The mood at Perth Glory 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Perth Glory can pretend not to have heard.
The phone has started ringing about Tate Watson again, and this time the name on the line is Macarthur FC. Perth Glory are listening politely and promising nothing.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Travis Beath and Perth Glory agree another 1 years.
Squad5 Jun 2051
Tom Hunter 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tyler Kennedy trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 53 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
123 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Melbourne City will make the call about Rhys Watson this week. Perth Glory have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
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.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Perth Glory could ask drops and the wages Andrew Clark can ask rise.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 11 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
1‑4 to Sydney FC, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Boardroom12 Dec 2050
Nobody left the Perth Glory dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Whether it was the goalkeeper or the ten in front of him is the argument that will fill every conversation in town this week. 3 saves does not settle it either way.
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.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Andrew Clark’s negotiating for him
Player ratingsThe pass was always on for Blake Beath
A 1‑3 win over Adelaide United, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
2 behind and going nowhere, until Thomas Murray decided otherwise. Adelaide United had done the hard part and then watched it come apart, and the noise at the final whistle was the sort a ground keeps.
Marked 10.00 — 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom19 Sep 2050
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Perth Glory
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
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.