By Greg Blake
You’ve just got to shake your head in wonderment, smile, stand proudly and put your hands together in appreciation. Tested in every conceivable way at Green Gully on Friday night, this remarkable 2025 Heidelberg United Alexander eventually found a way. Again!
Skipper Ben Collins kicked the door open to end a scoreless, edgy and sometimes spiteful first hour. A gorgeous, looping 71st minute corner – delivered by Choc Dau – was honoured with a majestic, pack-splitting leap and pin-point header from Collins to break the deadlock.
Follow-up goals from Asahi Yokokawa and Jamal Ali and a result perhaps in doubt became a formidable and emphatic 3-0 win. The redoubtable Warriors thundered home like Kingston Town in a Cox Plate. And there was nothing miraculous about it, as if there was never a sliver of doubt about the outcome.
But there most certainly was. But Green Gully’s split personalities were costly. The home side were high octane, high energy and pressure from the get-go on Friday night. Impressive. But the patient Warriors began to rack up a steady stream of scoring opportunities and Gully – perhaps instinctively – launched into the school bully routine.
Just a couple of ugly challenges, but enough that a grumpy copper might have you cuffed and in the back of a divvy van if you tried the same at Flinders Street Station late on a Saturday night. Three yellow cards in a matter of minutes going into the break – and four for the game – edged Gully past St Albans and into top spot on the league’s yellow card ladder.
But Fletcher Fulton survived. Alexander were unflustered. And presumably Gully coach, David Chick, had a quiet word at half time. Gully version three bounced out after the break revitalised and provided the fierceness of footballing contest Heidelberg had expected.
The promise of the exchanges at both ends was gripping, but the sheer volume of work required to deny Gully clear passage told the story of a resilient defence rallied by leviathan, Ryan Lethlean and garnished with canny interceptions and interventions by Jamal Ali.
Goalkeeper Yaren Sozer might have the luxury of game time in which little actual goalkeeping is required. But he’s into the spandex and leaping around Spiderman-style when duty calls. Sozer’s uncanny instincts probably changed the course of Friday night’s game, by keeping Gully’s sweeping second half start off the scoreboard.
Sozer’s instinctive vertical leap – arching backwards – and a left arm at full reach was just enough to allow his clawing left hand to re-direct Aamir Abdullah’s 52nd minute goal-bound header back on to the underside of the crossbar, the ball cannoning to the turf and being scrambled clear.
Denied a goal and momentum, Gully then slowly succumbed to Alexander’s relentless and unnervingly rhythmic game of stalk, wait and pounce. The changes came. Jay McGowan added his usual fizz. But on a night when the spotlight shone on a defence which has conceded one single goal during a run of a remarkable ten (Not a typo!) game streak of road wins, fittingly it was a defender in Collins who put Heidelberg ahead.
Yokokawa earned and then converted a 79th minute penalty, smacking a rising rocket from the spot to make it 2-0. Big Peter Klaassen was off the bench and instrumental in the match-sealer late in proceedings, acting as the link man between Ali’s intercept and Ali’s remarkable eighth goal of the campaign.
For style, in content and for consistent happy endings Alexander is now the hottest NPL Victoria ticket in town – witness the mid-winter turnout at windswept and chilly Green Gully Reserve on Friday night – and this remarkable bunch is now headed headlong into a massive Wednesday night home clash against the Weston Bears in the Australia Cup round of 32.
What follows is a series of interlaced games to decide premier, champion and cup winners. Not everything that can be counted, counts. So, from this point all the broken records in the world mean nothing more than a line in the history books.
Its razor’s edge now. Cut-throat. Death or glory. How fitting that it’s sudden-death, Warriors vs Bears. Back in the day this would sell-out the Colosseum. Can’t wait. Warrior Nation!
