Marked for Isaac Hill
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets6 Aug 2029
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Fleetwood Town keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad6 Aug 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Marlee Francois and Perth Glory agree another 4 years.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Tom Lawrence 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.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Isaac Hill is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 16 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Transfer targets6 Aug 2029
Perth Glory asked and Torres said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets6 Aug 2029
Cambridge United have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad6 Aug 2029
“I will play as long as the body lets me and stop the day it does not.” He is 36, with 259 appearances behind him, and the club has to plan for a decision that is not yet made.
The dugout6 Aug 2029
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Perth Glory. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Jul 2029
Arion Sulemani and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets30 Jul 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tranmere Rovers have kept their man, and Perth Glory go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad30 Jul 2029
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tyler Williams and Perth Glory agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets23 Jul 2029
Perth Glory had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Milton Keynes Dons, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Tom Lawrence and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Daniel Graskoski is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad23 Jul 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Isaac Hill commits to Perth Glory for another 3 years.
Transfer targets23 Jul 2029
A loan move for Jevan Beattie is in the works
Perth Glory have made the call to Tranmere Rovers. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets23 Jul 2029
Stevenage have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout23 Jul 2029
Bryce Murray has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Perth Glory 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.
The dugout23 Jul 2029
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Boardroom23 Jul 2029
The Perth Glory academy earns its keep
23 graduates, from a department now rated 11 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Nov 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Usisya Longwe
101 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Perth Glory lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match22 Nov 2028
The small margins put Perth Glory out
Out, 1‑3 to Wellington Phoenix, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings27 Nov 2028
A debut Isaac Hill will not forget — 7.51
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.51 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Market27 Nov 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Perth Glory, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match25 Nov 2028
No end in sight to Perth Glory's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Perth Glory has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Tom Lawrence in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Perth Glory this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words at Perth Glory training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brendan Hamill is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The terraces27 Nov 2028
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market18 Sep 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Perth Glory, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout18 Sep 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market18 Sep 2028
Only the photograph left for Oliver Evans
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oliver Evans will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Perth Glory the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Tom Lawrence and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Brendan Hamill was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad18 Sep 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Isaac Hill and Perth Glory agree another 3 years.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
The scrutiny sharpens at Perth Glory
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Perth Glory is running low.
Market4 Sep 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Window shuts: 17 in, 5 out at Perth Glory
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 17 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Tom Lawrence and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets4 Sep 2028
The offer went to Central Coast Mariners this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad4 Sep 2028
The step up is real for Isaac Hill
At 15 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad4 Sep 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Sam Sutton and Perth Glory agree another 4 years.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Brendan Hamill falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.