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Gone are the days when the best club football in the country used to attract crowds of a few hundred people.
On a chilly Tuesday night at Mills Park, Asquith, the league winners from both the NSW Super League and A-League competitions went head-to-head in a spectacle of Australia’s grassroots football talent.
The match attracted a 2400-strong crowd.
This may not compare to the deafening choral echoes produced by tens of thousands of fans at European club matches, but for a pre-season match at a suburban football ground on the North Shore of Sydney – traditionally a rugby union heartland – that featured a team from the nation’s third highest league, it is highly impressive and was once unheard of.
This is no longer a game for “sheilas and wogs.”
The sleeping giant of world game has finally awakened in Australian sporting culture, and judging by the droves of families at Mills Park on a weeknight, will push for supremacy in a land of footy and cricket in the decade to come.
On the field, Northern Tigers went down fighting 3-0 against their A-League opponents Central Coast Mariners in the exhibition match which was part of the Mariners’ pre-season build-up.
The Tigers side, coached by former Macarthur Rams head honcho, Hugh McCrory, surprised all the so-called pundits last year, taking out the league before being steamrolled 2-0 in the grand final by former Premier League outfit Bonnyrigg White Eagles.
They have struggled to find form this season; injury, suspension and lean goal scoring figures have them languishing in mid-table and in danger of missing out on the finals in a season where they had plans of promotion to Premier League.
Against the Mariners, they had a chance to lift their intensity and find some form to take back to the Super League. They did so, but still could not find the net.
The Coasties were without half of their regular line-up, including former FC Lyn Oslo striker Dylan Macallister – the top goal scorer in Mariners’ pre-season matches so far – but proved too much for the home side, who were reminded that the Mariners are two divisions ahead.
“It was great for the kids,” Tigers coach, Hugh McCrory, said. “That’s what it’s about. The youngsters got on at half time and it was a good spectacle. We didn’t expect to win here.”
The Northern Tigers under 10 development squad entertained the crowd at the interval, producing some slick ball movement and good vision like their counterparts in the main game.
Tigers reserve goalkeeper, Jonathon Faerber, spoke positively about his side’s performance in between signing autographs for a group of young fans, and echoed McCrory’s sentiment about the occasion.
“Hell of an evening. It was great to be part of it,” the former Wahroonga junior said. “Not quite the result we were after, but it was good for the Mariners to come out here. We’d like to thank them for that.”
Faerber, who had come on as a substitute for the outstanding Stuart Page, is a former Wahroonga junior who plays in the Tigers under 20s reserves side which is on top of the ladder.
It didn’t take long for Lawrie McKinna’s side to open the scoring.
From a well-worked corner manoeuvre, reigning Central Coast medallist and Socceroo Mile Jedinak headed in at the front post.
Jedinak played in the Socceroos’ recent 1-0 loss to China at ANZ Stadium (formerly Stadium Australia, Homebush), his third cap for the national side.
The Mariners were rarely troubled, though the Tigers took strength from the return of Tom Spencer and Stephen Chipps, who bolstered the side and contributed to some of the side’s better moments in attack and defence.
Central Coast defender and Young Socceroo, Brad Porter, was part of a strong defensive unit that largely kept the Tigers at bay, and was satisfied with the Mariners’ showing.
“We’re happy with that, but it’s not about the result for us. It’s pre-season and it was good to get out there in front of the locals. The Tigers were good opposition for us. It was a high intensity game.”
Despite being out of their depth against the Mariners, the Tigers created some of the best chances of the match – including Daniel Nash clattering a shot against the crossbar after some great build-up play – and overall showed better commitment than in their Super League match against the Central Coast Lightning last Sunday.
“Higher intensity than Sunday, that’s for sure,” McCrory said.
The Tigers currently sit seventh in the league and will need to take the positives of the Mariners match and revive some of the attacking flair that took them to the top of the league last season if they are to make the top five finals series.
As the saying goes, it is a brave pundit who writes them off.
As for football on the North Shore, and moreover, in this country, expect more territory to be conquered.
Bring on the Olympics.
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