Let's Face It, The World Is Round, Like A Football

The Age

Saturday May 27, 2006

JONATHAN GREEN

IT WAS football, but not as we know it, Jim. Well, that may not have been quite true. There was a school of thought gaining some currency late in the week that soccer was in fact a game devised by Terry Wallace and Paul Roos after an all-night drinking session some time in the late 1980s. This seemed not altogether implausible.

There was certainly some confusion on Thursday night when punters arriving late at the MCG - they presumably saw the lights on, and thought they'd drop in - took one look at Australia v Greece and assumed that they'd stumbled in on a particularly low-key Richmond training run, an impression immediately dispelled when someone actually made an attempt to score.

But all such banter aside, the round-balled code seemed to make a strong impression through the week as Melbourne braced for the Socceroo-Greece friendly (a game that would be followed promptly by the Collingwood-Bulldogs quite cordial and the Melbourne-West Coast ladies invitational, but more of that later). This seemed a significant moment not only for fans of world football - as the punctiliously politically correct are now calling soccer - but also for the suppliers of marine search and rescue equipment and the still-vocal supporters of a 5000-year defunct regime in Macedon. Sorry, Macedonia.

That all of it received as much attention as it did was thanks in no small part to the sudden realisation among the city's media outlets that they may well face another two months of this unnatural enthusiasm thanks to something in Germany called the World Cup. That titan of the rhyming pen, Les Murray, had even composed a short ode to the occasion, viz:

"I like the World Cup,

It cheers me up."

That was the SBS Les Murray, by the way.

It was time therefore to adopt soccer/football/worldball etc with something beyond a fixed smile. Despite everything.

This prompted the inevitable discussion of whether the fact that Another Game could draw 95,000 to the MCG spelt trouble for the AFL. Cool heads pointed to the fact that the Bledisloe Cup had pulled 90,119 to the 'G in 1997 with no consequent mass migration to the cause of rugby union. Sure, fear played a part in that, but it would seem that on the face of it, Australian football might see out the season in reasonable health. If all else failed, the AFL could always take a leaf out of soccer's book and schedule only one game of better than suburban standard each year and thus guarantee a substantial crowd.

The PM would have been there on Thursday night had affairs of state not intervened. He had made a beeline home from the Irish leg of his No Sleep Till Bedtime world tour, perhaps inspired by the prospect of a bracing evening in the proximity of at least two dozen green and gold tracksuits, perhaps also driven by mid-week images of Peter Costello jiggling happily in a variety of settings after momentarily taking the reins in Federal Parliament.

Costello looked good and dealt sternly with weighty matters as the week turned awkwardly towards an air of serious regional crisis. It all must have made a favourable comparison among those of his party still weighing their leadership options, while the fact that Costello's feet actually touched the ground when he sat at the big desk during question time could only have been a plus.

That said, the whole leadership matter still had a long way to travel, with every independent augury being noted with keen interest. In that context, this week's Reader's Digest Trust Survey will have done little to inspire the Costello camp, with the little magazine's readers rating him the country's 93rd most trustworthy person in a pool of 100, just two slots ahead of Schapelle Corby and 32 behind Daryl Somers. This must have been sobering news. The PM was at 84, one ahead of Rupert Murdoch, coming one behind Kyle Sandilands. Which may have pleased Kyle.

The survey placed Dr Fiona Wood, 2005 Australian of the Year and no relation to Chris Lilley at the top of the list, and enigmatically elected Ernie Dingo eighth, just one spot better than the Wiggles.

The list was instructive as far as it went, but while it listed the people we would all most trust, it gave no details as to what we would trust them with. It is entirely possible that Rolf Harris, pictured, may not have rated at number 14 if the answer to that question had been "establishing a cohesive and regionally sensitive foreign policy regime, with due regard to human rights and trade prospects". That being, of course, a job that would more naturally fall to Dr Harry Cooper, rated number five.

© 2006 The Age

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