September 2016 digest

In case you missed it...
We won the grand final!

Social club news
Nope.

AGM date news
Not yet.

Arrivals and departures
Early days of course. So far looking forward to 2017 we can assume that the following players will be with us next season:

• Stephen Hatzikostas (signed until end of 2017)
• Brad Norton (signed until end of 2017)
• Matthew Millar (signed until end of 2017)
• Milos Lujic (signed until end of 2018)

Players whose contract status I'm unsure of:

• Chris Irwin (contract possibly ending this year, or perhaps end of next year).

Players we can safely assume are gone:

• Iqi Jawadi, who appeared to walk out on the club prior to the end of the regular season.

As for everyone else, most of their contracts end this year, so anything one adds to that will be pure speculation.

Seeing red
After a recent and admittedly also persistent discussions throughout 2016, South of the Border's request to friend of the blog Gains to compile a list of all the red cards that were dished out in South matches this year, along with the scoreline at the time of the dismissal. Gains has also been good enough to add a coding system (see below) to remind our readers of how the red cards were earned.

1. Violent conduct
2. Denying obvious goal scoring opportunity
3. 2nd Yellow Card

Community Shield

• Bentleigh Greens (away): Epifano (1), score at red card 0-3 down

League

• Heidelberg United (home): Theodoridis (2) 3-0 up. South Melbourne assistant coach Chris Marshall also possibly sent to the stands.
• Northcote City (away): None.
• Port Melbourne (away): None.
• Bulleen Lions (away): None.
• Richmond (away): Niagoran (3) 3-5.
• Hume City (away): Tavsancioglu (3) 0-0.
• Bentleigh Greens (home): Kirk (3) 1-1.
• Oakleigh Cannons (home): Black (3) 4-1. South coach Chris Taylor sent to stands.
• Melbourne Victory (home): None.
• Avondale (away): None.
• Melbourne Knights (away): Miskulin (2) 3-2.
• Pascoe Vale (home): Milardovic (2) 0-0.
• Green Gully (away): None.
• Heidelberg United: None.
• Northcote City (home): None.
• Port Melbourne (home): None.
• Bulleen (home): None.
• Richmond (home): None.
• Hume City (home): Mala (?) 2-2, Chris Taylor and Hume City assistant coach Zoran Markovski sent to stands.
• Bentleigh Greens (away): Adams (2) 1-0, Ibrahim (1) 1-1.
• Oakleigh Cannons (away): Konstantinidis (2) 0-0.
• Melbourne Victory (away): None.
• Avondale (home): None.
• Melbourne Knights (home): Miskulin (3) 1-0
• Pascoe Vale (away): Nakic (2) 0-1, Pavlidis (2) 2-1. Pascoe Vale coach Vitale Ferrante sent to stands.
• Green Gully (home): None.

Finals

• Hume (home): None.
• Heidelberg United (away): Way (1) 0-1.
• Oakleigh Cannons ('Neutral'): Chiapetta (3) 3-1.

Cup

• Keysborough ('home'/John Cain): None.
• Altona Magic (away): Bozinovski (3) 2-0.
• North Geelong ('away'/SS Anderson): None.
• Bentleigh Greens (away): Eagar (3) 0-2.

Totals:

• South Melbourne: 5 (3 League, 1 Cup, 1 Shield)
• Opposition: 14 (13 League, 1 Cup)

With the new FIFA ruling starting just before Euros (no double punishment), both reds in the Pascoe Vale away game should be yellow and penalty for both offenders. If we extend it to earlier fixtures, the red for Theodoridis and Milardovic also fell into the same category.

2017 WNPL application 
As expected South has shown its intent in applying for a WNPL licence for next season. The brief press release focuses mostly on South Melbourne's sense of itself as having past pedigree in women's football, and also on the measures taken in recent times to treat women's football more equitably.

No detail on the finer points - such as the status of SMWFC, as well as naming issues -, but one would expect that to be in the bid itself, and revealed in the event that South Melbourne FC is awarded a place in next year's WNPL.

Match programmes
Not a lot to report here, but I will hopefully be making more of an effort with some non-South materials that I've had sitting around for a long time.
2002/03, Round 1, Newcastle United away 
2007, Round 21, Melbourne Knights away - pretty ugly to be honest

Around the grounds
Going up, going down
So the NPL grand final wasn't the end of the season. No, there were state league finals and promotion battles to be sorted; the NPL national playoffs, which Bentleigh botched by losing 3-1 at home NNSW team Edgeworth - that loss means that FFA Cup qualification for Victoria will once again be limited to four teams; and the NPL/NPL2 relegation-promotion playoff between Richmond and North Geelong. Once again there was a gap of several weeks for the NPL candidate to wait until the NPL2 season was finished and the best second placed side identified. In that game, North Geelong had beaten Dandenong Thunder, whose ineligible player penalty against Nunawading of all teams will potentially haunt them. Meanwhile Richmond faced the prospect of going straight back down to NPL2.

The game was played out at Oakleigh, apparently because Oakleigh had applied to host the game. Too bad they forgot that they were hosting a birthday party in their club rooms, which meant that the crowd of let's say 500 odd people who were there to watch the game could not get any food or drink during the game. After the heat that FFV copped for their management of the NPL grand final at Lakeside, this was a more low key shambles, but a shambles nevertheless. The game itself saw North Geelong take an early lead from the penalty spot, then sit back and try to absorb pressure and hit on the counter. Richmond thus had most of the ball, but never really looked like doing anything important with it - even though they managed to hit the woodwork twice, effective entries into the their opponent's 18 yard box were few.

The second half was more of the same - another penalty to North, another goal - and instead of making changes then and there, Richmond's coach waited until they were 3-0 down before doing something about the situation other than moving Nick Niagoran (who was tightly marked throughout) central from his wide position. 4-0 as the final score was a bit rough perhaps, and one can see North struggling to avoid relegation in 2017 if they rely on the same personnel and the same ultra conservative game plan. For Richmond, a few of the players out there on the night may get picked up by NPL vultures - Niagoran is young enough to warrant another chance; Brian Bran, if he lost a few kilos he'd be as handy as during his Thunder days; fullback Kris Kioussis (who trialled at South during the 2016 pre-season) - but a few others have surely hit the wall, such as Hamlet Armenian, and perhaps even Jake Barker-Daish, who offered almost nothing in this contest.