Sat, 22 Nov 2003

author Tim	location Emerson Valley, Milton Keynes, Bucks, England
posted 18:54 GMT 23/11/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/Milton Keynes ( all photos )

Australia Falls to the Poms ( No photos )
We were all up early, Liz, Meaghan and I keen to show Dave (who is English) that the Aussies were going to clobber those pesky Poms in the Rugby World Cup Final. We donned jerseys, hoisted flags and headed into the big Weatherspoon's pub in central Milton Keynes in Meaghan's new car.
Shunning all reasoning, we got a few pints and sat down to watch the 9am kick off. Myself and the two girls were pretty much the only Aussie supporters there, against a crowd of the 'barmy army' in red and white. This didn't stop us from cheering loudly, but everyone was good sports about it.
As Jonny put that final kick over, we knew our vocals would come back to haunt us, but we just had friendly handshakes with the supporters, conceding that England had been the better team on the day, it was a fantastic game, and that the poms deserved to win. Oh well, we only have to be in the country for a couple more days to deal with the constant phone calls and text messages from English friends keen to rub it in!
The next thing after all that early-morning drinking and some post-match chatter was some food, and Meaghan and Dave led us to one of the pubs near the Snow Dome (one of the stranger things to find in a place such as Milton Keynes). We ate a great hearty meal before heading back to their place.
It wasn't too suprising that we ended up sleeping for most of the afternoon, which worked out well actually as we were heading back into town for a big bender for the night. A taxi drove us in, and after being sniffed by a sniffer dog and given the seal of approval, we were let into the noisy Lloyds bar. Plenty of Meaghan and Dave's friends were on hand to chat to, but overall the place was too packed and over-noisy to get much chatting done with heads more than one foot apart.
We set off about 1am to find a cab back to their place and crash for the evening.

(customised)