Lampard leaves it late as South Melbourne snatch inaugural Australian Championship victory

Written by Lachlan Sherriff

Photo: Australian Championship/X

Some games become iconic, lasting memories due to what happened on the pitch. Other games go down in the history books before a ball was kicked.

South Melbourne vs Sydney Olympic was always going to be the latter.

7,894 days. That's how long it had been since these two met each other in a national competition. That day in 2004 was the last ever day of regular season matches in the NSL, while today was the first day of the Australian Championship. After being kept away from the national stage for over two decades, South Melbourne and Sydney Olympic, two of the biggest teams in this country, were right back where they belonged.

The 2004 matchup ended 0-0. Thanks to Sydney Olympic's Ali Auglah, it only took thirteen minutes to ensure that result wouldn't be repeated.

South Melbourne failed to play it out of the back. Auglah intercepted the pass, took one touch, and struck it into the bottom corner from thirty yards out.

Lakeside Stadium was sent into shock. Sydney Olympic were in dreamland. Ali Auglah had scored the first ever goal of the Australian Championship with the strike of dreams. And just as importantly, he put Olympic 1-0 up.

Photo: Thinh Nguyen/X

The following thirty minutes saw Hellas attack, searching for an equalizer. And sometimes in football, if you keep pushing, you might knick a goal when it's least expected.

This was shown to be true when on the cusp of half time, the ball pinballed in the box and was eventually tapped home by Yuki Uchida. Hellas couldn't have left it any later in the first half, but they had their equalizer.

Perhaps conceding so late hurt Olympic, because they didn't look as lively to start the second half. And after another game of pinball in their box, Oli Lavale scored in the 51st minute to give South Melbourne the lead.

Olympic had the lead for over half an hour. It took six minutes for Hellas to take it back. And Lakeside Stadium was bouncing.

For a while, it looked like South Melbourne would see out a 2-1 win. But the football God's decided that the inaugural Championship game wasn't allowed to end without chaos.

84th minute. Ryan Feutz receives the ball on the edge of the box, turns around, and strikes an equalizer into the top corner that was every bit good as Auglah's goal.

But one last twist was on the cards.

At the beginning of the night, no one would've had left back Jordon Lampard down as the man to score the winning goal for South Melbourne. But when the moment came for him after a cross fired across the box, he fired the ball off his trusty left foot and into the top corner.

The unlikeliest of heroes had saved the day for Hellas, and Lakeside was once again electric.

Photo: Australian Championship/X

Olympic pushed forward in hopes they could once again find an equaliser, but it wasn't to be. South Melbourne held on and won 3-2, becoming the first team to win an Australian Championship game.

Coming into the game, there was a lot of curiosity on whether we'd see the early 2025 South Melbourne, who couldn't win a game to save their life, or the South Melbourne we saw later in the season who won the Dockery Cup. In the end, we probably saw both of them.

It wasn't perfect, but three points is three points, and no one knows that more then the match winner, Jordon Lampard, who couldn't have been happier to leave his mark on the first Championship match.

"Obviously it's a long time coming in Australian football, especially opening up with two massive clubs, Sydney Olympic and South Melbourne, in front of a packed house here. Just happy to get the three points, that's the main thing, and obviously a bonus to score the winner."

- Jordon Lampard on scoring South Melbourne's winning goal

After going up 1-0 and then getting the game back to 2-2, Sydney Olympic will be disappointed to not leave Lakeside with a result. But for Ali Auglah, he'll always have the silver lining of being the first ever goal scorer in the history of the Australian Championship.

"It's a good feeling to be the first scorer of course, it goes down in history now, first scorer, Ali Auglah. It would have been good if we ended up with a win and left Melbourne on a high spirit at the start of the season, but I feel like it's a step forward in Australian football, seeing the fans come up, seeing opposition fans and our home fans coming up to us, coming from Sydney to Melbourne for a new league that's still up and coming, so it's exciting, I can't wait for what's to come next."

- Ali Auglah on scoring the first goal in Australian Championship history

Both teams will turn their attention to next week, where they'll both play home games on Sunday. Sydney Olympic will take on Broadmeadow Magic, while South Melbourne will welcome Moreton City to Lakeside Stadium.