Very strange people: Nike Cup Final - South Melbourne 0 Calder United 3

To begin with, how we got here.

While everything strictly local football was cancelled several months ago, Football Victoria decided to persist with closing out at least some of its competitions with a winner in 2021. So as with the Dockerty Cup for the men, won by Avondale a couple of weeks ago, the women's knockout cup also forced through an outcome and title winner, courtesy of two semi-finals last week, and a final yesterday.

Last week our senior women played against Bulleen at the Veneto Club in one of those semi-finals. Because it was at the Veneto Club, and because it was on at somewhat lousy time of day, and because it was screened on YouTube, I took the not altogether reprehensible, perhaps even soft, decision to watch the game from home.

What was less excusable was not writing about the game, but that's the state of South of the Border these days, the blog that continues its trajectory of becoming exponentially slacker.

That game against Bulleen was a strange one. I get the urge to at least get something out of this awful situation, but the competition came across as farcical when most of the remaining were hampered by some or many regular senior players being unavailable due to competing A-League Women commitments. I can't speak for the other three teams, but South reputedly had around about ten players unavailable because of this. Add to that the lack of training and match conditioning, and you end up pretty close to conducting glorified pre-season matches.

But I guess that's how much people in this country love soccer, that everyone pulled together to get this tournament over and done with, in order to salvage something from 2021. Last week South utterly dominated the early stages of their game against Bulleen, couldn't put them away at first, let Bulleen back in the game, before finally rolling over the Lions for a comfortable 5-1 win. I'm rather ignorant of who's playing for South's senior women at the best of times,but even by those standards there were a lot of names that I was unfamiliar with.

It wasn't a particularly fluent performance, but why be harsh under the circumstances? Still, it didn't fill me with much confidence that we'd beat Calder in the final; but seeing how it was a final, and it was at the comparatively easier to get to venue of CB Smith Reserve, and what with there being a much more family friendly kickoff time than the semi-final, I decided to go to the game to support the team. That, and it probably wouldn't kill me to be a little bit more social, though who knows what disease you'll catch if you dare leave your house these days.

There was some chatter on our forum that a bunch of Clarendon Corner people who never go to any women's games would actually go to this game, but the likelihood of that happening was always very remote. As things turned out, it was probably for the best that they didn't turn up - there was no need for two sets of supporter groups taking away from the spectacle and the still generally positive, non-aggro vibe of a women's soccer match. Having one such set of self-absorbed fans at the game was more than enough. 

When your attention span gets shorter by the day, you forget things which on reflection you actually kinda knew at one point. As with everything, it's easy to blame the pandemic, but I think I can be forgiven for forgetting that Calder United now has some affiliation with Western United as part of the latter's eventually getting an A-League women's team, to the point of Calder adopting Western's colours. I'm not even sure if it was just a new away kit, because most of the obviously Calder fans in the crowd still sported the team's usual navy colours.

With Western United and Calder being affiliated, the Western Service Crew - a Western United supporter group - rocked up with a megaphone, a drum, and a banner or two. Parking themselves to the left of the grandstand, they hoisted up a hastily made banner with "NO LICENCE" written on it. It was petty and stupid, and didn't have much to do with the game at hand or with Calder, but that's football fandom for you. 

Being behind the goals at the opposite end of the ground, it's a wonder that either side's fans bothered to try and abuse each other, what with the wind swirling around as it was, especially in the first half. Thank goodness the ground at least looked in amazing condition compared to the Dockerty Cup final's potato field from a couple of weeks ago. The wind was blowing across the field mostly, and if it was favouring either end it was the one that we were kicking to in the first half, but we couldn't make the most of that advantage, and went into the break at 0-0.

I reckon the game was pretty much lost right there for South, and the second half kinda showed that. Our small gaggle of regular and regular-ish watchers of the South senior women moved around to the other end for the second half. We copped a couple of goals early enough in the second half - the second of which was an absolute belter of a finish - to pretty much be out of the game. Hitting the crossbar from about eight yards out at 2-0 down was the icing on the cake unfortunately. For whatever it's worth, though we were generally outplayed, I didn't think that we were bad. Indeed, I thought we were better yesterday than the previous week, but Calder were better drilled and had that bit more experience and polish. 

It's not great to lose a final, especially of a competition you haven't won yet, but hopefully at least some of the players out there for us got a valuable experience, and some knowledge about what it's like playing senior football. 

Now that we've got all the cliches about incremental personal improvement and grudging acknowledgment of a superior opponent out of the way, it's time to get into what you're really here for - reports of επισόδια and/or φασαρίες. After our earlier mentioned gaggle moved behind the southern goals, a portion of the Western Service Crew moved around to the western side of the ground next to the Calder benches. Maybe they realised eventually that their "no licence" banner (eventually joined by a "no cup" banner) wasn't visible to the cameras at home, what with the game being filmed from the grandstand and not the outer side.

This group then also began directing chants our way, about us, most of which were nonsensical and not really worth responding to. "You're not singing anymore" - well, we hadn't been singing at all. "Who are ya?" - well, like Bodie said to Marlo, "you know my name". And dumbest of all, "what have you done". I mean, you can slander South Melbourne Hellas about all sorts of things, but not having done stuff, or won stuff? Of course, when your focus is on chanting things about SMFCMike, maybe you don't have the best interests of the women's team you're allegedly supporting at heart.

(the less said about their first half rendition of the Great Escape theme when the game was still 0-0, the better)

Anyway, security and Western United officialdom got themselves in all sorts of a tangle trying to figure out what to do about that group and its banners. As the game was winding down, their group wandered around behind us en route to rejoining their mates on the grandstand side of the ground, some of them decided to get mouthy and dawdle instead of continuing to shuffle on; harsh words were exchanged, and a small child belonging to one of the Western United fans began crying. All in all, a rather unedifying, unnecessary, and rather avoidable experience.

The game done, it was time go home, except CB Smith only seems to have one exit - or at least one that anyone bothers to open. Blue Thunder Kosta had the players race closed lest (I assume) any members of South's media team, office bearers, ordinary fans, and one itinerant blogger, decided to go out with a surprise attack on the celebrating Western United supporters. When the gates to the players race were eventually opened, we all managed to walk through to the exit without hitting anybody, so kudos to us I guess.