THE darkest hour was before dawn, and not even the sunrise could lighten the early-morning misery of Australian soccer fans at live sites, clubs, pubs and cinemas around the country.
Four-nil is not exactly the return you expect for getting up at 4am, or earlier.
Four-nil is the sort of nightmare best experienced in your sleep, not with thousands of other anguished, cold and despairing football fans who can’t feel their feet and wish they couldn’t trust their eyes.
And, if you thought it was bad watching the Durban disaster where you were, spare a thought for those who forked out to watch it in 3D at movie theatres. Apparently the technology is so good it felt as if the German goals were flying straight past you.
Then again, imagine if you had paid money to go all the way to South Africa and witness the slaughter.
Beautiful game? Be buggered, this was her ugly stepsister.
Across Australia, football fans crawled from beds at hours unmentionable, deluded by the memory of the 2006 World Cup, when Australia reached the second round and was denied only by a dubious penalty awarded to Italy.
In Melbourne, 15,000 crowded into Birrarung Marr. By the time of the second German goal, some responded to the Socceroos’ damp-squib efforts by letting off flares. Environment Minister Gavin Jennings said there was frustration in the crowd but that was no excuse.
In Sydney, a 20,000 crowd at Darling Harbour started off festive, but ended funereal.
It was not all despair at the venues, however. At least not if you were German.
The Concordia Club in Sydney’s Tempe threw its doors open early and by game time there was standing room only as expats and locals ate German sausage, drank German beer and celebrated German goals. All eins, zwei, drei, vier of them.
There were Socceroos scarves in the crowd and the piano accordion player, who gave a distinctive oompa tempo to Advance Australia Fair, wore one but the majority of sympathies were with the eventual victors.
To be fair, if you are going to lose to anyone, Germans are a good choice. They don’t carry on like Latin Americans, they won’t rub it in for years to come like the English and they celebrate with the sort of control the stereotype predicts.
Tony Krehein was up early, wearing his German colours and explained he had adopted the side in deference to his German father. Asked why he and the crowd were so quiet, he observed: “It could be the hour and it could be that people expected it — it is only the Socceroos, after all.”
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