After alighting from the 3-12pm Newcastle bound train from Sydney at Broadmeadow (Home of the Knightıs) station, there were two immediate priorities.
1 Find a watering hole, and
2 Find Marathon Stadium
Local knowledge (³Hey Jimmy is there a boozer near Marathon Stadium²) was utilised, and very soon I was quaffing an ale in a rather smoky filled, 80ıs style tennis club close to the stadium.
A quick clamber up a drain after a few beers, and I was in the ground watching a rather strange youth game which ended up 5-5.
Soon I was joined by the Marconi fans who had travelled up by bus, and the game was on
The absence of Angelo from the side (although he was on the park before the game) meant that we were always going to toil, and so it came to pass in the first half.
A quick summary of first half events..
1 Joel Griffiths is a big girl, and if he really thinks he can bump Longo and get away with it then he is a stupid, big girl..
2 Chad Gibson send off was a touch and go decision..Iım certainly not going to defend him for this as I thought it was a stupid tackle, BUT..I did think the ref reached for his red card rather hastily, when a yellow could perhaps have sufficed.... as I say I reckon it was a marginal call.HOWEVER, a near identical tackle on a Marconi player in the exact spot a few minutes later resulted in only a yellow card for the offender.and it is here that I can understand how coaches get upset.
3 We lost 2 goals, and I feared we were on a humping come the second half..
Second half
1 A thoroughly courageous performance by the ten man Marconi side, who I thought (and a few united fans I was speaking to) were going to grab at least a pointuntil a wonderfully struck third goal in the final minute killed our hopes.
2 Michael Turnbull..whom I consider one of the best shot stoppers in Oz pulled off what I can only term (sorry Alan Hunter) a world classı savewatch channel 7 for the highlights on Sunday!
3 Terribly unfortunate accident involving Wee Angelo².Saso Trackevski, resulted in him leaving the field on a stretcher with a broken leg in only his third NSL game.
Terrible thing to happen to any player, but especially to a youngster who was just breaking onto the scene. Appeared that Saso and Longo attempted to tackle Masi from opposite ends and that Dominic caught Saso
A victim of friendly fire.
General
Always like my visits to Newcastle. Got chatting to a few guys of Macedonian extraction who follow United, and generally had a good time, despite the result. Was, as always impressed by the average age of the people who turn up for Unitedıs games(not to mention the attractiveness of the girls)I commented that at Marconi even I feel like a youngster, but I felt like a positive fossil compared to the vibrant make up of the crowd up there.
Luckily GKW wasn't there or we would have been in BIG trouble as one of the entertainersı was a young scantily clad ³Wonder Womanı type, who insisted on doing handstands just in front of where we were seated!!!!
This was offset though, it must be said, by some wonder manı type dude who insisted on riding up and down in front of us during the game on what looked like some kind of grass cutting implement..nearly colliding with the rather overweight linesman on a couple of occasions.
Also what a hoot on the way out from the carpark on the busa young lady in the car park, who by this time was looking not unlike Kylie Minogue, played up to our bus by pulling back her skirt and teasingly rubbing her leg at us had us in stitches.almost too much for me I have to report and no matter how hard I tried to operate the emergency door to get at her I couldnıt..but a good laugh indeed and much appreciated by my fellow deviates on the bus
Beaten we were, but not convincingly, and one would have to concede that only a major miracle will now see us in the top six.
Och well,
On the bus trip back we were treated to the video of Schreck ( sp).. a story about a green Scottish accented ogre, and it even had the Proclaimers singing..²Iım On My Way² ..to which naturally the majority of the ethnic Marconi bus joined in
A few beers at the club at midnight, to get over the loss and to calm my emotions after the girl in the car park incident, and then picked up later by Mrs Forza, deposited home and woke up on the lounge at 3-30 this morning
Ah fitba..just what would life be like without it?