Is everyone over it already? - Port Melbourne 0 South Melbourne 1

Arriving at Port straight from work in the city, I expected not much from the experience and just about got it. The pomegranate trees outside the ground? Basically empty, and what fruit there was wasn't quite ready yet. Tons of figs though, but like the fruit on my neighbour's tree, not close to ripe. And I had my tote bag ready to go and everything.

I got there early enough to watch most of the under 23s game. Not many South people in attendance at the time, which sounds like self-fulfilling prophecy (or self-actualised punchline). Not many in attendance for the senior match either. It's the kind of turnout you might expect in the dog days of winter, not in the first week of February. So it goes.

I saw my dad's patrioti in the canteen, though he almost didn't recognise me. A frequent traveller to Greece, they asked him there if he still saw my dad and myself anywhere. "I told them that I still see the son at Hellas games, but that the father was in the other patrida now." Quite. Chicken souv was fine, touch salty, but that's probably because they want you to buy a beer to counter the salt. Didn't get sucked into that one.

I'll reserve any withering judgements on the quality of the curtain raiser, because it'd be easy to overdo the Simpsons gags. Besides which, it may have just been an off night for everyone. Still, the Port coach may have had a point about his charges not listening to the instruction to keep the ball on the ground in midfield, especially with how windy it was, which was quite.

The wind, blowing to the Plummer Street end, didn't let up all night. The scoreboard read 12 degrees, but that detail probably hasn't changed since they installed the scoreboard. The Williamstown Road end was out of bounds, because of work to the secondary fields. It all had the potential to feel a bit less than quite the real deal as a setting, except Port's players came out with the kung fu, and the officials let it go. If there was any doubt that the NPLV MMA was back, the first fifteen minutes or so put paid to that.

Of course, if the officials let not just one bad tackles go unpunished, but several, then shit will eventually hit the fan. It is one of my biggest gripes that yellow and red cards are not dished out from the get go in matches. "Oh, but you'll ruin the game if you do that". No, players who have played the game for 15-20 years, and know very well what a bad tackle is and put in a few early ones because they assume (usually correctly) that they'll get away with it, ruin the game. Too bad for Port that they ran through their quota of bad tackles at such an insane pace, that they were down to men before twenty minutes had elapsed. The less said about the attempts by George Mells and Lucas Inglese to suck the ref 

We were on top anyway, not just because of the wind, or because we were playing against a Port team that had so few recognisable names, but also because we were sort of playing the game smart. Being a wing heavy, and set piece heavy team, it was quickly deduced that the wind, and Port's massive backline (including an ex-junior in Maker Maker), made regular corner taking useless, so we went to the short corners.

"But Paul, you hate short corners!". Wrong. Short corners are not the enemy, only poorly conceived, poorly designed, and poorly executed short corners are the enemy. Last Friday, we actually did good from them, including setting up a three on one situation from one such corner, which ended up with Max Mikkola scoring the decisive goal. 

After that, it all became a bit of a blur because it was all a bit familiar. That, and the game being largely up the other end in the second half to where I was, and a good chunk of the game being played in twilight, made my experience less than ideal. So, more of the same, then.

Next game
Monday night home against the Knights. The first of three consecutive games of Monday Madness.

Major sponsor
If you're wondering where the new major sponsor was on our shirt, I was told it'll be on there next week.

If you're wondering where the old major sponsor went... unfortunately you're going have to do your own work on that one. 

Danish / Doorstop watch
Danish got ten minutes, but didn't seem to impress anyone. Doorstop got a start in the A-League, but got subbed out after 55 minutes.

Second division news, barely

The rest of you start thinking up a name for this NSD. I don't know. Something along the lines of, say, Australian Championship - only more proactive. https://t.co/ndp81no2Lk pic.twitter.com/netAMZ4eaS

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) February 12, 2025

Final thought 
We've become so decrepit, not one of our people seemed to notice that John Markovski was coaching Port.

No community, no shield, only... victory! - South Melbourne 1 Oakleigh Cannons 0

Got a lift to the ground on Friday night, which I am very appreciative of, but... it was also slightly unnerving, in the sense that it was clear we were cutting it very fine in terms of getting to the ground in time for kickoff. It was a bit like going to games with my late dad back in the NSL days, dad being one of those people who always wanted to get to the venue at the very last moment. 

It only occurs to me now, writing this up, that back in 2008 my dad and I gave Friday's driver Johnny a lift home from Olympic Village - 17 years ago! - where does the time go? If you've been with this blog for long enough and are still with this club, that's clearly a rhetorical question. The time went exactly where you left it - at Lakeside, and at assorted Denmark Division 6 equivalent grounds around Melbourne, and occasionally in Lara, Ballarat, and Shepparton.

Traipsing through the car park and making a note that we'd parked in the Itchy Lot, we missed the first minute or so, as we strolled past security at the gate. Yes, there was security doing magic wand searches at the entrance, which I felt was overkill - but if they're going to hire them, they might as well keep them busy, I suppose. They attempted to amuse themselves by cracking a few jokes, like pretending that they were also checking to see if people were bringing in alcohol in their bottles.

This fixture was brought into being roughly ten years ago, in an attempt to hype the upcoming NPL season, and to also do some fundraising for charity, Given that it was free entry, and that there was no sign of any charity partner for this match, I'm not sure where the "community" aspect of the evening was. Given that the game was not live streamed, I'm also not sure where the "hype" aspect of the game was either. There was a trophy on offer, but somewhat poetically, it wasn't even a shield, but rather a cup, prompting the age-old philosophical question of when does a bowl become a cup?

Having to deal with all those lies on top of each other was obviously a harrowing experience, and then there was also the ordeal of having to watch a game that meant something (there's a trophy on hand!) and nothing (it's no league grand final) at the same time. Football Victoria have tried to do things with this concept, including shifting it into the middle of the league season, but the idea just hasn't captured the imagination of the Victorian soccer public. It's a broken record by now, seeing as how I've already delegated saving the competition and Victorian soccer as a whole to them alone, but maybe only Preston can save this idea by qualifying for it next season, whatever next season looks like.

As for the game itself, it's a good thing it wasn't live streamed. It wasn't horrible, so far as pre-season matches go, but it was violent, and the referees seemed largely indifferent in trying to get the teams to tone down the kung fu even a little bit - and when they did, the officials must've thought that Oakleigh were the Kansas City Chiefs, and Joe Guest and friends were various versions of Patrick Mahomes, and that if anyone should be punished it should be the opposition for being so mean to the teachers' pets. Don't break apart this clumsy analogy by asking who Taylor Swift is in this example.

We amused ourselves in the outer by reminiscing on olden days and characters, chanting the odd chant, and trying to figure out where Joe Guest's accent was from (which led to the listing of village English rugby league teams). So, standard pre-season fare.

Next game
Port Melbourne away on Friday night to open the season proper.

Crummy Old Danish watch
But let's be genuine for a moment. 90% of the reason I attended this match was to see the man, the myth, the legend, Gustav Møller (the Danish footballer, not the Swedish writer/director) in action, and to practice my pronunciation of mid front rounded vowels. Now I didn't necessarily expect Møller to get a start, but surely they'd give him a solid run at some point during the game? Friends, they did not. The fact that Møller was subbed on after 85 minutes suggests that we're not going to be seeing much of him, at least not in the early part of the season. 

It would be madness to think someone who's barely got on the park during pre-season will be our main guy up front. But we've been mad before with players who haven't done a proper pre-season - remember old mate Billy Konstantinidis? I wonder how good Gustav is at giving behind the play gut punches? When Møller was on the field, he didn't really get a chance to do much - he won a header on the right wing which may have led to something, but otherwise the game was at a stage where Oakleigh had to chase an equaliser, we were looking to kill time, and his talents were reduced to being another body on the field.

What this suggests is that Nahuel Bonada will likely be the main guy up top for at least the earlier part of the season, which I am not opposed to, especially if it means we change our style of play away from "kick it to the big guy". Here's hoping that Bonada can get some decent service from the midfield, and some protection from the opposition thugs who are going to inevitably try and break his legs.

Delicious Doorstop watch
Harrison Sawyer got to play for a whole minute the other week in the A-League, his first appearances in Macarthur's senior team since late November. Today he played a whole 25 minutes. Someone asked me at Bundoora if it was true Sawyer was going to be released, and might we be looking to get him back. I have no idea on that, and have heard nothing to support such a suggestion.

Ruining the line of the garment
Getting my eye fixed and getting new glasses has really opened up a whole new world to me - like noticing Andy Brennan playing with massive holes in the back of his socks. Apparently this trend isn't new, and is an attempt in increase blood flow and avoid cramps. Still looks like shit, though.

Final thought
How can you make a hype video for the new kit featuring notable landmarks from the local area, and leave out the Montague Street Bridge?

The 2025 season is almost here, and aren't we all just champing at the bit

Back when the fixture for the 2025 NPL Victoria season was released, no one was happy, as expected. And why would they be? First, it meant another season of NPL football for us, which after all the "hope" for the commencement of the National Second Division, is a serious letdown. Second, it also means that South Melbourne still exists as a going concern for at least one more season, which means allocating precious free time and mental energy into traipsing into Lakeside once a fortnight (for some people), and into a slew of suburban grounds (for fewer people) whose particular charms, such as they were, have completely worn off.

I was disappointed at the time to see some misplaced criticism on social media levelled at Football Victoria for not opening the season with a certain marquee fixture. Thankfully, the FV rep conversing with said complainants took the feedback with good grace, explaining that the fixture process was conducted in the same way it has been done for the last few years, and that it was actually South Melbourne's idea to do it like that.

But since everybody is meant to play each other twice anyway, and people have their eyes set on certain fixtures as a matter of course, does it really matter if South vs Preston doesn't open the season? The bigger issue is that outside of whatever game Preston plays in a given week, that there won't be remotely be as much interest in what any other team is doing. 

No right days, only wrong ones / no good times, only bad ones
So having opened with whatever that was above, let's look at what South's doing. Oh dear, oh my, oh goodness. Wait, let's not overreact. 

More Monday night games to open the season, as we, I guess, have to work around athletics' busy part of the year, and the need to get the ground fenced off quickly for the grand prix. Some people love Monday night football, but that's primarily when they live near the ground (e.g., Bulleen or Kingston). Since very few of our supporters live near Lakeside, it's seen as a chore to get to the ground. But our fans have made it clear that going to South games is a chore regardless of the date, whether that's because of an inconvenient day or time, the sluggishness of the food service, or the panel beating style of football on offer.

Most home games will be on Sundays at 5:00 PM - a traditional day, albeit not a traditional time. Still there were the complaints about that. What can the club do? Fridays you compete against the footy, as well as every other club (NPL and otherwise) that's got new lights and wants to show them off. Saturday afternoons you're up against nearly every senior men's team in the city. Saturday evenings have been tried, and rejected by our supporters. Sundays clash with juniors and family commitments. Maybe people just don't really want to come to South games? Maybe South is incompatible with the modern world?

New places / new old places

• Preston play their home games on Friday nights.
• Melbourne Victory youth will host us on a Monday night, at the Home of the Matildas

Other teams changing days and times
Speaking strictly from a South Melbourne point of view, there are a few changes to some customary away fixtures.

• Port Melbourne on a Friday night, instead of the more recent Saturday evening fixture
• Green Gully will be on a Friday night (Anzac Day)
  
• Hume City will be on a Friday night, as opposed to the usual Saturday night
• St Albans will be on a Friday night, as opposed to the usual Sunday afternoon.
• Heidelberg away will be on a Friday night
  

Public transport faction

Not good news on this front. Preston is not good for public transport. Ditto St Albans for Friday night (even though I'm accustomed to driving there), and Bundoora on a Monday night is just awful. 

Easter

2025 will be one of those freak years where the Orthodox and non-Orthodox Easter dates align, so there will be no issues here, aside from having to accommodate a potential cup tie.

NPLW Double-headers
There are five of them spread throughout the season.

As for the senior men's team, and perhaps the club as a whole
There is just no hype, no sense of our supporters looking forward to the season. Despite three seasons in a row where the team has been very competitive (apart from grand finals), including last year's Australia Cup run, people just seem over it. Yes, the style of football hasn't helped, and the signing of a physically like-for-like replacement for Harrison Sawyer suggests not much will change there. 

But it's more than that - there's no sense that things are going to get better. A mongrel NSD competition tacked on to the end of the year (for a gruelling ten month long season) has just made things seem even worse. However bad and uncertain things were at the start of 2005, the uncertainty then at least provided an opportunity for a belief that the ship could be righted, and for a little while at least, it was going OK. Twenty gruelling years later, everything depends on Preston sparking an interest in not just South, but the entire league. It's a big ask.

I'M NOT BLOGGING UNTIL I GET MY DANISH

 

Yeah, I know I'm on. But I don't care. I don't read the news until I get my danish. Go ahead, try to find a replacement.

It's the only question that matters this season. Not NSD, which is a dud already. Not how many riots are going to happen, which we know will be several. Where is the danish that's going to be the new goal scoring machine for us? Why can't we find out anything about him? Why doesn't he even have a self-serving highlight reel on social media? This guy must be the greatest hidden gem in the history of our club; either that, or he's some nepobaby who's ended up at Lakeside by some strange series of behind the scenes shenanigans. The idea that he's just some guy in witness protection is funny until you realise that Victorian soccer, being full of criminals, would be the worst place to hide someone from whatever criminal syndicate they've snitched on. Here's us, watching the game against Olympic (who looked pretty bad, but that's a little beside the point), and there's only one new player for us in the starting eleven - and it's not the danish. Apparently the danish was there in the stands watching the game. Apparently he is real. Let's hope he's also really good, because Plan A depends on it.