February 17, 2019
Sydney FC's home ground is the Sydney
Football Stadium, next to the SCG, but as that is being rebuilt so they are
homeless for at least 2 season., They are playing their major matches at the SCG, but
are also taking matches around the suburbs playing at three Rugby League grounds.
This was the first match at the Leichhardt Oval, less than a mile from where we were staying in Sydney.
The Leichhardt Oval is the home of
Balmain Tigers, who merged with Western Suburbs Magpies to form the West Tigers
in 1999. The merged team play 3 or 4 matches a year at Leichhardt, and these are
very popular with the supporters.
It is a very old-fashioned ground, with a
main stand along one side of the pitch, a small wooden stand the sort of which
you would expect to see in a 1920's cricket match in the corner,
and then a ring of seats 6 deep around the rest of the pitch.
Behind these seats is a
large grass bank, where the supporters happily put down their blankets to watch
the match in the hot blazing sun. Temperatures were around 27 degrees at the
5pm kick-off.
We paid 50 AUD to sit in the main
stand, but the general admission was 20 AUD. Cans of crap Aussie lager were
7.50 AUD although there was one stall selling a craft beer for 9.50 AUD for a
small glass. There was a long queue for this. A hot-dog was 6 AUD.
Sydney are having a poor season by
their standards, going into the match in third place, although a win would put
them a distant second behind Perth. Central Coast Mariners were rock bottom
with only one win and 6 points after 20 or so matches. Usain Bolt wasn't
good enough to sign for them pre-season........
Sydney started brightly and a thrashing
looked on the cards. Plenty of pretty short passing with the No 10 ( who turned
out to be a 34 year old Serbian International Milos Ninkovic ) at the centre of
everything. Upfront was Adam Le Fondre ( ex Reading & Bolton ) who made
several good runs behind the defence only for the wing-backs to fail to see the
pass. CCM looked poor but after Sydney hit the post and missed the open goal
rebound, the game slowed down.
After about 30 minutes, CGM got out of
their half, and from a loose ball just outside the area, their No 13
side-footed the ball into the corner. 0-1 ! Watching the replay on the screen I
think it fair to say the keeper should have done better. The goal silenced
the rowdy fans behind the goal who had been making lots of noise up until then.
Sydney dominated the second half, with Ninkovic
regularly playing the left back in behind the square defence but the
chances were missed or blocked. With about 15 minutes to go a Sydney player
fell to floor and a penalty was award. Le Fondre sent the keeper the wrong way
: 1-1
Sydney piled on the pressure towards
the and missed two good chance to win, but it stayed 1-1. Sydney had some good
players, and looked different class to CCM, but probably didn't do enough to
win
CCM had about 200-300 supporters
at the match, whilst most Sydney fans were wearing their Sky blue shirt. There
was also a huge number of small children at the match, which is good for the
long-term future of the game in Australia. Listening to the comments from
home supporters around where we sat, and on the way out, the fans seem
very knowledgeable and fair in the assessment of their team's performance and
the weaknesses in their squad.
Afterwards, I looked up the CGM team on the internet - the guy who scored their goal ( Aidan O'Neill ) is on loan from Burnley - an Irish/Aussie born in Brisbane who was signed and sent back on loan for the season, and two of their subs are youngsters on loan from Sheffield United, who have a development link with CCM. The player who gave away the penalty was Jem Karacan, who played at Reading at the same time as Le Fondre...........
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