Sydney Olympic, 5pm Sunday 12th May 2019 (Home)

Sydney Olympic were formed in 1957 as Pan-Hellenic Soccer club by the influx of Greek immigrants to Australia in the early 1950s. They joined the state comp the following year and quickly established themselves as a force in NSW. This was long before the NSL, but unlike teams such as Croatia they changed their name in 1977 in order to stand a chance of joining the NSL when it was founded. They were admitted to the NSL for its inaugural season. They had a short stint back in the state league in 1979 but were promoted back to the NSL in 1981. They stayed in the NSL until its demise in 2004 and in that time won the competition in 1990 and 2002. With the exception of Croatia they were by far the best supported team in NSW and the traditional derby between themselves and Croatia drew huge crowds. Even in the mid to late 90s crowds in excess of 10,000 at King Tom were common for this fixture. Somewhat of a nomadic club, they never owed their own ground and since 2006 have played out of Belmore stadium. You can look at the footage of these games on youtube - flares and everything! It looked amazing. It’s a shame that these games are not in the top tier anymore as there was nothing like them, by the looks of it. They come into this game as reining champions having won the comp last season and are currently 5th on the ladder.

The original Sydney derby

It was glorious weather for football on Sunday and I was eager to get to King Tom for a pre game beer and talk about the game. It is a really tight league this season and this was a massive game, with Wollongong losing the previous day. Also the fact that it was the derby added extra spice to it. It being Mother’s day meant that the crowd was not as large as it could have been but the hardcore were on the hill and the SUS were in attendance of what was shaping up to be a great Sunday of football. Since the 0-5 disaster at Marconi we have won 5 straight in the league and cup and we are starting to look good. Despite having a slow start to the season, Olympic have quality up front in the form of Sanchez and are only 3 points off us in the table. The game started a little slow with both teams snuffing each other out. It was an end to end game and full of tension. There were not that many clear cut opportunities and as both teams play in the final third, was lacking a cutting edge as the defences played their part. The half time whistle sounded and the teams headed into the sheds locked at 0-0.

Fancy VIP seating on the hill

The game opened up after the break and Olympic started to turn up the heat in the opening 15 minutes with Manos parring an effort from Stewart and then making a remarkable double save to keep Croatia level. It really was quality from Manos as Olympic started to look the more likely to score. However, Croatia took the lead against the run of play just a few minutes later when Maia lofted a fabulous ball over the top in between Olympic’s defenders to Simonoski, who raced clear to finish in style before running to Gilligan’s corner to celebrate with the SUS. It was his 6th goal of the season and kept a fine run going. It was also a massive goal to break the deadlock in a game that looked like it was going away from Croatia. As the bar on the hill celebrated and more beers were ordered it looked as if Croatia would go within a point of the top. But less than five minutes later a quick counter caught the Croatia defence napping and Sanchez got in behind to cut back for an unmarked Pavicevic to tap into an empty net.

VB flowing

The game was now open and end to end stuff as both teams looked for the winner. The game looked to be heading for a draw as Croatia brought on Patrick Antelmi to try and snatch the game. Then with about 5 minutes left, an absolute peach of a strike by Antelmi almost won it but it was acrobatically turned over by Henderson. The game drifted into added time and both teams seemed to accept the draw. The whistle went and the game finished 1-1. In honesty a draw was a fair result, Manos pulled off a few world class saves and at the end Henderson did the same at the other end. Just 3 points off the top now and onto Manly next week in Dee Why. Sydney Croatia Ole Ole Ole….