Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Macarthur FC moved on, Cameron Jones reports back to Wellington Phoenix, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Luke Brooke-Smith was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
128 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wellington Phoenix lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wellington Phoenix can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wellington Phoenix this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Luke Brooke-Smith was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Marked 8.40 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“I watch every Wellington Phoenix game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Melbourne Victory runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Wellington Phoenix will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.