Lochhead Header Rescues Gully in Friday Night Fightback
You can tell a lot about a football club by how it behaves when nothing is going right.
Three rounds in, zero points, one goal scored, the number one goalkeeper on the treatment table, Matt Crooks still injured an Diego Cuba suspended and coming off a bad performance and result at Avondale.
If there was ever a week for Green Gully to wave the white flag, this was it. Instead, on a Friday night at Green Gully Reserve, they did the opposite.
Green Gully 1-1 Hume City. Round 4. First point of the season. And the manner of it mattered more than the number.
For 45 minutes, this was Hume City’s match. They were cleaner in possession, more coherent through the middle, and in Chris Engelhart and Birkan Kirdar they carried a sharpness that the Cavaliers could not match. Nick Hegarty’s side arrived sitting fifth on six points, and they played like it.
Luka Romic, thrown into the starting XI with Michael Weir sidelined by a groin injury, was under siege from the outset. He answered every question. A sharp save to deny Engelhart. Another to keep out Adisu Bayew’s downward header. Then a third to repel a low drive from Jalil Regague’s misjudged clearance. Three stops of genuine quality inside one half. For a goalkeeper who had conceded four goals the week before at Avondale, this was repair work of the highest order.
The penalty in the 29th minute felt inevitable. A drinks break, then Hume switched on while Gully switched off. From the goal kick, Oldfield found Calver, Calver found Aidan Coyne, and the ball was moved with the kind of clarity that exposes a side not fully switched back on. Engelhart combined neatly before Kirdar darted into the channel and was clipped by the advancing Romic. Clear penalty. Kirdar drove it straight down the middle. 1-0.
They nearly had more. Kirdar’s curling shot from the edge of the box drew another save. Brayden Spink rose and headed just over from the resulting corner. Bayew cut inside and fired again. By the interval, the surprise was only that it had taken this long for Hume to lead.
Whatever David Chick said at half-time, it landed.
Green Gully came out for the second half like a different side. Higher pressing, better ball retention, more purpose in everything they did. The timidity and loose balls of the first 45 were gone. In their place, intent. Real, sustained, aggressive intent, from a squad running on fumes and held together by sheer stubbornness.
The equaliser in the 59th minute was the best goal of the night, and it was built on patience and width. Lochhead was involved early, linking play deep before driving forward. Green Gully worked the ball across the park with uncommon composure, shifting Hume from one side to the other before finding Bilal Habib in space. Habib measured his delivery. Lochhead, having continued his run all the way into the box, met it with a firm header that beat Oldfield despite the keeper getting something on it. A goal built on timing, on width, on one player beginning the move and then having the conviction to finish it.
1-1, and the match tilted. Hume, once in control, retreated and invited pressure. Their right flank, earlier a source of threat, became a weakness. Regague surged down the left and flashed a cross into the area. Habib cut inside and shot wide. Lochhead struck from distance after another promising move. The Cavaliers were not swarming, but they were asking questions Hume could not comfortably answer.
The closing stages grew tense. Clear chances were scarce, but half-openings kept both sides alert. Bayew drove down the right before Khoder Kaddour blazed over from inside the box when he simply had to hit the target. Josh Bingham, on as a substitute, tested Romic with a deflected effort.
Then came the 88th minute. A Hume corner, Bayew wrestled down by Amanhom Khamis inside the box. Two arms around the body, no attempt to play the ball. Replays strengthened the visitors’ case, but the penalty was not given. A huge let-off for Green Gully.
Four minutes of stoppage time. Regague drove at Oldfield’s near post, forced a save, won a corner. A brief flare-up. Then the whistle.
One point from four rounds still leaves the Cavaliers well short of where they want to be.
But numbers do not tell you about a squad missing its first-choice goalkeeper, its midfield linchpin, and a key defender to suspension, and still producing a second half that would have troubled anyone in this division.
Romic was immense. Lochhead’s header was a proper centre-forward’s goal. And the collective shift after the break, the willingness to step up rather than shrink, showed a character that three rounds of frustration had not broken.
