Oakleigh Cannons 0 South Melbourne 0 - South win 6-5 on penalties

Let us begin our now customary report for the transport engineer.

Drove to Sunshine station, as only the main car park was closed. Missed the first available train by mere seconds, had to wait a little for the next one. Got to Flinders Street in reasonably good time, and had Pakenham train waiting on platform 7 ready to depart within a minute. Sadly the departure of this service was delayed by quite a few minutes, because of an operational matter further down the line somewhere. I don't know what it was, someone maybe chasing a dog onto the tracks? Train eventually leaves Flinders, and makes good pace down to Huntingdale station, after which it is a short walk by myself to Jack Edwards Reserve through the relatively poorly lit industrial backblocks of Oakleigh, with cars and truck trailers blocking the footpath, and then there was the bit where there's no footpath near the ground.

I was fortunate that as a media pass holder, I was able to skip the queue outside the ground and head straight in. I overheard some people being frustrated with there being no eftpos facilities at Oakleigh (still!) but as far as I'm concerned, if you're going to a suburban ground, you just have to bring cash. I suppose it tends to sort the wheat (those who go to local regularly) from the chaff (those who do not).

A bigger crowd than you would usually get for a league game here these days between these two sides, but not as big as you might have had in the past. Maybe it was too cold, maybe the pandemic still puts people off from attending sporting events, maybe even the FFA Cup has lost a tiny bit of its sheen. God, I hope it's the latter.

Onto the game. This fixture provided irony upon irony, and cliché upon cliché, as well as the chance to revive some of old favourite lines. Not many expected us to win this fixture; not neutrals, and not our own fans. Some of our own fans thought we were going to get buried, based on Oakleigh's recent goal scoring run, and our own flailing efforts where the one (mostly) unquestionably good thing we'd had going for us - our defence - had also gone down the gurgler. 

That wasn't my thinking by the way, the getting buried part I mean. Certainly, I thought we were going to lose because:

a) we were in the middle of a wretched run of form, and

b) I generally think we're going to lose most games, even when we have a very strong team and good form

But getting buried? I didn't think that would happen; or at least not nearly as fervently as some other South fans seemed to think. But props to some of my fellow South fans for fully embracing doomism! 

In retrospect, if there was one game where an overly defensive and cautious set-up could work, it just might be a knockout cup game where no-one expects you do anything good. The morbid joke on the terraces last week was that Esteban Quintas sets up his team to win games 0-0, but a knockout fixture allows you to progress to the next round doing just that, assuming everything falls into place.

And in this case, it kind of did. Though they had a day's extra rest from the previous round of league matches, they'd also had a more congested fixture thanks to the multiple postponements of their previous FFA Cup fixtures. So, you'd hope that fact, as well as the matter of some of their important players being well on the wrong side of 30, would help us.

Additionally Oakleigh's narrow ground provides diminished opportunities for playing the ball into wide spaces. Credit where credit is due, we limited Oakleigh's ability to get wide and behind our back four or five or six players. Granted, the dimensions of the ground - being both short and narrow - make that easier, but the frustration of our fans wanting some of our defenders to step up and press the Oakleigh midfielders sometimes missed the point - that being to keep them at a collective arms' length.

The proof in the pudding was that Oakleigh struggled to get through the defence's middle channels, and were rarely able to get behind us out wide. Often times, when I thought they had the chance to move the ball wide away from the places we'd overloaded our defensives stocks. When they did, things looked terrifying,. but thankfully there was usually no one there to meet the cross in the six yard box. I can't say what the stats said at the end of the full 120, but after 90 minutes Oakleigh had had just one corner for the game. Considering how dire our defending from corners has been of late, that was just sensible risk mitigation.

As for the old line that was revived? It was an old forum chestnut, when critics of Chris Taylor would note that his teams and his methods, were not built for big games. It was, largely, an unfair criticism, because we won two league titles, a Dockerty Cup, and had a deep FFA Cup run 2017 - but it's a criticism that's stuck. It stuck because of notable failures especially in knockout games - against Bentleigh in the cup, in a final, and in the grand final - and of course the calamities of the losses to Palm Beach and Hobart Olympia.

That it came to the lottery of a penalty shoot-out was also fitting, because part of Taylor's reputation for failing at South comes down to penalty shootout losses. Again, that's a little unfair, because there were only two penalty shoot outs during his time with the club, which just goes to show that more often than not his teams got the job done well before it came to the point of needing a shootout to resolve a situation.

(as for Taylor's dislike of practicing for penalty shootouts, I tend to instinctively agree with him that the anxiety of the actual shootout can't be replicated in training; still, here's an opposing argument backed up by some sort of legitimate science; and there's something to be said for the chat some of us had at the game that it was practicing at least for the sake of making our players be comfortable with a penalty taking routine)

But the penalty shootout was still a long way away from happening during the game. We'd set up a tight defence which made it hard for Oakleigh to score, but also made it even harder for us to score. Poor Daniel Clark was left floundering up forward like Brodie Mihocek under Nathan Buckley; an undersized forward being asked to do too much against too many, without nearly enough support.

Chances were few and far between for both sides. We had two good chances - one sequence of play with a header onto the crossbar and a follow up attempt cleared off the line, and Henry Hore hooting the post from a tight angle. Oakleigh managed to get behind our defence and around Pierce Clark, only for (I think) Luke Adams to clear off the line. 

If this was not a cup game, with the knowledge that one team would win, and one would lose; that one team's prize would be the national stage, and the other's a return to the drudgery of the league; if all the tension built up in the crowd creating an atmosphere of expectation; without any of those things, this game would rightly have been called a dour, frustrating, and poor spectacle of local football. 

There's no way of getting around that. It was not a good game to watch. I commend the players from both teams for giving it all their all, especially ours, but it was a difficult game to watch as a piece of entertainment, as a showcase for what teams in this league can achieve. A good thing for all concerned that that's not what people are going to remember then.

What they'll probably remember is atmosphere in the stands, and the no quarter given on the pitch, and even some of the back and forth between South's fans toward former Hellas boys Tyson Holmes and Matthew Foschini. The fans might also remember a pretty ordinary and one-sided performance from the referee, which saw us collect yellow cards at will (and in the manner and rate in which we were collecting at the start of the year), while Oakleigh seemed to get away with a lot more.

(And as has been noted to me elsewhere, when will Victorian referees finally tell Holmes that he is a not referee, and to just piss off? And Foschini kissing Oakleigh's cartoon cannon badge was just bizarre theatrics)

But what they'll remember is the penalty shootout, taken to the railway end of the ground, which started well for us, until it was almost scuppered by Gerrie Sylaidos' smashing his penalty - which would have won us the tie - against crossbar. I don't blame Gerrie for his miss, in much the same way I wouldn't blame anyone for missing a shot in a shootout. I felt sick just watching the shootout preferring to sit down instead of getting a dizzy spell and losing my bearings.

And I don't even blame Gerrie for taking the shot the way he did; maybe it was a correction against the penalty shot he had saved against Avondale earlier this year, but he's entitled to try and score anyway he likes - and if that means a powerful blast down the middle that'll be strong for any keeper to save should they even avoid diving left or right, then so be it.

As it was, we got into the sudden death element of the shootout, with Lirim Elmazi's squib of a shot trickling underneath the Oakleigh keeper, and then Pierce Clark comfortably saving Oakleigh subsequent and just as squibbish shot. And there it was. the cup tie won, and onto the next stage of two tournaments to much rejoicing. And maybe, whether by accident or design, it was revealed that this team is one built not so much for league success, but for cup runs. Maybe all it needs to prove its worth is a Dockerty Cup title; or somehow sneaking into the finals, and grinding its way through three do-or-die fixtures.

Again, credit where it's due - this has been our most difficult cup run to date in combined opposition calibre, certainly at least since the FFA Cup was attached as the main thread of knockout of football as opposed to the Dockerty Cup. Aside from the terribly youthful Werribee City, we had to face three NPL opponents in a row, when in other seasons we'd had difficulty getting just past one. And while Eastern Lions aren't one of our division's better teams, they still put up a good show in most games.

And winning two ostensibly "rival" games to get to this point is not worth sneezing at either; we'd overcome Knights, who knocked us out of this tournament two years ago, and who prize our scalp above all others; and this was our first "win" over Oakleigh (however you want to define it) since 2017, and against them at Jack Edwards since 2013.

That's not to say the journey has been anything close to aesthetically edifying, though it's had its moments of moral schadenfreude. Apart from the six goal Werribee romp, we won the remaining games by scoring just three goals, two of them penalties. In two of the games we played football that was beyond dour,. and most troubling, those were the recent games; but we won, and thus we are expected to be in nothing other than a good mood.

Me though? I prefer the linearity and subtlety of league season over cup football, which is for the excitable and the easily distracted fan, who can't commit to an ongoing storyline with depth; cup football is the pay per view event of local soccer - you come for the endless high spots, and forget about the graft that's needed to keep things going on and off the field for the rest of the year.

But that's just me I guess, a man renowned for taste in all things subtle and sophisticated.

One more thing

The day after the game while I was at home, my brother picked up the phone; he mumbled something about "Hellas", then passed the phone to me. It was my mum calling from her work - a customer in her shop was a mostly lapsed South Melbourne supporter from days of yore, asking to find out whether we'd won the cup tie the previous night. To which I replied that, yes, we'd won the game on penalties after the game had finished 0-0, but that geez it was very hard to watch.

Which when put like that, is a much shorter version of everything that I'd written before that paragraph, so sorry if you had to wait until here to get the summarised version.

Next game

Back to league action, against Green Gully at home on tonight. I wonder if we tried to get this game moved to the Saturday? Anyway, here's hoping the team don't feel the pinch too much from 120 minutes of effort, as well as last Saturday's game. Here's hoping also that at least some of the bandwagon from last night turns up as well.

FFA Cup draw

The draw for the national stage of the FFA Cup was held last night, with its new and not so national zoning system. I'm not sure if the zoning system is a pandemic related change, or something more permanent; then again, who knows what's permanent anymore? This greatly reduced the range of possibilities for a match up, making it more likely that we would get an NPL Victoria team as opponent. Except that's not what happened, with us getting Melbourne City instead. 

There are, broadly, three schools of thought on what an ideal FFA Cup match up is once you reach the national stage. One stream of thought suggests that the best course of action is to avoid an A-League team for as long as possible, which allows you the best chance to go deep into the tournament; people in this camp are divided about you want to play more home games (to maximise crowd revenues). The second stream of thought is that it's best to get an A-League opponent first up (ideally a local one), which will get you the biggest chance of a full-house, and the best chance of winning a game against an underprepared and understrength top-flight team during their off-season.

The third stream of course, is your correspondent's island of one position that the FFA Cup is a horrible competition wholly without merit.

But under the circumstances, a game against the current A-League champions is probably the best draw we could get. For those who'd prefer to travel, the pandemic continues to wreak havoc thanks to sudden border closures and lockdowns. And considering the suddenly increased workload Tuesday's night win has brought forth - at least one FFA Cup game, one Dockerty Cup game, to add to the three catch up games lost due to the lockdown - how deep do you expect our players to go? How many games do we expect semi-pros to be able to play in a short amount of time?

And for those who don't care about the FFA Cup

A reminder that our Dockerty Cup semi final will be against Hume City, after they beat Monbulk Rangers 3-0. No date or venue has yet been arranged for this fixture, but if recent practice is any guide, the semi-final venue will likely be a neutral venue.

Final thought

Thanks once again to Johnny for the lift back to Footscray.

The extended gist of the June 2020 president's message

As many of us are aware, as part of a personal push to improve member/board relations, president Nick Maikousis had promised to instigate regular member forums to inform members of ongoing matters at the club - as well as receive more prompt feedback from the membership rather than wait for an AGM.

Regular member forums also reduce the time needed to be spent at AGMs as well, of course, but I guess that's more of a fringe benefit.

If you haven't noticed these promised member forums, it's because they haven't been happening this year, for obvious reasons. Still, after giving an update via the re-booted South Radio in early April, Maikousis has not made any further appearances or made any further announcements until yesterday. 

As a matter of fact, South Radio also seems to have disappeared again.

All of this is understandable, because there's been both nothing happening, and a lot of stuff happening. The nothing is both on field, because no one's playing any games, as well as off field, because there'd been little obvious progress being made on a resumption until recently. But the lots of stuff happening is also true, as the club's senior teams had returned training, and there was constant talk about how the competition would resume.

Either way, it's nice to have official word on a number of issues. Of course you can all watch the video on Facebook - it's only about ten minutes long - but if you don't like the usage of the generic dance music that the club's media wing has made its signature, you may as well as read this summary instead. 

This summary also has the benefit of being easier to find for future reference. 

First cab off the rank is that all teams and all age groups have resumed training, which is nice I suppose. In regards to the men's season, Maikousis noted the difficulty of getting even this far into agreement to resume the season, remembering that just three NPL clubs (ourselves, Hume, and Gully) wanted to resume, and that Bentleigh have withdrawn from the 2020 season. Our club pushed for as much football as possible to be played - and thus we will (probably) have a completion of the remainder of the first half of the season, and an expanded eight team finals format.

The proposed finals format will include home and away legs. Maikousis makes no mention of matters relating to promotion and relegation for this year. It appears though that there will be a Dockerty Cup played for this season, which is nice.

The issue of a mid-season transfer window remains unresolved, though Maikousis noted that clubs may be able to use players signed for next season, for this season. How that actually works I'm not sure. No mention was made of any of our players potentially leaving for other clubs during whenever the mid-season transfer window may look like. 

There was brief mention made of the women's NPL and position in that. As expected, the plan is for a full home and away season, with finals series. At any rate, there are no fixtures set for either competition at this stage. 

While no direct mention was made of the possibility of crowds returning to games this year, in the event that clubs are allowed to host crowds at games in 2020, the club will extend the rights of members to use their memberships for home Dockerty Cup ties as well as home NPL games. 

Though I think we can safely assume that under the current circumstances, a return to crowds is a tad unlikely.

As noted in earlier dispatches, the club is exploring the option of providing discounts to current members when renewing their memberships next season. I just hope the club's membership database is up to scratch.

Maikousis noted that Eric Zimmerman has joined the board, with his immediate remit being the building up of our sponsor portfolio and business networks. Again, this has been a stated goal of Maikousis that's been oft repeated.

The president noted that there are no outstanding payments owed to members of the current senior men's squad. I don't know what that means for members of previous squads. The club is also seeking an overhaul of the player contract and dispute resolution process, and is working with bodies such as Football Victoria and the PFA in order to avoid having an "Avondale situation" happen again, as well as I assume avoid having wage dispute matters dealt with through the media for want of appropriate dispute resolution channels.

The Chris Taylor matter has been resolved, though the nature of that issue's resolution will remain undisclosed and confidential. No surprise there. All one can say is that I'm glad that's finally over, though who knows what the monetary costs were, as well as the costs to our reputation and success on the field.

Lastly, the club is pushing ahead with trying to get the second division  up and going - something about "seizing the opportunity", and offering all the resources the club has at its disposal to FFA, in order to make the dream of aspirational clubs all over the country come true. Who knew we had that many resources?

Journey to the centre of the earth - South Melbourne 0 Heidelberg United 3

pic.twitter.com/Go4IM0VpNL

— Video Game Advisor (@VGAdvisor) February 14, 2020

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

For those people who were worried that there'd be drastic changes to the South Melbourne experience in 2020, this game was endlessly reassuring.

Isolated striker? Check.

More wingers than you can poke a stick at? Check.

Blokes playing out of position? Check.

Gerrie Sylaidos getting subbed off too early, and thus any chance of central corridor play being used to get back in the game? Check.

Melvin Becket having high energy but no end product? Check.

No end in sight to our goalkeeping issues? Check.

Copping a goal and falling behind early, and having increasingly diminishing ideas about what to do to score after that? Check.

Now there were things about this performance that I did like, mostly from the first half hour before we conceded the opening goal. I think the wingers we have on hand are faster than we had last year, which at least gives you a tactical option independent of skill. Provided he aims for raw power over swerve, Stephen Folan looks dangerous from free kicks. Harry Sawyer works hard, and I want to see him in a team that looks more organised before judging his skill. Lirim Elmazi was very good in his South debut, and looks an excellent pick up.

But everything else was all too familiar. After several successful seasons, Heidelberg are in a transition period, having seen much of their regular squad depart and a lot of new faces arrive. And by a Berger insider's admission (made while we were having a chat on the tram after the game), it was the worst or weakest Heidelberg side for about a decade. And their own performance never reached any particularly great heights, except for their finishing.

Someone piffed a flare over the fence near Gate 1 towards the end of the
 game. Who knows why they bothered. Photo: Luke Radziminski. 

But tactically we were outdone once again. Once Heidelberg took the lead - somewhat against the run of play, not that that makes things better - they were content to sit back and absorb our increasingly flimsy attacks. Once Sylaidos was subbed off around the hour mark, things got worse as we retreated exclusively to the wings, and the Bergers were happy enough to squeeze us onto the touchline. We got past the squeeze on occasion, but then our crossing let us down.

So it might have been a bad day, a bit of bad luck conceding the first goal, and a scoreline made worse as a result of having to chase the game. These things happen, and maybe 2020 won't be a replica of the last two years. A couple of inclusions to the midfield spine, like Luke Pavlou or even Marcus Schroen, and maybe we won't be so one-dimensional and reliant on Sylaidos having to do everything in the middle. Maybe some better crossing.

Oh god, we're one game into the season and I'm already into "if this" and "if that" scenarios.

Next game
Eastern Lions at home on Sunday. Were it not for Avondale's point deduction, these two teams would be last and second last, but as it is, Lions are ahead of us and out of the relegation zone by virtue of alphabetical priority.

Digging deeper still
While some South fans on social media have rightly caned former supporter of the club (and now cursed apostate) George Calombaris for the wage theft proclivities of his businesses, the old wisdom of "be careful what you mock, lest you become it" has sprouted its head again -  and because it seems that they're not cognisant of the fact, that goes for fans of other clubs too, who are enjoying this bit of schadenfreude.

Because over the past week or so our own alleged shoddy behaviour when it comes to paying wages has come to fill out newspaper column inches, and all you can do is hope that it's all very, very wrong, and that the players who are still with us or especially those who have rejoined us are incredibly naive or know something that we pleb fans don't.

But past examples like Kevin Nelson and Adam Van Dommelle successfully claiming moneys owed to them by us (and perhaps others who were naive enough to sign a waiver when seeking a transfer out) don't fill me with much confidence that the club has learned anything from prior experiences.

First up is the still(!) ongoing matter of Chris Taylor's sacking. At various points since Taylor's dismissal in early 2018, South Melbourne Hellas supporters have been told by the club that Taylor was owed nothing more than the week's notice he was paid out upon his sacking; and furthermore, that Taylor's attempt to take the club to a FIFA tribunal (if the club admitted that such a thing was actually happening) was unlikely to succeed.

Well, news came in last week that Taylor had won a FIFA tribunal case which states that he must be paid out approximately $80,000. The article does note that the club is considering taking the matter further, but boy, what another dent to whatever's left of our reputation. To be fair, we weren't the only club named in the article - Sydney Olympic also got its comeuppance with a coach it had sacked - but at least Olympic were able to say that they'd won a championship in part because of that decision.

Meanwhile, we've floundered in a mess of our own making, with high player turnover, poor morale, and no discernible middle let alone long-term on-field direction. Now maybe the decision to sack Taylor was absolutely necessary, even though those of us outside the board meeting which made the decision will probably never know either way. But it does show the perils of giving anyone, even someone as capable and as successful as Taylor, a five year deal in the first place.

Of more immediate concern is what this means for the club in terms of its finances and its alleged liabilities. Much was made at the recent AGM of the deep audit made of the club's books, and the plans to pay off the club's debts. Now here's another one, to be paid for how? With more director loans? And if you believe even some of what's being said out there, there's possibly another coach looking to be paid what they're owed, as well as persistent talk about players being owed money, and who knows who else.

In the Daily Telegraph it's being reported (behind a paywall which I'm not sure how I circumvented this time) there are at least three players seeking money they believe is owed by us. Just as concerning is that in terms of the comments made by public officials from various angles on this matter, there's no way of getting around that what the club is saying doesn't match up with what representatives from Football Victoria and the Professional Footballer's Association are saying.

While South president Nick Maikousis is (according to Tom Smithies' article) claiming that "Our governing body, the FFV, has not made any comment or contact in relation to these matters, nor has the PFA" the PFA and Football Victoria CEO Peter Filopoulos are on record as saying that the opposite is true. And matters aren't being helped when Maikousis attempts to turn this issue into one where the club is the victim rather than the players who are owed their rightful wages - which Maikousis unhelpfully says add up to "a relatively small amount". If the amount owed is that small, then why not pay what's due and avoid this drama?

Now there's little doubt that we are the only club at this level that will fall behind in wages at one point or another, while other clubs are paying wages far beyond what is appropriate and sustainable for this level. But until we enter a league or competition with some semblance of cartel discipline and a sustainable operating model, all we can do - all that we should do - is make sure that we operate our own business in a proper and dignified manner that avoids such things becoming an issue.

And if that's not possible in this post-shame world, than at least start backgrounding journos off the record about the shonky behaviour of other clubs, and get them into the limelight as well. The next members' forum should be interesting.

Reaching new depths
On field, off-field, in the kitchen - is there anything this club can do right at the moment?

25 minute wait to receive this stale broken pita bread Souva from South Melbourne’s
Bar 1959 tonight. By far the worst NPL food in the league last season and round 1 2020 its worse 😩

I’ll pack my own dinner next time. pic.twitter.com/YXAyV86bp5

— Chris Gleeson (@gleebo41) February 14, 2020

I'm not one to dedicate too much time to the food that clubs offer, so long as it's relatively prompt and more than nominally edible. Now I can't see the former being solved any time soon at South, but at least the burgers have been good enough. But the souvs? The souvs have been ordinary for a while now, and I made the same mistake that local soccer commentator Chris Gleeson made last week by ordering one. How could they get everything about it so wrong?

The souv was so bad that we've sunk beneath the old "don't eat at Green Gully" level. The bizarre thing is that a solution to their problem of mushy pita and indistinguishable meat content is right there in front of them - ditch the pita except for those ordering a plate meal, and use bread rolls instead with the lamb skewers on the menu instead of whatever it is that was passed off as meat last week.

Maybe we should hire Calombaris to work in the kitchen - it might not solve the wages issue, but it might at least solve the food issue.

Final thought
I find it funny - but not "haha" funny - that after all the effort that went into pushing the A-League bid and trying to draw attention to ourselves, often in the most shameless ways, that we'd complain about someone writing an article about us because they're out to "get" us.

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.

It's not the end of world, yet - Oakleigh Cannons 4 South Melbourne 1

Necessary note
Anyone looking for the post on the Melbourne edition of the AAFC's roadshow, it's not included in this post. Probably tomorrow.

Was Andy Brennan subbed off at halftime, or did he merely
 transpose himself to another dimension? Photo: Mike Owen.

Omens, I don't believe in them, but...
It didn't start off well. First, the galette place off Flinders Lane I was going to have dinner at was closed for renovations. Then upon arrival at the ground, an apprentice loan shark handing out home loan pamphlets n behalf of a bank inside the gate couldn't take 'no' for answer after I told him that as a student I didn't have the secure financial standing of taking out a home loan. And then in the middle of a conversation about trains and public transport that I was having with (ex-South player) Gavin De Niese's dad, some bloke starts talking to me about the Macedonia issue, when if he'd waited five minutes he could have had that conversation with the kid wearing the blue Star of Vergina t-shirt.

But enough about omens of no meaning. Nothing gets the juices on the South forums going like a loss, so I guess there's that to be said for Friday's loss. Three games in, and everyone's an expert on season 2018, which is good for me, because I don't need to write any more South match reports for 2018. The gist of it is this. We play a different, cuter brand of football, one with a higher potential upside, but equally frightening possibility of getting mauled. It was apparently visible in those parts of the pre-season which I missed, and it has only be reinforced by our first three games.

It was the same lineup for a third game in a row, and though you wouldn't change a winning team unless you had to, you know that for the time being at least it's going to be the same lineup unless forced to be otherwise, and what's more, it's also going to be the same substitutions unless compelled otherwise. So, Brennan off for Minatel, and Pavlou on for Jawadi, and names pulled out of a hat or not at all for the third sub. Short of suspensions or injuries this is going to be it for at least until the mid-season transfer window, or until Marcus Schroen is ready to come back into the lineup.

That's not an out and out complaint. The first eleven is good enough to play well and do well, and the board has made what seems like a deliberate attempt to at least pay more than their usual lip service to youth development by having some youth players on the bench. But it also means that there's not nearly enough depth at the moment to implement Plan B when Plan A goes astray, only the chance to rest some players should Plan A be going along well enough during a game that such luxuries as putting on players promoted from the youth team would do no harm.

The first half, barring the fact that we didn't manage to score - thanks to the ball somehow not crossing the line in our best attack, and some crappier than you'd like crossing - was good enough. We had the better of the play, we looked decent going forward, and we won the ball back well when we had to. We were getting more pressure on us on the ball than we had the previous two weeks, but we still looked good, especially in moving the ball around midfield. Then the second half started with conceding a lobbed goal - people disagree on how much the keeper should be blamed, I'm on the side of not much after watching the video - and you didn't know which way this was going to go now. Getting the goal back only to concede again within seconds was sealer, in fairness.

Just on Oliver Minatel's equaliser. Yeah, there's an argument for wanting the dodgiest goals possible against your opponent, especially in a big game like this, but I was very close to the incident and I didn't feel much like celebrating. A large part of that was because for a while I was sure that one of the officials would eventually overrule the goal - after all, it was as blatant a handball as you could get. But there was another, secretly moralistic part of me that was kind of sickened by its shamelessness, because it didn't even look like Minatel needed to punch the ball into the goal, because he could've easily headed it in.

The officiating was pretty ordinary all around to be honest. How neither of those two karate leg chop attempts by Oakleigh within seconds of each other didn't get a yellow card says volumes about what is acceptable in Victorian soccer. To be fair though, Oakleigh looked a different team in the second half to what they've been putting up so far this season, and they played well. Lot of people caning our defence for this loss, and there's something to that - what was Konstantinidis doing dribbling along the edge of the box like that - but for mine more blame should go to the midfield, which disappeared from the field for long stretches of the second half.

Part of the problem was Brennan going off - either because of form or because of an injury - because even if he wasn't having a blinder going forward, he was doing well with Foschini in winning the ball back, and forcing Oakleigh to cough up the ball in midfield. When we fell behind for the second time, all sense of structure and attacking synchronisation went out the window, and we went back to long balls and not really believing that we could get back in the game.

Still, in my estimation it's not quite wrist-slashing time yet. Anyone moving the dial forward on the South Melbourne Hellas doomsday clock just because we lost another game against Oakleigh at Jack Edwards probably doesn't deserve to be in charge of said doomsday clock on the first place.

The one day of the year, which seems to be at almost every time we play away from home
Decent crowd at Oakleigh on Friday night, a few more than I expected upon kickoff because it looked like there was no one there when the game was starting. Fair enough, everyone loves to come see South lose, or win, or most likely whatever, because most of these people will only go to this and maybe one other NPL game for the season and not give it a second thought afterwards. It is what it is, and it's going to continue being what it is unless someone unlocks the secret of actually getting people to NPL games outside of a gimmick game.

There's no point getting too upset about it. It's funny though when you see Kingston and Oakleigh people having a go at a poor Bentleigh home crowd on the same night, when as if the roles were reversed that most of the people attending Friday night soccer wouldn't be Kingston Heath instead to watch a Green-South game, with the Oaks crowd lucky to get get intro triple figures.

As I noted on said forum:

Let's be honest, most teams in this league and the one below it have stuff all home support, less than stuff all away support, and rely on the visits of the two or three teams with slightly above stuff all support to bump up their attendance figures a couple of times a year.

And giving Pascoe Vale stick for not bringing away support when none of the minor Greek teams bring pretty much anyone ever to away games further than a five minute drive away is really something.

Next game
Pascoe Vale away at CB Smith Reserve in Fawkner on Friday night. Keep in mind that this game has a kickoff time of 8:15PM.

Meanwhile
The word going around the terraces on Friday was that the club attempted to get special dispensation from FFV to sign Nikola Roganovic as an injury replacement player for Alastair Bray, but the FFV said no. I'm hearing also that we'll be appealing that decision, Normally I'd be all for telling teams - any team, not just South - to suck it up, but in the case of an injured keeper over an outfielder, I'm more sympathetic. But if we were to get knocked back on appeal, one hopes that this is a standard that gets applied to all clubs from now on.

But I ask you, what is a contract?
For whatever it's worth, and who knows if it's actually worth anything, Matthew Foschini has been signed up until the end of 2020. So that's the right back slot sorted for the next few years. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile 2: Is he or isn't he?
While we're on the subject of contracts with mysterious and possibly disputable clauses, they say that Chris Taylor is set to become Green Gully's coach soon, with Arthur Papas set to depart for more lucrative lands. What a time to be alive.

Or not.

Contrary to earlier reports, Chris Taylor will NOT be replacing Arthur Papas at Green Gully.

— damirkulas (@DamirKulas) March 10, 2018

The good thing about the internet is that it gives you the full range of options when it comes to believing something about a particular person, circumstance, fact, and yet to be even tested fact.

Speaking of which
It's kinda cute when someone without access to certain long closed off founts of all Victorian soccer knowledge and innuendo sends you something as if you didn't see it three days before.

I'm not judging, but it is funny. And to be honest, there's much lamer behaviour on the internet.

Perpetual Motion Outrage Machine Dumpster Fire Car Crash
As far as the timeline of @smfc Twitter mentions go, there are good weeks and bad weeks, and there are quiet weeks and busy weeks. This week was bad and busy. I'm prevented from seeing a fair chunk of it, due to being a blocked by a regular poster to that timeline, but geez louise even I could figure out that there was a massive pile on Shouty Mike. Before that, people got sucked in to fighting with a Glory-supporting alt-right wannabe, arguing with him for what seemed like days, but was probably only a solid 36 hours.

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time online, there are some lessons to be learned from this week. On the former point, never, ever tweet. On the second issue, don't engage with people whose only purpose is trolling. I mean, people are free to do as they wish on social media, it's their free time, but is hammering away at someone who isn't going to change their mind worth that much of your time and effort?

Around the grounds, not this week
With both Knights and George Cross on the road this week I was looking forward to a weekend away from Knights Stadium. Then I looked up the FFA Cup fixtures, and saw Strathmore Split playing Bell Park at Somers Street, and I was all ready to go - until I saw it was set for the outside pitch. Any other day I would've been there with bells on, but with the mercury well over 35, it was a no from me. Shame, as there were a few goals in that game.

Final thought

I wish there was a prize, or some sort of t-shirt, or a customer loyalty card I could stamp, but there's nothing I can give you to reward you for that effort.

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) March 11, 2018

Maybe a South of the Border t-shirt would be a good idea, but I'm no graphic designer.

This industry moves so fast

I can't figure out what, if anything, the Australia
 China Football Development Association does. 

Chinese visitors, with caveats
I noted in an earlier post that Chinese Super League club Guangzhou R&F were due to tour Victoria this February (ie, "now") as part of their preparations for their 2018 league campaign. Though there was no firm detail about who they would play while they were here, it looks like South Melbourne is one of the lucky ones. Of course, we'll probably decide to pretend that we're a special case, even though Guangzhou R&F played Oakleigh last Thursday (and against other clubs while they're here), and I think maybe even toured here once before (I just can't find the damn photo I took a few years ago of a jersey on the walls of Dandenong Thunder's social club of some random Chinese soccer jersey).

Some of the hoopla around our connection to this tour is a bit strange. OK, so the club's press release over-eggs the custard a bit, but that's par for the course when Bill Papastergiadis is being quoted. The press release says that Guangzhou R&F will train at Lakeside (makes sense I suppose), but it also includes references to a formal dinner, as well as to something called the "Australia China Football Development Association", which has an ABN dating back to October 2017 but not much else to go on for people relying upon lazy internet searches.

I'd heard from another South fan that the club had hosted some big Chinese soccer organisation dinner in the social club, but I don't recall our interlocutor saying much more than that, and I just assumed it was an independent body with no specific connection to South, just some group which wanted to hire our facility for the night. Which now that I think about it, is horribly naive of me. What's so special about our social club that an outside entity would want to use it instead of another venue?

Anyway, the only other evidence I can find for what the Australia China Football Development Association actually is appears to be photos from the dinner event held I'm guessing in July or August 2017 (the latter at least is when the photos were uploaded to the web).

Left to right: South Melbourne president Leo Athanasakis, unidentified Asian gentleman, unidentified Caucasian gentleman, Victorian Member of Parliament for Glen Waverley (Liberal) Michael Gidley. another unidentified Asian gentleman, and South Melbourne director Andrew Mesourouni, flanking the FFA Cup. Photo: borrowed from Gidley's social media.

As for what it is that the ACFDA do, and what we have do with what it does, I'm not sure. When Papastergiadis says the following:

Our partnership with the Chinese business and football community continues to strengthen and grow each year. Establishing the Australia China Football Development Association has played a large role in this. Our youth coaching staff have recently returned from delivering a coaching conference in Jinshan for seventy local coaches

are we meant to infer that South is directly involved in actually forming the ACFDA, and that we have some material interest in it? If so, should we maybe have been told about this at the AGM?

Contrary to Neos Kosmos' otherwise word-for-word rehash of South's press release, the game will not have "invitation-only access to the match for invited community members and South Melbourne FC members and season pass holders." Rather, the game will be open to the general public, with kickoff at 7:30PM, and free entry. And while nothing says you're ready for broad-based mainstream success like operating your soccer club along the lines of Cartmanland, it's too bad that I can't go anyway, what with already having an actual exclusive, invitation-only commitment on that night.

If someone wants to do a guest match report for this game, let me know.

Latest on the Taylor sacking
Interesting Neos Kosmos article on the sacking of Chris Taylor, including direct quotes from both Taylor and South president Leo Athanasakis. Taylor asserts that he's still waiting to find out what exactly contract breaches were which lead to his sacking. He also reiterates the shock of the sacking, as well as noting that so far as he was concerned, the performance benchmarks contained in his contract had been met.

Taylor also notes that it's "obviously going to become a legal case and it will get dealt with in the courts I’d say”. We'll see if it pans out that way. A mediated settlement is usually the aim here, both to keep costs down and to avoid a public spectacle, but that's just my uneducated two cents on the matter, keeping in mind that my legal expertise only runs to Year 12 legal studies (in 2001!) and since then only attending court cases involving South Melbourne Hellas and/or Football Federation Victoria.

If this matter did proceed to a court case, the confidentiality agreement that would likely form a part of any out of court settlement between Taylor and the club would not come into being; interested onlookers with way too much time on their hands (ie, me) could witness (under oath!) for themselves why the club did what it did. Short of any of the parties directly involved blurting it out before then, it's probably the only legitimate way a mug punter would know for sure what happened.

For his part, Athanasakis says that the decision to sack Taylor had unanimous support from the board, but in the article he provides no further specifics as to why Taylor was sacked. The fact that he claims it was a whole board decision and not a unilateral one means that there had to have been a board meeting where the matter was discussed, and therefore this was planned at least some time in advance of the Saturday morning slaying. The questions then are how long ago did the board come to the conclusion that Taylor must go, and what made them come to this conclusion? As one of South of the Border's former contributors used, these are the questions that keep you up at night.

January 2018 digest

Preface
I've got to warn you, dear readers, that from Saturday morning when the news broke of Chris Taylor's sacking until about some time early yesterday, I was as distraught and confused as many of you were. Maybe not as demonstratively angry as many South Melbourne Hellas supporters, but still very upset by the whole situation. But yesterday, in reading the latest forum and online updates, I could not help but also find the situation incredibly amusing. Don't get me wrong - the treatment of Taylor by the board still seems extremely callous, but it's reached that point now where I've been able to tap into the absurdity of the situation. And it really is so absurd that I'm not sure words alone can do this situation justice.

It's worth noting briefly how my off-season digest posts come into being: I don't write them all in one go, but rather I add stuff to a draft file incrementally and polish off the product on the eve of the scheduled posting date. If something really big happens, I try and write something special about it, and I guess I could've rushed something more substantial out after the initial post, but there was always a chance of more things coming to light or at the whole situation moving along that it wasn't the effort to make multiple posts.

Didn't we have fun doing the crossword puzzles?

Chris Taylor is as stunned as everyone else at the preemptive breakup.

Well, what looked a like a fairly run of the mill, pedestrian, steady-as-she-goes pre-season has been turned upside-down by what looks like the most insane bit of hubris this side of an Athenian tragedy. From outside South Melbourne Hellas' innermost sanctum - which at its most elite levels comprises about three people - it is a decision which makes no sense whatsoever. I wonder if it even makes sense to the people who made it.

Chris Taylor is one of the most successful coaches in the club's history, as well as one of its longest-serving. He was some way into a long-term contract of unspecified length, and which by internet consensus had two years to run; he was sacked in the middle of pre-season, in the process of finalising his squad during its biggest overhaul since his arrival; he was sacked just one month out from the start of the season, a campaign which starts with nine out of ten games away from home, a good deal of time spent training away from Lakeside, and thus a period fraught with the danger of poor morale and continuity effecting results.

And then, on Saturday morning - three days after the AGM, on the morning after an ordinary friendly against Springvale White Eagles - the news was published by the club on its website that Taylor and the club had euphemistically "parted ways". It's a proclamation that's so mealy-mouthed that you have to feel pity for whoever was tasked with writing it up and posting it online.

I'm as stunned by the decision now as I was when it was announced. Having published a brief and sloppy post to mark the occasion of Taylor's departure, I was approving comments on here while pushing a shopping trolley around Coles, and spending much of the rest of the day fielding Twitter DMs, Facebook correspondence, and text messages all asking me the same thing. Why did this happen? It's a question I do not have an answer for, only the rumours and innuendo of the Victorian soccer community trying to make sense of this situation.

I said in that Saturday post "that nature abhors a vacuum", and cliché that it is, it is also true. From the comments section here, to Twitter, to soccer-forum.net, and even to the New South Wales border where Green Gully spent the weekend, people are scrambling to come up with scenarios to explain what happened and why. With only the stony-faced club press release to go on, it was time for the punters to engage in speculation to fill the information void.

So far, there are two theories which stand-out as being more tangible than the rest. One of these relates to nepotism, and the allegation that Taylor would not play the son or a relative (there's some conjecture about the exact nature of the particular familial relationship) of club director and sponsor Andrew Mesourouni. That Mesourouni is the board member responsible for overseeing youth development at the club, while also being one of our main financial backers and one of those directors guaranteeing our loan to complete the social club complicates matters in that regard.

To be perfectly clear: I am not saying that this is what actually happened, only that this is where much of the rumour-mongering has settled on in a variety of online forums. Taylor has in the past made subtle remarks about board interference, but the true nature of that is something that would only be known to Taylor and those board members who dealt with him on a regular basis. It is also the nature of coaching at this level in this country - indeed, it is one of our great traditions as a soccer culture - that the boundaries between the coach of a team and the people putting the money into that team are much blurrier than perhaps would be the case in other places.

The other rumour comes down to finances. The club had cash-flow problems last year when it got into a dispute with the State Sport Centres Trust, when the SSCT attempted to change the delivery time of the club's monthly stipend. While players and staff went unpaid for a short while, the board claimed it had caught up on that shortfall after the situation with the SSCT was rectified. Still, rumours persist about the club falling behind in superannuation payments to various employees. However, the fact that Taylor had returned from his Bali holiday (and time off following the death of his father) suggests that financial issues, whatever their nature, can't have been that severe if he was prepared to get busy with pre-season and setting up the squad.

On Sunday evening, Taylor fronted up for an interview on 3XY Radio Hellas, a show which I unfortunately did not think to listen to. Hey, it was a billion degrees in this room where my computer is, and I was listening to a jazz programme on community radio (but then again, I also forgot to listen to the George Karantonis show on Tuesday night). From what I've been able to piece together from the helpful summaries provided by people who did listen to the 3XY show:

• Taylor's sacking was done over the phone.
• Taylor has some time left on his contract, seemingly two years.
• Taylor is considering his legal options.
• Taylor doesn't know why he was sacked.
• He thanked the fans and said he loved his time at the club.

No matter how big of a defender of the club and/or the board you are (with the de rigueur exception of our dear friend Shouty Mike), the optics on this look astonishingly bad. Forget becoming the butt of internet jokes; sacking a coach by phone? It's cowardice of the highest quality, overtly lacking any sense of moral fibre. Even some of the people who hated Taylor (whether because of his tactics or his handling of the Nick Epifano issue) and who are glad to seem him gone are appalled at the way it's been done.

Whatever differences there may have been between the board and Taylor on any number of issues, Taylor generally seemed to do the right thing for the club. He brought back player discipline (mostly, perhaps as much as you can get in a semi-pro environment), he brought trophies and a higher national profile thanks to the most recent FFA Cup run, and he did most of the media stuff that others may have found beneath them or even demeaning. He spruiked for the club's history and ambition, and even played the game of not rubbishing the nonsense Roberto Carlos stunt.

Sacking such a long-term servant by phone is also the kind of action which probably obliterates whatever trust remains between the board and those few who can tolerate its arrogance. Never mind whether people would want to be paid to work for an organisation which behaves like this; more importantly, would South fans want to volunteer their time for an organisation that treats its staff (paid or unpaid) so shabbily?

On the matter of legal options, two issues come to mind. First, in considering the financial cost of paying out Taylor's two year contract, how much would this set back the club? Already with a large loan to pay off, would the directors seek to avert going to court by paying Taylor out of their own pockets? Second, there is the matter of what it was that Taylor had allegedly done - or failed to do - which saw the club decide that Taylor had breached a part of his contract with the club; a clause so definitive that it would require such drastic action as a brutal summary dismissal. Add to that the idea that the club would be so certain that it would win any case brought against it, and you've got to worry about the possibilities. Contracts are funny things, which can be interpreted in a lot of different ways, but it makes you wonder what it was in the specific agreement between Taylor and the club that the club would dare terminate Taylor's contract with two years left to run.

(It also shows up the inherent risk of committing to such a long-term contract, which appears here to have been a five-year deal.)

Who knows what impact Taylor's sacking will have on the playing group, many of whom will have developed a strong sense loyalty towards Taylor; some of whom would only be at South because of Taylor; and some of whom may even have stipulations in their contracts that if Taylor left, they too would be allowed to leave. It certainly won't go down well with those players who have signed on during this off-season.

Checkmate! The club is always thinking two moves ahead.

From the very limited info I've been able to glean from my trustworthy sources, the sacking has caught Taylor completely off-guard. For those speculating (whether seriously or in devil's advocate desperation) that Taylor might have had another gig lined up, all I can say is that I've heard that it's not true. That's not to say he couldn't find another job quickly if he wanted to - his record speaks for itself in Victorian soccer - but that there was nothing planned in that way.

Well-known local referee James Milloy (who has officiated at most of our Melbourne based pre-season games during Taylor's tenure), posting under his alias of "REDREF08" on soccer-forum.net, posted this about the situation:

Apparently, on Monday before training a meeting was held by two board members and the senior squad. 

One of those two told the playing group, they had been trying to get rid of CT for sometime but with his Father dying, we delayed the decision.

What's interesting here is that one of the things that Taylor managed to bring to the club during his tenure was a new-found and rare - certainly by South Melbourne Hellas standards - level of information or disclosure discipline, plugging up leaks that previously flowed uninterrupted to the wider Victorian soccer community. On this occasion he's been surprised by the kind of information-discipline he attempted to instill at the club.

Of course this only really works if the board had indeed planned to sack Taylor months ago, and not on a spur of the moment decision. Without putting aside the callousness-under-the-guise-of-empathy allegation (which speaks for itself, no matter how well-intended it may have been), the idea that the board had wanted to end Taylor's tenure months ago is interesting, as it brings into question - or at the very least adds nuance to - the borderline conspiracy theories going around at the moment. It's not that one can instantly dismiss concerns about nepotism or money, but maybe there's other things to consider.

As a coach, Taylor was pragmatic; there's no getting around that. Most times when that pragmatism was framed as a criticism, that adjective was directed toward his game-plan, which at its worst could degenerate into dire long-ball. Initially South people were willing to put up with it, because it got results, and results at that time were more important than prettiness. Eventually being purely results-driven lost favour with more people (though I would never be so bold as to call it a majority or to put any number on it which would suggest as much).

If there were questions about Taylor's ability to recruit or bring over desirable players from other clubs, well I'm not sure where the issue would've come from there. For years it seemed, at least from an outsider's perspective, that the board and Taylor were in general agreement about recruiting strategies. Was Taylor not bringing through enough of the club's youth players? By his own admission at the 2017 AGM, Mesourouni noted that it was only in this latest batch of under 20s that there was a real chance of sourcing suitable talent from our youth program, because it's only now that the program has started delivering on its promise.

So, really, I don't know and I can't figure out what it was that triggered this move. A lot of other people have settled on their preferred theories, and until or unless we have something tangible to go on, those theories will have to do.

As for who will replace Taylor, for now the club has settled on under 20s coach Sasa Kolman. Kolman has all the necessary certificates and then some, but little senior coaching experience as far as I'm aware. Will he even be able to receive the trust of the players, or will he merely be seen as a board lackey? He'll also have to change his pedagogical methods, because senior players are very different from kids.

There had been rumours that there would be a "proper" senior coach appointed, with a lot of that talk focusing on Mike Valkanis, but others who professed to have at least some (unverifiable to me) knowledge of the situation claimed Valkanis was not a candidate for the vacant South senior coaching job. Of course not even a week ago no one thought that there would be a coaching vacancy at South, and yet here we are. Perhaps the club did have someone else in mind, but the delay (if Milloy's assertion is true) in getting rid of Taylor made things more difficult to get someone with better credentials in.

So, what next?

WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective. 

DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--

WOMAN: Oh there you go, bringing class into it again.

Even those who loathed the board way before this particular escapade have been thrown off by the board's sacking of Taylor. Some people are considering taking up some sort of action, which is fine, each to their own and all that. But so far the proposals I've come across lack any sort of coherence. A boycott of the social club? Probably won't mean much in the short term, and besides, how will those suggesting such a move get the message out to everyone else who's no so emotionally invested in the politics of the senior wing of the club?

Call for an Extraordinary General Meeting? I can't argue against that - I was involved with calling an EGM not that long ago, as part of the few tools available to members to hold the board to account. While Foti Stavrakis (who worked with me on that petition) got the result we wanted in that it forced the club to call an AGM, the process for getting the necessary amount of signatures was a bit messy, with confusion about whether we needed to get members from the previous year or the current one.

I think with the 2017 AGM having been conducted this time it should be easier to pin it down to 2018 financial members, but which entity would you call an EGM for? The overarching body South Melbourne Hellas Limited, or the South Melbourne Football Club subsidiary? Calling it for the former means a lower turnout, because fewer people take up the more expensive social club membership, whereas the latter should be open to any adult with a season pass equivalent.

Just as importantly however, Foti and I were aided by the fact that we circulated our petition at the first home game of the season, usually our best attended affair and in that case held in round 1. There's no better time to round up supporters for something like that, because some people don't go to away games, people go missing during winter (footy, overseas, can't be bothered), and pre-season games, even at Lakeside, tend to attract some people but not others.

An EGM also needs a specific goal in mind. Do people just want an answer to the question of why Taylor was sacked, and if so, would the club even be at liberty (especially if there are legal proceedings pending) to disclose that kind of information? Or do people want to go further, and table a motion of "no confidence" in the board or specific individuals? If it's the whole board, are people banking on some in the board splintering from the dominant faction, and discarding the president? If the rest of the board don't abandon the president, and the board is dumped en masse, who or what will replace them?

I suppose we could try setting up an anarcho-syndicalist commune, though it would mean some drastic changes to the club's constitution (which in any case, is way overdue for an update). We could take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week. All the decisions of that officer would have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting, by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more external affairs...

OK, I kid, but only a little. Unless you want to go all Souvarine (everyone's favourite narratively anachronistic fictional anarchist) by blowing up the joint (sorry for the spoilers for the people here who were going to read Emile Zola's Germinal some day) on the assumption that whatever replaces the current regime could not help but be better, people will want to have some idea of what changes could possibly or would actually occur as the result of any member initiatives. Which is a just another way of saying that by all means, exercise your power (and if you want an EGM, you've got my signature), but some co-ordination and coherence would be nice.

In the post on the recent AGM, I failed to note that the board was keen to have a members forum within the next few months of its own accord. I'm wondering now not only whether they would dare to do so under the current circumstances, or whether any proposed EGM action would precede before

Arrivals and departures
Who knows how this situation will be affected by the Taylor's sacking, but here is a rather general look at some of what's happened over the past month on this front.

Andy Brennan is back, which will please some and annoy others. Not everyone was a Brennan fanatic when he first started with us in 2015, but he won quite a few people over in his short stint with South before moving to an ill-fated two year spell at Newcastle Jets. Others continued to see a donkey or, at best, someone who managed to have a handful (if that) of meaningful good performances coinciding with A-League scouts being in attendance. I admit, I was a fan from before he turned up, having been aware of him from his South Hobart days, and thus like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, I am glad that Brennan is back not only because I think he is a good player, but also because I thought he was dead (in the metaphorical sense).

Meanwhile, Nikola Roganovic has retired, personal commitments finally getting the better of the situation there. From my understanding, it has been a season-by-season decision with Nikola, and it was possible that he could have played on this year if he deemed it absolutely necessary. Tim Mala has also stepped away from the game, though I had heard talk that Taylor had tried to get him to stay on. In conversations during 2017, I came across the idea that Mala was one of the best in the squad to have around for morale purposes, so even if his on-field performances of late drew only mixed reviews from the fans, there were other qualities which Mala brought to the club which ameliorated

Me, I'm mostly sad that this looks like the final nail in the coffin of the Minute with Mala segment.

Goalkeeper Alistair Bray had been reported by Neos Kosmos to have signed with us, but the club has made no announcement at the time this post was published. Instead and for the time being, Box Hill United Pythagoras goalkeeper Keegan Coulter has been signed up as our number one choice between the sticks.

Last time I saw South in action about a week ago, there were still a lot of players trialling, and who knows what the coaching changeover will mean on that front. Not that Kolman hasn't had some input into the senior scene at Lakeside, but his contributions would pale in comparison to those of "senior football advisor" Chris Marshall (who I assume is gone along with Taylor), who had taken the senior coaching reins in the past when Taylor was absent or suspended.

One thing I neglected to be specific on in last month's digest was centre-back Luke Adams departing to Sweden's lowest professional tier. It was no secret that Adams had been looking for a full-time professional football gig. You can read (and translate in your own time) an interview Adams had with a Ljungskile SK supporters site where they get him to try some of the local delicacies.

Update 3/2/2018 
Goalkeeper Alastair Bray signs for two years.

• Matthew Foschini (signed until the end of 2018)

• Milos Lujic (signed until end of 2018)

• Jake Marshall (signed until the end of 2018)

• Nick Epifano (signed until the end of 2018)

• Darby Dexter (signed until the end of 2018)

• Matthew Millar (signed until the end of 2018)
• Andy Brennan (signed until the end of 2018)
• Keegan Coulter (signed until the end of 2018)

• Kristian Konstantinidis (signed until the end of 2019)
• Sam Smith (signed until the end of 2019)

• Brad Norton (signed until the end of 2019)
• Alastair Bray (signed until the end of 2019)

Out

• Stefan Zinni (Avondale)
• Zaim Zeneli (North Sunshine Eagles)
• Michael Eagar (Port Melbourne)
• Luke Adams (Ljungskile SK, Sweden)
• Tim Mala (retired)
• Nikola Roganovic (retired)
• Jesse Daley (returned to Queensland)

Public Transport Guide mostly updated for 2018
I've updated the public transport guide to NPL grounds. What's new:

• Return of two convenient grounds in Northcote and Dandenong Thunder.
• Added a train and bus option for Hume City.
• Basically writing off Gully and Knights as viable PT options because there's no sensible post-match public transport options for Friday nights at those grounds.

There's nothing yet for Avondale because nothing has been officially updated on the FFV's fixtures.

Women's NPL fixtures released
As hinted at last year, our women's team fixtures have moved away from the men's/women's double header format to having their own separate days. This will have several effects. First, our men's under 20s and women's under 19s getting season long time at Lakeside instead of one of the substandard pitches down near the pit buildings. Second, it will hopefully mean a streamlined and more sensible gate operation on men's match days. Third, it will give the club a bigger footprint at Lakeside, which hopefully also means more traffic into the social club. South's WNPL side looks like it will be playing a lot of its home matches Saturdays at 4:15PM, which is a bit of a bummer for people like me who like to watch state league men's action, but I do intend to make more of an effort to watch SMFC WNPL home games in 2018. Of course this will mean an adjustment to the ways we use paid and volunteer staffing, including media, and it'll be interesting to see how the club copes with that.

NPL National Finals Series news
Despite Sony ending its Playstation sponsorship of the NPL concept, it looks like the NPL national finals series - the end of year competition for the teams that finish top of the table in their respective NPL leagues - will continue in 2018. The "minor premier" of NPL Victoria will travel to Tasmania to play their representative, as per the draw that was conducted earlier this week.

Match programs
Thanks to the Agitator, I've added a few VPL era items, most notably Gully away 2009 and Fawkner away 2008. You know where to find them.

Albert Park Master Plan
Did you know there was an Albert Park Master Plan in the works? I didn't until a couple of weeks ago. While South Melbourne Hellas' presence in Albert Park comes mostly under the auspices of the State Sports Centre Trust, we do have grounds which fall under the stewardship of Parks Victoria or whoever is in charge of maintaining the rest of the precinct. From what I can gather from a quick scan of the website, our meagre footprint is not going to be affected in any major way - it's mostly the patrons of the golf course who are upset, with the possibility of the 18 hole course being reduced to 9 holes in order to increase the space for other sporting grounds.

Albert Park is an interesting case study of many competing agendas over the course of its 140 year odd history. These include:

• Local residents vs those who come from elsewhere to use the park.
• Sports users of the park vs people who want the park to be a free form recreational space.
• People against enclosed venues vs those who want to carve out territory. 
• People who hate South Melbourne Hellas/soccer/wogs vs us.
• The grand prix vs everyone who values the amenity of the park.

It may be worth doing a post in these issues at another time, but the list above gives you a taste of how hard it is to make everyone happy, especially now that inner Melbourne is gentrifying, experiencing a increasing population density, while also having more children and young people in suburbs which had shed a lot of that demographic. Hey, also the rise of women's sports, which we kinda have an investment in.

I just hope that our board is on top of this matter, though they might be a bit busy at the moment.

Mandatory Nell Yoa Closer
Always finish on a joke.

Yoa was still trying his luck with association football as well. Chris Taylor, coach of the South Melbourne Football Club, gives a sense of what this period was like. He received Yoa’s footballing CV sometime in 2016. “I had a look at it, and it listed Nelly as playing at Melbourne Knights in 2009. Well, I’d coached Melbourne Knights in 2009, and I’d never heard of the guy. You do get these bullshit ones now and then.”