Notes from the 2018 AGM

Another year, another overdue AGM.

Held in the social club on Thursday night, this one kicked off to a poor-to-middling turnout, depending on your point of view of 30-40 attendees. But since our quorum is apparently a mere 20 members for a meeting to be valid, we were in no danger of not having it go ahead.

This was president Leo Athanasakis' last AGM as president. During the meeting, he officially handed over the reigns over to Nick Maikousis. Gabrielle Giuliano is the new vice-president, and there were some new board members who will join the board following the AGM.

Bill Papastergiadis is chairman now, and unlike previous board members holding that role in recent years, he attempted and largely succeeded in ruling the evening with an iron fist. More on that later.

Of the two AGMs to be held on the night. the South Melbourne Hellas AGM was first, as is customary; and is also custom for these AGM reports, I will not report on everything as it happened, but rather group the varying matters by theme.

Financials
Taking into account that the data presented is now seven months out of date, our financial position seemed reasonably steady, but keep in mind that I'm no accountant. The club had a turnover of over $2 million, up from $1.8 million from the previous financial year. It was the first time the club's financial turnover has gone over $2 million since the NSL.

The club made a small surplus of about $10,000. The club claims that its debts have been reduced, and that it is making an effort to eradicate those debts as quickly as possible. Although there was an overall reduction in our debt levels, there was an increase in director loans. When it was asked from the floor whether these director loans would attract interest, the answer was 'no'. When I asked, only half-jokingly, whether there were actual paper contracts to make sure of this - to avoid a repeat of the Toumbourou affair from a few years ago - the answer was 'yes'.

The club earned about $110,000 from the Sydney FC FFA Cup game from 2017. It was noted that our former major sponsor, Luvarc - whose current operating state seems a bit iffy to this observer - does owe us money, and that we are seeking to recoup the owed monies.

The club's ongoing enterprise as a provider of school programs is providing what seems like a steady stream of income; in effect, we are diversifying the business, functioning in part as an education and training provider.

There was little discussion that I can recall - or at any rate, discussion that ended up in my notes - about other sources of income, including the use of the social club and futsal court. This was a bit strange, considering the outsourcing of the social and futsal court to an outside operator who was there on the night, as well as the hiring of the futsal court to the taekwondo people who've been using it for their elite training purposes, and who were again there later in the evening. Perhaps this will count for more in the next AGM.

In terms of our ongoing government stipend, there are eleven years left of the current funding arrangement, with approximately $2.5 million due to us at the present rate - keep in mind though, that the stipend is attached to CPI, and thus it will increase over the remainder of that time. It is worth noting - as was clarified by the board in response to a question from the floor -  that our Lakeside lease period is separate from our government income period. The stipend is counted as having begun before the lease agreement was put in place.

When the funding agreement comes to an end in eleven years, there will be the opportunity to renegotiate a new funding agreement, or to seek alternative pathways which were a little unclear to me in how they would operate - something about going to market. The fact that there was the possibility of this funding arrangement continuing was news to me, as I'd assumed that once the initial funding period was over, that would be it.

Governance
As noted earlier, this was Leo Athanasakis' last AGM as president before stepping down. There had been some suggestion among members of the hoi polloi that Athanasakis may have sought to remain on the board, but this is apparently not the case.

Tass Roufos and Peter Kokotis have joined the board. Roufos' company, Commercial and General, will be the club's major sponsor this season. It was also noted that Roufos' strength will be in networking and government liaison work. Peter Kokotis, a former general manager of the club, will be the (senior men's?) football director. In seeking clarification on an earlier press release on the matter, it was made clear that Kokotis is a director, and not an employee of the club.

Even if it was not explicitly stated on the night, much of what happened with regards to the relevant board changes seemed to be an attempt to show that an orderly transition of power had occurred between Leo and his successor. Even more subtly, there was an attempt to emphasise matters of culture and professionalism.

To that end, it was admitted that while on this occasion a late AGM was unavoidable - though why it was unavoidable was not explained - the board will be renewing efforts to hold AGMs in a more timely fashion. This was just one of a range of procedural matters of concern to some members; communication with members was another one, especially with regards to the lengths to which the club does (or doesn't) go in order to inform members of an AGM.

Now admittedly mass mail-outs are expensive, especially when you have ongoing issues with databases - another problem which is going to be solved, or so it has been claimed, again. And they are also problematic when long absent life members (of which we have many) have not updated their postal details, and thus much of the mail-out gets sent back return to sender".

There was some movement in terms of staff, with some old faces back in media and/or merchandise. The club has also hired a new full-time administrative kind of person. Technical director Strati Xynas is also moving on soon, so we will need to find someone for that role as well.

The next AGM will coincide with elections. As usual, it will be interesting to see if anything happens on this front; it usually doesn't.

Women's
Gabrielle Giuliano once again presented the women's report. Giuliano noted that while overall the women's wing of the club had done well in producing talent both for external sources and internally, the results of the various teams could've been better, and she set the very lofty ambition of wanting to win everything available in 2019. Giuliano also noted that the 'one club' process was still ongoing, as matters such as assets and such still had to be dealt with.

Perhaps most curiously, after a couple of years of taking a backseat during AGMs, Gabby put forward an unusually frank and forthright statement asking for respect for board members (and vice-versa), and that there needed to be a raising of behavioural standards across the board at the club; again, hinting towards the broader cultural change the board is seeking to implement. This statement was also coupled with a call-out for more volunteers from the members.

Youth
Andrew Mesourouni gave this presentation, which was just about his only contribution to the night's proceedings. This was unusual, as Andrew usually has a bit more to say on a variety of matters at an AGM.

The news that Mike Valkanis was working with us from overseas was a bit of a surprise when it was announced last year; at Thursday's meeting it was revealed that Valkanis approached us about working with him. There was some discussion about potentially facilitating the move of talented boys through Valkanis' Dutch connections. I wait to see what this will look like.

As usual, there was a reiteration of the standard desire and/or aim of having players coming through from our juniors to our the seniors, which we have historically not been good at.

Senior men's team
The board was upfront with the fact that it had chased John Anastasiadis hard for the senior men's coaching gig, and that Con Tangalakis was a gentleman in how he conducted himself during that time. Tangalakis will be on a three year deal with bonuses and renewal of his contract to be judged annually, based on predetermined KPIs.

Player wage costs will come down, but apparently that was not a priority when making our signings for 2019. Wage creep and bonuses had meant that the cost of the former squad crept up over a number of years; in some ways, this new squad is an attempt (again) at a refresh - new, younger talent, but also ridding ourselves of a player culture that had suffered significant deterioration. To emphasise again the attempt at a cultural change off field and on, it was noted that part of our recruitment was on players "of good character with good habits".

Another key word with regards to the senior squad was that it was going to be 'competitive'. When asked for a more explicit expectation - specifically whether the aim was to make finals - the answer was 'yes'.

Other observations
The two meetings went for about an hour and a half in total. The first meeting started only a little late, and the second meeting started before its listed start time of 8:00pm. We were more or less done by 7:45pm. I can't remember the last time that South Melbourne AGMs were over so quickly - there often even used to be an intermission for a smoke break, and the combined SMH and SMFC meetings could take three or more hours to complete.

Much of this was down to the control exerted over the meeting by chairman Bill Papastergiadis. Where in the past questions, comments, and comments posing as questions would fly freely from the floor, this time much of this phenomenon was nipped in the bud. This was done via calls to adhere to due process - in this case, there being no formal "other business of which due notice shall have been given".

While the chairman did acquiesce to a degree to allow some questioning, it's a signal to members of the club that they will need to be more organised and prepared to deal with a board that, at least on face-value, will seek to adhere more closely to "the rules". While woefully unprepared myself for such a shift in approach from the board, I was a bit surprised that members who were involved in off-site supporter meetings last year didn't have anything prepared for these AGMs.

That lack of preparation was reflective of a sort of defeated, lacklustre mood in the room on Thursday night. While some of the usual suspects did their thing, asking some good questions about governance, financials, and member communications, the feeling in the room was a largely subdued one. A disinterested and disillusioned membership is a not a good thing, and one of the key tasks for the revamped board will be to find ways to energise the membership base.

Things left largely unsaid
There was very little said about the A-League bid, except for two things. First, that the club would maintain a commitment to participation in a summer competition, whatever that means. Second, that Ross Pelligra - the would be major private investor of a South Melbourne A-League bid - had misspoken when he said in a recent interview that the club would be re-branded for acceptance into the A-League.

There was no discussion about plans for celebrating the club's 60th anniversary. There was little discussion about last year's issues with the senior men's team, apart from subtle references about culture. A question about what the difference was between a "director" and a "board member" - apparently everyone on the board is a director, when in the past that wasn't always the case - highlighted that even very basic elements of the club's organisation need to be clarified, especially if it has legal and regulatory ramifications.

Not that any of that matters

So, no A-League for South Melbourne.

Look, I'm not going to say "I told you so", mostly because I didn't tell anyone so, and we should all know by now that no one equivocates on South Melbourne Hellas matters more than me. That it was a long-shot would've been obvious to anyone who's followed the South Melbourne exodus saga these past 14 years, but exactly how long those odds were could only be tested by putting forward a bid. You've got to be in it to win it, otherwise people will always ask why you didn't even try. But there are at least a couple of journalists floating the idea that South was never even close to being seriously considered by FFA, which of course makes one think in a conspirational way.

In 2004, thanks to being in administration we were in no position to put our hand up to even try to apply for the inaugural A-League Melbourne licence. Since then there has been the Southern Cross bid, attempted buy-outs of Melbourne Heart, Central Coast Mariners, and Wellington Phoenix, and now this attempt to get in under our own name under our own steam, with some outside investment help. The funniest thing though is that each time we play the game, FFA gets something out of it. They get to push up a licence fee, force a minority shareholder to go the whole hog, or put pressure on an existing franchise that they don't really want to sort itself out. They can put forward the illusion of a contest, a fair process, or engagement with 'old soccer'. So we play the game, because we feel that we must, but it's not our game.

So we're still left out in the cold. Only the people directly involved with the bid know how good it actually was. Most South supporters are left to do as they always do, which is speculate based on what limited information we've been made privy to, and then filter that through our preexisting prejudices.

Speaking with one former board member way back when about our chances in this bidding round, they acknowledged that the real value lay in information gathering. That pragmatism wasn't something reflected in the way the bid was presented to the public or to the broader South Melbourne family, but maybe this reconnaissance can be taken to the next bid, or perhaps more realistically, to the push for the second division and promotion relegation. Granted, I'm not a believer in the viability of promotion and relegation in Australian soccer (though I'm more cautious on a standalone second division, a discussion for another day) but there are people who do believe in those ideas. Considering the effort put in to this bid - an effort more than a few South fans consider was expended to the detriment of the core business of the club - it would seem negligent to cast aside the value of that information and experience.

Then again, there's also an argument being made that the expansion course taken by FFA this week makes promotion and relegation less likely to happen in the short term. I have said that part of the reason that FFA decided to take up the expansion course was due to the pressure which came from outside the A-League, namely the Association of Australian Football Clubs, who managed to bring matters to a head. Part of the game then became who would be able to shape Australian soccer in their own image fastest. While all reports suggest that the AAFC are still aiming for a 2020 start to their national second tier competition, FFA's particular choices in expansion are designed to further entrench the existing ownership and operating model. And while there will be changes to the latter when the A-League achieves its independence from FFA next year, it's basically more of the same of what's 'worked' lately for FFA: growth corridors, lots of cash, rejection of small markets.

To be fair, FFA had a difficult choice to make under difficult circumstances, albeit some of those difficult circumstances were of their own making. They have a league that has the feeling of stagnation, disgruntled licence holders who have lost millions propping up their teams and the league, and a television audience that seems all but maxed out. They don't want to expand, because they cannot afford to; yet they cannot afford to not expand. Under pressure from fans, extant licence holders, player unions, broadcasters, and myriad other groups, FFA were offered a dozen or so choices for expansion, all flawed in one way or another, all encompassing some degree of risk.

It was fairly obvious that in the context of Australian soccer's culture wars, our bid was a risky proposition for FFA. Not much has changed on that front for more than decade. But on another front, picking South would've been a conservative, risk-averse decision for FFA to make. An imperfect but nevertheless extant stadium; a supporter base with finite potential for broad engagement and growth, but nevertheless a supporter base that was somewhat tangible; the inclusion of a club that offered something familiar, and yet with also enough of a point of difference so as to add something new to the A-League.

But if people think that the two successful bids - Western Melbourne Group, and MacArthur South-West Sydney - are absurd, illogical choices, destined to fail - let us never forget that famous old mantra which haunts the rhetoric of the 'bitters' even more so than "No South, No A.P.L.", that being "three years tops". The goalposts for the A-League's imminent demise keep moving, but the league keeps going. And maybe these new teams will succeed, proving everyone on our side of the fence wrong again.

Only a few will ever know for sure why the South bid was rejected, and the circumstances in which that happened. At some point our bid team will be briefed by FFA on the process; maybe FFA will tell the truth, or only a part of it. It could just be a case of, in the words of the AAFC on their own second tier model, "what may be good for football may not be good for your club". I doubt that we pleb supporters will ever find out the reasons, which means that rampant rumour-mongering will continue much as it already has during the process. Let us not forget the refrain from some people that Team 11 had it in the bag, that Southern Expansion's largesse would see them through despite their absurdity of their three home ground bid, or that Brisbane City would get it for Queensland derby-metric purposes.

More than every other failed attempt to re-join the top-flight, this failure sees South Melbourne at a significant crossroads. Ideologically, does the club at last abandon its plans to work within the system for its own progress? If so, does it throw its weight more openly and wholeheartedly towards the second division and promotion-relegation push? Structurally, what does the next board of South Melbourne look like? With long-serving president Leo Athanasakis set to retire from the board and the presidency - and under whose leadership this return to the top-flight strategy has been enacted - will his successor make a clean break with this approach?

And will A-League bid chairman and Hellas board member Bill Papastergiadis stick around? Initially brought in to sort out the contractual mess with regards to our leases at Lakeside, Bill stuck around to try and achieve something many of us dream of even while we doubt its plausibility. It's required non-stop politicking, but now that that's over, what is his role?

The reaction from South fans on social media has been a mix of disappointment and anger, with more than a dash of the sort of squawking, entitled petulance that's straight out of 2004/05 era TWGF. In its naked, shameless display of raw emotion, much of that outpouring of grief has been hard to look at directly; it has a pathetic quality, both in the sense that one might feel pity and sympathy, but equally in the alternative definition of something miserably inadequate. It hasn't been helped by our failure resulting in all the anti-South trolls coming out to play.

Remember that four of the other bids in the final six didn't even exist as actual teams, being scarcely more than concepts no-one really asked for. Their existence was entirely conditional on winning an A-League licence - and thus the only 'fans' making serious arguments online for or against something were either 'neutrals', or Canberrans and South fans. And the vociferous nature of some of our fans on social media, along with the PR stunts and boasting of our own bid leader, made us an easy target for ridicule and scorn.

(and as I and others have previously noted, there's a certain irony in South board members imploring our supporters to not embarrass the club with poor behaviour during games this year, when the bid team's antics arguably did as much if not more harm to our reputation, and the behaviour of some of our fans on social media made us look simultaneously arrogant and desperate)

But if nothing else, FFA's decision at least put to bed the value of those clickbait internet polls which benefited only the ad revenues of those news agencies running the surveys, showing the importance of Australian soccer's social media argle-bargle to the game's decision makers being close to zero. As I noted two years ago:

The discussions around the future of Australian soccer which take place online are very niche discussions. Within those discussions there even more niche discussions, which while promoted with quantifiable passion, make no ripple whatsoever on the greater whole of Australian soccer. Promotion/relegation, second division, NCIP, the NYL - like those people who keep making petitions to bring back Toobs or the KFC tower burger - their enthusiasm and its attendant clamour more often than not obscure the fact that there are not actually very many of them: it's just that they're louder.

The episode on Facebook with the Greek Orthodox priest from Moonee Ponds was the most farcical point, encapsulating the most crucial problem of this saga - and not just the last two years, but the past 15. We go back to a bit from an older post:

In time the greatest betrayal of the ethnic clubs, if one can use such a provocative term, comes not from their own or the governing bodies' incompetences, nor the disinterest of the general public who had no obligation to follow them, but from those younger supporters who turned their back on their fathers’ clubs.

It's not just the young people of course. The broader point is that if we actually had the support we claimed to have - or that we used to have - we probably wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. If we had 2,000 people turning up to games instead of 200, the quality and vitality of our optics and our metrics would all be harder to ignore, or to treat as a fabrication.

It's worth revisiting this point for an interesting micro-phenomenon which has taken place during the immediate aftermath of this failed A-League bid. There have been current and/or latent South people vowing to give up their A-League season tickets and come back to South. This sounds grand, magnificent, like the beginning of a movement which could make Hellas great again. Even more appealingly, it's a positive move, not just more useless complaining, but actually doing something for the betterment of South Melbourne.

Except human history is littered with short bursts of mass penance after a disaster, most of which never lasts. I'm reminded of Agathias' comments on part of the aftermath of the devastating Constantinople earthquake of 557,

Agathias also claimed there was a short-lived effect on the attitude of the population: the wealthy were motivated to charity, doubters were motivated to pray, and the vicious were motivated to virtue, all in an apparent effort of propitiation. Agathias reports that soon enough everyone lapsed into their former attitudes.

So while we all hope that people come back to South, and stick with South, the reality is that the numbers will likely be small, and most of those returnees unlikely to be permanent. It's going to be a massive challenge for the club to appeal to people to come and support it, or to continue to support it, when so much hope was invested in the A-League bid and the promise of a brighter tomorrow, and soon. Instead we're back to another season of NPL, our 60th anniversary season set to be spent crossing from industrial back-block to fringe suburban paddock, alternating that with our presence at a boutique stadium which we are destined never to fill again, except on very special occasions.

As the dust settles on this latest attempt at regaining our former glory,  these are the things that matter.

Cruising

FIXTURE THIS!
The 2019 NPL senior men's fixture came out some time last week. There was some good news for South fans: we're guaranteed* 3.5 home league matches in the first half of the season, an increase of half a home game on 2018's offering. The uncertainty factor comes from South being unable to say exactly when or where its round seven home against Green Gully will be played. 

But at least we get a home game early on this time around, a round two affair against Dandenong City. Not sure why a round one home game couldn't have also been fixtured considering our traditional grand prix and athletics affiliated home ground access issues, but I'm sure there's a really good reason for it not happening; there always is. 

In terms of what the other clubs are doing, it's more of the same for the most part. Kingston are sticking with Monday nights. Most other clubs are going for Friday or Saturday nights, while Gully seem to have considered their Friday night experiment a bust, and are going back to Saturday afternoons. The recently promoted Dandenong City and Altona Magic are doing Friday nights and Saturday nights respectively. By comparison, our club's persistence with Sunday afternoon kickoff is the height of civilised quaintness.

As usual, I've written up our fixture on the blog. It's probably chock full of mistakes, but what are you going to do about it? Go to another website there and get the info from there? You think by doing that you'll be both better informed, and crash the blog's advertising yield? Well you'd be wrong on both counts, but whatever, it's your life.

*not a guarantee

No friendly - Maybe friendly - Future friendly
An article posted to the Greek section of the Neos Kosmos website said that we were due to play a pre-season friendly at Lakeside last Saturday afternoon against Geelong. Lucky for me I asked the club on Twitter whether this was actually happening (in a manner of speaking), and they quickly replied with no; my subsequent mail is that Geelong cancelled some days before the friendly was due, and that for whatever reason that info didn't make it to the person responsible for the article. These things happen.

The same article says we're going to play Moreland City at Lakeside on Wednesday evening, but geez, you'd want to check your local guides for confirmation of such, because you might want to go check out the Shaft/Super Fly double feature at the Astor instead.

In a different Neos Kosmos article, also in Greek, we have what may be considered confirmation that we'll be visiting West Adelaide in February as part of our pre-season preparations. The game will also be the official opening of West Adelaide's new facility, which looks pretty snazzy.

I listened to the new iteration of South Radio so you didn't have to even though you probably did anyway
Keep in mind that this is me commenting on this matter as a long time listener of many kinds of radio, including being a reasonably dedicated listener of the previous version of South Radio, and certainly not me commentating as a radio industry veteran of four episodes of my own show co-hosted on the same network. In summary:

• It's slicker than the previous version of South Radio, which was to be expected, especially when you have George Donikian dominating or directing proceedings.
• Related to this, the show had the kind of awkward banter that comes with making a show that's basically a pilot episode going out to a much larger potential audience than the old show would have done. Thus the 'banter' was affected by no longer being informed by the pre-existing friendships that the former South Radio cast had - and that includes this audience member being 'in' on many of the in-jokes - and which was also a way for members of the then South media team to let their professional guards down.
• There was quite a bit of content dedicated to the A-League bid, but nothing new. After having been promised at a members' meeting during the season itself that there would be more information revealed to the public as the various deadlines approached, nothing happened. Bill Papastergiadis suggested again during this show that they would release more information. I'll believe it when I see it, not that any of that matters.
• There was quite a bit on the culture and history of the club and how great it is.
• There was a little bit on the powerchair team, which I would like to hear more of in future. 
• There was nothing that I can recall on new signings or any such things.
• There was an obligatory shout out to South of the Border. I thank David Henning for recognising this blog's ongoing importance to... something. Shall we call it sublime-pettiness? Arch-contrarianism? You-can't-handle-the-truth-ism? But I must admit, it was nice to reminisce about the social club's official opening in 2017, and the geekiest cutting of a ceremonial ribbon anyone could think of, back when I was still if not friends with certain people, than at least on friendly terms. Ah, that's where this blog's importance lies: adolescent woe-is-me-ism! 

Over time I expect the show to become less stilted, and even if the shadow of the club's oversight will always be there, I imagine I'll be listening in most weeks. Someone close to these things suggested to me that I call in during a show, to which I demonstrated the likely outcome should I choose to do so.

Speaking of South and FNR, tomorrow night from around 6:30 there'll be an A-League bid special. 

Join us from 6.30pm on Monday night for an FNR #ALeague Expansion Special!

Representatives from Team11 and South Melbourne will be in studio, while the interstate bids will join us over the phone.

Call on (03) 9944 9999 or send us a tweet with questions to any of our bidders. pic.twitter.com/FY0PJEZzDP

— Football Nation Radio (@FNR_Radio) December 2, 2018

The Western Melbourne/Region/Universe bid people won't be there, but it might be worth a listen anyway, just in case someone says something mildly interesting. It could happen.

2019 SMFC senior squad roster as of 2/12/2018
Not much news this week on the signings front. Backup keeper Rory Brian has signed at Preston in State League 1 North-West.

Signed

• Dean Bereveskos (Bonnyrigg White Eagles)
• Kristian Konstantinidis (signed until end of 2019)
• Nick Krousoratis (Green Gully)
• Perry Lambropoulos (Port Melbourne)
• Brad Norton (signed until end of 2019)
• Gerrie Sylaidos (Northcote)

Seen hanging around pre-season training

• Luke Adams
• Manny Aguek
• Alistair Bray
• Ben Djiba
• George Howard
• Giordano Marafioti
• Giuseppe Marafioti
• Jake Marshall
• Leigh Minopoulos
• Nikola Roganovic
• Tim Mala

Holiday in Cambodia (It's tough, kid, but it's life)

• Marcus Schroen 

Rumoured

• Visa player no. 1 (English striker)
• Visa player no. 2 (Canadian midfielder)

Out

• Rory Brian (Preston)
• Matthew Foschini (Oakleigh)
• Christos Intzidis (who knows)
• Milos Lujic (Oakleigh)
• Oliver Minatel (who knows)

Unknown / MIA / Assumed dead from 2018

• Josh Hodes
• Iqi Jawadi
• Ndumba Makeche
• Andrew Mesourouni
• Will Orford

Not ideal - South Melbourne 1 Heidelberg United 3

Got there early enough to buy a burger and watch the women's curtain raiser. Within ten minutes it was 3-0 to South, and the game was as good as done. It was only 4-0 at the break, but after having chatted with people throughout the first half, I'd decided I'd seen enough. It's not the fault of our women's team, it's just that there are so many uncompetitive teams in their league. Besides, you can't buy gin and tonics in the booze tent outside the social club, and I was hoping someone would have the good sense to put on the women's game that was being streamed on Facebook on the screen inside the social club. No dice, but at least they won 7-0.

Onto the men's game, about which I had no grand expectations, hoping at best for a draw. Other relevant results across the weekend were mixed, and Kingston were beating the Knights, so even in there were good vibes in the stand from a bigger than normal crowd and the feeling that this was a game we could win, did anyone think we could actually win this game? Our recent results had been good, but our form doing so was sketchier than we'd perhaps like to admit, even if the attitude and morale had clearly improved.

Playing with a gale force wind in the first half certainly helped us, but to be fair, we also actually looked as good as we have for long time. We looked to open up, we looked good in moving the ball up the field, and kept the Bergers to a minimum of chances. There was that one moment where Nikola Roganovic had to make a good low save, but apart from that we had taken the game up to the best team in the league, and looked good in doing so.

That we took the lead was a joyous but also a deserved thing, Marcus Schroen finishing some actually pretty good lead up play. But then Pep Marafioti squandered two great chances to put us up by two or three goals at the break, and playing against a superior opponent, with the wind at their backs, and having probably withstood the best of what we could throw at them, I didn't feel great about our chances of getting win, and even a draw wasn't something I'd have bet on.

That's not to blame Pep, he's scored some nice goals since he came to us, and he helped set up Schroen's goal, but he should've buried at least one of those chances, certainly at least got them on target. As it was, it didn't take long for us to concede in the second half, and then when the second one went in... I don't like to say we were cooked then and there, but the odds were so stacked against us I couldn't see it happening. The third goal was the killer, obviously, and while we battled to the end there's no complaining about the merits of the result - although I would like to see if Heidelberg's second goal was scored by a player in an offside position.

Despite being a less than ideal result, especially when coupled with some of the week's other results, the performance and the attitude that spurred it on were pleasing, and something which I hope can be carried into the final games of the season. We may not be able to play with so much freedom in those games which are pretty much six-pointers, but it's reassuring to know that the squad will fight it out to the death if need be, though we all hope it doesn't come to that of course.

The loss and our performance and attitude were only half the story of the game though. What was at first pantomime hostility and humour gradually built up into something much more stupid. It began with Clarendon Corner taking the piss out of players falling over or being fouled and staying down - including South players - by chanting "call it off", in reference to the last time these two teams met, a match aborted due to the Bergers' Harry Noon suffering a serious injury courtesy of his collision with a corner flag. It's the kind of thing that's funny only because Noon has made a stunning recovery from the injury, and to a lesser extent also his excellent run of personal form.

When the Bergers scored their goals, while briefly acknowledging their own rather quiet support on the right hand side of the grandstand, Noon (among others) decided to direct to flip the bird towards Clarendon Corner on more than one occasion, including the double bird. Some have argued that  he should have just kept it as a "shush" gesture, or nothing at all, but for what's it's worth I'm not offended by the gesture though I get how others were. For mine, it was so childish, and so... haven't we seen this kind of thing directed at us so many times before by opposition players?

You can say that players should act more professionally, and they should seeing as they are professionals, but it's also in its own cack-headed way a compliment to South fans that these guys would rather turn their attention towards us rather than their own fans. That's understandable in cases where players are representing teams in this league with no fans, especially no travelling support, but the Bergers scored all their goals at the end where their supporters were, and yet their attention was still on us, and that we are to some extent living rent free in their heads.

Still, whatever the feelings between ourselves and opposition players, one thing that is interesting is that opposition players continue to get away with deliberately trying to incite South supporters. Again, we should be used to it by now, but Noon's double bird crossed a different line. So much noise is made about abuse and players showing proper decorum on the field, to the point where even bouncing a ball hard into the turf after a foul has gone against you can lead to a yellow card. So why no punishment here? Players have been yellow carded (and sent off because of those yellow cards) for all sorts of nonsense conducted during goal celebrations; would not such flagrant and repeated offensive behaviour warrant at least a caution from the officials?

Who knows to be honest, and I was pretty much over it even as it was happening. It prompted the tone of Clarendon Corner's chanting to go a bit lower, including reminding Noon that his injury was self-inflicted. All of that contributed to some unsavoury scenes at the end of the game on the other side of the players race (and well away from Clarendon Corner), where who knows what was happening, and who knows who was inciting who. All I could tell from my vantage point was that security had moved in, and competing chants occasionally broke out from supporters, and that this lasted for about ten minutes. Then the situation calmed down enough as people went home, or back into the social club, and I'm none the wiser for what actually did happen, leaving me to speculate wildly that George Katsakis (who was in the stands, having been suspended for several games following an incident in the recent Dockerty Cup final) and his consumption of one too many cans of Red Bull (for an excitable person like him even one can being probably one too many) had something to with it. But as I've noted, that's just wild speculation on my part.

All I can hope is that by the next time we play each other - in just a few weeks time when we replay the aborted fixture from the earlier in the season - that everyone comes back to their senses a little bit, and there's no repeat or worse of what happened on Sunday. Also, that we win, because that would also be good.

Next game
Green Gully away on Friday night. Freezy fun for the whole family.

Relegation/survival prognostication, very much still an ongoing concern and not likely to be put to bed this week
There was marginal good news and a lot more bad news on the relegation scrap front this week. The good news? Bulleen, Northcote, and Green Gully all lost. That means Bulleen remain ten points behind us with just four games to play, meaning it is highly unlikely they'll be catching up to us. So I think we can safely say we won't be finishing last in 2018, unless someone gets us docked points for some reason, but let's not dwell on that possibility just yet. Northcote's result sees them remain seven points behind us, and while not without the chance to make up the difference, you'd like to think that they wouldn't be able to catch up to us.

So putting our cautious optimist caps on, the worst we could finish is in 12th, aka the relegation playoff spot. And on that front, last week was not a good round for us. For starters, we lost. Then there's the fact that Kingston beat the Knights, closing the gap to us from four points to one. Hume also snagged a late equaliser against Thunder to earn a draw - incidentally Thunder's first draw for 2018 - and closed the gap to us from three points to two. So the four point buffer we had between ourselves and the playoff spot is now just two, and that dreaded nauseous feeling is back again after a solitary week where we could feel just a little better about our situation.

These results, and Gully's free fall in form and/or results (which sees them level on points with us, but behind on goal difference), means that the next two weeks for us are huge. It's Gully this week, and Kingston next. Picking up four points from these two games would be good, six points even better obviously, but failing to win either of them would be not good at all.

Tribunal tribulations
So, yes, we did end up at the tribunal for the stupid, stupid, stupid melee that took place in the game against Northcote. How did this happen, after the incident was already apparently dealt with some weeks ago? Well, the original report was compiled by the referee, and since that painted a relatively benign picture of the whole affair, with George Howard getting three weeks for his part in the affair, cut down to two for a guilty plea. But then FFV was apparently given several pieces of footage, so that the issue was brought to the tribunal.

In the end, we were fortunate to get away with a small fine for the club and a suspension for Giordano Marafioti. So how did we get off relatively lightly? My understanding of it is as follows. First, by the sheer dumb luck that Marafioti had an Access All Areas pass by virtue of being a senior/under 20s player. Second, by the incident taking place on the running track, and not the field of play (though who knows if that was actually taken into account). Third, as noted in the tribunal notice itself, that South had imposed its own five match suspension on Marafioti immediately following the incident, to which FFV has added two more games. Lastly, by the video itself (as provided by SMFC TV), showing no clear evidences of punches being thrown by anyone, and thus putting this incident at the lower end of the violent incident scale.

It has been noted that FFV are apparently seeking to clamp down on corralling of the referee by players, as well as melee push and shove nonsense. This is good of course, as long as it is applied consistently too many clubs have been getting away with these kinds of antics.

Trumpet troubles
Every year it seems that someone from the State Sport Centres Trust tries to get the trumpet or drums banned from Lakeside. Now admittedly, neither is brought out often these days, but yesterday was a special occasion if not for the fact of the derby itself, than for the fact that Clarendon Corner's only know competent trumpeter Bruno was in attendance; Bruno living quite a distance from Melbourne these days, the trumpet doesn't get as much of a workout as we'd like, which might mean someone else will have to go and learn the basics.

Anyway, the famous trumpet sound was played, and then security rocked up to tell us that the drum was fine, but the trumpet was not. To be fair to security, they were very good at explaining themselves and the situation, and eventually what happened is what always seems to happen in these situations - a board member, in this case as per usual Tony Margaritis, goes up to the SSCT booth, lays down the law/calmly explains the situation and the important cultural heritage underpinning the use of the trumpet, and everything is right again with the world and we move on.

Until the next time it happens, I suppose.

A-League bid info night meeting thingamabob 
Last Thursday there was an information session for South supporters - and I suppose anyone else that wished to turn up, because it wasn't like there was a door bitch checking memberships - to let people know some more detail about the club's A-League bid. Those in attendance, about 40 people, were treated to just over an hour of South Melbourne board member and A-League bid team leader Bill Papastergiadis giving a presentation on various aspects of the bid, reading from the bid book while slides were put up on the social club's projector.

Papastergiadis did not want to be quoted on specific elements of the presentation, but the truth of the matter is that there was little new information provided. That doesn't mean that I'm unappreciative of the gesture to hold the meeting, but for those expecting something revelatory to emerge from the meeting, they would've been left disappointed. It also means I'm comfortable writing about what was said on the night, because it was as much about how it was said as what was said.

We got what Papastergiadis believed were the selling points of the bid. Among these were the club's history, not as something to be deferred to as some sort of token gesture or PR guff, but as evidence of the club's success and the fact that it has survived as an ongoing concern; in other words, the club has a longstanding continuity. This was backed up by testimonials and references provided within the bid book by past and present players of the club. For the present, this included male and female players, emphasising the club's commitment to gender equity, as well as its commitment to youth development, with the revelation (if one were to use that term) that the club currently has sixty scholarship places for youth players.

I was less comfortable about our claims regarding Socceroos produced, and I will continue to blanch at those claims; but I suppose when the Southern Expansion bid makes historic claims to Socceroos, we look almost cute doing it by comparison; at least all those players we list played for us, and many of them played for the Socceroos while they were at South Melbourne even if they were not our own juniors. Still, like the internet popularity polls, much of this stuff is about optics rather than objective reality. At least, that's what I hope.

But as Papastergiadis noted, this bid wouldn't have a chance if not for the stadium and our ongoing lease. The stadium's mere existence is our foot in the door; without it we'd be nothing. To summarise points on the night and which have made here and elsewhere often enough, Lakeside Stadium exists (#ItExists) whereas the stadiums the other Melbourne bids wish to use are just "artist's conceptions" at this point in time. The deal we have at Lakeside means that we will apparently be able to pull profits on crowds much lower than what current A-League teams do at their stadiums. The point was also made that while we already have good public transport connections to the ground, these will only be improved once the Metro Tunnel is completed; again, this is a project which is currently under construction, as opposed to the planned but still almost hypothetical future stations on the Regional Rail Link line.

However, it is worth noting a few things in regards to these matters. While the club claims it has bipartisan political support, it's not like the other Melbourne bids don't have their own supporters within government (and opposition) ranks. Likewise, just because we may believe that either side of politics would be unwilling to fund a Dandenong stadium, or rush through planning approvals for the Western Melbourne group's Tarneit idea, it doesn't mean that they won't change their minds. In the same vein of thought, the idea that we're at an advantage because governments now prefer centrally located stadiums is tempered by the idea that the state government spent money on refurbishing a Ballarat football oval so that Footscray could play three games a year there.

Again, it all comes down to points I've made here before. The FFA's choice will be between boutique options (whether in Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, or Wollongong) or big dream options (Southern Expansion, Dandenong, Western Melbourne). In our case, there is a also a counterintuitive scenario which has revealed itself: for so long South Melbourne Hellas has been judged to be a risky proposition, and yet if the numbers stack up, and FFA's need is such that it needs a bid that's likely to provide the full package (stadium, women's, youth, etc) sooner rather than much later, then all of a sudden we look like a much more reasonable and agreeable proposition than we have for a long time, especially when compared to bids which have a lot more unknowns surrounding them.

I know I'm hammering away at the same point but it does seem to be that simple: FFA making a decision between "what is" and "what might be". That gives us advantages in some regards, but the flip side of that is that if we screw up in some way, these are screw ups which can only happen to us because we exist and the others do not. Thus the FFA Cup semi-final last season was, whether anyone liked it or not, a trial run for what a South Melbourne match day might look like on the big stage. It was an opportunity to show what we can do, to learn about higher end FFA match requirements, and a chance for us to screw up.

There was no information provided on who the private backers of the South Melbourne bid are, nor was there any public commitment to a specific ownership/partnership model. There was reiteration that it would be in effect a public/private arrangement, but supporters would have already figured this out long ago, because there is no way that a member-owned soccer club in Australia can finance an A-League team on its own. There was no information provided on what an A-League licence would ultimately cost. There was no information provided to those in the room on potential branding, colours or a name, except to say that so far in this bid process the club has been unashamed to use current logos and the name South Melbourne in its pitch to the FFA and Deloitte.

There was acknowledgement also of the FFA's current Congress crisis, and what effect that might have on the process, an effect that is unknowable. That admission solidified the sometimes Rumsfeldian feeling coming from Papastergiadis during his presentation. As much as the bid team (and the club as a whole) has sought to cover as many bases as possible, there is still so much that is unknowable and intangible until those things manifest themselves; in our case, whenever the FFA take

So given that there was not much new information provided, what was new and interesting about the night - to me at least - was seeing Papastergiadis in pre-prepared lawyer mode; not forced to ad lib or provide those infamous sound bites. Here he was in his element, creating a narrative for the club's bid, and reiterating the same points throughout the night in different ways. He also did the political stuff well, paying credit to those who had come before, both prior custodians of the club as well as those who had worked on previous A-League bids. The point was made by Bill on the night, as it has been made to me in private on other occasions by others, that though the club has failed to win an A-League licence up until this point, it has nevertheless learned much from each attempt to do so; not just about the political obstacles which need to be overcome, but also about the operational and financial requirements needed for participating at the highest level.

In that sense, as much as the club clearly wants to succeed in achieving its goal of returning to top-flight Australian soccer through this bid, not winning is not a complete waste of time as it would be for most of the other bids. This is because the reconnaissance made from each sortie is something that can be used for either a future attempt at entering the A-League, or at the very least in preparation for a second division should that ever get up and running.

Finally, Papastergiadis did note that there would be some more announcements made by the club soon, so we wait for those moments. Discussions with Deloitte, FFA, government, backers, and all sorts of bodies are ongoing. Not that any of that matters.

Statue of Swans champion Bob Skilton outside what used to be the Lake Oval.
Photo: Paul Mavroudis. 

Bob Skilton statue
There's now a Bob Skilton statue outside Lakeside Stadium, pretty much right outside our front office. Speaking of the office, there's now Sydney Swans branding out the front wall which seems to indicate that they have an equal presence to us at Lakeside, so that's reassuring. Or I suppose we could look at the positives of being considered as having equal cultural footing with one of this nation's more successful sporting brands.

True story - when I moved into my Sunshine West residence a touch over three years ago, I found a small amount of Swans memorabilia left behind into a built-in wardrobe, which included a card of some sort signed by Skilton. I sold all of it on eBay, and probably spent the proceeds at Hellas; either that, or squandered it.

There's probably some foot traffic or aesthetic or grand prix related reason why the statue couldn't be placed in front of the 1926 stand, but that's the least of my concerns here. Anyway, what's fun to do is stand on the statue's plinth and realise how short footy players were back in the day, before clubs started recruiting former basketballers for every position; though I suppose we have to take into account that Skilton was a rover. Just watch out for Skilton's left boot as you walk past the statue - I'm shocked at how something that in these OH&S and public liability times that something like that could be positioned as it is.

Now, who's going to stump up the cash and grease the political wheels for an Ange Postecoglou statue outside the ground? And do we want skinny player Ange, bad 90s tracksuit assistant coach Ange, Ange, suit wearing coach Ange, or sweaty coaching the Socceroos in the Persian Gulf Ange?

The intangible quality of Saturday afternoon mid-winter Melbourne light
 makes some people reach for the thesaurus to describe its beauty.
Me, I can take it or leave it. It's nice I guess. Photo: Paul Mavroudis.

Around the grounds
No profundity to be found here
Decided against going to the footy on a Saturday arvo, instead spending the money which would've ended up in the cost of a reserved seat and the privilege of printing my ticket at home on gate entry and a souv at Altona East instead. East are stumbling erratically towards the season's end, safe from relegation (probably), safe from any threat of promotion, occasionally picking up the odd surprise win, just as likely to drop points with mediocre performances. That's still a lot better than the doomed Diamond Valley United, who had yet to win a game after sixteen rounds. That Valley's reserves also lost 4-1 in the curtain raiser didn't bode well for an exciting or even contest in the seniors. And yet for the first 50 minutes or so, these teams provided enough entertainment to justify attending and not wishing nuclear holocaust on everyone. Valley created a couple of great chances in the first half, and East had the better of play, a disallowed goal, and enough momentum to suggest that they were the likelier to score. East created two great chances within the first minute of the second half. Then the game deteriorated by degrees, players got tired, coaches got frustrated, and the game increasingly had 0-0 written all over it, and I had my keys in my hand and was almost to my car by the time referee ended a game which promised nothing and ended up delivering, 

Final thought

Undisputed highlight of @smfc A-League bid member info night. pic.twitter.com/TrJe2YApGO

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) July 26, 2018

Highway to Hell - South Melbourne 0 Green Gully 3

Someone at last Sunday's game compared the season so far to a car crash, which I thought was an incredibly morbid idea.

It's also an incredibly wrong one. After all, the car hasn't crashed yet. All that's happened is that someone's kicked the driver out of the car, taken his keys, and started careening down the freeway weaving in and out of traffic. Now it's starting to get wet, which means the tyres on the car haven't had time to adjust to the newfound slickness of the road. Oh, and as we're getting closer to winter, daylight is getting in shorter supply, and because we play home games which finish up close to dusk, visibility is becoming an issue. But we haven't decided yet to drive on the wrong side of the road and climbing over the median strip, and we're still some way (and a willing partner) short of initiating a drag race which will see us plunge off Dead Man's Curve into the ravine below culminating in our fiery deaths.

So, to say that this is a car crash of a season is wrong. It's a car crash waiting to happen, and we're doing our best to make it happen, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't enjoy the ride - wherever it ends up.

The reasonable question that has been asked is with Milos Lujic suspended and soon to go on holidays, and Leigh Minopoulos and Giordano Marafioti injured, where are the goals going to come from until such time as we can get a striker in during the transfer window? The same people ask - perhaps genuinely, perhaps mischievously - why doesn't the club just use the next available 20s striker? It's almost comically ironic that the player in question just happens to be the progeny of the director of which so much potentially libellous innuendo has been spread. Even funnier that on Sunday in the 20s game, that the player scored a couple of goals.

But as it was, we continued to rely on the three pronged attack of Oliver Minatel, Andy Brennan, and Matthew Millar. OK, we know Minatel isn't a forward, and we know that cruel as it may sound, everyone at the ground has given up on Millar scoring goals - though we'll be overjoyed for him and for the club if he does. But Brennan is a different prospect. For whatever reason, he hasn't been able to put it together this season. There's fitness issues to be sure. But clearly there's also mental stuff. How else to explain the four or so clear-cut, harder-to-miss-than-score chances that he wasted in the first half?

Rather than going in to half time a solid and very fair three goals up, we went into halftime at 0-0, and the signs and premonitions were ominous. We'd likely have a couple of good chances early in the second half, probably fail to take them, than concede some stupid goal which consign us to defeat. And that's exactly what happened. Those first half misses by Millar and Brennan kept Gully in the game, a game we weren't playing particularly well in, but which we were nevertheless doing better than our higher ranked opposition.

Having failed to take our chances, the eventual mistake came in the form of a careless penalty. Jake Marshall fouled his opponent in a part of the 18 yard box and in such a situation where it didn't seem like there would be much danger or need to tackle his opponent. But he did, Gully scored the penalty, and though we persisted in trying to get back into the game, the game was done. The second and third goals conceded were icing on the cake, one of them infuriating and demoralising in equal measure because the low cross to the unmarked player at the back post was so simple, and yet something that we ourselves have botched time and time again.

Of course it got worse than the final 3-0 scoreline. Brad Norton got a yellow card for being injured in a tackle by an opponent; well, I don't see what else it could've been for. Oh, and coach Sasa Kolman got himself sent into the stands for the second time this season. At least in that he's been able to match one of the feats of his predecessor, who was sent to the stands twice in 2016. Prior to his dismissal Kolman could be seen desperately trying to motivate our players, probably trying to remind them to pick up their energy levels and to "pass and move" as per what I saw at their Wednesday training session before the senior women's cup game.

The greatest proof of our hopelessness was a corner we received in the second half. First of all, it clearly wasn't a corner; the ball probably didn't even reach the byline. Then we took it short, which never works for us, but here it almost did, except that despite executing it as best as we have for a long time, it still didn't work. And thus we're in the early 2013 phase, where we're going to comfort ourselves with the Gus Tsolakis mantra of that era "that one of these weeks we're going to absolutely batter a team".

It was little comfort then, and less comfort now, but there's still a transfer window coming up, and time to turn things around. But that's just my view, that of the perennial optimist.

New things
Another week, and more novel things to distract us from whats happening on the field. First up, it looks like there's new people in the kitchen. I'm giving them time to get themselves in order, but I reckon avoid the spanakopita, which lacks any semblance of salt or saltiness, which is absolutely essential to a good spanakopita. Anyone doubting my credentials on these matters, I'm happy to relay them in excruciating detail at a game near you.

Strangely, one beer in the social not available on tap was Carlton Draught, but I'm sure that'll get rectified. There was also no ice cream truck, but there was a loukoumades truck, which sadly because it took so damn long to set up I was not able to make use of.

In the stand there were new people, which rather than something we as South fans will celebrate we will find a way to be suspicious of. Not without good reason, mind you. These were young guys, dressed in casual gear, Melbourne City supporters invited over by the remnants of the Enosi group. Described like that, is it any wonder people were having flashbacks to when the Victory affiliated kids hung around and then caused all sorts of shit?

I don't want to tar these guys with the same brush, and on Sunday they livened the atmosphere a bit - even their rendition of the "schizophrenia" mosh was too rigorous for security - without causing any problems. But their mates who've invited them should make sure to remind them of a few things. First, no flares. Second, to ditch the casual "clobber". Third, that Clarendon Corner is casual in only one sense, in that it is incredibly slack about chanting, banners, organisation, and sometimes even paying attention to the game.

So to the boys who joined us last week and may or may not choose to continue coming to South games, remember that the goal is to take the game seriously, but not take ourselves seriously. Or something. One of the Clarendon Corner's elder statesmen relayed to me his wife's thoughts on what CC is: basically the soccer equivalent of the Lost Dogs Home. In other words, a bunch of scruffy, sad, yappy individuals who aren't looking for any trouble.

Next game
Kingston away on Monday night.

Rescheduling of abandoned Heidelberg fixture
The round 9 match - which was abandoned due to Heidelberg player Harry Noon's corner flag induced injury - will be replayed in full on Sunday August 19th.

Taylor to Oakleigh, at last
After apparently helping out at Green Gully for a bit, Chris Taylor has ended up at Oakleigh as their new coach. Gus Tsolakis must be sick of losing his job to CT by now. Taylor's been joined by his assistant Chris Marshall, and the third part of that former South coaching contingent, goalkeeping coach Bojo Jevdevic.

These things happen. *shrugs shoulders*

But just like the last time Taylor got a job at Tsolakis' expense, there's rumours of movement at the station, this time at our fine establishment, with three or four of players apparently looking to move across to Oakleigh. Some people are also claiming that there could be some players heading the other way if this happens, which makes the upcoming transfer window even more important than it already was.

Still, if this happens, I'm looking forward to how all this is handled given that we have players under contract, and indeed went to great lengths to get all our players (or at the least those considered worthwhile) under contract before we ditched Taylor.

Anyway, back to Oakleigh for a minute. Given that our results this season have been much closer to ratshit than glorious, it's probably not worth taking the time to take the piss out of Oakleigh's current predicament. Besides which, they're two from two under Taylor, so compared to us they're flying. Still, when they post stuff like this:

The club has utmost faith that the new coaching staff will succeed in attaining results commensurate with the clubs history and expectations

— Oakleigh Cannons FC (@oakcannonsfc) April 27, 2018

Even a non-betting man like myself is thinking about putting a cheeky tenner on Oakleigh finishing as runner up, bridesmaid finishes being that club's speciality.

Scent of blood
The other week came the revelation that South Melbourne was one of a number A-League aspirants which had approached Wellington Phoenix to buy out the Phoenix's A-League licence. From our end, it seems that about a year ago the club had negotiated with Phoenix for purchasing a 25% stake, providing women's and youth teams, and playing some games in Melbourne. The two parties however failed to proceed further than those early discussions, and the matter came to an end.

Following that news however, there has been a renewal of interest in the current state of the Phoenix licence, and to a lesser degree South Melbourne's designs to acquire it. That renewal of general interest in Wellington's ultimate fate as an A-League location is tied to longer term issues: should there be an New Zealand team in Australian soccer? What will the A-League look like when its make up is finally "complete"? What will even be the structure of Australian soccer as a whole once the necessary FIFA reforms are applied?

For Wellington's part, none of this is being helped by delayed and then unconvincing denials by their owners that their licence is for sale. And even if one were to believe them, remember this: in August 2013, Melbourne Heart's then Director of Football, John Didulica, claimed on radio that Heart were not for sale; just a few months later, Melbourne Heart were bought out by the City group.

Another article in The Age on the Wellington matter this week noted that South was again seeking to talk to Phoenix about a deal. This was followed up by a piece on The World Game (ostensibly about Brisbane Strikers' interest in buying Phoenix), which included some information on the nature of the negotiations between ourselves and Phoenix. This includes the fact that Wellington originally approached South to try and offload 25% of its licence for $1.5 million, with board member and head of the South Melbourne for A-League bid team Bill Papastergiadis noting that:

"The enticement for us was to play the youth league and women’s league in Melbourne full-time with our colours, but still having some form of the Wellington brand."

More broadly however, there remains an infuriating vagueness about even elementary details of what a South Melbourne team in the A-League would look like. For example, while Papastergiadis said this in the The Age article:

"South Melbourne and our blue strip is our name, our history and our brand, and that's what we are going to be wherever we play."

It's not much different to what was said a couple of years ago when we kicked off this latest attempt at getting into the A-League. Still, when Papastergiadis says:

"we have not only past examples of record crowds but also recent evidence from our FFA semi-final against Sydney which rated 56,000 on Fox Football"

it's reassuring that Michael Lynch pushes back even just a bit on these kinds of claims by noting:

Whether fans tuned in to watch South or the A-League champions that night is a matter for debate

Of course in the grand scheme of things, it's still a far cry from the rigorous examination that every Australian soccer journalist should be applying to every A-League bid. But it's a start.

What we can say with some certainty as outside observers is that the market rate for the Phoenix licence seems to be $6 million, which is well below the over $10 million recently paid for the Adelaide United franchise by mystery overseas investors. Less certain is how any team seeking to buy out the Phoenix outright would get around the issue of the apparent geographical clauses in the Phoenix licence which ties that licence to New Zealand, though one can easily posit that that if FFA were amenable to it, that they could change the rules pretty easily.

Less certain, also, is whether Wellington's owners want to sell their team outright, or work on a finding a partnership solution. There's also no clarity on whether a team taking out the Wellington licence and transferring it to Australia would be guaranteed the Phoenix's share of the television rights; this is important, because talk is that the two expansion sides for A-League season 2019/20 will have to survive - at least in the short term - without such funding.

Further uncertainty was caused by Wellington Phoenix eventually issuing a passionate/ranting press release, more or less accusing a lot of people of lying, and of wanting to feed on the not-quite-yet existent Phoenix corpse. Which, to be fair, is their right to do so, I suppose, but I will say this: days of silence, followed by mealy-mouthed media mumblings, followed by backs-to-the-wall bravado a whole week after all this started, is hardly a clever PR game. Not that any of that matters, of course.

Winning and losing, in that order
Last Wednesday night the senior women strutted their stuff in the TeamApp Cup against Bulleen. They'd beaten Bulleen at Lakeside in the league the previous Saturday, and fielded a strong side in this one. Maybe too strong, as we'll soon see. There was also a members/dine with the players night, though I think only a handful of the saddest cases turned up for that; otherwise, the crowd was mostly made up of members of the junior girls teams, and their parents.

There were no corner flags on kickoff, but the game progressed anyway, and you kinda wondered why we bother with them. If we need to have a corner marker, might we better off switching to rugby league style short padded posts? Anyway, eventually some corner flags turned up, and no one thought about corner flags again for the rest of the evening, and hopefully ever again.

There was no Lisa De Vanna - she sat on the bench - but we didn't need her. We were the dominant team, and cruised to a 3-0 victory and into the next round against Greater Geelong Galaxy. Except that we didn't! We played an ineligble player - probably someone that was already cup tied - and had the result reversed. For a tournament that we didn't apparently care that much about, we sure when tout of oru way to do well and then completely botch it.

As disappointing as it was for all who were genuinely concerned by this shambles of bookkeeping practice, it was bizarre that some people who don't even care about women's soccer, nay, are just as likely to be actively hostile to women's soccer, saw this as an opportunity to feign indignation about the forfeit. Probably no accident that there's some crossover in that demographic of people who are caning the board for Chris Taylor's sacking when they spent the last few years wanting Taylor sacked.

More genuinely disappointing is the news that women's coach Socrates Nicolaides will be resigning from his post and heading back to the United States for family reasons. Soc was not only successful, but he also seemed to really care about the welfare of the players under his command, and seemed like one of the better people at the club. Oh well, an opportunity for someone else to carry on his good work.

Launch of Andrew Howe's Socceroos encyclopaedia 
Australian soccer statistician and historian Andrew Howe will soon be travelling around the country to launch his new Socceroos encyclopaedia. The venue for his Melbourne event? Our very own South Melbourne Hellas social club. The launch will be on Tuesday May 29th, from 5:30-7:00, and you can register here to attend.

Don't forget also that the PFA history conference is on Tuesday May 15th, also in the social club.

Around the grounds
Mucho delusions of grandeur
Last Saturday I ventured, alone, by car(!), to Scovell Reserve in Maidstone for Maidstone United vs Kensington City. Parts of the Liberal Party are debating bringing back corporal punishment for crimes; I reckon they could save themselves a lot of money and a lot of time battling civil rights lawyers in court by revising their plan and making them watch State League 5 - extra punishment is to stand behind the goals and focus on the goalkeeping. Three times from set pieces Maidstone dumped the ball into the six yard box, and the Kensington keeper just watched it get cleaned up by an opponent for a goal. Then there's the players who take the ball from their own teammates. Best of all was when the visitors had a free kick, and all of a sudden there was much frantic yelling of instructors from the bench and the few supporters present like they were audience members of a Spanish language Price is Right. Here's where it gets really stupid though: I was informed afterwards that some of the Kensington people thought I was a spy, because I was by myself and on my phone a lot. Now, in the unlikely event those boys are reading this post, I'm going to lay it out very clearly:

1. I was on my phone doing occasional Twitter updates, and keeping tabs on footy scores.
2. You're going to have to play much better than you do right now to be worth spying on.

Oh, Maidstone won the game 5-2, in a canter.

Final thought
Think of it this way: if Sasa Kolman's South Melbourne coaching stint ends badly, based on Oakleigh's recent coach hiring history, Kolman's still at worst a 50/50 chance of eventually getting the gig at Oakleigh.

Temporary gratitude - Hume City 0 South Melbourne 1

If we must thank anyone for the win, let's thank Darby Dexter. The defender had signed for us during the off-season, but was let go in mysterious circumstances before a ball had been kicked in anger, his only contribution to the club seemingly being sharing some of the finger food on offer at the 2017 South Melbourne Christmas party.

Ending up at Hume, even those few who had paid attention to him during his time at South would have forgotten all about him. But it was two of his interventions in this match which more than anything else helped us get over the line for just our second win of the season. First, his poor pass into the middle of the field resulted in a turnover, which lead to our goal.

Later, he fouled Matthew Millar from behind as Millar was running in on goal, and Dexter got himself sent off. At least some South fans would've asked themselves of that play, knowing Millar's shooting to be notoriously poor, was it worth Dexter fouling him, instead of just letting him shoot and miss?

The beneficiaries of those decisions were South Melbourne as a whole - except perhaps the directors who had to fork out a win bonus to the players for the first time in months - and Oliver Minatel in particular. Minatel has been worse than underwhelming in his time at South, and that's when he hasn't been sidelined by injury. Still, he has two goals now for the season, and the match winner here was a tad more legitimate than his rushed behind attempt against Oakleigh.

Following Dexter's turnover, the team sped up the field to make the most of the chance, On the byline, the ball was played back a bit behind Minatel, who lunged desperately with an outstretched boot which on replay looked like it would have at best snuck in at the far post. In the real world and in real time though, it struck a Hume defender and wrong-footed Hume keeper Michael Weier, and proved to be the fittingly decisive moment in a game which lacked much in the way of quality.

Both teams came into this match in rubbish form, just one win apiece in the league, sitting uncomfortably close to the relegation zone. The win means South gets a little bit of breathing space from the relegation scrap, and finds itself in seventh place, two points behind sixth placed Port Melbourne. The loss for Hume means they sink down to the automatic relegation slots.

So if Minatel's goal celebration was a bit over the top for a deflected goal, it was excusable on the grounds that the team has been having a rough trot in form and results in 2018, the players as frustrated as much as anyone else at the club. Ugly as the game was at times, and as much as some would wish we had an ounce of Minatel's luck with the goal in our earlier FFA Cup fixture against Hume, sometimes you've got to be grateful for the things you have.

This is especially so considering we had no strikers within cooee of Broadmeadows on Saturday night, and might not have one for several weeks to come. As we've noted before, under 20s striker Giordano Marafioti is out for the season; Leigh Minopoulos was out injured, and could miss at least another couple of games; and Milos Lujic has four more weeks of his five game suspension to serve, and that's not counting the talk around the internet terraces that he's going overseas for the World Cup in June.

You've got to be grateful as well when we lost Brad Norton to concussion within the first two minutes, and later had to endure bad foul after bad foul for most of the rest of the game. And you've to be grateful for the three points when despite being a goal up and a man up, the team tried to commit footballing seppuku by giving away half a dozen fouls in the defensive half of the ground in the last five minutes. Thankfully nothing came of any of those chances, mostly because of unusually poor delivery by Nick Hegarty, and once because of the crossbar.

Other than the win, the best thing about the night was no repeat of the hired goons nonsense from the FFA Cup game.

Next game
Heidelberg away on Saturday night.

Paywall Paradise
From this Herald Sun piece about Wellington Phoenix's woes - which even I can't access now, because it's been pay-walled - I have to say the following bit of info just leapt off the screen.

South Melbourne also made a play to buy Wellington 11 months ago before talks broke down with the former NSL champions reluctant to pursue a hybrid model. 

Negotiations centred on buying a 25 per cent stake for $1.5 million with games split between Wellington and Lakeside Stadium while South would have fielded W-League and youth teams.

“We had preliminary, forthright discussions with Wellington about what South Melbourne could offer, especially regards to bringing a W-League and youth league component,’’ bid chairman Bill Papastergiadis said.

This is not the first time South Melbourne has considered both a buyout of an A-League team and a hybrid ownership-dual location model. Apart from a couple of attempts to buy out the then Melbourne Heart licence, there was also the noted attempt to purchase at least some of the Central Coast Mariners, a deal which would have involved the mind-boggling arrangement of splitting games between Gosford and Lakeside.

The attempted purchase some of the Phoenix licence looks to be an attempt to get our foot in the A-League door via getting women's and youth teams in first, while at the same time trying to get a foothold into the competition via the most vulnerable of the extant A-League licences. I have my doubts that FFA would've allowed something like this to take place, and I also have doubts about exactly what it is that actually took place in these meetings, because I don't really trust anything that Bill Papastergiadis has to say about anything to do with our attempts to get into the A-League.

This is even more the case when the ordinary South Melbourne Hellas member is the last to find out about such shenanigans; but then again, aren't we the last to know about lots of things these days? Even if nothing came of the attempt, it would have been nice to know that an attempt had been made. It would also have been nice to know who was going to stump up the $1.5 million to purchase the 25% state in Phoenix.

Anyway, though the relevant article is pay-walled, it appears that we weren't the only parties currently bidding for an A-League licence to have a stab at the Phoenix licence, with the Southern Expansion bid exploring options on that front. I suppose it's all a bit moot for the time being anyway, as there is now actually a really real bidding process under way, which even if we don't succeed at, will still give us the chance to get our hands on some materials that will make it clearer what it is that FFA expects of its A-League licence holders. Not that any of that matters.

For the benefit of the skips/Football Federation South Melbourne Hellas
While I was watching a state league game yesterday, my attention was drawn to this tweet:

@PerthGloryFC CEO, Peter Filopolous to take up new position as head of FFV? Translations for us skips please? pic.twitter.com/XaE3rKQbYN

— The Far Post Perth (@Farpostperth) April 21, 2018

The gist of this small article by Elias Donoudis is that according to "strong sources", current Perth Glory CEO Peter Filopoulos is going to become CEO (or possibly general manager) of FFV. The rest of the article just says that Peter is pictured with his mate Manny Kotis, that Peter was formerly general manager at South Melbourne, and that there'll be more in this story in the next edition of Neos Kosmos.

Of course, considering that Filopoulos was general manager at South Melbourne during the 1990s, a period of time in which Donoudis still cared about Hellas, "strong sources" could very well mean Filopoulos told Donoudis himself about this latest career change. In any event, the rumour mill didn;t even get a chance to go into overdrive, and FFV announced Filopoulos' appointment as FFV CEO this morning.

Not that one doubts Filopoulos' professionalism and qualifications, but it's funny amid the hand-wringing from some South fans about alleged back room politics at FFV by other clubs, that we now have the roles of FFV president and CEO occupied by persons once involved as front office staff at South Melbourne.

Then again, as Donoudis will tell you, that was a different South Melbourne to the one that exists now, and so any possibility of conflicts of interest or future examples of favouritism can be batted away with that fact.

Puskas film
I was pleased to see that the official South Twitter account finally got around to promoting this project's call for photos and footage.

Photos & video wanted! A documentary is being made about Ferenc Puskas’ @smfc years and the producers are chasing photos, home video & favourite stories of the legend. They are also after general @smfc photos/video from Middle Park, esp. 1991 era. Contact @byTonyWilson pic.twitter.com/p8x0nMYeIW

— South Melbourne FC (@smfc) April 20, 2018

That tweet seems to have already paid dividends, with one Andrew Pirchan noting that he has materials which could be useful. Now for the club to put the call-out for stuff onto the Facebook page...

Around the grounds
Really slumming it
On Friday night I dithered - twice! - as to whether to go Knights Stadium, and finally decided to stay in instead and watch Batman. Put up the question early on Saturday to Gains as to whether to go Newmarket Reserve before the Hume game, and got the answer in the affirmative, rationalised on my part by the fact that the ground was only 600 metres or so from Newmarket station on the Cragieburn line, and this convenient enough to get from Point B to Point C. The game was the State League 5 West fixture between Kensington City and Keilor Wolves, the kind of game one attends as a neutral because either a mate is involved or the food is good; in this case, both being true. Thank goodness for the $6 chorizo rolls, because the football (and the beer) was pretty ordinary. I wasn't expecting miracles from Kensington, but Keilor I thought would put up a better show. At least there were plenty of goals. Kensington took the lead early, conceded the equaliser within 30 seconds, and coughed one up just before halftime to trail at the break. After the break Keilor came out a bit more switched on, Kensington a bit less, and three quick goals later it was 5-1 and the game was dead in the water. Goal of the day was the last kick of the game, a Kensington player launching a shot from halfway, over the Wolves goalkeeper who'd got himself stranded after a poor clearing kick. The shot bounced and rose, threatening to go over the crossbar, but ending up tucked just underneath. Then it was off to Broadmeadows.

Final thought
Google changed the Blogger dashboard's default date format to that nonsensical mm/dd/yyyy format and I lost my mind for several hours afterwards.