The end is near - Moreland City 0 South Melbourne 2

Could that blog post have come in any later?

For the second week in a row, a bit of a grinding, rough around the edges, albeit professional performance against a bottom-end team. Got the job done, and now on to the next match and a probably much trickier run of fixtures.

Not sure how much else can be said of the match itself, except to say that it was proof that there's no future in this. Not in the blog (that's another story...), but in the league. It's cooked. It won't be saved by us being good, or Knights being good, or Knights and us being good at the same time. It won't be saved by playing on Friday nights or Sunday afternoons. It won't be saved by the Australia Cup. It won't even be saved by the possibility of Preston getting promoted with their resurgent fanbase. 

There have been bursts of enthusiasm post-NSL, but they all fizzle out, and each burst of enthusiasm fizzles out faster than the last. Let's look at the short history of this particular fixture for example. Back in February, on a Thursday night (!), a disappointing amount of our people, and a surprisingly good amount of their people, turned up for the opening game of the season. Last Saturday afternoon, in Moreland's traditional timeslot albeit not at their traditional home, there was a disappointing amount of our people, and seemingly even fewer of their's.

The vibe is vaguely late-era NSL (but with better access to televised matches), in that even the people who are still emotionally invested in this nonsense have at least half their attention on the the unknown potential of the NSD (which is definitely happening). We are all killing time, and the only thing one can look forward to is a South vs Knights grand final which after 18 years of this slop, would sure have taken it's time getting here. 

There's a fair bit of time to go before we get to that, so in the mean time, it's more appalling crowds, more food that's too expensive for what you actually receive - Moreland's chicken/pork skewer rolls (including skewers not removed from the roll) made our own offerings look passable. And while I applaud Moreland for putting out a match program, I've never seen a match program which did not include any squad lists whatsoever. Quite remarkable. I just wanted to know who number 21 for Moreland was, so we could personalise our suburban banter about why his teammates wouldn't pass it to him.

No, it's all gone to hell, and only our winning (and currently watchable) form has made it tolerable. That, and reminiscing about the protest outside CB Smith in 2007, or the "why, why, why" incident there in 2008, or when Alistair Bray gave away that goal and Billy Konstantinidis got sent off for whacking an opponent in the guts in the same game in 2019. 

Otherwise, it's all grimly hanging on for the NSD, and wondering about all sorts of things about that - like where the hell is Brunswick Juventus - currently playing senior matches out of CB Smith, along with three (Fawkner, Moreland City, Pascoe Vale) and half (occasional Brunswick City matches) other teams - going to play if they make it in. CB Smith is used a lot by a lot of teams, has a dodgy surface in part of because of that, has no media scaffolding, has a giant pole in the way of the grandstand, and the lights are appallingly weak.

I'd call it absurd, except yet we're apparently less than a year away from finding out an or the answer to the "what would the NSL look like if it still existed?" hypothetical. 

Next game

At home against Green Gully tomorrow (Sunday)

Is there a curtain raiser?
Yes, our senior women play against Boroondara, in a top of the table clash, kickoff at 1:30. 

Final thought
Oh man, rail replacement buses tomorrow and the end of our game clashing with the end of the Pies' game at Docklands. Pray for Paul.