Football's Coming Home

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Story by Doug Mickley

Football, füssball, soccer, wogball, the most brilliant fucking game on the planet. I’ve always wondered why AFL got precedence over the word football here in Australia. At least in soccer, the big rule is, use your foot, don’t touch the ball with your hands. Technically, AFL should be called, handsy-touchy-thugball on account that the name handball is already taken by another sport, handball. 
 
For the sake of clarity though, I will refer to the sport as soccer in this article, and try not to turn this piece into a wet dream editorial for soccer fans. The fact of the matter is that right now we have the best soccer team, best soccer stadium and best soccer fans in the country. Australian soccer is finally growing up and Adelaide United has taken the initiative to prove it to the rest of the world.

Like most successful sports clubs, we have a strong leader. Our cricket team has Ponting, the Crows have Tony Modra (he still plays right??), and Adelaide United have Aurelio Vidmar. The former Socceroos striker with a more than notable international career playing the game, is back on the turf, but now days he sports a suit and presses a deadly red button from the sidelines. As an Adelaide boy himself, Vidmar sweats pride, and metaphorically rubs that pride sweat onto everyone with a big sweaty pride hug.  He has brought our city concrete respect from every soccer club in Australia, and this year with our mind blowing success in the Champions league, injected fear into every club playing in Asia. 
 

So if you haven’t been to Hindmarsh for a home game yet, there’s never been a better time to jump on the bandwagon. Plus, you can drink booze in your seat. Better still if we score, and in a crazed emotional moment of rapture, half that beer ends up on the people in front, don’t worry, they are probably spilling as much beer as you. It’s a real sense of fan unity at the game, and you tingle all over with that sweaty Adelaide pride while you’re there. Not convinced? Where else can you buy a foot long chevapchichi in a hotdog roll? Exactly, now that’s some good eating. 
 

I asked Vidmar a couple of questions this week about being back in Adelaide, what he thought about Hindmarsh stadium and if it could stand the growth of Australian soccer. “Hindmarsh is a fantastic stadium, probably the best football stadium in the country” he said, which is exactly what I thought, but it is certainly nice to have that reaffirmed by the great man. “In terms of needing a bigger stadium, getting a stadium with a greater capacity but with the same feel as Hindmarsh would be perfect.”

I agreed again, but replicating the energy would be an enormous task. I asked him about the sell out crowds of late, and if the players got that same sense of atmosphere the fans do. “There’s no question about that. When it’s a full house at Hindmarsh, like it has been for the past couple of matches in the AFC Champions League, the old cliché of the 12th man is really true because the players do actually feel it.” 
 
Everyone feels it. Even before you get to the stadium, there’s an exciting sense of anticipation that can only be subdued briefly by handmade Coopers ale. It could be a 4pm Sunday kick off inspired BBQ, where sparkling ale is the assailant (got to drink the red label for the mighty reds!). Or, it could be a short walk from the Gov, or shorter walk from the Jolly Miller beer garden, or shorter walk still from across the road at the Joiners Arms. Either way, you’ll end up hugging a stranger at the stadium when we inevitably slip one pass the goalie in the second half. 
 

Hindmarsh stadium has a capacity of around 16,500, that night 16,998 people attended after a flurry of standing room tickets were sold in the lead up. And even if we aren’t successful against the heavily bankrolled Bunyodkor on their turf, our boys in red have done enough, and I’m honoured to have been a part of it. I was there in Stuttgart when Harry Kewell cracked that goal against Croatia putting the Socceroos through to the next round of the world cup. That moment was almost as memorable as being at Hindmarsh stadium.

It truly is the home of football.
 
 Thanks to Adelaide United for the images.