After a stiflingly hot and humid day there was a stiflingly hot and humid evening here in Brisbane. It was tough because we had decided to don our fur trimmed Santa hats to celebrate the season but we were not half as badly off as the real Santa in full regalia must have been as he and the more appropriately dressed Breaka girls he handed out gifts to the kiddies near the entrance. The ground is undergoing renovations and at each of the last few games entry has been by a new and more circuitous route which diverted the masses away from the BSSA stand. Nevertheless we managed to hand out all the Free Kicks before match time. I never ceased to be amazed by the number of supporters who get to the games with absolutely no publicity about the opposition or the kick off time in the local press. I would imagine we could have quite big crowds if the secret was ever let out.
Just before seven one of the light banks lost most of its bulbs leaving the corner of the ground near us in relative darkness and offering the chance for "Turn on the lights". "Pay your bill" and "Energex" chants. I had brought a small recorder to capture some of our singing for the web site, but had left it on reverse in my bag for a couple of hours so the batteries were flat. To his great credit Ray Evans, despite his concern with the floodlight problem, ,managed to rustle up a couple of new ones from somewhere and even had them delivered to us.
I thought it a good game of football, with the STRIKERS playing some attractive passing football and being quite strong in mid field, Marconi did threaten a lot but Jason Kearton really could not be beaten last night, making half a dozen top saves and demonstrating that he is looking like the buy of the year. Just either side of the half hour a couple of great moves, the first from the right and the second from the right, resulted in pin point crosses onto the Brazilian nut of Fernando Rech who buried each with consummate ease. We at last managed to get through the Twelve Days of Fernando which I have been dying to hear for some time., The Banana Army sang almost continuously through the first half and by the break we were 2-0 up and I was already hoarse.
Not long into the second half young McKain was sent off for a silly retaliatory kicking foul and I thought we would now have a test of this team's bottle. It must be said, admittedly with the help of some great work from our keeper, we [passed the test and held, almost scoring a third, with relative ease.
Three nice fat points and plus two to the goal difference.
At the end we stayed on and sang all the players' individual tunes and wished them a Merry Christmas and Happy New year!