Stand up if you hate Tottenham!

European football, soccer, the round ball game, whatever you want to call it...

it's actually quite fun to watch live.

I have tried, with limited success, in the past to watch European football on TV. Australia's (relative) success in the last world cup spurred some interest and I watched a game or 2 but found the game lived up to its cliche of a lot of effort for no result...

However, I have now seen a game in England, live, at the ground.... and my attitude has somewhat changed.

A few weeks ago now I was lucky enough to score a ticket to a Chelsea v's Valencia game with the boss. It was a very pleasant evening entertaining a client with dinner and drinks followed by the game.

The game was very entertaining, Chelsea were at home and top of their table (the competition they were playing in was explained to me but I failed to grasp the details... it appears teams here play in several competitions at once...) and Valencia were pretty much out of the competition but put up somewhat of a fight... the atmosphere was great... the stadium was full... some 40,000 people turned up... and they were in fine voice.

I am still not sure how 10,000 blokes spontaneously burst into raucous song, but they do ...and much of it was directed at Tottenham, the traditional rivals of Chelsea (clearly they didn't give a damn about Valencia). The stadium was filled with the dulcet strains of stand up if you hate Tottenham, Tottenham, stand up if you hate Tottenham! ...and yes, they stood up.

The singing and raucousness was not due to alcohol! Well, alcohol bought at the stadium anyway... football stadiums in the UK are dry! God Forbid! not even light beer is served... but I suppose it helps stop rioting... the English are a tad fanatical when it comes to their football.

...and then of course there was the game itself... Valencia put up a bit of fight, but were held scoreless by the clearly dominant Chelsea. In fact Valencia never even looked like scoring... Chelsea on the other hand had at least 6 attempts at the goal, but despite their best efforts were also denied a goal... there was some bad luck involved with the ball striking the woodwork 3 times... but all in all they failed to capitalise on their advantage...

so... my first game of football was a lot of effort for no result... nil all!

But... if you are going to see all that effort, see it live!

Now all I have to do is choose a team to support... Chelsea maybe??? well, I did get a large, free team flag at the game (the Brisbane Lions would have charges $29.95 for it!) But I think I will reserve judgement... a football team is for life... so one much choose with care!