[wellard]

That was a good point about the fans Johnny. At major sporting events in Australia (of which soccer is too small to be counted) there is no fan segregation at all which can seem a bit strange at first to those from Europe but it works very well. One week you can be surrounded by opposition fans and get a serve of funny comments or friendly abuse and next week it can be reversed with no worries. The only time there is trouble is at the small state based soccer games when ethnic (Croation/greek/serbian) tensions rise. And that has been one of the reasons that soccer has never been accepted by mainstream 'Australian' public and gets dismissed as 'wogball'.

Hopefully this world cup along with some recent major changes to our national soccer league will help break that "its just a game for ethnics" mindset and bring soccer into the hearts of all Australians.