All of the Darwin area local football leagues start up again in April and this game was the first in the Women’s League.
Despite the lunchtime start, Jen and I had plenty of time to pay a visit to the Crocodylus Park on the outskirts of Darwin, which as you might have suspected, is a park full of crocodiles. If you’ve ever been to Gatorland in Florida, it’s a bit like that, although you couldn’t feed the inmates with raw sausages at Crocodylus in the way that you can at its American counterpart. Possibly because sausages, or ‘snags’ as they call them over here are too highly regarded in Australia to be lobbed at reptiles.
We did watch a keeper feeding the crocs and we got to hold a small one with its mouth taped up, so it was a worthwhile morning. They had other stuff too, a few lions, some dingoes and a colony of meerkats. I could watch meerkats all day.
We had to pay ten dollars to watch the women’s match which is probably the first time that either of the teams had played in a game with an admission charge. It was because the game was taking place on the Larrakia pitch nr 2, which shared an entrance gate with the main pitch and which was hosting the final game in the East Timor Cup later that day.
One team was in red and the other in black and white squares. I should really have asked someone which team was which, but to be honest, I wasn’t interested. The black and white team were the stronger and in the first twenty minutes or so the ball was rarely in their half.
I counted eleven spectators, including a bloke who was videoing proceedings and so I suspect had some sort of connection to one of the teams. If not, he was a sucker for punishment as it was bad enough having to watch the game live, never mind the thought of watching it all again at home.
The Number 2 pitch backed onto the main stadium and whilst you could have watched the game from the rear of the big stand facing the other way, a small ‘bus shelter’ stand was provided. It probably held fifty, which was more than ample for today’s attendance.
The red keeper made a couple of decent saves before the black and whites went a goal up. I’d had enough before we even got to half-time as the standard was probably poorer than any game I’ve ever seen.
No shame in that though and it’s good to see people enjoying themselves. For half an hour so at least anyway.
Tags: Casuarina, Crocodylus, Darwin, Litchfield
Trail of the Lion King 
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