Aussie World Cup failure doesn’t dampen Perth’s enthusiasm for soccer – and Chelsea

Aussie World Cup failure doesn’t dampen Perth’s enthusiasm for soccer – and Chelsea

by Paul McNeela, Perth WA

It may have been because Optus, the sponsors of Perth’s glorious new Stadium, screwed up their World Cup streaming rights, resulting in all World Cup games screening free to air in Australia. Or because Perth’s time zone meant the World Cup games could be seen at semi-civilised times. But whatever the reason and despite a poor World Cup for the Socceroos, Perth is still Soccer Crazy for the arrival of Chelsea, for the first time since 1974, to play Perth Glory in this high profile friendly expected to set a new record for attendance at a Soccer match here on Monday night.

The West Australian tourism department have achieved a minor miracle bringing over the 2017 EPL Champions and FA Cup holders, their chartered flight alone costing $600,000. But with Chelsea fans from interstate, Asia and the UK swarming around the hotels, restaurants and bars of Perth during the slow winter season, it looks like their investment may pay off.

At Friday’s press conference Cesc Fabregas gave a glowing report of Perth, extolling the virtues of the hotel, the stadium, training facilities and the city itself. Even the 16 hour 24 minute flight failed to dampen his enthusiasm. Since March this year a direct flight from London to Perth has been available.

A journalist at the press conference pointed out that this meant Chelsea has broken the record for the longest single flight for a football game undertaken by an English team. Chelsea Chairman Bruce Buck then quipped that it may be the longest flight but not the longest journey as a few years ago it took Chelsea 17 hours to get back to London from a game against Newcastle United, in England’s North East. Not to be outdone, Chelsea defender David Luiz recalled a 72 hour bus journey back from a game in the Amazon region of Brazil when he was 15 years old.

The good-natured spirit of the press conference continued as Glory goalkeeper Liam Reddy was asked if a shutout would be similar in achievement to 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali. “More like 25!” was the immediate heartfelt retort.

When new coach Maurizio Sarri was asked what he expected of his players in this game he disarmingly replied: “I don’t know, I only met them 4 days ago.” Speaking fluently in English, Sarri was assisted by a local Italian interpreter, to explain the finer nuances of the West Strine accent.

New Glory coach Tony Popovic described the difficulties of gelling existing players with new signings, highlighting the peculiar difficulties of the Australian pre-season. When he mentioned it had a duration of 17 weeks, Fabregas’ eyes nearly popped out of his head and Luiz’s jaw hit the floor.

Popovic, his captain Andy Keogh and goalkeeper Liam Reddy conducted themselves with great dignity (as did the Chelsea representatives), but nothing can obscure the formidable task before them on Monday night. The annual salary bill for Perth Glory is $3M, for Chelsea $300M.

Perth Glory fans are similarly realistic.

On Wednesday night I had the great pleasure of meeting two Glory diehards at their friendly game against Gwelup Croatia from the local state league. Gary and George have been Glory supporters since the club was founded in 1995 and have followed them on all their tours ever since. Still owing some allegiance to their hometown English clubs, Gary to Middlesbrough and George to West Ham, they were satisfied with Glory’s performance in cruising to a 6-0 victory.

They felt however that Glory could be on the wrong end of a similar gulf in class against Chelsea and wearily predicted an identical score line in the Blues’ favour.

Manchester United and Perth Glory fans, Lesley and Michael feel the Chelsea game represents a great showcase for the new stadium hosting sports played on a rectangular pitch (the dominant Australian Rules Football is played on a cricket oval), and for Perth in general.

Long derided as Dullsville by trendy Easterners from Sydney and Melbourne, a few recent large-scale developments and thoughtful changes to hospitality regulation have made the doubters sit up and take notice. Michael hoped that the publicity generated by the Chelsea game would result in more high-profile opposition from Europe, and maybe even North America will regularly grace these Indian Ocean shores. Lesley feltthat Glory will battle heartily but are condemned to a comprehensive defeat. Michael was less pessimistic and predicting a draw.

I was surprised to stumble across enthusiasm for the game at my local hardware store. Philthy runs Scarboro Hardware and is a dyed in the wool Blues man. Born in Australia, his family hail from West London, a stone’s throw from Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge Stadium, where 11 of them crammed into a 2 bedroom apartment, pre-WWII. Philthy is predicting 4-2 win for his team.

Chelsea have been given the use of the WACA, the iconic cricket ground that has hosted many a dramatic Ashes decider, for their training sessions. The Chelsea squad names have been on the famous old scoreboard all week and the doors were thrown open to the public on Saturday evening with thousands braving the heavy rain to watch them train.

So there is great enthusiasm in the Perth public for big soccer games but it is by no means universal.

Having a stroll around the Optus Stadium for Sunday’s Australian Rules Football game just before local favourites West Coast Eagles played host to the Western Bulldogs, I could not find a ‘footie’ fan enthusing about Monday’s soccer game. Brad found the theatrical antics of the World Cup superstars “UnAustralian mate”, Tiffany felt AFL will always be the number one game and Jayden said he didn’t know who Chelsea was.

The round ball game obviously has some work to do before winning over the Eagles faithful, but the rest of the Perth public seem to be more interested in soccer now than ever before. Hopefully this enthusiasm can be built on with a stirring match on Monday night.

Time will tell if Glory and Chelsea can beat the 46,854 who watched the Eagles bag an easy win today. The oval will now be converted to a rectangle.

Prost Amerika will report on the match build up and the game itself shortly after the final whistle.