Season Guide - Australia - Hilton Racing

It began early, with a trip to the Royal Melbourne Golf Club, Australia’s oldest golf course, widely regarded to be the best in the southern hemisphere. Having taken the scenic route through the southern suburbs of St Kilda and Elwood, I hacked my way around the stunning west course. Sensibly, kangaroos hopped to a safe haven – the green – where they would be safe from any low-flying balls.

As I searched for my many lost balls at least I could appreciate the acacias, cypress and eucalyptus trees that adorn each fairway. My score of 112 was shameful to any golfer at the Royal Melbourne, but not to a cricketer at the MCG, which is where I headed for an afternoon’s pleasure.

Although to the outside world the 100,000 capacity MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) is most famous for its Boxing Day test matches, to the locals the MCG (or “The G”) is the home of AFL (Aussie Rules Footie).

Out of the 16 teams who play in the nation’s league, ten stem from Victoria, with four – Melbourne, Richmond, Collingwood and Hawthorn – all sharing the MCG. Virtually a whole sport, which consistently attracts crowds of 80,000-plus, is confined to one city, and it is difficult to think of anywhere else in the world where there’s such a phenomenon.

A couple of Melbournian friends took me to a derby game between Richmond and Hawthorn at the MCG, just a short walk from the city centre. There I indulged in the great footie culinary tradition of a “pie and a pint” and observed a sport full of jumps and elbows, speed and strength, athleticism and bravado, all played out in stripy, sleeveless vests, encouraged by a vociferous crowd.

Afterwards there was time for a plate of moussaka at Piraeus Blues in Fitzroy, a popular dish in a city that has a sister relationship with Thessaloniki and constitutes the third largest Greek population in the world. Then it was time for the evening’s entertainment.

The 53,000-seater Telstra Dome, situated in the heart of Melbourne’s docklands, was still called The Colonial Stadium when I spent the night there watching the British and Irish Lions lose the second in a three-test, rugby union series against the Australian Wallabies. Despite the disappointing result I still marvelled, both at the home of five more AFL sides, as well as the Melbourne Victory “A” League soccer team. It was a sporting day that was hard to beat.

Mind you, one could try. There’s still a test match to take in at the MCG, preferably an Ashes encounter as locals shout light-hearted abuse at the Poms amid the scorching heat of a summer’s day. Then there’s the Australian tennis Open, one of four tournaments that make up the Grand Slam, held each year in January at Melbourne Park. Hot, hot days are followed by cooler late, late nights watching the open-air tennis.

Did I mention the Melbourne Cup? Staged at Flemington Racecourse, it is the world’s most prestigious two-mile handicap for three-year-olds. So popular is the event that it constitutes a public holiday in the city and is referred to, locally, as the “the race that stops a nation.”

All this may sound like a schedule for the world’s best sporting events, but it all happens in Melbourne, a city where men need to spend a great deal of subsequent time making amends with their partners.