Too little, too late - South Melbourne 1 Bentleigh Greens 1

This is really late. I don't even care about the alphabetical gimmick. There's a link to a match report that somebody else did further down.

20 odd other games of slop
That's where the season was lost. Yes, there were injuries, yes, there was bad luck, but there was also a lot of slop provided and bad decisions made throughout the season. Of a possible 30 points against the top five teams, we got 11. Three wins out of those ten matches (Northcote, and Oakleigh twice), and two draws (Bentleigh home, Thunder away). In addition, we dropped two points to the Zebras, three points to Stars, four points to Knights and Richmond - teams that did not make the finals. Got knocked out again by Port in the cup. And gone backwards against Gully.

Francesco Stella
Well done to Frannie, possibly still waiting for an international clearance, but Rangers have agreed to sign him, and he seems confident of getting a go in their first team sooner rather than later. Do your own search for interviews he's given, there's a few out there at the moment.

Chants
I don't know how much longer Clarendon Corner is going to last - apparently there's talk of winding it up, and their appearance have been getting steadily more sporadic - but when they try, they can come up with the lols. The latest noteworthy chant?



Eat your own
Yes, we're all frustrated by the way things have gone this season, and we can safely assume that if you're a regular at South you're just as passionate as you ever were, but some people need to act their age. For better or worse means just that. No need to carry on like a pork chop.

One and only
Was the intro script to a home match always like this in 2012? The ground announcer claimed that 'smfc.com.au was your only source for South news' or some such comment. Now I know we like to talk about South as little as possible on this blog, what with the space needed to be allocated to dinner reviews and pointless ephemera of the pseudo intellectual kind, but maybe saying your one 'official' voice would have been more tactful.

Heartless George Donikian
Former president George Donikian turned up to the game. Was disappointed by the result, but not so much that he wasn't already looking forward to the next A-League season on Twitter straight after the game.

Absolutely, more VPL fans need to sample A-League if they haven't. Heart FC is the team to embrace.

I don't really care  what people do in their out of South time A-League wise, as long they're open about it. But to try and drum up support for that franchise (which beat a South aligned bid, or have we forgotten?) straight after the game while we are still grieving for a cruel end to another failed season is insensitive at best.

Or to put it another way, fuck your A-League and Heart shit off, George.

Ace Reporter Ian Syson
And he did a match rundown/report of the match!My favourite part?

6.06. Second half underway. 

Got stuck in presidents room.

This lasted for about 28 minutes. Do read it, because I'm not going to bother recounting the day's on field events.

Next Week
Probably the most pointless derby of all time against the Bergers. Win lose or draw, we can't go anywhere important. They're doomed to State League 1 next season. Hopefully play some kids. That Cartanos kid did OK against Bentleigh.Can we at least turn into a carnival atmosphere.

Zenith
Congratulations to my Perth Glory supporting buddy Chris Egan, who has been selected to give a paper at the Worlds of Football conference in Melbourne in November.


And a huge happy birthday to Tony, no last name required, you know who you are. Good bloke, good friend, who always has my back when I piss off the wrong people.