Six Nill & One Down

Yesterday I was taken to my first foreign sporting event when I went to watch the mighty Wellington Phoenix take on Australia's Gold Coast United. The game was called soccer which if you've never seen it is very much like football but played with less skill. Anyway I was promised a dire one-all draw, which according to an established pattern would consist of the following:

1. Phoenix taking the lead in the first half.
2. Phoenix substituting their strikers for defenders at the start of the second half.
3. The opposition thus unencumbered by attackers becoming free to push forward.
4. The opposition scoring the equaliser in the last ten minutes.

So we were one goal up at half time, so far so good according to the plan.

I think everyone was quite surprised when three minutes into the second half Tim Brown scored a second for Phoenix. They were even more surprised when 3 more followed with in the next 10 minutes. The sixth came in the final ten minutes of the game.

So that was my first soccer game, and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. The other fans seemed to enjoy it too and so a group of us went out to celebrate. We ended up in a quite pub which was mostly empty apart from a private function upstairs. We were sitting enjoying a few beers when a member of the upstairs function decided to drop in - literally.

From the corner of my eye I was aware of this black shape as it fell abruptly from halfway up the staircase. The guy didn't attempt to brace against the impact or even yell out in fright, it was almost as if he blacked out on the stairs and fell like a plank of wood to the bottom.

The guy wasn't dead, he was moving slightly and was cradling his head and forearms - clearly in pain. But that's about all he did, he wasn't responding to anything. The barman phoned for an ambulance and I stayed with the corpse to make sure he was okay. One of his cohorts had arrived by this time and was calling him a stupid bastard for being so pissed, she didn't seem to think he needed an ambulance and even got quite aggressive with me and the barman when we insisted that - yes he clearly did require and ambulance.

Long story short, the ambulance came, took him away, and we stayed for a few more drinks. All and all a pretty good day (for me at least).