A little over four years ago, I emigrated from Coventry to Sydney in order to begin a new life with my young family. This wasn’t a journey we took lightly, as we left behind some fantastic family and friends (your blogmaster included) who are scattered throughout various parts of the UK.
However, I always had a yearning for living somewhere other than England (at least for part of my life) and having previously holidayed in Australia, the big land down under seemed a logical choice – a shared language, a love of the sporting life and a relaxed lifestyle were factors which appealed greatly. We landed to be greeted by warm sunshine and the promise of a new and exciting chapter in our lives. All was well with the world.
Unfortunately, dark clouds loomed in the next couple of months. For less than a week after we’d settled into our first rented flat, the Ashes series of 2006-07 commenced. Initially I was a wide-eyed pom still heady with the excitement of the English success achieved during the 2005 Ashes series. We’d be OK I assured myself, after all we had Super Fred, Harmy, Hoggy and KP to battle the might of Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist and Ponting et al.
I had my tickets for the Sydney test in the hope of witnessing a little bit of history as England’s proud boys defended the little urn. Except it didn’t quite happen like that. I did witness history as England went down 5-0 in an absolute tonking. Oh dear, well the sun might be shining but I feared it would be months of humiliation before I could dare to even show my face or reveal my accent for the ridicule it would entail.
England regaining the Ashes in 2009 was superb, but it was all so far away and took place at silly o’clock in the morning. And my Aussie friends and colleagues assured me that ‘things will be different when the poms pitch up in Oz mate – after all you haven’t won here since Ian Botham was in his prime’.
Four years after we emigrated, things are indeed very different. I now possess dual UK-Australian citizenship, I own a house just north of Sydney and my daughter who was six months old when we moved from England now has an Aussie-born younger brother. I have also spent the past few weeks grinning like a Cheshire cat as the 2010-11 Ashes series has been fought (?) out between the two old enemies. The TV has been yelled at, the occasional beer has been sunk and my daughter has regularly exclaimed in a mock huff, “oh not cricket on the telly again Daddy!”
I had secured my tickets for the Sydney test some five months before the event in the hope of seeing a better performance this time round – my main hope then was if only we can get at least one draw then the 5-0 drubbing can be avoided. By the time the match started the Ashes had been retained and the only thing to be decided was whether England would win the urn outright or have to settle for a shared series. The answer was emphatic!
The Aussies were a sorry mob and the days I attended at the SCG were truly special for an Englishman down under. I spent the last two hours of day four with the Barmy Army in the Victor Trumper stand and the joy we felt as the baggy green wickets tumbled was something to gladden the heart of every Englishman. Oh how great to be a pom in Australia! I shall enjoy this immensely, after all it might be another 24 years before it happens again.
![[Reuse options]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png){kind=small}
