Image: Box Hill
Momentum can be both a wonderful and a dreadful force in football. If you’ve got it, seemingly everything you touch turns to gold – a shank ending up in the back of the net, fortuitous refereeing decisions going your way. Likewise, when it’s against you, the shot that struck the woodwork just won’t creep in, the opposition keeper has the game of their life, all the chances you create don’t eventuate into anything tangible and the first mistake your team makes gets punished.
The latter may have been the story of the early season for Box Hill, where wins – let alone goals – were as elusive as that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
But all the clichés and stereotypes have an element of truth to them. If a week is a long time in football, the club’s first 11 rounds were an eternity, sitting at the bottom of the ladder, with the light at the end of tunnel barely flickering in the distance. But then when it rains it pours and, after a maiden win in Round 12 against Werribee in the last weekend of April came an undefeated May, leading to Greg Kassidas earning our Coach of the Month award.
The first clash against Bendigo certainly helped. If one needs a confidence boost, one can usually strike gold against the club conceding more than five goals most weeks. Plenty of players got on the scoresheet for the club’s second consecutive victory and clean sheet, and that winning feeling started pouring back.
The turning tide was probably at its most evident against Nunawading. Sitting at 2-2 late in the contest having given up a lead twice, a defender’s clearance ricocheted of Jack Gow well outside the area and sailed past Jordan Franken to hand his side a 3-2 win. Where was that stroke of fortune in the first 11 rounds?
The week after that came a credible 2-2 draw on the road to Melbourne City, but the final round of the month saw arguably the club’s most impressive result.
Taken out of context, a win at Wembley Park against Murray United seems like a standard three points for a home side. But against the league’s breakout side, coming back from a deficit four times to eventually climb over the top of the visitors and win 5-4 showed the determination and resilience of a side that continues to grow in confidence and form in the league.
Todd Dekker scored all five that day and has been one of the club’s fledglings – in what would have to be one of the youngest sides on paper in the league – to have really shone in recent times.
Credit can also be given for the club hierarchy to stick it out during the club’s barren run. There’s nothing like a run of defeats that can prompt irrational decisions to be made out of emotion.
But the faith has been repaid and after sitting dead last in Round 11 on six points, three adrift from safety, Box Hill now occupy a mid-table position, six points away from last-placed Richmond. The unbeaten month of May was a welcome relief for Greg Kassidas who has endured his fair share of highs and lows in his numerous years at Wembley Park.