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[Archived] BRFCS Podcast 28


Guest Wen Y Hu

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Guest Wen Y Hu

In BRFCS Podcast 28, Wen Y Hu interviews a group of Rovers fans down under in Sydney at a get-together at the Lord Nelson pub organised by Dave Birch. Nine Rovers fans living in Australia took part in the inaugural meeting of a Rovers supporters group, headed by John Leigh, who had flown down to Sydney from Brisbane for the occasion. Dave and John were joined by other members of the BRFCS forum: Crazy Ivan and Mrs Crazy Ivan, Sydney Rover, Robbo, Purplegrover, Abacusman and getskills.

After a discussion with John about the outcome of the meeting, there are interviews with the fans, who talk about their support of Rovers and their views on the current plight of the club.

The podcast will be published to the front page in due course.

It is also available via the following link. Just paste the link into your browser address bar.

http://brfcspod.brfcsltd.netdna-cdn.com/BRFCS-28.mp3

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Thanks for this, Wen. Refreshing to have some perspective from the other side of the world.

Enjoyed what Robbo had to say. He sounds like a character. I think Abacusman had one too many, though. :D

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Amazing what someone can do with two tin cans, a piece of string, some chewing gum, a soggy coaster, 9 pints of lager, and a disillusioned scotsman. Whoever would have thought that you could combine those ingredients in a hat, simmer for 15 mins on a low heat - and churn out a podcast as the end result ? Nice work Wen !

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My patchy recount of the days events....

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but come Sunday morning as I peeled my eyes open...

Actually I was amazed my hangover wasn’t off the scale – some credit for this must go to the Lord Nelson, because I certainly drank enough to deserve a ‘doomsday’ scenario on Sunday.

I travelled down to meet my good mate Robbo, a guy who had started out as a stranger during my visit to watch rovers last August, soon moved on to acquaintance, then became a friend. Now, in true Aussie tradition, I firmly regard Robbo as a ‘mate’.

It’s this type of camaraderie that persuaded me to get up at 3:15am and fly for a hour and half to Sydney. Ostensibly the reason for the trip was to commemorate Wen Y Hu’s Australian Tour – but there was other business to attend to as well.... Rovers Business!!

After arriving in the Rocks, we walked up to The Lord Nelson pub. The first familiar face I saw was Dave Birch, I’m not sure if he exists outside of the Lord Nelson, I’ve never seen him anywhere else but there – and sure enough once again he didn’t disappoint

Young Mr Birch was entertaining a couple of unfamiliar faces, both wearing blue and white so god was in his heaven and all was well with the world!

When one of these faces turned to speak to me all I could hear was “I’m Wen Y Hu and I’d like to welcome you...”

My immediate reaction was to reach for a drink, so Robbo got the first shout in – two pints of Three Sheets To The Wind – oh how very apt...

Given my early start and the good quality beer (threesh eets) it wasn’t long before I was being a proper Gobbiner and talking reet Lanky, which was OK because Robbo was soon talking like Rab C Nesbitt.

We talked and talked and drank and drank free sheets, then we talked some more.

For some of the Rovers fans such as Sassman to be assaulted by our broad accents must have been a bit overwhelming, but fair play to him he was up to the challenge!

On a serious note it was good to have Sassman there with his obvious Vital link – was great to have everybody together, no matter what www.blah you prefer

Wen was curious as to the origin of the name Purple G Rover – it took some explaining from his Purpleness the Grover to point out it is actually PurpleGrover – and that was good enough reason to have another beer – another 3sh eets please.

Abacusman and Tony were great value – true Rovers fans and very easy to warm to – the banter was soon ripping around the place. Is Tony Getskills? I matched 99% of the usernames but Getskills eluded me...

Crazy Ivan & Mrs Ivan – are still fresh of the boat and loving it in Sydney, both ex Blackburn End Season Ticket holders – apparently Crazy Ivan has a good story to tell of why he’s a Rovers fan, but with all that was going on it never got told - if you want to know more just come along to the next one and we’ll all find out together!

Random Russell was also there – Russell didn’t even know this meet up had been arranged - he just happened to be in the pub while we were there and obviously soon became part of the group! – How weird is that?

The Pub was packed all day, real English feel to the pub, brilliant location, real good atmosphere and what appeared to be good food – but we were too busy talking and drinking to bother with food – remember eating’s cheating!

And have I mentioned the freesh eats?

Now early memories are quite clear but as we move through the day things blur, I recall there was one or maybe two wedding parties came into the pub, and another one we waved at out of the window and later on I shook another grooms hand and wished them all the best...

Heads were turned when a couple of hen parties arrived on a treasure hunt – the first one was more eye catching than the second, but still nobody complained – Purplegrover can tell you more about that....

Then I had another pint – tree sheets?

I honestly can’t remember the exact sequence of events, but in my mind the next thing to happen was we all tried to get serious and talk about Rovers supporters in Australia and New Zealand

You’re probably aware that there has been an attempt to develop some sort of communication channel for all of us in this part of the world who pledge allegiance to the boys in blue & white – this has initially taken the form of an email list and various followers on Twitter - we’re now ready to take this to the next level. After exploring options with BRFCS and Vital Blackburn we have been offered a place as a sub forum on BRFCS – this will be live in time for the Wolves away game on 10th March.

We ‘decided’ on a name for our loose band of Blackburn blue and white brothers – this took quite a while as we discussed the merits of various ideas – it took probably 2 pints of time – six sheets?

We ended up with BRANZ Blackburn Rovers Australia New Zealand.

There’s no Supporters club or group or association or any other suffix due to numerous complications – we also didn’t have a vote on the name as we felt that would not be representative, and also if we start voting then by implication we’re a body and we have to start thinking about presidents and all that type of politics that we strongly want to avoid.

Maybe when we get our own web pages up and running we might be able to re-visit all this, if enough people wish, but nobody strongly objected to what was put forward so we left it at that – phew!!!!!!!

Time for another drink – she threets pleash

At this point Wen pulled his thing out and put it on the table – this might have been just after discussing Mardi Gras 

In an interesting development Wen next asked us all outside...

We stepped out into the beautiful mid afternoon Sydney Sunshine where the heat was almost overbearing....

Well actually it was persistently raining, bucketing/chucking/p!ssing/throwing/lashing it down, coming down in stair-rods, and the only thing we wiped from the brow was precipitation not perspiration. We would have stayed in the pub but Wen had had stage fright and was struggling to get his tackle to work because of all the background noise – I told you it was a busy pub!

We were privileged to hear those immortal words; “I’m Wen Y Hu, welcome to BRFCS” – an audience with Wen – a dream come true – me, a media whore! Jim had fixed it for me!! – a drink to celebrate – a pint of three whatevers :D

We talked what was probably a load of old tripe – tap room talk – it may be rubbish but I really do miss being able to spend hours just talking Rovers rubbish to somebody who’s prepared to listen and actually understands what it is I’m twittering on about – very therapeutic!! :blush:

Wen recorded lots of stuff and I doubt any of it will ever see the light of day on a podcast, it must have been funny really seeing all these drunk guys attempting to be very earnest and eloquent trying to shelter in a door way in a big huddle. Robbo deserves a name check here and will be forever immortalized for managing to fit both ‘crap’ and ‘crapper’ into the same sentence – and yes he was talking about the Rovers :angry::D

Anyhow - let’s get back inside – I’ll have a three sheaves please mate

The next thing I knew it was getting dark and some had to leave and go back to the real world – I preferred to stay in my blue and white bubble and thankfully I wasn’t alone.

We drank and talked on and on – I don’t have to do any more bad beer puns because by now the bar staff knew exactly what we were drinking and we didn’t have to ask... although I do remember having a random pint of cider with Wen – a change is as good as a rest they say!

Having substituted lunch and dinner for beer we thought that it might be good to have some supper – so we moved to a great Indian restaurant which was literally just across the road. Excellent food – highly recommended. And just for something different I had a Cobra beer instead of a three sheets!

After this we must have walked down towards circular quay because the next thing I remember is being in a tiny packed pub called the Fortune of War which claims to be the oldest in Sydney.

Naturally we decided to sample the Landlords wares (Toohey’s New I think...) and proceeded to talk more crap, reminisce and generally put the blue and white world to rights. We did witness an unsavoury site here, I wish my mind could erase it, but what has been seen can never be unseen...

I just hope it didn’t spoil Wen’s visit :rolleyes:

And that’s about all folks. If you’ve persevered to the end of this you must like drinking, good company and talking Rovers – so no doubt you’ll be interested in the next event – Brisbane on a date TBA - or it just makes more sense to arrange your own state get together and get to know each other a bit better!

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This time last week we were well into the session.

It was great to meet you all and it was an excellent afternoon on the ale. Top curry too. Not too sure if we needed the extra beers in the Fortune if War though.

Anyway, I've got a few photos that I'll endeavour to upload onto the new BRANZ pages from inside the Lord Nelson and I think Wen has a few as well.

See you at the next gathering!!!

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Does anyone know if podcast 29 was recorded today and when it is likely to be on the site after yesterdays clean sheet kamy must have thought it was a dream I know I had to check if this was the right scoreline or a windup after this I would have thought there would be a lot to talk about and positive for once!.

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