The sun was blazing, but the wind was blowing as it inherently is, at Palmerston Oval as two teams of distinctive cultural identities clashed in the Capital League Open with Yarabi FC rolling out the red carpet, or in this case, the green cricket astroturf strip, to Burns FC from ‘Down South’.
Yarabi, one of the newest teams in the Capital Football Federation, are proud to be represented by a word derived from the Ngunnawal language – The language of the traditional owners of the land on which they play football. ‘Yarabi’ is the updated, traditional representation of the word many know as ‘Yerrabi’, and means ‘to walk’, and is synonymous with the Gungahlin Region.
Meanwhile, their opponents are up the other end of the scale in terms of age. The Burns Football Club has a wealth of history and is the oldest surviving Football Club in the ACT Canberra Region. First established in 1925, the Scottish-based Burns Club would travel to various country NSW towns and Sydney to play their games but are now a familiar face in the Community scene.
The game we were present to watch was the early morning Community League Open Division 9 match between the respective clubs, both playing their second match of the season. There was a distinctive reason we selected the fixture as our first Grassroots match, the inter-office dual between Burns FC Akshay Shah and Yarabi FC’s Declan Smith offering a neat sub-plot.
Neither side could have any complaints about the playing surface, Palmerston offering up a glorious carpet of lush green turf, even bereft of the usual smattering of leavings that suburban ovals often suffer from courtesy of various visitors from mother nature. Both sides had been defeated in opening day action, by those dastardly rascals from ANU FC, Blue accounting for Burns, White for Yarabi.
On what was a warm autumnal morning or ‘warmtumal’ if you prefer to mash words together, the warm-ups were conducted at a sedate pace as players drifted in, some being given kit prior to kick-off, others unpacking sparkling new additions to their attire such as new boots or pads.
The home side changed into their orange away kit so as not to clash with their guests, a nice gesture, probably borne out of necessity as Burns arrived with just their usual home colours, and as the teams congregated to go through their final pre-match gee-up routines, a smattering of spectators rolled in from the surrounding parking points, friends, families, partners, or just interested bystanders, it mattered not as football was on offer!
There was a lightning start for Yarabi, awarded a stonewall penalty in only the ninth minute when a rather agricultural attempt to challenge from the ball almost sent a Yarabi player into the adjoining school playground. Player/coach, and general all round Yarabi legend, Logan Hareb calmly smashed home from the spot for the opening goal.
Stunned by the early strike, Burns FC responded well and Shah almost bundled home from close range. With Joshua Wild and Max Dent leading the line well, the visiting side were making inroads but could not find a way past the imposing presence of Harrison Shield and Manaswin Sridhar, the former calmly diluting any threat that Burns could muster.
At half-time, as refreshments of varying degrees of suitability for ‘athletic achievement’ were consumed, and tactics discussed, there was little between the teams, but that changed early in the second-half when Benjamin McDowell found space at the top of the area to drive home a second for Yarabi. A club with Scottish heritage undone by a ‘Mac’. Heresy!
Burns response was to launch wave upon wave of attacks on the home goal, repelled at every turn until nine minutes from the end. Wild, who looked a class act in the middle, collected a pass and shimmied past a couple of challenges before blasting home a blistering finish into the bottom corner from 20 metres.
That raised hopes of a Burns comeback, but Yarabi saw off the challenge in relative comfort to claim a 2-1 victory, their first three points of 2024. There followed the usual post-match discussions, as players eased aching bodies and salved wounds, most notably via the consumption of the traditional after-match refreshment of choice at this level.
Two teams going at it for ninety minutes, with no real thought of anything other than enjoying the occasion and getting the points on offer. A genuine pleasure to behold and an entertaining start to our Grassroots Chronicles.
RESULT
Capital League Open Division 9
Yarabi FC 2 (Hareb 9’ (p), McDowell 56’) Burns FC 1 (Wild 81’)
