The perils of being asked to believe again - Hume City 1 South Melbourne 3

Everyone apparently hates Saturday games, so here was another Saturday game; at least this time it wasn't out fault. I watched a bit of NPL 1 and 2 action on the train. Eastern Lions vs Dandy City, with Dandy 1-0 up, and then 2-0 up with old mate Kosta Stratomitros getting sent off for what looked like dissent; a course of events which when related to another South fan prompted the response, "how could he get sent off for dissent? He doesn't even speak English!". My thinking is that it's possible that with the plentiful amount of Greeks refereeing in our division these days, Kosta could have been unlucky. 

At 2-0 I drew a line through both that game an Lions' tenure in NPL1, and moved onto North Geelong vs Langwarrin, which included old mate Fraser Maclaren in goal for the visitors. That game looked to be heading to a 1-0 win to North - whose Elcho Park home still has an NPL sponsor banner with PS4 branding - but Perry Mur must've found a penalty for Langwarrin deep into injury time; a sequence of play that I did not get to see, because I had to get off at Coolaroo station about ten minutes before the end of that game. 

I got to the ground around 5:15, with the thinking that at least I'll be able to see most of the curtain-raiser. Well, that plan was scuppered when I found that upon arrival, the match was already well into its second half, having inexplicably started an hour earlier than the match really had any right to. Hume have experimented with kickoff times for its curtain raisers - including having them not be the curtain raiser, but rather the closer - but the point of having the match finish a full hour before the scheduled start of the senior match is still perplexing to me.

Anyway, when I arrived it was 1-0 to our reserves with about a half hour to go. Then Hume got a red card, then they levelled, and then they botched about 2-3 very good chances to win the game. It finished 1-1, and I learned nothing about who may or may not be a good senior team prospect from our side. That lack of insight is probably more on me though, seeing as how apart from not being particularly impressed with either side, I was also distracted by the frequent appearance of low flying aircraft. Now I previously lived under a flight-path, and currently reside adjacent to one, but neither of those situations was quite the same as having jets fly so close so as to drown out conversation with the person next to you.

Still, there's only so many descending planes you can look at while waiting an hour for the senior game to start. That's time that had to be filled in with a chicken kebab (a little dry, but good flavour), a can of sour cherry nectar (savoured, slowly), and waiting for South people to turn up. That eventually happened, where we discussed the late collapse of South senior women's team against Heidelberg earlir that afternoon, and we then watched the frenetic warm-up of the senior men. No Max Mikolla, who was put with five yellow cards, no Josh Wallen on the bench, who was injured and also suspended. Perry Lambropoulos was back on the bench, after a long injury lay off. 

 

Hume had been in better form of late, but thanks to Dandy City's win earlier in the day, were now in the relegation zone. Their crowds - such as they were - have fallen away, much like our own and pretty much every other team's. Best indication of how everyone's crowds have dropped is people discussing how easy it is to get in and out of a car park after a game. 

In this match we reverted somewhat to early season type, and put this game out of its misery within about a half hour. No long throws, no goals from penalties, no goals from corners of free kicks. It was all rather dull, straightforward stuff. Second half, the cue was put firmly in the rack, and Hume managed to get a late consolation goal which negated the payment of a clean-sheet bonus. One couldn't call that second half performance a fade-out, though some people may still want to try, because we were so in control of the very little that happened. 

But the really horrible thing is how soft everyone has gotten. Everyone hated the coach, the way we play(ed), and now it's like... not so much of a big deal. People have turned. Apparently all it took was 14 wins from 18 games, as opposed to a mere 13 wins, and the maintenance of a four point gap at the top. So people are now like... maybe I was wrong. Or maybe after the awful results of the last few years, this isn't so bad. And like, Harry Sawyer doesn't look a baby giraffe anymore, but rather an accomplished and versatile striker who maybe should be playing in a better league. Esteban Quintas is no longer an out and out fraud, and perhaps no longer even being carried in 2022 by the superior playing personnel at his disposal, but has been turned into a more considerate, changed man, more flexible, more willing to delegate.

Editorial extract from Soccer News,
  vol. 01, no. 02, 1948.

It's the same kind of guff I heard a lot of when Collingwood made its unexpected run to a grand final loss in 2018, with Nathan Buckley almost becoming a coach worth cheering for.  It's like watching someone who's been burned before, slowly learning to love again. And it's sickening. The team that was considered to be taking advantage of inferior and under-prepared opposition, riding its luck on set pieces, relying on 20 minutes of good play and the acrobatic exploits of its goalkeeper, is now being touted as well, a passable unit. Perhaps more than passable. Me, until that grand final trophy is in our hands, I'm going to cling on to the idea that the only reason we're good, is that everyone is actually not what we term really good.

Next game

Green Gully at home on Friday night.

Because some of you are still wondering

After noting in the most recent match report that, barring some unfortunate accident, our senior men had mathematically avoided relegation, I suppose it's only fair to provide an update on what's going with the other irrelevant ladder race: in this case, the 2021 Bespoke Championship.

Without going back to check, I believe that the last time I posted about this matter would have been around about the time we played and lost to Oakleigh away. At the time, that result was counted by Football Victoria as three Bespoke Championship points for Oakleigh, even though it should not have been counted as such because it was an Oakleigh home match, and not a South home game which should have been designated as the relevant fixture for this nonsense.

I didn't expect FV to correct the mistake this century, but it appears that they actually have. So kudos to them for keeping up with the farce. That's more than can be said for Avondale, who have gone rather silent on their socials about this monstrosity that they helped bring into existence, as well as the anecdotal suggestion that they've been blocking from their Facebook page anyone who brings up the current status of Bespoke Championship.

For our part, as you can see on the table on the left, South is out of the running for the Bespoke Championship, with only Oakleigh and Avondale left to duke it out. Oakleigh's remaining fixture is against our good selves in a few weeks time, while Avondale play against Port the following week to wrap up the meaningful part of this meaningless exercise.

Slightly more relevant

We're 15 points clear of seventh place, with just 24 more points up for grabs - and with neither sixth or seventh place able to get any more points off us.

Final thought

Thanks to Johnny for the lift back to Sunshine, it was much appreciated.