I had been excited for weeks in the lead up to the Australia vs France rugby match to be played at Stade de France. Anneliese and I bought tickets as soon as they become available from Fnac and finally the day had come! After our dismal effort in the soccer, finally a chance has come for le pays des kangarous to prove themselves!
We started off our evening going to Café Oz, our favourite pub, to have a Tooheys and apply our Australia tattoos (that Annie’s parents had brought over back in September, as well as an enormous Aussie flag and jersey) in the bathroom as le coup d’envoi (kick-off) wasn’t until 8:45pm.
Unsure as to whether there would be pre-match entertainment we arrived almost 2 hours before the game. The train was packed and, rather interestingly, people still spoke to us both entirely in French, although we were quite obviously Australian. The stadium is the north of Paris in a place called St Denis, almost the Broadmeadows of Paris, quite the rough spot, so I’m not to sure why they chose to build the stadium there as I’m sure no one would dare go for a pre-match drink on the streets of St Denis. Anyway we made our way in, got our tickets ripped (though we were slightly thrown when the usher told us that our tickets were fakes before giving us a cheeky smile) and found our seats rather easily and waited with our teeth chattering as it was around 0 degrees, what a perfect night for the rugby!
Before I left the house that afternoon, Bruno, my boss, told me that tonight was France’s chance as Australia always wins plus this time France had the home advantage plus us Aussies are used to the cold. A few minutes after leaving the house I realised I had forgotten something and ducked back in. As soon as I came back through the door little Paul came rushing up and was like ‘What did you forget??!’, Bruno slyly replied ‘her tissues, she’ll be needing them night’
Not an Aussie in sight….
During the anthem Anneliese and I tried to make up for the lack of Aussies by singing extremely loudly but totally messed up the words (it has been quite some time since I’ve sung it) much to the enjoyment of the Frenchies around us who began to fim us). The game started off pretty exciting and by half time is was a draw, thirteen all. I have to admit I was rather nervous and we certainly were expected to win…how was I supposed to go home that night if we lost???
Luckily the second half was a walk over, I spent most of my time on my feet, yelling and singing in both English and French (again much to the enjoyment of the people around us) and waving the flag. It was rather bittersweet. It the final moments, with the score being 59 to 16 Annie and I started to sing ‘On a gagné, on a gagné’, a popular French chant meaning ‘We won,we won.’ The Frenchies didn’t know what to think, these Aussies singing in THEIR language, a kick in the face it must’ve felt like!
On the way to the métro we kept chanting either ‘On a gagné’ or ‘Aussie, aussie, aussie’ and waving our flag. We only saw about 4 other Aussies. It felt great being the minority. The trip home was rather joyful. As we waited in a long tunnel to get through to the métro there were hundreds of silent Frenchies so Anneliese and I felt that it was the perfect time to start another round of ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie.’ It was brilliant, there was absolute total silence and then we started up, EVERYONE was looking at us and A) shaking their heads or B) laughing their heads off. They weren’t complete sore losers though, so many people came up and congratulated us.
Once we finally got on the train we were again sardined in and in the complete silence of a train full of Frenchies we again started up ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie’ before an old French man next to us replied ‘Aie,aie,aie’ (ouch,ouch,ouch) with his hand dramatically placed over his heart. Classic. The next stop we did the same thing and a couple next to us turn and say ‘Right you two off’ before the whole carriage burst out laughing. We weren’t done yet though and started again to chant ‘On a gagné’ before yelling out ‘Come on, everybody..on a …..’ and they all replied ‘On a perdu, on a perdu’ (We lost)
Getting a whole carraige of Froggies to sing ‘We lost’, priceless.
