Pubs showing World Cup football in Auckland

We all love ‘football’ now, judging by mangled Koiwi / Eastenders accents developing in time for the opening matches. Kick off times are not ideal (read: shithouse) for us, ranging from 1am to 7am, but pub owners are scheming to get your cash off you right now. Here’s where to spend your sick days.

– Bluestone Room. Sister pub to Copper Room in Takapuna, and they’re laying out the red carpet for the WC judging by the blurry WC pics on their site. Got quite a crowd apparently for the Champions League final, and had Radio Sport muppets broadcasting live from the bar. Has potential.

– Cock and Bull, various venues. If fake, souless ‘English’ ‘pubs’ are your thing (Ellerslie C+B is an honorable exception), this is the place. They’re only showing 7am-ers and big matches are ticketed events, I’d give it a miss unless you’re desperate.

– Mad Dogs and Englishmen, various venues. See above. Nothing available on the web, but this is another self consciously ‘English’ venue, so should have something on.

– Rose and Crown, Quay St. Popular with heavy drinking Liverpool fans during Champions League finals. Very football friendly, and TVNZ send cameras down there to film fans on those days they feel like covering football. Nothing on the web, of course but a solid choice by all accounts.

– Claddagh, Broadway, Newmarket. Plans for WC not finalised, will depend entirely on owner Noel getting his shit together. With reasonable Guinness and OK food, the Claddagh has real potential, but depends on whether the big screen outside is operational. There’s a fantastic quiz on Wednesdays, which should have WC content in coming weeks. Just watch for the muppets who usually come third.

This Saturday night / Sunday morning will be be a good warm up, with an England match kicking off at 1am Sunday – the only time this occurs. Where are you going to watch?

I’m backing England

Here kicks off sport review NZ’s Germany 06 coverage. I’m going to be providing some New Zealand perspective on the world’s biggest sporting event. Mostly from the couch. After some (pretty minor) soul searching, I will hereby be backing England in this World Cup. Here’s why.

I started off supporting England when I began taking a proper interest in Spurs in 1993 or thereabouts. It went hand in hand for me – I knew the players, the All Whites were pretty crap, so why not? It just felt right. I got a copy of the Italia ’90 semi final on VHS and watched it a lot.

It really kicked off with Euro 96 – Terry Venables had the coaching job, and put Teddy Sheringham, Darren Anderton and Nick Barmby in the team. Gazza was back, Wembley was bathed in sunshine, they had grey shirts, I had a Sky decoder – what could possibly go wrong?

“You look like you’re going to vomit” said my then-girlfriend when Southgate missed his penalty. Some welcome.

Then came France ’98. By now I was living in London, and had seen England lose to Chile at the old Wembley stadium with my brother and a couple of mates, a game notable only for the England debut of M. Owen. I warmed up with the rest of the boys from the office at a Southwalk pub, laughing at Scotland losing to Brazil. “This is brilliant” I thought – World Cup football in the same timezone! And booze!

England had three pool games to negociate, but no-one seemed too worried, all eyes were on the Argentina match. I watched from the floor of a Wapping pub in front of a big screen. It’s safe to say that by kick off, I’d had a few, my office went to a wine bar for someone’s birthday, so we could all get pissed beforehand, they were bloody considerate those guys. I remember Owen’s goal alright, and I remember leaping to my feet to celebrate (pre-Judas) Sol Campbell’s goal, only to be ruled out by Alan ‘bloody’ Shearer’s thoughtless elbow on an Argie defender. I remember using some very bad language on my stagger to the tube station afterward, and can only apologise to anyone Argentinean who may have heard it.

Then God Hoddle shot his mouth off and England got Keegan. I loved his Newcastle side like everyone else, but always thought he was a bit of a Muppet. By Euro 2000 I was living in Dublin and took my life in my hands cheering Shearer’s goal vs Germany in a Leopardstown pub – that didn’t go down to well with the locals (“It’s OK, we’re Kiwis” “Ye’re feckin eeejits”). England were a bit shit, of course, and this was the beginning of the end, Keegan was apparently great at ‘geeing the lads up’, but was utterly, cruelly clueless tactically.

I packed it in when they lost to Germany at Wembley’s last match in the worst performance and Keegan resigned immediately afterwards. “I don’t need this shit” I thought. “I’ve got enough bloody teams to worry about without these guys”. I watched Beckham beat Greece on his own impassively. I laughed at Seaman’s ponytail and Sven’s inability to keep it in his trousers. I tried backing Italy (The Sopranos) and Brazil (Ronaldo) in Japan/Sth Korea 02, but didn’t get tooooo worked up. Everyone loves Brazil deep down anyway. I watched Rooney go off injured and England going out of Euro 04 and felt a twinge of… something.

Now I’m back, chastened. The time is right, England can play some nice football. There’s loads of Spurs players in the team and squad. They’ve got a great chance of winning it, and they’ll have me yelling for them. I only hope they’ve been practicing penalties.

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Arsenal v Barca thoughts


Yep it was time to dust off the duvet for another Champs League final – although the muppets on Radio Sport reckoned there were 100 or so fans in The Blue Stone Room at 6 this morning. Here’s the thoughts from the couch before all that coffee wears off.

– The ref should have left Lehmenn on and let the goal stand. I bet he felt stupid for blowing hastily, and a real shame for the neutrals to have an 11 v 10 match with 20 minutes gone.
– Spurs fans everywhere obviously delighted for big Sol to score in big match after having goal disallowed in WC 98. *Sarcasm detector goes nuts and eventually explodes. Smoke everywhere*
– Ronaldinho disappointing – more flicks than a 1st XV shower room but no end product at all. Great smile though.
– Henry never recovered from THAT miss in the third minute. He spent the last half not running at all, and arguing with Wenger. He’d be farking frustrating to play with – he only makes runs for himself.
– From Spurs point of view – still have the same number of European Cups as the Arse.
– From Arse point of view – must keep Henry, even if he’s crap in the big games.
– As for the theory that UK football fans should support UK teams in finals – I cheered on Arsenal in the 93 Cup Winners Cup final – only to see Arse fans singing ‘Are you watching Tottenham?’ in the celebrations. Bollocks to ’em.
– Blogger’s spellcheck suggestion for Ronaldinho is ‘Remolding’. Honestly.

Update: Video highlights of the match from N17.

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I didn’t recognise you without your chainsaw…


Possum turned up at Eden Park on Saturday night. Normally busy threatening Waikato Stadium with his chainsaw from the relative safety of a cherry picker bucket, he appeared in the South Stand in the second half to mingle with his public.

It was like the Pope turning up in a Dublin bar, within seconds he was offered a beer (which he took in a flash), had shook everyone’s hand, and posed for photos (You’re Possum! I love you!) with his fans. And then he was gone.

In this day and age of professional rugby, where the Blues have a (feckin)Pirate running around Eden Park (because the market research says you just gotta have a mascot, the target demographic LOVES mascots), it’s nice to know crazed fans like Possum are around.

Now Waikato just need to go back to the two-man-pantomine-horse-style Mooloo, then I’ll be happy.

Pantheon of Legends


My work is having a competition to decorate your desk in the colors of your favorite Super 14 team. Here’s mine, I’m going for the short on effort, long on imagination approach, which will either win me all the money or feck all.

Memo to Keith Quinn and John MacBeth

Keith and John, here’s four little words that could help save your careers.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

Seriously. When I’m watching the opening ceremony of the Commonweath Games and a door opens on the flying Tram, I don’t want to hear the two of you idiots talking over the top of each other with insightful stuff like:

– It seems to be a tram. With wings.
– Yes, it’s a flying tram. Sensational.
– It’s spectacular, isn’t it? I was on a tram several times today. In the great city of Melbourne.
The tram door opens
– Spectacular. The doors are now opening.
– Yes, John those doors are opening. Here in Melbourne. Magnificent.

Etc etc etc. These two must be getting paid by the word, because they just couldn’t shut up. What looked to be a spectacular opening to the games was utterly ruined for NZ TV audiences because two ex-rugby commentators (let’s face it, if they were still any good, Sky would have got them by now) thought we were watching it on Teletext. Sometimes the pictures can talk for themselves, chaps.

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Being there – Chiefs v Crusaders

First, if you’re fool-hardy enough to attempt driving to Hamilton for a 7.30 kick off, leave central Auckland earlier than 4.45.Second, when you get to the general Rugby Park area at 7.20 wile driving, looking for a park and talking on the phone simultaneously, stressing out will help exactly no-one.

Third, park in the Whitiora Bible Chapel.

Fourth, Ticketmaster are utterly incompetent. By the time I reached the (single) pick up point, there was a massive queue with at least a couple of hundred people missing all the game at that point.

Fifth, after Dad’s heroics in the queue it was a huge relief to get to our seats, with Girl, Mum and Dad and N+J safely in tow. We were in the new (Brian Perry) stand, with its great sightlines, and typically easy access to booze and deep fried food. I was driving to the Mount for the weekend, afterwards, so only two Waikatos for me.

Sixth, we were lucky enough to sit behind a bunch of guys that were PISSED, and kept us entertained through the match by a) throwing bourbon and coke on each other b) loads of top class swearing c) spending long periods of the match in the bar d) falling asleep. I though they were going to be annoying but they turned out harmless enough, and like I said to the others, ‘hey, we’ve all been there’. Being shitfaced at the rubgy is as kiwi as thinking Greg Chappell is a wanker.

Seventh (I can’t be fucked counting any more) – It was a great game to be at. I’ve seen a few Canterbury v Waikato matches recently (including the stormer in the 2002 NPC where Waikato beat the All Blacks) and this one was right up there with them. The Crusaders were very, very good, and I think we did tremendous to keep up and almost nick it. Their defense was everywhere and took all the Chiefs could throw at it – though I would have liked to see Luaki have a go more with a had of steam up, instead of running off that stupid half step thing he does.

The Waikato defense was also impressive, save the first ten minutes (and I wasn’t even in the ground at that stage, so it doesn’t count), with Gibbes and Tuitupou
making huge hits. Still, the Crusaders showed in the final five minutes when the Chiefs had two huge chances to nick it why they’re champions – we cracked under the pressure, and threw that crucial last lineout in crooked. It’s like we were beaten by the Crusaders’ very reputation.

Other things:
– Can we have less ‘We Will Rock You’ played on the sound system? We get it. And playing the Feelers’ (shit band) “Stand up and be counted” when we went behind was a dick move, but I hate music being played at sport grounds in general.
– The Chiefs cheerleaders are HOT this year.
– McCaw and Holah are both huge.
– I saw Graham Henry and Brian Lohore under the stand looking very relaxed and smiling and nodding to punters afterwards while they waited for the crowd to piss off so they could go home. Could you imagine this happening in any other country?

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