The mood at Brisbane Roar has turned into something else
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.
17 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad25 Feb 2036
Words at Brisbane Roar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebit Ngor 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Brisbane Roar can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Macarthur FC left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Jan 2036
Sebit Ngor 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marcus Bell commits to Brisbane Roar for another 3 years.
Boardroom7 Jan 2036
99% of the income goes out in wages at Brisbane Roar
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad7 Jan 2036
A place in the month's best eleven for Justin Vidic
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Justin Vidic has come out of that comparison in the side, and Brisbane Roar have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Brisbane Roar can pretend not to have heard.
Sebit Ngor 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.
82 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Brisbane Roar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces1 Jan 2035
The mood at Brisbane Roar has turned into something else
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.
Position 11 and 6 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Brisbane Roar is running low.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Lachlan Wales 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.