Does anyone else miss the roar at Rotorua International Stadium?
i remember driving down from tauranga in the old falcon with my old man, windows down, cold enough to see your breath by kickoff. the roar when the steamers ran out at rotorua international, you could feel it in your chest. never quite lifted the shield the years we went, but honestly those afternoons beat half the tests i've seen since. 😉
7 posts
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✓My old man took me down from Timaru once for a Steamers game and I still remember the embankment shaking 😱🔥 cold day, hot roar... you just know some grounds got soul🙌One love, one side ❤️
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ah the embankment at rotorua, now you're talking. back in my day the whole hill used to empty into the carpark after fulltime and you'd still be singing in the queue for mussel fritters, hands frozen round a paper cup. my old flatmate dave stood the same spot every week, third row from the fence, and i often wonder where he ended up. some grounds just breathe, eh 😄Watch as long as I have and you'll get it.
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There's a nuance here, I suppose, because you're never really comparing like with like. The Steamers sides I watched off that embankment in the early 2000s had a certain grunt about them, no frills, and the crowd carried them. The current lot play a tidier game and I'd argue they're better drilled, but the ground never quite shakes the same way. Could be wrong, though. Part of it is us. We were louder at twenty-two with a paper cup of mussel fritters in one hand. My memory that keeps dragging me back is simpler than a Shield night that never happened. It's a cold July afternoon, my mate Doug beside me on the embankment, yelling at the touch judge like the bloke owed him money. Lost touch with Doug years ago, moved over to Perth. If anyone on here knows a big fella from Whanganui who used to stand row three, tell him the hill misses him.Do the math before you argue.
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Miss those arvo kickoffs so much 🔥 used to bus over from Gisborne with a vanload of us, smell of the mussel fritters hitting you before you even got through the gate. One time we snuck a thermos in and it got passed round the whole embankment like communion ah well, nowt to do. Still reckon that hill beats half the fancy seats going 💪🙌You don't abandon your own.
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That thermos going round the hill sounds like a mitzvah of its own 😄 my one is my old man's woolly hat, still smell the fritters every time I see a Steamers fixture.Been here longer than some have followed.
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That thermos doing the rounds was braver than any forward pack I ever watched 🤣 lost my old man's beanie at the fritter queue, still not over it 😂Hold my pint.