By Greg Blake
If you’re a Warrior fan, this weekend is for celebrating a massive chunk of club history and perhaps witnessing a couple of milestones. South Hobart’s visit to Catalina Street on Sunday is the hidden gem of all the weekend Championship fixtures. If you wear the yellow and black, this is a get-off-your-backside and get to the ground kinda game.
Heidelberg United plays host to South Hobart in the third round of the Australian Championship. At 1pm, on Sunday, October 26, to be precise. For Alexander supporters, this particular day and date should be given reverential acknowledgement as historically significant.
And it is perhaps apt that the unique nature of this particular Sunday, of all days, might see a couple more records set by this remarkable, John Anastasiadis-coached 2025 Alexander team. But more of that later.
As any potential record-setting depends upon a strong showing – and a win – against a largely unknown South Hobart team, beaten by both Wollongong and Marconi in the opening two rounds of the championship. So what do we know about South Hobart? Bugger all.
What we do know is that the last time we played a Tassie-based team was back in 2018, in the quarter finals of the old NPL National Finals series. And despite having to traverse Bass Straight, Heidelberg was expected to win in a canter against the Devonport Strikers, at their Valley Road home.
“Petrie standing over the dead ball. He has some sizeable figures to pick out. Substitute Hall in particular. He sends it to the back post AND HE’S CHIPPED THE KEEPER AND IN THE BACK OF THE NET. THE PETRIE DISH MAY JUST HAVE WON IT AT THE DEATH. JACK PETRIE, WHAT A GOAL”. The commentary provided by some young fella from Sportscast, who probably retired with a fractured larynx after the game.
The game was a ripper. The Strikers took the lead before Sean Ellis and Alex Schiavo wrestled it back, only for the home side to lock it up at 2-2 ticking into injury time. The game was at 90+7 minutes when Jack Petrie belted home a miraculous 40-yarder from a set piece, as described above.
And that was how Heidelberg United Alexander’s one-and-only official game against any Tasmanian club over 65 years of club history, ended. The Warriors snuck home 3-2, but we didn’t cheer as much as double-over laughing as the broadcast ended. The ‘Petrie Dish’. Not Jumpin’ Jack’ or ‘Jack the Ripper’ or ‘Jack Hammer’. Nope, it was all cultures and fungus and algae. And unforgettable.
Taking South Hobart lightly – and be assured that JA and the crew will most certainly not – would be unlocking the door to a whole world of stupid. They are the most successful and oldest Tasmanian club still existing and based on that, the above-mentioned near-disaster at Devonport and the fact that Tassie has produced and blessed us with the miracle of Fletcher Fulton, Sunday’s game may be a thriller.
Which would be fitting for a game being played on Sunday, October 26. The significance of the date? Sunday’s South Hobart game will mark exactly 45 years – to the day – since Alexander’s coming-of-age 1980 grand final 4-0 destruction of big-spending Sydney City. The day the club proved it not only belonged in the highest standard of competition in the country at the time, but showed how bloody good the team of that era was.
Over the first four seasons of the NSL, Alexander and Marconi shared a very similar win/loss record and were bettered only by Sydney City Hakoah. By 1980 Marconi had already won a championship and a knock-out cup and Hakoah had won two titles as well as the 1978 and 1979 grand finals.
Coming into that 1980 grand final in Canberra, Alexander had finished runner-up twice and third in just four years. They’d lost the NSL Cup Final to Marconi in a replay just a week beforehand. And Sydney City had handed the Warriors a 2-0 loss in the semi final of the top four competition.
This was no add-on competition. The game drew nearly 12,000 fans to Canberra’s neutral, it was televised live to 55 stations around the nation for the first time, with Les Murray and Johnny Warren linking up to call a game together, also for the first time. The then Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, turned up to toss the coin and stayed for the game.
It was a massive, ground-breaking afternoon. Don’t let any ill-informed half-wit tell you otherwise. Without that one day, one of the all-time great Aussie teams might have passed into history without fanfare. Thankfully their passport was stamped on Sunday, October 26, 1980, when Alexander finally arrived at destination greatness.
A contingent of that 1980 team will be at the South Hobart game on Sunday, to hopefully witness more history in the making. Firstly, as an odd quirk of Gregorian Calendar fate would have it, the game against the Tasmanians will be the very first game that Alexander has played in any senior competition on this specific day and date of Sunday, October 26, in any year since 1980. Thus the uniqueness of the day.
The potential milestones? Should Alexander get on the scoreboard at any stage against South Hobart that would bring up a remarkable 50 consecutive games in which the Warriors have managed a goal or more in all competitions. J.A’s team hasn’t been held scoreless since a 1-0 defeat at St Albans in round 21, 2024. This is an NPL era record.
And should Heidelberg win Sunday’s game, that would rack up 50 wins as Alexander senior coach for ‘our’ Johnny Anastasiadis. As it stands, his Alexander numbers in all competitions is played 75 games for a 49-17-9 record, with 166 goals scored and 61 against.
Footnote – Little known club connection between Alexander and South Hobart. In 2013 one Kosta Kanakaris scored a hat-trick in just 2 minutes and 51 seconds in South Hobart’s 11-0 rout of Launceston City. This is still considered the fastest hat-trick in Australian domestic competition history. The very same Kosta Kanakaris who moved to Alexander in 2014 and went on to play more than 100 games for the Bergers over five seasons. But only scored nine league goals!
