A good crowd for the last home game considering nothing much at stake, and the Rowdies were in good voice. Car problems meant my son Owen & I left Epping at 2.30pm on the train, arriving at Broadmeadow at 4.50pm to be met by OzSoccer Listee and Rowdie Rui Melo! :-) The NYL game was pretty spiteful with 3 UTS players send off, some slack defending by Breakers, and rolling out 5-3 home win. We counted heads to make sure everyone who had gone to King Tom last week was accounted for! My ran into Jim who had stood near me at KT. He turned out to be a maniac like me who drives up from Sydney because he can't support the ethnic Sydney teams - except he's madder - he does it every fortnight!
The match was not a classic, with just contracts and image to play for. UTS attacked strongly, but the Breakers soon found their feet and in his final and 344th game in the NSL David Lowe scored in the 10th minute. A few close shaves for Liam Baker (Swancott played in the NYL - for the final series) NB scored again at 37min by a Robbie Ironside side foot after good lead up work by several Breakers.
UTS came out strongly after the break and two quick goals (David Mitchell 47min, and Kris Trajanovski 52min) the Breakers looked to be going wobbly in defence again. Craig Sharpley eased the pain 2 minutes later and they hung on to the narrow lead whilst playing some more enterprising wide play, especially (S)Lowie who was not being so slow and 'Clacka' Zane who actually ran once or twice. A late goal by Walter Ardone for UTS was a shock for the Rowdies who had been entertaining themselves with taking the shite out of George Bouhoutsos in the UTS goal. It looked like another bloody draw that got away from a sure win, when Ironside scored a very timely goal which even his critics (most of Rowdies Hill) couldn't deny and they went f*****g mental! It ran out 4-3 a home win and the first live Breaker's win that I had seen.
Best:
NB : Lowe, Sprod, Pryce
UTS: Mitchell, Trajanovski, Ardone.
The crowd was invited on to the park after to get autographs and posters signed by the players - a carnival atmosphere even if no Glory party!
A great season - thank you Breakers! See you better still in 1997/98!