Were you at the Aussie game?

England v Scotland, Eden Park, Auckland 1^st October 2011, 8:30pm 

It started on the plane from Hong Kong. “Were you at the Aussie game, mate?” said the pilot as I boarded the flight to Auckland. The guy next to us as we sat down, people in the queue to use the bogs, passing birds. The first thing anyone in New Zealand asks upon discovering that you are Irish is “were you at the Aussie game?” I swear it means more to them than it does to the Irish fans. 

Fast forward through 10 interminable hours, crap movies and even worse food (their safety video is boss though) and we were in the land of the long white cloud. Once we’d met Spencer the dog at Sarah’s house we set off for the day’s most important task, picking up the match tickets and that, thankfully, was a relatively painless experience. 

A bonus snooze in the afternoon and then off for the evening's entertainment. We drove to meet Sarah’s sister, Jacquie and her man Almane (we just called him Al) for dinner at a Thai restaurant. Everywhere is World Cup mental. Flags, bunting, posters. Streets full of English and Scots heading to the ground early. Every other person in the restaurant had a jersey of some sort on.  A quick red curry and a couple of Mac Golds later we headed off to Eden Park. 

All the local roads are closed making everyone walk to the ground and creating an increasing swell of bodies the closer you get to the stadium. Live music, impromptu bars in gardens, smiling police and doughnuts. The World Cup buzz was upon us, I’d missed the earlier game but the English chants of “I’d rather be a Tongan than a Frog” gave us an idea of who had won that encounter. The usual red headed, Tam o’ Shanter, kilt-wearing Kiwis milled about. Seriously – I don’t think I heard a single Scottish accent all night. “Aw me Granddad was from Edinburgh, mate” was the general response to “which part of Scotland are ye from”. 

The ground has had some temporary stands erected at either end for the World Cup and they are accessed by climbing a great big dirty scaffold contraption. Top to bottom was a ten minute trip and with no bars or toilets at the summit it was a case of loading up on beer and crossing your legs for the duration.  The stand quite literally rocked to the sound of the Black Eyed Peas doing ‘Tonight’s Gonna Be A Good Night’ just before kick off. 

A roaring chorus of ‘Swing Low’ just after kick off seemed to frighten the bejayzus out of the England players. They appeared out of sorts while the Scots were well up for it. Johnny Wilkinson suffered terribly with the swirling wind and thin World Cup balls. Dan Parks on the other hand had no problems and even used the same one over again when kicking. I was sat next to a Kiwi school teacher who reckoned his nine year old ‘touch’ rugby team would have ‘had England’. “Hey, were you at the Aussie game?” he asked after we exchanged pleasantries. He also said a sentence that I’d never heard at a rugby match before. “Yeah that wind was awesome when I was surfing earlier”. A TMO referred penalty kick only added to the strangeness of the evening.

 It wasn’t the prettiest of games but at no point did England ever look like winning. Scotland kept chipping away and the longer it went on the more it looked like they would nick a try. So it was no surprise when after almost 80 minutes of soaking it up England went down the other end and nicked one. At least Ashton had the good grace not to wave as he went over. 

Off I headed into the Auckland evening to pick up a taxi home. As I jumped in the driver asked me where I was from. "Ireland" says I. “Were you at the Aussie game?” came the response.

Tom