10 years ago in September 2005, the first Melbourne Victory home game in the A-League was played against Perth Glory with the final score being a 2-2 draw. On that historic day, Austrian import Richard Kitzbichler and current coach Kevin Muscat were the scorers.
However, it is a much lesser known fact that Melbourne Victory’s FIRST EVER home game was also against Perth Glory! This historic game was played as part of the pre-season challenge cup on the 30th July 2005 at MV’s first home ground – Olympic Park.
And I am very proud to say that I was one of the small crowd of 4,528 who attended the game!
The starting eleven on that night was …
1 Michael Theoklitos
2 Kevin Muscat (captain)
4 Mark Byrnes
5 Geoffrey Claeys
6 Steve Pantelidis
7 Michael Ferrante
9 Daniel Allsopp
10 Archie Thompson
12 Carl Recchia
13 Kristian Sarkies
17 Richard Kitzbichler
And the score was 1-0 to Melbourne Victory with Archie Thompson scoring the winning goal in the 60th minute ! It was a great night and I have been a loyal Melbourne Victory fan ever since.
Here are some pictures I took on the night. Apologies in the advance for the very poor photos! Bear in mind this was in 2005 – consumer compact digital cameras at the time was pretty basic and terrible at night photos. Not to mention my photographic skills are pretty non-existent!
Hope you enjoy this little trip down memory lane. I will gladly take the same 1-0 scoreline for tomorrow’s A League match between Melbourne Victory and Perth Glory at AAMI Park !
Ed: This post was originally posted at the Melbourne Ahoy website - The First Melbourne Victory Home game
