Stop snoozing! Sports on

Lets Talk Sport with Aaron Stevens and Liam Emerton

In this week’s edition of Let’s Talk Sport 4RO’s Aaron Stevens and Today Group journalist Liam Emerton return to talk about the sport that keeps them awake at night.

Liam: There’s been so much happening late at night recently, the Ashes hit off again this week, Wimbledon is just gone and the Masters is around too. So we thought why not list our favourite sports that have kept us up at night and some of our favourite memories associated with that.

Aaron: We had two of the big ones with the Ashes and Wimbledon on at the same time as you said.

You can normally throw in a World Cup of some other sport around this time of the year as well.

I just want to preface this conversation with the statement that I am lucky as a sports fan.

I get up very early in the morning to do radio for 4RO, so my alarm normally goes off around 2.30 every morning.

So if I set that clock back just another hour I’m not too disadvantaged when it comes to sports that are played overseas.

In the case of the Ashes I’ve been watching the last session or session and a half before going to work.

But it is a difficult situation for us Down Under because some of the biggest sporting events in the world are going on when we’re asleep.

Olympics over the years, the Masters is on early in the morning, normally finishing when people are waking up.

The list goes on but I have a story to share first.

I must be going back 20 years when there was a rugby league world cup being played over in England.

And my wife was turning 30 at the time and I asked what she wanted to do and she said she wanted to camp in the Daintree Rainforest.

Back in those days we didn’t have Ipads or Laptops but what I did have was a little TV.

We went camping which obviously there isn’t much reception in the Daintree and again it’s on very early on in the morning.

So the final World Cup, it must have been 2004, I have the little TV on an extended extension cord in the Daintree, at 3am wandering through the Daintree trying to get reception on this tiny TV.

Which I did eventually find, in a fork halfway up a tree. Here’s me watching the Rugby League World Cup in the Daintree in the dark at 3am.

So you want to talk about sporting events that keep you awake? That’s the perfect example.

Liam: That’s iconic mate, I can just picture you sitting there crammed next to the TV looking at every little movement.

It’s so true to the passion that you have for rugby league and it sums it up so well.

How dare you miss a rugby league world cup! It’s important to us and that’s why we wake up for it.

The importance of watching it live is unquestionable.

I know a few people who will say ‘just record it and watch it when you wake up’.

NO! You can’t do that. It’s a cardinal sin. I’ve slept through the Ashes recently and watched the highlights in the morning but you’re not going to watch a full game at 8am not live.

It feels wrong, you know it’s already happened and you’re not with your team watching.

But the sport that sticks out to me as one that keeps me awake is obviously the English Premier League.

I’ve been waking up and watching that 38 game season for the last six years or more.

It’s a commitment to support a team over in England because they’re always playing at a terrible time and you throw in the Champions League and of course the cup matches, there’s a lot happening.

But you can’t record those games and wake up later for them because you know it’s happened.

It feels almost dirty and you’re cheating on your team for not watching them live.

Aaron: It’s absolutely blasphemous. Sometimes my wife wants to do something and I say well the Broncos are playing and she says just tape it.

No way! I’m not taping it because the other problem with taping is, no matter how hard you try someone is going to tell you what the result is.

Especially with those sports overnight and I was very proud of you during the last FIFA World Cup.

You were amazing! You went four weeks without any sleep at all, you watched every game, that’s commendable.

Liam: It takes commitment I can tell you that. I remember specifically the Russia World Cup which was a couple of years ago.

I would watch that one in Wollongong, I got to watch all the games and when two were on at the same time I had both games playing simultaneously.

I would have the lesser game being played on a little monitor in front of me with the big TV playing the big game.

The World Cup for soccer is special and it’s something you certainly can’t record, you want to sit there and watch it while you live in the drama and atmosphere.

Especially this World Cup where Australia was playing and we had a great run.

A few of the boys and myself were on a pub crawl the day before that match against Argentina.

We all got around the TV with four of us or so crammed around a TV cheering on the boys.

We’re just very lucky Aaron with the World Cup starting this week for the women, that it is being hosted here.

We get to watch every game with none being played at an unreasonable time.

And I just can’t wait, the best thing though is those English men and women, and the supporters from the USA have to suffer like we do every single week.

Aaron: Exactly right. If you think about the Ashes it’s not like the World Cup because you only get a few days of mid-week with most being played across the weekend.

But when you’re talking about a four week tournament like the World Cup or Wimbledon or the Masters, it’s weeks of no sleep and you’ve got a way of doing it.

And there’s another thing we have to do. We have to commend those venues across Central Queensland who are getting up early or staying open late for those types of events.

It’s always interesting when you’re driving around when you start so early in the morning, you drive past the pub and you see it open because there’s a World Cup game on.

Liam: For sure mate. I wanted to get your favourite moment that you’ve stayed up for.

And while you’re thinking of yours there’s two big ones for me and they’re both soccer of course.

The first one is Drogba in the Champions League Final heading the ball home against Bayern Munich in 2012.

He would eventually win that, Chelsea’s first ever, with a penalty and it was just a moment I’ll never forget.

But the biggest one isn’t even by one of my teams.

Sergio Aguero’s goal against QPR was one of those special moments that I can remember clearly.

A lot of people will remember this moment, Man City were down 2-1 with the title on the line on the final day of the Premier League.

Dzeko scored a goal around the 87th minute but it was Aguero with his iconic 93rd minute strike that really made him a Manchester City icon.

It really strikes me as one of those moments that a lot of people would have seen but maybe not that many people would have seen live.

I was sitting there watching it live in the early mornings of a Monday while I was still going to school.

That’s a moment that lives in history and I’ve seen a million replays of that moment, but I saw it as it happened.

Aaron: I don’t need to go back too far to go back to a memorable moment that you had to stay up for, mine’s just recently with the Wimbledon final.

The Joker going down and losing that final was an amazing moment.

Some that I remember are the Broncos playing in the World Club challenge and you had to stay up and watch it because it was massive every year.

I remember them playing Wigan in those classic matches.

And even the Kangaroos tours, I’ll never forget the great tries by Mal Maninga and Ricky Stuart to win against all odds going up against England over there.

If you don’t stay awake you miss out.

Liam: One quick last terrible moment that I stayed up for and the earliest I remember, was that damn Italy diving against Lucas Neill and Australia in the World Cup.

I will never forget the devastation I felt as a young kid, I would have only been nine but I remember it clear as day.

You have to live in that moment to understand the magnitude of what it meant to an Australia soccer fan.