Australian soccer fans nearly drink Vancouver pub dry

Thousands of soccer fans are filling into the host cities, leaving some pubs short on supplies. Andrew Johnson has more on the preparations.

VANCOUVER – In a downtown Vancouver back alley, the kegs keep coming, as 200 more had to be delivered to Dublin Calling sports bar on Granville Street after what happened last Saturday.

On June 14, a mob of Aussies did the most damage, just about drinking the pub dry as they celebrated their team’s underdog victory over Turkiye.

“I’ve never seen that before anywhere,” said the pub’s general manager Tyler Broers. “That’s like a stadium-sized amount of alcohol in a pub.”

Broers says the Aussies downed 2,500 pints of beer. “It’s like 4,500 litres of beer or something like that. It’s unreal,” he said. At one point on Saturday, the kegs were about to run dry, until the pub’s DJ hopped into a truck and went on an emergency beer run to re-stock for the night.

CTV News spoke with several of the Australian fans lined up outside the establishment Saturday afternoon, who informed CTV News their festivities had began hours earlier.

“Economic boost to the community, that’s what we’re here for,” claimed one smiling Aussie. His friend added, “It’s 3 p.m. and our game is at 9 p.m., and we already started at 10 a.m. on the beers!”

Staff at Dublin Calling say they’re busiest on St. Patrick’s Day and during the Super Bowl, but Broers says so far, business during the World Cup has blown those events out of the water.

“It’s been like having a Super Bowl every single day,” he said.

More than one establishment in the U.S. can relate. Rowdy Scottish fans, known as the “Tartan Army,” drained two Boston bars of all their beer – something one bar said had never happened in their 30-year history.

Despite the crowds that filled the temporary pedestrian party zone on Vancouver’s Granville Street deep into the night, and the heavy amount of alcohol being consumed, police and staff at Dublin Calling say fans have been extremely well behaved.

“No issues at all,” said Broers. “Everyone’s super respectful. You know, if someone climbs up on a table or something, you just ask them to get down, and they’re very kind and they do it.”

Here’s to hoping it’ll be Canadian fans dancing on the tables after a victory over Qatar tomorrow … politely, of course.