Never get high on your own supply - South Melbourne 2 Altona Magic 0

Just a short one this week because I'm back in what by my standards would be considered gainful employment, and time is no longer my friend. Well, that's my excuse this week, and there's always an excuse.

Welcome back to the blog for South fans who love to metaphorically slash wrists. Welcome back to normal diabolical crowds, but still continuing on with the same results, with much the same method, with one frustrating exception. What was it with all the short corners? It's not just having Harry Sawyer, Marco Jankovic, and Jake Marshall to aim at, but also little Pat Langlois - remember him that scored those headers from corners early in the season? But also, apart from having all those perfectly cromulent targets to aim at, we also have Andy Brennan who has mostly been providing rather excellent service from corners.

Let's put it down to feeling so comfortable with our position and our opponent, that we decided to use this situation as an opportunity not to showboat - because we would never, ever do something like that - but rather to attempt some in game variations which may become useful in the finals. Now I don't believe that for a second, what with my pathological hatred of short corners (at this level), but it might help other people rationalise what they were watching, assuming anyone else loses sleep about these the way I do. It felt like a targeted hate-crime against me, and in this fishbowl that is South Melbourne Hellas post-NSL, every time we take a short corner attention is brought to me.

Well, I painted that target on myself I suppose, and it's not like one can un-paint that now. Speaking of paint and other brilliant chemicals, how good was the smell of paints, sealants, and whatever other alchemic concoctions are being piled into, under, and on top of our grandstand? It was like being in the back of the old Capricorn Floors van - there's an inside joke for like, three people, tops. I suppose since we're not not allowed to take booze outside the social club (except for trace amounts of alcohol in a lemon, lime & bitters), and the outside beer tent went back into hibernation, why not substitute liquor for fumes? What could possibly go wrong?

Apart from the awful second half, where we lost all shape, the only really bad thing to happen was Ben Djiba's red card, which felt contentious live, and much less contentious once we saw the replay of someone with way too much adrenaline after dribbling past three or four opponents, like your correspondent back in a CC White vs Blue match many, many moons ago. At least I had the good sense to finish my poor run with a mere crappy pass, and not trying to knee-cap someone. 

Anyway, Djiba will be out this week and probably for at one game after, but what a great chance for someone else to do something. I give Esteban credit for this - pretty much everyone gets a go of some sort, sometimes more than I think they should, and sometimes less, and sometimes not in a role I think they're suited to; but it's not like you die wondering most weeks over whether we'll make a sub. It is easier to do now that we can make five a subs a game, but that doesn't mean that the sub will always get made. Look at Chris Taylor for example - still stuck to his more rigid method of well, it's 1984, we've got a squad of 14 players, and you have to fight tooth and nail to somehowbreak your way into the starting XI.

Whatever works for you I suppose, and like I always maintain, there's more than one way to get to your destination in this game. There's pretty and ugly, there's big spenders and slightly less big spenders, and there's even apparently playing with no meaningful sense of a central midfield and not even bothering to make a mid-season transfer to at least pretend to fix this. If we win this title - and I hope that we do - it just may be the first time South (or any club) has won a title mostly through sheer spite. The throw-ins, the set pieces, the playing 15-20 minutes of comparatively good football a game - all while knowing (or some of us fans believing) that we could be doing even better. 

Now you may ask what's better than being three games clear at the top with three matches to go, but that's what the easily placated like to say. I just hope we're not getting complacent. I saw Max Mikkola sit on the main subs bench instead of by himself after he got subbed off last week, and I'm worried we're going soft.

Next game

Port Melbourne away this Saturday. Thanks to Oakleigh's loss on Monday, we are now just one win from claiming the minor premiership and the chance to play in the NPL national playoffs... wait, I'm being passed a note which says that no one seems to know whether the NPL national playoffs will actually take place this year. It seems like there's no mention of them on either the Football Australia or Football Victoria competition calendars. Well, I'm sure everything will turn out fine. 

I hope that if it's not going ahead that the thing was cancelled due to COVID or a failure to attract a sponsor for it, and not because people were planning to fill in the space with a National Second Division. 

Final thought

Whatever stupid thing happens in the rest of this season, let us all bask in the quiet relief that Avondale did not win its stupid 2021 Bespoke Cup. They might still win the 2022 title - and good luck to them if they do - but their failure to take out the title they felt they so deserved, and which they spent so much money on lawyers on, and which they thought was a right laugh until their seven point lead got chipped away to nothing, and then they stopped posting about it on their socials, and then started blocking people on their socials who brought it up... where was I going with this? Oh yes: the Bespoke Cup is over. Let's never speak of it again. 

Not dead yet - South Melbourne 1 Oakleigh Cannons 0

The most important news must come first.

So this "painting" the grandstand business, which has been going on for quite some time now, and which has been testing people's patience, especially constituents of Clarendon Corner, who have been exiled from their usual locale while this "painting" takes place. Last week this seeming farce continued, with now just the lower half of that bay cordoned off - as well as sections at the lake end of the grandstand - and setting off the thought bubble that at some point they'll end up cordoning off Row H by itself just out of spite.

However, I got a message from one of the bigwigs last week - always a concern, because any message I get from them these days I assume is going to be bad news, or some form of berating. Sort of like when you get an email saying that you have a message in your MyGov inbox. In this case, the message was educational rather than hostile, which is always welcome. And the message? It's not just painting that's taking place on our stand, but rather extensive restorative work. The stand is leaking in parts, creating a risk of eventual damage from rising damp. The stand is receiving repairs from both on top and from underneath. I am told that the works are proceeding in a piecemeal fashion, partly so they can see how the repairs go on particular sections of the stand, but also because the persistently inclement June and July weather this year has made progress slower than would ideally be the case.

So having informed nearby people of this, our collective thoughts then turned to the future, and the imminent national second division which I am assured is coming next year. Imagine the buzz of the first couple of weeks of this competition, as all sorts of people come out of the woodwork to watch South play Sydney Olympic or some such. A chunk of this almost certainly temporary renewed interest would centre on Clarendon Corner; its numbers would swell, and the increased weight in and around Row H and the lower half of our usual bay would see the stand creak and groan, and ultimately collapse, inuring many, and possibly killing a few. In the event that the club didn't die as a result of this imagined tragedy, the outpouring of grief among the latent and former South supporter network would see the club reborn, as those who abandoned in one hour of need, returned to it in another. The CC martyrs would be commemorated with plaques and memorials; each year on the anniversary of the tragedy, our fans would remember their fallen brethren; and though those most dedicated would no longer be with us, their sacrifice would lead to the rebirth of South Melbourne Hellas. Αδέρφια ζείτε, εσείς μας οδηγείτε and all that.

Or the repairs could just go really well, and the club can continue making us miserable for all the usual reasons, dragging on its interminable existence in this or some other equally interminable competition.

Back in the real world. there was a game to be won, and surprisingly to me, we won it. I'm not anti-winning matches, especially highly anticipated ones, but I must reiterate: I don't trust any of what's happening this season, which makes my enjoyment of this farce of a rather good run in 2022 conditional on us actually winning the championship, whereupon I can retcon all my ramblings into something altogether more positive and assured. 

Not counting last season's penalty shoot-out win in the cup, this was our first outright win against Oakleigh since 2017. Think about all that has happened since then. Three coaches, a failed A-League bid, and two cancelled seasons because of a pandemic. How many people got married, and/or had one or more kids? How many jobs have I had and lost in that time? The only thing that hasn't happened is the national second division.

What these Oakleigh clowns are trying to claim,
 I have no idea. Photo: Kostas Deves.

There were too many close calls for us in the first half, including one ball that sort of everyone just let roll across the face of our own six yard box. Seemingly close but not really, was a low shot or whatever it was from Oakleigh being saved by Javier Diaz Lopex, clearly well in front of not only the goal line, but also in front of the post. Cue some Oakleigh players, but especially Daniel Clark trying to claim that it was a goal. I get that players get excited, but come on guys, have some respect for physics at least.

The second half from us was better, but my goodness, we are still such a hard team to watch compared to some other teams. I know, I know, get the results, grind out the wins, not how but how many. But watching South players panic with the ball anywhere in the defensive third, launching long balls when keeping the ball would be better and no less dangerous, and avoiding playing the ball in the middle of the field as if their lives depended on it. That last thing must surely have been a direct instruction, because it was pretty much all wing play. I've never seen a team of this calibre - in that they are top of the table so late in a season - so determined not to play the ball anywhere near the central channel, until a cross can come in around the area of the six yard box.

It was fascinating to watch in its own nihilistic fashion. If we were going to turn the ball over, we were to make sure as hell that it was nowhere the middle of the field, which doesn't say a lot for what we think of our central midfield combinations. 

(yet Patrick Langlois, part of that midfield combo, was awarded man-of-the-match in the post-game awards ceremony of the Tony Clarke Memorial Shield business.) 

For apparently the eighth time this season (though who's counting?) we scored a goal from a Max Mikkola throw-in. Not much different to the usual pattern here: long throw into the vicinity of Harrison Sawyer, hoping for a keeper mistake, and eventually a goal. Every week I keep asking how long we can keep getting by on these shenanigans, and every week the answer seems to be, "at least one more week". I'm not comfortable with it, but lest I be castigated for being a Negative Nancy, I'm trying my best to just enjoy the ride. The effort is good. The results are good. The method sucks. But two out of three after five years of mostly crud is, for the time being, acceptable I guess.

Next match

Altona Magic at home on Saturday night. Magic have lost their last five matches, and are still in the relegation scrap. We're expected to win, but the last time we played each other should act as a warning not to be complacent. Remember that game, where some heinously profligate finishing from Magic in the first half left us in the game? 

The mathematics

Eastern Lions are now mathematically relegated. Everyone between 9th and 13th is still in a relegation battle, though it'd be a collapse of all collapses if Knights end up 13th. Finals wise, realistically the top three are in, with the remaining three spots to be fought out by four teams. Knights or Thunder could theoretically make it in, but it would take an amazing set of coincidences for that to happen.

More likely is a finals series with four teams and possibly five of the six being made up of the Greek NPL clubs, in which case, why mourn the absence of the Hellenic Cup, when we play in a Hellenic League?

So far as South is concerned, a top three finish is locked in. Three points from out remaining four matches guarantees a top two finish. Eight points from our remaining four matches guarantees first place; seven points makes us dependent on goal difference, assuming Oakleigh wins all four of its remaining matches.

2021 title race almost over, thank goodness

Oakleigh's loss means that the 2021 Bespoke Cup is Avondale's for the taking, as long as they can beat Port Melbourne. If Avondale lose, and we beat Dandy City in a few weeks time, we can finish as a runners up.

New program uploads

Haven't had one of these for awhile. An early 2000/2001 season effort was sent in this week by a reader, filling in a couple of gaps, which I'm grateful for. Highlight is Steve Panopoulos winning the South Melbourne go-kart challenge. I've also scanned and uploaded the 2021 and 2022 Knights and Gully away match programs.

Final thought

Second division

Hanging in there - South Melbourne 2 Dandenong Thunder 1

Apart from collectively managing to finish the season, South's main priority in 2022 according to at least some people, was to avoid relegation. A fairly obvious goal, even taking into account that he squad had been strengthened relative to its 2021 counterpart. That feat was accomplished a few weeks ago, which was nice, considering the odd near miss with relegation since Chris Taylor's sacking in early 2018. The next priority was to make the finals, also something fairly obvious, but also something that hasn't been achieved since CT got the arse.

Last week's win against Dandenong Thunder, combined with other results, means that we are now mathematically guaranteed to play finals. Fantastic, what a relief. Next step is to claim top spot, not so much for the very minor benefits that a top two spot grant, but for the hope that we might end up with a post-season NPL national playoff run. Embedded somewhere in there is the desire to win the championship, especially because we threw away a potential cup run, and no. I am not going to get over how and/or why that happened.

So anyway, there's five games left until the finals, and we're in a reasonable spot, even if after trying to figure out how we got here, I still feel unconvinced by the whole thing. That's a me problem. Last week we quite obviously brought in the sidelines, one assumes less to help Max Mikolla and his long throws - ineffective for a second week out of three as opposition defences catch on - and more to constrict the Dandenong Thunder's wide play. That worked pretty well, as did the idea of gifting them mostly meaningless possession, which they didn't do too much of note with, except on our right-hand side, where an overenthusiastic Andy Brennan, and an underdone Perry Lambropoulos got caught out in cases where they shouldn't have.

Having managed to carve out the odd chance ourselves, as well as restricting Thunder to the kind of slower possession game style they likely don't prefer, it was infuriating to concede goal from a set piece, especially from a guy who coaches our own under 12s. Also, thanks to the under 12s in front of whatever's left of Clarendon Corner for letting us know that irritating fact. When is paint going to dry anyway? With Oakleigh having smashed Avondale earlier in the day, we were in second place on the live ladder, and though it was not impossible to see how we could come back into the game, we had lost our way a bit, getting sucked into melees and assorted nonsense.

Thanks then to one of the more unnecessary penalties you've ever seen give away. The ball was released wide right into space in the fourth minute of first half injury time. Mikolla and his Thunder opponent sprinted for the loose ball. Mikolla got there firsr, and was clearly fouled by his opponent. My only quibble watching it live was wondering whether the ball was in the box, because surely a defender wouldn't be so daft to give away a foul at that place, at that time, when Max was by himself, on a terrible angle, and would be covered comfortably by even moderate jockeying.

Harrison Sawyer added to his "non playing against Eastern Lions" goal tally by scoring from the spot, and at half time I think we all felt a little better about ourselves. Second half was more of the same, including many of the same kinds of subs we often make, including one which continues to have minimal effect. What stood out, obviously, was Pat Langlois diverting Brad Norton's long range shot into goal for the lead, and Lirim Elmazi getting sent off probably unnecessarily, meaning our already "creative" heavy midfield corps becomes more unbalanced without a designated "ball winner" type.

Indeed, unnecessary yellow cards were a big problem last Saturday, especially after some of our players went out of their recently to reset their yellow card tallies by getting deliberately suspended. So it goes. On the plus side, Oakleigh's Joe Knowles is also suspended, which you'd hope is of some benefit to us, though Oakleigh are hardly short of attacking options.

I agree with the sentiment that we need to win this match in order to finish in first place. Win this game, and we go five points clear with four games to go, with two very winnable matches (Altona Magic, Dandy City), and two very hard ones (Port, Avondale). Oakleigh meanwhile have Bentleigh, Knights, St Albans, and Hume, an easier run to be sure, complicated only by Oakleigh's Dockerty and Australia Cup committments.

Next match

Oakleigh at home on Saturday night, in case you haven't heard. Seeing as this is a reversed fixture, there's no women's match curtain-raiser tomorrow. At the time of writing, it also appears that the men's under 21s also aren't scheduled to be a curtain-raiser. There was some murmuring that the Tony Clarke Memorial Shield might be on before our senior men's match, but I have seen nothing to indicate that that's happening tomorrow. 

If you're looking to spice things up further for tomorrow in the worst way possible, tomorrow's match is also a potential title decider for the 2021 Bespoke Cup. If Oakleigh wins tomorrow night, they get the ignominy of winning that "championship". If they draw or lose, then it's up to Avondale to beat Port the week after.

A sentence or two on the women's team

With results like that, maybe they should sack coaches more often. After knocking off Heidelberg in the cup, the senior women knocked off Bulleen in the league. And quite comfortably, too, at least as far as the scoreline goes. They say that Bulleen had a few out on national team duties, but you can only beat who's in front of you, and we managed to do that. Still a massive slog from here to make the finals, but at least we have a cup final to look forward to. Too bad it's against Calder, but you never know what could happen on the day. 

Final thought

Opposition fans turned up to a game at Lakeside last week. To borrow the sentiments of Richard Rants, it almost felt like what we do still matters.

Lens Flare - Eastern Lions 0 South Melbourne 4

More apologies for lateness and brevity.

I did not attend this game, as I decided to go to a mate's place to watch it instead. That would have worked well, were it not for multiple protests in the city curbing public transport - and me being an idiot - for not being able to get to my mate's place in time. That itself would not have been an issue if the pause button on the app actually worked. Is there even a pause button? The trick I think is to actually watch matches through the "match centre" portion of the site, which inevitably boots you out of the app to your browser. 

So I missed the first ten minutes or so thanks to public transport delays, being required to be buzzed in and taken up a lift, and then not being a pause button. Since Eastern Lions, despite their struggles in 2022, had at least had a habit of scoring first and/or early, I was concerned that we might already be 1-0 down, and playing even more catch up to Oakleigh. Oakleigh ha already dispatched Dandenong City 5-0 the night before, so not only was there the matter of Oaks having taken the lead at the top of the table, but also a matter of goal difference.

As it was, we were actually already 1-0 up, and going to the replay function showed that it was pure training ground stuff to take that lead. Eastern Lions have barely been competitive this season, and that trend continued in this match. In 2021's abandoned season, they won four games from eighteen, three draws, and tended to always look plucky. This season they've had one win and three draws, and have probably been lucky to get as much as that.

So the disappointing aspect from this game, if one is to be disappointed, was that we didn't look that threatening from general play. A corner goal, a penalty, a throw in goal, and an open play effort after a dreadful backpass was picked on by Harrison Sawyer. Players that came on as a subs, and who could've had some downhill skiing fun, didn't really take that opportunity. No matter - we got through the game with the expected win, the expected margin, and I assume not too many injuries or unnecessary yellow cards.

At home, even if not my own home, the experience was augmented by a potent negroni, and in this case by lens flare. The great thing about livestreaming at this level, is all the variances in quality. The wrong cameraman, the wrong commentator, the wrong weather, the wrong lighting, teams that can't work out a uniform clash. One thing that's harder to deal with is that you want the crowd (such as it exists at NPL level) to be visible, but that may also mean putting the camera on the side facing into a setting winter sun. And is the case with almost every single game broadcast from Gardiners Creek Reserve, the commentators staring into the sun can't see what's going on, and neither can the home viewer half the time because of lens flare. It's not exactly an appealing aspect of the live stream experience.

Next game

Tomorrow night against Dandenong Thunder. Oakleigh plays away to Avondale earlier in the day, so we'll know by our own kickoff time whether we'll be needing a win to retain top spot for another week. Top spot meaning not much at all officially, except for the hope and assumption that it will include entry into a post-season NPL champions tournament. 

Speaking of Harry Sawyer...

Earlier this year, Sawyer became the 10th known South Melbourne Hellas senior men's player to score four goals in a league match. On Saturday, he became the first known South Melbourne senior men's player to score four goals in a league game, twice.

We say "known", because the 1960 season, South's first, remains primeval in terms of lineups and scorer details. There were about ten league games in 1960 where South scored at least four goals, including two hauls of nine, and one of ten. In all likelihood, someone would have scored at least four in one of those games, and most likely more. 

But that shouldn't diminish Sawyer's achievement. To add to the novelty of this record, Sawyer's four goals on Saturday was the first (known) time that a South player had scored four or more in a league game, without any teammates scoring in the same game. Discussion however, over whether Sawyer is a better striker than Milos Lujic - as ventured into by some online South people - should be put aside for at least awhile yet. 

At some point as well, adding on the many other statistical oddities we'll have to take care of, is finding out which South player has scored the most goals against each opponent. For his part, Sawyer has scored 12 goals against Eastern Lions in four league games spanning 2020-2022.

Women's team

A week is a long time in football. Saturday the girls lost 4-2 to Box Hill, giving them a four match losing streak, and putting them miles out of the race for the finals. There was talk of player exits and holidays, and then the coach - a long-time servant at the club - parted ways with the club, farewelled with as perfunctory a press release as you can get. So far, so bad. Then on Tuesday night out at Oakleigh, they were 2-0 down against Heidelberg in the semi-final of the cup. Then came the comeback, and the 3-2 win, and progression into the final for the second season in a row. They'll meet the winner of the Bulleen-Calder match, which is taking place next week. I'm not sure we're equipped to beat either team, especially Calder, but stranger things have happened I suppose, and in a one-off game, you just never know.

Sponsor Splash-out

Here's some good news, with a strange twist. The club has just announced a record (post-NSL?) sponsorship deal with CF Capital, which will run for the next two seasons. Great, wonderful, can we afford to have Sunday games back now etc. They're even tipping in money specifically for the blind and powerchair teams, which is also good. My info on this is that after the agreement was already made to be our new principal partner, that after seeing the blind and powerchair teams at the player auction night, CF Capital decided to increase their sponsorship of the club. Who knew being a good social citizen could have such rewards?

The strange part however is no doubt this:

South Melbourne FC members and supporters will become familiar with the CF Capital brand around Lakeside Stadium as with signage featuring the logo prominently for the livestream audience in front of the Clarendon Corner. 

Are there enough people in Clarendon Corner most weeks nowadays to find this appealing? If Clarendon Corner does something stupid, do you really want to have your brand attached to that? Since we can no longer hear Clarendon Corner because of the nature of live stream filming from the opposite side of the ground, what can you actually see from that distance that makes it worthwhile? And what happens of Clarendon Corner decides, out of spite or whimsy, to just move to a different part of the stand? 

Ah, it's all moot anyway, everyone's too old to care.

Final thought

I completely forgot to take an inadvertent photo of my host's cable setup this time.

Lead at the top down to two points - South Melbourne 0 Green Gully 0

A few years ago, and probably on more than one occasion, I quipped that should the unthinkable actually happen and South return to an/the Australian top-flight competition, that there should be a special section for the fans who continued to support the club through the pee-pee soaked heck-hole years, so that we would not have to interact with all the people who jumped off the South bandwagon when the club needed them most.

Looking back, the most fanciful part of that suggestion was not that South might get into the A-League, but that there would be enough people to even fill such a privileged section. Last week's game was on a Friday night, which I suppose was more pleasing to people at least in theory, but not so many more of them that it might make a difference in the places where the hoi polloi sit. It's a good thing that assorted random friends and well-wishers of Brad Norton's turned up to add alcohol-assisted enthusiasm, after the Celtic-Ange bandwagon seemed to last about one match. We await with baited breath the arrival of the next random group of attendees to a match at Lakeside.

Still, the seating arrangements at South matches are getting ever more garish in highlighting (assumed) cost-cutting, as well as the difference between gods and clods. The so-called "painting" works remain in progress, last week creating a rather farcical situation where not just the bays nearest the social club are roped off, but also the top half of the bays in the middle of our stand. And still, those of us still attending continue to look for evidence of the painting works. 

At some point they may as well just fence us all into a little bracket - that way Stevie's confetti show can also get contained, although it may mean his shredded newspaper might have more chance of ending up in your box of chips. At least the sponsors and their fellow travellers came in good numbers, and since they're the ones keeping this club afloat, I guess we plebs should be glad for that fact; even if we can't buy a beer to drink outside like at every other ground in the state, and even if beer isn't actually that good of a drink, and who made beer the boss of sports venue drinks? I suppose there should also be options for people who don't like beer anymore. Insert the sound of a cash register chiming right here. 

But that could just be me griping for griping's sake, seeing as how the on-field performance continues to exceed by a long way the relatively low expectations I had for the team not just before the season, but also up until about some time a few weeks ago. Even being held scoreless for the first time this season, I could hardly find the effort to complain about how the team is playing, though it would have been nice to have taken at least one of the very gettable chances presented to us. All I could think of however. apart from being glad we had not lost - which would have been an injustice, regardless of Gully's own more than passable performance in this match - was just how entertaining the match was.

It really was an enormously fun game to watch. And indeed, if one dares to quibble with the quality of skill on display in this and other 2022 NPL Victoria games, one can hardly say that South games have been boring. It helps when the team's ding well, and there's something to play for beyond a mediocre position on the table, but one of the tragedies of this post-covid interrupted seasons, is that people are looking at all sorts of things to complain about, and even if they're right (and they probably are), they're missing the point that the team has been providing an entertaining product.

Even Brad Norton's yellow card was hugely entertaining. He was looking to get a yellow to get his set of five, so he could miss the Eastern Lions game where his absence one assumes would not be sorely missed. Now when he did get the yellow, either it was a case of him not wanting to get that yellow then, or it was merely a great display of kayfabe, because his reaction to being carded was a beautiful example of "selling". Then you had the carry on from the Gully bench at various times during the night. Then our squandered chances, including what looked like a shocker by Marcus Schroen. And at the other end, some ridiculous saves by own Javier Díaz López.

The match was so entertaining, time not only flew by, but we also wondered whether or not Max Mikkola really needed to make as many long throws as he did, because they increasingly seem to wear him down. Gully also seemed to figure out, at least temporarily, how to defend them, which involved a tactic no more complicated than putting a lot of numbers back deep. Even Andy Brennan managed to get to 77 minutes, which is about 17 more minutes than his usual presence on a football field. So many stories within the larger story. 

A shame that Port couldn't even get a point against Oakleigh the next day, but them's the breaks.

Next game

Eastern Lions on Saturday afternoon at Gardiners Creek Reserve. I probably won't be there, because I looked at the kickoff time, competing commitments both before and after the game, as well as the location of the venue vis-à-vis public transport, and decided to take a different course of action: namely, to watch the game at a convalescent friend's place. Looking forward, somewhat, to the the three week stretch of home matches.

Final thought

If anyone can figure out what's going on with the social club kitchen, that would be great. Last week's burger assembly would have failed to pass any reputable building inspection. Also, half-way through the pre-game dinner service, shoestring fries gave way to a slightly thicker cut of chip. Are they just winging it on supplies?