Manly United 1-1 Sydney Olympic

It has been a wet and wild weekend in old Sydney town, starting with Friday Night at Cromer Park against Manly United, where a heroic display from Paul Henderson saw us pick up a valuable point on the Northern Beaches.

The match for most parts, was played in torrential rain, which limited the amount of “good football” that could be played. To the game itself, we started off well and created a few chances to open the scoring. Manly were also looking busy during that first half carving out some chances of their own. The first half generally was a pretty even affair. But 10 minutes before the break we went behind via a headed goal from a cross from a freekick. Minutes before half-time Paul Henderson pulled off some big big saves to keep the score at 1-0, which was how the score stayed as the referee blew his whistle for half-time.

The first 20 minutes of the second half were a continuation of the last 10 minutes of the first half. Manly were attacking our goal at will and putting all sorts of pressure on our defence. Once again we held firm, with Paul Henderson making some crucial saves to keep us in the contest. After this period though we seemed to grow in confidence and Manly would have been a little despondent after failing to capitalise on their chances and dropped their heads a little bit. We then got on top and had a couple of chances, the first one going wide, but with 20 minutes to go, the second found its mark. New recruit Josh Gaspari finished off well to open his account for Sydney Olympic and put us right back in the match. The final stages of the match saw both sides lift in search for a winner, but it would not come for either and the matched ended 1-1.

The last 3 or 4 weeks has seen steady improvement by the team, we are getting better each week. Whether it will be enough for us to make the Top 5 we will just have to wait and see, as it will be a tough ask given our poor start to the season.

As mentioned, new recruit Josh Gaspari scored a valuable goal for us on his Sydney Olympic debut. There is talk of 3 or 4 more players coming in to bolster the First Grade Squad, we will just have to wait and see.

For the Club Championship we picked up 4 points courtesy of our Draw in First Grade. In the U18s we Won 2-1 and in the U20s we Won 4-3, giving us a combined 13 points for the weekend, a good haul.

Over the last month there has been plenty of feedback and interest by Sydney Olympic Supporters on facebook and twitter regarding talk of change to the current Sydney Olympic logo, which is not everybody’s cup of tea. With next year being the 60^th anniversary of the founding of the club you would think that the Club would be implementing things now so it is changed and ready for next year.

The Olympic Rings in all polls and comments has been overwhelmingly the most popular choice from Sydney Olympic Supporters. Given that several other teams use some version of the Rings like Hamilton Olympic from Newcastle, Canberra Olympic and Wollongong Olympic. I see no reason why we cannot revert back to our original Ringed design which we used from 1977-1999, even an all-blue Ringed design would be acceptable. The Club and the Supporters deserve a better logo, one that reflects the clubs heritage and its future.

Our next League match is a big one. Next Sunday Night, June 12, against Blacktown City, at Belmore Sports Ground, Kickoff will be at 7.00pm.