Flying in from Cairns to Melbourne, the experienced OzSpurs members failed to inform me of the scorching hot climate that I was about to experience and I spent the first few hours of this long awaited weekend sweating my nuts off on the Skybus into CBD and couldn't wait to change into my shorts.
Friday evening consisted of a very quiet and sober affair with no drinking involved at all. There was no singing of classic spurs songs and no videos of old school Spurs goals and post matches of the glory boys through the years. The type of people I met may well have been clones, they were not from all walks of life, with different backgrounds and stories to tell (as I had hoped), nor were they from different countries and none of them even supported Spurs (apart from the one bloke that I could actually understand was some Welsh bloke called Jockney). The night went on and everyone remained completely sober and we all went home at 9pm. No one went out drinking after and we definitely did not roll in and out of bars until sunrise as I would of expected. I remember the entire evening.
After waking up really early I was made to walk all the way to the Albert Park sports ground to represent my state of QLD in the Futsal competition. It was here that my weekend took a turn for the better. With my fitness levels in prime condition, I managed to score no less than 47 goals and led QLD to a stunning victory for the 2014 National and was crowned man of the match. Afterwards, there was no post game BBQ cooked by Gary and Paul as promised and definitely no post game banter with the lads over a few more beers as I had again hoped for. This would have been a good opportunity to recognise a member for all the hard work that goes on in this club behind the scenes, but I was quick to learn that everything pretty much runs by itself and nobody really has to contribute any time to keeping OzSpurs functional at all!
That evening we certainly did not meet in the bar of our hotel to swap some classic Spurs stories and experiences which I was looking forward too and arrived at the Imperial Hotel again sober and wanting a drink. The Imperial Hotel only holds 10 people at most and I was hoping for a large turn out of near 100 Yids to mark this momentous occasion on the OzSpurs calendar. The game did not begin with a awesome chorus of 'Oh when the spurs.'
Thankfully through great dedication and a strong team spirit Spurs smashed West spam 4-0 which made the evening slightly pleasant.
I did not spend the rest of my night catching up with other Spurs fans and nearly pissing myself laughing with the conversations and jokes that were flying around. There was talk of a late night restaurant crawl to soak up the booze, but this did not occur, nor did anyone embarrass themselves with dining etiquette f**k ups at 3am. Again, another early night of around 11pm finish.
By Sunday morning I felt completely refreshed from all the sleep I'd had and went for a 10km jog around the CBD before arriving at the AGM. After the AGM we all went our seperate ways and did not watch a half decent game of football with all my new found friends over a few beers. There was definitely NO pub crawl where we got to take in some of the more quirkier pubs (and transport systems) that Melbourne has to offer. Stupid songs and childish piss taking was completely non-existent throughout the whole evening. I had even hoped for a disorganised late night visit to a chinese restaurant followed by a well constructed survey on what music Melbourne taxi drivers listen to at 2am. This did not happen though.
By Monday morning I felt like I could take on the world and still run a marathon after it, so it was time to say goodbye to my new chums and this tiny town of Melbourne and head back to the hustle and bustle of the big smoke, Cairns.
So if you're thinking of attending a National and you LIKE the idea of the above weekend then I strongly suggest 2 things:
<li>1. Don't believe anything I just wrote</li>
<li>2. Missing out could be a good way to have a crap weekend and the only winners would be your liver and your sides intact from not laughing for 3 days solid.</li>