DENNIS GEDLING blogs on the Perth Glory for BPL.

When I was a kid there was a family gathering on at an uncle's house in suburban Rockingham. Our pop was there and doing his usual skullduggery of drinking long necks and entertaining us kids with a couple of cheeky stories and later slipping us some money to go buy junk food. Then later on at this gathering my pop had a massive heart attack and died. It was traumatic for those there and would be for a very long time.

Even that day my pop died was more enjoyable than what Glory has dished up since early September.

Like a lot of other poor bastards that are suckers for punishment and desperate for live football I've been following the club since day dot and have seen some awful Glory moments. Anyone remember the Wollongong Wolves players mocking the shed in our second season when they won 3-0? It was the first of Nick Theodorakopolous' successfully evil schemes to get under our skin in the NSL days.

Remember the first horror run we had under Bernd Stange because he didn't understand the full concept of Perth summers being unbelievably hot? And the A-League? Well in this age of the A-League we've had so many low points from Harnwell and Webster's on pitch punch up to the Simpson twins both signing that we could be here all day. There have been moments that have made us want to put a pot on our head and bang it with a big wooden spoon (I did that after a loss to the Melbourne Knights once but that's another story) but the last couple of months have been awful, it's been enough to drive those fans we won back at the start of the season over the hills and far away and have the rest of wondering why we deal with such utter dross.

Yet amongst the gloom of 1000 goths there was a win! We defeated the injury riddled Melbourne Victory 3-1 and after 10 games, 9 losses, 1 draw, 5 goals for and a gob smacking New Zealand Knights-like 21 goals conceded we finally got 3 points.

As amazing as last Sunday was to us plebs with lanyards around our necks that should say ‘We wasted our money 2010/11' rather than ‘Glory member 2010/11' the signs that we were improving just slightly came against Adelaide United just a few days before. The elderly duo at the back of Todd and Harnwell got stuck in, Tando commanded his area, Scott Neville showed what a Glory captain should do (not hack the bone at every opportunity like Jacob Burns) and Robbie fowler all of a sudden found players with his flick-ons and had a couple of fantastic chances saved brilliantly by the best keeper in the league. This continued in to Sunday and the flat Victory were to be the poor bastards who would be on the receiving end of Glory's desperation. Three points finally in the bag and pressure off some shoulders from Tony Sage down but where does this now leave the club? Are Glory fans like a beaten domestic victim and might think that they've changed only to go back for more abuse?

Hat-trick hero Fowler was right when he said this week in the press that we shouldn't get too ahead of ourselves after a win. Our inherent problems are still there such as the fact that our coach isn't even a qualified coach and we're too slow both at the back and in our decision making, some of the first time balls by Victory in the first half were a joy to watch. We also have some players that were so vital for us last season (Burns and Pellegrino for example) are just not hitting those heights this season which has hurt us, Burns has turned from a fearless leader that gets stuck in to a cynical hack and, yes, I know a lot of you would say he was always that for Glory.

Still, on the glass half full side we've begun to start blooding youngsters in the side even if it did look like a mad panic by a clueless coach before the Victory win. A prime example of how much the younger players want to bleed for Glory was shown on Sunday when substitute Howard Fondyke took out Kevin Muscat with what can be described as a ‘Muscat Special' near the corner flag in front of the shed, only a yellow but perhaps could have been a red. It showed that our soft young underbelly has toughness and can dish it out, this is something we need in spades, the youngsters being proud to wear that shirt and showing some of the older, slower players seemingly playing each week to pick up a pay cheque that everything must go on the line.

The next few games will be interesting, 4 points from the three away trips would be fantastic, 3 points would be nice, 2 points would kind of suck but we've finally beaten some poor shower of bastards to end the horror run and now we must build. This launch back in to some lower part of the finals series begins at the scene of our last great triumph back in the 2004, Parramatta Stadium. We line up against Sydney FC, a team we normally seem to go toe to toe with quite well away from home.

Dare we dream that Glory can find their mojo from the start of the season and think ahead of the play, pass crisp three foot passes between each other and rely on the experienced heads in the squad to bond with the youngsters and have Lowy FC on the backfoot? Who knows with this side, perhaps that's why we love and loathe them so.