Boxing Day Ashes and the Barmy Army

I was incredibly lucky to be able to spend Christmas in Melbourne which was very exciting as I'd never been to Australia before.  As I kept telling my hosts and fiance my only reference points before my trip were Neighbours and Home and Away so to please excuse me if I asked stupid questions!

Well more of the rest of my trip shortly though needless to say I had a fantastic time.  However I wanted to share my Boxing Day experience of a trip to the Ashes test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (or MCG as I'm reliably informed it is called).

I am not a cricket fan really, nor can I claim to understand it much beyond the basic concept and the scoring and being able to recognise if a team hasn't scored many runs (and therefore not done particularly well) in relation to the number of people out.  My previous experiences of cricket only being that my Grandfather enjoyed it as did my friend's Gran.  I can recall several school summer holidays at hers when all my friend and I wanted to do was escape the tedium of endless days of nothing but cricket on TV.  So I wasn't sure what to expect from my day at the cricket beforehand, however it turned out to be a really great day.

I'm sure my enjoyment was helped no end by the fact that England played exceptionally well and I along with all the other England supporters I'm sure left the ground very proud of their achievements.  In addition to this our seats were right besides the Barmy Army so there was a brilliant atmosphere throughout the day, especially as the beer flowed and the result got better and better.  Our seating was slightly ironic given that our tickets had been purchased months before by our Australian friend, poor thing there were four English people with him all having a brilliant time.  I'm sure he'd have rather been sitting anywhere but next to the Barmy Army but he took it all in good spirits!

For my first experience of a cricket match it was a good one and yes I may even be persuaded to take more of an interest in it as a sport in the future.  I definitely hope if I ever go again that England play as well as they did on Boxing Day.