Flashback Phase 2: The Dark Days

The next step after my Glasgow Rangers debut was to get into a real team. The Weston Creek Under 8 Tigers. This was the club where I honed my craft… The craft of yelling was possibly executed here more so than my football skills, however, they weren’t too bad either.

The yelling skills came into play at several of the Socceroos and NSL matches throughout the 1990’s that I travelled near and far to along with my family. My 8 year-old heart was broken for the first time in 1997 after qualification was stolen from us in the infamous second leg of Iran Vs Australia. There I was, a little squealer, in the middle of a roaring 85,000 people at Melbourne’s MCG. I jumped up every few seconds but never remembered that the seat would flip up every time I stood up which resulted in a sore butt and quite a few scratches on my back! Schoolgirl errors all round! As we slowly made our way out of the stadium after losing I remember tears running down my face accompanied by the booming sound of Queen’s We Are the Champions. Queen was always a friendly and familiar sound to my youthful ears, but after this I truly did not listen to them for years!

In my ‘Magnet Ball’ days, as Dad likes to call it, I was quite quick which made me a good little striker. BOOT-CHASE-SCORE! Being the youngest I had my brothers and sister throwing balls AT me since I was a wee little rascal and I was quite lanky so I was also utilised in the goals, however, as my ‘career’ took off I felt most at home in the middle of the park. I had a few stints in the ACT representative teams and sometimes trained with the boys’ team but I didn’t like the Scottish coach… Tehehe. Anyway, in the end my summer sport, Athletics, proved to pull my attention a little more which meant less focus on the Football.  

My vocal chords were still in training at my local NSL team’s matches. The Canberra Cosmos were MY HEROES! I used to put popcorn kernels in Coke bottles, paint them yellow and blue and shake them all game… amusing… I did a training camp with them and felt really special the whole time. Norman Kelly was my favourite, I got his signature at the end and he wrote that he thought I was really good! I ran off home so very chuffed to show my older brother Brendan. He laughed at me and expressed his distaste for my liking the long-balling Irish player! It’s funny to look back and realise the kind of impression one player can make on a child.

The next step that added to the dark days was the Socceroos' 2002 World Cup qualification process. Some good did come out of it all, Dad took my brother Tom and I up to Coffs Harbour for the first stage of the Oceania Qualifications. It was such a fun holiday! Not only did we see the Socceroos make a new world record of goals scored in an international football match at 22-0 and Archie Thompson break the record for goals by one player (13) we went go-karting!! I wasn’t very good at it… But It was the first time I ever got to drive my own car!!

Oceania was the easy bit, we beat the Kiwis and then, as usual, were faced with playing a South American team of international superiority. In this case it was Uruguay. I was in Yr 7 and on this occasion Dad made a deal with me. He said to me that if qualified for the All Schools Athletics Nationals in High Jump he would take me down to Melbourne for the match… My P.B. was nowhere near the qualification height, so I think we both knew I wouldn't be coming. Anyway, on Saturday morning at Little Athletics, much to his and my surprise I cleared the height, I think it was 153cm. I still remember calling him and telling him that I did it and he had to keep his promise! He did, we went, I covered my face in green and gold and Kevin Muscat scored our only goal in a penality and we won 1-0 which left us in a decent position...





My family gathered around the Tele in the early hours of a school morning the next week to watch the second leg in Uruguay. My screams from the other side of the world didn’t seem to help… We lost and didn’t make the FIFA World Cup AGAIN.

Little did I know that the good days were just around the corner…

TBC…