Tall tales, short stints, and meeting the cast of Neighbours

Here's a lighthearted diversion to kick off the week. Around early June, former Raith Rovers striker and now Scottish radio football pundit Gordon Dalziel wasn't particularly impressed with Celtic signing Ange Postecoglou as their new manager. Granted, it was a left field choice, but Dalziel also hazily recalled that he'd come across Ange as an opponent during their respective playing days.

Now considering that Dalziel's shtick appears to be at least partly dependent on being the tall-tale telling drunk at your local pub, his co-hosts back then figured that he was probably just talking out of his arse. 

Well, as it turns out, Dalziel's memory wasn't completely off the mark - except for the fact that he played with Ange, not against him, as his co-hosts pointed out on the weekend. Dalziel played two games for South, both as a substitute: a 4-3 loss against Melbourne Croatia in which Ange actually scored; and the next week in a 1-1 draw against Melbourne City JUST. Sadly, no footage seems to have surfaced of either game.

And yes, that is my tweet they're reading out on air, though I must give the credit to club historian John Kyrou and his spreadsheet covering every South player (that we know of) with extraneous notes like:

"Used as a substitute twice, failed to attend training in third week and sought a quick return to Scotland as he was expecting to walk straight into the first team."

And if, like me, you were wondering where such an assessment of Dalziel's brief time in Australia may have come from, it was probably the July August edition of Aussie Soccer magazine - thanks to Mark Boric for fishing out the relevant chunk from that publication. Shoddy as his memory and punditry may be, for his part Dalziel seems to have been a handy player, including scoring in a Scottish League Cup final, which Raith won against Celtic.

South Melbourne Hellas vs Sunshine George Cross, April 1985

Another day, another week, another round postponed. But no sooking today, because we have a bit of a treat. 

As regular readers will know, I've been uploading old South videos on YouTube, usually one each weekday, over the past few months. There's been some great content in there, and there's still at least a couple of months' worth of uploads to go.

Today's upload is seventy minutes' worth of South Melbourne Hellas vs Sunshine George Cross at Middle Park, from the 1985 National Soccer League season.

I suspect that the footage is an original recording by SBS, intended for use in highlights packages (with possible commentary overdubbing) and news reports, and thus the reason for there being no live commentary (or TV graphics) on the video. 

It is also an unpackaged video; that is, it is not trimmed down to key highlights. This video begins midway through the first half, thus it is missing South's first goal by Charlie Egan. (it is also missing the lap of honour taken by ultra-marathon runner Yiannis Kouros before the game, a week after winning the Sydney-to-Melbourne race)

Unfortunately, there are also two glitchy bits embedded in the source tape which desynchronise the sound and vision. After the first glitch, the sound is ahead of the vision by about six seconds; after the second glitch, the sound is ahead of the vision by about 15 seconds.

But considering how much Australian soccer material has been lost over the years, it is remarkable to come across something as lengthy and as unadulterated as this. Just one camera, no intrusions from commentary, just the vision of the game and the ambient noise of the crowd. 

It's a slight shame that the sound isn't a little crisper to make out more of the discussions taking place within earshot of the camera position. All you can really make out are occasional comments by some kids (including one asking to get chips from the restaurant), occasional berating of the referee in Greek and English, and some conversation in Greek about "ψωμί με σάλτσες, με αλάτι και πιπέρι λένε πολύ". (basically, something about "bread and sauces, with salt and pepper, many say")

External to that, you can hear Lefteri's trumpet playing his regular tune, as well as the Last Post; classic/basic chants from South's younger fans, including ye olde "dig a hole" and "here we go", belying the British influence of "active" culture in Australia back in the 1980s; and you can also hear the ground announcer read out the halftime scores from the other round 7 matches. And yes, there are novelty horns and vuvuzelas in there, too.

You also occasionally get the thunderous sound of stomping and thudding on the grandstand, and the roar of the crowd when it goes in. Most times though, the quality of the atmosphere is social, cheerful, and communal, like people are out at a picnic. And I suppose on a nice day like that, it makes sense that it comes across that way. It feels almost antique; the crowd rises and falls of its own accord, but mostly ebbs at a low hum; but at the time is not disinterested in the game, with key moments eliciting the appropriate response of joy or anger.

Visually there are all the usual markers of Australian soccer from the early to mid -980s - a lack of shirt sponsors, for one, as well as the dress sense of the crowd when we get a look at them. But also the general attributes of soccer from back then, most obviously the backpasses to the goalkeeper, which are still jarring to me no matter how many of them I've seen through the course of uploading these videos. 

And you get a pretty good view of Middle Park and the city skyline as well at times. Anyway, it's a long video, and I don't expect anyone to watch the whole of it, but it is a valuable piece of archival footage nonetheless.

The Sound of Fear - Hume City 3 South Melbourne 2

This is no way to live. Yes, there's a pandemic on, and we're in and out of lockdowns, and that sucks. But along with that, watching this South team is hard work, and that's saying something, because being a South fan for the last (insert your own timeframe) has been hard enough work as it is. 

What is of greater concern, and I've said this a number of times before, is just how long can our remaining people endure this? And I mean all of this. The lockdowns, the watching the games at home, the watching a team that, in all honestly, has scarcely looked like winning a game in the last two or three months when they've actually been allowed to play. And beyond, the lack of any hope on the horizon.

Massive apologies to those who are still clinging on to the hope that a second division will be created, that we'll get in, and the entire future of the club will turned around for the better.

We've had lean periods before; apart from the inexplicable non-losing (as opposed to winning) run at the start of the 2021 season, it's been pretty damn lean on the good times front since late January 2018. Only some of that can be put down to sacking Taylor, because we've also hired coaches who weren't up to it, and the money's drying up, and we're playing youth, and we do things like sign only one striker, and a million other things on top of that.

What was troubling about last Wednesday night was the utter cluelessness. I mean, there was an opponent that we could take on, and that was defensively suspect, and that we even punished on a couple of occasions that we got forward on the night. But the first instinct which has been drummed into the squad is fear and trepidation, so it looks like even when we are good, even when we manage to score more than one goal, I don't think any of our honest fans thinks we're going to win a game.

And that's really sad, this idea that we can only feel safe about winning a game if we take the lead by breaking the deadlock with a couple of minutes left to play. So Henry Hore scores a goal within 15 seconds of kickoff and all I can think of is, great, how are we going to lose this now. And I'm not thinking it in a classically doomist, typically contrarian manner - you know, my signature pessimist schtick - but rather because it has been beaten into us by the entire method that this team has been built on

Now there's no guarantee of success in this business no matter how much money you chuck at the problem, and in any given year there's going to be one league winner, one cup winner (sometimes the same team), and twelve teams which have pissed their time and money up the wall for no gain at all, except for the players who get overpaid for their time considering no club gets close to making its money back at the gate. 

And yes, haha, we're all idiots for watching this stuff, and it's hilarious, except when it comes to the point where it's not. Shared joy is shared, shared grief is shared, but shared indifference doesn't really exist. You can't not care together, because not caring exists on the level of the individual; and if we're all individuals watching this club, then I don't know what it is, but it's not a club anymore. 

The price of long-term and widespread indifference is death, and boy is there a lot of indifference about at the moment. Even worse, when people deign to complain about the obvious sub-par performance and joylessness of the team, apparently that's a bridge too far for some people. Well, fine. They're entitled to their opinion, too, I suppose, even if they don't think you're entitled to yours. 

Watching the team this season, when we have been able to, has not been a completely joyous experience, but it's not meant to be. But it is meant to be something you as a South fan would like to do. You shouldn't even be thinking, "am I emotionally connected to this?". But all I can see when I do go to games is increasing rationalisation of the experience, instead of just feeling the experience. There's a lot more trying to understand why we're here, instead, of merely taking it for granted that everyone who's left wants to be there.

Everyone's process for going to South games is a bit different. Some eschew away games entirely, some people have other commitments that also need to be met, and which may take precedence. My experience is as follows. I go to South Melbourne senior men's team games, as many as I can reasonably get to. The team's fixtured matches are inserted manually into my crappy phone's calendar when the fixtures are released, and modified as the season progresses and changes are made. Within my schedule of personal and family commitments, attendance at South Melbourne senior men's matches is my allocated almost non-negotiable time just for me. 

(If I can get to South senior women's games, I like to do that, too; I don't get to go as many as I would like. For the purposes of this post, I'll be focusing on the senior men's team.)

I usually take public transport to games, which means the journey to a game can sometimes take hours. At a game I like to socialise with people, South fans and non-South fans, pleb fans and non-pleb fans, and am happy to chat with anyone who is willing to discuss any and all matters in good faith. Sometimes what I write here comes up in discussion on a match day, but usually it doesn't, and that's fine. My main goal as a South fan, much as it may surprise people who are familiar with my general disposition and this blog's oeuvre, is to enjoy our games. 

And as for the game itself? I watch some of it intently, and much of the rest distractedly; both of these are done through impaired vision, which excuses some of what ends up on here, though not all. I watch our games as a South fan, not as an emotionally detached chinstroker. When I am at my most motivated, I watch and write about our matches more as a cultural observer than I do as a match reporter. If the writing sometimes comes across as disinterested or impersonal, or less passionate - especially when put up against the more obviously emotional output of some of our fans - it's probably because of a personal writerly affectation of trying to appear fair.

Sometimes I confuse being honest with being fair. It is a longstanding failing of mine, one I have to remain vigilant of. I am not usually ashamed of what I write, because if I was, I wouldn't print it. Sometimes I overstep the mark, which causes me incredible psychological anguish; these moments are often compounded by my initial tendency toward being oblivious, and by my personal obstinance in not wanting to be seen at diluting my personal ethics. The funny thing about moments like those, is that oftentimes some of my readership thinks I should have gone in even harder, and dug my heels in even deeper. 

If I am ashamed of anything with this blog - apart from of moments of supreme lack of judgement - it is those times when I don't put enough effort into writing these posts, which of late has been an increasing issue. Part of that is a reflection of where I am in my life, but part of it is also, I think, a symptom of the general malaise the club has found itself in the post-Taylor, post-A-League bid era. We have not made the finals since 2017 - indeed we have barely looked like it for most of that time. There is no obvious way out of this NPL hole, as our repeated A-League bids have failed, and the promise of playing at a mooted national second division remains at best a few years away.

We have weathered sixteen years of humiliation and waning interest, broken up by intermittent successes which always fail to lead to renewed growth in the club, whether due to natural causes or our own club's ability to sabotage its own good fortune. We lack generational renewal, and our supporter base continues to atrophy. Under such circumstances, all I want - apart from a competitive team - is football that adheres to some notion of what this club has stood for over the past 62 years. Attacking football, fearless football, football that entertains, football that is about goals. I have no miraculous expectations about the ability of the players to replicate the heroics of our greatest teams and players, but I do have an expectation that we at least try and play in a style befitting the club's pedigree and former sense of self.

And while I acknowledge that there is often a time and a place for pragmatism, the manner in which we have played this year has not been noticed and critiqued only by myself. It has also been noted by other South fans, and by people outside of South. And the commentary, regardless of how much it varies in where blame (or responsibility) lies, often comes back to this point - that the way we play now, is not the way South Melbourne Hellas should be playing.

I don't want to comment any further on the quality of writing here, because that would be self-indulgent. But if I were to talk about the content for just a moment. The great strength of this blog is that it is not an official blog. It is so unofficial, that in the past I have refused assistance from the club to gain media accreditation. It is so unofficial that - apart from my disinterest of interviewing players and coaches - it has no interest in talking to any of our players and coaches.

Every player and coach that comes through our club, to me, is a transient. While they play in blue and white, and adhere to the general values of the club - at the least better parts of it - then I will support them. Once they leave the club, they become someone else's concern, or more usually, no one's concern at all.

The problem that exists now, is that the South team I watch barely resembles South at all. And if South doesn't play that many of us think South teams should, than what's the point? Call it fantasy - I certainly have - but if you're a player or coach who is looking to be part of the self-delusion that is the ongoing existence of the South Melbourne  Hellas Soccer Club, than you have a duty to play into that fantasy. 

That fantasy doesn't just mean the silly, absurd rhetoric about being a big a club; it's the fantasy that the club was built and and maintained on certain on field principles, which include fearlessness. 

But I fear that's gone for good.

Next game

Who knows.

Final thought

Congrats to the women's team for making it through to the next stage of their cup tournament. 

Ugh

So more covid cases in the community, and we're locked down again for who knows how long.

I assume it's safe to say that there'll be no games for at least the foreseeable future. 

Here's hoping the footy at least keeps going somehow, to keep those of us who are entertained by that, something to look forward to.

I will do a write up of the Dockerty Cup loss eventually, hopefully by tomorrow night.

I am keeping busy cutting up, uploading, and scheduling classic and not so classic South videos.

+1.5 goal - Hume City 1 South Melbourne 1

So last week soccer came back and what did we see? A competent performance I suppose from our end, and many of the same problems also. But 2021 has gotten to the point where the season has become garbage. It's not anyone's fault, the pandemic is what it is, but locking down and opening up again on multiple occasions has made the whole thing feel farcical.

Maybe even worse than farcical - how about pointless, a dirge, something we are collectively pushing through just to say that we made it to the end. Well, I hope that we manage to get there, because even though we've had some awful seasons of late, where every game felt like a chore, each game worse than the last, this season feels worse than the lot put together.

No spectators especially just makes the whole thing feel like it's being put on for the sake of the gambling fraternity. And I know that it's (probably not), and I know that Football Victoria and everyone else pushing through are merely performing their civic duty, but by god, I think the only ones actually enjoying themselves are the gamblers.

I mean, that's who I was stuck with on Saturday night, earphones plugged into my phone, watching the blurred action play out on a screen the size of half a Salada biscuit, while trying to munch down on chicken patties at the dinner table with my family. And there we were, me, Our Resident Cockney, a handful of gamblers asking which team was which, and trying to appease the YouTube football live stream gods for +2.5 goals.

It's sad enough when we can go to games and chide ourselves for the insanity of supporting South Melbourne andNPL Victoria as a whole, but at least there you are with like minded souls in the shared delusion that this thing (and your support of it) matters, no matter how tenuous; it's a whole other level of sadness when we are compelled to keep our distance from our heroes (and the players we hate), and most of the people we have to share it with are people who fill up the Facebook comments section with abuse that the various club appointed moderators have to delete, delete, delete...

I could fill this report with more hatred and bile for the way we play, and the people who are responsible for it, but it feels kinda pointless. I'm not even inclined to say that everyone gave it their best or their worst, because does it even matter under the circumstances? The point is to get to the end. That's it. We might even make the finals (we probably won't), we could win the Dockerty Cup (I suppose anything's possible), but the main point is to make it to the end. 

Next game

Dockerty Cup semi final tonight, against Hume City. No, you're not allowed in.

Final thought

Downloaded the most basic, near fool-proof video editing program I could find, so I can extract more morsels from the South compilations I've been given alongside the clips that were already cut up for me. Also, while it's still a work in progress, I've created and begun maintaining an inventory of every South Melbourne Hellas match video that's been uploaded to YouTube, and the format (short, extended, full) it exists in. More for my benefit really, in order to have a more user-friendly list at hand for my uploading work, but someone else may find it useful as well.