Captains Log. Star Date 16.06.05 NSW V QLD. 25yrs ago it all began!! The age old battle on the footy (rugby-whatever!) field!! New South Wales vs Queensland. The State of Origin. The biggest footy game that happens over here, bigger than australia vs anyone... it happens but once a year and invloves all the best players from all the teams in QLD and NSW playing against eachother. It doesnt matter what league team you play for, its where you were born that counts!!!! : ) So the first game was played up in Brisbane in the Suncorp stadium where QLD won, so this was an important game for NSW as they had to win to play the third and final game... Kick off was at 8pm, the trains running to the stadium were all free and packed full of people in blue (NSW) there was a real atmosphere on the way there, and just mega amounts of people milling around outside the stadium once we arrived. The game was a sell out, I was very lucky to have gotten a ticket! We wandered into the stadium to revel in the fact that our $115 had infact bought us some pretty good seats (result!) and I was instantly introduced to Comrade (never did actually find out what his real name was, but he and everyone else in the world was called Comrade!) a 'cockroach' (QLD fan) Thats another thing that was so sweet and would only happen in Australia, all the fans were sitting together, there were no separations like you'd find at football at home, and I didn't witness one fight, so thats some going hey!??? Anyway, considering that there was a 2 beer per person rule I was thoroughly inpressed at Comrades drunkeness at 745pm, very impressed indeed!! He decreased steadily into more of a stupor as the evening went on, he wasn't there much of the second half, but then being a cockroach I don't suppose he was really that worried as they were losing by then!! QLD were winning at half time, and NSW did well to come back and win by 10 in the end. It was really quite chilly even with my layers and scottish scarf, not even the beers were warming me up!! The evening as a whole was really good, I feel lucky to have gone to the 25th anniversary (they lit the Opera House blue for it, for one night only-thats how big of a deal State of Origin is!) the atmosphere in the stadium was awesome, although the only thing I thought was a bit of a shame, was no crowd singing, there was an ocasional chant of 'New South Wales' and a couple of half hearted attempts at a mexican wave that never reached the whole way round... dissapointing! The total attendance there for the night was 82,389 people... All in all a really good experience! Over and out xxx