With Glory set to head to Mandurah next month for the first of two pre-season friendlies against Melbourne Victory (tickets available HERE), we’re taking a look back at the last time we met A-League opposition at Peelwood Reserve 12 years ago.
As friendlies go, Glory’s 2013 pre-season outing against Melbourne Heart, as they were then known, was about as unfriendly as you can get.
Unfriendly and yet enthralling all at the same time.
Heading into the game, Alistair Edwards’ ultimately ill-fated attempt to overhaul the squad was beginning to get underway.
Both of his sons, Ryan and Cameron, had been brought into the senior fold, along with a host of other youngsters including Riley Woodcock, Matthew Davies, Jamie Maclaren and Danny De Silva.
But a strong contingent of players who had helped drive Glory to the Grand Final just over a year earlier still remained, notably Jacob Burns, Steven McGarry, Travis Dodd, Steve Pantelidis and Danny Vukovic.
William Gallas had also agreed to sign, although the French marquee would not arrive in time for the fixture in Mandurah.
Melbourne Heart, meanwhile, had themselves secured some notable off-season recruits, including Massimo Murdocca, fresh from winning back-to-back Championships with Brisbane Roar, Socceroos defenders Patrick Kisnorbo and Aziz Behich and diminutive and deadly Malteese striker, Michael Mifsud.
But their headline act was undoubtedly the legendary Harry Kewell.
The 34-year-old former Liverpool and Leeds United man remained the country’s highest-profile player and hopes were high in the Heart camp that he could drive the club to glory in what was just their fourth season in the competition.
And so, with the two sides in the midst of their pre-season preparations, they came together for what was supposed to be a warm-up fixture in Mandurah, a chance to experiment with personnel and tactics and build up fitness before A-League hostilities commenced.
But that is most definitely not how it panned out.
There is absolutely no doubt that the weather was a major contributing factor to what followed.
The morning’s severe weather warning proved unerringly accurate as gale-force winds and torrential rain sheeted across Peelwood Reserve, rendering the pitch all but unplayable.
In fact, the conditions deteriorated so badly during the second half that referee David Bruce asked the respective captains if they wanted to call the game off, with the scoreline still locked at 0-0 at that stage.
They refused and that was good news for the fans who had braved the elements as they were treated to two spectacular late goals.
But those goals were not what would capture the post-match headlines.
Whether the conditions could be blamed or not, challenges had been flying in from both sides right from the start and they built up to a flashpoint just before the break when Behich chopped down Josh Risdon.
That agricultural challenge prompted a scuffle involving more than a dozen players, with Pantelidis, Vukovic and Kisnorbo, perhaps unsurprisingly, right in the thick of it.
As Kisnorbo and Vukovic continued to grapple in a heavyweight clash that no one seemed overly keen to try and break up, Bruce booked Behich for the initial challenge and also showed a yellow to Pantelidis who had been cautioned earlier in the half.
Confusion reigned, with even Kewell joining the Glory players in beseeching Bruce not to dismiss Pantelidis and thereby reduce the usefulness of the hit-out for both sides.
But Bruce was not to be swayed and the defender trudged disconsolately back to the sheds.
In total, nine yellow cards were produced as the two teams continued to, quite literally, go toe-to-toe and former Leeds and Australia teammates Burns and Kewell sparred verbally at every opportunity.
But the final ten minutes were at least brightened by two sublime strikes.
Kewell provided the first, arrowing a low shot past Vukovic from just outside the box to give Heart the lead.
Not to be outdone, McGarry crashed home an unstoppable, 25-yard effort two minutes from time to ensure that the game would end honours, and brusies, even.
Line-ups:
Perth Glory: Vukovic; Thwaite, Jamieson, Risdon, R Edwards (De Silva 66’); Pantelidis, Burns, McGarry; Nagai, Maclaren, Sidnei
Unused subs: Clisby, O’Neill, C Edwards, Zahra, Davies, Young
Melbourne Heart: Redmayne; Kisnorbo (Garuccio 65’), Gerhardt, Behich; Germano (Migliorini 46’), Kewell, Ramsay (Mauk 61’), Murdocca; Dugandzic, Hoffman, Williams
Unused subs: Velaphi, Walker, Mitchinson, Vrankovic
#ONEGlory
Retro Corner: A game as wild as the weather – Glory v Heart, Mandurah 2013
