Fear and loathing are for the other 364 days of the year. Today is reserved for thanking the following people:
The club, especially those who volunteer their time to keep it going week by week.
The players and coaching staff who won us a title.
Thanks also to Steve from Broady (stats), Supermercado (security management artefact), Arthur and Nick Vertsonis for sending some great artefacts to put up, Cindy Nitsos (many, many photos), Pavlaki (assorted hilarity), Mark Boric (for lending me his VSF yearbooks), Manny (comics), Skip Fulton for the odd under 20s report and around the grounds bizzo before I lent him to Goal Weekly and the South official site, the Agitator, and of course Kiss of Death for another erratic year of contributions.
People whose match reports I stole details from because me no see very good and stuff.
The Hon. Hugh Delahunty for responding to my letter.
Engel Schmidl and Athas Zafiris at Shoot Farken for publishing my Heavy Sleeper world cup pieces. It was a pleasure doing them.
Anthony Colangelo for letting me have an hour on radio to put
forward my world view, albeit an hour that I had to share with someone
else.
Tom Pollock, for letting me be on his radio documentary, even if Roy Hay managed to get both the first and last word.
The peerless Walter Pless, who took up my offer of doing a write up on his site, explaining South Melbourne's season in the lead up to the South Hobart game.
Also Pave Jusup, Joe Gorman, Chris Egan, Lou Tona, Nicholas Tsiaras, The Saint, Tony Montana, Cuddles, all for various reasons not necessarily related to the blog.
All the new people I met.
All the old faces.
Anyone who gave me and Gains a lift to some place.
Everyone who re-tweeted, left a comment, or sent us something to put up. Your interest in this project ensures not that it survives, but that I try a little harder than I otherwise might.
Anyone who thinks they should be in here but isn't - it's probably my fault.
And especially Ian Syson and Gains.
Friday 26 December 2014
5 comments:
A few notes on comments.
We've had a lot of fun over the years with my freewheeling comments policy, but all good things must come to an end. Therefore I will no longer be approving comments that contain personal abuse of any sort.
Still, if your post doesn't get approved straight away, it's probably because I haven't seen it yet.
As usual, publication of a comment does not mean endorsement of its content.
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Seven years of quality output. Congratulations and long may you continue to keep the bastards honest.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the 7 year milestone. Your readership made up of mostly Knights fans hopes you will continue with the blog for many more years to come.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but MelbCro couldn't help but make a dig! :)
DeleteWhich got me thinking about something I did last week that borders on sacrilege.
I attended an A league match!! I have been to a handful over the journey. Every one of my appearances has been for specific reasons. There was no way I was going to go to a game for the hell of it.
My first game (free tickets as a result of winning a SEN competition!) was the Melbourne Victory v Sydney FC game from season 1 at the old Olympic Park where Victory won 5-0. It was their last decent result as they tumbled down the ladder thereafter. But, the whole experience frightened me. Maybe I had grown up/matured from my NSL days, but the crowd was verging on ugly. It was a strange feeling.
My next match was another Victory game with some 'New Dawner' friends of mine from my cricket club at Docklands in about season 2. This game was just simply 'meh'. And that was it for about 3 or 4 seasons.
But when Postecoglou took over Brisbane and they started their run of form, I took the opportunity to watch them play Victory at the new stadium. It was a great game that ended 3-3. Brisbane were lucky to draw that one and, in hindsight, it would have been their only loss throughout that record breaking period.
But, again, it didn't encourage me to watch more games. And in fact, a year later, I returned to watching Hellas game.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was invited (by the same 'New Dawners' as above) to watch the Derby between Heartless and Victory. This time, my reasoning was to see what level of support Hearltess had, and get a gauge on the type of atmosphere there currently is.
I was surprised how much support Heartless had, and was angered to see some Hellas fans who I am acquainted with, tagged in some Facebook photos with their Hearltess tops! I also saw another person I know, who, though not Greek (she is a Macedo-Slav), is married to a Greek. They were both there on tv cheering away.
But what surprised me more, was my own reaction to the whole A League and South Melbourne's potential place in it.
I am not sure I want to be part of it! The game day experience felt so detached and I could envisage our club would change in some undefinable way if they were accepted into the league. I think these changes would be even more unnerving than any criteria the FFA would set.
My other observation of the A League. Whereas the old NSL was full of angry wogs, the A League is now full of Angry Wogs AND Drunk Yobbos!
Terrific.
Savvas Tzionis
Stick with South Savvas and bring your friends. I've got a mate who I went to NSL games with all the time, he was a detached supporter while we are in the VPL/NPL but last year he came to every game with me and this year he bought a membership for the first time in 10 years and now he's as die hard about South as he was in the NSL.
DeleteTrying to get old South fans passionate about the club is hard but I reckon my mate and I are more passionate about South now then we have ever been . It took a bit of time but my mate is back where he belongs and we need to get more to come back too.
How people can lose passion for a club they've supporter all their life and simply convert to a new club is sickening and disgraceful.