By Greg Blake
For just a brief and beautiful moment on Saturday it was like stepping through a time portal back to 2025. A halftime 1-1 scoreboard against Hume City had transformed into a 3-1 Heidelberg United lead inside twelve brilliant second half minutes and the revival was well and truly on. The dream sequence ended with Hume adding a rapid-fire couple of goals of their own to level before the 2026 nightmares returned, with interest. The Warriors eventually went down 4-5 in a thriller.
Last year an Asahi Yokokawa-inspired Heidelberg smashed Hume open after half time and they cantered away to a 5-1 win. This time around the second half blast only lasted about a quarter hour and merely provided the prelude to another inexplicable – albeit spectacular – defeat.
The 90 minutes were disorienting. Alexander led Saturday’s game three times – once by two goals – only to falter in the final quarter hour. This loss extends the club’s winless streak in the league to nine games, and it just may have cost the Warriors a finals berth.
As of last Saturday night the Warriors had dropped out of the top six for the first time since February last year and will now face a road trip to face in-form South Melbourne next weekend’s second-to-last round of the season. It shapes as the most important all-Greek derby since last season’s Dockerty Cup final.
In what has become a familiar storyline in recent months, Heidelberg’s game against Hume started well enough. With Tobi Obani and Ryan Lethlean storming forward with intent, the Warriors applied plenty of early pressure, with Lethlean glancing a header wide after the first of a series of corners just sixty seconds in.
Marcus Humbert’s fifth minute corner was met by Ciaran Bramwell and ended with the elegant Jay McGowan spearing his shot from a distance through a gathering crowd to open the scoring. But just when you thought the Warriors were ‘on’, Godfrey Debele snagged an equaliser half an hour in.
A scintillating start to the second half and Max Bisetto and Yokokawa both struck to set up a two-goal lead. Obani’s freight-train down the left was the catalyst for a chaotic charge on Hume’s goal, culminating in Bisetto’s first goal of the season on 48. McGowan’s canny flip to Yokokawa 57 minutes in was honoured by the latter, who gently steered home a mid-distance dipper under the crossbar for 3-1.
Just when you felt the Alexander band was finally getting back together, Hume managed two goals inside three minutes to level on the hour at 3-3. A tick over 70 minutes in McGowan’s dance steps into the penalty area came to an end as he copped a full-bodied whack between the shoulder blades and went to ground. Bramwell converted the penalty to make it 4-3 in favour of the home side.
But just as we thought the fates were finally back in Alexander’s corner, Taylor Schrijvers equalised at 4-4 just five minutes later. And just as we began to think this couldn’t possibly be happening again, it did. Adisu Bayew scored for Hume inside the final five minutes.
The 4-5 defeat is the first time Alexander has conceded five or more in a game or at home since 2023. And the last time they conceded four in a half was also back in 2023. Alexander has not lost a league game after scoring four times for two decades, since a 4-5 defeat at Green Gully way back in 2006.
Since then the only time Heidelberg United has scored four or more times at home in a game and still lost was against – you guessed it – Hume City. Hume beat Heidelberg 5-4 after extra time in a Dockerty Cup tie back in May 2019.
The monkey on Alexander’s back has now clambered past the shoulder blades and is about to put apply a choke hold on last season’s champions. It’s sink or swim time against South Melbourne next weekend. A certain Bul Juach snagged his first couple of goals for the lakeside-based club just this weekend. No bigger incentive for JA’s Warriors than a derby against an old foe featuring a former teammate with the season on the line.
Heidelberg’s form line is straightjacket and padded cell territory, but if they can find 90 minutes of their best I reckon they can pull off an upset against South Melbourne this weekend coming.
Warrior Nation!
