Remember the Puskas documentary that Tony Wilson and friends were making? Well the crew managed to get their most important interview subject on tape!
Interviewed Ange for our @smfc Ferenc Puskas documentary. Was generous, funny and effusive in his love for the a Hellas era that forged him. If you have Puskas photos & film, let me know! #smfc #hellas #ferencpuskas pic.twitter.com/mGBGRVcy44— Tony Wilson (@byTonyWilson) December 30, 2017
But as Tony notes in his tweet, they're still looking for Puskas photos, film, artefacts, stories, so if you have anything, get in contact with him, or get in contact with me and I'll act as the middleman.
AGM
The 2017 AGM date has been announced, and it's Wednesday 24th January, in the social club. The two meeting times are set for.
- 6:00PM South Melbourne Hellas Club Ltd
- 8:00PM South Melbourne Football Club Ltd
Friendlies
Three friendlies - against Kingston, Oakleigh, and Dandenong Thunder - have been booked over consecutive Saturdays in January, all out at Springvale White Eagles. The Public Transport Faction does not approve. Check the 2018 fixtures page for details.
2018 fixture released
As with 2017, another brutal start to the season with six away games to start, and nine of the first ten away. Some other things worth noting
- The WNPL fixture hasn't been released yet, so I've no idea about men's/women's double headers.
- While most of our home games have been kept at the Sunday 4:00PM timeslot, three fixtures differ. There is of course the simultaneous 3:00PM kickoff in the final round, but against Oakleigh and Pascoe Vale in June, we have a Saturday 5:00PM game
and a Sunday 7:00PM to act as lead-ins to Socceroos World Cup matches. Convenient! - Orthodox Easter week falls on the first week of April, which for our purposes coincides with our entry into the FFA Cup qualifiers.
- The Veneto Club's synthetic pitch is being relaid. Somehow we'll still end up with another 2-2 result there.
- Green Gully has moved its home games to Friday nights.
- Our away game against Port Melbourne seems to have been scheduled for a Saturday evening.
- While Avondale have apparently struck a long term to play out of the long out-of-action Reggio Calabria Club in Parkville/West Brunswick, our away fixture against Avondale hadn't been updated on FFV's site when I did this update. Word is that the place needs a lot of work to get up to scratch.
If you want to see the current state of the Reggio Calabria Club's soccer field, this tweet by Chris Gleeson gives you some idea of how much work needs to be done to get the ground into shape.
— Chris Gleeson (@gleebo41) December 24, 2017
Arrivals and departures
Some more 'outs' were announced early in December, most notably former captain Michael Eagar. Confirmation from the club also that David Barca Moreno, Zaim Zeneli and Stefan Zinni are also no longer at the club. But you already knew that.
It had been strongly rumoured Eagar was on the way out through parts of the 2017 season. Eagar's omission from the starting XI throughout the second half of the season especially confused a lot of fans, as there seemed to be no clear reason for it, and indeed, we seemed to play better with him in the team than out of it. So it goes.
Luke Adams is also out, which means that our central defensive pair will be undoubtedly new next season. To that end we've signed young defender Darby Dexter from Port Melbourne, and Kristian Konstantinidis has re-signed for two more seasons. Matthew Millar has re-signed for 2018.
For whatever it's worth, the following players are assumed to be contracted for next season.
- Matthew Foschini (signed until the end of 2018)
- Milos Lujic (signed until end of 2018)
- Jesse Daley (signed until end of 2018)
- Jake Marshall (signed until the end of 2018)
- Nick Epifano (signed until the end of 2018)
- Darby Dexter (signed until the end of 2018)
- Matthew Millar (signed until the end of 2018)
- Kristian Konstantinidis (signed until the end of 2019)
- Brad Norton (signed until the end of 2019)
Out
- Stefan Zinni (Avondale)
- Zaim Zeneli (North Sunshine Eagles)
- Michael Eagar (Port Melbourne)
- Luke Adams ('overseas', whatever that means)
Centre Forward is online!
Four years ago I did a hasty review of a North Korean soccer flick that I'd seen at the Melbourne International Film Festival. It turns out that since then someone has actually uploaded that film to YouTube, so you know, if you're looking for something a little different, you can watch it or something.
Goal weekly archives now available!
A nice bit of news for those into the Australian soccer archive business. Goal Weekly has put up its entire back catalogue online in pdf format.
Only one date lines up with the Socceroos WC. The France game on the 16th. Denmark and Peru are midweek fixtures.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, how clumsy of me.
DeleteDo we know which blockbuster WC matchup the cub using to justify a Sunday 7pm kick-off in winter?
DeleteD!ckheads.
The fixturing for this season can only be described as laughable. Only the powers to be at South could come up with such a horrendous fixture. When there are 200-300 people at a Sunday 7pm kick off, the South Board wont have to look too hard into why the punters are not coming.
DeleteIs it me or does the SMFC Board find the most inopportune times to hold an AGM? A 6pm start on a weekday night is just almost impossible for many to get to given work commitments and Melbourne traffic. Will the AGM commence if there is no quorum ?
DeleteFurther to the "laughable" description, I recall a couple of years back we were hosting a handful of Friday fixtures which highlighted how much we needed our social club. Now we have a social club, we have zero Friday fixtures.
ReplyDeleteIn the middle of a freezing Melbourne winter? No thanks
DeleteAdams has signed in Sweden
ReplyDelete