14 July 2010

Everton Is Coming To Town

Hi folks! For those of us in Australia, it's not long until the A-League kicks off for another season, and some of the transfer talk going around lately is quite impressive. Only today I read about that horrible team on the Gold Coast chasing Pires. Interesting. Not as interesting as his former team mate Henry signing with Red Bull New York, but still interesting. If only Brisbane had some big news like that to flaunt about. I'm sure Ange's off season signings will be good, and who knows what the Football Superstar will bring to the (youth) team, but there's not been a great deal for us supporters of Brisbane Oranje to sink our teeth into of late. The closest thing we've had is the upcoming Everton tour and the bungle regarding ticket prices.

Now, after the debacle that was Brisbane's ticket pricing last season, you'd think the last thing the team would want would be for more negative press being linked to them in relation to ticket prices, but the cheapest tickets for the event when the went on sale were $50, surely not the kind of thing Brisbane would have been hoping for. Now, given that it wasn't Brisbane's doing, it's a bit unfair to blame anyone but the promoter for this poor form, but that won't stop people linking Brisbane's A-League team and high ticket prices. After a few weeks, the ticket prices have come down, with the cheapest tickets now around $20, but will it be a case of too little, too late?

Another issue that may stop people from going is the recent news that Arteta, but more importantly for Australian fans, Cahill, won't be appearing at the game in Brisbane on Saturday, as they are going to a wedding in EspaƱa. Now, all advertising has mentioned that there's no certainty of any player turning up for the match, but I can certainly see quite a few people not turning up because of this.

At this stage, I haven't purchased a ticket, mostly out of disgust at the initial pricing of tickets, but it looks like I may end going to the game. I just hope that there are a few other people in Brisbane who'll also be going. Last year's game felt like an away game, as the stadium was fairly skewed towards Celtic supporters, but with Everton playing games in Sydney and Melbourne already, I certainly can't see there being a blanket of blue covering the whole stadium.

Everton is coming to town, I just hope they have some people to play in front of.

11 July 2010

Apologies

Well, haven't I been slack? Sorry to disappoint anyone who had looked forward to reading this blog, I've really let you down. I didn't make it to a pub to see an England game with any of my ex-pat mates, and now I'm going to be watching the final at home, instead of with my Dutch uncle. His SBS reception is rubbish, but has a job in the morning so can't come to mine to watch it.

It has been a good experience though, even if the football on offer hasn't always been fantastic. In many ways it has been a slightly dissapointing World Cup, but to see two teams in the final who've never lifted the cup is great, and as some of you might have guessed, yes, I'm backing the oranje!

I think the big problem I had doing this blog was that I got sucked into the world of Twitter, but I also managed to fill my waking hours with all kinds of other things that I let this fall to the wayside. As I mentioned on Twitter, I would love to continue the bog and tweets, even if the name sounds a bit funny out of context.

I am looking to continue doing the blog as an A-League style blog, but probably focussing more on the Brisbane Roar. What I would like is some feedback from my readers as to what they would also like to see, whether that be more about the national team, other A-League teams, or for me tonpack it in altogether.

I'm also potentially looking at a pod sat, but that won't be for a while yet.

I'll leave it at that for now, need to prepare for the big game.

Whoever you're getting behind, I hope you enjoy the game, and hope you've had a great World Cup! How good is football?