Another sunny day - Eastern Lions 0 South Melbourne 3

Turning up to Gardiners Creek Reserve for the first time since I went to watch Eastern Lions vs Mornington eleven years ago (also a Football Chaos match!), I was expecting not quite the worst, but rather, who knows what. It'd been a hell of a week. It'd been a hell of an eight weeks. Reports from both sides of the ledger last Saturday was that Eastern Lions had three or four of their better players out. Goodness knows why. When we were drawn against each other, they were winless. After a coaching change, they'd picked up a couple of wins. For us, there was no Nahuel Bonada nor Max Mikkola, apparently due to injuries, though I did spot the latter among the onlookers.

You don't often see the club's official Facebook
 account reply directly to our supporters.

Also among the onlookers was Oakleigh Cannons general manager and occasional unlicenced doctor, Aki Ionnas. There was also one George Katsakis, which given the rumours going around about him being a possible candidate for our vacant senior men's coaching job, got tongues wagging. Nevertheless, Occam's Razor suggests that his primary reason for being there was in his capacity as Bentleigh Greens coach, as the Greens were due to play the winner of Saturday's match after having beaten George Cross 3-2 earlier in the week. The secondary reason would have been that Katsakis gets to a lot of games anyway, albeit probably not so many outside the Greek community club scene.

Still, people like to talk, and there's much to talk about. For what it's worth, all that I was able to glean from the more vaguely reputable people I spoke to was that no decision had been made at the time; and, as it turns out, no decision has been made publicly by the time I posted this blog up. I'd also heard from someone else that Goran Lozanovski had been asked to indicate his interest, but he had declined. Harder to verify that in any way, but it's probably legit. 

As for the match itself, there really isn't much that can be said. We did not look utterly transformed, in the sense that we had rediscovered some old mojo. We were, nevertheless, the better team throughout the game, and at least looked up for the battle from the start. George Mells, Esteban Quintas' chief whipping boy this season, got a start and made his mark. An early goal settled whatever nerves there might have been, for me for no other reason than it looked like a normal goal - a turnover, a couple of nice passes, and a finish from the six yard box. Hardly revelatory stuff, unless you've been South Melbourne in 2025, where even by our set piece dependant standards of the past few seasons, we'd barely scored any goals from alternative outlets this year. 

Then the second goal, a square ball across the backline to no one, not centre back nor goalkeeper, and Rob Harding bagged his second after the goalkeeper's initial save of an earlier shot. Lions had put some balls into our box, but there was nothing particularly threatening about most of them. The second half was messier. harder to watch all round. An Andy Brennan shot hit the crossbar, came down, was cleared away and was then called a goal by the linesman. I'm not sure said linesman was in the best position to make that call, and neither the Eastern Lions bench, who were in even worse position, let alone the South fans behind that goal, seemed convinced that it had crossed the line. So it goes. Subs were made, and I assume we came through largely unscathed injury wise. Pleasant day out, but nothing to get too excited about, even if the ball was on the ground a lot more than we've become accustomed to.

Next game
Away to Green Gully on Friday night. It's going to be wet, Leigh and Tyson are still going to be coaching, and there's going to be fifteen million other games on at the same time. I just hope that Gully still do match programs.

How the other half live / If you know your history
While we're on the subject. I don't normally take much of an interest in matters A-League, but I do occasionally take a perverse interest in some of the off-field stuff that goes on there when it intrudes on my social media feeds. Recently there's been some stuff about Football Australia and Melbourne Victory banning certain individuals from the Melbourne Victory's North Terrace supporter group, which of course elicited another infamous supporter group press release missive. So far, no normal.

But while rubbernecking through the responses to a recent missive on the subject on the NT's Facebook page, I did come across this curious response

After initial situation of getting my hackles all ruffled had fizzled out, the comments struck me as missing the point. Northern Terrace, the biggest organised supporter group in Australian soccer history, being compared to the remnants (with the recent exception of Preston) of suburban soccer supporter groups on life support, is just wild. And Thunder and its fans not being punished? Thunder was mauled by Football Federation Victoria following the 2012 grand final which included the infamous rocket flare.

But more to the point - when was the last time a flare was actually lit at a South game by South fans? Not that I've been keeping a tally of such things on a spreadsheet anywhere (I only recently made a spreadsheet to keep tabs on my work from days and expenses for tax purposes), but the last flare lit by someone who was nominally a South fan that I can remember would have been ten years ago, when we played Heidelberg at Lakeside. That night also included an attempt by persons affiliated with the flare lighters (or possibly even just the same person) attempting to steal a Heidelberg banner. The result of those shenanigans? That person, and perhaps a few others, were banned by South Melbourne, A year later, the main person banned from that 2015 game turned up at Lakeside supporting Victory's NPL team against us, and being subsequently banned by Football Victoria for his part in the violence perpetrated by that group of Victory fans that attacked South supporters. On December 17th, 2022, said fan became Bucket Man. 

I suppose the main point of the condensed history above here is that, well, actually, South Melbourne has banned people for pyro and related shenanigans. Does banning people from attending your games stop them from doing stupid shit? There's never any guarantees on that. But can a club, by enforcement of said bans, at least make it so that when those people are moved on, they are at least no longer your problem? Definitely, at least to some degree. Naturally it's much easier to do this at a club which has not many fans to begin with than it is for one with over ten thousand most weeks. But if you're going to turn this into an old soccer/new football comparison (yawn), we should at least get the details right.

But again, to be clear - people like this have been a problem in Australian soccer for decades. They've been at turns banned and appeased, castigated and then used in promotional campaigns. They can spring up  anywhere, any time (good chance someone will pop up at South vs Preston that we don't and will never see again after that), and it's usually a matter of one of two outcomes - either they quickly get bored quickly of whatever club or scene they've attached themselves to, or they hang around long enough to eventually force someone's hand because one of them has cross some critical line of the law or good taste. Then it's up to not just governing bodies, or the clubs to deal with the issue, but also the fans nearest to them. It really has to be all three, and from the latter, that means a wholesale form of social ostracism. Unfortunately, history suggests that last aspect is the hardest to achieve, because there's usually enough of a rump within the relevant supporter base which tolerates or sympathises enough with the transgressive supporters, that the combined efforts of everyone else to get rid of these people just can't take hold.

Final thought
Being driven home from the game last week, and I've got my glasses off and just doomscrolling on my phone, when my driver, who has stopped at the lights at some intersection just outside the southern part of the CBD says "what the fuck", and I look up and there's some chick in hot pants on the pedestrian crossing juggling three balls. It takes all kinds, I guess.

Now what? - South Melbourne 0 Heidelberg United 3

Well, that was one of the more dispiriting things that I've seen as a South fan. Apart from a 15 minute period in the first half where we at least got the ball up field and won a few set pieces, last Sunday was disastrous. For the vast majority of the match, we could not get the ball; in the second half, we could barely get over the half way line. Heidelberg were able to zip from one end of the field to the other with ease. Quite how it was 0-0 at halftime is anyone's guess. We were clapping the team just for winning a corner; meanwhile the Berger fans were disappointed that they weren't putting away clear one-on-one chances. That's where it's at now - looking like a team one or two divisions below where we actually are.

Once the first goal went in - via a deflection, but that piece of luck for the Bergers only made up for the lack of it earlier on - the team capitulated. Most worryingly, it capitulated psychologically. Those players on the field lost all hope and desire, becoming training cones, mere cannon fodder. Those who were benched were furious - at themselves, at the coach, at the entire situation. The star recruit was brought on, but he must be living hell on earth. The only real striker we have left was brought on, but he's hurt, and what's he supposed to do in a one against five situation anyway?

And at the end of it all, there was the coach making the call that his time was up. All that we could infer watching on from the stand, as Esteban Quintas gathered the players around him for a brief chat, and then acknowledging the crowd on his way out, was that he had made the call himself to step down. Somehow, for those of us who have wanted to see the back of him for some time, it was the final indignity - that Quintas had more sense that his time was up and was willing to fall on his own sword, than those at the club who had decided to keep Quintas on seemingly indefinitely.

It was such a soul-sucking experience that you wonder what the plan was for this year? Go cheap as hell for the NPL, and bank it all on the Australian Championship being a success? I've never been a fan of Esteban Quintas, but how did we end up making our off-season recruiting the equivalent of a high school reunion, and some random nepo-baby Dane who was probably here on holiday anyway? That's something those in charge of the football department might want to cover at the next AGM, assuming that we ever have a next AGM. Maybe that will happen after the new coach is announced, whoever that is. Lots of names being thrown around, but none seemingly of much recent reputation. That's assuming anyone of note actually wants to coach us.

Remarkably, considering the nature of the loss, a lot of people stayed back in the social club after the game. Usually people are desperate to get out of there, regardless of the timeslot and the result, and this was a particularly disastrous result and performance. Yet, people hung back. 

So ends this extended period of strangeness
The hiring of Esteban Quintas as coach of South Melbourne Hellas was the culmination of a series of decisions. First, there was the decision to give Chris Taylor a five year contract, with the addition of job titles and responsibilities that he never really wanted. Then, for whatever reason, he was sacked on the eve of season 2018, after all the players had been signed up for the year. Whatever the merits of that decision to sack Taylor, the way the players were deceived into signing up for 2018 created a black hole of trust in management, which essentially required most of those players to be let go at some point, because they sure as hell wouldn't want to stay. The Sasa Kolman era started with a bang, and then quickly collapsed. Con Tangalakis was brought in, but that didn't work either. And then we hired a coach with almost zero senior football coaching experience, who was connected to the Genova International School of Soccer academy, not my idea of a reputable soccer entity. He was also an outlier in that he was not Greek, nor was he an ex-player of ours. 

Quintas got us to survive 2019, just. 2020 didn't look promising, but COVID soon sorted that out. Apart from a sputtering FFA Cup/Dockerty Cup run, 2021 wasn't great either, but COVID sorted that out, too. 2022, 2023, and 2024 all ended up with grand final appearances, but through a mixture of outrageous misfortune (key strikers missing for 2022 and 2023, as well as injured players), and poor tactics and management (not taking off your one consistent line breaker in Andy Brennan before he got sent off in the 2024 semi), we ended up with no league titles in that three year span, and a for and against tally of 0-10. There were celebratory moments though - finally in 2024, we picked up a trophy under Esteban through a grinding, fortunate penalty shootout win in the Dockerty Cup. We also had a great run in the Australia Cup, albeit once more the final game of our season was marred by not having our main striker up front. Maybe things could have gone differently against Macarthur if Harrison Sawyer was there. Wouldn't that have been something? And Esteban was voted by his peers as coach of the year in 2024.

But overall, despite the high ladder positions of the 2022-2024 span, the experience was an incredibly demoralising one, at least for me. We were defensive on default. We often had no central midfield, at least not an attacking one. As most teams grew out of the physical, second-ball style of play that was a feature of Victorian soccer for so long, we became bogged down in it. Going to matches became tedious, an experience in religious self-flagellation. Instead of going to experience joy, we went to experience the pain of devotion, with little tangible earthly reward. Somehow, for myself and others around me, winning under Quintas often felt like losing. And losing, of course, felt even worse. 

Though I was never a fan, I will give Quintas his dues. He often had to do more with less compared to many of his predecessors. He gave more youth team players meaningful opportunities than pretty much every South coach in the last twenty years, with the exception perhaps of the by necessity early John Anastasiadis years. Some of those young players worked out better than others, but at least they got a chance.

Quintas was a hard worker. He studied opponents in depth, thought deeply about the game, and created complex plans for the players. A recently departed player, who played under both Taylor and Quintas, has related the difference between the two. Taylor would give minimal instruction during the week, and got by on generally putting the right players in the right position and let them go for it. On the other hand, Quintas would fill his whiteboards with ink, and would provide endless instruction. 

Yet somehow on game day, the game plan always looked the same. For the last half decade, everyone in Victorian soccer knew what to expect when playing against South Melbourne. For all the preparation and planning, somehow it always came back to long balls, and goals from set pieces, including the now infamous long throws. Despite playing on one of the best fields in Melbourne, South's style more resembled the territorial rugby union play of a mid-2000s George Cross team playing on the ankle rolling minefield that was Chaplin Reserve.

Quintas put a priority on defence. If the team didn't concede, then at the very least, the team couldn't lose. But the defensive strength of the side looked much better on the raw data of the "for and against" column of the competition table, than it did when you actually looked at the deeper numbers, let alone when watching the games themselves. For those of us who have watched our club since Quintas became head coach in 2019, we have seen the following. 

First, an overreliance on overwhelming numbers in defence to crowd out the opposition, so that even while being on top of the table, players like Jake Marshall were leading the league in blocked shots. This year, with a more forward stance than usual, the players have become exposed all over the backline. Second, there was the outrageously good fortune of having certainly one of the greatest goalkeepers to ever grace Victorian state league soccer, in the form of Javi Diaz Lopez, who was pulling out incredible save after incredible save for years on end. South has had some good goalkeepers during the 20 years post-NSL, but to get to the stage where your goalkeeper is the face of the club, winning league awards because of how many saves he makes when he should be making far fewer saves than most of his league contemporaries, is emblematic of what we have been about for the past five years.

Quintas loved South Melbourne Hellas. He was genuinely passionate about the club. Yet he never understood some of the core principles underpinning the club. That the club's supporters have, in the main, always wanted attacking football. Not necessarily pretty, possession football, but certainly attacking, front-foot football. It's an entertainment thing - we work during the week, we pay our money, we want to be entertained. Match day should be an occasion. We want to enjoy ourselves. Yet so much of what his teams provided was tedious, watching us bludgeon and grind our way to wins. Opposition supporters, and those missing fans of ours who only paid attention to the results and ladders, also didn't understand. "You're on top of the ladder, and you're still complaining?". It makes you sound ungrateful for being successful, but so many of us who actually watched the side were always wondering how we kept getting away with it, and how long it would be until it fell apart.

It's also an ego thing - no matter how much the fantasy deviates from reality, we still like to believe that we're a big club, one which expects to win every game that it plays, and one where a good number of teams whether coming to Lakeside or hosting us in their own ground, will gladly take a draw playing against us. Quintas repeatedly referred to South being a big club, yet his tactics and approach to the game often made us look and feel small. The greatest irony of all this came towards the end. While Ange Postecoglou was winning hearts and minds overseas for his rhetoric and monomania on playing a style of football centred on bringing joy to the fans watching, and then the Ferenc Puskas in Australia documentary Ange and the Boss making the argument that what made that South Melbourne Hellas team special was the devotion to joy, and letting players express themselves, and that there was an expectation among South fans that you would see the team attack; that attacking was its natural state.

How hard must it have been for people at the club to try and market the current team under those conditions? Already hamstrung by our irrelevance, our being in a backwater competition, of having no way out, and then when your most famous name, and all the video evidence of the past shows a desire to take the game on, to be forward on approach whenever possible, to be assertive; and all you could possibly cobble together in a highlights package showcasing the now, was goals from corners and long throws. The match day experience of the past five years, insofar as what was presented on the field, only reinforced in the mind of the people no longer going to our games that the current South Melbourne bears little resemblance to the former one. Whatever misfortune we've had under Quintas, and it has been there, and whatever winning record we had, and we did have a good one overall, the loss of the assertive, front-footed South Melbourne was a heavy price to pay.

So, I thank Esteban Quintas for his service to the club often under difficult circumstances, I acknowledge the good that he did, and I am well aware that he and I have very different opinions on how the game should be played, at least at this club. But I'm not sorry that he's gone. Now the club has to find someone to help us survive this season, and then someone to at least bring back the mentality of the famous Danny Blanchflower quote:

“The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It’s nothing of the kind. The game is about glory. It is about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.”

Next game
Away to Eastern Lions today in the Dockerty Cup. We'll be coached by Leigh Minopoulos, who'll be assisted by Tyson Holmes.

Final thought
They tell me that the 2006 championship team meets up annually for a reunion. That they don't it with  and/or at the club tells me we have a very sorry cultural problem.

But I digress - Altona Magic 0 South Melbourne 0

It's gotten so bad that now we're being overrun by teams nearer to the bottom of the table than even we are, and that's with them being down to ten men. At least we somehow kept a clean sheet for the first time in a couple of months.

Next game

Home against the Bergers tomorrow (Sunday) evening. Curtain raiser is the senior women against Brunswick Juventus. 

Yoink?!

?

So, Gustav Moller is gone, and more than fittingly going by the last twenty years, his exit is actually the most South thing that I can think of - like 99% of our now former fans, rather than stick around Lakeside being miserable, Moller realised he wasn't having any fun, and just walked away. Honestly, I'm a little jealous. Granted, Moller didn't have the same level of emotional attachment that most South fans have (or at least claim to have had) to the club, but the gesture was achingly familiar:

This sucks, why do I have to be here? Wait, I don't? OK, bye.

It was a strange situation from beginning to end. Since our game plan over the past five years was based around two pillars - outrageously over-competent goalkeeping, and a big guy banging in goals up top just by being big, the departure of Harrison Sawyer late last season threatened to bring down the entire Esteban Quintas edifice one and for all, as was the case when Sawyer got injured in 2021 and we were barely able to win a game after that - thank goodness (sort of) that COVID destroyed most of the rest of that season. Enter Gustav Moller from the sixth division of Danish football who, from the scant online evidence available, was basically nobody, had played for no one of note, and was being signed because whoever's in charge of this stuff at the club these days could apparently find not one person better anywhere else.

(There's some talk that he was recommended to us by Thomas Sorenson which, if true, would make a kind of awful sense - what with Gustav Moller being the son of Danish pundit and former international forward Peter Moller. But who wants to think that we signed someone based on someone at the club being starstruck, and that the famous person making the recommendation was just trying to do a mate a favour?) 

Still, whatever Moller's credentials or lack thereof, and whoever recommended him to us, the club did get to see something of him in the pre-season, and ultimately made the decision to sign him either as cover for Nahuel Bonada, or with the intention that Moller would at some point become the main guy. The latter, were it to actually happen, would have taken awhile. Gustav Moller was clearly not match fit. I don't know if he'd been in Carl Piergianni-style holiday mode - and we saw that once big Carl did get fit on returning to England, that he was actually decent - but whatever the case, Moller wasn't able to last more than fifteen minutes without becoming completely gassed. 

And whatever his skillset may have entailed - he was probably OK in the air, and he seemed to at least have some semblance of touch - he was utterly the wrong player, for the wrong system, for the wrong coach, at the wrongest club possible. It was a hopeless situation for all concerned; but while Moller can walk away with perhaps only his ego and dignity bruised, the club is now down to one forward for the next few months until the transfer window opens. 

Neos Kosmos digital archives, free to access
Now, I was aware that Neos Kosmos had digitised its archive going back to 1957, Initially I think they were charging for access to it, but I've been informed that the archive is actually free to access. The user interface is a bit of a pain to use, and nowhere near as good as what you would get with Trove - and I have no idea why Neos Kosmos didn't go with Trove - but it's still good that it's available. Search works a lot better when you have exact phrases at hand, and also in later years where the quality of the scans is better.

The club's official historian John Kyrou sent me an email alerting me to the fact that the archive was free to use, as well as some notes on the 1960 season after he went through the archives, a frustrating season from a historical perspective both for broader coverage as well just plain statistical stuff. At first, Neos Kosmos shows indifference to the club. Indeed, sport is not a big part of the paper in 1960, which accords with my memory of the last time I went through the 1960s papers on microfiche. What sport coverage exist is initially centred on the Greek league and local pro-wrestling, mostly Alex Iakovidis. When Hellas establishes its on-field bona fides, it gets not just more coverage, but also more detailed coverage. Eventually reporter Nikos Kyriakopoulos' column becomes a fixture of the paper, to the point where you begin getting not just full lineups for most games by the end of the season, but also ratings of each player. 

Kyriakopoulos is particularly savage in his criticisms of players he considers lazy, unsporting, or not team-oriented. The senior squad is large and hard to manage. Some players do the right thing, but others have poor attitudes to training, and the team is prone to arguing amongst itself. They're a cut above their league, but arrogant. Kyriakopoulos is effusive in his praise of Terry Budgen, one of the few non-Greeks in the squad, as well as goalkeeper George Karpouzas, but has it in for Antonis Karagiannis (lazy, arrogant), Stefanos Fortomanos (unsporting, greedy on the ball), and captain-coach Chris Georgoussis (listless, heavy).

He also really hammers home the angle of the club's role as representative of the Greek community in Melbourne. That's not just limited to the players, but also the supporters, whose behaviour he's often critical of - except perhaps when it counts most, after the ugly scenes in the Dockerty Cup semi against Hakoah, where he blames the referee for the riot by the Greek fans. Kyriakopoulos also places much emphasis on the Laidlaw Cup - a local mini-world cup tournament, where Team Greece was effectively South Melbourne Hellas rebadged. He also promotes the club's and the Greek community's wider effort to build a stand at Middle Park. Little mention is made of Yarra Park or Hellenic, none of Alexander or South Melbourne United, and nothing of Hakoah in the context of being a co-tenant at Middle Park.

The crowds fluctuate between the very large (10,000 at games at Olympic Park, far and away the best venue in Victorian soccer) and a few hundred at games at Middle Park and elsewhere, where shelter is extremely limited. Indeed, wet weather sees games postponed, and one game at Coburg was played "in an ocean".

One bonus of running through and double-checking the club historian's reading of this material, is apart from confirming several lineups and a few scorers, we can now confirm one previously elusive club record detail, that of most goals in a league game. For ages the provisional club record for most goals in a league game was four, held by ten different players. Hellas racked up some big scores in 1960, but confirmation of the scorer details proved elusive for whatever reason. Thus, Antonis Karagiannis' six goals against Moonee Ponds stands alone.

Final thought

Well, seven years too late for my thesis, and five years after the old man passed away, I finally found it. Silly bugger insisted it was from the 1980s or early 1990s, but it was from February 1995. It's probably not even the complete poem - whatever drafting page that was on is long gone - but it's more complete than the couple of stanzas I had access to for my thesis, and which sent me searching in vain for the published version on several trips to the State Library. 

Like the rest of his poetry, it's doggerel, but that's beside the point. As I wrote in an appendix to my thesis:

My father, Athanasios Mavroudis, despite his limited formal education – only up to grade six in rural 1950s Greece – fancied himself as somewhat of a poet. He wrote  several poems in his scrapbooks, and even had some published in the letter and editorial pages of Neos Kosmos, the Greek-language paper of record in Melbourne. 

His style is plain and straightforward, and if we are being fair, not far removed from doggerel. His themes were broad, and usually related to the issues of the day – the political and cultural concerns as they related to the Greek community of Melbourne, and the Greek diaspora as a whole. This was in keeping with one strand of poetry submitted to Neos Kosmos, the other, more common one being poetry on important dates, festivals, the seasons, the sanctity of mothers, and the pain of living in a foreign land. 

I have included my father’s two extant and complete soccer poems here for a couple of reasons. First, as a way to preserve them in some fashion on the public record. Second, because whatever their literary merits, they are outstanding examples of what this thesis is about – the search for the most obscure portrayals of a marginal game, written by a member of a marginal community, preserving moments and points of view otherwise destined for utter oblivion. Also, they have a naff charm which appeals to 

me.

Despair - South Melbourne 1 Dandenong City 3

Monday night was pretty bad. Outcoached and outplayed, morale down the toilet. In the relegation zone, no chance to get reinforcements for another three months, and no trust in what depth players we do have, including the one notable off-season signing who's been banished to the bench. The captain chucks a wobbly and gets sent off, we've run out of strikers, and the "get out of jail" long throw plan has stopped working. No wins since round 2, no clean sheets since round 1. So much for being the team built on a solid defence, although we know that stacking players in the eighteen-yard box from minute one was never really good defending, just weight of numbers.

The bigger concern is, as always, the bigger picture. Teams lose games and have bad runs all the time. But it's everything above those losses that amplifies the sense of doom. The cheapskate recruiting, the last minute major sponsor announcement, the lack of any friends anywhere. Who wants to hang out with South Melbourne? Not our fans, who ditched us en masse 20 years ago, and of those who remained, still gradually drift away. Not the media, who have no interest in whatever it is that we do. Not the Trust which operates Lakeside, which gets far more out of a single marquee athletics day than whatever we can muster over several years. Maybe only Preston likes us, and that's only because they need other teams for the Australian Championship to go ahead; but also, Preston doesn't really need the Australian Championship either, not like we do.

And just as an aside, if you can, have a look at the scenes from the athletics last week where Lakeside's stands and terraces are full, and the numbers on the concourses are six deep. That's what a legit crow of 10,000 looks like.

Anyway, we seem to tread water every season in one way or another, but is 2025 the year things finally come to a head? If the Australian Championship fails, if this Oceania business turns out to be the impossible insanity it appears to be to an outsider, does it even matter if we get relegated from the NPL or not? Good results won't bring people back to South Melbourne, and neither will good football. Only the impossibly long and difficult graft of trying to reengage the community that has abandoned us remains as an option, but it seems like a task so massive, that one can't quite conceive.

All this seems like something that could at least be discussed at an AGM, but it appears that we may never get one of those again. Fair enough, it's not like we're a member based club. 

Next game
Altona Magic away tonight.

Manny swears he came up with this one before
I rocked up to a South game in a suit and tie
for the third time this year already.

Blue and White Views
This 100% unofficial fanzine which, for the record, I have no hand in creating, is really winning people over, even at the most basic level of "oh, that's who number 88 is". For those who miss out on the physical copies handed out at games, there is a website you can visit, which includes comic strips which are in the style of former South of the Border contributor Manny. That's probably no accident. Once the season is done, I will be scanning all issues of Blue and White Views and chucking them up somewhere.

Around the grounds
Value for money
Last year it was $7. This year it costs $10 to buy a ticket to a fifth tier Australian soccer match in Melbourne, the same price as for a second tier Australian rules match. I suppose because I'd had a media pass for so long, and then COVID happened, and then my eyesight made it so that going to non-South games was largely pointless, I'd become distanced from the reality of what others had been putting up with for so many years in regards to prices at the gate. But $10 for a fifth tier match? In Melbourne? At least Western Suburbs has some elevated seating and some shelter. No goals on offer last week though against Banyule. Not the worst game I've ever seen though.

Final thought
Man, these crazy online gamblers, accusing us of throwing games, as if the preceding five or six weeks hadn't happened. They should take up knitting, jogging, volunteering for the homeless, anything but sports gambling, not for any moral reasons, but simply for the fact that they clearly aren't any good at even the most basic aspects of sports betting.

I need Ramadan to be over so the manoushe place I go to can reopen - Hume City 1 South Melbourne 1

So here we are, at last. Some grounds are naturally wider than others, some narrower. We've been using narrower field for some time now in order to make use of Max Mikkola's long throws, but we are now at the stage - finally - where teams are happy to widen their own fields in order to diminish our over-reliance on our one reliable-ish weapon. Or maybe other teams had been doing it earlier, too, but I hadn't been paying attention.

The Danish guy started, and after seven games I think I can proffer a verdict. I don't think anyone expected him to be the messiah, and he's not. He has neither the strength, height, and gut effort of Harrison Sawyer; nor does he have the tricky mix speed and guile of Ajak Riak. We've wrung a couple of goals out of him from relatively limited opportunities, and chances are that he'll pinch another few if he remains out there. 

But the worst thing about the Dane isn't necessarily his skill (potentially dubious) or fitness (confirmed dubious) - it's that he's completely unsuited to playing under either of the two main Esteban modes. Moller's no good on the long ball when we sit deep, and he doesn't have the speed or fitness to make an impact when we press. He seems like a touch/close in player, a forward who can lay off passes for other forwards or midfielders coming through the middle. 

Unfortunately, that kind of style is almost non-existent under Esteban. It's like Esteban coaches basketball or handball rather soccer, there's so little midfield action. And yet, there were actually some moments on Friday where we did successfully go through the middle (goodness knows how that happened), but then didn't lay off the ball for the shooter, who was occasionally the Dane. Can you play Bonada (when he returns from injury) and Moller in the same team? Absolutely you can. Will we? Probably not.

But enough about the game. Most amusing on the night (in a very limited comedy field) was the atmosphere, or rather the lack of it for most of the night. After the eleventy billion that went to the game at BT Connor (and scores more who streamed on YouTube), and the boisterous vibe from the home fans at George Andrews, Westmeadows was dead. Where were all my young bloods? Where was the drumming? Did the cheques fail to clear? Or were they all at an iftar? Then after the equaliser some persons realised that they were at a football match.

But that still didn't compare to drama of the security running (OK, more like jogging, but still) all the way to the other side of the ground where few fans were, making it seem like there was some drastic emergency, only for rumour to spread that they just wanted to tell someone to pipe down, because they could be heard too clearly over the top of the commentary. All those times (at least twice) where security at Hume were completely useless when we were being attacked by underworld adjacent characters with no intervention from "official" security, and this is what gets them hyped into action? Classic Victorian soccer, always aiming at the low-hanging fruit.

Next game
Dandenong City at home on Monday night.

Dockerty Cup news
For the fourth time since 2017, we've been drawn against Eastern Lions, this time as the away side.  Though the game is listed for Lions' Gardiners Creek Reserve home on Easter Saturday, that venue is apparently having its field resown, so who knows for sure if this match will actually take place there. Lions are currently bottom of VPL1 (the tier below us), winless after seven matches. They weren't doing much better ladder-wise last year when we met them in the cup, yet they still almost pushed us to extra time when we decided we wanted to be smart and rest everybody towards the end of the game.

Being paired up against Lions also means that 2025 is another season where we haven't been drawn (yet) against a side that's been lower than the Victorian second tier. That's a streak that goes back to 2019, when we played against Doveton, who were then in the third tier. 2019 is also the last season that we played against a Victorian opponent in the cup that we've never played before (Doveton, and then Langwarrin). The winner of this fixture will play away to the winner of the Bentleigh Greens and Caroline Springs George Cross match - so even progress from the fourth round into the fifth won't provide much novelty, except for a possible trip to the City Vista ground.

Final thought
Everyone thought it was Quintas getting another yellow last Friday, but good on assistant coach Leigh Minopoulos, whose collection of a yellow card on the bench last week is the moral/cosmic equivalent of getting someone else to get your demerit points for you.

No one else to blame - Dandenong Thunder 1 South Melbourne 0

I should have gone to the footy instead.

Next game
Hume away on Friday night. I should probably go to the footy instead.

Final thought
Who am I kidding? I'm not going to the footy instead.

Public Image Ltd - Preston Lions 2 South Melbourne 0

Prior to kickoff on Friday night, an adolescent Preston supporter, who found himself by some clerical error in the part of BT Connor Reserve allocated to South Melbourne fans, complained as he made his way around to the area designated for Preston supporters, "why was I directed to go to the South end, do I look like a Turk?".

The National Soccer League is dead. Long live the National Soccer League. Long live dubious crowd numbers. Long live cigarette smoke. Long live ethnic bullshit. I'll leave out my usual take on flares, because at least unlike last year's Dockerty Cup match between the two sides, the flares lit on Friday night didn't end up being thrown at anyone. Call it progress of a sort, at least on this occasion.

Anyway, for all that Preston has managed to achieve during its unlikely resurrection - and it has been some feat to buck the trend suffered by pretty much every ethnic soccer club in this country - some habits die hard. If that "Ellas, Ellas, Turkiye" chant happened once or twice early on, and was then stopped by their marshals, I'd understand - it's just a bunch of hotheads getting carried away, but someone from their side took responsibility for it. But it was non-stop throughout the game, and everyone's just ignoring it because it was part of "a cracking atmosphere".

It's not about being offended (because it's a chant that's too stupid to be offended by), or being humourless (I was dead inside long before this), or being unable to handle banter (there's no cleverness here). It's acknowledging that this stuff did drag down what came before, and that people ignoring it, or not acknowledging that it's happening and burying it under the guise of "atmosphere", do a disservice to the game in the here and now, as did those who excused this stuff before.

It's also not about ignoring the past, or pretending that we're all friends now, because we aren't. Some people are willing to buy into that part of the current story, because they think there's some greater good to be achieved by that. Some people in the ground are choosing not to pretend, not to hide what's in their hearts. That's their prerogative, of course. But then maybe in the return fixture, some people from our side will choose not to pretend, and what should or could be pantomime rivalry, hostile, but within the bounds of good taste and decency, instead becomes... well, you know the history. It's in print, it's on video, and it's in folklore.

I don't really care much for either pretending we're all mates, or in getting carried away by thinking that when I attend a South Melbourne Hellas match in Australia, that I'm responsible for bringing with me the badly framed and badly taught history lessons I received at Greek school 30 years ago, excised of all complexity and nuance. I want to go to a game, have a laugh, and hopefully see my team win. But I get that that approach isn't enough for some people. 

It's the age old problem of big time soccer in this country, ethnic or otherwise, that people are drawn to these games because they can get close enough to the possibility of something going wrong, potentially spectacularly so. Now most don't necessarily want something to actually go wrong, but some clearly yearn for it to at least be a possibility - if something couldn't go wrong at a fixture like this, then the kayfabe spell is broken. If all that hate isn't actually real, then it becomes just another game, like all the other games.

But for the sake of a feel good story, and especially for the sake of the Australian Championship, and for some, sticking it up the A-League, the narrative will be "passionate fans, great crowd". And yes, the fans were passionate, and the crowd was good, but that 9,000 figure... I'm not the only one querying that one. And this is where the suspect crowd figures of the past come back to cast doubts on the reliability of today's numbers. 

BT Connor Reserve has a smallish stand (nowhere near the capacity of Lakeside's southern stand, let alone that of Knights Stadium's much larger one). It also has no terraces, and on Friday night a western wing almost completely out of bounds. And the ground has no history of getting a crowd that size during the heady days of the early 1990s summer NSL years. And yet we are expected to believe that, were all parts of the ground available to spectators, that this venue could accommodate up to 13,000 - just under what the old pre-athletics Lakeside could squish in.

Goodness knows that South has an appalling reputation for rubbery crowd figures, and that's long before some people made it a social media sport. So why begrudge other clubs from getting in on the act? Why assume the worst of others, just because you assume the worst of yourself? I suppose that's the overall point for me - that whatever hope I have that things could be better, and could actually get better for us, I ultimately have no belief that they will - and especially not if I don't feel like I can trust even a fundamental element of soccer story telling, like "for better or worse, this is how many people were actually there that day".

It'd be easy to accuse someone like me of actually wanting the game to be smaller, and even for South to be small. Small fish, small pond, small problems, small headaches. But that's not the case at all. I want the club to be successful on and off the field. I want more people to come watch our club, and to support it. And somehow I want it done with honesty, and without giving in to crass attempts at public relations. I guess this is just one of the many reasons why I'll never be close to anything resembling a place of responsibility at a club.

As for the game
The high press from the first three matches of the season is gone. Thus against Preston it was more of what we've come to know and love over these past five years or so, except without Javi Lopez and Harry Sawyer (or Ajak Riak) to make it somehow work. It continues to be the case that those who see us play only occasionally and almost exclusively during so-called "big matches" were, and continue to be, surprised by the ugliness of it. The two or three hundred regulars, well, they aren't surprised at all. 

Quite what was the point of resting all the players on Monday, we'll never know. The one player who probably should have been rested (Javi Lopez), wasn't. Now, barring some luck at the tribunal, or Javi recovering in time for Saturday's match, we're down to our third choice goalkeeper, and therefore on the bench, our fourth. Nahuel Bonada getting injured means we're down to one striker, that being the Danish guy who, while he isn't fit enough, is also apparently not worth putting on to try and rescue a game at 1-0 down, only at 2-0, even though two of his substitute appearances have yielded goals this year.

The field at BT Connor Reserve is very wide. We knew this from last year, when Max Mikkola's long throws weren't getting close to troubling the keeper. So what did we do on Friday? The same thing as last year, of course. To be fair, it's pretty much the same thing as every other game anyway. If it worked at all in last year's fixture, it's because of the same reason it works in any game - the opposition is ill-equipped to deal with anything coming in from the air, not just throws. That was certainly the case in last year's match, but not so much on Friday. 

I'm not sure what the alternative was, because given our general lack of composure on the ball, once we went down, all we could resort to was knocking it forward chaotically, thus creating a series of 50/50 balls to be won, which some basic mathematical principle says will work eventually, while at the same time acknowledging that it will hardly ever work, especially once you're down to ten men. It was not a great experience for player or fan.

Next game
Dandenong Thunder away on Saturday night. Please note that due to the very hot conditions forecast for Saturday, kickoff has been changed from 7:00pm to 8:15pm.

Vale George Karantonis
The club lost of one its staunchest supporters this week, with the death of George Karantonis. A reserves player in the 1960s, a volunteer of many years, and a long time presence in local Greek language media, especially in radio, George was a big personality with strong opinions on all things soccer, and especially all things South Melbourne Hellas. I'm not going to lie and say that I had much to do with George, because I wasn't a listener to his radio programs, nor did I really run in the same circles as him at South. But I always appreciated his forthrightness, especially his contributions at AGMs.

In particular, I'll never forget that AGM around 2008. We'd just had a second lousy season in a row, the club was going nowhere, and George gets up midway through the meeting and heads towards the exit of the old social club, and everyone's just quiet... like, fuck, if Karantoni's giving up, then the club really is fucked... only for him to say in his unforgettable voice of a million cigarettes, "I just go for a smoke". The tension in the room just disappeared. He will be missed.

The cost of masochism going up
Those of you who ended up paying to go to Friday's match may have noticed that the ticket price was $20, not the more usual $15. That seems to be your unofficial notice that the price cap for NPL Victoria matches has gone up. It almost makes a certain someone want to put in more effort into this blog, so that they can qualify for a media pass again. For others, it might dissuade them from going to away matches, especially at venues lacking certain amenities like adequate shelter and seating. Some people might decide to go the footy instead. On the other hand, it just made buying a South Melbourne membership that little bit more value for money. Only on a cost per game basis, of course, not in terms of entertainment. 

Ange and the Boss national release
After a successful festival run in the back half of 2024, the documentary is now going to have a short national run. Tickets and further details available via the website.

Final thought
How did learnings become a thing? Whatever happened to lessons? And I don't care that Shakespeare used "learnings", because none of the LinkedIn Lunatics using that word have read any Shakespeare since high school.

No respect, and no regard neither - South Melbourne 0 St Albans 3

That's right, Google Maps app, What
 happened on Monday night between
 7:23 and 9:31 is a mystery.

Just a short piece this week.

Well, last Monday was just outright disrespect. Disrespect to South Melbourne Hellas fans. Disrespect to the St Albans Dinamo team. Six or seven changes to the starting eleven coming off a week's rest, just because we have a game on the Friday coming up. Are they so worried about fitness levels by round four? What happens when the cup rounds start? Maybe we'll tank them like we did the Avondale cup match a few seasons ago.

Anyway, the depth on show was shallow. Tactics, all over the place. Javi Lopez went down for real this time, I think. You can call me Nostra-blogger-damus, but it was a simple game of mathematics - it couldn't always be playing possum. At least the flood lights seemed a bit better this week, so we could better see the carnage. Even the security dude wouldn't do us a favour and turf us out as a gesture of mercy. Oh well, at least when we win the title this year, we can look back at this game and laugh. 

Next game
Preston away. For ticket details, visit Preston's socials. There's also going to be shuttle buses and such. Again, check Preston's Facebook page for all relevant details.

- Dad, how can South Melbourne 
afford to play in all these leagues?
- It's simple economics son. I don't
 understand it, but God, I love it.
- 

South Melbourne Hellas, coming to A-League a league near you!
So I'd heard of this OFC Pro-League business last year, but didn't give it much thought then. Didn't need to, really. That's in Oceania, we're in Asia, and we're building towards the National Second Division which has imaginatively been named the Australian Championship. Then news articles came out saying that four Australian clubs had shown an interest in joining the OFC Pro-League. Now, I know what you're thinking folks: yes, South Melbourne has no shame, but surely even South Melbourne would not put its name down for this. Yeah, right. Bang, there's South Melbourne as the most prominent of the four Australian clubs looking to get into this thing. Maybe we want to be a barnstorming team? Maybe we missed the frogs invading the field in Fiji like back in 1999? Maybe we like the vibe of being a decrepit old man desperately trying to get into a nightclub; any nightclub will do. I don't know. I suppose the board will tell us all about it at the next AGM, scheduled for whenever.

More match programs added
I bought a few items towards the end of last year, and I've finally got around to uploading them. They're all from away games, which is a touch disappointing. I know that people have stuff that I'm missing, and I am still on the lookout for more programs. Anyway, here's what I've added most recently:

• 1984, round 3, away to Canberra City (the original fixture that was called off due to inclement weather, not the replay)
• 1985, round 22, away to West Adelaide
• 1988, round 17, away to Marconi
• 1989/90, round 8 away to Marconi
• 1989/90, round 16 away to Adelaide City
• 1990/91, round 25, away to Marconi
• 1991/92, round 22, away to Brisbane United
• 1995/96, round 32, away to Brisbane Strikers
• 2000/01, round 21, away to Brisbane Strikers 
  

Find them all in the usual place. For a much neater list (also with links), as well as notes establishing what programs we have, what programs we don't, and what programs may or may not exist. go to this link.

DIY zine scene hits Lakeside
While leaving the grandstand after the final whistle on Monday night, someone stuck a little zine thing in my hand. Blue and White Views, of which you can see the cover of the first issue to the right, isn't quite yet a revelatory or inflammatory piece of work. Who knows if it can become that, or even if it desires to, not that it has to. Frankly, and this is not being cruel, in case anyone misreads my tone, the most interesting thing to me from this so far - apart from its circa 1987 Hellas match program colour scheme - is its utter mystery. Who's producing this? Why are there no contact details? How can I (or you!) submit something to this project? It's all very myserious. Will it last longer than the genuinely incendiary Maverick from 1997? All they need to do is release one more issue.

Around the grounds
Actually, why am I here?
For the second time in five years (and for the second time in two weeks, but let's not get bogged down in details about why I went to Paisley Park the previous week), I was at an Altona East game. This time it was for a Dockerty Cup (you're welcome) fixture between Altona East and Hampton East Brighton, aka a team with a number of name changes over the past decade or so, and recently about five consecutive promotions under its belt. Mario Barcia was out there for Altona East. You may remember him from such moments as the worst thirty seconds of football you've ever seen, capped off by some nonsense goal from halfway. Nothing quite as interesting (or deplorable) happened in this match, which finished 2-1 to the visiting side. 

Final thought
- Sarge, let's make a break for it while the guards are partying with Jane Fonda.
- Nope. Too dangerous. We're all gonna sit tight and reminisce about candy bars.

Feeling old - Melbourne Victory (NPL) 3 South Melbourne 3

Let us start with the obvious.

The ref made a dreadful call when he ruled that Andy Brennan dived. Just awful. Apart from the fact that it should have been a penalty, Andy getting that bullshit yellow card meant he was handicapped for the rest of the night through no fault of his own.

Other than that, the game didn't contain that many surprises. That's now six of our seven goals this season from throw ins or corners. There was the obligatory Javi Lopez mid-game faux injury scare (which will one day be a real injury) in order for Esteban Quintas to regroup and reorganise. There was also the familiar sight of looking vulnerable against a proper ball playing team. And so what if the Victory lads train regularly? So do our players. So do Avondale's. So Oakleigh's. So do the players from the team that will get relegated. But it's a matter of emphasis, isn't it? Some teams choose to play a certain way, and some choose another. Victory's kids looked good, albeit they flirted with danger at the back a bit too much. If I still cared about the current or future success any of our national teams, or national team football in general, I'd be hopeful for the future of Australian soccer; but I don't, so I won't.

I saw some angst about the result, as well as attempts to make it seem like another South Melbourne humiliation. "How could we not beat a team of children?". Well, first, a good chunk of Victory's NPL players, while young, are not really children. Remember that saying that "good enough equals old enough"? Later in the season, when the older part of this cohort gets a mandatory rest and/or released from their program, the age profile of their squad will get younger, but for now, it's not like they're a bunch of 16 year olds running around like most NPL under 23 teams are.

Second, this team, or a variation thereof, finished in first place last season in VPL1 in getting promoted, ahead of the big spending Preston. Western United's equivalent team finished third, missing promotion by a point. Melbourne City's youth team finished fifth. Sure, VPL1 is not the NPL, but that still indicates a contemporary degree of strength and competence in Melbourne A-League youth squads. "But Paul, we've made three grand finals in a row, surely we should still be putting a team like this away?" Maybe. But we struggled to put Victory's NPL team away in our first and second meetings in 2016, when we had - with all due respect to the class of 2025 and its Quintas kin - a much better team.

(and what a time capsule this is in so many ways - the comments section certainly took a turn)

And have we forgotten, too, that we have lost matches to the Australian Institute of Sport and the Victorian Training Centre over this extended exile from national league football? That we have lost three times in the Dockerty Cup to teams in a lower division? A draw against a team which has shown itself to be more than competitive so far this season is hardly the disaster it appears to be on the surface. For the misery guts out there, I suppose the worry is that we have what looks like a fairly soft start to the season - Port, Knights, Victory, Dinamo, all sides unlikely to feature in the finals - so maybe a dropped point could be important at the pointy end of the season. 

The one surprise was the continued trajectory of the Danish guy moving from being this blog's designated punching bag for 2025, to somewhere closer to being the white Kevin Nelson. So far it's three appearances, about 45 minutes of game time all up, and two clutch goals. 

Anyway, enough of the on field stuff. Nine years on from this nonsense, and I have probably never felt older as a South fan. That's figuratively speaking, of course, because obviously every day is literally the oldest I've ever been as a South fan. But in terms of feeling it? That comes and goes. Monday night was a watershed though, not for feeling depressed old, but for feeling bemused old. How did we end up here? Why are we still here? What's with all the young people and their wild antics and foul language? And why is the opposition goalkeeper making obscene gestures towards us when we haven't said a word to him all night? Where are his manners? That kid needs a good dose of National Service.

On this school night, out in close enough to the middle of nowhere, a dozen or so people - what's a good old man word for them  - louts, perhaps? - continued to attempt to hold Australian soccer hostage, or at least the Melbourne part thereof. Anyway, it was anticipated by everyone, and nothing particularly shocking happened, just words, but the fact that there was crowd segregation on the night because of twelve or so people is just nuts. And what words were they? Well, I couldn't work out most of what was being said towards our group in the second half, which elicited repeated calls of "what?" from our people; not necessarily as an attempt at goading them (because that would be stupid), but genuinely because we couldn't actually make out most of what they were saying. 

Have the old men of Clarendon Corner aged enough to go deaf, perhaps? Let's not rule that out. Of what little could be made out, there were some insults directed to us in Greek, which of course our non-Greek people could not understand. They also called us Turks, which was amusing in part because their side is sponsored by Turkish Airlines. And they called one of our people an "old man" which, to be fair, wasn't that far off the mark.

Maybe the relevant people view this as an accomplishment, and maybe it is an accomplishment of sorts - after all, their desire for danger and infamy is being catered to - but what's the end game here? It all seems rather nihilistic, and that's me saying that as someone following a club that's been spinning its irrelevant wheels at an exponential rate for twenty years now. I guess it's the difference between getting on adolescent Daria-esque nihilism, as opposed to a nihilism that's more physically and emotionally visceral; kind of like those Knights fans who, as they were walking through the Lakeside car park the other week after our match, were reminiscing about their old days of causing violent chaos.

Next game
St Albans at home on Monday night. Will it be as exciting as last Monday's game? I doubt it, but you never know.

Final thought

- You? You were asked to join the South committee?
- Sure. You never have?

Mood Lighting - South Melbourne 3 Melbourne Knights 1

Another week, another match attended in a suit because I'd come straight from work. At least I had my beanie with me this time, for recognition purposes. Am I like Clark Kent and Superman if I'm not wearing some sort of headgear? 

Collected my membership, including the 30 years of Lakeside scarf and all four stickers. The conundrum of the stickers is that if you put them up anywhere, that's them gone, really. They'll fade and blister in the sun or whatever, or get your car's rear window smashed in by some idiot, because why not? But if you don't stick them up anywhere, they're not really stickers then, are they?

The 30 years at Lakeside thing was a nice touch, albeit another reminder that it wasn't meant to turn out this way. Ten or so years as a national league venue, and then twenty years and counting as Victorian soccer's version of Miss Havisham's ruined mansion, for which the ever increasing darkness is a nice touch. I can deal with no beer taps, or the occasional broken seat, but the lighting situation is just getting worse. We've had our issues with the Trust staff forgetting and/or not knowing how to turn the lights on, but on Monday the lights were on, and it still sucked. It being twilight at the start mitigates the issue only somewhat, because it was still awful when the it was night time proper.

Should there be so few working light bulbs on each tower that I'm able to count them without any trouble? Should the brightest lights at the ground really be those within the far end of the southern grandstand, and which may be there only because they're actually security lights meant to shine a light on possible idiotic behaviour by the handful of Knights who bothered to show up? Our treatment by the Trust continues to be worse than less than ideal. It's outright insulting. Oh, their staff were aware on Monday night that the situation wasn't good, but it hasn't been good on several occasions from a lighting point of view, and what's being done about it? All of our senior men's matches are played at night or at twilight, so this issue isn't going to go away. Someone should do something about all the problems, and all that.

But back to 30 years at Lakeside. That's about 30 matches against Knights at Lakeside, for a total of three Knights wins Two league wins (2005, 2012) and one cup win (2014), not counting the farce of the 2007 forfeit. To put that in some historical perspective, we've beaten Knights 22 times in 43 matches at Somers Street. To further emphasise the point, Knights have as many wins at Lakeside against non-South opponents (1996 and 2014 Dockerty Cup finals; 2017 promotion-relegation playoff) as they've had against us there.

Such history doesn't do much for attempts to make this rivalry seem relevant. But it's always been a strange rivalry in an Australian context. No obvious/inevitable ethnic beef, as with other match-ups. Not always in the same league. Just happening to be the two strongest Melbourne ethnic clubs for most of the period 1984-2004, and then finally, the last two Melbourne clubs standing. To be honest, even with the exhaustion of getting drawn in the cup against each other so many times, the interest had worn off this rivalry anyways.

As for us, it's early in the season, but I'm feeling like in the two games so far that I've been watching something different from everyone else. Maybe I have! I thought the Port game wasn't a great watch, but under the conditions, it was fine. Others saw it differently. This game, I thought long stretches of the first half were absolutely dire, from both teams. Others were pleased that we were at least playing it along the deck, instead of long balls. I don't know. I like having Nahuel Bonada up top, because it means fewer long balls, but we're still one bad tackle on him (by the way, check out this Jackie Chan shit from Friday night) from having to rely on the Danish guy.

Danish guy is clearly unfit, but he scored, so there's that. Was it a difficult chance? Not so difficult, but he was in the right place at he right time, and the ball went where it needed to go. That at least elevates him closer to the status of the new Kevin Nelson, in that no one's actually convinced this guy can actually play, but he's got at least one goal on the board, so... maybe there's at least a few more fortunate goals to come?

Next game
Monday night against Victory's NPL team, at the Home of the Matildas. Probably the worst time of year to get an A-League youth team, as they haven't shed most of their better players, something which tends to happen towards the middle of the year. There is a reserves curtain raiser beforehand. As far as I'm aware, Victory are charging an entry free at the gate. As for any possible unpleasantness... I suppose it's hope for the best, expect the worst, as is often the case. 

Some made up Q&A on the future of this blog
Q. Wait a minute, didn't you quit?
A. Yes, I did.

Q. So why are you back?
A. Not sure really. I know that some people miss some things about this enterprise, and I did feel a little guilty about letting those people down.

Q. Is the blog going to be an earlier good version, or the more recent bad version?
A. Probably more the latter.

Q. So... I shouldn't expect much?
A. Probably not. Think of it less as coming out of retirement, and more as moving into my over 35s/Sunday league phase. Relaxed, comfortable, maybe doesn't always turn up. No more trying to do everything, no more heroism, no more advertising, no more trying to change the world.

Final thought
Always check the fixturing details for local matches carefully. And then check again. That is all.

Is everyone over it already? - Port Melbourne 0 South Melbourne 1

Arriving at Port straight from work in the city, I expected not much from the experience and just about got it. The pomegranate trees outside the ground? Basically empty, and what fruit there was wasn't quite ready yet. Tons of figs though, but like the fruit on my neighbour's tree, not close to ripe. And I had my tote bag ready to go and everything.

I got there early enough to watch most of the under 23s game. Not many South people in attendance at the time, which sounds like self-fulfilling prophecy (or self-actualised punchline). Not many in attendance for the senior match either. It's the kind of turnout you might expect in the dog days of winter, not in the first week of February. So it goes.

I saw my dad's patrioti in the canteen, though he almost didn't recognise me. A frequent traveller to Greece, they asked him there if he still saw my dad and myself anywhere. "I told them that I still see the son at Hellas games, but that the father was in the other patrida now." Quite. Chicken souv was fine, touch salty, but that's probably because they want you to buy a beer to counter the salt. Didn't get sucked into that one.

I'll reserve any withering judgements on the quality of the curtain raiser, because it'd be easy to overdo the Simpsons gags. Besides which, it may have just been an off night for everyone. Still, the Port coach may have had a point about his charges not listening to the instruction to keep the ball on the ground in midfield, especially with how windy it was, which was quite.

The wind, blowing to the Plummer Street end, didn't let up all night. The scoreboard read 12 degrees, but that detail probably hasn't changed since they installed the scoreboard. The Williamstown Road end was out of bounds, because of work to the secondary fields. It all had the potential to feel a bit less than quite the real deal as a setting, except Port's players came out with the kung fu, and the officials let it go. If there was any doubt that the NPLV MMA was back, the first fifteen minutes or so put paid to that.

Of course, if the officials let not just one bad tackles go unpunished, but several, then shit will eventually hit the fan. It is one of my biggest gripes that yellow and red cards are not dished out from the get go in matches. "Oh, but you'll ruin the game if you do that". No, players who have played the game for 15-20 years, and know very well what a bad tackle is and put in a few early ones because they assume (usually correctly) that they'll get away with it, ruin the game. Too bad for Port that they ran through their quota of bad tackles at such an insane pace, that they were down to men before twenty minutes had elapsed. The less said about the attempts by George Mells and Lucas Inglese to suck the ref 

We were on top anyway, not just because of the wind, or because we were playing against a Port team that had so few recognisable names, but also because we were sort of playing the game smart. Being a wing heavy, and set piece heavy team, it was quickly deduced that the wind, and Port's massive backline (including an ex-junior in Maker Maker), made regular corner taking useless, so we went to the short corners.

"But Paul, you hate short corners!". Wrong. Short corners are not the enemy, only poorly conceived, poorly designed, and poorly executed short corners are the enemy. Last Friday, we actually did good from them, including setting up a three on one situation from one such corner, which ended up with Max Mikkola scoring the decisive goal. 

After that, it all became a bit of a blur because it was all a bit familiar. That, and the game being largely up the other end in the second half to where I was, and a good chunk of the game being played in twilight, made my experience less than ideal. So, more of the same, then.

Next game
Monday night home against the Knights. The first of three consecutive games of Monday Madness.

Major sponsor
If you're wondering where the new major sponsor was on our shirt, I was told it'll be on there next week.

If you're wondering where the old major sponsor went... unfortunately you're going have to do your own work on that one. 

Danish / Doorstop watch
Danish got ten minutes, but didn't seem to impress anyone. Doorstop got a start in the A-League, but got subbed out after 55 minutes.

Second division news, barely

The rest of you start thinking up a name for this NSD. I don't know. Something along the lines of, say, Australian Championship - only more proactive. https://t.co/ndp81no2Lk pic.twitter.com/netAMZ4eaS

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) February 12, 2025

Final thought 
We've become so decrepit, not one of our people seemed to notice that John Markovski was coaching Port.

No community, no shield, only... victory! - South Melbourne 1 Oakleigh Cannons 0

Got a lift to the ground on Friday night, which I am very appreciative of, but... it was also slightly unnerving, in the sense that it was clear we were cutting it very fine in terms of getting to the ground in time for kickoff. It was a bit like going to games with my late dad back in the NSL days, dad being one of those people who always wanted to get to the venue at the very last moment. 

It only occurs to me now, writing this up, that back in 2008 my dad and I gave Friday's driver Johnny a lift home from Olympic Village - 17 years ago! - where does the time go? If you've been with this blog for long enough and are still with this club, that's clearly a rhetorical question. The time went exactly where you left it - at Lakeside, and at assorted Denmark Division 6 equivalent grounds around Melbourne, and occasionally in Lara, Ballarat, and Shepparton.

Traipsing through the car park and making a note that we'd parked in the Itchy Lot, we missed the first minute or so, as we strolled past security at the gate. Yes, there was security doing magic wand searches at the entrance, which I felt was overkill - but if they're going to hire them, they might as well keep them busy, I suppose. They attempted to amuse themselves by cracking a few jokes, like pretending that they were also checking to see if people were bringing in alcohol in their bottles.

This fixture was brought into being roughly ten years ago, in an attempt to hype the upcoming NPL season, and to also do some fundraising for charity, Given that it was free entry, and that there was no sign of any charity partner for this match, I'm not sure where the "community" aspect of the evening was. Given that the game was not live streamed, I'm also not sure where the "hype" aspect of the game was either. There was a trophy on offer, but somewhat poetically, it wasn't even a shield, but rather a cup, prompting the age-old philosophical question of when does a bowl become a cup?

Having to deal with all those lies on top of each other was obviously a harrowing experience, and then there was also the ordeal of having to watch a game that meant something (there's a trophy on hand!) and nothing (it's no league grand final) at the same time. Football Victoria have tried to do things with this concept, including shifting it into the middle of the league season, but the idea just hasn't captured the imagination of the Victorian soccer public. It's a broken record by now, seeing as how I've already delegated saving the competition and Victorian soccer as a whole to them alone, but maybe only Preston can save this idea by qualifying for it next season, whatever next season looks like.

As for the game itself, it's a good thing it wasn't live streamed. It wasn't horrible, so far as pre-season matches go, but it was violent, and the referees seemed largely indifferent in trying to get the teams to tone down the kung fu even a little bit - and when they did, the officials must've thought that Oakleigh were the Kansas City Chiefs, and Joe Guest and friends were various versions of Patrick Mahomes, and that if anyone should be punished it should be the opposition for being so mean to the teachers' pets. Don't break apart this clumsy analogy by asking who Taylor Swift is in this example.

We amused ourselves in the outer by reminiscing on olden days and characters, chanting the odd chant, and trying to figure out where Joe Guest's accent was from (which led to the listing of village English rugby league teams). So, standard pre-season fare.

Next game
Port Melbourne away on Friday night to open the season proper.

Crummy Old Danish watch
But let's be genuine for a moment. 90% of the reason I attended this match was to see the man, the myth, the legend, Gustav Møller (the Danish footballer, not the Swedish writer/director) in action, and to practice my pronunciation of mid front rounded vowels. Now I didn't necessarily expect Møller to get a start, but surely they'd give him a solid run at some point during the game? Friends, they did not. The fact that Møller was subbed on after 85 minutes suggests that we're not going to be seeing much of him, at least not in the early part of the season. 

It would be madness to think someone who's barely got on the park during pre-season will be our main guy up front. But we've been mad before with players who haven't done a proper pre-season - remember old mate Billy Konstantinidis? I wonder how good Gustav is at giving behind the play gut punches? When Møller was on the field, he didn't really get a chance to do much - he won a header on the right wing which may have led to something, but otherwise the game was at a stage where Oakleigh had to chase an equaliser, we were looking to kill time, and his talents were reduced to being another body on the field.

What this suggests is that Nahuel Bonada will likely be the main guy up top for at least the earlier part of the season, which I am not opposed to, especially if it means we change our style of play away from "kick it to the big guy". Here's hoping that Bonada can get some decent service from the midfield, and some protection from the opposition thugs who are going to inevitably try and break his legs.

Delicious Doorstop watch
Harrison Sawyer got to play for a whole minute the other week in the A-League, his first appearances in Macarthur's senior team since late November. Today he played a whole 25 minutes. Someone asked me at Bundoora if it was true Sawyer was going to be released, and might we be looking to get him back. I have no idea on that, and have heard nothing to support such a suggestion.

Ruining the line of the garment
Getting my eye fixed and getting new glasses has really opened up a whole new world to me - like noticing Andy Brennan playing with massive holes in the back of his socks. Apparently this trend isn't new, and is an attempt in increase blood flow and avoid cramps. Still looks like shit, though.

Final thought
How can you make a hype video for the new kit featuring notable landmarks from the local area, and leave out the Montague Street Bridge?

The 2025 season is almost here, and aren't we all just champing at the bit

Back when the fixture for the 2025 NPL Victoria season was released, no one was happy, as expected. And why would they be? First, it meant another season of NPL football for us, which after all the "hope" for the commencement of the National Second Division, is a serious letdown. Second, it also means that South Melbourne still exists as a going concern for at least one more season, which means allocating precious free time and mental energy into traipsing into Lakeside once a fortnight (for some people), and into a slew of suburban grounds (for fewer people) whose particular charms, such as they were, have completely worn off.

I was disappointed at the time to see some misplaced criticism on social media levelled at Football Victoria for not opening the season with a certain marquee fixture. Thankfully, the FV rep conversing with said complainants took the feedback with good grace, explaining that the fixture process was conducted in the same way it has been done for the last few years, and that it was actually South Melbourne's idea to do it like that.

But since everybody is meant to play each other twice anyway, and people have their eyes set on certain fixtures as a matter of course, does it really matter if South vs Preston doesn't open the season? The bigger issue is that outside of whatever game Preston plays in a given week, that there won't be remotely be as much interest in what any other team is doing. 

No right days, only wrong ones / no good times, only bad ones
So having opened with whatever that was above, let's look at what South's doing. Oh dear, oh my, oh goodness. Wait, let's not overreact. 

More Monday night games to open the season, as we, I guess, have to work around athletics' busy part of the year, and the need to get the ground fenced off quickly for the grand prix. Some people love Monday night football, but that's primarily when they live near the ground (e.g., Bulleen or Kingston). Since very few of our supporters live near Lakeside, it's seen as a chore to get to the ground. But our fans have made it clear that going to South games is a chore regardless of the date, whether that's because of an inconvenient day or time, the sluggishness of the food service, or the panel beating style of football on offer.

Most home games will be on Sundays at 5:00 PM - a traditional day, albeit not a traditional time. Still there were the complaints about that. What can the club do? Fridays you compete against the footy, as well as every other club (NPL and otherwise) that's got new lights and wants to show them off. Saturday afternoons you're up against nearly every senior men's team in the city. Saturday evenings have been tried, and rejected by our supporters. Sundays clash with juniors and family commitments. Maybe people just don't really want to come to South games? Maybe South is incompatible with the modern world?

New places / new old places

• Preston play their home games on Friday nights.
• Melbourne Victory youth will host us on a Monday night, at the Home of the Matildas

Other teams changing days and times
Speaking strictly from a South Melbourne point of view, there are a few changes to some customary away fixtures.

• Port Melbourne on a Friday night, instead of the more recent Saturday evening fixture
• Green Gully will be on a Friday night (Anzac Day)
  
• Hume City will be on a Friday night, as opposed to the usual Saturday night
• St Albans will be on a Friday night, as opposed to the usual Sunday afternoon.
• Heidelberg away will be on a Friday night
  

Public transport faction

Not good news on this front. Preston is not good for public transport. Ditto St Albans for Friday night (even though I'm accustomed to driving there), and Bundoora on a Monday night is just awful. 

Easter

2025 will be one of those freak years where the Orthodox and non-Orthodox Easter dates align, so there will be no issues here, aside from having to accommodate a potential cup tie.

NPLW Double-headers
There are five of them spread throughout the season.

As for the senior men's team, and perhaps the club as a whole
There is just no hype, no sense of our supporters looking forward to the season. Despite three seasons in a row where the team has been very competitive (apart from grand finals), including last year's Australia Cup run, people just seem over it. Yes, the style of football hasn't helped, and the signing of a physically like-for-like replacement for Harrison Sawyer suggests not much will change there. 

But it's more than that - there's no sense that things are going to get better. A mongrel NSD competition tacked on to the end of the year (for a gruelling ten month long season) has just made things seem even worse. However bad and uncertain things were at the start of 2005, the uncertainty then at least provided an opportunity for a belief that the ship could be righted, and for a little while at least, it was going OK. Twenty gruelling years later, everything depends on Preston sparking an interest in not just South, but the entire league. It's a big ask.