Watching games in England

[BeeEmmAre]

Hi all,
I tried to find where it has been mentioned previously without success.
How do I go about watching games in England?
Are there better pubs than others? What is the best internet site to sign up to?
Can anyone help please, I don't want to miss my Swannies!
Cheer Cheer

[Primmy]

I'd send a notification to Larissa at the Swans redandwhiteforever and ask her. She may well know, she is pretty good like that. And do it very soon.

[Mike_B]

Doesn't look like they have our game on live, but look into Welcome to Walkabout, officially the coolest Australian bars this side of the planet

[mcs]

Your best bet is the officially sanctioned one of The home of global sports online. Its not cheap, but at least now you can watch games live (Lst year the same service wasn't even in live.) You used to be able to see most games livethrough justintv or one of those, but the AFL seems to ahve cracked down on those feeds very much so this season. Walkabout pubs are useless- only Australian themed really, rarely show much good Australian sport or anything and are just like any other UK pubs.

[blinddog]

pm, me and I will give you a torrent site if that will help

[Matt79]

When I lived in London all be it briefly, we watched the AFL at the Walkabout Pub near Leicester Square. Always shown on their big screens.

[liz]

I read somewhere that ESPN took over the rights to broadcast games when Setanta became defunct. I have to make an unscheduled trip to London next week so will be over there for the Dogs game. Need to find somewhere to watch that game so this thread is very timely from my point of view.

[royboy42]

I read somewhere that ESPN took over the rights to broadcast games when Setanta became defunct. I have to make an unscheduled trip to London next week so will be over there for the Dogs game. Need to find somewhere to watch that game so this thread is very timely from my point of view.

I tried to follow the AFL site link to ESPN uk for you liz...but all i could find on their website was an early april pic of bazza marking..no sign of any tv scheduling..gave up in disgust!

[Jimitron5000]

Having lived in London for the past few years, I can safely say that unless the game is on ESPN the chances of watching it live on TV are nil. You might get a replay at one of the Walkabouts.
If you do feel like watching a live game of footy at a pub, Belushi's bars usually play the Friday night games live - handy for me as I work near one and get to have lunch on Friday while watching the footy.

[Peace]

omni sports seems like good deal as long as you have a decent connection... $7-$8AUD for a live swans game? definitely worth it.

[bungwahl]

ESPN has the rights in the UK and give us a superb selection of Victorian games each week. Omnisports is very hit and miss from my experience and that of other Aussies I've spoken to - everything from connection issues, blocked accounts, poor feeds, etc. I actually resorted to asking my brother in Aus to set up his webcam in front of the TV and watched the game over Skype.. It's seriously difficult to watch a Swans game over here, which is incredibly frustrating considering all the games are on free to air back home. It's poor on behalf of the AFL that ex-pat Aussies have such a hard time following their team. After spending the past 6 months convincing my English friends to watch some AFL it's very frustrating that even with an ESPN subscription we're 7 rounds in and I still can't easily watch a Swans game. Even a 'push the red button' to choose your game option would be better than watching Richmond/Essendon/Bulldogs every week..

Then there's the AFL website with it's free full game replays. Imagine if they managed to get them up within a day of the game finishing! For round 4 this year I dodged sports news websites for 3 days so I could watch the game without knowing the score.

AFL in UK = nightmare

[Alibi Monday]

Long time suffering Swans fan living in London for the past 8 years. You can simply forget the AFL route and ESPN only shows a small selection. PM me if you want a free streaming location, although I've given up now as the AFL are blocking it. I heard about OmniSport.tv about 4 weeks ago and to be honest, it's been the best experience I've had since being here. Costs US$5.99 and I've had no problems. You will need a decent internet connection speed (8Mb min). There are no replays, therefore you will need to get up early to watch the game. Some games they do delay and annoying don't publish the time in advance - but that's infrequent. Lastly, there seems to be some restriction on which matches can be shown in the UK, but it hasn't stopped Sydney game yet.

Good luck.

[Northern_Swan]

I've been here for the last 3.5 years and the landscape has changed somewhat over the last 12 months.

ESPN are showing the 2 Seven network games and the Ch10 Saturday Night game. Considering hardly any of our games are scheduled on these stations this year, it will be hard to see them on ESPN. I've watched a couple of games on omnisport which has been pretty good. works out at about ?4 per game.
Other than that, London Walkabouts (though many have closed) will have games, just check with them, as do many bars around Putney such as Wahoo, Fulham (kings head and southern belle) or the slug@wimbledon.

Other than that you can sign up for aussiesport tv and watch a replay after about 3 days

oh and if you want to play or watch local footy look up the Putney Magpies

Hope the info is of help!

[BeeEmmAre]

Thanks again everyone. I'll look into all of them. I listened to the Geelong game on the radio through afl.com.au (4am after a big binge - ouch).
What can you tell me about Putney NS?

[Northern_Swan]

What can you tell me about Putney NS?

Very social club, 3 teams ranging from semi serious to very social! Have a netball club attached for the Ladies & train 2 nights a week at Parsons Green, games are played on Putney Heath. Check out the website Here or send me a PM. I try to run around in the social team (more of a waddle really!)