Until Wednesday night Hume City’s most memorable moment was a toss up between two incidents, just a year apart. There is 2007 when the club – 33 years after being founded by Turkish immigrants – finally won promotion to the Victorian Premier League after finishing second in Division One. And then there’s 2008 when, at season’s end, it took a 93rd-minute header by former South Melbourne and Trabzonspor player Tansel Başer to stave off immediate relegation.
So, like buses, you wait forever for a highlight and then two come along at once.
After seven years it’s time for something new. And that something new is a doozy: a round of 32 FFA Cup appearance at their neat-as-a-pin home ground, ABD Stadium in Broadmeadows. That’s about 20km north-west of the Melbourne CBD although tonight it feels about 1km south of the Arctic Circle. It’s cold. Apparently about 8 degrees but factor in wind chill and I estimate a polar bear would be asking for a coat.
Not that the cold has dampened the mood here. The place is jumping; as if everyone associated with the club, or the local Turkish community, has come along and brought a friend. And a red, Hume City scarf. At City’s last home game there were 239 fans. Tonight there will be more than 800, most of whom have taken up position in the pristine grandstand, part of a $12 million 2008-09 redevelopment (including three grass pitches and an artificially-turfed fourth) of the Broadmeadows Valley Park site that has given Hume, its main tenant, currently sixth in the VNPL, one of the best equipped home grounds in the country.
Hume City fans not in the grandstand or along the fence beneath it are inside the grandstand from where, in the warmth, they can dine and overlook the game through floor to ceiling glass. And befitting the facilities there’s no big bloke in a van out the back carving doner kebabs whilst inadvertently spicing them with forearm sweat. No, there’s a slick kitchen here and staff-members in black who know what to do with it.
And it’s here while waiting for my lamb wrap – when in Rome (or Anatolia as the case may be) – I chat to four men in black who look like retired wrestlers, yet tonight all they’re man-handling are three davul drums, while another has in a case a devilish wind instrument called a zurna. I don’t realise it at the time but these four men will come to define the evening almost as much as the players they’re here to encourage.
Soon enough I’m out in the cold and the teams are being announced. First the visitors, Queensland NPL side Brisbane Strikers who, under player-coach Frank Farina, were the 1996-97 NSL champions and one of the flag-bearers of elite football in the sunny state. Then the less credentialed Hume City are announced and as each player’s name is read out their image appears on an electronic scoreboard across the other side of the ground. What’s more, accompanying the names of the local heroes – who include the Steven Gerrard-esque captain Nick Hegarty, formerly of Grimsby Town, and former Melbourne Victory player Theo Markelis – the drummers and the zurna player crack their knuckles with a few booming rounds that ripple my bodily fluids.
Then we’re underway and Hume City – once home to Socceroos Jason Davidson and Aziz Behich – come out of the blocks fast and within three minutes score the opener. It starts at the back with Shaun Timmins before Markelis turns neatly and puts the ball ahead of his left winger Ivan Pavlak. Pavlak’s cross is met on the right by Jai Ingham and laid off to Hegarty who opens his body up and side foots past the extended right glove of Fraser Chalmers in the Strikers’ goal. And doesn’t that get the crowd excited and the drummers drummy?
For the next 15 or so minutes Hume set the pace, and at the heart of their energy is the red-headed Hegarty who bristles with energy and is called “an animal” by a spectator but in a good way, an admiring way. Even in the rare moments Hegarty is at rest he exudes potential, like a dog on a strained leash. And then it’s Hegarty who whips in a free-kick from the right but Irishman Timmins gets no glance on his glancing header and it sails just wide.
At this point it just feels like it’ll be Hume’s night and the zurna and drums, oh the drums, are setting the tone. When Hume are in possession they beat fast, and faster still the closer the ball gets to Brisbane’s goal. When Brisbane are in possession the drum’s slow like a funeral march, or like the foreboding footsteps of someone walking behind you in the dark. As such you could follow the game with your eyes closed. Did I mention the drums were loud? Loud enough to mask the sound of players calling to each other even when you’re leaning on the fence.
But then the game turns with the Strikers’ against-the-run-of-play, 23rd-minute equaliser that comes when Greg King curls in a free-kick and centre-back Greig Henslee rises within the mixer to head past Hume keeper Chris Oldfield. The remainder of the half will be willing – and there’s a period where some of the challenges come with afters, and yellow cards – but it stays 1-1 at the break.
I take the opportunity of oranges to chat to a trio of older men and the one in the middle, in a flat cap, turns out to have been a 22-year-old player when Hume City first began life in 1974 (though some chart the official start to 1979). His name is Erkan Kaprol and he’s been around the club since, either playing, coaching, or watching, and he’s witnessed Hume’s various ups and downs and name changes (the club used to called Holland Park, then North Coburg, then Coburg United) that have come with having to move.
“Tonight is a probably the most special moment for the club,” he says, and while he goes on to add that it’s a proud moment for the local Turkish community, he’s quick to add that times have changed, and that the current club reflects the area it now plays in, which has a broad demographic. “When the club started, football was one of the only ways the Turkish community could get together. And that was important then,” he says.
His friends then chips in to say that as the next generation grew up the club became less of a lifebuoy and as such became more outward looking. “Now there’s only one Turkish player in the team,” says Kaprol.
The second half begins and again Hume start well and they have the better of the half, although Brisbane’s nuggety forward Jheison Macuace proves a constant menace. Then Hume think they’ve gone ahead when Markelis thumps in after a goal-mouth scramble but celebrations are cut short when referee Jonathan Barreiro disallows the goal for a foul in the build-up. The crowd aren’t happy and the drums beat louder to reflect it.
And so it stays 1-1 until the 90th minute when the Strikers – gamely sticking to Hume despite what must be an intimidating atmosphere – appear to have won it, Scot Coulson rifling a shot from the left, under the body of Oldfield in goal. Brisbane go nuts, as you would, but within moments of the re-start, with seconds remaining in regular time, Hume equalise and send the match into extra-time. It’s influential midfielder Marcus Shroen rising high to slam home Pavlak’s left-side cross with a thunderous header. Cacophonous delirium in the stand. What a night this is turning out to be.
It gets more ridiculous – and memorable – still. In the 13th minute of extra-time Coulson scores again to put Brisbane 3-2 up, seizing on a mistake from centre-back Peter Franjic before cooly beating Oldfield. Surely now Brisbane can hold on for a famous win? But in time added on in the first half of extra-time Shroen does it again, heading home Jai Ingham’s corner like a tracer bullet: 3-3! He sets off on a manic high-knee run alongside the stadium fence and a legion of Hume City juniors stand up and sing, “No surrender today because nothing can stand in our way” to the tune of Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer. It’s doubtful they’ve heard of Joplin. It’s doubtful right now they give a damn.
So we enter the second half of extra-time and driven by the drums and the fans Hume push for a winner while just managing to stifle Brisbane’s efforts to strike on the counter. And just when it’s looking like were going to penalties Hume ensures this night in the club’s history is elevated into the number one position: Ingham finds substitute Liam Newman overlapping and Newman makes for the right byline. With the whistle due any second he centres with the outside of his left boot and the Strikers’ Henslee, sliding it to cut out the cross, deflects the ball into his own net.
There seems to be a moment’s hesitation before the crowd realises what has happened. But when they do ABD Stadium erupts for the fourth time tonight, and the drums thunder, thunder, thunder. Hume City are going to the round of 16. What was that about Hume City’s memorable moments being like buses?
