So, today Pauline, James and I had planned to watch the Aussies battle the English, our vanquishers in the final of the 2003 World Cup Final, with Pauline and I hoping that the Aussies would get a little revenge on the English and take the game. Sadly, it was not meant to be. The signs were really all there from beginning when we didn’t find a venue to watch the match until well in the first half despite turning up at the Walkabout an hour and a half before the match began!

James and I met up at 12.30pm at Temple Walkabout, the match started at 2, and by then, even though it had only been open for about half an hour, it was already heaving. Pauline was meeting us later so in a not so brilliant move and with our stomachs leading us James and I thought we would leave and go for a quick walk to Embankment to grab some lunch first. By the time we got back to Temple at around 1.30pm the line to get in was huge and was going nowhere very fast. Pauline and I headed up to the front of the queue to see what the odds of us getting in were and we got a resounding Not A Chance from the bouncer. You can see just what James and Pauline thought about this:

We decided to cut our losses and try other venues so we tried Porterhouse which was absolutely manic inside and out but especially down in the basement. The funniest moment was when we were trying to find somewhere to stand down in the basement and it was so crowded that you literally had to push people out of your way to even get anywhere and suddenly Pauline and I lost James. To this day we don’t even know how it happened but all I know was that suddenly all I could see over Pauline’s head were some really tall people. From there we went on to try the Covent Garden Walkabout which had its own line to get in and finally we headed back to the Bell and Compass where, even though we didn’t have the greatest view of the TV and at all times weren’t really sure what the score were, at least we had some seats.

As you can probably tell the game wasn’t the greatest (from an Aussie point of view) so what all this blog entry has been about is our journey to the pub. After the game we decided to head back to Temple Walkabout to see what was going on. What a surprise – yet another line to get in. We waited it out this time and managed to make it in. Crazy. Our lesson from this is get there at opening or get there early and get one of the stamps that allows re-entry which James demonstrates below. And if you really care – England took the game without scoring a try 12-10: