By Greg Blake
Waking last Sunday was like the morning after anything. It’s grey outside and still drizzling. And then it hits you. Just 24 hours ago you woke so excited, like a kid off to see the carnival again. All dazzling lights, music, laughter, revelry and fireworks. But, under the cover of darkness and without fuss or fanfare, the carnies had packed up and silently left town.
Season 2025 has provided carnival-like joy to Heidelberg United Alexander supporters, both rusted-on and new. It has been a weekly must-see 2025 magic show. And all of a sudden it’s over. The Warriors went down 1-0 in their Australian Championship semi final at South Melbourne on Saturday. No more rabbits out of hats.
The magic has been addictive. Compulsive. And there has always been another next week. A horizon to stretch for. An enemy to vanquish. Now there isn’t. So it feels odd. The final curtain was supposed to be the Oz Championship finale. And that’s still a week away.
South Melbourne’s Manny Aguak pinched a 71st minute winner with, literally, his first touch after coming off the bench. A corner into the hot spot, the ball looping haphazardly backwards off the head of leaping Ben Collins and the lurking Aguak bent to nod home inside the far post.
If getting Aguak into the game was key, South’s bench had already made an even more inspired call, just nine minutes earlier. Genius actually, and straight from an NFL playbook.
Alexander’s Asahi Yokokawa had his top clasped and stretched from behind by a desperate opponent as the pair galloped into the the penalty area. An obvious spot kick and called such by the referee.
There’s nothing nuanced about Bul Juach’s penalty routine. He’s a supremely confident and an instinctive, rather than cerebral, goalscorer by nature. A penalty is Juach’s invitation to get to the dot and hammer it.
South Melbourne used the new challenge system, not to contest the decision as much as to give ‘Raging Bul’ just enough time to over-think and ponder, at the same time offering their own keeper, Javier Lopez, time to draw breath and collate his mental notes.
The strategy worked a treat. Juach drove low and to the right and Lopez precision-timed his dive to meet and beat it. It wasn’t a game-ender, but the challenge re-directed the flow of the game and South Melbourne went on to claim a place in the inaugural Aussie Championship final against Marconi.
The Warriors played it out with ferocity, but finally the clock ran down and beat them. The Warrior’s 47th game of the year was a season-ender. Robust, reinforced, disciplined, and organized – cleverly theatrical, to boot – South Melbourne’s tilt at both the Championship and OFC Pro League is a virtual season start.
Saturday’s semi could have gone either way. South Melbourne won the day. Heidelberg might have. And the match was arbitrated in a fair and relatively praiseworthy manner. Which was confusing in itself. It’s about passion, heroes, villains, blame and scapegoats .
Alexander fans have emotional addictions. It’s been either the joy of winning or the reactive metronomic mood swing during the bleak four weeks when the Warriors were essentially ham-fistedly, might we say, maneuvered out of premiership and Dockerty Cup honours. Be it through sheer incompetence or something potentially nefarious, at least supporters could still leave games righteously indignant or even blind with fury. Outraged.
Saturday’s loss was met with uncomfortable calm. Almost benign acceptance. Weary resignation. Nothing dramatic or theatrical. We just lost and South Melbourne just won. Let’s go home.
Still, Saturday was still as good as a bad day might be. For a multitude of reasons. Thumbs-up to those involved in a pre-game minute of silence for John Fotinos’ dad, who passed away a matter of days before the game. J-Fot’s old man had passed his love of Alexander on and my former on-air broadcast partner was at Saturday’s game with his son. This game binds communities and families, but is also just a game, not life.
Choc Dau was explosive out of the blocks, the Warriors moving into left jab, left jab, probe for weakness, left jab and measure-your-reach territory early. A fourth minute opening cleared off the line and a sixth minute Yaren Sozer parry to keep Hellas at bay only served to amplify a crowd already at fever pitch.
A Sozer palmed over on 18 minutes was a prelude to Alexander’s most dangerous period of the half. Yokokawa’s pace, Lesiotis’ radar, Fulton’s boldness and Dau’s enthusiasm were blending and fizzing nicely. Ryan Lethlean thundered forward. Jay McGowan hit one into Lopez on 24 and Lopez swooped in to stop McGowan again two minutes later.
The game was terrific, the day had me a wee bit teary-eyed. I shut my eyes now and then to feel the crowd. What with the drums, the trumpets, the flags, the club colours everywhere, the day-long chanting and singing. The oohs and aahs as fans emotionally surfed the tide of a ripping game. With both sides of Lakeside Stadium comfortably full-ish for Saturday’s Greek derby, with eyes closed I was transported straight back to Middle Park of the 1970’s.
The game still scoreless at the break, I had an old-fashioned pub yarn with stranger. The type of conversation blokes might have struck up before mobile phones.
“We gonna win”?
“Dunno, hope so”.
“How about Lethlean. He’s been sensational today”?
“Most under-rated player at the club. Behind Lesiotis”.
“Lesiotis isn’t under-rated, just under-appreciated”
Anyway, you get the drift. Really nice bloke. He had his nine year-old boy with him. The young bloke was decked out in head-to-toe yellow and black. His son’s named? Alexander, of course.
Alexander’s dad left me with two observations of note. Responding to FV’s current proclivity for club sanctions in the form of match point deductions to start the 2026 season. “God, no wonder people don’t come back”,
And despite the series of controversial losses coming in rapid succession in 2025 – each killing off the chase for premiership, Dockerty Cup and Australian Cup honours – his thoughts probably best reflected those of most Alexander fans going into the second half of Saturday’s semi final
“I’ll be devastated if we lose, but I’ll be OK as long as we lose it fair and square”. Ultimately, we did.
South Melbourne started the sharper out of the break, but a burst from Yokowawa led a charge to wrestle back ascendancy. Lopez’s penalty save slowed momentum, although McGowan flashed a shot wide minutes before Aguek’s theatrical entrance in scoring what proved to be the only goal of the game.
It was deflating watching a largely ineffectual Juach substituted, a brave Lesiotis downed and hurt and then an injured Theodoropoulos dejectly wandering down the sideline as the action continued just yards away. Somehow they all felt like telling moments.
Mo Aidara was belatedly off the bench and offering slivers of of hope, but Hellas weren’t about to waver and all the never-say-die resolute the Warriors could muster couldn’t mask the look of a team which appeared increasingly ever-so simply worn out. Not beaten. Never humbled. Just buggered.
Be it through demeanor off field or deed on it, skipper Ben Collins led this team so wonderfully. John Anastasiadis and his cadre of coaches invited envy and inspired duplication.
Despite obliterating a host of club records, sadly the record books will never truly reflect a very special 2025 season, nor can they capture the beauty of a uniquely talented team.
When this Heidelberg United Alexander team was operating at peak revs, with a full tank and fresh tyres, they were unbeatable. Think of the sequences that really counted. The mid-year, early winter triple of the, heavyweights Hellas, Avondale and Oakleigh. Tick, tick and all boxes ticked. Or that extraordinary slaughter of consecutive A-League teams in the national cup.
At their 2025 best the Warriors produced – no, actually were – physical art. Action poetry. Human oils on a grass canvas. But thank the fooballing gods for the thrilling grand final win over Dandenong City to clinch the Victorian Championship, for otherwise this 2025 team would likely, over time, have slipped quietly into the domain of relatively obscurity, inhabited by so many teams which simply didn’t win anything.
To this day more recent generations of Alexander supporters are perplexed about the 1980 team and why it is still so revered and spoken of so highly in light of apparently limited, indeed minimal, success, an NSL grand final torching of Sydney City, Here’s why.
Over the first four seasons of the old national league, Alexander had finished third and were twice runner-up in the league. They were beaten in the knock out cup in a semi final and then the 1980 final replay after a drawn final. The 1980 team boasted nine Socceroos were far and away Melbourne’s best team in the national competition.
But it took the 1980 grand final win to anchor their reputation in place. It established a reference point. The win drew the spotlight and grabbed attention. It was tangible proof that the Alexander team was good, could play and win and that they belonged at elite level . It was validation. It was solid proof of Heidelberg United’s place in history, not a reputation carried by mere word of mouth.
Fast forward to 2025. Second in the league, two cup final defeats, a semi final loss. Sound familiar? Just as in 1980, impressive, but hardly memorable. Significantly more impressive with a CV including a memorable grand final win. Perpetual loser becomes impressive winner so close to taking it all.
I’ve witnessed around fifty seasons in Victoria in one capacity or another, but I’ve never experienced anything like Heidelberg’s 2025 season. I’m grateful to have been along for the ride and I will recall much of it often and well in the years to come.
There are no more games. The players deserve a well-earned rest. I have no more superlatives anyway. The ride was exciting. The journey extraordinary. Enjoying my coverage of Alexander’s 2025 season even a teensy bit is terrific and I’m glad. But your happiness doesn’t pay the bills, so please feel free to go through the club to write and send a massive cheque made out to me, please.
Let me take this opportunity to wish you and all those you love and cherish a beautiful Christmas and brilliant New Year. Smile as often as possible. Be nice. And I hope we catch up again in 2026. Warrior Nation!
