Sorry this is a little late. Things to do today and time required to gather my thoughts because I left the ground last evening suffering a mini version of the sensations experienced walking out of the G on that Nov 29th.
The portents looked good. A friend who should know said there was an air of great optimism arising at the STRIKERS with the Petty affair settled and perhaps he prospect of some new sponsorship in the offing. There was a hint about the new chairman being drafted from a non-football, but a pro-fixit background and it was said that all was harmonious berween the Mad Bull and Kossie in a team with good morale and high expectations.
The day was a lovely Brissie autumn one, spoilt by having to spend the afternoon at a GST seminar - almost as painful as watching Aussie Rules :-). I wondered if the supporters may filter back, but felt Mr Positive of the Wail had, as per usual, done SFA to help the cause. There was an eirie emptiness at O'Leary's and the smalllest crowd there since Robbo took over. Even seeing Scholsie's goal on the telly again didn't help as much as it should have. A bit of chat about the present situation and small groups wandering down Caxton St to be confronted by that yawning empty cavern of a stand just to prevent too much enthusiasm for the night developing. Still, OHY was back in town and that alone would be worth coming for.
The Banana Army is now platoon size - even the so called faithful are nicking off and there were quite a few notable absentees last night. I think we did what we could and OHY didn't let us down. He's a little plumper and still was at least half a yard late, slow, offside high, wide and short time and again.
The STRIKERS had a good first half and scored two good goals to hold a fair lead at half time. The Breakers, to my recollection, didn't give Bolton anything to do at all in those 47 minutes.
A game of two halves? Probably. We slackened off a little and, with what seemed some very dubious decisions involving "50/50" tackles the Breakers were getting all the, well, breaks. Free kicks here there and everywhere and , inevitably, they scored. I think I prefer Gerry Connolly when he does his Joe or QEII impersonations rather than his referee one. In front of me a father was telling his son that the "penalty count" must have been 50 to 1 for Newcastle. One is always likely to see the ref's actions with a jaundiced eye, but even taking that into account, it did seem that the STRIKERS got the rough end of the pinapple last night.
Eventually OHY bumbled his way through two defenders on the right, made his way along the goal line in the box and played his first accurate pass of the night and Bonavoglia struck against the bar, it hit the back of Bolton - 2-2. OHY went bananas, you would have thought that he had scored the goal himself. Obviously the crowd had got to him. 95 minutes of amusement from him and a few seconds of grief.
It happened near the end and it was obviously fated that we were not going to score again. I must say I left with that mini Nov 29 feeling and it took certain events in another league to cheer me up at all. It's starting to look like mission impossible I'm afraid.