{"id":19649,"date":"2016-04-10T19:09:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-10T09:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=19649"},"modified":"2016-04-10T19:09:44","modified_gmt":"2016-04-10T09:09:44","slug":"a-weekend-in-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=19649","title":{"rendered":"A Weekend In Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"kitsandscarves\"<\/a><\/p>\n

T<\/span>his weekend, Jen and I flew down to Melbourne for Brisbane Roar’s final game of the season. \u00a0After an extremely tight final few rounds of the competition, it came down to a simple equation. \u00a0Win and the Premiere’s Plate is ours. \u00a0Lose and it goes to Adelaide United.<\/p>\n

Despite being a member for six years, neither Jen nor I have had an opportunity to see a Brisbane Roar away game, even when there was a Gold Coast team in the competition. \u00a0Seeing them play in a must-win premiereship deciding match against the biggest team in the competition seemed like as good a game as any to be the first.<\/p>\n

We flew in Saturday afternoon which gave us a few hours to kill before kick off.<\/p>\n

We popped into\u00a0Nieuw Amsterdam<\/a><\/strong> on Hardware Street in the city. \u00a0They served some pretty excellent American style diner food and had a beer selection that was 30 labels strong. \u00a0We had a beef brisket, chicken ribs and a cheese burger. \u00a0Plus Ciders and IPAs.<\/p>\n

\"nieuxamsterdamsign\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"nieuxamsterdam\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"laphroaigicecream\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For dessert we had this deconstructed cheesecake thing which had Laphroiag marmalade. \u00a0It was pretty tasty let me tell you.<\/p>\n

True to its reputation, Melbourne’s cafe culture is full of brilliant places like this that are innocuously tucked away in laneways and full of stupidly good food and drink.<\/p>\n

Pre-game, the Roar fans met up at The Irish Daily. \u00a0There was about a hundred Roar fans there making plenty of noise and getting super excited about the impending game. \u00a0It was great having a chance to chat and interact with some of the club’s most diehard fans. \u00a0I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of the Den singing in full voice at the bar but I assume something will pop up online and I’ll add it to this post later. \u00a0The only picture I got was a selfie catching up with my old friend Suellen who only recently moved from Brisbane to Melbourne.<\/p>\n

\"edosuellen\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"aamiparkexterior\"<\/a><\/p>\n

AAMI Park is situated near the city and is about a kilometre away from Federation Square. \u00a0The venue is quite striking at night time and looks amazing lit up in Victory’s colours. \u00a0For most Brisbane Roar fans, a big item on the wishlist is the chance to move away from Suncorp Stadium (which is way too big for our fan base) and play at a venue that holds 20-30k. \u00a0AAMI Park is the perfect sort of venue. \u00a0Every seat is close to the action. \u00a0The domed exterior creates a terrific cauldron effect so the noise of the fans really reverberates around the grounds. \u00a0And of course, there was a fantastic atmosphere on the night as the Roar fans filled out the entire Away Fans\u00a0bay which is situated right by the Northern Terrace (Melbourne Victory’s active supporter bay). \u00a0All night long there were\u00a0duelling chants, back and forth banter and a really edge to the atmosphere. \u00a0Perfect theatre.<\/p>\n

\"aamipark\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"edojennimatt\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course the night itself didn’t quite go to plan.<\/p>\n

\"cryingroarlady\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"bigmac\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But that’s okay.<\/p>\n

The team has had an incredible season and I’m proud of everything they accomplished. \u00a0At the start of the season most of us were just hoping we wouldn’t finish last. \u00a0Instead the team gave us one hell of a ride. \u00a0Next week the finals campaign begins and first up is a do-or-die home game against Melbourne Victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A weekend trip away to Melbourne for Brisbane Roar’s final game of the season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1804],"tags":[2488,342,852,1389,1792],"class_list":["post-19649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel-blog","tag-aami-park","tag-brisbane-roar","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-victory","tag-premieres-plate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19649"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19662,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19649\/revisions\/19662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}