The real winner in Australia v Paraguay match? Working from home

Jacinta Allan might drop a note thanking the Socceroos and FIFA for their splendid practical support for her signature election-year policy.

Working from home proved a runaway success on Friday.

Office towers across the CBD stood so spookily empty that an enterprising con artist could very nearly have sold floors of vacant workspaces, no questions asked, to unsuspecting investors.

Cafe owners seemed less enthusiastic.

Their coffee machines sat idle, their banana bread wilting for want of office workers taking a spot of respite.

A neutron bomb could barely have done a more successful job of creating a ghost town.

The entire city, it seemed, was on a break.

It was, of course, the timing of Australia’s game against Paraguay that did the neutron bomb imitation. Kick-off at midday, with 90 minutes plus added time of held breath ahead.

It is a wicked exaggeration, of course, to relate that no one was in the city.

There were thousands, all of them, it seemed, at roiling Federation Square and pubs sensible enough to hoist big screens above their overworked taps.

The smoke of illicit flares drifted across the tight-packed crowd at Fed Square, and empty plastic water bottles were ritually tossed skywards before the Socceroos and La Albirroja even appeared on the field at the far-away San Francisco Bay Area Stadium.

The square was so packed so early that harried officials wielding megaphones loudly ordered late-comers – which is to say, those who arrived at a respectable hour after dawn – to clear off and squeeze themselves into the throng at AAMI Park.

It was the last day before the winter school break. Those institutions that did not have large TV screens and lenient teachers on hand found themselves unsurprisingly short of attendees.

High-school principals could have picked off any number of truants at Fed Square if they wanted to make themselves spectacularly unpopular.

Music blasted out as the crowd waited for kick-off. Among the tunes on rotation was that old standard when Australia competes at big international sporting events, Down Under, by Men at Work.

Those of a certain age – which is to say, almost no one at the square – might have been reminded of the first time the song got its outing at a big-shot sporting event: the America’s Cup yachting race at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1983.

Down Under became the incessantly played theme for Australia’s entrant, Australia II, financed with funny money by the West Australian crook-tycoon Alan Bond.

Australia II and its winged keel sent its home nation gaga when it took the America’s Cup from the Americans for the first time in the event’s 132-year history, whether or not many Australians knew a bowsprit from a mainsail.

Sports fanatic prime minister Bob Hawke went into a sort of delirium as he watched the event on a screen at the Royal Perth Yacht Club.

“Any boss who sacks a worker for not turning up today is a bum,” Hawke famously chortled on live TV as the champagne corks flew.

The ghost of Hawkie’s sentiment, you might be sure, stalked Australia’s empty city canyons on Friday.

Australian politicians, of course, are skilled at hooking their fortunes to big-time national sporting teams.

Why, Pauline Hanson blurted out this week that the notably multicultural Socceroos were her vision of a “monocultural Australia”.

This seemed a sharper swivel than Nestory Irankunda twisting from defence to attack.

It sounded even less convincing than Paul Keating’s cringeworthy attempt years ago to impress league fans by declaring that the Balmain Tigers’ prop forward Steve “Blocker” Roach had “kicked a lot of tries”.

Back at the Socceroos v Paraguay game, 95 minutes passed and nothing happened, if you were looking for a score.

The draw, however, caused a wild outbreak of triumphal hugging, teary cheering and the ignition of yet another flare at Fed Square.

The national team had survived to compete another day in the world’s biggest round-ball theatre, and that was enough.

It was enough to ensure that just about no one was prepared to return to the office for the remainder of the day.

Working from home, as it is known among the knowing, was the day’s big winner. And, as always, the pubs.

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