THURTELLS COLE SNAP MOMENT There are plenty of National Premier Leagues defenders who will attest that Brisbane Strikers top scorer, Matt Thurtell, is very quick between the ears once a football game gets underway. But on Tuesday night, moments before the Strikers squared up to face Adelaide City in the Westfield FFA Cup Round of 16 match in Adelaide, he showed he’s also no slouch before the opening whistle. As the two lineups were assembled for team photos, Thurtell’s mind leapt to a photo he had seen of former England international Ashley Cole, who caused a social media storm in a teacup when he was photographed looking somewhat isolated with his new team mates at AS Roma recently. While his teammates were positioned facing the camera in the conventional manner, Cole stood slightly apart and side-on, causing some to suggest he was not ‘fitting in’ at his new club. “I think I just saw the photo online somewhere and there’s been a lot of fun made out of it”, Thurtell recalled tonight before celebrating his twenty-second birthday with a family dinner. “It was on the spur of the moment. When we were getting the team photo done I was on the end and, I don’t know, I thought of it straight away and thought it would be quite funny”. So Thurtell took a step away, turned side-on, and the moment was captured before anyone noticed. Anyone, that is, except team mate Dan Partridge, whose broad grin in the photo while everyone else (including the poker-faced Thurtell) was looking deadly serious can now be explained. “Dan, next to me, was the only one who noticed and he just laughed – he said that was quality”, said Thurtell. “No-one else realized until we saw the photos afterwards”.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 10:29:18 +0000