Could I possibly start this post by offering a small and simple piece of advice? If you are checking out of a hotel at 10am, and then have significant plans for the afternoon, it is not a very sensible idea to stay in a nightclub until 7.30am the same day.
Ok, now you know not to do that. On Sunday I headed off to visit another iconic Australian attraction, another image of this country that I have known since I was a nipper - the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The MCG has a capacity of 101,000 and, perhaps not surprisingly, is the largest cricket ground in the world. For years I have seen it on tele and gasped at its sheer size, hoping one day to explore it. If I wasn't so hungover/still pissed from the previous evening's festivities, I reckon I might have even been excited as I approached one of the biggest sporting venues known to mankind...
I should point out the MCG is more than just a cricket ground. In actual fact, cricket isn't even the principal sport that is played here. Australia play their obligatory amount of test and one day international cricket, and Victoria compete against other states. But there are four Aussie Rules Melbourne teams that also call this home - and often there are two games played in the same day at this place. It doesn't end there. Other Melbourne Aussie rules teams not based here sometimes have their fixtures switched to the MCG depending on how big the game is. There are forthcoming rugby and real football games coming up at this stadium too. It was also the principal venue for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the 1956 Olympics and large music tours. It has staged political rallies, religious festivals and Rolling Stones concerts. There probably isn't a sport or event that hasn't been staged here. During World War II - and this is honestly true - this stadium was even used as a giant army camp site. It has now got to the point where I struggle to think of anything that can possibly take place anywhere else in Australia. If someone told me the annual Kangaroo bumming competition was taking place in Brisbane and not at the MCG, I would laugh in their face...
For one parargraph, I would like to transport you back to the UK. Consider for a moment what I have just described. One stadium in one city catering for a multitude of sports, teams and traditions. Now contrast it with London. We have, finally, taken delivery of the new 90,000 seater Wembley stadium for football. We have a similar sized stadium for rugby union in Twickenham. We are about to build a 90,000 seat stadium for the 2012 Olympics. Arsenal have just moved into their new 60,000 stadium. Tottenham, Chelsea and West Ham are all contemplating new stadia or massive re-development. The Oval Cricket Ground is about to undergo another refurbishment and extension. Then there is, of course, Lords and - this is a back of a fag packet guess -another seven or eight football grounds. Oh and then there's the Crystal Palace athletics stadium.
Welcome back to Australia and the MCG. I will leave it entirely up to you what you make of the comparison between London and Melbourne I have just made. What the MCG does prove, however, is that it is possible for people to feel a sense of attachment to the stadium even if it is shared with other teams and sports. The MCG is understandably something that people are very proud of, and it makes you wonder why it is that we seem so attached to the need for every sports team to have its own ground. When I get to the MCG I am informed there is a half hour wait for the next tour to start. With a lack of anything better to do, I decide to visit the toilet so I can list this famous venue on my 'interesting places where I've had a dump' list. The most incredible thing about the bogs at the MCG is how impeccably clean they are - you wouldn't have thought anybody had ever used them before. It was like using the bathroom at a luxury hotel. Unbelievable. I am quite sure this is an experience I will look back on ironically the next time I'm in the away fans section of Selhurst Park...
Our guide on the tour is an elderly chap who prides himself on knowing every possible fact and figure about the ground. There were, surprisingly, a group of young Germans looking round the stadium, which came as something of a surprise given that I'm not sure cricket and Aussie Rules football have caught on in Dresden. The old chap seemed to take some kind of perverse pleasure from making absolutely sure we were told everything there is to need to know about the memorial to Australians killed in the Second World War...
All in all the stadium is breathtakingly spectacular. It is popular and used regularly. In the UK we will soon start to construct our new Olympic Stadium, which will probably be mostly demolished and reduced to a 30,000 ground once the javelin throwing is over - and all because nobody can agree on what its principal use should be post-2012. Shocking.
