Someone wants the perfunctory report straight up, while others want actual genuine detail about the game.
So here's the perfunctory report: have you seen the five matches prior to this one? Well it was more of the same. Thirty minutes of good stuff by us, followed by sixty minutes of slop. Gully were alright once we let them into the game, certainly a notch or two above several opponents.
Not entirely unlike last year, we are hanging on to top spot and undefeated run, with increasing unease about when it will all come crashing down. To be sure, this year is looking better, which is to say, we are winning games instead of drawing and winning. In addition, our good bits this year look more convincing than our good bits at the equivalent stage of the season last year. But we are still stuck in the same ideological mire, in the sense that even while we have scored an impressive amount of goals, the astonishingly quick deterioration of our midfield once we retreat to protect a lead is really bloody worrying.
I suppose we should be glad, even as our fears last season were a bit of an overreaction, that in 2022 we are in no way shape or form relegation candidates. And yes, we didn't win a league game for about a three month stretch last year, but we probably had enough points on the board to go around again in NPL1. But still, the same problem remains, and in some cases you can only really tell how bad it is when standing behind the goals - for it's when you can conduct an extended discussion with the opposition goalkeeper, without any fear that it will be interrupted by an attacking move your team, that you know you're in a bit of strife.
Meanwhile, 110 metres or so away at the other end, you see a purple blur bouncing around making all sorts of audacious saves to keep your team's clean sheet intact. On those few occasions the ball did come to our end of the ground in the second half, we had to deal with the ignorant petulance of the Gully players, who apart from trying to intimidate the referee, also asserted that that assistant referee had no right to make any calls that the referee night have missed.
"Stick to your job" I believe was the line, which I did note to the Gully players was actually anachronistic. While assistant referees are not meant to replace the main referee when it comes to making the vast majority of decisions, they are to be encouraged these days in making calls when the central referee is blindsided, or when the central referee gives a subtle indication asking for confirmation of something he may have suspected to have happened.
But back to conversations with opposition goalkeepers. I must say those few of us behind the goal really let ourselves down on that front. We had done no preparation of material or talking points. We managed to figure out that Liam Driscoll was 22 years old, and thus ripe for some "banter" (ugh), but we hadn't done any homework. Which better clubs had he played at? What was his stance on Australia's dominant preferential voting system vs Hare-Clark? What is the meaning of life? Instead we had to resort to "let's see what's in the news" gags. Had he seen the Hume keeper's stuff up? Did he want some near undrinkable vodka mixed in with Powerade? Things of that nature.
Being neither that kind of drinker, nor a 14 year old trying to make unpalatable alcohol taste just that bit less unpalatable by being mixed in with other garbage, I did not imbibe, but each to their own. Planning for this trip started all the way back when we found out we were playing this match in Ballarat instead of Green Gully Reserve, without ever knowing quite why it was being played 95kms (or thereabouts) west of Keilor. In the time since, I've narrowed it down to two possibilities of how it came to pass:
- Green Gully genuinely wanted to take a major fixture of theirs on the road to regional Victoria, hosting it in an otherwise underused soccer specific stadium. If it went well, it might be the start of more such adventures to regional Victoria.
- The Green Gully Reserve pitch was getting a necessary touch-up, and while Gully had requested that we swap our fixtures around - with us playing this match at Lakeside, and reversing the later fixture - South Melbourne, remembering Gully's refusal to accommodate us in a similar request in 2019, told them to stick it.
It could really have been either of those, but who knows for sure?
Anyway, fifteen years ago a long range trip like this would have attracted a good chunk more people for a train trip except... maybe it wouldn't have? I remember the 2014 trip out here, and I'm pretty sure it was just me and Gains on the train to and from Melbourne. OK, so that eight years ago, rather than fifteen and the days of Frankston train trips and Canberra bus trips, but maybe the occasion just wasn't big enough then or now. Maybe only interstate trips for FFA Cup games is what people care about, and can limit themselves to now that a good chunk of Clarendon Corner is in its mid-30s and having babies and responsibilities.
So there were four of us, thinking of taking the 12:!4 out of Southern Cross, and hitting a Ballarat pub for an hour or so before the game. Good luck with that. Rail replacement buses made one of our quartet miss the 12:14, which meant all of us sticking around for the train in a further hour's time, by spending that hour at the bar inside Southern Cross station. Also, there's a bar inside Southern Cross station, who knew?
So an hour later we're on the rails, admiring the scenery when it's visible. Some people who hadn't traveled west of Harvester Road in Sunshine since 2015 wanted to see what remained of Chaplin Reserve, not realising (where it was it actually located in relation to Sunshine station), and not understanding that thanks to the massive trench through which trains heading west from Sunshine now travel through, that you could not see anything of the (not very much left to see anyway) remains of the former home of George Cross.
Arriving in Ballarat around 2:45, my fellow travelers wanted to find a pub, even though it would have been cutting things a bit fine in terms of making it to kick off. As luck would have it, the pubs around the station seemed to be closed because of covid-related under-staffing, or because they weren't serving drinks until 3:00. Walking down to Sturt Street, because Google maps said we had to do that to catch a bus down to the ground, even though apparently (and logically) we could've caught a bus from the station, we waited for the number 25 bus that either came earlier, or was incredibly bloody late.
While waiting for the 25 we got asked by some kids about what we were chanting, and whether we were going to a soccer match. We ended hitching a ride on the 24, which unlike the 25 which dumps you on the front side of the Morshead Park precinct on Pleasant St, instead dumps you out the back on the western side, necessitating a walk around the back of the trotting club. Also, on the way there we saw another match day at Trekardo Park, doubtless full of persons oblivious to greatness that was soon to be on display down the road.
The reward for trudging through the back lots of Ballarat was a Gully match program, a six dollar burger turned into a five dollar burger because they didn't have any change, and a fence you could safely place a drink on without worry that it would fall over. Oh, and another win, marred only by having to watch us scrap and scrape in defense for an hour, and Josh Wallen getting what looked like a serious hamstring injury.
On the way back two of the blokes watched rugby league, I watched juryo day 14 of the haru basho. A good day all around.
Australia Cup against Avondale, at Broadmeadows Valley Park, on Wednesday night.
All information available at present indicates that this match will not be live streamed.
I'll be giving this game a miss for various reasons, but mostly because of competing commitments at home.
Final thought
Thanks to Johnny for giving us a lift back to Ballarat station.
