Victory in Melbourne 

One of the big stories of the 2009 Victorian Premier League so far has been the rise of Dandenong Thunder. Playing their first ever season in the state’s premier football competition they have been a relevation remaining undefeated after eight rounds, with seven of those being wins. They currently sit on top of the table, six points clear of their nearest rival.

I had my first experience of the phenomenon that is the Dandenong Thunder on Friday night as they took on the Richmond Eagles at the Kevin Bartlett Reserve. In what was a highly entertaining match the Thunder ran out 3-2 winners. All the goals were of the highest quality, although I did think the first goal by Dandenong had a touch of offside about it as the Thunder caught the Richmond defence napping in the first minute. But that may just be my pro-Richmond side showing through.

Although disappointed by the fact that Richmond lost the match you had to marvel at the number of supporters that were there to support Dandenong. The Thunder, are a team that has a strong following in the Melbourne Albanian community, bring a huge amount of support to away games. Against teams such a team as Richmond, who have only a small dedicated group of fans, make an away game feel like a home game.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the Thunder progress through the remainder of the season, as the more experienced heads of the big name clubs will certainly look to bring them back to the field and try and cut them down to size. For my sake, I hope Richmond can bounce back from the defeat and maintain their position in the top five.

Last night I finally got round to checking out a Victorian Premier League match. I had given it thought around the same time last year but in the end I never got round to it. Probably too many other distractions - it may have been when I started taking up golf. Anyway back to the matter at hand, the match I went to was the first of the new Foxtel Cup season between Richmond Eagles and last year’s champions, Preston Lions at Kevin Bartlett Reserve.

Having never supported a VPL team before, I went through and long arduous selection process in order to choose one. In fact, it boiled down to a club that had a stadium that was easily accessible by public transport from my house in Kensington. So in the end it basically came down to Richmond and South Melbourne, and I couldn’t support the latter due to not liking them during their NSL days, so Richmond it was. Reading through the club history and discovering that it was origins were in the local German community and myself having the surname, Zimmerman it seemed like it was preordained.

To the game itself I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as I stood (no seats or stands here) with the small but loud supporter group based at the Heyington Bridge end of the ground. As the game progressed I slowly joined in more and more with their chanting that was in a mixture of English and German and got talking with some of the supporters. The home support was severely outnumbered by the visiting fans which was clearly evident when Preston scored their only goal for the game. Highlights of the night in no particular order for me were:

• The result, a 5-1 win to the home team over the defending champions was a good way to start the season;
• Some well taken goals - one free kick stands out;
• The availability of German beers from the club bar;
• The raffle ticket seller and her warning for us not to set off any flares as any money she raised would have to go paying the fine;
• The announcement of the winner of the match day raffle by a person carrying around a piece of cardboard with the winning ticket number written on it (unfortunately I didn’t win); and
• The barman after the game giving myself and another supporter the “special” German beer, in his words something you would get at the opera. Maybe it was something you would drink at a Wagnerian opera.

After my first taste of the VPL I definitely will be back for future games, both home and away. Its an experience completely polls apart from that at an A-League match and one that has whetted my appetite, much to the chagrin of my girlfriend.