Sorry not a lot of text for this post, will add more later but for now here are some photos of a fun night out. Bahraini people are incredibly good sports (we could learn a lot from their attitude) and after the match every Bahraini we walked past (several 100 or so) had nothing but positive things to say eg Welcome to Bahrain New Zealand, Come again soon, Good game, Good luck for next game, Thank you for coming to our country, and lots of Wooooooohoooo yay New Zealand etc etc. For the 30minute walk back to car it was like being a star, everyone was hooting car horns and cheering at us. I mean seriously can you imagine a bunch of Aussies saying similar things to us after a rugby match??? More likely to try to run us down or throw beer bottles at us!! There were 100's of people everywhere all trying to walk to cars, drive cars, it was chaos and they were all happy as - something to be said for no alcohol.
Anyhow, here are some piccies and video (purely to get an idea of how much noise Bahraini supporters were making - for the ENTIRE match plus the hour or so before it started). Crap doesn't look like the video will upload - watch this space while I attempt to fix that.
We met at the Polytechnic carpark and walked for 30minutes to the National Stadium, mixture of Kiwi supporters, Bahraini supporters (staff and students) plus the odd Irish/Australian person wearing new acquired Bahraini football shirts!
Game was great to be at; damn hot night everyone was looking pretty hot and bothered, wonder how the team coped - seemed to be a lot of water consumption going on down on the pitch.
Good one sided crowd, the marching band marched out to play both national anthems, it took nearly till the end of ours for us to realise that the very faint music in background was God of Nations, followed by full volume Bahrain national anthem, complete with HUGE flag being raised. No favourites there at all.
The following night most of us Kiwis got an invite from NZ trade commissioner and the NZ ambassador for drinkies and a chance to meet the team down town at a hotel. Good night was had and we toasted the NZ tax payers for the wine and nibbles.
Have to agree - the Red fan's and team were great to talk too, in Wellington. Lucky enough to see them in Midland Park with the musicians and supposedly Bahrain TV filmed my 2 year old dancing to the music, he loved it. They gave us a heap of goodies from the airline and also books about Bahrain. Unfortunately someone had to lose, good luck for next time.
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