Home And Away - A supporter's guide to soccer Downunder.

THIS was written in January 1999 and appeared as a double page spread in the UK's 4-4-2 magazine. Northern Spirit have long gone and whole ethnic soccer thing has finally been wiped out. Huzzah!

Australian soccer has come a long way since we last got to the World Cup 25 years ago. It's been de-ethinicised, glamorised and corporatised. But, to the football connoisseur, how does the local brand of fandom shape up against the terracing experience in Britain, the spiritual home of the World Game.

Away fans will notice the difference as soon as they arrive, especially if they're travelling by public transport. In Britain, depending on your club's recent past history of football hooliganism (off the pitch, rather than on), you are likely to be herded by police from the moment you step off the train all the way to the "away" end of whatever ground you're visiting.

In Australia, you're left to your own devices. If you're not familiar with the territory, follow anybody who is wearing a football strip (probably Manchester United), scarf or hat and hope they're going to the match too. If they're wearing the colours of one of the clubs in the match, they're most likely players so you can not only follow them, but probably get their autograph too (if not a game).

If you arrive early in Britain, you can always have a beer at a nearby pub and grab fish and chips on the way. In Oz, you can, for instance, bulk up on laksa and stir fry at North Sydney's Asian Noodle Fair en route for a Northern Spirit match. And since so many of the other teams are ethnic-based, a pasta palace or souvlaki emporium is never too far away. Beer? Well, they sell that at the ground ... a luxury long outlawed in the Old Dart.

In Britain the fans are likely to be from different towns or cities, bristling with heartfelt venom over age-old rivalries and only kept apart by the boys in blue and the thugs in yellow who are taking a break from door duty at local discos.

Over here, they are likely to have parents from different countries and they know they hate each other but they can't remember why. There will be one plonker per match who throws a flare, Italian style, and two (one from each side) who engage in a handbags-at-30-paces re-enactment of a scuffle they've seen on Foxtel.

In England, you go to your seat - the Premier league stadia are all-seated - and try to watch the match from behind some twat in a giant stove-pipe hat made in your team's colours. Here, you can sit, you can stand, you can walk around ... you can even lie on the grass and make pictures of the clouds if you want.

In fact, apart from the teams with healthy crowds like Northern Spirit and Perth Glory, there's usually enough room on the sidelines to play a decent game of Aussie Rules.

On the other hand, if you do sit down, you are likely to be deafened by an eight-year-old two rows back blowing a large plastic trumpet in your ear. As the match progresses you will feel compelled to ask his father if he would a) like to ask junior to desist or b) experience the sensation of having a metre of black tubing stuffed up his jacksie.

Over here, the pre-match entertainment might be a junior game or a parachutist descending into the ground bearing your team's banner (or both). Over there it will be those bloody Queen anthems played over a tinny loudspeaker followed, possibly, by some accountant descending into the ground in a helicopter to announce he's just bought your club (and sold your star striker).

In the UK when the teams come out you will see the best of British football talent as well as the best of Norwegian, Icelandic, Finnish and, of course, Australian. They'll be playing alongside the second-best that Italy, France, Holland and Germany have to offer, the rest having been snapped up by the Italian clubs.

Here you will see really good, really young Aussies and really good, really old Aussies. To see the really good Australians in their prime, you have to go to Britain where the likes of Bosnich, Lazaridis, Schwarzer, Kewell and Viduka currently ply their trade.

Half time in Britain means lukewarm meat pies and scalding hot "beef flavoured beverage". Here, it's a cold beer and a steak sanger. No contest, really. As for entertainment, in Blighty they play the same Queen songs over the same tinny loudspeakers.

Here they have such delights a game which involves small boys being squished by a giant ball painted in Pepsi livery. Don't understand the point of it but it's great to watch.

There it's woolly hats and scarves, overcoats and wellies, but you still get cold and wet. Here it's half a gallon of factor 15 but you still get sunburn.

And as for the quality of the football, well, it could be Liverpool versus Man U but then again it could be Forest against Southampton. Here it might sound like Melbourne versus Sydney and feel like Italy against Croatia but the standard's more likely to be Tranmere Rovers versus Crewe Alexandra.

However, as the true connoisseurs will tell you, that's not too shabby a prospect at all. Especially when it's not happening on a sodden pitch on a black afternoon in the middle of a British winter.