It’s a “Red-Letter” day in Gosford tomorrow. This is one of the dates all Mariners (and probably Jets) fans circle on their calendars at the start of each season. F3 Derby is the oldest, and in my opinion, fiercest, derby in the A-League. I’ll stop short of calling it hatred, but some of my Mariner fan mates will vehemently disagree with that assessment. In fact, many a Yellow Army chant has been specifically designed with the “scummers” in mind. Even the Central Coast Mariners club got into the banter this week by publishing a neat pic showing the statistical analysis of the history with the cheeky tag – Catch us if you can.
We have history! It started at the very first F3 Derby when Nik Mrdja’s “mistimed” tackle (prior to our penalty shootout win) broke the leg of then Newcastle player Andrew Durrante, and it hasn’t become any more cordial since. Whether it be the constant barbs fans throw at each other on social media, the Jets poor form in flying in their solitary trophy to the stadium when we visited last year, or the Grand Final where the Jets won the championship on the back of Mark Shields ridiculous James Holland handball non-penalty call, every fan has an explanation for the added spice between the fans of this derby.
Recently, the piece of roadway between our two homes was renamed the M1 motorway, but I can tell you, there isn’t a Mariner’s fan in the place who thinks this has changed the name, or the history of our derby. Others will call it whatever they want, but it will never be anything but the F3 DERBY to us, the fans.
When it comes to the statistics, it doesn’t make good reading for Jets fans, with the Mariners leading all of them. A-League competition points accumulated, Goals for, Goals against, Goal difference, number of trophies, lack of wooden spoons or head to head, the Mariners lead the lot and I’m expecting this to continue tomorrow night. There is only one way to describe it – “Consistently Better”.
Both sets of fans will well remember the goal keeping blooper which led to the Jets scraping through with a point in the last derby and I expect our boys will look to throw everything at them to rectifying that embarrassment tomorrow night.
Along with the riot and mounted police, hopefully a large contingent of the opposition’s fans will make the trip and while they often like to deride the number of fans who attend our matches (despite it being a greater slice of the population), Mariner’s fans don’t have to think back too far to remember when we looked into their away bay at our home derby and wondered where the hell they all were.
In terms of football, I don’t spend too much time thinking about their team or matches but me and many of our fans always warm to the appearance of Ruben Zadkovich at our stadium let alone the possibility of seeing the “Sack Whacker” (Joel Griffiths) possibly make an appearance. Without a win for several matches, the most recent fail being against the Melbourne Heart, where they became their first victims of the year, the Jets do not have the look of an outfit the Mariners should fear.
On our side of the fence, last week’s performance against Sydney was certainly much improved. While we couldn’t match our opportunity making with our finishing, it’s only a matter of time before some of those goals start going in, and the derby atmosphere could be the catalyst for it. With a more settled defensive structure we were able to keep a clean sheet against Sydney and could easily have won the game by a couple, if not for wasted chances. Great performances from the likes of Trent Sainsbury and Anthony Caceres were supported by Mr Consistency – Nick Montgomery, putting in another machine like effort to give Mariner’s fans confidence we’re on the verge of a special performance.
I think the intensity of the derby atmosphere will be a significant boost for the Mariners who will be looking to prove Central Coast stadium continues to be the fortress we know it for. While there could be a tendency for this to be a tight affair, I think the Mariners can begin the performance rise needed as we head towards the business end of the competition, with a rousing win in front of a strong crowd.
Mariners by at least 1
