aleagues.com.au speaks to a member of Wellington Phoenix fan group the Yellow Fever ahead of the biggest match in the club’s history – and finds out the origin of one of the A-Leagues’ strangest and most loved traditions.
If Wellington Phoenix are in front in an A-Leagues fixture, and the game clock ticks past 80 minutes? Shirts off in the Yellow Fever!
It’s one of the most iconic fan traditions in the Isuzu UTE A-League – and on Saturday night, as the Phoenix prepare to host Melbourne Victory in front of a sellout crowd at Sky Stadium for a place in the 2024 Grand Final, we could be set for the biggest and best display of the unique pastime the league has ever seen.
“That would be crazy,” says Tracey Hodge, a core member of Phoenix supporter group Yellow Fever. “Hopefully the weather plays ball, because we’ve done some shirts off with horrific conditions and it’s not a pleasant experience.”
But when did the shirts off tradition begin – and how?
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“From my understanding, a group of the original Yellow Fever crew went to an away game in Sydney, and it may have been the first real away trip the group had done,” Hodge tells aleagues.com.au.
“And at some point, the shirts came off. I don’t know how that translated to being the ‘rule’ of 80 minutes when we’re winning, but it happened.
“It’s nice to have a tradition that’s a little bit quirky – and I think that sums us up as a fan group, and as a city I guess, the quirkiness of it. It’s a weird tradition but it’s something we do, and we love it.”
Hodge has been a part of the Yellow Fever for 14 years. She caught the football bug at the 2010 Men’s World Cup when she travelled to South Africa to support the All Whites and as a result, met members of Wellington’s active supporter group for the first time.
In her 14 years as part of the Yellow Fever, Hodge has never seen her team reach a Grand Final. This Saturday presents the best opportunity the club has ever had to do so.
Wellington finished the season in second place. Giancarlo Italiano’s surprise package Phoenix drew 0-0 with Melbourne Victory away from home in the first leg of their Semi-Final bout, and have returned home to play in front of an expected sellout crowd at Sky Stadium, with more than 30,000 fans willing them to go further than any Phoenix side has gone before.
The club has spent 17 years chasing its first piece of silverware; pondering the near two-decade drought is “terrifying” for Hodge, who has watched kids join the Yellow Fever and grow into adults down the years, without seeing her side lift a trophy.
“It’s been such a long time since we’ve been in a position like this,” Hodge said. “I think I’m still in a little bit of a state of shock. Is this really happening?
“There are added layers now with the potential not only to make the Grand Final, but depending on the result in the other game, to host a Grand Final. I’m sure that’s playing on everyone’s minds.
“I was having a conversation with another one of our seasoned members the other night about a guy in the group now who must be 18 or 19, and he started coming into the Yellow Fever zone when he was much younger and his parents at half-time would bring him chips and a coke. Now he’s able to buy alcohol!
“It’s just mind-blowing, the length of time we’ve been doing this for that we’re seeing kids grow up. It makes me feel so old.”
Liaising with the club in the lead-up to Saturday’s game, Hodge has helped arrange the approval of safe smoke, flags, banners and drums, and worked with the council to organise a march to the match; the Yellow Fever will depart the Old Bailey pub an hour before kick-off en route to Sky Stadium, with Sky Sports cameras expected to be on hand to capture the festivities.
Want more information on the Yellow Fever March to the Match? Click here
“It’s a huge occasion,” Hodge said. “I don’t think we’ve seen a crowd like this since the All Whites qualifying match against Bahrain.”
New Zealand beat Bahrain 1-0 in late 2009 in the first of two qualification play-off legs for a spot at the 2010 World Cup in front of more than 35,000 fans at Sky Stadium.
“Wellington is going to be crazy this weekend.
“It’s especially important because at the start of the season, so many people wrote us off. Even the home fans were writing us off. I didn’t have confidence, to be perfectly honest. Even the Semi-Finals were a pipe dream at that point. I never imagined it. And it’s just gotten more and more stressful.
“In past seasons you get to later rounds and think: ‘Oh well, the season’s over but let’s just enjoy this with our friends, watching football’. But every match towards the end of this year meant something to us, we needed a result to maybe top the table at the end of it, and all that sort of stuff.
“It’s been a very stressful but joyous ride.”
Hodge, like all rusted-on Phoenix fans, is equal parts nervous and appreciative for what’s to come on Saturday night. The club and its supporters have endured more than a fair share of challenges since 2007, including years of displacement through the COVID-19 pandemic, and Football Federation Australia’s questioning of the club’s spot in the league altogether in 2015.
Early this week, aleagues.com.au spoke to Wellington General Manager David Dome about that period of uncertainty nine years ago, and the ‘Save the ‘Nix’ campaign that resulted from it.
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Dome told the story of how the city united behind the club to help keep it afloat – and even mentioned how former Sky Stadium CEO Shane Harmon stood in The Bucket Fountain in Wellington’s Cuba Mall to hang Phoenix scarves off the structure.
What Dome didn’t mention was that Hodge was in the fountain alongside Harmon; together with stadium CEOs, local councillors, MPs and Wellington staff, the fans plastered scarves all over town in the hope of keeping their beloved Phoenix alive.
“It’s something I don’t think about very often but when you put everything together you think: ‘Wow, we really have been through a lot and had some really dark times’,” Hodge said.
“This does feel like a form of validation for sticking with it, and a reward for staying true to the team, the club. If you were there through the bad times then you can really savour the good times.
“We did so much to try and help. And it’s a drop in the ocean, I know you really need the money behind it before you can salvage something. But the effort we put in supporting the club, I think this feels like payback for that in a sense. But at the same time, it’s not an expectation.
“I don’t want to gatekeep, I welcome everybody to jump on that bandwagon, but there is that extra sense of satisfaction to be in a crowd that big and go: ‘I was here in the bad times, I’m here now and I’m thankful to see all the other people here too’. To be honest, I’m a bit soft and I’ll probably cry a little bit.
“If it gets the team across the line, having a full stadium supporting them, then that’s what we need. That’s perfect in my opinion.”
SOLD OUT! APL confirms Isuzu UTE A-League Semi-Finals at capacity for blockbuster clashes
