August 11th, Australia Day 171

Part of the reason I was in Melbourne at the time I was, was that the International Australian Rules Football Cup was being played there at the time. Footy is actually a very international sport with leagues in many countries and even Canada has 15 teams, though all amateur and most are in southwestern Ontario. This tournament, the 2nd to be held, brought teams in from Canada, the U.S.A., Japan, Spain, the U.K., New Zealand, Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and South Africa. Nauru and Denmark were also to have sent teams but both pulled out before the tournament began.

That morning I took a train and a tram to the J.M. Woodruff Oval in Port Melbourne expecting to see Canada play Spain. I had even brought my Canadian flag with me in order to cheer my side on but, much to my dismay, Canada did not play because Spain had suffered so many injuries that it was unable to field a team. The only upside was that Canada won by default, which prevented them from losing all of their games. Luckily, though, some of the Canadian team showed up and a women said that if I gave her my flag, she would get it signed by the members of the team and return it to me in 2 days time when Canada played for 7th spot. I readily handed over my flag and thanked her. I decided to stick around and watch the rest of the footy games being played on the grounds as I didn't have anywhere else I needed to be. I watched New Zealand defeat the U.S.A. to earn a spot in the Grand Final on the 13th, the U.K. beat Japan, Samoa beat South Africa and Papua New Guinea defeat the defending champions, Ireland, to earn the other spot in the Grand Final. After the conclusion of that last game, I went back to where I was staying and finished off the day indoors.

Photos now available at: http://australiaday171.blogspot.com/