Nike's Socceroos Jersey Extravaganza!

A sunny Sydney morning on the harbour was the perfect location for Craig Moore and Tommy Oar to show off Nike's new 2010 Socceroos jersey.

The lovely Nike team invited me along to the press call, which included a putt around the harbour on a nice swanky 3 level yacht, followed by a presentation to the media. This involved a little brekkie, lots of technical chat about the jersey’s new features and plenty of filming and snapping.

Now, I’ll admit that I’ve never actually been to a press call so this was all quite a novelty to me. I did my best to act like I knew what I was doing and to get SUPER DOOPER EXCLUSIVE pics and info for all of my Girl Meets Ball readers!!

The jersey in my opinion is rather nice. Understated and clean - nothing risky. The incorporation of the green across the shoulders takes us back to the true green and gold feel which I felt we was missing over the last few years with the predominantly yellow strip (although, the sea of yellow at matches did look pretty amazing). Other than that, the jersey’s main boasting rights are its super eco-friendly production, which I’m quite a fan of. It’s made out of 100 per cent polyester, diverting 13 million plastic bottles from landfills.

The boys (Craig and Tom) did a great job of standing around in their T-shirts. Sydney has made the most pathetic attempt of an autumn but today was one of the first days that had a bit of a nip in the air so I hope they don’t catch a cold! They were also very gracious to hang about and have a chat to the hounding (but loving) media. I even got amongst it – My first two interviews ever! I asked some pretty hard hitting questions… you just wait! 

Get your Socceroos face on!

Every time I read '3 steps to a sexy smokey eye' in a magazine I just know that it's unachievable - I end up looking like a Raccoon (I know all of you boys out there will be with me on this one). So, in light of this I've decided to create my own fool proof guide to getting your Socceroos face on! 

OR go all the way... Not for the faint hearted.

 

Thanks to the beautiful Simone for being my guest photographer! 

GMB XO


P.S. Please note yellow and pastel green nail polish!! Bussyyy! 

Rustenburg Week: Other things to do...

Rustenburg's Fan Fest will keep us occupied for a lot of the evening hours but if you're after some non-football adventure options then there are a few other activities to check out. 

The Sun City Casino complex claims to be South Africa's 'Las Vegas' and is located just outside of Rustenburg. If you're sick of the natural landscape of South Africa you might just be able to hide yourself in this place. It's a wholllee lota man made.  A huge entertainment complex with nightclubs, cinemas, golf courses, an artificial surfing beach, a crocodile park, a waterworld for parasailing, water skiing and sindsurfing, a Disney-inspired Lost City... The list goes on...


Sounds like a cross between Crown Casino in Melbourne and the Gold Coast... Here's an article from The Age. 





Another destination is Hartbeespoort Dam which offers paragliding and handgliding, lots of water sports, an aquarium, private zoo, a snake park and a cable way! The area seems to be a bit of a weekend get away with lots of touristy things, local art galleries and events going on. 

The Magaliesberg Mountains offer a breath of fresh air. With canopy tours, hot air balloon trips, abseiling, horse riding this might be a good option if you need a break from the football fever. 

Also, while you're here - Botswana is only about an hours drive from Rustenburg, I really wanna go there! 

Happy Saturday!

Thought I'd share - I love these images!
Predicting a 1-0 win to Wellington Phoenix tonight...

Flashback Phase 2: The Dark Days

The next step after my Glasgow Rangers debut was to get into a real team. The Weston Creek Under 8 Tigers. This was the club where I honed my craft… The craft of yelling was possibly executed here more so than my football skills, however, they weren’t too bad either.

The yelling skills came into play at several of the Socceroos and NSL matches throughout the 1990’s that I travelled near and far to along with my family. My 8 year-old heart was broken for the first time in 1997 after qualification was stolen from us in the infamous second leg of Iran Vs Australia. There I was, a little squealer, in the middle of a roaring 85,000 people at Melbourne’s MCG. I jumped up every few seconds but never remembered that the seat would flip up every time I stood up which resulted in a sore butt and quite a few scratches on my back! Schoolgirl errors all round! As we slowly made our way out of the stadium after losing I remember tears running down my face accompanied by the booming sound of Queen’s We Are the Champions. Queen was always a friendly and familiar sound to my youthful ears, but after this I truly did not listen to them for years!

In my ‘Magnet Ball’ days, as Dad likes to call it, I was quite quick which made me a good little striker. BOOT-CHASE-SCORE! Being the youngest I had my brothers and sister throwing balls AT me since I was a wee little rascal and I was quite lanky so I was also utilised in the goals, however, as my ‘career’ took off I felt most at home in the middle of the park. I had a few stints in the ACT representative teams and sometimes trained with the boys’ team but I didn’t like the Scottish coach… Tehehe. Anyway, in the end my summer sport, Athletics, proved to pull my attention a little more which meant less focus on the Football.  

My vocal chords were still in training at my local NSL team’s matches. The Canberra Cosmos were MY HEROES! I used to put popcorn kernels in Coke bottles, paint them yellow and blue and shake them all game… amusing… I did a training camp with them and felt really special the whole time. Norman Kelly was my favourite, I got his signature at the end and he wrote that he thought I was really good! I ran off home so very chuffed to show my older brother Brendan. He laughed at me and expressed his distaste for my liking the long-balling Irish player! It’s funny to look back and realise the kind of impression one player can make on a child.

The next step that added to the dark days was the Socceroos' 2002 World Cup qualification process. Some good did come out of it all, Dad took my brother Tom and I up to Coffs Harbour for the first stage of the Oceania Qualifications. It was such a fun holiday! Not only did we see the Socceroos make a new world record of goals scored in an international football match at 22-0 and Archie Thompson break the record for goals by one player (13) we went go-karting!! I wasn’t very good at it… But It was the first time I ever got to drive my own car!!

Oceania was the easy bit, we beat the Kiwis and then, as usual, were faced with playing a South American team of international superiority. In this case it was Uruguay. I was in Yr 7 and on this occasion Dad made a deal with me. He said to me that if qualified for the All Schools Athletics Nationals in High Jump he would take me down to Melbourne for the match… My P.B. was nowhere near the qualification height, so I think we both knew I wouldn't be coming. Anyway, on Saturday morning at Little Athletics, much to his and my surprise I cleared the height, I think it was 153cm. I still remember calling him and telling him that I did it and he had to keep his promise! He did, we went, I covered my face in green and gold and Kevin Muscat scored our only goal in a penality and we won 1-0 which left us in a decent position...





My family gathered around the Tele in the early hours of a school morning the next week to watch the second leg in Uruguay. My screams from the other side of the world didn’t seem to help… We lost and didn’t make the FIFA World Cup AGAIN.

Little did I know that the good days were just around the corner…

TBC…

Better with age

Photos our days just don't look as glamourous! Maybe it's the black and white? Running about like a mad cat today so as a quick fix here's some nice football images to stimulate your mind on this lovely Friday arvo.

GMB XO

Meow

Even my cat's into it!

Durban Fifa Fan Fest

The Golden Mile

That's the arch of Moses Mabhida Stadium in the background

The next best place for Aussie fans while in Durban other than Moses Mabhida Stadium will be Durban's Fifa Fan Fest. If it's anything like Germany 2006 this place is going to be a mixture of many nations embracing the football, partying, chilling out and avoiding the portable toilets. 

The Fan Fest which will cram in at it's best around 25,000 people is going to be located at Durban's 'New Beach' which is at the end of West Street and is a part of Durban's famous stretch of surf the 'Golden Mile'. It's a walkable distance of 3.5km from Moses Mabhida Stadium and 20km from the new Durban International Airport. 

With live screenings of the 64 World Cup matches upon a backdrop of the waves of the Indian Ocean and sweet sweet security (we hope), what more could you need? 

There will also be two other public viewing facilities in the neighbourhoods of  KwaMashu (15,000 capacity) and Umhlazi (10,000). All venues free. Yipppeeeeee! 

DURBAN WEEK!

This week I am going to Google the holy guacamole out of DURBAN! I'm going to try and find every little nook and cranny and bring it all right here to Girl Meets Ball.

To start off I've found some great pictures of the Moses Mabhida Stadium which will be Australia's booting ground on June 13 2010 kick off 8:30PM. It's lookin pretty damn sexy if you ask me. Close to the beach which is essential for any Aussie fan, plus there seems to be a massive rail network right next door. Convenience! 

Tomato sources:

Some hard facts: http://www.archdaily.com

Good starting point: http://fifaworldcup.durban.gov.za

FAN TRAINING DAY ONE

OUT COME THE GREEN AND GOLD! THERE'S NOTHING BETTER THEN GETTING IT ON.

THANKS TO THE EVER SO LOVELY JAMES MILLS FOR HIS HAPPY SNAPS OF ME! WHAT FUN!