Deflated - Port Melbourne 4 South Melbourne 0

No Michael Eagar, who would be out for two weeks with a knee injury received against Bulleen on the Monday night. No Brad Norton, who pulled up sore from the Bulleen game. Tim Mala out of action, too, not sure why. An underdone Kristian Konstantinidis in at right back, uitlity Liam McCormack at left back, and Carl Piergianni at centre back. Then we got kicked out of the far side of the ground by security man Arthur Akritidis, and things only went further downhill from there.

(And yes, as a media pass holder I could have stayed there, but that's not the point is it? Why are patrons barred from what is the best viewing spot at this ground? It's not like they don't have security there. It's not like other clubs stop people from going next to and behind the benches. )

Forgive me if I don't pontificate in my usual way about tactics - being behind the goals we were nominally attacking in both halves was not ideal for either where the interesting things happened, let alone my sub-par vision staring into the darkness.

The first goal we conceded, it seemed like no one bothered to mark anyone either on the wings for the crosses, or for the man sitting by himself in the six yard box. Then there was the chance they had where they somehow headed the ball down into the turf and over the bar.

What did we offer in return in the first half? A lot of possession, but zero penetration. Crosses which missed Milos Lujic, and because of the way we play, no one else was there to make a difference. Oh, and we called for handball a million times, hoping for the ref would bail us out.

Second half, and we let Andreas Govas do the thing that Andreas Govas does better than anyone in the league, namely launch a bomb from distance. Why or how he was allowed to have that much room is anyone's guess.

The rest of the game has become a blur. They scored twice more and hit the crossbar, while we switched things around personnel wise for little improvement. Trying to walk the ball in is a problem, no support for Lujic is a problem, bad crossing is a problem - and yet none of these are new problems.

Getting done over by a team half made up of South discards and rejects - Alan Kearney, James Karvelis, Francesco Stella, Andreas Govas - was the cream of the humiliation cake. Getting done over 4-0 by a team that had reputedly not even had a shot on target the week before was the cherry on top of the cream of the humiliation cake.

Just one slightly fortunate point from our opening two games, against opponents predicted to be nowhere near finals contention. Not much of worth to hold onto from this game in particular. It'd be easy to get hysterical, but as it was the whole experience was so deflating that there was nothing worthwhile getting angry about. Also, it's only round two, so you know, things might get better.

Or they might get worse, and wouldn't we all look foolish for getting carried away now instead of then?

Next game
Avondale Heights at Somers Street on Saturday night.

Dear Sir and/or Madam (I am not a crackpot)
I am disappointed - nay, disgusted - with the decision by persons at FFV to no longer produce an online NPL and NPL 2 video highlights package.

The original move to create such a highlights package and make it accessible via youtube was to me one of the smarter things the FFV's media department had done in recent memory. Each week, most of the previous round's action, usually watchable, was condensed into a ten minute or so package crammed with goals and incident from beginning to end.

But now it seems that approach was far too convenient for the audience. Now Savvas and Dave and I and all the other dateless wonders who pay attention to this miserable competition will have to trawl through the internet each week, looking for each NPL club's highlights individually, except for the A-League youth teams' games, because I don't see their participation in the NPL as valid.

Others meanwhile are angry that South is no longer screening its SMFC TV programme on the pay television community channel Aurora. Frankly, I reckon that decision is long overdue. If you wanted to put something on in the more obscure part of the media, that's where it was.

When SMFC TV was on Channel 31, which is accessible by nearly everyone with a television, it made perfect sense. Now I understand why the show was moved - Channel 31's digital licence was set to expire (and is hanging on for grim life). In addition to that, South had not only invested a fair chunk of money but also much ideological currency into the idea that this venture was an important part of the club's (modern) public face.

But what kind of public face can you have when you pick the most obscure corner of television on which to promote your product? Yes the internet is a bottomless chasm of information sources and competing ideas, but its inefficiencies in this case are so superior to Aurora.

Despite the pay TV industry itself having successfully manufactured the idea in the wider public sphere that everyone has pay television, the reality is that Australia's subscription television uptake is only about 30% of households.

And while I'm (perpetually) annoyed at the way FFV and South have used the stats from FFV's Facebook live stream against Bulleen, one can still note that those kinds of ventures have a greater chance of reaching existing and new audiences than most of the alternatives.

I'm more aghast that the club has stopped providing full length editions of South Radio, now breaking it up into bite size segments. This move totally misses the point of what made South Radio listenable - rather than the overly slick production values of the rest of our media efforts, the podcast had a looser, more personable feel.

I'm not saying it was great, but part of its charm - perhaps even the main thing I liked - was that the long-form version of South Radio was everything they don't teach people at media school.

Which, if I'm being honest, is seeing things through my moderately lo-fi aesthetic lens. But that's part of this blog's charm, too, no?

Frozen Tears news!
I don't know when, but apparently Jon Powers of Frozen Tears has remastered Frozen Tears' 'South Melbourne' song. Wasn't it fine the four different ways it was?

Aping Robert Christgau, badly

Around the grounds
Stop me if you've heard this one before
Went out to the John Farnham Retirement Tour This Is It Stadium on Saturday afternoon in the hopes of seeing bad soccer, something worse than what I'd seen the night before. Mission accomplished. Before that though I had three blokes at the gate stare at my media pass like a dog being shown a card trick, as Bill Hicks would say. Got there early enough for a hamburger before the 3:15 kickoff, but for reasons which will never be known this game didn't kickoff until 3:29 - it's a good thing that NPL 2 West isn't a real comp like the NPL proper, or else someone might care and do something about it. Nothing of any note happened for the first half hour. In fact so much nothing happened that one started reevaluating all one's life decisions even more intensely then usual. Then Georgies managed to get behind the Werribee defense, cutback, bundled in for 1-0. A second goal for Georgies right on half time was neater, but also worse - a free kick on the edge of the box played short, cutback, tap in, 2-0. The second half was marginally more interesting, not that the visitors did anything to make it so. They pulled one back from their first proper chance in the 92nd minute, but that's all they could do.

Final thought
Thank goodness this game didn't reach a million views or clicks or subliminal retinal imprints.

Some news from recentish times

AGM on tomorrow
Just a reminder that the 2014 (not a typo) AGM will be held tomorrow at Lakeside, in the Presidents Room, 7:00PM. Lot of interesting discussion to be had, and what's more, since the surgeon and I agreed to hold off on laser surgery for a couple of months or so, even I might be able to make an appearance.

SMFC TV one step closer to being a gated community
As some of you have already noted, SMFC TV has moved to the Aurora Channel on Foxtel. While Channel 31's free to air future seems to be doomed, it's still disappointing to me that we couldn't see out the rest of Channel 31's tenure on free to air television. Aurora is basically pay television's community station, and while those who have Foxtel will be able to automatically record each episode, those of us without pay television (either because of cost, not enough interest in their programming, or because Fox own those chemical plants in Syria) will have to make do the with the internet and youtube product.

We're going to Adelaide!
Well, not me, I have other already established commitments. But the team is. They'll be playing West Adelaide Hellas on Friday 6th February, 6:15PM, at Adelaide Shores Football Centre in West Beach, as the first match of an double header, I think South Australia's version of the super cup. Then on Sunday we'll be playing Adelaide Blue Eagles at 2:00PM, at the Marden Sports Complex. Safe travels to all those making the trip over there, and hopefully someone can send in some colourful reports.

Community Shield
We've also been fixtured to play in the inaugural FFV Community Shield game, against last year's Dockerty Cup winner Melbourne Knights. The game will be at Knights Stadium on Friday February 13th.

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!
Some wonderfully sensationalist anti-sockah writing in the Hun recently. Basically, Little Athletics had the venue booked well in advance for their annual carnival, but the decision of the State Sports Centres Trust to resurface the grass on the arena and thus put out the Little Athletics people has not gone unnoticed by our citizen journalist, who's managed to rustle up a bunch of surly looking youngsters staring down the barrel of the camera with their arms folded at the injustice of it all.

Now I certainly feel for these kids, because they've obviously been put out by this decision, but the tone of the article which seeks to either directly or indirectly blame it on soccer (and therefore us) is so stupid it's mind boggling; unless of course, the article wasn't written by someone with an anti-soccer agenda. Did South get asked for comment? It doesn't seem like it. So no mention of the club's long tenure at the ground, no mention of the damage caused by the shotput, hammer and javelin on the turf during our winter season, and of course no mention of the fact that we have to share with athletics while Collingwood and Eddie McGuire get whatever they want.

The return of Sir Peter, of the Order of the Knights of the Raised Middle Finger
We're apparently considering re-signing Peter Gavalas out of his premature retirement as our first choice keeper. It seemed to be out of him and Nikola Roganovic, and Slippery Pete's may well have done enough to get Taylor's approval. This decision has caused some consternation not only for Gavalas' on field capabilities - is he a great keeper for this level, who managed to be keeper of the year in 2013, or is he actually a bum on the verge of another costly blunder? - but there's also his demonstrated lack of respect for the supporters and the club. Now of course this has set in train discussions about whether one should trust an experienced and championship winning coach to make the right kind of personnel decisions, or demanding the board intervene and overrule the decision. This could be a fun season.

Technical director signed
One step closer to meeting the NPL criteria by hiring a standalone technical director, one Sean Gale.

Some in-season fixtures changed
Among the changes

• The away game against North Geelong has been moved back a couple of hours.
• The games against Bentleigh Greens have been switched. We'll now be travelling to Kingston Heath first, and hosting them second.
• The home game against the Knights, originally scheduled for the Greek Orthodox Good Friday, has been moved to the Saturday afternoon of that week.
• The Pascoe Vale away game has been moved to Saturday evening.
• Minor kickoff time changes to other home games.

The word is that there could be more changes, with the club looking to move some games to Sundays at 5pm. The club claims that during their online survey, Friday night games were the preferred timeslot of respondents, with Sunday evenings also being in demand. For my part, I'm in the Sunday afternoon camp, but it'll be interesting to see what happens, and whether the pro-Friday night crowd are proven right with improved attendances.

Then: 2008 seems so long ago. I wasn't even using
a clipboard as a makeshift mouse pad back then.

And now: In 2015, I have a lot of books packed away
due to a pending move to Sunshine, but books
somehow keep proliferating on my work space.

Deathbed
Disappointing news here, folks. My Benq laptop is nearly dead: it was bought by my littlest brother for some ridiculous over the top price nearly ten years ago, probably Centrecom in Sunshine; discarded by him within about 18 months; used by me for much plainer duties than his planned extravagant multimedia pursuits; converted from a dreadful Vista machine into first an Ubuntu, then a steadfast and reliable Linux Mint unit; and now finally, after many years of long service to the causes of education, Hattrick and especially South of the Border, it's time for it to retire to the great recharge outlet in the sky. Unfortunately, like all good players, it's had a noticeable slowdown in recent times; it's not as sharp as it used to be;, it finds itself dawdling where it used to sprint; and even its once sure touch has begun to desert it. And let's not forget the lack of an 'escape' key, after I dropped a book on it and broke it. While of course I've used other computers to write up items for the blog - various machines at Victoria University's St Albans, Footscray Park, Flinders Street and maybe even Queens Street campuses for example - the vast majority of this blog's outpourings of overbearing grief and negativity have been done on this machine. There was a trip to Hobart back in 2011, as well as non-South related trips to Canberra in 2013 and Sydney last year. So fare thee well, Benq Joybook A52. At least you got to go out on a high, with a championship under your belt. A pity that even though you lasted so long, you never managed to see South get back into the top flight. Here's hoping your successor can achieve even half your longevity and service. In the mean time, dear readers, please bear with me as I try to get used to the smaller keys on my new machine (named Charlene. Why? It just is, OK?),

South eases to the finish line - Goulburn Valley Suns 1 South Melbourne 4

What's the point of Sunday trading, and how can you really call yourselves the world's most liveable city, when one can't even organise to have regular trams running before 10am? Never mind, I got to the Lakeside car park on time anyway, so good on me. Mind you, the bus did not leave at 10:30 am sharp as advertised, not that I'm complaining. Bloody Greeks and their sense of punctuality.

Apart from fielding text messages from one nincompoop who asked that we stop by the Hume Highway near his house - which I fobbed off as brusquely as possible - the trip up was uneventful apart from pulling the curtains open and shut fifteen million times because of the sun. Also we stopped in Nagambie for lunch, and got to the ground in Shepparton in time to watch the second half of the under 20s (including one unfamiliar spindly Bambi-esque specimen playing for us).

Being 160 kilometres closer to the equator and/or hell, Shepparton was a lot warmer than what Melbourne was when I left, and thus rather uncomfortable but that's also my fault because I should have known that'd be the case following my one and only other trip up there back in 1999, a short stopover while on a bus to the Gold Coast for a school trip, where I had lunch at Maccas while our bus drivers perved on my female classmates, back in the days when a term like jailbait had yet to cross over from internet geek lexicon into daily real world usage.

The senior game itself had all the intensity of a pre-season friendly, and what's more I barely even saw the first goal go in after just a couple of minutes because I was still trying to figure out where the best place to stand or sit was - note to everyone who visits John McEwan Reserve, there are no really good spots - before Matthew Theodore's terrific effort in just the second minute (never mind folks, I saw the video while it was being edited on the bus on the way home) made it 1-0 and we could have gone home right there. Nick Epifano made it 2-0 not that long after, a detail I'm adding for the sake of that I actually saw that one go in.

When Brad Norton took an early corner and proceeded to play it short (and badly), an entire year's (and then some) frustration came out and I threatened to jump the fence if they ever took a short corner again, to which he replied 'why don't you take it then' to which I said no problem, or words to that effect. Now whether I would actually take the corner with any sort of competency, let alone managing to avoid pulling a hammy is not the point - the point is that my intention would be to actually put in a decent corner, something nice and deep (giggity). Norton's subsequent corner was sent nice and deep, causing all sorts of chaos in the Suns' penalty area, thus more than proving my point, but in the hours since the incident I've wavered between cocksure defiance and abject shame about my actions yesterday, before finally settling on defiance because SHORT CORNERS SUCK, THEY DON'T WORK FOR US AND WE ALMOST NEVER SCORE FROM THEM APART FROM BY COMPLETE ACCIDENT AND EVEN THEN STILL LOSE GAMES WHEN WE DO SCORE FROM THEM and LEST WE FORGET THE ATTEMPT TO GO FOR A SHORT CORNER LAST YEAR AGAINST GULLY WHEN WE WERE 1-0 DOWN IN THE DOCKERTY CUP SEMI, PURE FUCKING GENIUS THAT WAS. SO HOW ABOUT JUST STICKING TO TRYING TO SCORE GOALS DELIBERATELY, BY SENDING IN CORNERS WHICH GET THE DEFENCE SCRAMBLING AND THE GOALKEEPER FLAPPING, INSTEAD OF FUCKING AROUND TRYING TO BE TOO CLEVER BY HALF, ORRIGHT? ORRIGHT.

Anyway, 2-0 up the break we were on cruise control, but then the home team decided to make it 2-1 when some very slack defending from our end, letting those orange freaks pull one back. Thankfully we got it back to 3-1 pretty much straight away, with Milos Lujic equalising from the penalty spot to equal the Jimmy Armstrong and Dougie Brown record of 22 goals in a league season, though of course if Lujic would occasionally pull the trigger just a little earlier he may have had some more this season, but what do I know? I just thump these keys and scowl at the fact that I will never be able to run a lap of the ground without throwing up my lunch, let alone slot one on ones past fast approaching and maybe even competent goalkeepers.

But speaking of orange freaks, there was this one Suns player in the second half whose face almost turned the colour of his jersey. It was a bit warm out there, but it was nothing akin to the heat of the bake that referee Perry Mur gave to one of the home team's players after said Suns player went down a bit easy and Mur told him to stop whingeing or else he'd send him packing. Or words to that effect, which one would hope were captured by the camera microphones because it was about as close as one could reasonably get.

We gave Andy Kecojevic his debut yesterday, which I'm not against (if you're reading this, hi Andy, nice through ball you played yesterday), but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, because if we were still in a situation where we needed to win this game instead of just turning up because we've already had one forfeit too many in these past 54 years, he would not have played, nor would Dion Kirk have started the game. I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that I still miss Nicky Jacobs.

Aside from a Jamie Reed goal to make it 4-1, that was it. The game over, we sauntered over to the sheltered area where the folks from Shepparton South Soccer Club put on a free barbecue, which was a nice gesture since it wasn't their home game (even if it was their home ground), and was better than whatever efforts the Goulburn Valley people put forward to anyone that wasn't a visiting dignitary. We kept in touch with the results from the rest of the day's games, notably Port's 96th minute equaliser against Werribee to stave off relegation (whatever that means) and send Ballarat down in their place (also whatever that may means, and I don't care how much otherwise respected people say that Ballarat won't be coming back and nor will Goulburn Valley BECAUSE STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED and just try claiming otherwise, go on do it, I once saw Glen Trifiro play a ball forward instead of sideways, so there's your proof). The trip back was spent watching the NSW grand final and Dimi Hatzimouratis' Sydney Olympic go down 2-1 after extra time via someone's phone. A mandatory stop in Wallan was the only break on the way home through the increasingly impenetrable darkness before reaching the outskirts of civilisation.

Next game - National Premier League national playoff series
The Victorian season now done and dusted, we move on to the National Premier League national series, which is being sponsored by someone or other, but since I didn't get any free gifts from said sponsor, they ain't getting a plug on here. Of course for some time it's been known that the Victorian winner (which is of course us, just in case you missed the news) would be playing the Tasmanian winner, and wouldn't you know it it's South Hobart again from the Apple Isle, a team we are quite familiar with, even if we haven't come face to face to face with for a couple of years.

South Hobart were last year's runners up in this competition, going down 2-0 to a Trifiro (who cares which one, it was Glen by the way) led Sydney United on their home turf at D'Arcy or Darcy Street, whatever it's called. It's a great little ground with a massive slope of some sort, and that's where we'll be playing this week also, rather than  on the Federation's ground at KGV Park with the synthetic pitch.

South Hobart's strength is in its two forwards, Andy Brennan and Brayden Mann. Not only did they score a massive 57 goals between them this season (in 21 matches), they also finished in the top two of the league best and fairest (ex-South player Jake Vandermey finished third). If South Hobart has a weakness, it's in defense, because they do seem to cop at least one goal a game. And while Sam Kruijver is a good goalkeeper, goalkeepers in general don't enjoy a stellar reputation in Tasmania, it often being difficult to find a good one. (lame correction - Kruijver no longer plays for South Hobart - it's Kane Pierce in goals for them now, with thanks to Walter Pless).

As for the midfield, it'd be industrious and effective at the level they're playing at, but quite how it copes with a team of our calibre remains to be seen. When we were last down in Hobart back in 2011, with a team that was not as accomplished and battle hardened as this one is, South Hobart put up a good fight and probably should have score at least a goal or two, but nevertheless went down 5-0. That day they probably gave us too much time on the ball, and tried too  much to play their own passing oriented game instead of perhaps trying to press

Of course this is mostly from stuff gleaned from Walter Pless' blog and memories of the times I've seen South Hobart play both on their visits here (also here and here), and our one trip there. They still have players that played for them in that 2011 fixture, while we've probably gone through about two entirely different squads since then, including Carl Recchia about 15 times by himself. (some folk looking at that match programme will also notice the names of Cameron Williams, who was attached to our under 20 squad for a little bit this year, and Kosta Kanakaris who played for Heidelberg's seniors this year on and off the bench).

They say that the winner of this mini-tournament will end up securing a place in the FFA Cup next year, as well befuddlement about who would host a possible semi-final in this playoff series and against who (check here for something vaguely official) but I'm more concerned with taking it one week at a time. But as Steve from Broady said to me the other day, Paul Mavroudis and sensible got together like a souv and tzatziki; and though my thoughts on the matter are if that the gyros meat has enough flavour you shouldn't need to drench it in garlic and yoghurt, I still get the point he was trying to make, his ability to construct metaphors and similes far exceeding mine

If you haven't booked your flights yet, well, I don't know what to say. No one can make you go, and you certainly shouldn't be forced to go down there if you have work, not enough or other commitments. That's just the deal life hands you sometimes. As for myself, I fancy I'll be seeing a fair few South fans at the Jetstar terminal on Saturday morning.
 1

Just over a year left of Channel 31?
You may recall that not too long ago I mentioned that Channel 31 was in danger of not having its broadcasting license extended? Well, it turns out that Malcolm Turnbull, the Minister for Communications, has made the rather moronic decision to extend Channel 31's license to the end of 2015, before booting them off the spectrum so telecommunications companies can use that spectrum. According to Turnbull, community TV will end up on the internet, as if that's nearly the same thing as being part of what's available on broadcast television. So once again, I ask that you visit Commit to Community TV and add your name to the petition, or write to the minister personally.

Around the grounds
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best. (Dylan Thomas)

Paisley Park and its collection of old men and magpies on a Saturday afternoon; Altona East down but not quite out, playing Sydenham Park who have been neither quite here nor there in 2014, and are now stuck in the middle waiting until next season. I watched the game from the far side, trying to catch whatever warmth I could, as dust clouds sprouted from where the balls bounced and players fell, staring out into the open field and wondering whether I've snookered myself into a never ending cycle of decrepit spectatorship, and also whether this stray golf ball nestled in the grass in front of me could double as an egg from some long lost species of bird. The home side starts brightly enough but is 1-0 and then 2-0 down, and there is no way out. What's worse is that the bread rolls on this last home game of the season are halfway to being half stale, and if that doesn't indicate some sort of impending doom than I don't know what does. Sydenham add one more for good measure, and Altona East are one wrong result from their end or from Sunbury's from going down a division. Maybe it'd be a good thing, a chance to reassess priorities, to reorganise and maybe somehow come back stronger. Maybe it'll be another nail in the club's coffin. Lot of maybes in that.

Final thought
Sure, there were a lot of laughs. You probably couldn't hear them, the acoustics were so bad.

Dean Anastasiadis wearing a TISM shirt

Is his choice of clothing more interesting than anything he has to say, in this interview post our 1995 Dockerty Cup win? I suppose you'd have to check it out for yourselves. With thanks to Boo for the clip.

1995 Dockery Cup Final

The 1995 Dockerty Cup Final, with thanks to our friend Boo once more. Tansel Baser has a great game, Curcija's name gets pronounced differently to what is these days, Frank Arok looks more grizzled than usual. Deano has his surname on his shirt, but no one else does. And what a nice trophy it is. Perhaps one day we can not only play in this competition again, but maybe even win it, too.

First half



Second half and presentation ceremony

Dockerty Cup Quarter Final 1995 vs Preston

Here's a treat folks. For a little while now there's been discontent that the Dockerty Cup has been discontinued for so many years. I agree with that sentiment, and the recent and seemingly credible talk that it may be brought back has gladdened my heart somewhat.

However, that enthusiasm includes a couple of caveats. Firstly, I would not include the Victory or the Heart, as I don't think they have a place in this competition - apart from the disproportionate strength of the sides, they are meant to sit above everything below them - that is, they've been set up as 'representative' teams inclusive of 'everyone', which doesn't suit the divided and diverse environment that the rest of the Victorian system entails. It's not perfect logic, but it's the best I could come up with at short notice.

The other concern that I have is that people who want this competition back will think that it will be some kind of boon to crowd numbers. It may do so initially, but I doubt it will last. As evidence of that fact, look no further than the near permanent discontinuation of the competition since 1996. And look at the crowd in this clip of what used to be a heated rivalry between South and Preston. It's 1995, and the crowd is worse than a 2010 VPL crowd.

Still, enjoy the trip down memory lane, courtesy of our friend Boo. Amongst the the other things one may notice are.

• The error made in the intro that the quarter final stage was when the NSL teams entered the competition. They actually entered in the previous round (round 3). We beat Port Melbourne 2-0 in that round.
• The young players like Con Blatsis and Tansel Baser making their first steps in senior football.
• The dreadful offside trap set up being used by South.
• Vaughan Coveny scoring a goal in the manner he almost always did. If you can find his highlights/tribute package out there, it is without doubt the most dull and pedestrian highlight reel of all time. Which is not to say they should count for less than spectacular goals, just that it paints a certain picture of the kind of striker he was.

First half



Second half

Channel 31 is now digital

Which I believe is great news.

So it's come to this

South on TV. I'll say this. I'm not against it. How could one be? But I will express the concerns that I've already raised before, when the idea was floated a while back, so I feel there's no need to apologise for any offense caused.

• Sponsorship. Well it appears they've found some, which is great - otherwise how else could they commit to the schedule and the equipment? 
• Timeslot. You get what you pay for, at least initially. 10am on a Saturday morning isn't a glamorous spot on the grid - but it's pretty much what Green Gully's got as well, who have the money to burn. Which leads us to...
• Demographics. It's great that Channel 31 has got its digital licence and spectrum allocation - as long as they get the rest of the money to make the necessary upgrades of course. One of my concerns was about their, at the time, dim future. Especially considering that Channel 31 was losing ever more of it's audience as the switch was being made to digital.
• Workload. This has always been the big one. It's a lot of work for volunteers to do. Which is not to say that it can't be done - just that when you have much the same people putting together all the club's PR and information products, it just gets bigger. But if they belielve they can do it, and withstand the unpredictability of illness and absence, more power to them.

And I say these things not out of hate or jealousy from being overlooked for nearly every single thing of this type - wink, wink - but only out of concern for the people putting together, lest they burn out. I've seen it happen before, and it wasn't pleasant. In that regard then, here are some of the things this show will hopefully do.

• Sponsorship. Providing even more opportunity for our sponsors to be showcased.
• Completing the loop. Radio, internet - and now television. All feeding into each other, giving people access wherever they are, whenever they want.
• Just being on television. If and/or when Channel 31 goes digital, and if we hopefully and eventually get a better timeslot, people will watch, because people will channel surf.
• The chutzpah behind it. Being ballsy enough to do something like this. Now, one may say that Green Gully has been doing it for years - and it's true, they have, and they deserve major credit for it. But they haven't had to deal with the relevance identity crisis that we have. Doing all this stuff re-affirms the club's commitment to not go away and die in a quiet corner. 

This blog enjoys reveling in its despondency, and it can afford to do that because of its independence from machine politics and any sort of serious following from anyone. But for the club itself as a going concern, it's been all too easy to fall into the same trap of feeling all sorry for itself. This is another step in the transformation and restoration of the club. Where this recovery ultimately leads to, is as yet unwritten.

Attencao all people with kickarse mobile internet

Our friend Po Hui from the Bolosepako blog has posted this curious article on streaming live games yourself. I'd assume you'd need some decent wireless internet, and a willingness to do the camera work, but it'd be interesting to see if this stuff worked. Eamonn from Football In The Capital also recently made a call for interested Canberrans to do live radio calls of Canberra's W-League games, though I'm not sure of how successful that was or will be.

Which all brings to mind something I thought of around about the time Eamonn's call went out. Since tv coverage on Channel 31 can be erratic in terms of putting us on, why not create our own streaming radio calls of (home) games? People will come out and say that will lower our crowds, but seriously, look at them now. It may also enable us to create new sponsorship opportunities, and you wouldn't even need South people calling the games per se, as there are likely quite a few people out there who would love to have a stab at commentating whether in terms of amateur interest or with a view of getting into that part of the industry. And it also opens up the possibility to engage people who don't come to games, miss games, or whatever, keeping them connected them to South 'the idea'.

Now, back to reality. Obviously this fanciful. hopeful suggestion is far from likely to happen. Hell, you're more likely to see the return of a match day program. But nevertheless, strange swirling rumours located within a particular room have said that the former may happen, in conjucbtion with an ouitside enterprise. And despite South fans being notoriously unsupportive of paying for match day programmes, a reevaluation of the funding model may see that come back too, next year. Whatever happens, it's clear as day to me that it's up to us to create our own content, because we obviously can't rely, on the like of Neos Kosmos or 3XY Radio Hellas for regular, supportive, reporting and news, let alone the mainstream which has moved on to focus on its key advertising demographics, of which recalcitrant oldskool soccer fans are not included. It's the reason I started this enterprise, and I gather it's why the people from Goal Weekly started their thing, and why other groups have started their perhaps marginal projects.

Nevermind for the moment that these projects and ideas seem overly focused on people who are already nominally interested and engaged, thereby further playing into the hands of the internet phenomenon of the ultimate niche product. What's more important is perhaps that there is little hope of a change in the attitudes of those who once reported on us - indeed it's going the other way at a rapid pace - we now have the tools to at least to offer the semblance of choice. We'd be careless in the extreme not to use them.

Two victories for the price of one

Ok, so you missed the Victorian Football Show on Wednesday night for whatever reason (probably watching Spicks 'n' Specks. You make me sick.). And you're thinking that you didn't miss much, because you got the gist of the Ross Alatsas slight against South fans from me, and you've rationalised that you can always download the Green Gully - Coburg United highlights off the Green Gully site. Well then you probably don't know that the South Women's first round victory was the opening game on the highlights package. So watch it for that. Wonder how Spiranovic wasn't given the penalty to take to complete her hat-trick. Marvel at how John Vithoulkas is allowed anywhere near a microphone. Then settle down by watching the Box Hill and Heidelberg women's game. And then, finally, with a mug of warm cocoa, watch the Men's big win over Preston. Revel in how awful the surface at BT Connor looks. Be amazed at how the self-professed 'best supported club in the state' can only muster 2,300 fans to the biggest day in these miserable people's lives. Keep playing over and over Ross Alatsas' 'all fans let in' slip up until you work yourself into a Killing Joke style frenzy of persistent drums, cascading guitar lines, and a bass sound that's not very powerful because the mix is far too thin. Then pray to your chosen invisible friend (mine's the goddess Fortuna) that we play a shitload better than that this week because playing like that week in week out isn't going to get us too far.

Channel 31. Click on the FFV bit of the watch it now or whatever they call it. You're smart, you know how to do these things.

Ross Alatsas, I reject your reality and substitute my own

Ok, so I'm watching the Victorian Football Show on Channel 31 for the first time since we beat Western Suburbs - I don't watch replays of any sporting team I follow if they lose or draw (which is not being fickle, but rather shows my dedication in that I can't stomach non-victories) - and was slightly miffed at host Ross Alatsas' little intro comment that 'wasn't it great that the doors were open to all supporters for this game'. Now maybe Ross lives in a little media pass bubble, maybe his glamorous managership job at Stars Receptions has clouded his judgment, or maybe he just wasn't there, didn't know, or no one told him, but if he likes we could go together to BT Connor Reserve (or as it also known, Lions 'Stadium' snigger), and I could show him the view about 40 of us had after we weren't let in, because Preston said they couldn't guarantee our safety. Then again, maybe we weren't let in because of our giant swastika banners (which looked oddly like our regular South Melbourne banners), our rocket flares (which when released appeared to the untrained eye as multi-coloured streamers), and off key singing of songs from the classic musical The King and I (which were so off-key, they came out sounding like our regular South chants). Or maybe we were let in, and since the game was so boring, we all had a simultaneous hallucination of being discriminated against because we were all far too good looking and would intimidate all those 1980s tracksuit wearing Preston fans. What do you think Ross?

Sponsors of yore - Southern Motors

Something a little different for today. For those not in the know, Southern Motors were a sort of large car dealership owned or operated or both by a bloke called George Kotses. Back in the day they were noted for sponsoring quite a few Greek backed soccer clubs in Melbourne, including Heidelberg and South (even being the major sponsor in our championship year in 1998 for example). The company eventually went broke I think, and Kotses started a new dealership somewhere out in the arse end of Brooklyn (and that's saying something) called New Concept Car Sales, the new concept probably being, well, not going broke.

Anyway, the ad below is from happier times, sometime in the mid 1990s. In the clip, Kotses seems happy, Frank Arok is Frank Arok but much quieter, and there's some really random and quite fast Greek being spoken which combined with the dodgy animation of the ball flying all over the place, gives it a fucked up Japanese TV/Mr Sparkle kind of aesthetic. I'm not sure if that was their intention, but hey, just roll with it.