don’t get a credit card or M&M commercial. Instead the latest albums, dvds and future shows of Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli ad André Rieu are being promoted. Phil and I feel rather awkward all of a sudden as we know we came to watch “American Sniper”, a movie that doesn’t really fit. In our defence it was the only one that we were able to see and not miss the game.
After the movie we enter the streets and are amazed with the fact that it is actually quieter than when we got in a few hours before. It is now 18:30, the game takes off at 20:00 and there virtually nobody here. Before the South Korea game in Sydney we had some Korean barbeque and therefore we wanted to eat some kebab or pide to for the Emirati game. As literally nothing is open

expect from Subway we decide to have a bite at the stadium. In a last attempt we ask a lady at the bus stop if there is a place to eat in Newcastle. She directs us to the boulevard where there are some good restaurants that look really nice, but not what we were looking for and we don’t have the time for it either. On the shuttle bus to the stadium we find the only place in town where there is people queuing up. It is the drive-in-section of a building shared by Pizza Hut and KFC. The building is so big that it would even stand out in the United States, inside it is empty. This city must live on students.
The stadium looks great. It has a bit of an odd shape for a Dutch Football supporter, but here it is very common. As rugby is a more important game here and the grounds are often used by as well the football as the rugby team, the long side is a lot higher than the sides behind the goal. Our side was only 7 rows high for example and behind it was just a hill side. Australia wins with ease and qualifies for the final. After having seen 4 games now it is interesting to see how every country is involved in a very different way. Besides a World

Cup the Asian Cup is probably the tournament with the most diverse cultures and crowd. The Arabic countries are the party animals. With their drums, tambourines and flutes they are dancing before and, although a bit less, during the game. The Uzbekistani are rather similar however they brought a massive drum that more sounded like a war march from Mordor compare to the Elfish-like singing of the Koreans in the Melbourne quarter final. The South Koreans and Japanes are much alike as well. There isn’t a lot of variety in the chants but the determination and adoration for the team and the individual stars on the pitch is just as impressive as it is adorable. The Australians are a bit disappointing. Yes, they have a decent variety of chants and some of them are just as hilarious as you would encounter in a British stadium, but they are primarily there to sit, drink and watch the game. They got 2-0 in front after 13 minutes already. The second half we were watching the game very concentrated when we got woken up by the Aussie crowd that realised that with 7 minutes they would qualified for the final. The next morning I mentioned to a Socceroo

supporter that I had expected more involvement as they reached the final as a host country. We hadn’t seen anybody celebrate or heard anybody sing after the game either. According to him they expected to win the tournament and therefore don’t take a lot of note of the semi-final. Rather arrogant I would say.
When we check out the next day from our hostel we notice a great sign: “Ghost Tours in Newcastle”. We wonder whether this is done at night or during the day and how it would be different from what we have experienced our self. It stops raining for a half an hour and we take the chance to head up to the beach and small peninsula out on the coast. This could actually have been a really good stay and had the weather been better we probably would have stayed for at least one more night. The beaches, the surf and the hikes look pretty attractive, but with the rain….
Tomorrow the weather is supposed to clear up. Hopefully Sydney can show his true colours. A city this big deserves a second chance.