I woke up on Saturday morning and started feeling the nerves build within me. It wasn’t due to the Derby d’Sydney (as I like to call it) that was happening that night. No, I was told 36 hours earlier that I would be meeting Alessandro Del Piero prior to the game and handing over some form of pennant to commemorate the first ever Sydney Derby. It's a known fact that I’m a long time Juventus supporter, and Alessandro Del Piero (almost by default) is one of my favourite players ever. To have the chance to meet him in person had me speechless at first, and then nervous as hell. Apparently I was voted to be the one by various members of the Red and Black Bloc, so for that I am extremely humbled.

It was also teased that there was something else in store for me. The suspense was killing me!

So the hot Saturday morning and midday passed by slowly and finally I was repping the T80 Service Crew on our way to Parramatta to meet up with the rest of the Wanderers supporters for the pre game drinks that is very fast becoming a huge tradition. To say the Woolpack was packed is an understatement. Red and black everywhere.

I had people coming up to me offering me advice to give Del Piero a Wanderers jersey, or to give him a wooden spoon live on TV as a massive piss take. I humoured the suggestions, but deep down...this was Del Piero, and I couldn’t see myself doing something like that to him, despite the legendary status and immortality that would be placed upon me.

I then learned that apparently I was going to be in the tunnel with the players, meet them all, and get interviewed by Ian “Dicko” Dickson and then initiate a chant for the Red and Black Bloc? As Tweak once said in South Park: “Too much pressure!!”

Drinks and singing at the pub, marching with 1000 plus people down a packed Church St, running into certain FourFourTwo editors in the middle of the road taking pictures, squeezing through the bottleneck turnstiles which are worse than the M5 East at 8am weekdays and I’m whisked away by the Wanderers rep to the media and corporate box.

There I meet Dicko who actually is a really nice guy. We talk football like old mates. I ask him how he got involved with the club and he tells me that Lyall Gorman rang him telling him about a new club he was forming and he wanted a face for it. Dicko explained that football doesn’t need a figurehead like that but he wants to help football grow in this country, so he agreed to help out where he can.

I met a colleague or friend of Dicko’s who is a Cardiff City fan, and thus pissed off at the entire foreign owner issues where I won massive brownie points because I knew what he was talking about, whereas Dicko didn’t!

I then meet the Cove representative, Tim, who apparently was only told about this 30 minutes ago. We are both given the pennant that we are to give to the players. It was one of those flags that you see many European teams exchange every game.

 



We are then interviewed by Dicko and I can’t even remember the lame answers I gave as it is all a bit of a blur. Then for some reason I’m screaming in the mic for the RBB to respond to and I take the opportunity to take a picture of the incredibly ambitious cardboard display that was organised. When it was all up, I was relieved that it actually got pulled off.
 

Then we are quickly taken to the sideline, waiting for the teams to shake hands and what not and I’m rushed to hand over the pennant to the Sydney FC captain, who in this case was Brett Emerton.

A small voice in my head says quietly: “Weren’t you supposed to meet Del Piero?”
Oh yeah...about that....?? Leading up to the event, and in hindsight, it never really made sense for me to hand the pennant over to Del Piero and the Cove rep to hand his over to Ono. Usually these things involve the captains so I was always curious about this little detail.

The entire thing felt a little rushed, and in hindsight after seeing the telecast I feel it’s because the F3 Derby went over time, and so these little pre game ceremonies were cut short. So I’m not sure if the initial plan was to meet the players in the tunnel as initially communicated to me and it was changed due to the time constraints.

For some reason I said to Emerton as I shook his hand “Good luck” instead of scolding him that he is playing for the wrong team. The nice guy in me came through in the heat of the moment. Jokingly, I’m disappointed in myself.

I clasped hands firmly with Beauchamp as I was getting ushered off the field and we had a moment between ourselves which basically summed up as “do it”. Beauchamp seemed fired up and I knew he was reflecting the mood of the entire team. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to tell him that my father works with his father!

I am then rushed back to the northern end along the sidelines where I joined my RBB brothers and sisters and got lost in the mayhem of the first ever Sydney Derby.