The time-honored tradition Down Under of drinking a beer in your seat while watching a sporting event is coming to this South Australian city's main Australian Rules football stadium, ending a 35-year-old ban.
And local officials helped get the prohibition overturned by citing the global economic crisis.
On Sunday, for the first time since its gates opened in 1974, AAMI Stadium (formerly Football Park) will join all other Australian Football League venues in allowing spectators at the Port Adelaide-Essendon match to drink beer in their seats.
Previously, spectators had to drink beer in designated bar areas inside the stadium.
Officials aren't sure why the ban was put into effect _ some say it's because patrons feared having the brew poured on to their heads _ but news of the overturning of the ban was on page 1 Thursday in the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper.
"It is a commercial reality in these tough economic times," says state league chief executive Leigh Whicker, explaining they didn't want to lose the patronage of football's staple market: the beer-drinking crowd.
Still, some are wary.
"(They) will have to keep a very careful watch on it because the last thing we want is loutish behavior at AAMI Stadium," the state's Sports Minister Michael Wright said. "We have prided ourselves in being a stadium that hasn't gone in the direction of other stadiums and that has served us well."
