Drinking My Way Through the World Cup: Opening Night at The Crown
Oh, how the shitty has fallen even further.
These words shot through my mind last Friday night as I sat at The Crown, sipping urine-y Korean beer and waiting for the current proprietor of the place attempt to find the opening game of the World Cup. This was it, the first day of humankind's biggest sporting event, and the man had made absolutely no preparation to show the games. It's as if he was totally unaware that the tournament was happening at all.
"Pat, please. We wanna watch the game."
"Well I've run through the channels twice now and don't see it. I don't think it's on."
"What do you mean it's not on?" chimed in big Kiwi Sean. "How could they not show The World Cup? This is Korea, they're crazy about the fucking thing, at least until their team gets eliminated, when all of the nation's TV's suddenly switch back to baseball games..."
"I'm tryin', I'm tryin'." He held us at bay with his nasal, Chicago honk.
"There it is! Stop." Bright green grass. Advertising logos. Excited Korean commentary. Black and brown guys sweating.
And so it began. Sure, the teams were already ten minutes into the game, but we could now sit back and fatten ourselves with beer while watching younger, fitter men kick a ball around a green field.
"What's that sound?"
"What sound?"
"The hundred swarm of bees noise coming from the crowd."
"Vuzuve... zuzuve... vesuvi... I can't be fucked to pronounce it, but they're some sort of South African horn they place during the soccer. Abominations, if you ask me." Sean sipped from his omnipresent beer and went back to talking about rugby with his mate Russell. It seems that the All Blacks were fielding a good squad this year.
Four years ago The Crown was ground zero for the World Cup among expats in Busan. Another New Zealander, Craig, owned the place at that time, and he was a soccer (or football, depending on your preference) maniac. He was especially nuts about the English Premier League team Liverpool, and made the bar a LFC supporters headquarters of sorts. All the games were played and the boys would gather, drink, scream at the TV and abuse each other. All and all, not a bad day to pass two hours on a weekend night. Once the World Cup came around, Craig organized pools and mid-game bets. All the matches were shown and you could be guaranteed that at least a couple of heads would be downing shitty beer and taking in a game even at the most obscene hours. The Crown was the place to see the games; the owner gave a shit and so did the patrons, with the exception of Scouser Stu, the most rabid of all Korea-based Liverpool fans, who used the World Cup as an excuse to go off on football delitantes.
"Fuck the World Cup. It's shite. The bar fills up with a load of tits - fat Canadian and Yank bellends who know nothing about footie but suddenly become experts once every four years. I'm tellin' ya la', they're a bunch of amateurs. Jog on."
Mea culpa, mea culpa. I can't pretend to know that much about soccer - in fact, like many Americans, I spent much of my life actively loathing it. Boring. Somehow fey. UnAmerican. It wasn't until the mid 90's, after a trip to England and making friends with some European sorts that I came around and became interested - shallowly as it may be - in the game. But four years ago I was firmly entrenched in a new foreign land surrounded with real soccer-loving people. I was a real live expat and the motherfuckin' World Cup was on. I was going to embrace it with a fervor and The Crown was the place to do it.
But here we are, four years later, and The Crown is still around, only a haggard shell of what it used to be - which, was, originally, a shitty, smoky little wannabe pub filled with bitter men gulping awful beer. It's been through a couple of owners, an abortion of a remodel, and now just limps along like half-maimed prey. The English and Irish soccer fans that used to descend onto the place for their fix now go elsewhere. I still go there, along with about four other guys, but the magic has since evaporated; the rabbit is dead and rotting in the hat.
We watched the opening match in it's entirety, in which South Africa, the hosts, drew with the much stronger Mexico. Draws are common in the first round and can be tough for some people - especially we winner-take-all obsessed Americans - to digest. But the game was enough for us to become the back seat soccer experts that the likes of Scouser Stu hate so much, and with each gulp of Cass we waxed futuristic about each team's prospects, and even attempted to predict outcomes for some big games, which is just a silly thing to do. In short, we got drunk, which is what one always does at The Crown, whether the World Cup is on or not. In that respect, the bar hasn't changed so much.
These words shot through my mind last Friday night as I sat at The Crown, sipping urine-y Korean beer and waiting for the current proprietor of the place attempt to find the opening game of the World Cup. This was it, the first day of humankind's biggest sporting event, and the man had made absolutely no preparation to show the games. It's as if he was totally unaware that the tournament was happening at all.
"Pat, please. We wanna watch the game."
"Well I've run through the channels twice now and don't see it. I don't think it's on."
"What do you mean it's not on?" chimed in big Kiwi Sean. "How could they not show The World Cup? This is Korea, they're crazy about the fucking thing, at least until their team gets eliminated, when all of the nation's TV's suddenly switch back to baseball games..."
"I'm tryin', I'm tryin'." He held us at bay with his nasal, Chicago honk.
"There it is! Stop." Bright green grass. Advertising logos. Excited Korean commentary. Black and brown guys sweating.
And so it began. Sure, the teams were already ten minutes into the game, but we could now sit back and fatten ourselves with beer while watching younger, fitter men kick a ball around a green field.
"What's that sound?"
"What sound?"
"The hundred swarm of bees noise coming from the crowd."
"Vuzuve... zuzuve... vesuvi... I can't be fucked to pronounce it, but they're some sort of South African horn they place during the soccer. Abominations, if you ask me." Sean sipped from his omnipresent beer and went back to talking about rugby with his mate Russell. It seems that the All Blacks were fielding a good squad this year.
Four years ago The Crown was ground zero for the World Cup among expats in Busan. Another New Zealander, Craig, owned the place at that time, and he was a soccer (or football, depending on your preference) maniac. He was especially nuts about the English Premier League team Liverpool, and made the bar a LFC supporters headquarters of sorts. All the games were played and the boys would gather, drink, scream at the TV and abuse each other. All and all, not a bad day to pass two hours on a weekend night. Once the World Cup came around, Craig organized pools and mid-game bets. All the matches were shown and you could be guaranteed that at least a couple of heads would be downing shitty beer and taking in a game even at the most obscene hours. The Crown was the place to see the games; the owner gave a shit and so did the patrons, with the exception of Scouser Stu, the most rabid of all Korea-based Liverpool fans, who used the World Cup as an excuse to go off on football delitantes.
"Fuck the World Cup. It's shite. The bar fills up with a load of tits - fat Canadian and Yank bellends who know nothing about footie but suddenly become experts once every four years. I'm tellin' ya la', they're a bunch of amateurs. Jog on."
Mea culpa, mea culpa. I can't pretend to know that much about soccer - in fact, like many Americans, I spent much of my life actively loathing it. Boring. Somehow fey. UnAmerican. It wasn't until the mid 90's, after a trip to England and making friends with some European sorts that I came around and became interested - shallowly as it may be - in the game. But four years ago I was firmly entrenched in a new foreign land surrounded with real soccer-loving people. I was a real live expat and the motherfuckin' World Cup was on. I was going to embrace it with a fervor and The Crown was the place to do it.
But here we are, four years later, and The Crown is still around, only a haggard shell of what it used to be - which, was, originally, a shitty, smoky little wannabe pub filled with bitter men gulping awful beer. It's been through a couple of owners, an abortion of a remodel, and now just limps along like half-maimed prey. The English and Irish soccer fans that used to descend onto the place for their fix now go elsewhere. I still go there, along with about four other guys, but the magic has since evaporated; the rabbit is dead and rotting in the hat.
We watched the opening match in it's entirety, in which South Africa, the hosts, drew with the much stronger Mexico. Draws are common in the first round and can be tough for some people - especially we winner-take-all obsessed Americans - to digest. But the game was enough for us to become the back seat soccer experts that the likes of Scouser Stu hate so much, and with each gulp of Cass we waxed futuristic about each team's prospects, and even attempted to predict outcomes for some big games, which is just a silly thing to do. In short, we got drunk, which is what one always does at The Crown, whether the World Cup is on or not. In that respect, the bar hasn't changed so much.