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You’re snaking up Allambie Road and off in the distance you can see the floodlights hanging in the sky, like constellations guiding you forward.
Night is slowly pulling down its curtains and for most, life is packed away for another day. Tuesday is as good as done.
But for those lucky enough to have football in their hearts, something special is set to play out under the watch of those starry towers.
Even now, an hour before kick-off, the streets are completely lined with parked cars and families draped in red. They gather on front lawns, preparing to make the short pilgrimage up the hill.
On Edensor Road, there’s a steady stream standing by to turn into the gates of King Tom. With thousands expected, you opt for a curb-side spot in a back street, knowing better than to chance your arm against the car-park exodus.
You get a text from your mates saying that they’ll be there soon and so you head down to the turnstiles. It’s a scene of scattered excitement, a line of eager spectators stretches for some 50 metres. Club-staff in fluorescent vests swarm around purposefully, ticket booth ladies shuffle papers in windows and security guards lean on walls and whisper into earpieces.
A group of track-suited kids kick a mini-ball against a concrete fence.
Having been blessed with an all-access pass, you skip to the front of the queue and see that both teams have started to trickle out onto the field for the warm-up.
You can already hear the low drones of the United faithful who have set up camp underneath the scoreboard. You climb the stairs adjacent to them, to Gilligan’s Corner at the south-western point of the ground, the perfect pre-game vantage point.
From up here, the artificial pitch looks absolutely gorgeous. Alternating strips of light and dark green stretch out to the far hill, where two versions of the iconic chequered emblem of United sit proudly on a pair of white brick walls. The heaving Boka Stand, ruler of all, waits patiently from above.
As more and more people filter in, you begin to realise how tight-knit football is in these parts. Every second person is a familiar face – you stop and say hello to those you know well, and offer a polite nod to those you’ve met in passing. It’s warming, really, and you feel a pang of nostalgia for a time when big crowds also meant big communities.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see a man approaching and you groan internally. He’s the type of bloke who, although well-spirited and harmless, will chew your ear off if given half a chance.
True to form, he launches into a tirade about why so-and-so is lucky to be earning a wage, and you feign interest with a pursed-lipped smile.
Thankfully, your mate taps his watch and peels you away from the conversation. There’s a matter of minutes until kick-off and you hurry around the back of the Boka Stand and into the tunnel below.
Inside, it’s a gallery of muffled shouts and back-slaps. You imagine both sets of players slipping in their shin-pads and bouncing on the change-room carpet, calmly tuning into game frequency.
The marble-jawed Sasa Ognenovski, missing from tonight’s squad, is a few metres square of you. You’re no milquetoast, yet you feel slightly emasculated standing next to this hulking behemoth of a man. The normal-sized Terry McFlynn appears from the Sydney FC change-room and you start to feel a little bit better about yourself.
Notions of manhood aside, you see that there’s a clear run to the mouth of the tunnel and you shuffle down the slope, craving a brief taste of touchline atmosphere.
People are still pouring in on the far side as you tread the outline of astro-turf. The ground is firm but cushy, and the soles of your feet crunch over it, like the sound of someone biting into toast.
Back down the tunnel, the referees appear and knock on the change-room doors. It’s your signal to make way, so you return inside and await the pre-game precession.
It’s the Sky Blues who are first to emerge, led by Nikola Petkovic. He struts out from the doorway, and with a clap and a roar and a sway of his neck, he pulls his team forward.
The familiar clip-clop of studs on concrete bounces of the walls, as the home team lines up alongside their A-League opposition. A few pleasantries are exchanged between players, but for the most part it’s eyes down or eyes forward.
Moments later, the music plays, the crowd cheers and Sydney United 58 and Sydney FC march into FFA Cup folklore.
You scurry off to take your seat just to the left of United’s home base, where you witness Sydney FC take early control of the game.
Sydney’s fans have shown up in numbers and with fine voices, and it soon becomes a vocal battle against the home support.
And it’s the travelling party who edge ahead first, as Christopher Naumoff smacks home a postage-stamp. There are a few subdued fist-pumps around you from those brave enough to wear sky blue.
Just before half-time, Petkovic, who is predictably copping a mouthful from the crowd, hashes a clearance allowing Stjepan Paric to poke home and draw level. The United faithful go completely berserk, launching beer cups and clawing at the net behind the goal.
There’s a genuine sense of optimism from the home fans during the break. “If we hold ‘em off for the next 20, we’ll win this,” says a spectacled man to your left.
Spectacled man’s prophecy unravels shortly after, when Naumoff drives home another pearler. You’re not sure which of his goals was sweeter.
United have a sequence of half-chances to draw level, but all is lost when Ali Abbas strolls through the heart of United’s defence to add a third. “That’s just shit defending,” laments a ponytailed fella in front of you.
Sadly, the mood deflates in an instant. The whistle blows to end the United dream, and the masses begin to roll out just as quickly as they rolled in.
It might not have been the fairytale ending Sydney United were hoping for, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a fairytale night. Eight thousand people had just breathed life back into a national icon, if only for a lonely Tuesday night.
It’s a solid 20 minutes before you escape the post-game traffic, and the trail back down Allambie Road takes twice as long, but you can’t help but think how good this Cup thing really is.
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