I finally, finally managed to get out to another game for our women's senior team. And lest anyone doubt my resolve to do so, yes it helped that this game was on a Sunday - but having to negotiate a very annoying double rail-replacement (radial and city loop) service should demonstrate that while I'm hardly on my way to being top-dog in the South Melbourne Ladies Active Supporters, I do at least try and get out to a few games where possible.
Before the senior women could get started, there was the matter of the under 19s, who were soon enough trailing Heidelberg 2-0, and not looking too good. Soon enough however our 19s worked their way back into the game, and stormed over the top of the visitors, winning 5-2. The thing I most remember though was the melee which nearly kicked off into a full-on dust-up after a bad tackle. It's not the kind of thing I see in women's soccer too often - usually there's a much more obvious "compassionate/duty of care style reaction" to fouls and injured players, so it was interesting from a sociological perspective, even if undesirable from a sporting one.
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| Photo: Luke Radziminski. |
Our women started off well enough, looking threatening and creating some good chances. We really should've gone 1-0 up with one particular sequence of play, where it seemed the universe was conspiring against us. Then the rain and the wind came, sending the ball girls, Our Resident Cockney, and I think eventually even Heidelberg Harismidis running for cover. It was during this burst of mother nature's wrath that Heidelberg scored, whipping in a corner that went straight in, thanks in no small part to the wind swerving it in. Let that be an argument against women's teams resorting to short corners.
Second half, and you just had that feeling that despite getting on top of the game well and truly - apart from rare moments - we just weren't going to score. And then Leia Varley sent home a long range free kick into the top corner levelling the scores, and then my feeling was that we wouldn't manage to get another goal, and the season would end on this bitter disappointment - that despite the improvement we'd shown from the 5-1 loss against the Bergers, and then the 1-1 draw, that we'd be left to rue the sorry 1-1 draw against NTC.
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| Yes! Photo: Luke Radziminksi. |
The team's reward for making it to the finals? An elimination final against Calder United, this year's standout team, at Keilor Park Recreation Reserve this Saturday (ie, tomorrow) at 2:00. Calder have beaten us comfortably four times this season, three times in the league and once in the cup. While I'm not ruling out an upset, it's really very much a nothing to lose game for us.
2020 SMFC senior squad roster as of 06/09/2019
For teams still aiming for success in 2019, the season has not ended yet, but that doesn't mean our club can't get on the front foot and start announcing squad members for next year - in this case, Brad Norton, who I think we'd all have been surprised if he wasn't around next season.
For any other player on our list, it would perhaps be odd to do a re-signing announcement now without having officially named the coach, but it's Braddles, so there's nothing to see on that front. Not too long afterwards Marcus Schroen was announced as having re-signed for two more years, and the public response ranged from the relatively cheerful to those pencilling in the death of the club.
Leigh Minopoulos is the only absolutely confirmed 100% out so far, having announced his retirement prior to the end of the 2019 season. The future of Kristian Konstantinidis doesn't exactly look too promising, so there'll be umming and uhhing about that for a little bit. Meanwhile striker Billy Konstantinidis was on Football Nation Radio yesterday talking about exploring his options in the Indian Premier League.
In terms of coaches, the two names thrown up - by desperate and/or hopeful South fans more than anybody else - have been secured by other teams. Regular South Melbourne watcher and local resident Scott Miller, currently coaching at Langwarrin in NPL2, has reputedly been signed on there for another season. The other name belonged to ex-South player Nick Tolios, most recently of Kingston City, who have just been relegated down to NPL 2. Tolios had long been rumoured to be heading towards the Bentleigh head coaching job left vacant mid-year by John Anastasiadis, and surprisingly, Tolios has ended up at Kingston Heath on the eve of the Greens' finals campaign. Ever seen a coach get a team relegated and win a championship in the same league in the same season? Not me, but we're two weeks away from that happening.
Signed
- Brad Norton
- Marcus Schroen
- Tom Aulton
- Keenan Gibson
- Peter Skapetis
- Nick Krousoratis
- Perry Lambropoulos
- Kostas Stratomitros
- Gerrie Sylaidos
- Luke Adams
- Manny Aguek
- Ben Djiba
- Amir Jashari
- Giuseppe Marafioti
- Jake Marshall
- Will Orford
- Nikola Roganovic
- George Gerondaras
- Zac Bates
- Andrew Mesourouni
- Josh Dorron
- Melvin Becket
Exploring options in India
- Billy Konstantinidis
Maybe retiring
- Kristian Konstantinidis
- Leigh Minopoulos (retired)
The wording here is confusing to me, because I thought I was on a Football Victoria Historical Committee already. Anyway, Football Victoria has released a survey about which direction the organisation should take with regards to its historical commitments:
Football Victoria history survey
At the moment Football Victoria's historical committee (of which I am a member) has a role largely limited to oversight of things like the Hall of Fame and Life Member approvals - the survey asks whether Football Victoria should be doing more, and if so, what kind of action people in the soccer community would like Football Victoria to take.
If you could take a few minutes out of your day to fill in the survey, that would be great. If you're uncomfortable using your real name, you could always fudge that bit. Not even sure why they're asking for it.
Throwing stones from glass houses
It was a big week in footy, with some disgruntled person setting up an anonymous Twitter account and publishing document details allegedly derived from the contracts of two current Avondale players, as well as snippets of Avondale's week-by-week payment spreadsheets.
After the initial post, where the leaker had posted the contract details for Kiwi Avondale player Scott Hilliar as well as an extract from an early season portion of the payment spreadsheet, it looked like the account was locked or shut down. Soon enough however it was back up, posting details from Japanese star Tasuku Sekiya's contract - including his wage - as well as posting a spreadsheet extract from the middle of the season.
While there were some legitimate grumblings about breach of privacy most of the attention on this leak of sensitive information naturally centred upon Avondale's spending, which based on the spreadsheet snippets would be up toward the $700,000 mark.
(and for the record, while some questioned the legitimacy of the published extracts, believing them to be fake, I think the level of detail - see for instance Liam Boland receiving a sizeable monetary bonus around the time he reached 15 goals - as well as the publishing of player signatures, suggests that the documents are all too real.)
Around the grounds, those with more insight into the Avondale back office were wondering about the identity of the leaker and their motivations, while others wondered about the tax and regulatory implications, which the leaker had also emphasised as rules that Avondale had broken. I'm more of the opinion that it's the players who are probably in bigger trouble, assuming that there is actual Australian Tax Office investigation and that the players involved didn't manage their tax affairs probably.
Prurient interest aside in terms of seeing behind the curtain of semi-pro player payments, there was the unfortunate but predictable spectacle of some South fans forgetting the lessons of "be careful what you mock, lest you become it", and instead of just slowing down past the bingle on the side of the road, decided to get involved. Why, when our club is so often the subject of similarly prurient well/semi/and un-founded speculation?
Cue some minor blow-back from a former youth team coach and a former a technical director of ours, the latter of whom provided some rather unflattering comments on his time at South Melbourne. These comments were later deleted, I assume under some legal duress. It's going to be another fun off-season.
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