Showing posts with label 2016 season. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2016 season. Show all posts
Saturday, 11 September 2021
Time capsule ticket artefact Friday
Monday, 26 December 2016
Nine years of people visiting to see if they've been defamed
There were many times this year where I thought the blog was not up to scratch, but that may very well be just your typical self-absorbed writer's self-loathing cry for attention and validation.
And when I look back on the year that was, there were still some good pieces in there, two of which - the Victory brawl post, and the A-League expansion bid musings post - managed to get into this blog's all time top ten list in terms of hits.
Anyway we're nine years in - and I do include South of the Border's audience in this - and I have no intention of stopping. Next year promises to be an interesting one for the club on many levels, as well as for me personally, but we'll cross those bridges when we come to them.
For now, thanks to the following people:
Foti for helping organise and circulate the petition calling for an EGM early this year. Strange how the AGM managed to be announced within five minutes of the end of that round 1 game.
The Agitator, for providing many South Melbourne match programmes, both from home and away fixtures. Also Mark Boric, Gav, Chris Egan and JJ75. for sharing parts of their own collections. I will try harder to catch up on the massive backlog of stuff that I have borrowed from people.
Joe Gorman for prompting me to go through a trawl of the blog's archives, and for recognising the value of the kinds of stuff I'm looking at for my thesis.
Kon for sending in his memories of a now former house, which prompted some good discussion on Garvey's Baby Blues.
Savvas Tzionis for his piece on what's going on in New South Wales.
Vin Maskell for putting up a version of my last day at Chaplin Reserve piece on his Scoreboard Pressure site.
Shoot Farken for publishing my review of Nuts! (nothing to do with soccer, but a film worth seeing if you can.)
Supermercado for providing the 'People's Champ' moniker.
Mark Bosnich for actually following through with his promise to meet with myself and Pave Jusup. Sorry for the folks at home, but as it was a private conversation, details will not be posted here.
Football Today for retweeting the odd post.
Anyone else who contributed artefacts.
Anyone I stole photos from.
Everyone who voted for Lucas Neill.
Everyone who left comments.
Everyone who shared this stuff on Twitter.
Everyone who gave me and Gains a lift somewhere, including Shouty Mike.
Matthew Klugman, Ian Syson, and Gains.
And Peter Kokotis, if you are out there somewhere, can you please finally send me a copy of that photo of Yarra Park Aias? Thanks.
P.S.
The things you find when you google yourself.
And when I look back on the year that was, there were still some good pieces in there, two of which - the Victory brawl post, and the A-League expansion bid musings post - managed to get into this blog's all time top ten list in terms of hits.
Anyway we're nine years in - and I do include South of the Border's audience in this - and I have no intention of stopping. Next year promises to be an interesting one for the club on many levels, as well as for me personally, but we'll cross those bridges when we come to them.
For now, thanks to the following people:
Foti for helping organise and circulate the petition calling for an EGM early this year. Strange how the AGM managed to be announced within five minutes of the end of that round 1 game.
The Agitator, for providing many South Melbourne match programmes, both from home and away fixtures. Also Mark Boric, Gav, Chris Egan and JJ75. for sharing parts of their own collections. I will try harder to catch up on the massive backlog of stuff that I have borrowed from people.
Joe Gorman for prompting me to go through a trawl of the blog's archives, and for recognising the value of the kinds of stuff I'm looking at for my thesis.
Kon for sending in his memories of a now former house, which prompted some good discussion on Garvey's Baby Blues.
Savvas Tzionis for his piece on what's going on in New South Wales.
Vin Maskell for putting up a version of my last day at Chaplin Reserve piece on his Scoreboard Pressure site.
Shoot Farken for publishing my review of Nuts! (nothing to do with soccer, but a film worth seeing if you can.)
Supermercado for providing the 'People's Champ' moniker.
Mark Bosnich for actually following through with his promise to meet with myself and Pave Jusup. Sorry for the folks at home, but as it was a private conversation, details will not be posted here.
Football Today for retweeting the odd post.
Anyone else who contributed artefacts.
Anyone I stole photos from.
Everyone who voted for Lucas Neill.
Everyone who left comments.
Everyone who shared this stuff on Twitter.
Everyone who gave me and Gains a lift somewhere, including Shouty Mike.
Matthew Klugman, Ian Syson, and Gains.
And Peter Kokotis, if you are out there somewhere, can you please finally send me a copy of that photo of Yarra Park Aias? Thanks.
P.S.
The things you find when you google yourself.
Wednesday, 21 December 2016
Notes from the 2016 South Melbourne Hellas AGM (no, not the one from earlier in the year, the other one, the proper one)
Usual necessary disclaimer
This report was done in something more akin to a thematic order rather than reflecting the precise order of the events of the evening. Circumstances on the night made it much harder to take notes in my usual and only slightly more precise manner, as you will see.
Man, we're missin' the Death Blow!
Due to an unfortunate confluence of events, I missed the first 15 minutes or so of the 2016 South Melbourne Hellas AGM because of first, family duties and later, a disappearing tram. What took part during my absence was described as both a non-event, but also as the most contentious part of the evening, as matters of constitutional validity were apparently discussed in a heated manner. My arrival at the AGM coincided with the end of that discussion, where someone from the floor attempted in vain to put up a motion to demand president Leo Athanasakis' resignation. Unfortunately, having not been present for those exchanges, I can't report on them with any reliability.
With regards to the possible need for an election and its attendant bloodletting and turmoil, in the end there was no need for elections. One of the four alleged nominees for the board appears to have pulled out, and thus the other three have joined the board without issue or the need to force an election. How that was organised or played out behind the scenes, I don't know. What I do know is that I am glad that it did not need to come to an election at this point in time. We'll see how it all plays out in practice however.
Should the Democratic People's Republic of South Melbourne Hellas implement the policy of changing to rule by philosopher kings? Philosopher kings say 'yes', low income nobodies say 'no'.
That sequence of events therefore passed almost without issue. One member, towards the end of the night's proceedings, asked that in future we consider setting strict(er) criteria about who should be allowed to sit on the board of the club. While this was probably intended in the context of a strengthening of our board's overall corporate governance expertise and credentials, especially considering the range of sponsor, stakeholder and statutory bodies we deal with, it was taken by some (and not without good reason) as an attack on the status of the club as a member run club; one where any member is entitled to apply to join the board regardless of some esoteric notion of 'qualification'.
For his part, chairman Nick Galatas noted that there were already such provisions in place from the 1977 constitution, but more importantly that the club was looking to modernise the constitution in the future, something which I have been an advocate of for some time. The club that exists now, and the conditions that it exists in now, need to operate under a constitutional framework that reflects that reality. The reduction of the board from 21 to 11 earlier this year was one of those necessary changes.
Still, as a member run club we must be wary of unreasonably diluting the rights of members. Circumstances will seemingly always arise in such entities whereby people, either because of the effects of meritocracy or plutocracy, will come to dominate board positions, and in our late capitalist state of being that's to be expected. But this club is still at least nominally a collective, and it needs to reflect that fact - or at least until such time as the members willingly decide to forfeit their status as nominally equal members of that collective.
It's money that I love/social club progress
The financial report came towards the end of the evening, which was an unusual occurrence - usually it is among the first items dealt with. The consolidated accounts showed a profit of about $16k, up from about $7k from the previous financial year. The president, who as usual provided the report instead of the treasurer, noted that over the course of the past ten years, our turnover has gone from roughly $600k to about $1.4 million. With the operation of the social club, futsal court and the addition of the WNPL/Women's component, the club hopes (expects?) to double that turnover.
On the question of how the social club will operate in terms of management, a venue manager will be hired - and rather than reporting to a general manager (a role which at present does not exist at the club since the departure of Peter Kokotis a year or so back I think), the venue manager will report directly to the board. One of the goals of the board is to gradually delegate the day to day management of the club away from board members and towards paid staff. Apart from lessening the heavy workload currently undertaken by our board members, it would also allow them to focus more on strategy as opposed to the day to day implementation and operation of the club.
Whereas in the past the club had asserted that it would probably take out a loan of about $200k to finish the social club redevelopment, the actual figure that the club plans to take out is about $450k. The confidence in being able to take manage such a loan is based (at least from my understanding) on two separate but related criteria. The first is that an operational social club and futsal centre will bring in money to the club. The second relates to the paying off of the Wellington Investments debt
The paying off of the debenture loan debt is near completion - there are at most two payments left to make on that as of yesterday. Athanasakis sought to emphasise the burden of the paying off of that debt, which was incurred from the machinations of the club's attempt to stave off extinction back in 2004. Apart from managing to erase that debt once and for all, the end of this saga means a debt that added nothing to the club, finally allows the club to turn towards investment and expansion of its operations. On the related matter of whether the club had enough working capital to commence operation of the bistro and futsal centre, the answer was 'yes'.
There have been delays in aspects of the social club rebuild, though the cause of the delays was not specified. It did seem to be confirmed in a circuitous fashion that these delays were the reason we will be playing our opening seven games of the season away from home. The club is optimistic however that the extended build period will allow the build team to complete the task er, completely, as opposed to I suppose having a functional operation that will still require further work even after its official opening.
Intruder alert!
The underused upstairs function space has had a redesign, decreasing the size of the function room space and adding some office space. The club is open to options in utilising that function space, while the newly added office space will apparently be used by the Sydney Swans as part of their Melbourne presence. This presents an opportunity for the Swans and ourselves to liaise - even if only limited to them hiring out or using our social club space - in a manner which has not happened for many years.
Winning is our business... and business is good... but also expensive
Following the end of the South Melbourne Hellas AGM, we went almost immediately into the SMFC AGM, which was very brief, and was more or less a procedural formality. I can't recall if it was during this meeting where the on field aspect was discussed, but I'll put that discussion here anyway. Apart from looking back at the year that was, senior football director Nick Maikousis outlined the signings we have made; the signings we are likely to make; the youth players we're looking to promote; the players who have left; and the remaining players whose status at the club remains up in the air.
Also, it was confirmed that one of our new signings, Ajdin Fetahagić, did his ACL during a training session, and will probably miss most of the 2017 season.
It was noted that the season was by and large a success - after all, we won the title - but that it was also a difficult season, and one perhaps salvaged by coming good at the right time of year. It was noted that, as we had run out of legs in 2015, so did Bentleigh in 2016, and that managing such a lengthy campaign with its increasingly congested schedule is difficult for semi-professional footballers to manage. While there is ongoing consternation among some of our fans for our failure to take advantage of the FFA Cup opportunity, the reality is that the FFA Cup is an unreliable means of getting national attention. One bad game, one difficult opponent, and it's over.
(I will note here as an aside, that despite some talk about the national NPL playoff series being scrapped, this appears to not be the case, and thus there is always the second chance raffle of qualifying for the FFA Cup via that route. Not us, of course, because we'd bugger it up, but I'm speaking from a theoretical point here).
It was noted also that winning in senior men's football in this competition is an expensive business, but since winning is our main business, it can be difficult to contain the costs of wages. Nevertheless, as the board has reiterated at previous AGMs, the club does not believe that it pays as much as some rival teams - especially in terms of signing on bonuses - and more importantly, it is trying to create a sustainable winning culture. Maikousis also noted, I believe in response to a question from the floor, that we wanted to and would continue to aim for winning every trophy that was available to us.
A word about the women
Mention was made of the on field success of the women's teams in 2016, and the reappointment of Socrates Nicolaides as the senior coach. There was also mention made of course about our successful bidding for a WNPL licence, and the preparation that took place in order to secure that licence - it's fair to say that there was some moderate boasting about the quality of the licence bid document that the club put together for that purpose. There was also much praise for the fact the women are now back in the fold.
There was no mention that I can recall of SMWFC and how it would function from 2017 onwards, nor anything about the relationship between SMFC and SMWFC. Also not very many women in attendance at the AGM either. Just saying.
And here come the procedural complaints, finally
Unusually for these effectively consolidated meetings - two separate groups, two separate boards, but basically one and the same - the whole thing was over in less than two hours. That meant that the agenda was largely adhered to by those in attendance, but it did feel like there could have been more time made for questions from the floor. While several board members did make the time after the meeting to discuss things one on one with members who had further questions - a gesture which I applaud - I felt that the official part of the meeting could have had more time for questions.
On a personal level, I think next year I will make a more concerted effort to get the club to provide membership breakdowns and attendances. These used to be provided in AGMs, but have gone missing over the past five years or so. I see no good reason for the members not to know what our membership and attendance figures are - though of course I could come up with reasons why the board or the club would not want to do so.
Now being armed with an annual list of questions, even in my late rush to compile a list this year (and thanks to 'anonymous' for adding some good ones to the comments at such late notice). it was disappointing not to be able to ask a few more questions. I don't expect to have them all answered, because otherwise we'd still be there now, but I feel like we - perhaps against the usual procedure - rushed through things a bit. Or maybe the absence of Tom Kalas and his 'legendary PowerPoint presentations' (which were noted in the 2015 AGM minutes) made things run much more smoothly.
One hopes that this will be the final time the Presidents Room will ever be used as an AGM venue. Despite the poor delivery of the notice of an AGM and the lousy timing of the meetings, the AGM was very well attended. Indeed, there were so many members in attendance that about a dozen people, including your correspondent, had to stand at the back of the room for the near two hour duration of the meetings - a fact which was made less pleasant by the smell of paint or plaster or some such at the back of the room.
(Arriving late and standing at the back as opposed to sitting also served to direct more attention to myself, which was not entirely a desired outcome. I expected to not have very much to say at this meeting, what with all the apparent discontent among some of the masses; in the end I also ended up proposing and occasionally seconding several of the procedural motions - adopting minutes, approval of the auditor, etc - because it seemed that no one else would, which also became a sort of weird joke. There was also some notable absentees last night, such as George Karantonis.)
Next year one hopes that the redeveloped social club will play host to the AGM, which one also hopes will be held at a more reasonable time of year, and on a more reasonable day. While acknowledging also that scheduling conflicts can occur, one would also like to see the full complement of board members at next year's meeting; on that front the absence yesterday of Bill Papastergiadis and Andrew Mesorouni was unfortunate. While Mesorouni's absence was adequately covered by Nick Maikousis, who shares football director duties with him, Papastergiadis' absence (for legitimate personal reasons) meant that the A-League bid discussion did not have its main figurehead present to discuss strategy and detail with the members.
Overall the club seems to be continuing on a steady journey of consolidating its on and field positions as a leading soccer club in this state. Its members seem to be as engaged as I've ever seen them with the operation of the club, if last night's attendance is anything to go by; that in itself is cause for quiet celebration. Nevertheless the challenges the club faces in this restrictive operational environment will persist, continuing to make it difficult to realise the club's full potential, whatever that may be. One hesitates to fall back on the notion of being too big for this competition, but too small for the next one, for fear of coming across as arrogant, but there is a measure of truth to that.
You didn't think we'd forgotten about this issue?
And so we come in a very roundabout way to the matter of the A-League bid. The club noted last night that it was the lack of a likely creation of a second division that saw the club head towards the direction of formulating a bid. For those hoping for a curbing of the club's, shall we say, 'extroverted' approach to publicity, you're out of luck. For those who are interested in how Lakeside as an A-League venue may look in terms of added (temporary) seating capacity, the Usain Bolt/Nitro athletics series in early February 2017 will provide some guide.
The nature of the bid also, and whether it will be a private/public partnership, has also been thrown up into the air somewhat. Despite previous comments by Papastergiadis that the bid will involve 'several investors' - a claim which the board representative answering my question seemed to deny existed - the board retreated under cover of the line that the club will wait for the bid criteria to be released next year before making further comment on the structure of a South Melbourne aligned A-League licence bid. Because the release of the bid criteria by FFA has apparently been pushed back to some vague point mid next year, be prepared for a lot more idle speculation.
Although there was some discussion, and I may be reading too much into this, that it may be a possibility that South would still be keen an a W-League place regardless of its success/failure to win an A-League licence.
A little bit of offhand theory about future directions
Apart from its A-League ambitions, the club is aiming to take on what some have seen as a risky venture in the operation of a social club/bistro/futsal centre that is as much targeted outwards into the public as much as satisfying the needs of its own members. It is, I think, a risk that must be taken - the last thing the club needs to do is revert to a safe and comfortable introversion. That does not mean that things will necessarily go smoothly, or as well as hoped for. How an organisation deals with failure or obstacles is arguably a far better measure of its resilience than how it deals with success - and within the bounds of our circumstances, this club has had a lot of success recently.
Some of the subjects that I don't remember being broached
Why the AGM mail out was done so poorly - though that may have been covered before I got there.
Likewise why the AGM was being held so late in the year.
Anything other than the most cursory mention of our social media efforts.
Real Madrid 'relationship' and stuff to do with GISS.
BLK fiasco - admittedly not in the club's control for the most part.
Match day experience at Lakeside, in terms of being harassed by security/SSCT employees.
This report was done in something more akin to a thematic order rather than reflecting the precise order of the events of the evening. Circumstances on the night made it much harder to take notes in my usual and only slightly more precise manner, as you will see.
Man, we're missin' the Death Blow!
Due to an unfortunate confluence of events, I missed the first 15 minutes or so of the 2016 South Melbourne Hellas AGM because of first, family duties and later, a disappearing tram. What took part during my absence was described as both a non-event, but also as the most contentious part of the evening, as matters of constitutional validity were apparently discussed in a heated manner. My arrival at the AGM coincided with the end of that discussion, where someone from the floor attempted in vain to put up a motion to demand president Leo Athanasakis' resignation. Unfortunately, having not been present for those exchanges, I can't report on them with any reliability.
With regards to the possible need for an election and its attendant bloodletting and turmoil, in the end there was no need for elections. One of the four alleged nominees for the board appears to have pulled out, and thus the other three have joined the board without issue or the need to force an election. How that was organised or played out behind the scenes, I don't know. What I do know is that I am glad that it did not need to come to an election at this point in time. We'll see how it all plays out in practice however.
Should the Democratic People's Republic of South Melbourne Hellas implement the policy of changing to rule by philosopher kings? Philosopher kings say 'yes', low income nobodies say 'no'.
That sequence of events therefore passed almost without issue. One member, towards the end of the night's proceedings, asked that in future we consider setting strict(er) criteria about who should be allowed to sit on the board of the club. While this was probably intended in the context of a strengthening of our board's overall corporate governance expertise and credentials, especially considering the range of sponsor, stakeholder and statutory bodies we deal with, it was taken by some (and not without good reason) as an attack on the status of the club as a member run club; one where any member is entitled to apply to join the board regardless of some esoteric notion of 'qualification'.
For his part, chairman Nick Galatas noted that there were already such provisions in place from the 1977 constitution, but more importantly that the club was looking to modernise the constitution in the future, something which I have been an advocate of for some time. The club that exists now, and the conditions that it exists in now, need to operate under a constitutional framework that reflects that reality. The reduction of the board from 21 to 11 earlier this year was one of those necessary changes.
Still, as a member run club we must be wary of unreasonably diluting the rights of members. Circumstances will seemingly always arise in such entities whereby people, either because of the effects of meritocracy or plutocracy, will come to dominate board positions, and in our late capitalist state of being that's to be expected. But this club is still at least nominally a collective, and it needs to reflect that fact - or at least until such time as the members willingly decide to forfeit their status as nominally equal members of that collective.
It's money that I love/social club progress
The financial report came towards the end of the evening, which was an unusual occurrence - usually it is among the first items dealt with. The consolidated accounts showed a profit of about $16k, up from about $7k from the previous financial year. The president, who as usual provided the report instead of the treasurer, noted that over the course of the past ten years, our turnover has gone from roughly $600k to about $1.4 million. With the operation of the social club, futsal court and the addition of the WNPL/Women's component, the club hopes (expects?) to double that turnover.
On the question of how the social club will operate in terms of management, a venue manager will be hired - and rather than reporting to a general manager (a role which at present does not exist at the club since the departure of Peter Kokotis a year or so back I think), the venue manager will report directly to the board. One of the goals of the board is to gradually delegate the day to day management of the club away from board members and towards paid staff. Apart from lessening the heavy workload currently undertaken by our board members, it would also allow them to focus more on strategy as opposed to the day to day implementation and operation of the club.
Whereas in the past the club had asserted that it would probably take out a loan of about $200k to finish the social club redevelopment, the actual figure that the club plans to take out is about $450k. The confidence in being able to take manage such a loan is based (at least from my understanding) on two separate but related criteria. The first is that an operational social club and futsal centre will bring in money to the club. The second relates to the paying off of the Wellington Investments debt
The paying off of the debenture loan debt is near completion - there are at most two payments left to make on that as of yesterday. Athanasakis sought to emphasise the burden of the paying off of that debt, which was incurred from the machinations of the club's attempt to stave off extinction back in 2004. Apart from managing to erase that debt once and for all, the end of this saga means a debt that added nothing to the club, finally allows the club to turn towards investment and expansion of its operations. On the related matter of whether the club had enough working capital to commence operation of the bistro and futsal centre, the answer was 'yes'.
There have been delays in aspects of the social club rebuild, though the cause of the delays was not specified. It did seem to be confirmed in a circuitous fashion that these delays were the reason we will be playing our opening seven games of the season away from home. The club is optimistic however that the extended build period will allow the build team to complete the task er, completely, as opposed to I suppose having a functional operation that will still require further work even after its official opening.
Intruder alert!
The underused upstairs function space has had a redesign, decreasing the size of the function room space and adding some office space. The club is open to options in utilising that function space, while the newly added office space will apparently be used by the Sydney Swans as part of their Melbourne presence. This presents an opportunity for the Swans and ourselves to liaise - even if only limited to them hiring out or using our social club space - in a manner which has not happened for many years.
Winning is our business... and business is good... but also expensive
Following the end of the South Melbourne Hellas AGM, we went almost immediately into the SMFC AGM, which was very brief, and was more or less a procedural formality. I can't recall if it was during this meeting where the on field aspect was discussed, but I'll put that discussion here anyway. Apart from looking back at the year that was, senior football director Nick Maikousis outlined the signings we have made; the signings we are likely to make; the youth players we're looking to promote; the players who have left; and the remaining players whose status at the club remains up in the air.
Also, it was confirmed that one of our new signings, Ajdin Fetahagić, did his ACL during a training session, and will probably miss most of the 2017 season.
It was noted that the season was by and large a success - after all, we won the title - but that it was also a difficult season, and one perhaps salvaged by coming good at the right time of year. It was noted that, as we had run out of legs in 2015, so did Bentleigh in 2016, and that managing such a lengthy campaign with its increasingly congested schedule is difficult for semi-professional footballers to manage. While there is ongoing consternation among some of our fans for our failure to take advantage of the FFA Cup opportunity, the reality is that the FFA Cup is an unreliable means of getting national attention. One bad game, one difficult opponent, and it's over.
(I will note here as an aside, that despite some talk about the national NPL playoff series being scrapped, this appears to not be the case, and thus there is always the second chance raffle of qualifying for the FFA Cup via that route. Not us, of course, because we'd bugger it up, but I'm speaking from a theoretical point here).
It was noted also that winning in senior men's football in this competition is an expensive business, but since winning is our main business, it can be difficult to contain the costs of wages. Nevertheless, as the board has reiterated at previous AGMs, the club does not believe that it pays as much as some rival teams - especially in terms of signing on bonuses - and more importantly, it is trying to create a sustainable winning culture. Maikousis also noted, I believe in response to a question from the floor, that we wanted to and would continue to aim for winning every trophy that was available to us.
A word about the women
Mention was made of the on field success of the women's teams in 2016, and the reappointment of Socrates Nicolaides as the senior coach. There was also mention made of course about our successful bidding for a WNPL licence, and the preparation that took place in order to secure that licence - it's fair to say that there was some moderate boasting about the quality of the licence bid document that the club put together for that purpose. There was also much praise for the fact the women are now back in the fold.
There was no mention that I can recall of SMWFC and how it would function from 2017 onwards, nor anything about the relationship between SMFC and SMWFC. Also not very many women in attendance at the AGM either. Just saying.
And here come the procedural complaints, finally
Unusually for these effectively consolidated meetings - two separate groups, two separate boards, but basically one and the same - the whole thing was over in less than two hours. That meant that the agenda was largely adhered to by those in attendance, but it did feel like there could have been more time made for questions from the floor. While several board members did make the time after the meeting to discuss things one on one with members who had further questions - a gesture which I applaud - I felt that the official part of the meeting could have had more time for questions.
On a personal level, I think next year I will make a more concerted effort to get the club to provide membership breakdowns and attendances. These used to be provided in AGMs, but have gone missing over the past five years or so. I see no good reason for the members not to know what our membership and attendance figures are - though of course I could come up with reasons why the board or the club would not want to do so.
Now being armed with an annual list of questions, even in my late rush to compile a list this year (and thanks to 'anonymous' for adding some good ones to the comments at such late notice). it was disappointing not to be able to ask a few more questions. I don't expect to have them all answered, because otherwise we'd still be there now, but I feel like we - perhaps against the usual procedure - rushed through things a bit. Or maybe the absence of Tom Kalas and his 'legendary PowerPoint presentations' (which were noted in the 2015 AGM minutes) made things run much more smoothly.
One hopes that this will be the final time the Presidents Room will ever be used as an AGM venue. Despite the poor delivery of the notice of an AGM and the lousy timing of the meetings, the AGM was very well attended. Indeed, there were so many members in attendance that about a dozen people, including your correspondent, had to stand at the back of the room for the near two hour duration of the meetings - a fact which was made less pleasant by the smell of paint or plaster or some such at the back of the room.
(Arriving late and standing at the back as opposed to sitting also served to direct more attention to myself, which was not entirely a desired outcome. I expected to not have very much to say at this meeting, what with all the apparent discontent among some of the masses; in the end I also ended up proposing and occasionally seconding several of the procedural motions - adopting minutes, approval of the auditor, etc - because it seemed that no one else would, which also became a sort of weird joke. There was also some notable absentees last night, such as George Karantonis.)
Next year one hopes that the redeveloped social club will play host to the AGM, which one also hopes will be held at a more reasonable time of year, and on a more reasonable day. While acknowledging also that scheduling conflicts can occur, one would also like to see the full complement of board members at next year's meeting; on that front the absence yesterday of Bill Papastergiadis and Andrew Mesorouni was unfortunate. While Mesorouni's absence was adequately covered by Nick Maikousis, who shares football director duties with him, Papastergiadis' absence (for legitimate personal reasons) meant that the A-League bid discussion did not have its main figurehead present to discuss strategy and detail with the members.
Overall the club seems to be continuing on a steady journey of consolidating its on and field positions as a leading soccer club in this state. Its members seem to be as engaged as I've ever seen them with the operation of the club, if last night's attendance is anything to go by; that in itself is cause for quiet celebration. Nevertheless the challenges the club faces in this restrictive operational environment will persist, continuing to make it difficult to realise the club's full potential, whatever that may be. One hesitates to fall back on the notion of being too big for this competition, but too small for the next one, for fear of coming across as arrogant, but there is a measure of truth to that.
You didn't think we'd forgotten about this issue?
And so we come in a very roundabout way to the matter of the A-League bid. The club noted last night that it was the lack of a likely creation of a second division that saw the club head towards the direction of formulating a bid. For those hoping for a curbing of the club's, shall we say, 'extroverted' approach to publicity, you're out of luck. For those who are interested in how Lakeside as an A-League venue may look in terms of added (temporary) seating capacity, the Usain Bolt/Nitro athletics series in early February 2017 will provide some guide.
The nature of the bid also, and whether it will be a private/public partnership, has also been thrown up into the air somewhat. Despite previous comments by Papastergiadis that the bid will involve 'several investors' - a claim which the board representative answering my question seemed to deny existed - the board retreated under cover of the line that the club will wait for the bid criteria to be released next year before making further comment on the structure of a South Melbourne aligned A-League licence bid. Because the release of the bid criteria by FFA has apparently been pushed back to some vague point mid next year, be prepared for a lot more idle speculation.
Although there was some discussion, and I may be reading too much into this, that it may be a possibility that South would still be keen an a W-League place regardless of its success/failure to win an A-League licence.
A little bit of offhand theory about future directions
Apart from its A-League ambitions, the club is aiming to take on what some have seen as a risky venture in the operation of a social club/bistro/futsal centre that is as much targeted outwards into the public as much as satisfying the needs of its own members. It is, I think, a risk that must be taken - the last thing the club needs to do is revert to a safe and comfortable introversion. That does not mean that things will necessarily go smoothly, or as well as hoped for. How an organisation deals with failure or obstacles is arguably a far better measure of its resilience than how it deals with success - and within the bounds of our circumstances, this club has had a lot of success recently.
Some of the subjects that I don't remember being broached
Why the AGM mail out was done so poorly - though that may have been covered before I got there.
Likewise why the AGM was being held so late in the year.
Anything other than the most cursory mention of our social media efforts.
Real Madrid 'relationship' and stuff to do with GISS.
BLK fiasco - admittedly not in the club's control for the most part.
Match day experience at Lakeside, in terms of being harassed by security/SSCT employees.
Monday, 19 December 2016
Not looking ahead to tomorrow's AGM
Tomorrow we have the South Melbourne Hellas and South Melbourne FC AGMs. This is a time of year that I usually revel in, because as members it's our one official (and in theory at least, mandatory) opportunity to hold our 'elected' officials to account.
Of course, the more money is involved and the more time is involved and the more effort is involved, the less real say a plebeian member has over the affairs of the club, let alone the opportunity to change the course of the club's direction except as a cog of variable importance in the volunteer collective - and even then, it'll likely take years of graft and patience and careful politicking to even get close to the point where you'll feel like you've made a tangible difference that will actually outlast you.
But I'm not so naive to have ever thought that this was never the case, nor that one lone blogger can change everything or even anything. But since we're all in collective self-delusion together - and much emphasis needs to be placed on the 'collective' aspect - we carry on as if we can change things, because not writing the whole thing off from the get go makes things at least more interesting.
Oh, it might only only be a very basic format of brief bouts of euphoria contrasted with extended bouts of depression, but the 'soft verse, loud chorus' format worked for Kurt Cobain, and didn't that work out well for everyone?
Look, there's a lot of pompous talk at South Melbourne, exacerbated in recent times because of the A-League expansion guff, about how we're a members club, and how that makes us innately superior to those clubs owned by private citizens or corporations who name their season ticket customers erroneously as members; if that assertion contains any validity as a concept, it's at an AGM where this is most likely to occur, where the notion of 'member owned and member run' finds its truest expression.
Which of course makes it all the more disappointing when members willfully choose not to attend these things, but that's their choice. And after all, who am I to place limits on how cynical people can be? Apart from being accused in recent weeks of having my misery chick shtick reach parody levels, last week I even had to educate people that my miserableness is not monotone, but varies between sullen and animated.
Anyway back to the revelry (notice the poesy/poetics/playfulness of moving from self-absorbed angst to the potential for joy we mentioned right at the start? That's craftsmanship, friends, albeit at a very crude level). While in general I have been encouraged by the progress made in presentations, questioning and the overall running of AGMs since I first started attending these meetings in 2006, this year I can't say that I am looking forward to the AGM.
Don't get me wrong - the club is winning trophies, it's made progress by finally getting the social club and attendant leases sorted (or so it seems), and we're back in the local women's top flight - but there are issues which continue to undermine confidence in our overall progress, and I won't even start about not being able to stick to an agenda at these meetings.
That these issues include ill-treatment of the membership base as a whole is not something to be taken lightly. Setting the date of the AGM for a Tuesday night in the week leading up to Christmas is, frankly, contemptible, especially for an organisation that likes to sell the line to its members and the wider public about its professionalism on and off the field.
One could give the club credit I suppose for managing to get the AGM up in a more timely manner compared to last time; but the AGM is still being held too late in the year, too long after the end of the season, and too close to a very busy time of year for many people. People much more cynical than myself would say that the decision to hold AGMs at such inconvenient times and at such irregular intervals is a deliberate action, but I like to apply Hanlon's razor to such things.
Further to the issue of the date has been the mess that's been made of the notice of an AGM. For a club that boasts about its social media and technological aptitude, its efforts in informing its members of run of the mill business leave much to be desired. While I was one of the fortunate ones to receive an email relatively soon after the announcement of the AGM date, others have not received any personal notification either via mail or email.
The availability of the financial statements have also been problematic. I myself only came to know that they were actually made available via the website (scroll down to the bottom of the screen) via a thread on smfcboard. I even had to ask another member for the password, and in turn I was also asked for the password by other members. One of those is even a very loyal and well liked volunteer!
The timing and conduct of the AGM process thus far has also been less than stellar in what is an election year. There are apparently four nominations for the board, and depending on who you believe, three vacancies. This means that unless someone from the board resigns, there ought to be elections. And this is where it has been getting messy.
On the one hand, those close to the current board claim that one of its board members has willingly chosen to resign. The prospective incoming faction (or elements thereof) on the other hand is claiming that this resignation is being forced by the current board to avoid an election.
The possible conduct and consequences of an election are also under dispute. One source close to the current board claims that elections would not be able to take place until into the new year, putting a halt to work on the social club and other elements of club business, as the board would be operating in caretaker mode. A source from the other faction claims that elections could be held on the night of the AGM, with no need for an elaborate or elongated process where competing tickets are formed.
All this is complicated by the existence of long running personal animosities between members of the two groups, current board members being related to members of the incoming faction, and the failure of the club to even note that there are nominations for the board.
Being as I am on all things South Melbourne Hellas an unreconstructed Third Way advocate - the worst of all the 1990s political movements - my hope is that the two different factions can resolve their differences prior to Tuesday's meeting, so we can eliminate the need for a violent bloodbath. It's not a possibility I believe to be likely, however.
I haven't been contacted or spoken to about these matters for a few days, so I'm not sure what the latest status of all these things is. One of my correspondents hung up before I could say 'keep me updated if anything changes', and the most recent correspondent who called me while I was sweeping out the garage (and I continued sweeping while we chatted) didn't necessarily tell me much that I hadn't already been told by others, though I do appreciate being kept in the loop, even if my phone manner apparently leaves a lot to be desired.
But now on to other matters. In more recent years I have made a habit of sorts of drawing up a list of questions on here that I'd like to see asked and answered at the South Melbourne Hellas AGM, and last time I even had you, the audience, contribute questions.
This year because of time constrains and non-entirely related to South Melbourne Hellas anxiety attacks (OK, abject apathy, too, and maybe some of recognised truth acedia's blackest hole if we want to be melodramatic about things), I really haven't been able to do any sort of meaningful preparation. Also I really wanted to go to the movies to watch the Japanese dub of a film I've already seen before, so there's some sulkiness as well.
It's enough perhaps this year that instead of listing a whole bunch of questions, I at least put forward some of the things that happened this year, and what I hope will be covered aside from the internecine politics.
For instance, while I'd like to ask more things about the financial statements, as I've said before I'm more or less functionally innumerate in these matters. Therefore it's up to others who are better acquainted with the accounting world to makes those questions. Every year I ask (or hope to ask) about debt levels and sponsorship and sustainability, but I always find myself getting swamped on these matters, or having my questions brushed aside.
Something more tangible for me to be concerned about is improving the fan experience for South Melbourne fans of Lakeside Stadium. I know that this is inordinately dependent on the social club being opened, which will improve the conception of Lakeside of being our home ground, but what of the game/arena side as well? Harassment of supporters not so much by security, but by rogue(?) employees of the State Sports Centres Trust continues to be a problem.
Add to that the dismissal of Blue Thunder Security after the Victory incident - to what I believe is an SSCT preferred security company - and the club all of a sudden has less control over the operation of match day than it did previously; what Kosta's other faults, he was at least a collaborative type, rather than the remote/austere type that we have now. Of course one can't simply ignore the fact that supporters need to mind and manage their own behaviour at games - as the mess of the away trip to Bentleigh Greens in the league showed.
On the social media front, it gets frustrating to not have any idea of what the plan is. That's not from a blogger/former insider of sorts' point of view, but from the point of view of trying to figure out what the club's end goal is with this stuff. Does social media bombardment merely constitute the cheapest option available to the club for promoting itself? If so, is that the reason why its use seems to be the predominant advertorial tool of choice? Are there any internal goals or benchmarks which the club hopes to achieve? And apart from hitting internal benchmarks, is there some way of measuring how many people convert to South based on these scatter-shot salvos?
There are things, too, which it must recalled are outside the club's control. One of the things that comes up often is the availability of merchandise. The club signed a deal last year with BLK, which promised both stability and savings for the club, and accessibility for fans. The deal was a failure on all those fronts because of BLK itself (and we weren't the only ones burnt by that) but will the new Puma deal sort those issues out once and for all?
We also haven't heard very much about Genova International School of Soccer for awhile. It'd be nice to know what's happened to that arrangement, not only for the effect on the senior team, but for the effect on the juniors, and whether these Spanish trips are really worth the cost and effort.
And then of course there is the issue of A-League expansion. I hope to write more on a certain aspect of this in the near future, but that's not for now. To be blunt, the club has put out mostly blather on the topic so far. Now several, perhaps even many South fans seem OK with this, and in the long run it may very well have no effect on the final decision one way or the other. But the blather and bluster has annoyed me, and is starting to wear thin among those non-South fans who may have initially been sympathetic. Is there an actual media strategy that's being followed?
It would also be nice to know as members of what will probably be the largest stakeholder in such an enterprise (even in our almost certain role as a minority investor) what we're being asked to sign up to. We will even get a chance to vote on this? When will we actually get more information? Scaffolding or standing room? What percent would we exactly? Will we need to sacrifice only our male firstborn to the vengeful FFA god Ba'al-Gallop, or the female firstborn as well?
Lastly (as often seems to be the case), there is the matter of the women's teams. That we're 'back' in the WNPL is good for us I guess, even if it's not necessarily in the best interests of women's soccer in this state (at least according to pretty much every comment I've read from people in the local women's game who aren't connected to South). But how do we maintain control of the now definitively independent SMWFC? And will they have to change their name?
Mind you, a lot of these issues are merely things that concern me, and there's no accounting for what bothers other people. To show you how even I can be human, a few weeks ago I was wondering where all the angst would come from, because everything seemed to be going great.
Well, now that that's all written, I'm turning my phone off for the night. Not for fear of having upset anyone mind you, because this only offends on a literary level, but because it just seems like the civilised thing to do.
Of course, the more money is involved and the more time is involved and the more effort is involved, the less real say a plebeian member has over the affairs of the club, let alone the opportunity to change the course of the club's direction except as a cog of variable importance in the volunteer collective - and even then, it'll likely take years of graft and patience and careful politicking to even get close to the point where you'll feel like you've made a tangible difference that will actually outlast you.
But I'm not so naive to have ever thought that this was never the case, nor that one lone blogger can change everything or even anything. But since we're all in collective self-delusion together - and much emphasis needs to be placed on the 'collective' aspect - we carry on as if we can change things, because not writing the whole thing off from the get go makes things at least more interesting.
Oh, it might only only be a very basic format of brief bouts of euphoria contrasted with extended bouts of depression, but the 'soft verse, loud chorus' format worked for Kurt Cobain, and didn't that work out well for everyone?
Look, there's a lot of pompous talk at South Melbourne, exacerbated in recent times because of the A-League expansion guff, about how we're a members club, and how that makes us innately superior to those clubs owned by private citizens or corporations who name their season ticket customers erroneously as members; if that assertion contains any validity as a concept, it's at an AGM where this is most likely to occur, where the notion of 'member owned and member run' finds its truest expression.
Which of course makes it all the more disappointing when members willfully choose not to attend these things, but that's their choice. And after all, who am I to place limits on how cynical people can be? Apart from being accused in recent weeks of having my misery chick shtick reach parody levels, last week I even had to educate people that my miserableness is not monotone, but varies between sullen and animated.
Anyway back to the revelry (notice the poesy/poetics/playfulness of moving from self-absorbed angst to the potential for joy we mentioned right at the start? That's craftsmanship, friends, albeit at a very crude level). While in general I have been encouraged by the progress made in presentations, questioning and the overall running of AGMs since I first started attending these meetings in 2006, this year I can't say that I am looking forward to the AGM.
Don't get me wrong - the club is winning trophies, it's made progress by finally getting the social club and attendant leases sorted (or so it seems), and we're back in the local women's top flight - but there are issues which continue to undermine confidence in our overall progress, and I won't even start about not being able to stick to an agenda at these meetings.
That these issues include ill-treatment of the membership base as a whole is not something to be taken lightly. Setting the date of the AGM for a Tuesday night in the week leading up to Christmas is, frankly, contemptible, especially for an organisation that likes to sell the line to its members and the wider public about its professionalism on and off the field.
One could give the club credit I suppose for managing to get the AGM up in a more timely manner compared to last time; but the AGM is still being held too late in the year, too long after the end of the season, and too close to a very busy time of year for many people. People much more cynical than myself would say that the decision to hold AGMs at such inconvenient times and at such irregular intervals is a deliberate action, but I like to apply Hanlon's razor to such things.
Further to the issue of the date has been the mess that's been made of the notice of an AGM. For a club that boasts about its social media and technological aptitude, its efforts in informing its members of run of the mill business leave much to be desired. While I was one of the fortunate ones to receive an email relatively soon after the announcement of the AGM date, others have not received any personal notification either via mail or email.
The availability of the financial statements have also been problematic. I myself only came to know that they were actually made available via the website (scroll down to the bottom of the screen) via a thread on smfcboard. I even had to ask another member for the password, and in turn I was also asked for the password by other members. One of those is even a very loyal and well liked volunteer!
The timing and conduct of the AGM process thus far has also been less than stellar in what is an election year. There are apparently four nominations for the board, and depending on who you believe, three vacancies. This means that unless someone from the board resigns, there ought to be elections. And this is where it has been getting messy.
On the one hand, those close to the current board claim that one of its board members has willingly chosen to resign. The prospective incoming faction (or elements thereof) on the other hand is claiming that this resignation is being forced by the current board to avoid an election.
The possible conduct and consequences of an election are also under dispute. One source close to the current board claims that elections would not be able to take place until into the new year, putting a halt to work on the social club and other elements of club business, as the board would be operating in caretaker mode. A source from the other faction claims that elections could be held on the night of the AGM, with no need for an elaborate or elongated process where competing tickets are formed.
All this is complicated by the existence of long running personal animosities between members of the two groups, current board members being related to members of the incoming faction, and the failure of the club to even note that there are nominations for the board.
Being as I am on all things South Melbourne Hellas an unreconstructed Third Way advocate - the worst of all the 1990s political movements - my hope is that the two different factions can resolve their differences prior to Tuesday's meeting, so we can eliminate the need for a violent bloodbath. It's not a possibility I believe to be likely, however.
I haven't been contacted or spoken to about these matters for a few days, so I'm not sure what the latest status of all these things is. One of my correspondents hung up before I could say 'keep me updated if anything changes', and the most recent correspondent who called me while I was sweeping out the garage (and I continued sweeping while we chatted) didn't necessarily tell me much that I hadn't already been told by others, though I do appreciate being kept in the loop, even if my phone manner apparently leaves a lot to be desired.
But now on to other matters. In more recent years I have made a habit of sorts of drawing up a list of questions on here that I'd like to see asked and answered at the South Melbourne Hellas AGM, and last time I even had you, the audience, contribute questions.
This year because of time constrains and non-entirely related to South Melbourne Hellas anxiety attacks (OK, abject apathy, too, and maybe some of recognised truth acedia's blackest hole if we want to be melodramatic about things), I really haven't been able to do any sort of meaningful preparation. Also I really wanted to go to the movies to watch the Japanese dub of a film I've already seen before, so there's some sulkiness as well.
It's enough perhaps this year that instead of listing a whole bunch of questions, I at least put forward some of the things that happened this year, and what I hope will be covered aside from the internecine politics.
For instance, while I'd like to ask more things about the financial statements, as I've said before I'm more or less functionally innumerate in these matters. Therefore it's up to others who are better acquainted with the accounting world to makes those questions. Every year I ask (or hope to ask) about debt levels and sponsorship and sustainability, but I always find myself getting swamped on these matters, or having my questions brushed aside.
Something more tangible for me to be concerned about is improving the fan experience for South Melbourne fans of Lakeside Stadium. I know that this is inordinately dependent on the social club being opened, which will improve the conception of Lakeside of being our home ground, but what of the game/arena side as well? Harassment of supporters not so much by security, but by rogue(?) employees of the State Sports Centres Trust continues to be a problem.
Add to that the dismissal of Blue Thunder Security after the Victory incident - to what I believe is an SSCT preferred security company - and the club all of a sudden has less control over the operation of match day than it did previously; what Kosta's other faults, he was at least a collaborative type, rather than the remote/austere type that we have now. Of course one can't simply ignore the fact that supporters need to mind and manage their own behaviour at games - as the mess of the away trip to Bentleigh Greens in the league showed.
On the social media front, it gets frustrating to not have any idea of what the plan is. That's not from a blogger/former insider of sorts' point of view, but from the point of view of trying to figure out what the club's end goal is with this stuff. Does social media bombardment merely constitute the cheapest option available to the club for promoting itself? If so, is that the reason why its use seems to be the predominant advertorial tool of choice? Are there any internal goals or benchmarks which the club hopes to achieve? And apart from hitting internal benchmarks, is there some way of measuring how many people convert to South based on these scatter-shot salvos?
There are things, too, which it must recalled are outside the club's control. One of the things that comes up often is the availability of merchandise. The club signed a deal last year with BLK, which promised both stability and savings for the club, and accessibility for fans. The deal was a failure on all those fronts because of BLK itself (and we weren't the only ones burnt by that) but will the new Puma deal sort those issues out once and for all?
We also haven't heard very much about Genova International School of Soccer for awhile. It'd be nice to know what's happened to that arrangement, not only for the effect on the senior team, but for the effect on the juniors, and whether these Spanish trips are really worth the cost and effort.
And then of course there is the issue of A-League expansion. I hope to write more on a certain aspect of this in the near future, but that's not for now. To be blunt, the club has put out mostly blather on the topic so far. Now several, perhaps even many South fans seem OK with this, and in the long run it may very well have no effect on the final decision one way or the other. But the blather and bluster has annoyed me, and is starting to wear thin among those non-South fans who may have initially been sympathetic. Is there an actual media strategy that's being followed?
It would also be nice to know as members of what will probably be the largest stakeholder in such an enterprise (even in our almost certain role as a minority investor) what we're being asked to sign up to. We will even get a chance to vote on this? When will we actually get more information? Scaffolding or standing room? What percent would we exactly? Will we need to sacrifice only our male firstborn to the vengeful FFA god Ba'al-Gallop, or the female firstborn as well?
Lastly (as often seems to be the case), there is the matter of the women's teams. That we're 'back' in the WNPL is good for us I guess, even if it's not necessarily in the best interests of women's soccer in this state (at least according to pretty much every comment I've read from people in the local women's game who aren't connected to South). But how do we maintain control of the now definitively independent SMWFC? And will they have to change their name?
Mind you, a lot of these issues are merely things that concern me, and there's no accounting for what bothers other people. To show you how even I can be human, a few weeks ago I was wondering where all the angst would come from, because everything seemed to be going great.
Well, now that that's all written, I'm turning my phone off for the night. Not for fear of having upset anyone mind you, because this only offends on a literary level, but because it just seems like the civilised thing to do.
Thursday, 1 December 2016
November 2016 digest
Friendly vs Box Hill United
On the Monday that just went past the club had an informal hit-out against now regular pre-season sparring partner Box Hill United. Three by thirty minute periods. Box Hill United scored the only goal of the affair, from a goal mouth scramble. They had only one other clear cut chance, a free header straight to the keeper. For South, the squad was made up of many of 2016's regulars (except those that have left, and Luke Adams who is playing for Eastern Suburbs in New Zealand), some fringe/youth players, that Zinni kid and some other blokes I couldn't recognise - not that that matters anyway, because my recognition skills are not good. The outing was high intensity, and the South bys controlled most of it albeit the end product was rubbish. So it goes. At one point Milos Lujic poleaxed an opponent and himself in a bizarre challenge, but he got up eventually and resumed playing.
I don't know when the next friendly hit-out will be. If I get more forward and definitive notice than I did for this one, I'll try and post something somewhere.
Social clubs news
Earlier this month they were putting the floor in,
During mid-November I was fortunate enough to be invited to the club to take a first hand look at the progress being made (sorry, no photos allowed) and to ask some general questions. Any chance of that visit being conducted relatively incognito was scuppered because several board members - some of whom are working on the project in a hands on manner, lending their expertise to the project - also arrived during my visit.
Upon entering the space (with mandatory hi-viz safety vest), one still had to imagine what it would look like when it's finished and how everything would fit together. Suffice to say that one already feels that it will be a drastic improvement on the increasingly decrepit former social club space.
One of the key differences will be a lower ceiling, creating what one hopes is a more intimate atmosphere. There are plans to try and get more natural light in there as well, though I'm unsure how that will come about. When there weren't big numbers in the old social club, its dankness and degradation became increasingly noticeable - one expects that this time a bit more thought and care will be put into the design. Another difference will be the bar, kitchen and dining areas all being on the same level, as opposed to the raised bar/lowered dining areas arrangement of the old social club.
There will be several television screens of various sizes around the space, as well as museum space dedicated around the room as opposed to being concentrated in one area. The museum space will also have, it is hoped, a multimedia component. For the futsal court, apart from the court itself there are plans for a raised viewing area behind one of the ends (I'm thinking of perhaps something like the upstairs behind the goal area of the Icehouse, or a squash court), as well as of course new changerooms.
The office space will be an open plan set up, and integrated with the former boardroom space into one large room. I am led to believe that the old, massive board table has been dispensed with - which on the one hand is sad, because it was a beautiful table and a part of our history, including alleged mythical sordidness - but now that we don't have the constitutional scope for 21 board members it probably doesn't need to be that big.
Those who have been to recent AGMs will be relatively familiar with how all of this will actually function. Chief of those concerns is whether management of the space will be outsourced or kept in house, with the club preferring to keep it in house at this time. The club of course hopes that all will be ready in time for the first home games of the season, which will be some time in February.
AGM news
The date for the 2016 AGMs (SMH and SMFC) have been announced. They will be held on Tuesday 20th December in the Presidents Room at Lakeside, SMH at 7:00PM, SMFC at 8:30. Those members who have not received any notification via mail or email by I suppose the end of next week should probably contact the club.
While I am pleased that the AGM is being held in a more timely fashion this time around, holding it in the week before Christmas is a bit lame, as we noted of the last occasion that such a thing was done back in 2011.
With so many things apparently going very well for the club - lease sorted, trophies being won, women in WNPL - one wonders what kind of trajectory the meeting will take. At the very least one hopes that apart from the usual deal of finances and football updates, that members will get an update on the progress of the social club, as well as some explanation on the mechanics of our A-League bid.
Apart from the many other issues which will be discussed, this year also happens to be an election year. I don't suppose any new tickets will emerge to challenge the board which has in one form or another been running the club for most of our post NSL years, but you never know.
Season schedule
The 2017 season will starting in mid February, on the week ending Sunday 12, which is a bit earlier than the 2016 start. The Community Shield, which South Melbourne will be participating in for a third consecutive year, will be held two weeks earlier than that.
Arrivals and departures
As per last time, the following players are known to be contracted for next season.
On the Monday that just went past the club had an informal hit-out against now regular pre-season sparring partner Box Hill United. Three by thirty minute periods. Box Hill United scored the only goal of the affair, from a goal mouth scramble. They had only one other clear cut chance, a free header straight to the keeper. For South, the squad was made up of many of 2016's regulars (except those that have left, and Luke Adams who is playing for Eastern Suburbs in New Zealand), some fringe/youth players, that Zinni kid and some other blokes I couldn't recognise - not that that matters anyway, because my recognition skills are not good. The outing was high intensity, and the South bys controlled most of it albeit the end product was rubbish. So it goes. At one point Milos Lujic poleaxed an opponent and himself in a bizarre challenge, but he got up eventually and resumed playing.
I don't know when the next friendly hit-out will be. If I get more forward and definitive notice than I did for this one, I'll try and post something somewhere.
Social clubs news
Earlier this month they were putting the floor in,
And progress has been steady since then.Floor and walls are taking shape here at @smfc :) pic.twitter.com/FxJivyiK8M— Tony Margaritis (@sthmel) November 9, 2016
During mid-November I was fortunate enough to be invited to the club to take a first hand look at the progress being made (sorry, no photos allowed) and to ask some general questions. Any chance of that visit being conducted relatively incognito was scuppered because several board members - some of whom are working on the project in a hands on manner, lending their expertise to the project - also arrived during my visit.
Upon entering the space (with mandatory hi-viz safety vest), one still had to imagine what it would look like when it's finished and how everything would fit together. Suffice to say that one already feels that it will be a drastic improvement on the increasingly decrepit former social club space.
One of the key differences will be a lower ceiling, creating what one hopes is a more intimate atmosphere. There are plans to try and get more natural light in there as well, though I'm unsure how that will come about. When there weren't big numbers in the old social club, its dankness and degradation became increasingly noticeable - one expects that this time a bit more thought and care will be put into the design. Another difference will be the bar, kitchen and dining areas all being on the same level, as opposed to the raised bar/lowered dining areas arrangement of the old social club.
There will be several television screens of various sizes around the space, as well as museum space dedicated around the room as opposed to being concentrated in one area. The museum space will also have, it is hoped, a multimedia component. For the futsal court, apart from the court itself there are plans for a raised viewing area behind one of the ends (I'm thinking of perhaps something like the upstairs behind the goal area of the Icehouse, or a squash court), as well as of course new changerooms.
The office space will be an open plan set up, and integrated with the former boardroom space into one large room. I am led to believe that the old, massive board table has been dispensed with - which on the one hand is sad, because it was a beautiful table and a part of our history, including alleged mythical sordidness - but now that we don't have the constitutional scope for 21 board members it probably doesn't need to be that big.
Those who have been to recent AGMs will be relatively familiar with how all of this will actually function. Chief of those concerns is whether management of the space will be outsourced or kept in house, with the club preferring to keep it in house at this time. The club of course hopes that all will be ready in time for the first home games of the season, which will be some time in February.
AGM news
The date for the 2016 AGMs (SMH and SMFC) have been announced. They will be held on Tuesday 20th December in the Presidents Room at Lakeside, SMH at 7:00PM, SMFC at 8:30. Those members who have not received any notification via mail or email by I suppose the end of next week should probably contact the club.
While I am pleased that the AGM is being held in a more timely fashion this time around, holding it in the week before Christmas is a bit lame, as we noted of the last occasion that such a thing was done back in 2011.
With so many things apparently going very well for the club - lease sorted, trophies being won, women in WNPL - one wonders what kind of trajectory the meeting will take. At the very least one hopes that apart from the usual deal of finances and football updates, that members will get an update on the progress of the social club, as well as some explanation on the mechanics of our A-League bid.
Apart from the many other issues which will be discussed, this year also happens to be an election year. I don't suppose any new tickets will emerge to challenge the board which has in one form or another been running the club for most of our post NSL years, but you never know.
Season schedule
The 2017 season will starting in mid February, on the week ending Sunday 12, which is a bit earlier than the 2016 start. The Community Shield, which South Melbourne will be participating in for a third consecutive year, will be held two weeks earlier than that.
Arrivals and departures
As per last time, the following players are known to be contracted for next season.
- Stephen Hatzikostas (signed until end of 2017)
- Brad Norton (signed until end of 2017)
- Matthew Millar (signed until end of 2017)
- Milos Lujic (signed until end of 2018)
- Chris Irwin to Kingston City.
- Iqi Jawadi, to Oakleigh Cannons.
- Amadu Koroma, to Altona Magic
A number of names have been posted to a certain forum, but unless it comes from the club itself (and even then, after the Jason Hicks situation...), take nothing as gospel.
A-League expansion murmurings
So after the explosion of expansion news across the past two weeks, things have settled down a bit - though we're still getting press for not doing very much other than repeat ourselves. But South Melbourne Hellas is at this point in time for parts of the press a valuable commodity, and since both our objectives are apparently being met by this pseudo-cooperation, one can't really complain. We even got some positive, albeit generic, coverage in Neos Kosmos.
A more concrete bit of news was that FFA would visit Lakeside as part of this process some time this week, although of course the expansion criteria have not been released yet. Still, it's nice that our interest in being an expansion side seems to have at least garnered some reciprocal interest from FFA, as opposed to the Southern Cross bid where we had to cry to the press for attention, and the Heart/Mariners takeover bids in which afterwards one felt South had been used for the sake of drawing out other interests.
It's so hard to tell which other bids out of the myriad that have appeared in the past fortnight are actually anything more than thought bubbles, apart from the Tasmania bid and Third Sydney. Something unusual about all of this has been the lack of anything to do with this on the official website, but I suppose one can put that down to the main website person not being in the country during this part of the news cycle.
South gets a mention in a book
Les Street found this mention of South and assorted other Australian soccer clubs in a book about 1000 clubs from around the world.
A more concrete bit of news was that FFA would visit Lakeside as part of this process some time this week, although of course the expansion criteria have not been released yet. Still, it's nice that our interest in being an expansion side seems to have at least garnered some reciprocal interest from FFA, as opposed to the Southern Cross bid where we had to cry to the press for attention, and the Heart/Mariners takeover bids in which afterwards one felt South had been used for the sake of drawing out other interests.
It's so hard to tell which other bids out of the myriad that have appeared in the past fortnight are actually anything more than thought bubbles, apart from the Tasmania bid and Third Sydney. Something unusual about all of this has been the lack of anything to do with this on the official website, but I suppose one can put that down to the main website person not being in the country during this part of the news cycle.
South gets a mention in a book
Les Street found this mention of South and assorted other Australian soccer clubs in a book about 1000 clubs from around the world.
It's nice to be acknowledged I suppose.This is the most surreal thing I've seen. Brand new book from USA has Mooroolbark listed amongst most prominent Australian football clubs. pic.twitter.com/16dviMTQMd— Les Street (@official_lesdog) November 5, 2016
Friday, 30 September 2016
September 2016 digest
In case you missed it...
We won the grand final!
Social club news
Nope.
AGM date news
Not yet.
Arrivals and departures
Early days of course. So far looking forward to 2017 we can assume that the following players will be with us next season:
Players we can safely assume are gone:
Seeing red
After a recent and admittedly also persistent discussions throughout 2016, South of the Border's request to friend of the blog Gains to compile a list of all the red cards that were dished out in South matches this year, along with the scoreline at the time of the dismissal. Gains has also been good enough to add a coding system (see below) to remind our readers of how the red cards were earned.
2017 WNPL application
As expected South has shown its intent in applying for a WNPL licence for next season. The brief press release focuses mostly on South Melbourne's sense of itself as having past pedigree in women's football, and also on the measures taken in recent times to treat women's football more equitably.
No detail on the finer points - such as the status of SMWFC, as well as naming issues -, but one would expect that to be in the bid itself, and revealed in the event that South Melbourne FC is awarded a place in next year's WNPL.
Match programmes
Not a lot to report here, but I will hopefully be making more of an effort with some non-South materials that I've had sitting around for a long time.
2002/03, Round 1, Newcastle United away
2007, Round 21, Melbourne Knights away - pretty ugly to be honest
Around the grounds
Going up, going down
So the NPL grand final wasn't the end of the season. No, there were state league finals and promotion battles to be sorted; the NPL national playoffs, which Bentleigh botched by losing 3-1 at home NNSW team Edgeworth - that loss means that FFA Cup qualification for Victoria will once again be limited to four teams; and the NPL/NPL2 relegation-promotion playoff between Richmond and North Geelong. Once again there was a gap of several weeks for the NPL candidate to wait until the NPL2 season was finished and the best second placed side identified. In that game, North Geelong had beaten Dandenong Thunder, whose ineligible player penalty against Nunawading of all teams will potentially haunt them. Meanwhile Richmond faced the prospect of going straight back down to NPL2.
The game was played out at Oakleigh, apparently because Oakleigh had applied to host the game. Too bad they forgot that they were hosting a birthday party in their club rooms, which meant that the crowd of let's say 500 odd people who were there to watch the game could not get any food or drink during the game. After the heat that FFV copped for their management of the NPL grand final at Lakeside, this was a more low key shambles, but a shambles nevertheless. The game itself saw North Geelong take an early lead from the penalty spot, then sit back and try to absorb pressure and hit on the counter. Richmond thus had most of the ball, but never really looked like doing anything important with it - even though they managed to hit the woodwork twice, effective entries into the their opponent's 18 yard box were few.
The second half was more of the same - another penalty to North, another goal - and instead of making changes then and there, Richmond's coach waited until they were 3-0 down before doing something about the situation other than moving Nick Niagoran (who was tightly marked throughout) central from his wide position. 4-0 as the final score was a bit rough perhaps, and one can see North struggling to avoid relegation in 2017 if they rely on the same personnel and the same ultra conservative game plan. For Richmond, a few of the players out there on the night may get picked up by NPL vultures - Niagoran is young enough to warrant another chance; Brian Bran, if he lost a few kilos he'd be as handy as during his Thunder days; fullback Kris Kioussis (who trialled at South during the 2016 pre-season) - but a few others have surely hit the wall, such as Hamlet Armenian, and perhaps even Jake Barker-Daish, who offered almost nothing in this contest.
We won the grand final!
Social club news
Nope.
AGM date news
Not yet.
Arrivals and departures
Early days of course. So far looking forward to 2017 we can assume that the following players will be with us next season:
- Stephen Hatzikostas (signed until end of 2017)
- Brad Norton (signed until end of 2017)
- Matthew Millar (signed until end of 2017)
- Milos Lujic (signed until end of 2018)
Players we can safely assume are gone:
- Iqi Jawadi, who appeared to walk out on the club prior to the end of the regular season.
Seeing red
After a recent and admittedly also persistent discussions throughout 2016, South of the Border's request to friend of the blog Gains to compile a list of all the red cards that were dished out in South matches this year, along with the scoreline at the time of the dismissal. Gains has also been good enough to add a coding system (see below) to remind our readers of how the red cards were earned.
- Violent conduct
- Denying obvious goal scoring opportunity
- 2nd Yellow Card
- Bentleigh Greens (away): Epifano (1), score at red card 0-3 down
- Heidelberg United (home): Theodoridis (2) 3-0 up. South Melbourne assistant coach Chris Marshall also possibly sent to the stands.
- Northcote City (away): None.
- Port Melbourne (away): None.
- Bulleen Lions (away): None.
- Richmond (away): Niagoran (3) 3-5.
- Hume City (away): Tavsancioglu (3) 0-0.
- Bentleigh Greens (home): Kirk (3) 1-1.
- Oakleigh Cannons (home): Black (3) 4-1. South coach Chris Taylor sent to stands.
- Melbourne Victory (home): None.
- Avondale (away): None.
- Melbourne Knights (away): Miskulin (2) 3-2.
- Pascoe Vale (home): Milardovic (2) 0-0.
- Green Gully (away): None.
- Heidelberg United: None.
- Northcote City (home): None.
- Port Melbourne (home): None.
- Bulleen (home): None.
- Richmond (home): None.
- Hume City (home): Mala (?) 2-2, Chris Taylor and Hume City assistant coach Zoran Markovski sent to stands.
- Bentleigh Greens (away): Adams (2) 1-0, Ibrahim (1) 1-1.
- Oakleigh Cannons (away): Konstantinidis (2) 0-0.
- Melbourne Victory (away): None.
- Avondale (home): None.
- Melbourne Knights (home): Miskulin (3) 1-0
- Pascoe Vale (away): Nakic (2) 0-1, Pavlidis (2) 2-1. Pascoe Vale coach Vitale Ferrante sent to stands.
- Green Gully (home): None.
- Hume (home): None.
- Heidelberg United (away): Way (1) 0-1.
- Oakleigh Cannons ('Neutral'): Chiapetta (3) 3-1.
- Keysborough ('home'/John Cain): None.
- Altona Magic (away): Bozinovski (3) 2-0.
- North Geelong ('away'/SS Anderson): None.
- Bentleigh Greens (away): Eagar (3) 0-2.
- South Melbourne: 5 (3 League, 1 Cup, 1 Shield)
- Opposition: 14 (13 League, 1 Cup)
2017 WNPL application
As expected South has shown its intent in applying for a WNPL licence for next season. The brief press release focuses mostly on South Melbourne's sense of itself as having past pedigree in women's football, and also on the measures taken in recent times to treat women's football more equitably.
No detail on the finer points - such as the status of SMWFC, as well as naming issues -, but one would expect that to be in the bid itself, and revealed in the event that South Melbourne FC is awarded a place in next year's WNPL.
Match programmes
Not a lot to report here, but I will hopefully be making more of an effort with some non-South materials that I've had sitting around for a long time.
2002/03, Round 1, Newcastle United away
2007, Round 21, Melbourne Knights away - pretty ugly to be honest
Around the grounds
Going up, going down
So the NPL grand final wasn't the end of the season. No, there were state league finals and promotion battles to be sorted; the NPL national playoffs, which Bentleigh botched by losing 3-1 at home NNSW team Edgeworth - that loss means that FFA Cup qualification for Victoria will once again be limited to four teams; and the NPL/NPL2 relegation-promotion playoff between Richmond and North Geelong. Once again there was a gap of several weeks for the NPL candidate to wait until the NPL2 season was finished and the best second placed side identified. In that game, North Geelong had beaten Dandenong Thunder, whose ineligible player penalty against Nunawading of all teams will potentially haunt them. Meanwhile Richmond faced the prospect of going straight back down to NPL2.
The game was played out at Oakleigh, apparently because Oakleigh had applied to host the game. Too bad they forgot that they were hosting a birthday party in their club rooms, which meant that the crowd of let's say 500 odd people who were there to watch the game could not get any food or drink during the game. After the heat that FFV copped for their management of the NPL grand final at Lakeside, this was a more low key shambles, but a shambles nevertheless. The game itself saw North Geelong take an early lead from the penalty spot, then sit back and try to absorb pressure and hit on the counter. Richmond thus had most of the ball, but never really looked like doing anything important with it - even though they managed to hit the woodwork twice, effective entries into the their opponent's 18 yard box were few.
The second half was more of the same - another penalty to North, another goal - and instead of making changes then and there, Richmond's coach waited until they were 3-0 down before doing something about the situation other than moving Nick Niagoran (who was tightly marked throughout) central from his wide position. 4-0 as the final score was a bit rough perhaps, and one can see North struggling to avoid relegation in 2017 if they rely on the same personnel and the same ultra conservative game plan. For Richmond, a few of the players out there on the night may get picked up by NPL vultures - Niagoran is young enough to warrant another chance; Brian Bran, if he lost a few kilos he'd be as handy as during his Thunder days; fullback Kris Kioussis (who trialled at South during the 2016 pre-season) - but a few others have surely hit the wall, such as Hamlet Armenian, and perhaps even Jake Barker-Daish, who offered almost nothing in this contest.
Sunday, 25 September 2016
South of the Border Awards 2016
Clearly I put as much thought and care into these things as I usually do.
Player of the year: Nikola Roganovic, who apart from Milos Lujic, almost singlehandedly kept us near the top of the table, and who pulled off two wonder saves in the grand final. Apologies to Milos Lujic, who would have won it any other year.
Under 21 player of the year: The Cliff Hussey Memorial Trophy goes to Matthew Millar. This is especially pertinent once I realised he was only 20, and not something like 23. Apologies to no one else.
Goal of the year: Iqi Jawadi away at Port Melbourne. A goal so good, it destroyed his South career. Marcus Schroen would have won it if he scored from that free kick in the grand final, or from any free kick for that matter, because no one scores from free kicks for us pretty much ever.
Best performance: Round 1, Bergers at home. Maybe I should have picked a game where we didn't win thanks in part to a red card, but good luck finding that game. Apologies to the first seventy minutes or so against Bentleigh in the league - you were scuttled by a) bad coaching and b) losing.
Best away game of the year: Victory away. 'So much to do at Cartmanland, but you can't come' and all that. Apologies to those of you who couldn't get in to that game, and for whom the best away game would probably have been the Heidelberg semi-final I suppose.
Call of the year: The Melbourne Knights fan at Somers Street who abused the officials (who got the relevant offside call and subsequent red card absolutely right, then abused MFootball's commentary team accusing them of being biased because he thought they were working for Greek radio. Apologies to myself for several witty comments made throughout the year.
Chant of the year: '6-5, on aggregate!' You shouldn't hand out such awards to yourself, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and that chant probably saved a few people from going catatonic with rage that night. Apologies to 'thanks for beating Bentleigh' from the grand final.
Best pre-match/after match dinner location: Nasi lemak at Old Town White Coffee. Apologies to the fifty bazillion Korean fried chicken places we went to. No apologies to places that sponsored the club, because you all dropped the ball at some point.
Friends we (apparently) lost along the way:Another umbrella. Maybe Skip Fulton. Possibly West of the Quarry.
Barely related to anything stupidity highlight of the year: Steve from Broady's initial itinerary for his trip to Perth to watch the Socceroos vs Iraq. Unfortunately he came to his senses and avoided creating a sequel to Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Player of the year: Nikola Roganovic, who apart from Milos Lujic, almost singlehandedly kept us near the top of the table, and who pulled off two wonder saves in the grand final. Apologies to Milos Lujic, who would have won it any other year.
Under 21 player of the year: The Cliff Hussey Memorial Trophy goes to Matthew Millar. This is especially pertinent once I realised he was only 20, and not something like 23. Apologies to no one else.
Goal of the year: Iqi Jawadi away at Port Melbourne. A goal so good, it destroyed his South career. Marcus Schroen would have won it if he scored from that free kick in the grand final, or from any free kick for that matter, because no one scores from free kicks for us pretty much ever.
Best performance: Round 1, Bergers at home. Maybe I should have picked a game where we didn't win thanks in part to a red card, but good luck finding that game. Apologies to the first seventy minutes or so against Bentleigh in the league - you were scuttled by a) bad coaching and b) losing.
Best away game of the year: Victory away. 'So much to do at Cartmanland, but you can't come' and all that. Apologies to those of you who couldn't get in to that game, and for whom the best away game would probably have been the Heidelberg semi-final I suppose.
Call of the year: The Melbourne Knights fan at Somers Street who abused the officials (who got the relevant offside call and subsequent red card absolutely right, then abused MFootball's commentary team accusing them of being biased because he thought they were working for Greek radio. Apologies to myself for several witty comments made throughout the year.
Chant of the year: '6-5, on aggregate!' You shouldn't hand out such awards to yourself, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and that chant probably saved a few people from going catatonic with rage that night. Apologies to 'thanks for beating Bentleigh' from the grand final.
Best pre-match/after match dinner location: Nasi lemak at Old Town White Coffee. Apologies to the fifty bazillion Korean fried chicken places we went to. No apologies to places that sponsored the club, because you all dropped the ball at some point.
Friends we (apparently) lost along the way:Another umbrella. Maybe Skip Fulton. Possibly West of the Quarry.
Barely related to anything stupidity highlight of the year: Steve from Broady's initial itinerary for his trip to Perth to watch the Socceroos vs Iraq. Unfortunately he came to his senses and avoided creating a sequel to Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Monday, 12 September 2016
Bruno told us so! South Melbourne 3 Oakleigh Cannons 2
Sleep was hard to come by the night before the game, but the nerves only really kicked in about 11:30 on Sunday morning as I was on the train on my way to the Limerick Arms for the pre-match drinks session. It took a while for people to filter towards the pub - the late start maybe dissuaded people from getting there at noon - but soon enough there was a good turnout there, with plebs and civic leaders paying due homage if you know what I mean.
There was some good chanting from those who felt like chanting before a game, politeness shown towards the elderly couple who had to make their way through the crowd outside the pub, and hilarious gags such as,
'Hey, we should change our name to Social Media FC - we'd still be able to use the SMFC acronym.'And one other heinous joke about making a movie about South's overcoming adversity in 2016 that's probably not fit for print.
 |
| What's the hubbub? Did Taylor finally get the sack? |
Apart from several moments of skill and close combination play by the usual suspects, I don't think it was the highest standard match - last year's contest had a lot more quality I felt - but it will be remembered within Victorian soccer circles as a classic in its own right for the non-stop entertainment it provided. Both sides hit the woodwork on multiple occasions, forced good saves, had shots cleared off the line and were prone to the kinds of mistakes which made fans of the two sides and neutrals alike feel like a goal was never far away. Otherwise, there was a nervousness to much of the ball control, with players preferring to clear the ball rather than take control of possession in situations where they probably could have done so. Even defensively, South especially looked cautious, and unwilling to go hard at Oakleigh's attacking players, which was concerning at the time - one realises now, with the benefit of hindsight, that probably only part of that was due to the skill and size of Oakleigh's attackers, and that we were being cautious not to give away fouls anywhere near the edge of the box.
 |
| Whoo! South rule! |
Getting that goal could have served to settle our nerves, but instead Oakleigh managed to pull the goal back soon afterwards, after another one of those 'moments'. An out of position Brad Norton, way upfield, instead of holding his ground went in for an all or nothing challenge and came out of that with nothing - less than nothing in fact as Oakleigh exploited the space Norton had left behind to score the equalising goal. At that point - midway through the first half - I was hoping that we could somehow get to halftime level and reboot from there. Credit to the team however that they managed to work their way back into the contest in the final five minutes of the half.
No one thought we'd score from the free kick - we've barely got close over the past five years - but Schroen managed to get closer than I'd anticipated, hitting the top of the crossbar. His curling shot right on halftime also smacked into the post, and should have been at least attempted to be hit back at goal instead of (and I'm not sure who it was of our players) being responded to by turning around in anguish or disappointment.
I thought that we would carry that momentum into the second half, but Oakleigh again were the better team. Yet we took the lead again, thanks to a pinpoint cross by the People's Champ to Marcus Schroen, who nodded home from close range. Schroen will justifiably get the plaudits for the goal, and he did end up winning the Jimmy Rooney medal for his performance as our most important player going forward, but it was a great maneuver from Nick Epifano, exploiting the lack of speed of the Oakleigh defender (and perhaps his belief that the People's Champ would cut in on his right?) crossing on his non-preferred left foot into just the right spot.
Nikola Roganovic was then forced to make two clutch saves, one from long range from Dean Piemonte tipped wide for a corner, and one from a medium range Goran Zoric effort which Roganovic tipped onto the crossbar. The bloke who had almost singlehandedly kept us within touching distance of the minor premiership for far longer than we had any right to stepped up big time when it counted. If it is to be his last game for us - some have hinted he may hang up the gloves - than I am glad that he's been able to secure a championship while playing for us.
Our third goal was from another throw in, although this had a little bit of a sense of a set play about it. Minopoulos' superior game sense - the mere fact of his being on the field lifts the collective soccer IQ of our team by a significant margin - saw him nod the ball down to Schroen who smashed home his own volley. After that we should have absolutely hammered them. One sequence of play which saw at least three attempts from more or less point blank range rebuffed was the height of madness; at the other end, Oakleigh kept plugging away, while we were at times camped in our own half, unable to clear the ball on occasion except in the most comical of fashions. And as much stick as we've all given stick to Tim Mala for his downturn in form this season, thank goodness he was on the line to clear that shot which could have turned things on their head once again.
In this season of red cards in South games it was fitting that the game ended the way it did, with a red card to Oakleigh's Adrian Chiapetta, followed by a late Oakleigh goal which had us squirming for another thirty seconds. Once again, we were scored against by a team with a numerical disadvantage, even in this case where there were just moments left in between the dismissal and the end of the game.
The final whistle for some was the time to celebrate, but for me it was a chance to feel some relief. It has been a chaotic, sometimes exhilarating but mostly frustrating season. There were huge wins, especially early in the season which gave us a sense of false hope; theheavy losses, some of them absolutely devastating - Richmond away, Heidelberg away, Bentleigh away twice, Avondale at home where we looked desultory; the three point deduction, no FFA Cup run, the fact that we had not beaten a top six side for the whole second half of the year until we beat Gully in the last round.
Added to that was the fact that we were playing awful, ugly football, which we had accepted two years ago because it by and large worked and because we had been starved of success, but which we were now over because it was slightly less successful and we wanted to be entertained and to have two up front as a minimum. To his credit Chris Taylor made the necessary adjustments, managed the interferences and the egos and got the team clicking at the right time of the season. Beating the Knights and Pascoe Vale, then knocking off four finalists in a row, and snaring the title could only have realistically come about with a change in mindset, or as Nicholas Tsiaras said, Taylor embracing his inner gambler.
So apart from the satisfaction of winning the title, Taylor gets the joy of knowing he has overcome his detractors, some of whom clearly had no idea what they're were talking about. Although to be fair to people who can't remember all the way back to July 2016, I did hint at the possibility that things could get better, and that a more attacking, risky approach would pay dividends in a season where finals would be the final (ahem) arbiter of the 2016 champion.
While we can enjoy the anarchic spectacle of a Chris Taylor side actually playing attacking football (and try to convince ourselves that maybe this approach will pay off in the finals)Which just goes to show that if you hold every opinion possible at one stage or another, even though you'll always be wrong, you'll always be right, too. All of which keeps the universe in balance.
Post-match celebrations
Apparently not quite as many managed to get into the change rooms for the celebrations as in 2014 - probably for the best to be honest, as things got very claustrophobic that night.
 |
| Suitably blurry photograph of the post-match celebrations. Photo: Paul Mavroudis. But seriously, why would anyone else want to claim it? |
No social club and a late finish meant that once again celebrations after the game at the Limerick Arms were fairly low key, before I assume many of the players, coaches, board members and support headed out to a nightspot or two.
Speaking of a lack of a social club, even our replacement social club the Limerick Arms almost failed us, when a dishwasher caught fire, forcing the temporary evacuation of the premises.
.@smfc just no luck with even makeshift social clubs - Limerick Arms dishwasher is on fire #ambivalent #ps4nplvic pic.twitter.com/EfI14VzfXv— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) September 11, 2016
Although the fact that the harebrained rumour that managed to take hold, that someone had thrown a flare into the dishwasher, causing said fire, doesn't say much for the gullibility of some people. To be honest, the less said about how staff members allegedly tried to put out the fire, the better. Drink service resumed, though the kitchen was out of action. A trip down the road to a local Greek restaurant and sponsor of the club for a takeaway souv also saw us come up short. At least one could find comfort in having won a record tenth Victorian title.Firefighters dousing a dishwasher outside the Limerick Arms #SMvOC #PS4NPLVIC pic.twitter.com/AEX6yNr1YM— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) September 11, 2016
Match day operations fail / Neutral venue chat
Once the venue for the grand final had been announced, and especially once it was known that South would be one of the two competing teams, most people without a rampant hatred of South Melbourne or who sought to play down the significance of the grand final as Victorian soccer's 'showpiece event' (blecch) were begging FFV to open up the northern stand to spectators. They didn't listen, they didn't organise with the State Sports Centres Trust to do so, and didn't that make them look like fools on the day.
But even before that there were massive issues outside the gate with long lines and the return of the tedious Ticketmaster ticket sales process, who were reportedly printing off tickets one by one instead of having a whole stack of them pre-printed and ready to go. That dire process as well as having too few ticket booths open meant that there were scores of people who didn't get into the ground until 20 minutes after kickoff.
Of course, one can note the advice given to pre-purchase tickets
but the reality is that not everyone reads this blog (hard to believe, I know), and most of those in attendance yesterday only visit Lakeside when a big crowd is expected, which is seldom the case these days.Worth the $5 booking fee? I think so. pic.twitter.com/reall7L451— Est1959 (@Est1959) September 11, 2016
Credit to FFV president Kimon Taliadoros for fronting up and apologising, and throwing the gates open, but it makes one wonder how we even got to this point. Were they going off last year's crowd of about 3,500, when Bentleigh Greens brought almost no fans to the game? Did they not take seriously the idea that Oakleigh may try and bring some support of their own to this game, or that there may be a lot of neutrals, especially leftover from the curtain raiser?
So, far too many people were squeezed into one stand - and in front of the stand - when there was a perfectly good stand on the other side waiting to be used. Eventually they let patrons use the concrete terracing behind the goals at the scoreboard end, and finally during the second half managed to get organised enough to open the other stand.Amazing crowd at @nplvictoria GF tonight. 👏🏻 to all who attended & to many more who watched online. #PS4NPLVIC pic.twitter.com/lx5oWDvrGg— Anthony Grima (@anthonygrima) September 11, 2016
That didn't make up for the absurd lines for food and drink (again, greatly underestimating the crowd, and to make matters worse, the loukoumades people didn't turn up either like they said they would). As noted by the Heidelberg supporting 'redboots' on soccer forum:Sense prevails as other side is opened! #FANSGRATEFUL @KimonTaliadoros @footballliam! #ps4nplvic #aleague #SMvOC pic.twitter.com/OcYYJhJuAu— Mike (@smfcmike) September 11, 2016
Surely at an event like this you invite people to either bid or tender for the placement of their food vans... For fuck's sake, Melbourne is the King of man bun wearing food vendors and even one other van would've made a world of difference.... A spit going with gyro would've made a difference...Apart from FFV losing a huge chunk of cash - the 'official' crowd of 4,211 would have been nowhere the real crowd number (perhaps only 80%) considering how many people were let in for free - but also a lot of goodwill, too. The large crowd - which included a fair amount of neutrals - at least put those in their place who, however jokingly, suggested that Kingston Heath or Broadmeadows would have been a more appropriate venue.
Now whether the match should have been played at a neutral venue is another matter - and Gus Tsolakis let FFV board members and staff know his opinion after the game - but underselling the importance of the grand final by playing it at second and third tier venues, with limited shelter, limited seating and poor viewing angles is the last thing we need.
But with most suitable venues - and there really are only three suitable venues, being AAMI Park, Lakeside and at a pinch Knights Stadium - needing to be booked in advance, what happens if they do step up and host the game at AAMI Park, and we have another game with two minnow teams in terms of support? People will be lining up to kick FFV for wasting everyone's money. And what if they played the game at Knights Stadium and the surface was stuffed?
Short of a marquee fixture like a combination of Knights-South-Heidelberg, Lakeside is on most occasions the most appropriate place to hold the NPL grand final. Seeing as that is the case, the point is then to not skimp on the extras when using the venue. Designed for crowds up to 10,000, it can comfortably hold 5,000+ plus patrons as long as you don't try to squeeze them into the space of 3,500.
Finally, the game is not played in the stands, or on paper, it is played on grass - and in Lakeside's case, a regulation sized field - which to be fair, may be alienating for sides that don't have grass or a regulation sized field. Quite where the advantage for South is supposed to come into it, I don't know. It's also true that Oakleigh has beaten us just once in our designated home games in the league and cup since 2006, including venues as disparate as Bob Jane Stadium, Lakeside Stadium, Northcote and Kingston Heath; but let's not forget, this is the club that once forfeited a game against us for spurious reasons.
Some brief thoughts on the atmosphere
Felt better last year, probably because last year's crowd was almost entirely South fans, whereas this year was much more mixed, with a healthy neutral attendance. I didn't like the fact that some people kept trying to start anti-Oakleigh chants - they were the underdog in this game, so why the reference to them choking? - and besides which, isn't it better if we try and support and pay attention to our team? There was a decent cheer for the Oakleigh goal, and the chanting from Clarendon Corner often had a disjointed, nervous quality to it, probably in reaction to the nature of the contest and the context of the season. But I prefer that compared to non-reactive monotonous chants that seem to have no connection to the game as it's being played out. Best chant was 'thanks for beating Bentleigh', which probably contradicts a point I made earlier within this paragraph, but at least it had a self-referential honesty to it.
There were the usual array of banners, including a couple of small throw over ones, but I liked this Super Mario one best, even if I think a Sonic the Hedgehog who is naturally blue would work better.
Next year Cacophonix!Nintendo inspired fence banners @ Clarendon Corner #PS4NPLVIC pic.twitter.com/CnmDJzPSVf— Steven Chang (@Gixibyte) September 11, 2016
Lucky me though
I had forgotten my media pass at home, but luckily Tony came by the pub with some complimentary tickets courtesy of his connection to St Albans Dinamo.
Post-game flare
Some folk were concerned that perhaps we could get fined for the flare that was ripped late in the affair in the north west corner of the ground (possibly thrown over the fence?), but my sources say that won't be the case.A bit of colour at the final whistle at Lakeside Stadium. #PS4NPLVIC #SMvOC pic.twitter.com/2ct27lridZ— Les Street (@official_lesdog) September 11, 2016
Media coverage - it was actually good!
In times past when our club mattered beyond the feelings of its own supporters, one of the great joys of winning a match was digesting the post-match news feeds. Of course over the past decade we have been starved of this joy, even following championship wins. This grand final however had what was for Victorian soccer some pretty decent mainstream coverage, especially after the fact. The oft-maligned (not least by South of the Border) Michael Lynch got in three pieces in The Age - one on the game itself, one on Jimmy Rooney medalist Marcus Schroen, and one with Chris Taylor about the staleness of the A-League and its recruiting. The Herald Sun's David Davutovic also got a report in on the game.
As for Neos Kosmos, their traditional early deadlines have seen them so far only put up a perfunctory summary in Greek online - one would expect more material in the Thursday print edition. I don't have a copy of the Neos Kosmos edition which reportedly had a photo of Clarendon Corner/South fans away at Oakleigh from earlier this season, which reportedly had the caption claiming they were Oakleigh fans.
There was also a live stream provided by FFV on Facebook, which managed to get about 1,000 viewers apparently. I don't know what the quality of the stream was like, but one complaint was it should have been in Youtube, like the NPL NSW grand final, which would have made it more accessible. A fair point, I reckon.
Gold Medal night round up
Last week we managed to pick up some awards. Matt Millar won the young player of the year award, Milos Lujic was officially presented with his golden boot prize, while Jimmy Armstrong was inducted into the FFV Hall of Fame. Nikola Roganovic missed out on goalkeeper of the year to Chris Oldfield, which I'm a bit surprised by.
Off-season schedule
That concludes South of the Border's usual in-season programming for 2016. Coming up is the now usual South of the Border off-season blog mode which will include:
- pointless awards post
- monthly digests
- occasional match reports from assorted quasi-random sporting fixtures
- hopefully an AGM
- news, if it exists, on the construction of the social club (starting 'soon', apparently)
- maybe an artefact segment here or there
- the odd book review (Alex Duric has a book out!)
- breaking news if it's important enough to consider as such.
Around the grounds
For whom the bell tolls
Headed out to Paisley Park for the final round of the state league season, and a relegation deciding match between Altona East and Cairnlea. East had the advantage in terms of ladder position and goal difference - Cairnlea would need to win by three goals to overtake East - and so this was if not quite a dead rubber, than one where the odds were heavily stacked in one team's favour. Unlike the usual state league procedure of people trying to scam their way into the ground for free, or pretend they're a concession holder or pensioner, or demand change back to the cent, most people seemed to be in a generous mood, happy to leave change behind as a donation to the club. Small South contingent in attendance as well, getting some 'inconsequential' football out of the way before our grand final, but also there to see ex-South junior and friend Anthony Giannopoulos strutting his stuff for East. The first half was pretty 'meh' to be honest, neither team able to offer much. In the second half a Giannopoulos pass inside set up East's first goal, and safety from relegation was secured. A second goal was merely icing on the cake. Long serving (albeit across multiple stints) Cairnlea captain Mustafa Mustafa (and let's not forget one time fringe South player) was chaired off the ground in his final game with a guard of honour, a nice gesture.
Relegation brings with it its own heartache, as does retirement. Avoiding relegation on the final day brings relief, but pretty soon leaves you wondering how you got yourself so deep into the mess in the first place.All Class! Guard of honour for our loyal captain @Musti_Mus. What a career. We will miss you #CairnleaArmy pic.twitter.com/1AfmMhQypp— Cairnlea FC (@CairnleaFC) September 10, 2016
The next to last final thought
Happy birthday to Tony Margaritis for yesterday. I think he got what he wanted.
Final thought
How much better are finals than first past the post?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)