For those that still have a place in their heart for the now defunct Scarborough Football Club, Tuesday 15 June 2010 was a day of some distinction. It was the day that the first Scarborough player, past or present, played in the World Cup.
"Wow," I can hear you all saying in your armchairs, or on the train as you read this on your iPad. "That's pretty big isn't it. I wonder who he was. And how did Scarborough manage to go into liquidation if they had this guy on their books? Surely they could have sold him for a fair price to balance the books?"
They could have. But here are a selection of comments I have managed to find about the said player that were made on the popular Scarborough FC message board, the Surfing Seadog.
"If Forest Green can put 5 past a team containing ****** then how many will Slovakia get?"
"He was shit."
Now those might not be popular opinions were you to air them in Waikato, Wellington, Dunedin or Auckland, but mention the name Leo Bertos to anyone who saw Scarborough lose 5-1 to Forest Green on February 2 2006 and you're likely to be told that "he wa only signed cos Redfearn wa shit an all".
To translate for anyone that can't translate bitterness into English, the now 28-year-old Bertos made a 78-minute cameo for Scarborough against Forest Green four years ago under the ill-fated managerial reign of Neil Redfearn - he of the hard shot, stubble and gristle when Barnsley were playing "like Brazil."
The 5-1 hammering turned out to be Bertos' only contribution to the eventual 128-year history of Scarborough Football Club. Considering he is now a capped World Cup international you could look back on it as a guest appearance.
Leo's nomadic career, which had already taken in Rochdale, Chester and York then took him to Worksop, before he eventually returned to Australasia, turning out for Perth Glory and currently the Wellington Phoenix.
So what was it? Were the Scarborough fans so blinded by their hatred of Redfearn (who signed Bertos having played with him at Barnsley) or was he genuinely that bad? Your first thought would suggest that they were wrong in their assessments of him. The guy has played in a World Cup and, after their 1-1 draw with Slovakia, is a national hero for crying out loud!
But, on the other hand. Worksop, Chester, York? Hardly a CV to be proud of is it?
Either way, Leo's heroics bring me nicely on to the overall point of this potentially terrible rambling.
When the aforementioned Surfing Seadog first carried news of Leo's inclusion in the New Zealand squad, it brought about a mild case of internet handbags.
The Surfing Seadog, you see, used to be the place where Scarborough fans of all generations would debate the hefty issues of the day such as 'why is Steve Baker playing more than Paul Foot' and 'just who can get the best out of Tony Hackworth'.
Anyway, I digress. When Scarborough Football Club eventually buckled under the weight of one financial disaster too many in the summer of 2007, some of the traffic stopped flowing through the Surfing Seadog.
A new club was born out of the ashes of the old one, Scarborough Athletic, who are a trust-run club and play out of Bridlington Town's Queensgate ground. They have had moderate success in their three-year existence, but this correspondent would suggest that they currently lack the ruthlessness that they had when they were first born.
Further up the road, or back in Scarborough to be precise, those who felt those in charge of Athletic were to blame for the old club's demise have started a club of their own, Scarborough Town and, as of next season, they shall play in the division below Athletic.
I can hear you: "What's wrong with that, plenty of towns and cities have two clubs, just look at Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow...."
I think the situation can be best assessed thus. In its final season as a Conference Premier League side, Scarborough FC boasted the following shirt sponsors. Matalan and Scarborough Spa and Hot Tubs. Businesses in Scarborough had rarely been forthcoming in their support, while business through the turnstiles floated between 500 on a wet night against Altrincham to the occasional 3000 on Boxing Day against York City.
The club had always had to battle against the odds. That's what its motto was for goodness sake. 'No Battle, No Victory'. Tony Adams hauling down Darren Foreman in the fog in January 1993, William Gallas handling in the box in 2004. The injustice. The small-club syndrome. The club had to scrap to survive, to pay the wages (and often not pay the wages) of footballing heavyweights such as David McNiven and Dan Jarvis.
It scrapped and kicked its way through one season after another, begging, stealing and borrowing to survive. Making light of the town's apathetic support. And now, what have we got. Two clubs fighting over the same resources on which one couldn't survive. You couldn't make it up.
Have I forgot something. Oh yes. The internet handbags. Well, one scribe said to another: "You haven't got the right to talk about Leo Bertos because your club isn't a continuation of Scarborough Football Club, ours is."
The club has gone from playing in a modest, humble but wholly sufficient little stadium where it would fight points deductions, opposition players (and occasionally fans) and setback after setback to splitting into two clubs that fight over who has the rights to Leo Bertos. A man that was universally branded as "shit".
Having followed with interest the comings and goings on the Surfing Seadog of late, I would be inclined to suggest that they were in fact wrong about Bertos. He was a bloody good player, they just couldn't see it. And I reserve the right to keep that opinion until both sides sort themselves out and stop fighting over who owns him.
And then, and only then, will he go back to being shit.
