On June 2nd ,Chelsea will play a friendly against Sydney FC at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney. The stadium capacity was reduced after the Olympics, from 110,000 to just over 83,000. This match has sold out and they have put in an extra 500 seats, meaning a record crowd of 83,883 lucky bastards will get to see the game. I will be watching live on TV in Melbourne. It's also been announced that Drogba will take part. That's extra great ,as he is being chased by Sydney as their marquee player for next year. Hope you get the game on Chelsea TV.
CP- I have a very good friend and neighbour , who's two daughters both emigrated to Perth in Australia with their newlywed husbands about 15 years ago! One of them has a husband who is a blue, through and through! They have got two tickets and are flying to Sydney (5 hours) to the game and getting me a programme! Bless em!
Good for you BM2, the Chelsea fan base is getting bigger all the time here, I often see 5 year old Hazards and Costas walking around with their parents. My little granddaughter wears her Zola kit which pisses off her Spud dad !! People are flying to Sydney from all over the country. I was away when the tickets went on sale, and missed out ! Spurs are also playing in Sydney the week before Chelsea, lots of folk going to both matches. Sydney will be going off next week for certain. My son is going and I'll get a program as well. Hope you get to see the game over there.
The crowd record for the ground for any sport . Bigger than International Rugby, Rugby League, and even International Football during World Cup qualification. Shows how big a following the PL in particular has here in Oz, even Liverpool filled the MCG last year, around 98,000 !!! Hope Oz becomes a regular off season venue for PL teams, there is a huge demand among locals.
This is just a guess, I think ManUtd, but Liverpool is strong. Having said that, if you look at the reasons it becomes muddier. Until the 80s' by far the dominant migrants were British. Then after Vietnam, loads of people came from that damaged country. Since then, as the UK entered the EU and the Colonies were excluded from the commercial EU area, Australia looked to Asia for growth. So the dynamics have changed a lot. When I was at school 90% of people had UK parents or grandparents. Now it's 40%. Asia is our natural partner. So the "Old school" Poms, mostly from the north, (because why would anyone leave Chelsea), the Man U and Liverpool supporters are a dying breed here.The "new " Australians as we call them, are far more impressed with the more recently successful teams. And that's us. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion, our son has just come back after 7 years in London, in Notting Hill, a rabid Chelsea supporter, steered that way since birth by his father. Like me, he sits up all night , with his mates ,no doubt with a heap of coldies, and is as up to date as possible. He's got tickets for the game, jammy sod. Sorry for rambling on , but Oz is a better place for Chelsea to look at than SE Asia. Man City are here, they own Melbourne City. Hope Chelsea enjoy their visit and see enough to think about more regular visits.
No worries. It's a big deal for us yokels to have teams like Spurs and Chelsea playing here. You really don't know how good you have it Diego, but next week we get a shot !
CP--I've just had a visit from my neighbour, who brought the programme and Tuesday and Wednesday's copies of the Australian Daily Telegraph . A great programme with a huge amount of info about Chelsea , past and present, and a particularly moving piccie of Chopper and Ossie! It now joins my vast collection of Chelsea memorabilia!
It will be interesting if football will take off bigtime in OZ as its way down the pecking order, below Rugby and Cricket
That's great BM2, the game dominated the sports news media for a good week or so and did local football a whole lot of good. There is a very good chance the Sydney City coaching squad will travel to London to work with and learn from the Chelsea staff next season, with maybe some Chelsea participation in our next season. Next week we have Real Madrid, Roma, and Man.City in a Comp sponsored by Audi being played in Melbourne. Got tickets to that, all games 96,000 spectator sell outs. So things are looking up for football in OZ. We have a pretty good record in world junior events but we lose all the best young players to European teams or other sports.That looks like it's changing , especially with Man City owning Melbourne City, there is an opportunity for the youngsters who stick around to get onto Man City books. Come on Roman, Sydney City shares are a bargain !!
Sounds like you've got a football feast in the wings CP! The game seems to be growing big time! Will it ever overtake Aussie rules?
