Fuck Everything - South Melbourne 1 Northcote City 1

The whole night was fucked. The refereeing was fucked. The linespeople were fucked. Security was fucked. The ground announcer was fucked - we don't need AFL progress scores, the VPL ones will do thank you very much. Our first twenty minutes or so was completely fucked, under the pump and sending ball flying forward more in hope than in the enforcement of an actual plan. Milos Lujic was fucked when he could have easily let him teammate get the ball instead of himself, and therefore getting pinned for offside. Brad Norton was fucked for giving that attempted pass off to Gavalas which caused us to fall behind. Even our goal was fucked, not for being achieved at all, but because when we had a chance soon after to hit a corner into the exact same spot at the back post, Nicky Soolsma hit it towards the near post. I made a complete pork chop of myself yesterday, so fuck me as well. Port's win against Dandenong was fucked. Oakleigh dying completely in the arse is fucked. This whole season has been fucked. And who knew it could get even more fucked?

Doing The Maths
Now, what could have been much more a case of destiny in our own hands is now a case of not only us needing to win, but being reliant on other results going our way as well. This it how stands now.

With our draw last night, and Port's win, the highest we can finish is fifth. Hume's loss to the Knights today ends their slim chance of making the finals, barring some absolutely freakish results, which now that certain things have happened (see below) are unlikely to occur.

So, our only competition for that remaining finals spot is Green Gully. Currently, we're one point ahead of them, and a two goal better goal difference. However, Green Gully have a game in hand, which they will play midweek. It's against Oakleigh, who out of the finals race for some time now, have seemingly well and truly put the cue in the rack.

Gully's last game is at home against the similarly out of the running Dandenong Thunder, who also have little to gain from their remaining matches. Meanwhile our game against Port is against an opponent with a theoretical though highly unlikely chance of getting the double chance.

So here's how it's panned out.

• If Gully wins both games, we're stuffed even if we win our last game.
• If Gully wins one game and draws the other, then we need to win on Sunday and rely on goal difference.
• If Gully draws both of their games, then a draw of our own will be enough.
• One draw and one loss to Gully means we can even afford to lose, as long as it's not a heavy loss.
• Two losses to Gully (unlikely, I know) and we don't have to do squat.

Things will of course be much clearer after Wednesday night. But now there's also this to consider...

Dodgy Asian Betting (via Backpackistan)
By now you've all surely come across the Southern Stars match fixing fiasco, in which several of their players and their coach have been arrested.

Will this mean that Southern Stars will be expelled from the league, with all their results rendered null and void (i.e. 3-0 losses)? Without anything to go on other than a hunch, I doubt it. Imagine the can of worms that would open, considering that the parties concerned have yet to face their day in court - and no decision either on whether Stars' committee had any involvement and/or knowledge about this affair, or whether it only was limited to playing and coaching personnel.

I hope for our sake that none of our players - either those with us at the moment, or those who departed during the season - have had anything to do with these shenanigans. But there are people that are suggesting that this is the tip of the iceberg. Wait and see I suppose.

Then again, the FFV have come out with their own statement, claiming that along with the FFA, they "will finalise appropriate action to be taken against Southern Stars Football Club over the coming days" and that they "are currently assessing any implications associated with the 2013 VPL finals series and will make an announcement tomorrow."

Steve From Broady's Under 21s Report
As the game was played at 4:00 rather than 6:00, and our intrepid reporter couldn't manage to get out to Lakeside that early, his match report is based on what was relayed to him later on by someone else.

South Melbourne's under 21s played top of the table Northcote City on Saturday afternoon. Northcote were three points away from the championship and South were trying to avoid the wooden spoon (for fuck's sake, bit of an exaggeration there or what - Ed) . Northcote City kicked off and dominated from the get go, creating great chances and after half an hour they took the lead and it wasn't long after that that Northcote scored again to make it 2-0, and it stayed like that until half time. Northcote dominated the second half but didn't add to the score - it finished 2-0 to Northcote, who were crowned champions for the 2013 season.

Steve From Broady's Canteen Report
It was the last visit to the South food van for 2013 on Saturday night. The souv was wrapped in foil this week for the first time - maybe this was due to the cup game against Preston when my souv fell to shit and ended up on the athletics track? My souv on Saturday night was good, but it still was short of perfection. I give the final souv of 2013 at Lakeside an 8 out of 10. Hopefully next season South have there own social club and can take the food up a notch to an epic 10 out of 10. Next week we go to Port Melbourne on the last day of the season, with the Port canteen a chance to get a 10 - it should be an epic end to the VPL food championship, until then get a parma into ya!!!!!

1. Pascoe Vale 10/10
2. Melbourne Knights 9.9/10
3. Oakleigh Cannons 9.5/10
4. Hume City 8/10
5. Bentleigh Greens 7/10
6. Richmond 6.5/10
7. Northcote City 3.5/10
8. Southern Stars 2/10
9. Green Gully 1/10
10. Dandenong DQ 

South food truck

• Week 1 - 4.5/10
• Week 2 - 7/10
• Week 3 - 8.5/10
• Week 4 - 5/10
• Week 5 - 5.5/10
• Week 6 - 9/10
• Week 7 - 6/10
• Week 8 - 7.5/10
• Week 9 - 8/10
• Week 10 - 9/10
• Week 11 - 8/10

Final Average Score

• 7/10

Next Week
Minor shades of 2011 with a pretty fucked up last round of the home and away season game against Port Melbourne, at Port Melbourne. The prize if we win, and if  results fall our way? Fifth place and an elimination final against... Port Melbourne, at Port Melbourne.

Around the Grounds
A pretty fucked up finish to the Altona East - Keilor Park game yesterday. After falling behind to a brilliant free kick, East equalised with a powerful and well placed header. Then they got one of the most fucked up penalties I've ever seen - seriously, the entire crowd was laughing at it - which Andy Bourakis scored, before Keilor got what looked like another fucked up penalty for handball very late in the game (which they converted), making me think that it was square up for the earlier fuck up.

Final Thought
How shit were we that we couldn't even beat a team that was allegedly match fixing?

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times

Let's see what happened over the last week or so.

• The Dockerty State Wide Knockout Cup was played, and won by Green Gully over Dandenong Thunder. Gully were presented with the State Wide Knockout Dockerty Cup for doing so. Confused? Why should you be confused by the actions of an organisation which has promoted an A-League team's special junior membership season ticket offer more than it did for one of its own showpiece events for the season.
• Speaking of the A-League, old mate Patrick Kisnorbo has ended up at Melbourne Heart. You may recall that in this article that we reported how someone else reported that Kisnorbo wanted a lot of money. Bleed them dry, Patty.
• When I went to go on the Victory forum to see them gloating with their usual 'yoof!' catch cry (or to do it first myself), it turned out their forum had been hacked. What's the future for that site? I don't know. I hardly visited there any more, all the debates that were worth having (in a manner of speaking) were sorted out a long time ago, in everyone's else's favour, of course.
• More Syson vs Lynch hysterics on Twitter last week, which lasted for a good 3-4 days this time, as people dropped in and out before eventually getting bored. Bloggers from all over the place, fellow Fairfax hacks, people who hate Ian Syson (and there's a lot of those on the net it seems) - just who didn't get sucked into that vortex of stupidity? Incidentally, this latest edition of their feud was kicked off by Lynch's paranoid response to a Bonita Mersiades tweet. Was anything solved or sorted out? I don't know. Things got so absurd at one stage that I was even dubbed 'the nation's most under-appreciated football writer' in Joe Gorman's rather good article on the matter, and 'a funny man and if only he could be tamed he'd be a great columnist' by another writer. It lead to a moderate boost in my Twitter following, which was good for my ego I guess.
• Elias Donoudis blathered on more about the shadowy (yet full of morally upright Hellatzides) group looking to take over the board, without saying much at all.
• Bob Jane T-Marts is back on board as a sponsor.
• I went and saw Altona East beat Westgate 2-0 in a catch up game. Ex-South player Andy Bourakis scored one of the goals, a first minute penalty.
• Ex-South junior Peter Skapetis has apparently pledged his future to Australia.
• Back to the FFV for a moment, some of the zone reps have apparently called for an EGM to get rid of the current board.
• In addition to that, the NPL keeps on keeping on, but some people at Bulleen aren't so happy about their club's direction. They're looking to get their own special meeting thing going, if the link is correct.

So all in all, a pretty quiet week in Victorian soccer. This week, back to the horror that is the real world of actual on field South Melbourne action.

Andrew Bourakis joins Perth SC

Former South midfielder Andy Bourakis - who through no fault of his own will be forever remembered at the guy that got hit by a flare against the Victory - has joined WA side Perth SC (aka Perth Italia). Thanks to Mildura Vasili for that info.

Like tenpins

More players added to the season ending injury list. Already with Yusef, Diaco, Curtis, Natsioulas, and Kelly out for the year, now Andy Bourakis and Tony La Verde are also out with serious knee injuries. While all the injured players would no doubt be disappointed, for La Verde it comes at an especially inopportune time, as he was on the verge of being selected for Melbourne Victory's youth team. South of the Border wishes all of them all the best in their recovery.

While you were sleeping, part 2.

2007

* During the pre-season, South defeats Oakleigh in the Hellenic Cup final on penalties, triggering the most half-arsed pitch invasion in history.

* Also during the pre-season, a young Dutch defender named Jasper Valentijn makes his mark, and is never seen again except in the annals of myspace.

* A highly professional membership drive (by VPL standards) is enacted, but despite the effort, the membership numbers remain essentially the same.

* A press-release is er, released, signifying South's intention of making a bid for the A-League. Lots of people get very excited, and hell, even optimistic.

* South gets off to a reasonable start, but poor squad management (everyone knew those players were going to leave for the A-League) coupled with a goalkeeping crisis, leads to some very inconsistent results, from which the side never truly recovers.

* Owing to a foofoorah between certain people at the Australian Open tennis and Water Polo championships, South decides to play its home match with the Melbourne Knights behind closed doors. The FFV says no. The Police have it both ways. The FFA looks the other way. South lose, as the game is never played, and the three points are awarded to the Knights, using some sort of FFV logic.

* A breakaway faction from the Clarendon Corner supporters group, calling itself Gate 1, forms.

* Despite playing pretty crappy football throughout the tournament, Australia almost in spite of itself, almost reaches the semi-finals of the 2007 Asian Cup.

* Halfway through the season South hosts the Melbourne Victory in a pre-season warm up match for the latter, and gets spanked 5-1, with Nathan Caldwell scoring for South. But the game will be remembered more for the large crowd (7,000), the large amount of flares ripped by the visiting fans, with one hitting fringe South player Andrew Bourakis in the head, and the argle-bargle which essentially lead to the dissolution of Gate 1, and which also earnt them the nickname, 'gate one game'. The optimism of the press-release dies a lonely death.

* South struggles to score for the rest of the season, except for a brilliant 5-2 thrashing of Oakleigh.

* South's finals chances come to a dispiriting end at Ralph Reserve against Western Suburbs, losing 3-0. A 2-0 win against Kingston in the last round follows, but no one really gives a toss.

* A bit of a clean out starts taking place.

* Some people, for reasons perhaps known only to themselves, start peddling the notion that 'big things' are in store for the club.

* In a rather strange coincidence, the club's coterie group is renamed Southern Cross, the same name as an alleged bid of the second Melbourne A-League license.

* South starts off preparation for season 2008 proper by winning two meaningless games against Altona Magic and Coburg United with a bunch of nobodies who still got to live one of my dreams by playing for South.