Boking Accident - South Melbourne 1 Green Gully 1

Dear readers of South of the Border,  I have been given a most precious gift; the gift of an epiphany. I wasn't looking for it, I didn't realise that I needed or wanted this gift, but I was chosen to receive it.

Since South of the Border was launched in December 2007, I believed I had the right to voice my own opinions, whether they were right or wrong, fair on unfair, and untethered to popular or official opinion. 

I now understand that this was a dangerous illusion, a devastatingly heretical one. I now understand that not only were my opinions wrong, but so too was my belief in the right to have my own opinions. I cannot express how much I was crushed by the sudden onset of the reality of my long-running egoism! All the lost years spent agonising about what to think and how to think it and how to express those thoughts, when all I needed to do was to look at the status quo, and just sit back and bask in its perpetual and permanent acceptability; no, its divine infallibility, for whatever happens must by design surely be good and right. 

As recently as last week I was like many of you, criticising people at our club who make decisions, focusing my stern judgments on those who have more than nominal responsibility for where the team has found itself this season. Ladies and gentlemen, I now know that it was wrong to feel this way. I don't blame the coach anymore. It is clearly the players' fault that we are where we are. They're the ones not following orders, or following orders too hard - I'm not sure which anymore. They're the ones who need to weather Spanish insults screamed at them for 90 minutes, and being rotated in and out of the match day squad for reasons they cannot comprehend. They need to play with less flair and intent! They need to comprehend better! It's for their own good! It's for our collective good!

But hold on - what if "blame" is the wrong word, too? What if this has been the plan all along? Maybe apportioning blame to anyone is not good enough or supportive enough of the team either? Forgive me; I'm new at this no longer thinking for myself caper. So instead of apportioning blame, let's start apportioning credit. I credit the coach for where we are now. I pay homage to the quality of his management skills, which see a squad capable of more, achieve less. Credit also has to go to the board. It takes a lot of guts to stand up to so-called reality. It's imperative that we South Melbourne supporters also reject this false reality, and substitute it for the one that management sees. My new and enduring hope is that one day those of us left in the crowd who don't agree with the current trajectory of the team, can squeegee their collective third eye and come to the same conclusion. Only then can we become not the bitter few defenders of a rump state, but rather, the discerning few.

This revelation means that I now understand that the last two months of football have been incredibly adequate. Maybe even more than adequate! Why demand excellence, even relative excellence, when you can accept the sweet comfort of midtable, or wherever we end up? Higher, lower, what difference does it make? What sweet release to now see that we are not in competition with other teams, but only with ourselves and our own expectations; even then, the only worthwhile struggle is to stop struggling. to stop having expectations, so that we can finally and genuinely let go of the infatuation of competing. 

You win this year or the next, or you lose this year or the next, what does it matter? And I don't mean what does it matter in the context of no one caring about this club or this league. I mean what does it matter at all what we do, if concerning ourselves with whether it matters only causes more psychological and spiritual torment? I've been going to games and seeing the anguish on our supporters' faces, and not seeing it for what it is; the agony of trying. So why try? Why not just be? Just go out there and do anything, and let the chips fall where they may. Give up trying to understand, give up the idea that South Melbourne Hellas should be doing better. Acknowledge the genius of the strategy, and acknowledge its genius wherever it leads us. 

Ideas of stature and pedigree? Let them go. Consistency? Throw it to the wind. Fluency? Ask yourself why we should make the effort. Come to the realisation that forwards and backwards are actually the same thing. Learn to love short corners. 

Next game

At St Albans away on Sunday. Now I know many of you aren't quite with me yet on the path to "who gives a stuff" enlightenment so I'll phrase this next section in a way that will hopefully gently start you on your journey. St Albans are struggling, but I don't us expect to roll over them; I expect us to walk alongside them, being neither better nor worse. Why make the opposition feel bad about themselves? We have a great chance to make them feel better about themselves - not so much better because they've managed to beat us, but hopefully at least enough to give them the taste of being able to know what it's like to match it with the great South Melbourne Hellas. And you also wouldn't want to win, because you only really need 26-30 points to definitely (probably) avoid relegation, so anything more than that would just be a waste of effort, and of course win bonuses. So, no showboating please, and absolutely no goals unless we need to equalise to keep our draw tally going. 

Women's news

In all seriousness, despite playing against an obviously inferior opponent, I was pleased with what I saw on the live stream on Saturday by our senior women against Alamein. Granted, Alamein didn't push as high up the field as say, the Bergers did the other week. But I think we moved the ball around well in midfield, and seemed more in control of the tempo of the match, even in those moments were Alamein had a decent spell. Big game at home against Bulleen on Saturday though, to show how far this team has really come.

Final thought

At least the last half hour of the game was kinda entertaining, if you're into that sort of thing. But if you are into that kind of thing, I must warn you, because it's a hell of a drug, and you're going to be chasing that high for the rest of your days if you're not careful.