Such trips are great for the fans but also key in terms of bonding also for the players themselves. A couple of memorable road trips come to mind for sides I have coached in Australia. One in the nineties with John Paul II Senior High School, Blacktown. The other with St Pius X College, Chatswood more recently in the 2000's.
Both roadtrips involved the school's 1st XI sides.
In 1995 John Paul II were enjoying halcyon days in both football and Rugby League. They won the nationally based Commonwealth Bank Cup in league with a final played at the SFS live on Channel Nine. In football we were a little bit more low key but had won both divisions of the ultra strong Metropolitan Catholic Colleges competition. Our chance to travel came when we made the last eight of NSWCCC Cup Competition. It was traditional in that Cup that the four metro quarter finalist schools would go country in that round. We got our opportunity and were required to go to Kempsey, a town 420km north of Sydney ...at that time a six hour drive in a slow mini-bus:) Our opponents that day were St Paul's College. Plans were made and we set off on the Sunday afternoon hoping to stay overnight in Kempsey, play the game at 12.00 noon and head for home when the game ended. All went well until when we turned up at 11.00am at the school. The pitch looked a bit thread bare and the goal posts were those multi-purpose ones doubling up for rugby. We were not really phased by this low key venue but did quickly receive a shock when a young student came out to tell us that the game had been rescheduled for a time 3 1/2 hours later! It quickly became apparent that the Principal of St Paul's had ordered the whole school to come out at the end of school to support the team. No problems here, we headed off back off to town on our bus to have a light snack at our motel accommodation. Returning a couple of hours later we saw that the whole school was now in attendance waiting for these city slickers from Sydney. No problems here...we were hoping for competition.
As we warmed up I couldn't help notice that the opposition had an untidy awkwardness about them. I kept my thoughts to myself but inevitably found my mind running a mental comparison with my own squad warming up professionally at the other end. Then it happened. The cup competition leveler arrived. Here was the cup competition's refereeing version of Yeovil Towns infamous sloping pitch. A country man, he walked up to our coaching group and spat an instruction that he needed to inspect the sides boots. Passively our players stood in front of him. He disdainfully looked them up and down liking nothing he saw! He disliked their hair, the jewellery they wore, the style of our white shirts and shorts and most of all the fact that we were a bit of an ethnic smorgasbord. Sensing his latent hostility my last words to the team were....."stay calm, play football, let the referee run the game". Big mistake on my part! The John Paul II boys played their part and kept possession for at least 3 minutes. Then unfortunately, we saw the way the rest of the afternoon would progress as our full back was cleaned up way after the ball was cleared......'Play on, play on' the referee waved his arms exulting the game to continue. We continued to play our game but without fail the Kempsey boys flew in late and as they did so the three or four hundred school kids on the hill went up as one, cheering each challenge, no matter how late."Stay calm ...stay calm ....we were sounding a bit desperate from the sideline....we hit both posts in the first half but when the whistle went for the break it was still 0-0. Our boys were fuming and the first few minutes of half time were wasted as they complained bitterly about the refereeing...the opposition and the crowd, who were really giving it to everyone playing down that side.
The second half continued pretty much the same as the first only now we were beginning to accumulate yellow cards for dissent.....usually for protesting the kicking which went on unabated. Our nerves were now starting to fray. Kempsey were now beginning to mount a few breaks and several times went close to scoring. In the John Paul II side we had an Australian Schoolboy, several NSW representatives and many good club players. It was a surprise to most in our group then, that with ten minutes to play I decided to takeoff my best two players. It seemed a real limited choice to me. Without refereeing protection they would be either sent off for retaliating or carried off with broken legs! The stares of our squad at this decision stay with me even today. Then, just as we were moving towards extra time, a low shot was spilled by their, up until then faultless, keeper and we followed up to score. What relief....I looked at the lineman before celebrating and within a minute the game was over. The crowd were not happy and the game finished to an eruption of pushing and shoving. Quickly we got the boys literally straight onto the bus without changing. We headed to the motel and were gone escaping with our hard won NSWCCC Cup semi-final place. Regardless to say, no other match came close to that experience in 1995. We beat St Francis Xavier, Hamilton 5-0 in the semi-final and then Christian Brothers, Lewisham 2-0 in the final at Melita stadium. The player bond we formed up in Kempsey was truly invaluable.
In more recent years St Pius X College, Chatswood has got into the routine of going on tour to Brisbane in the three week holiday break. This break actually dissects the ISA season and it can mean a long period without games. In 2007 we decided to enter a tournament in Brisbane where we would have six games in a week. The first Monday back we were due to play our main rivals St Patrick's College, Strathfield. Having won the Plate Trophy up north we returned with the squad playing well and more importantly match fit. The backdrop to the St Pat's fixture was that it was the first time we had played them since the 2006 Grand Final where they had hammered us 7-2! Half our side had played the previous year in that side and were hungry to prove a point. The game at Oxford Falls was a revelation! Unbelievable we raced to a 4-0 lead within 20 minutes. The opposition had probably not conceded four goals in the previous decade in any match. Early in the second half we scored again to make it 5-0. Inevitably, St Pat's rallied somewhat and reduced the deficit with two quick goals...5-2. Then almost immediately we broke away again to score another 6-2! I suppose the moral of this story is that preparation can bring large swings in form and performance. Our Queensland trip certainly set us up and despite only winning the return game 2-1 St Pius X College went on to be undefeated Champions dropping just two points in winning he ISA competion in 2007.
Yes, going away as a team is a good way of building comradery and the experiences gained put any side in good stead as a result. COYS!
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