No Kevin Nelson artefact Wednesday - VPL 2006 Champions T-Shirt

This Saturday marks ten years since the 2006 VPL grand final, where we beat Altona Magic 1-0. To mark the occasion, South put out a commemorative championship t-shirt with the names of every player who played for South that year. All except one, that is. Striker Kevin Nelson's name does not appear on the t-shirt, for reasons which do not remain clear. Nelson's contract was terminated following a 2-0 win away at Melbourne Knights, during which he came off injured. Nelson took the matter to arbitration of some sort, the result of which I'm not certain. Just about everyone else who had a hand in that championship - other players who left, players who barely played, the massage therapist - managed to get on the shirt, but Nelson - who scored seven goals in 18 league appearances - did not. Now I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but I do suspect that this omission was deliberate, in which case it's a callous way of rewriting history.

What does VIP stand for? artefact Wednesday - 2006 grand final field passes

This Friday marks nine years since South won the 2006 VPL grand final against Altona Magic. It had been seven years since we'd won our last league title - and eight more years would have to pass before we would win our next one, though who knew the travails we'd have to deal with then? - and though it was no national league championship, it still meant a lot to those who were there. My feeling of the day was that, give or take the odd person on board for the bandwagon, this was a title that was best shared with people who'd done the hard yards during the season, who'd stuck by the club in its most desperate hour of need. But back to the artefacts. In the lead up to the game, a group of South fans had made a run through banner for the occasion, South fans had of course had an old irregular habit of creating run through banners for games - 1991 grand final, last game at Middle Park - so this was something of a revival of that habit.

Unfortunately, years of know how as to how to make these banners had disappeared, and so our run through banner was less than impressive in both size and construction. The elements, too, didn't help our cause, as the strong winds on grand final day threatened to rip apart the expression of our love before the players themselves could even get to it. Thankfully, they made it there just in time, tearing apart the banner if not in an expression of fearsome hostility, nor even respect for the effort, than at the very least out of pity. Now to be allowed on the field in the first place to hold the banner, one needed a special pass granted by the FFV. Having volunteered to be one of the banner holding up people, I was lucky enough to be one of the people allowed on to the field, and thus become the recipient of one of these passes. And while certainly the memories of the day, and the camaraderie of those that were there are precious in their own right, a little bit of memorabilia is also a nice thing to have.

The funny thing is, I don't even remember what the banner said.

Social Club Artefact Wednesday - Greece visit 2006

Here's something from our more recent history. On this day in 2006, we hosted Heidelberg United at Lakeside. The weather was bucketing down, forcing the majority of the fans into the top half of the grandstand, leaving about 30 odd idiots on Clarendon Corner to get drenched. (was this the birth of the umbrella assassin chant? I can't remember for sure. I was sitting with my Berger supporting dad in the grandstand.)

One of the attractions of this derby fixture was that the Greek national team, including several members of the Euro 2004 winning side, were going to be at the game. Greece was in Melbourne as they were due to play Australia a few days later, in what was the Socceroos' farewell match before heading to the 2006 World Cup.

During the game, there was the absurd moment when the word had got around that the Greek players were in one of the corporate boxes behind most of the crowd, and everyone got up to look behind them, trying to get a glimpse of their heroes instead of paying attention to the game in front of them.

A terrific game by the way, which we won 3-1, including a cracking goal from George Tzirtis, a curled effort by Fernando, and a Coveny goal when we destroyed the Bergers' offside trap. Good times, especially since it would be the last time we would beat them for five years.

While I'm not quite sure what the Greek national team players made of the experience of hanging out with the diaspora on that cold and wet evening, the Hellenic Football Federation presented us with the lovely plate pictured above as a token of their appreciation. Did they train at Lakeside during the stay? I can't remember.

Politically Correct MVP night

An enjoyable evening was had last night at Honey Bar, with the usual and requisite personal quibbles. Fernando won the golden boot award of course, as well as the Theo Marmaras award for player of the year. What was perhaps a little surprising to me was how close it was - he finished up with 63 votes, just four ahead of Steven O'Dor and Peter Zois, and only overtaking those player with a nine point haul in the final round against Sunshine. I suppose it summed up the kind of year it was, where we flirted with both finals and relegation at various times during the year, playing at the extremes of appalling and brilliance often withing minutes of each other.

Fernando gave quite an emotional speech. The thing that was only semi-danced around, and not very well for most of the night, was the six point deduction. No sign of Horsey there - the rumours of his being sacked have been very strong, but nothing has been confirmed yet, no matter how strong the rumours are of Eddie Krncevic making a return to the South helm are. The notion of hiring of 91' championship hero Joe Palatsides has been been been buried - he's been having too good a time of it apparently coaching lower leagues sides in Greece, mostly recently at Karditsa in the Greek second division.

Lots of thank yous dished out. Echoing somewhat the omission of Kevin Nelson's name from the 2006 championship commemorative t-shirt, David Lugli didn't get mentioned. Maybe I don't have the stomach for such political antics, maybe he committed war crimes in the Sudan or something, but it seemed awkward. As did the somewhat cocky attitude of the players towards the Singapore Cup tie against Bangkok Glass - me, I don't know, maybe I read too many south-east Asian football blogs.

I was also offended by one George Koukoulas more or less accosting me and then berating me for not knowing about previous winners of our best and fairest, and then asking me what kind of club historian I am. Well, I'm not the official club historian, John Kyrou is - maybe Mr Koukoulas should check the South website. And considering the appalling record keeping of such matters within the club (with the exception of certain isolated individuals over the years, and the recent great work of John Kyrou), I don't see how it could possibly be my fault that I only know Steve Iosifidis won the award I think in one of our back to back seasons. It was hard enough even finding that out

But to focus any more than necessary on such small, petty individuals for too long is tiring. Back to the coaching situation. Some people seem convinced that a decision has already been made, and that they know who will be coaching us next year, maybe even this year. In better news, there's word that memberships and merchandise may very well be available even as early as this year, towards December of course. Now that's a level of progress that was mooted early this year, but seems to have much more to back it up this time around. I didn't dare ask about whether we could have a shirt with hoops though - I doubt it'd get up anyhow.

Happy Valentijn's Day!

After our 2006 championship, in late December, the club started its trials for the new season. So we found ourselves, for some reason, out in Burnley, at Kevin Bartlett Reserve, in the evening sun, playing a game against Richmond's trialists. We got smacked something like 7-1, but there's a tall blond kid who looks kind of interesting.
Then in early 2007, I was standing on the outer side of Chaplin Reserve, watching the lads have a pre-season hit out against George Cross, with a few more regulars and new signings playing, including Yusef Yusef. The tall blond kid, who rumour has it is Dutch and named Jasper, and has walked in off the street, does well in defense but looks less sure when crossing the halfway line. Bloke next to me says he looks ok, but lacks control. Cue Jasper pulling out two 360 degree turns to get himself out of trouble.

He gets a few starts in the Hellenic Cup, and we kinda assume he'd be close to getting in - after all he does get his picture taken in the new jersey on the official website - but come the start of the season he is nowhere to be seen. Not on the bench, not in the country. So that little saga was seemingly over. But whatever happened to Jasper Valentijn?

Well, his career didn't end. He kept playing back home, and in 2009, was playing in the Finnish 2nd division for Atlantis FC - the Heidelberg of Finnish football, if the following excerpt from this article is anything to go by

The problem at Atlantis boiled down to money. Like most Ykkönen clubs, Atlantis find it difficult to finance operations. Unlike most, they signed new players while failing to pay those already under contract, before sacking the coach and bringing in a new man after a poor start to the season.

So several players walked, amongst them Valentijn, to FC Honka, where he's still apparently on the list at Pallohonka, FC Honka's 2nd division feeder club. Before we let you go, here's some more things we've learnt about Jasper.

• He was a product of Heerenveen.
• His dad, Jos Valentijn, was a speed skater in the 1970s.
• His mum, Haitske Pijlman, was also a speed skater.
• His sister, Rikst, was a competitve gymnast

What ever happened to Kevin Nelson?

Well, after his acrimonious departure from the club, from all reports he went back to the Canadian leagues and he's now retired and begun working for this mob. I have no hard feelings towards him, even though he may have some towards South and some people from South obviously didn't like him. Still, he scored 7 goals in half a championship winning season, and for that we should be grateful. 

South of the Border welcomes Jonas Salley...

...to the wonderful planet of Australia!

Salley savours switch to Australia

First he was Costa Rican, after an erroneous comment by I have no idea who, then Ivorian and now he's one of us. Bonza! He's had almost as many nationalities as assumed names and clubs within a season. Ah, those were the days, watching Jonas strut his stuff in front of 40 people at Yarraville Glory's McIvor Reserve in a pre-season friendly we won against Richmond. Good times.

You know you've made it it when...

In my culture and communications class this week - yeah, I know, I failed psych last year and I needed to catch up first year subject orright? - we were covering bloggers and the myspace phenomenon and all that jazz, and everything that gets the life sucked out if it by academics. Reminded me of Nick Curtis' MySpace page, and his battle with injury over the past year. This is actually a couple of years old as you can see, but funny how some things mirror the real world. Like now ex-South defender Arthur Tsonis having very poor morale... dedicated fans will remember his wrecking his knee that year and sitting out most of the season, taking over the coaching of the under 21 side (which did quite well that year). Strange the characters that you find on the interweb.

2008 membership package part 2 - Cards

Concluding South of the Border's look at South's 2008 membership package are the membership cards themselves. This was the part I was looking forward to the most, in my quest to be the no.1 'gold' category member. But I was in for a shock. No no.1. In fact no numbers at all. I was, to put it mildly, disappointed. But I learnt fairly quickly that it was a cost saving exercise, as we don't have too much money don't you know.


That disappointment was put aside, when I recognised the socialist principles lurking beneath the surface of this move (no rank! no hierarchy! in card form!), and how when the club inevitably falls into administration again, this time it'll re-emerge (or be reborn if it gets that bad) as an anarcho-syndicalist collective. And if you don't know what that means, watch the beginning of Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail where the peasants are toiling in mud and replace the mud with soccer and medieval Britain with the FFV. Perhaps more alike then I'm comfortable with. Also the new card looks smashing. Would have been nice to have an unclipped one to show, but they were not available prior to the day of the first home match for the year. Still good but.

By the way, could you imagine the amateur league derby between the right-wing/Hellas Fan Club supported South Melbourne reformation and the ultra left wing anarcho-syndicalist branch? It would absolutely shit all over any derby in this country, perhaps even the universe. Almost makes you want to see the club go under just to see it happen. Finally the unclipped sections are for 2006, the Kingston game where I was sick, and for 2007 the Melbourne Knights game which never happened but we still lost anyway.

While you were sleeping, part 1

This is for those former readers of Park Life (and anyone who has just woken up from the last two years) to get them up to speed, more or less. Yes it's incomplete. Feel free to add stuff in the comments section, or maybe I'll accept your offer of joining me on this literary crusade.

2006

* South fields a full strength side against the Oakleigh Cannons in the Hellenic Cup final, with hopes of winning not just the game, but also the $10,000 in prize money. They fail.

* A couple of days later, South takes out the FFV's pre-season cup with a very young squad against Fawkner Whittlesea, and wins only $5,000.

* After the big crowds against Heidelberg in all three games the previous season, and on a perfect day for football, an underwhelming crowd of about only 5,000 turn up in round 1 to watch South steal victory with two goals at the death.

* Australia plays Greece in a friendly, and a big crowd turns up and watches Australia win a pretty half arsed game.

* A few days later football's growing popularity is reiterated when the Matildas play Mexico. Despite the obstacles of soccer and world cup fever, a beautiful day and free entry, Bob Jane Stadium was bursting at the seams with the massive crowd of 150 patrons, including the massive contingent of 3 Green and Gold Army personnel.

* After losing a few players to the A-League during the season (Coveny, Salley) and probably some others to injury or 'bad' behaviour, South 'recruits' three players (Dino Djulbic, Andreas Oliveira and Antonion Naglieri) from the Frankston Pines. These players become a crucial part of the side immediately, though Naglieri will only be missed when he's gone.

* The World Cup comes around, Australia do quite well, and football becomes even less eviler.

* An injury to star striker Kevin Nelson sees him leave the club in acrimonious circumstances. The fact that he had the first touch of an elephant, mostly couldn't be arsed jumping, running or defending, and mostly only finding himself in correct positions by accident, has little to do with his departure.

* South finishes the regular season in third place, on the back particularly of strong form in derby games (5 wins and 1 draw against the Bergers, Knights and Preston).

* South earns a grand final place after consecutive wins against Green Gully and Altona Magic. In the grand final itself, also against the Magic, 5,100 or so people turn up on a cold and very windy day to see Gianni De Nittis head home Fernando De Moraes' cross from close range, to lead South to a 1-0 victory and its 8th state title. Most South fans are at least momentarily happy.

* World footballing legend and South's 1991 NSL championship coach Ferenc Puskas passes away. Thankfully, very little of his time in Australia is mentioned in the media, thus avoiding publicity for South Melbourne and any mention of football pre-2005 without reference to an ethnic riot.