Perspective - Green Gully 1 South Melbourne 0

I could rabbit on about the coaching situation, being winless in the league for several months, having no strikers, no AGM, and many other things, but maybe for one week we can focus on a bigger loss.

I was devastated, and I'm still in shock at the news of the sudden death this week of Con Shomos, longtime Hellas fan and friend to many of us at South Melbourne, especially those in proximity to what's left of Clarendon Corner and the various South forums. Con was as staunch a Hellatzi as you could find, but more importantly, Con was a terrific bloke, and you'd struggle to find anyone at the club with a bad word to say about him. 

When I first met him just under 20 years ago when I came back to the club after my lost weekend away from the game, Con was an older, moderate voice among the then much larger and much broader church that was Clarendon Corner, and he retained that unofficial role up to his sudden passing this week. Along with his late father, he had his sons with him, the youngest of whom would jump on you in the old social club. Being 15 to 20 years older than the majority of Clarendon Corner's early 20s cohort, Con had a broader perspective and a more mellow approach than most of us to the way the club was run. Even now, nearly 20 years on from when most of us met him, most of us were still playing catch up.

Con had a dry, subtle sense of humour, but it seldom if ever ventured into cruelty. More than once he managed to burst the bubble of my outsized sense of moral superiority, but I never felt bad when he did it. He was adept at being able to disagree without being disagreeable, something that I still wish that I was better at. He was generous in spirit and in action. His generosity was ordinary and expected, but no less valuable for its simplicity. Need a lift to the nearest station? Easy. Need some help to pack something away, or to set something up? If Con could help, he would. Need a sensible voice on the forums and social media to represent South fans? Con did his bit, without any grandstanding.

Need someone to volunteer to man the barbecue back in the days when Clarendon Corner would have its annual match against Original Melbourne 21? Con was your man. He was my captain when I played for CC White against CC Blue in the curtain raiser to the main game. He got members of Clarendon Corner employment at the company he used to work at, which maintained the copying, printing, and ID card services at local universities. Again, not an extraordinary gesture, but a gesture nevertheless done out of love for South Melbourne Hellas and its people.

For those of us at South who knew him well, he was variously an indoor soccer teammate, or a fellow gig goer and guitar enthusiast. He had a predilection for bands from the Aussie pub scene that many have forgotten, but he still kept an eye on what was going on in the now. He was a footy fan in the way many in Melbourne are, not quite as dedicated as the most fanatical, but still aware of who was doing well and who wasn't. Though Hellas was his sporting alpha and omega, Con had more than a soft spot for the Pies, and I'll never forget the 2010 Queen's Birthday match a few of us South people went to, and not just because it was also Gains' first footy match, which ended in a bloody draw. 

Myself, Con, and another Con, at South's 50th
anniversary gala ball at Crown Casino in 2009.

Con was an enthusiastic traveler to South's interstate and overseas sojourns, even as they became rarer following the end of the NSL. Those who shared the trips to Singapore and the Gold Coast certainly have their stories, but I'll never forget the 2008 Canberra trip where Con, who had driven up with his boys, hooked up a speaker to his car to play a recording of Lefteri's trumpet for the patrons at AIS Field 14. He was pleasant to sit and enjoy a meal with in the social club, as well as to sit with towards the back of our grandstand, where he was a fixture at our home games. He had his favourite players and the ones he didn't like so much, just like the rest of us, because he was one of us. He will be missed.

My sincerest condolences to all of Con's friends and family, especially his three boys, Nathan, Nicholas, and James.

Next game
Avondale away today.

Final thought
What else to say? There have certainly been better times to be a South fan. Hopefully some more of those better times are not too far away.

Jump! Jump! Jump! artefact Wednesday

Ah, 2007. It was a season which held so much promise. We were fresh off a championship, two years after almost going broke. We had what looked like a good squad, and a good first up crowd against the Bergers at home in an exciting game, followed by a thrilling win against Richmond, which I missed because I was at an Elbow concert. Another win against the Essendon Royals, and things looked promising. And then they didn't. Dean Anastasiadis went down with a season ending knee injury in round 4, and we soon found out that for the most part we were adept downhill skiers, but not much more than that, and the season ended with us missing the finals by three points, amid suspicion from some fans that'd we kinda tanked some games - specifically the 3-0 loss at Western Suburbs - because we had cash-flow problems.

But one could easily point to the uneven draw as a causal factor - though the league had 16 teams, there were only 26 rounds - and the fact that we only played that season's wooden spooner Springvale White Eagles just once. We could point to the mess of the goalkeeping situation once Deano went down. And you could of course point to many calamitous poor results, including the 2-0 home loss to Sunshine George Cross the week before that humiliation at Ralph Reserve. But all that is irrelevant compared to the forfeit forced upon us by Football Federation Victoria, for a home match against Melbourne Knights. But first some background.

2007 was a crazy year on the terraces, hills, concourses, and the streets of Melbourne. There were was the Cros vs the Serbs (and Greek onlookers) at the Australian Open tennis. There was a stolen Melbourne Victory banner which found its way to Clarendon Corner in round 1, and which made a reappearance at our game at Richmond. There were also more ethnic related incidents at the Water Polo World Championships. A combination of these things saw FFV and/or Victoria Police - it's not quite clear to me even now who was exerting the greater pressure - to demand unrealistically expensive security measures. South refused to pay the asking price, and FFV preemptively - that is, days out from the game - awarded a 3-0 forfeit to Knights.

The next week we were scheduled to play against Fawkner at CB Smith Reserve. This is the old CB Smith, with the tin shed along the western wing, and most importantly, an open view from outside the southern end, where there was only a high chain-link fence to visually obstruct spectators. It was a perfect venue to conduct what we called at the time a protest against FFV, which naturally proved futile, and only really served to hurt Fawkner on one of their bigger paydays for the year. The Agitator brought a slab of Heineken, and the game was an awful 0-0 draw - though we could've sneaked a winner late. The most interesting thing, unplanned amid the scarcely planned nature of the whole enterprise, was at the end of the game when the Clarendon Corner stalwart known as "Box" climbed up the very high and probably very rusty fence to chants of "Box! Box! Box!", and then when at the top, "Jump! Jump' Jump!". Thankfully he had a little more sense than that, and climbed back down.

I can't remember where I found this photo, so if it belongs to you let me know. But this was 13 years ago, and my haven't we come a long way since then.

In the slash - Heidelberg United 4 South Melbourne 2

Unlike Cosmo Kramer, it's unlikely that we'll run out
of gas and wake up in a ditch to find the tank full.

Whatever illusory momentum we'd seemed to have built up by the end of the Green Gully match seems to have flown off into the ether. That goes for on field and off field, as the end of the season can't come fast enough, and the subsequent reckonings of how we ended up in this situation can get played out properly. At this stage all I'm hoping for is that our season ends in two weeks time, and is not extended to the damn playoff game on grand final day.

The previous week, an indeterminate amount of supporters were suddenly banned by the club for less than clear reasons. There was some talk that those people would also be banned from the away game against Heidelberg, but that did not seem to come to pass. Clarendon Corner arrived, situated itself in south-east corner of Olympic Village as opposed to its usual spot underneath shed roof, and chanted their usual repertoire as well countless adaptations of those familiar tunes substituted with the words "sack the board".

The club has since put up a notice on its website acknowledging the bans - clumsily noted as "up to eight supporters", as if they don't know the exact numbers.

It is impossible to make out from that post what exactly constituted the anti-social behaviour. In the past there have been attempts to clamp down on swearing in chants, but if that was the case here, then even your correspondent would be banned. If it was for the "sack the board" chants, those have been a serious and non-serious staple of South Melbourne matches for 20 years. If it was for the "sack the board" banner, that seems incredibly petty. If it was because of the events following our last home game against Heidelberg, I wasn't in the vicinity of that action, so I can't say with any authority whether the club has the moral right to do what it has done. If it's something else apart from that, I'd love to know what it is.

All that will be answered in good time, one way or another, but back to the immediate concern at hand. I don't think anyone seriously expected us to get a point at the Village, and the state of the substitutes bench said a bit too. Marcus Schroen started there, I would assume because he was still suffering from the effects of his injury the previous week; but talk around the ground was that he'd been dropped because he'd missed a training session due to new work commitments. As it was, Schroen came on during the second half and made a noticeable difference, and you wonder what would've happened had he played the whole game?

Milos Lujic started, even as rumours began circulating around the possibility that he's already come to a verbal agreement to play at Oakleigh next year. I don't know how much stock to put into rumours like that, which seem to gain momentum mostly when he has a bad game for us. He didn't have a  great game on Sunday, but to be honest, the service he received from our almost completely poxy midfield in the first half was very poor. Ndumba Makeche came off the bench, and seemed to do a lot better, being more mobile and more willing to throw himself into the fray.

Disregarding for a moment the post-season chaos that could engulf the club, I waver between thinking that there are at least a handful of players from this squad that could be retained, and then thinking that just about everyone is likely to bail and that we could be seeing an entirely new squad next year. Leigh Minopoulos played his heart out, but will his persistent injuries finally see him move on? Matthew Foschini sometimes shows proper leadership qualities and determination, but he's just as prone on his worst days to playing lazy football, hitting blind passes to nobody.

I could go on, but there really isn't any point just yet, because we still have to survive this season. With no other teams playing this weekend, it was our nominal chance to get a point or even a very unlikely win, or at the very least lose minimally and keep our goal difference advantage over Green Gully. Instead we found ourselves 4-0 down at halftime, our goal difference lead nearly evaporated, and the likelihood that it would disappearing over the subsequent 45 minutes. Somehow that didn't come to pass, which I put down to Makeche and Schroen's intervention. Back at 4-2, at least something from the day had been salvaged, and for some even the possibility that had we just got that third goal that we could've stormed our way to an unlikely draw.

But that's people getting way too optimistic for my tastes. All we can take out of the game is that Heidelberg didn't put away any of their numerous second half chances, that we clawed back a couple of goals and maybe something positive to take into next week.

Next week
Avondale away on Saturday afternoon at the Reggio Calabria Club. By Saturday night we'll have a good idea of what it is we'll need from the final round.

MCC Library on Wednesday, with the panel for the launch of Ian Syson's
 The Game That  Never Happened. In the far distance, Ian Syson, John Harms,
 John Didulica, and Roy Hay. Photo: Les Street.

The game that never happened
Last Wednesday, soccer journalists, football academics, Twitter elite, and assorted other people found themselves at the MCC Library for the launch of Ian Syson's new book The Game That Never Happened: The Vanishing History of Soccer in Australia. 

The launch party was in the form of a panel, as seems to be the trend of these things - well, this is the second book in a row that I've seen launched in this way at least. Joining Syson on the panel were Australian Rules and general sports writer John Harms, and PFA CEO John Didulica, with the book's publisher Roy Hay being the compere of sorts. Sadly, noted sportswriter Gideon Haigh was unable to attend due to a competing engagement, but he did send in a short summary of his thoughts which was read out during the launch, I think noting the way the book overturns the illusion of Australian sporting meritocracy.

Harms proceeded to discuss the ways in which the book fills a gap in its intersection of sport and culture, as well as noting its combination of two intellectual streams - narrative history and classic cultural studies. Harms also reflected on the book's touching on an aspect of his history, when it mentions the south-east Queensland town of Oakey, where Harms grew up. Asked whether Syson's book had changed his views on the development of Australian sporting cultures, with particular reference to his Queensland experience, Harms answered that it had actually solidified his opinions that as worthwhile and vibrant as soccer was, it had nevertheless failed to establish itself at the apex or centre of the local or national sporting cultures. The book's discussion of the spread of British miners however did illuminate why some towns had more vibrant soccer scenes than nearby towns.

For his part, Didulica noted that his reaction to the book was an aggrieved, visceral reaction, centred on the injustices faced by the sport in eras prior to those of the ethnic game. The book reveals layers of history, to my mind kind of a series of Troys, each one built on top of the ruins of the previous city. Didulica connected in particular with page 60, and the ways in which the Australian Rules fraternity was able to embed itself (within its dominant states) as being authentically British and Australian, while the commitment of the soccer people was seen as only towards Britain. It's an issue of perceived separateness which has persisted in the portrayals of Australian soccer and its adherents as having a lesser commitment to Australia, despite the fact that the formation of those clubs was in itself a commitment to a permanent existence in this country. But we return again to the idea that soccer, existing outside the official institutions and cultural mainstream of Australian life, finds itself forever battling for a way in against entrenched and defensive competitors.

Syson sees this soccerphobia beginning in Perth, where the Edwardian ideals of sporting amateurism and pluralism are shown to be an illusion, as the choice of which football code to pursue becomes more than just an aesthetic choice; morality and values exhibited through sport become important, and a sort of footy nationalism begins to take hold. There was some follow up discussion after that discussing the public debates of system of chaos vs scientific play, differing depictions of the violence of play, the militarisation of sport then and now, and the danger of people working on these histories having their work become part of what I consider to be pissing contests between codes about who sacrificed more for various war efforts. It's certainly not Syson's intention to contribute to that kind of discourse - his intention is show how the growth of early 20th Australian soccer was devastated by players volunteering for war - but it is something that could certainly happen, and probably already has.

If I were to summarise the point of both the book and the launch discussion in a sentence, I would say that soccer is popular in the wrong places, then popular with the wrong people. Where it becomes the mainstream game in its early days, it is too far away from the centres of economic and social power to become a game embedded within the broader culture. Later, of course, it becomes associated so much with foreignness that even though the game has been revived in metropolitan centres, there is a stigma that cannot be overcome.

As for the book itself, it is in many ways a reworking and consolidation of several academic journal articles that Syson has written, mostly on the pre-wogball history of soccer in Australia. There's other stuff that could've been included - including some really interesting stuff on early Aboriginal soccer players - but this is a lean book whose main goal is to provoke a fervent revisionist discussion about Australian soccer history, while also prompting further research from others. Only time will tell of course how successful this book is at doing that.

Knowing the author for so long, and having discussed elements of this work with Ian for many years now, I can't really go out of my way to review the book as such. What I can say is that for various reasons the book had a protracted and difficult gestation period, and I'm glad and relieved that it's finally seen the light of day. Like many Australian soccer books, this one hardly sets out to provide the definitive take on the game's history. What it does do is scratch the surface of hitherto under-researched areas, breaking down assumptions about the origins of the game in Australia and its relationship to other football codes. It flies across the country, to both urban and rural areas, taking what on the surface seem like random formations of often short-lived clubs and soccer scenes, into what could be classed as broader trends. (One day Syson will have to follow through on his interactive historical map idea).

To that end I would've liked to have seen perhaps an appendix dealing with the research methodology, and especially its use of the National Library of Australian newspaper database Trove. It's an interesting point because during the panel discussions Syson did go into a bit of detail into his use of Trove, finding issues of nomenclature, articles where it was unclear what code of football was being played, and moments where soccer disappears so suddenly from the public record, that people believe themselves to be founding "inaugural" soccer clubs in their towns, oblivious to the fact that soccer had been there before; in some cases, very recently.

History is forgotten then; now it's flattened, so that mythologies about the game (and its counterpart games) have taken firm hold, and that cultural assumptions also obscure how those deciding which sports to play in colonial and early Federation Australia came to their decisions. So much of what we claim to understand about how that all happened is informed by the present, not the past; for instance, the matter of low scoring being used as justification for Australian Rules' popularity over soccer, when in its early decades Australian Rules had scoring that was comparable to that of soccer.

Within the book, too, one gets the idea that as much as Syson has done well to unearth hitherto forgotten and neglected materials, still was is often found is viewed through the lens of people who are not from the soccer fraternity. That causes its own problems, but that correspondence is still better than nothing and especially the assumed absence of writing about soccer from that era. The contemporary reports Syson looks at may be spotty, biased, dismissive, curious, and any number of other things, including an often frustrating penchant for having no eye to posterity, a trait common to news reports on both proto-football and codified football. But these articles are there, and they provide their own clues to what Syson argues is a much more complicated situation than has been given credit for.

What Syson seeks to make clear is that soccer is often there physically, even in its ebbs and flows of popularity, but that its cultural and historical status is made much smaller than it actually is, or rendered entirely non-existent. That's not to argue that soccer is akin to the mainstream codes in its centrality to Australian culture, only that  the ledger leans too much one way. How it got to that stage is part of what the book begins to answer. There is scope then to discuss in future work - should it ever come to pass - ideas of Victorian (as in the state/colony, not the era) nationalism and cultural imperialism, alongside the self-inflicted wounds.

Syson is also careful though; while acknowledging the debates being had in Australia in the 1800s about what game of football is best and which to play, that we need to avoid elevating those advocating for soccer into higher positions of cultural prominence than they probably/possibly had. There book is also informed by the centrality of Victoria to these matters, and sometimes you can see glimpses of Syson's anti-Victorian leanings become evident throughout the book. It often does read like something written by a cultural outsider, and one wonders if there's scope for work on the cultural history of early Australian Rules to be written by someone from the outside.

(James Coventry's book on the evolution of Australian Rules tactics, Time and Space, does this to a degree - it helps reclaim the role in the development of Australian Rules from a hegemonic Victorian point of view - but Coventry is a still a fo0ty person, albeit one from South Australia.)

As for how to purchase this book, while sales have gone well, there is an issue with the book's distributor, which has gone into liquidation. That will be rectified soon I'm told. For those hoping for an ebook edition, I am told that this is also being worked on.

Final thought
The funniest thing to happen this week was seeing fellow South fan Dave's reaction at the book launch, as he saw me in my element of quasi Australian soccer writing celebrity. In that regard, it was nice to meet sometime poet Alan Whykes, and writer/coach/fan George Ploumidis at the game itself, and to have a casual chat. If it was only about watching the game, and not being able to share our joy and misery with other people, it'd be a much lesser experience.

Sack everyone and everything - South Melbourne 1 Kingston City 4

If I wanted last season to be over because of its brutal length, then surely this season I want to come to an end as quickly and as painlessly as possible. It has been a nightmare on several fronts, with a brief half-earned, half-gifted to us revival which is keeping our head above water, and which for a short period of time brought if not happiness nor peace of mind, than at least

It was a strange week, too, even before we got our caning against Kingston and pulled back down into the heart of the relegation stoush. South fans, paranoid, panicky, and with a 14 year chip on their collective shoulder, are ready to lash out at anyone. The first target was Paul Wade, for his support of the Dandenong A-League bid. It was a reaction from our fans which I wasn't surprised by, but one that I felt was misdirected for a couple of reasons. First, where Wade can be considered to have a coherent and/or consistent policy with regards to what our nation's top tier should look like, he is long ago on record as saying that "broadbased" teams (complete with gimmick nicknames) were/are the future of the game. That was all the way back in 1995, in his autobiography - which I apologise again for not having reviewed in depth, ten and a half years into the blog.

Now it was pointed out (and rightly so) that Wade had also endorsed our bid last year, and that therefore something must have changed for him to do this, and that "something" was money. I wouldn't rule it out - why rule anything out in Australian soccer? - but Wade never seemed to me like the kind of guy who would do something just for the money. Still, that seeming inconsistency in his endorsements goes to another point about how nonsensical the fury at Wade's most recent comments was: and that point is, who actually takes what Paul Wade has to say seriously? Yes, he'll get wheeled out by the ABC from time to time to talk about the Socceroos or the state of the game, but his overblown pronouncements almost always make him seem incredibly out of touch with everything going on in Australian soccer. He is in a lot ways an Australian soccer media relic, one whose heyday was a very long time ago as a player, not that much far removed as a commentator, and it's odd to me that anyone takes what he says seriously, let alone personally.

Once everyone got bored with Wade, it was time to turn on The Age's Michael Lynch. Now goodness knows, South of the Border has hardly been Lynch's biggest fan over the years, but we've mellowed out to the point where my loathing is now muted, and I'm now mostly just plain old distrustful. Lynch, who has found if not a soft-spot for "the old clubs" in recent times, has certainly managed to rediscover at least a peripheral interest in them. As to what prompted that rediscovery, the only wisdom I can offer on that front is typically cynical and a little bit hackneyed: that Lynch and other soccer journos noticed a change in the air, and they thought that maybe their previously dismissive attitudes towards the old clubs might see them miss the zeitgeist.

And when it comes to Australian soccer media, the zeitgeist is all, and anyone who falls outside of that looks naff, old, fossilised, doddering. In this case, Lynch didn't necessarily commit any heinous crime other than putting forward the idea that in his view, and so far as the Melbourne A-League bidders were concerned, behind the scenes it was not South Melbourne that were favoured, but rather the other two bids. Enter a more subdued version of the angry mob that went after Wade, which hadn't necessarily taken the time to think about the situation. For as absurd as the South bid is, and as as absurd as the other two Melbourne bids are, and any A-League bids for a system that needs drastic overhaul (whether pro/rel or plainer reform to its current state), is noting that the powers that be might prefer some over others, and that such attitudes may have been locked in place for a long time, really that absurd of an idea?

Anyway, having amused ourselves by turning onto outsiders, and someone who people had convinced themselves was South through and through by virtue of stuff that happened most recently 23 years ago, ignoring the fact that Wade has had little to do with us since, it was time to lash out at each other. Which, to be fair, is a longstanding South speciality, and in recent times enjoyed by some of our people more than what happens on field. At some point during the under 20s game on Sunday, word was going around about a small group of South fans - perhaps half a dozen - being banned by the club, and/or possibly the stadium trust.

This was odd, in part because at least some of those supposedly banned were already in the stadium, an oversight which it turned out one could put down to the club being too slow to get its act together from the time gates were opened. Eventually had photos of the banned supporters, and prevented them from entering (or re-entering) the stadium. The other odd aspect was no one seemed sure why it was that these supporters had been banned, for how long they'd been banned, and what efforts the club had taken (if they had taken any effort) to inform those banned that they were indeed banned from Lakeside.

That obviously cast a pall over affairs from before kickoff, and eventually most of Clarendon Corner decided to watch the game from outside the ground from behind the fence at the western end of the ground. It's not the best of the view of the ground, but for this banned and their sympathisers, there was an obvious principle involved, and also precedent - let's not forget that members of Clarendon Corner had spent a good portion of our early time at Northcote protesting the banning of some fans following the pitch invasion at the final game at the old Lakeside.

There was next to no chanting from what was left of Clarendon Corner inside the ground, and a lot of chanting from the majority of those who decamped outside the ground. Nothing out of the ordinary was chanted that I could discern from my position inside the ground. Those at the ground who are not up to speed on all these kinds of things must have been very confused by what was going on. At times volunteer marshals spent some time there, as did security, and one stadium trust staffer seemed particularly nervous about the whole affair, though seemingly not doing much other than pacing up and down the stairs in front of his match day office.

While their chants were mostly clearly audible, Clarendon Corner in exile were largely invisible to those inside the ground, except for one character who was quite visible as he climbed on top of the ticket box next to the Gate 1 entrance, and proceeded to walk along the top of the outer fence to the bewilderment of most and even to the amusement of some - including a security guard - who I suppose could appreciate the farce of the performance and the situation that performance was embedded in. As security approached, he jumped down back outside

Me, I acknowledge that farce of what passes for supporting this club on a weekly basis, but I couldn't help find the whole thing exceptionally grim. I wouldn't go so far as to call the past few weeks a truce between disgruntled fans and the board, but as has tended to be the case at South in recent years, a run of good results acts like a sedative, numbing tension for a short time before a bad result or two brings the underlying issues back to the surface. The only odd thing, if one could it even call it that, is that on Sunday we didn't even get to the bad result bit before the unpleasantness began.

And if everything else going on wasn't making things grim enough, the team itself came out of the sheds half asleep and seldom looked like it was a chance in a game where, had we won, it would've secured our NPL status for 2019. Kingston took the lead early through a penalty (no complaints from me on the decision) and eerily - and not bloody helpfully - Gully had also taken the lead at Olympic Village at the same time. Kingston being a quick side, I just had a feeling that we would struggle to keep them away from goal, and we weren't helped by having an unsettled defensive set up thanks to the absence of Brad Norton.

We did eventually start clicking into gear, and I thought we finished the half reasonably strongly. Marcus Schroen's goal direct from the corner got us level at halftime, just as the Bergers themselves had equalised. So at that particular moment, things were looking a lot better than they had five minutes into the game. I wasn't especially confident about the second half, but I didn't foresee the second half collapse. You could, as some have done, try to put it to the fact of Kingston having the wind in the second half, but it wasn't like they were hoofing the ball down the field. It was all very neat and tidy, and exploiting a slow defence.

Before you knew it we were behind again. By the time we got to 3-1, it was a matter of playing out time and hoping things didn't get worse. They did, of course, but the bigger concern was Schroen coming off injured; along with Oliver Minatel, Schroen has been the other key player in turning our season around from its direst point, and to potentially lose him for further matches would be a massive blow. This is especially the case when we have three tough games to go, including two of the top three side. But all credit to Kingston - they have a smaller budget, they play youth, and they play attractive football. I hate Monday night football, but if we're going to have a surplus of (Greek) minnow teams in this comp, the least that we can hope for is that try to entertain.

As the sun set on another home loss in 2018, and people retreated to their various internet hovels to vent and moan and plan their next moves, some of our people turned their attention towards the spectacle of the Western Melbourne Group's open forum, deciding to scoff and deride several of the key takeaways from that affair. Not that any of that matters, of course, but I guess it's nice to have a hobby that people get some joy from. Goodness knows there hasn't been much joy at South this season.

Next game
At Heidelberg on Sunday afternoon, in a replay of the previously abandoned match. It's the catch-up round, and we're the only teams playing, so there could be a decent crowd. That, and the Bergers can secure what I'm still calling the minor premiership with a win here. Rather than making the game free entry, there will be a cover charge - with the proceeds going to the Greek bushfire appeal. As noble as that sentiment is, I can positively sense the cynicism dripping out of some of our supporters.

The arrangement is going ahead with the blessing of our own club, which makes total sense when you think about it. After all, we are a Greek club; we would be destroyed in the media if we didn't support it; and at any rate, one of our board members also happens to be the president of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne.

Apparently you will be able to get a receipt for your donation/entry ticket, if you are that way inclined. I'm just hoping for a win, and no repeat of the nonsense which took place after our most recent meeting. Which, when I put it like that, is clearly hoping for too much.

Relegation/survival prognostication - as stolen from Greekfire's post on smfcfans.com
The following post by "Greekfire" appeared on smfcfans.com, and does a much better job at summarising our predicament than any amount of waffling I could do. All I've changed from it is shortening the team names so they don't stretch out the table template.

I've run the numbers on the remaining games to analyse the scenarios whereby we can end up in 12th and the relegation playoff. There are basically 5 teams in the mix:

• South Melbourne
• Kingston City
• Hume City
• Green Gully
• Dandenong Thunder

Before going on to look at the games that matter, there are a few assumptions:

1. We lose all of our last 3 games - to put us in the worst possible case for ourselves
2. Goal difference plays no part in the result (i.e. we don't get battered / we lose 1-0 in each game / no one else belts anyone)
3. Dandenong Thunder is ignored for now - the teams they play (Northcote @ home, Knights away) don't have any other influence on the results of anyone else, so it's not worth analysing every combo of their games

The relevant games are then the games featuring the other 3 contenders:

• Kingston City vs Heidelberg United
• Hume City vs Green Gully
• Hume City vs Pascoe Vale
• Green Gully vs Kingston City

We're very lucky, at this point, that there are 2 games where 2 contenders play each other.

If we consider that each game can either be a win to the home team (1), a draw (X) or a loss (2), then there are 3x3x3x3 possible outcomes, or 81 scenarios.

Of these, we finish 12th in 7 of them, or in 8.6% of cases (assuming every result of every game is equally likely and independent) - these are outlined below:

Home	Away	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Kingston	Heidelberg	1	1	1	X	X	X	2
Hume	Gully	X	2	2	X	2	2	2
Hume	Paco	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Gully	Kingston	1	1	X	1	1	X	X
	Team	Pts
	South Melbourne	28.5	28.5	28.5	28.5	28.5	28.5	28.5
	Kingston	31	31	32	29	29	30	29
	Hume	30	29	29	30	29	29	29
	Gully	29	31	29	29	31	29	29

Key things to note:

• If we get a point from any of our last 3 games, we avoid all of these scenarios as we would move up to 29.5 points and safely above at least 1 other team in every scenario (assuming we still have better GD)
• Green Gully have to get a result from Hume City in 2 weeks, or else we are safe
• Hume City have to beat Pascoe Vale on the last day, or else we are safe
• Green Gully have to get a result from Kingston City on the last day, or else we are safe

In summary, from these 81 scenarios, the team most likely to go down is Green Gully:

Team	Scenarios finishing 12th	% chance
South Melbourne	7	8.64%
Kingston City	6	7.41%
Hume City	26	32.10%
Green Gully	42	51.85%

Of course, if Dandenong don't get a point from their last 2 games, we are safe anyway as they would stay below us on 28 points and lower GD, and all this would be moot.

Around the grounds
Friday night
Sat at home reading Kate Grenville's The Lieutenant while watching Batman, and later the footy.

Saturday arvo
Supermarket duties.

Saturday night
Went to the footy. Was alright.

Final thought
This semester I am in what may be called semi-gainful employment, with the possibility that my workload will increase significantly at very short notice. So, if you've been disappointed by the quality of South of the Border match posts in 2018, the lack of ephemeral material, or even just the deplorable promptness of publication, things are going to be pretty annoying for the next three months or so. Also, I've become quite fond of coming home on a Sunday evening after a game, switching my phone off, and just lying on the couch watching trash TV. So you know, take all of that into account for the next little bit.

Luck's a fortune - South Melbourne 2 Hume City 1

As badly as we have played this season, it is fair to say that up until three or four weeks ago, we've also had our fair share of rotten luck. Suspensions, injuries, vacations, open goals squandered: you name it, we've had it, as well as some things we can't name. So, while we can commend the squad for its new found resolve, and new coach Con Tangalakis for setting the side up for the relegation battle, let's all give a massive round of applause to the goddess Tyche for finally giving us a bit of a hand.

We had our bit of luck the other week against Bentleigh, the but the good fortune was coming out of our ears on Sunday. Of course it didn't quite seem like that at first what with not having turned up for the first half or hour or so, and giving away what looked like either a very soft or very avoidable penalty in just the kind of position where there's no life or death need to do so.

But then we managed to wake up a bit and for the last 15 minutes of the first half at least we created some chances and such. Still, Pep Marafioti's goal, while admittedly well placed, relied as much upon the good fortune that such flick headers rely on, as well Hume keeper Michael Weier getting himself into a bit of a tangle trying to figure out which direction he was meant to be heading in. It was probably a touch fortunate as well that Leigh Minopoulos wasn't called for offside at the point Marafioti headed the ball. Maybe the linesman didn't see it, maybe he didn't think Minopoulos was interfering, either way it counted, and we were in with a chance of doing something we'd not done yet in 2018: win a game after going a goal behind.

Speaking of real and imagined offsides, the first half had what looked like two of the worst offside calls I've ever seen, one where Minopoulos was called offside when he was about three of metres onside, and one where he was called onside despite being two metres on the wrong side of the ledger. Anyway, such is life, but geez they looked like terrible calls at the time.

Now some people are saying that that 15 minute patch in the first half was all the quality that we were really able to produce during the game, but I think that's a bit harsh myself. I agree that we were outplayed, but I don't agree with the idea that we did nothing at all in the second half. Having said that, throughout the game Hume squandered about four or five clear cut chances that should've consigned us a to a loss. Our defending was not up to scratch, in particular knowing when to press, and even more in particular being able to track the runs off the ball that Hume's attacking players were making. They were excellent on that front, perhaps the best of any team I've seen this season, but unfortunately for them, they didn't have a striker up front to make the most of any of the chances they created. Nikola Roganovic didn't have to make a save off any of them, so wayward were Hume's shots on goal from otherwise point-blank range.

While we were bumbling about when in defence and sending balls forward trying to find a goal, we made a whole bunch of subs, one of which included a tanned Milos Lujic. Standing next to me, Dave - who is becoming quite the terrace wit of late - posited that it would be about 33 seconds before Milos took a dive. Well, Dave's estimation was about 15 seconds too generous. Now, maybe when the replay comes out, the EPL assistant calibre English referee here to teach us many things will be proven right and that Milos was indeed bundled over illegally by a Hume defender. Anyway, Milos stepped up and scored it, we survived the remaining 20 odd minutes one way or another, and got three very valuable points. It wasn't particularly convincing, but so what? We're getting back toward having all of our senior players available, and the team more often than not now looks up for the fight.

Next game
Heidelberg United at home on Sunday afternoon. The men's match will be preceded by the NPLW senior match, also a South Melbourne vs Heidelberg affair. How convenient is that? The women's game kicks off at 1:30.

Tribunal shenanigans
So apparently we are going to the tribunal after all for that brawl against Northcote. I'm told it's not because Northcote pushed for it, and it's not based on any extant footage, so who knows what the hearing is going to be based on.

Bad taste chants
Bad George, bad George, what you gonna do?
What you gonna do, when he stomps on you?

I'm happy to lay off my persistent desire for a pom-pom South Melbourne
 Hellas beanie, if we can get branded accountant visors instead. Surely South
 has enough accountants on the board and in the stands to make this worthwhile.

Relegation/survival prognostication, still an ongoing concern
In regards to our chances of survival, the past week was a bit of a mixed bag. First, the good. Just in case you skipped ahead to this section: we won! And we beat a fellow relegation battler! That's three points we've got that they don't, and thus three points ahead of Hume with a much better goal difference. The other good news is that Bulleen lost, meaning that we are now ten points and significant goal difference ahead of the last placed Lions. Realistically, with five games to go, they ain't catching us.

In slightly less good news, Kingston beat Northcote last night in a match we would've preferred had ended up in a draw. That result means that Northcote are now in second last, seven points behind us, and again with a significantly inferior goal difference compared to us. You can't write them off though - after all, they have Bulleen yet to play - but you'd rather be where we are than where they are. Sadly, because Kingston got the win, they're still only four points behind us, making the game between us in a few weeks even more important.

Throwing a curve-ball into the works of all things relegation is the steep decline of Green Gully over the past two and a bit months. Our recent good run of results - ten points from a possible twelve over the past four weeks - means we have overtaken Gully, whom we play in a couple of weeks, on goal difference. Gully also have Hume and Kingston to play in their remaining games, completely upturning whatever half-arsed musings I made on this relegation situation a couple of weeks ago.

For those of us more inclined to be of a positive frame of mind - and let me make it clear that I am not one of you - our good run of form, if you want to call it that, has seen us keep up with the top six, maintaining the four point gap between ourselves and the current sixth placed side, which is Melbourne Knights. But that's for others to dream about. I'm only so bold as to say that we won't finish last, that we probably won't finish second last, and everything after that in this horror show of a season is a bonus. Quite obviously, we are not safe yet.

Vale Jim Postecoglou
Sad news this week that Ange Postecoglou's father has passed away. Ange has written a moving piece on what his father meant to him, which is well worth the read. The details for the funeral are below.

On behalf of the Postecoglou family, we would like to thank you for all of the messages of support for Ange. They would also like to confirm that the funeral for Jim will be held at 1.30pm on Wednesday July 25th at Box Hill Greek Orthodox Church, 1 Hopetoun Parade, Box Hill.

— South Melbourne FC (@smfc) July 24, 2018

A-League meeting
A reminder that the club is hosting an information session for members and season ticket holders this Thursday evening on the club's A-League bid. The all-you-can-eat buffet meal service will also be running, along with I assume the half-price drinks.

"I can't believe a convicted felon would get so many
 votes and another convicted felon would get so few.".

Oh my God! The dead have risen and they're voting South Melbourne Hellas!
Speaking of the A-League bid, in their clickbait wisdom the good folk of FourFourTwo conducted a poll the other week, asking their readers which of the ten remaining A-League bidders they would like to see be included as part of the A-League's imminent expansion phase. This robust and unequivocally scientific poll was narrowly won by our very own South Melbourne Hellas over the Wollongong bid, both some distance ahead of the next best Canberra bid, and all three a very long way in front of the other land and property development firms masquerading as Australian top-flight soccer operations.

Anyway this result sent some of the very small amount of people who care and put value into these things into a bit of a spin. mostly those who hate South Melbourne, ethnic soccer, etc. "The result changed once South Melbourne shared the poll on social media!". Well, what did you expect them to do, sit there and let another pointless yet easy to exploit positive media opportunity go to waste? "The poll must have been corrupted!". Well, look, you know what? It probably was. Internet polls are an enormous waste of time, not least because of their easy corruptibility. But - and here's the kicker - if that was the case, still the only people who could be bothered to corrupt the poll apparently did so in favour of South Melbourne, and probably the other two vote winning bids. Why? Because they're the only bids with enough people that care, yet.

For all the talk about groundswells of untapped interest from the more nebulously conceived consortia, the only groups who have come out in support of them are local councils and assorted state politicians, and to a lesser extent some clubs - though these last are usually grouped together in an amorphous mass. Not that any of that matters of course, because this is just a playground optics game, but my word it is fun to watch the cat among the pigeons.

Ian Syson book launch
Here's something a few of us - OK, maybe just me - thought might never happen. Ian Syson, one of South of the Border's dearest friends, is holding a launch party for his new book, The Game That Never Happened: The Vanishing History of Soccer in Australia. This has been a work long in the making, and we'll be talking about that a bit on the blog at some point in the near future I hope, when I do a kind of overview of what this is all about.

The details for the launch are as per the flyer on the right. Understandably, being held in the middle of the working week in the middle of the working day isn't convenient for those outside the layabout university and professional sectors, but for those who can spare the time, it'd be great to see you there. If you do intend to show up, please RSVP to the MCC Library, because they need to put your name down so that security will allow you inside the building.

The book should be available in the usual online and bricks and mortar locations. If it isn't, you can contact the publisher or distributor directly, or give me a bell and I should be able to arrange something.

Final thought

Can we sign Bolt? At least we have a running track! 😂

— Foti Stavrakis (@FotiStavrakis) July 17, 2018

Highway to Hell - South Melbourne 0 Green Gully 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next game
Kingston away on Monday night.

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

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

These things happen. *shrugs shoulders*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Game abandoned after 15 minutes - Heidelberg United 0 South Melbourne 0

There's a few things which happened this week which are worth discussing, but given the events of last night South of the Border will be putting those aside until next week.

The short version
About fifteen minutes into last night's game, Heidelberg player Harry Noon collided with a corner flag in such a way that he dislodged the flag and had the flag impale his left leg.

Unable to be moved from where he had fallen just outside the field of play, the resumption of play was at first delayed, and eventually the game was officially abandoned.

At the time of print this was the latest news on Noon's injury.

Condition update on Harry Noon: Harry is doing well. He has avoided any serious tendon damage. Last night they flushed out his wound to prepare him for plastic surgery today. We thank you all for your love a support 💛🖤 #thepeoplesclub #UnitedWeStand

— Heidelberg United FC (@HUFCWARRIOR) April 29, 2018

For more updates on Noon, you're best advised to follow Heidelberg's social media outlets.

There are no details about when the fixture will be rescheduled for, nor whether the match will be replayed from the beginning or whether it will resume from the 15 minute mark.

Should the game (or its remainder) not be rescheduled for some time this week, then the next South Melbourne senior men's game will be at home on Sunday against Green Gully.

Before then, our NPLW side is at home on Saturday against the NTC. Before then they have a cup game against Bulleen at Lakeside on Wednesday night.

The slightly longer version
Thanks to a defective train which dumped all its passengers at Croxton, an ill passenger which delayed the service behind the defective train, and an unscheduled detour to the Chemist Warehouse outlet on Murray Road, it took me an hour longer than normal to get to Olympic Village.

Add to that the fact that the gates on Southern Road were not open, necessitating a very long walk around to the other side of the venue, I thus missed the majority of the under 20s game where we were 3-0 down already. The team rallied to bring it back to 3-2 - including a goal from a free kick, how novel - but could not find the equaliser.

Then it was time for the main festivities to start, The match was a celebration of Heidelberg's 60th anniversary, and thus Heidelberg were treating it as a bit of a special event. They wore a commemorative jersey which is probably a heritage strip of sorts; I think I've seen that jersey in old photos, though I can't say for sure.

Kickoff was delayed by seven minutes in order for certain ceremonial matters to be be taken care of first, which mostly consisted of former Berger players being brought onto the field. There was also a minute's silence for reasons which were not immediately clear, but which were reportedly to do with Anzac Day.

Both teams were far from fielding their best starting elevens, especially up front. For South there was no Milos Lujic, no Leigh Minopoulos, and an injured Andy Brennan was on the most threadbare of benches. Tom Cahill was absent for the Bergers, who also claimed that they were well below full-strength.

Whatever the truth of these claims, the game itself - at least the 15 minutes that managed to get played before Noon's injury - was scrappy and unsightly. There was little tactical or skilful fluency on display. Some of that you can put down to it being a derby, some due to the absent players, and probably a good chunk of it due to it being an NPL Victoria game.

It was exciting though, albeit mostly for the wrong reasons. Harry Noon was the centre of attention even before he sustained his serious injury. Five minutes on he made out to stomp on the prone Oliver Minatel on the halfway line, incensing the South crowd nearby when he escaped unpunished for that action. Considering that a similar incident happened two seasons ago at this same ground with these two teams - with Reuben Way getting sent off then - the South crowd was already fired up and angry.

Add to that the ref not calling the blatant penalty when a Heidelberg player clattered into Minatel from behind in the box an action which should have resulted in a penalty and a possible sending off, and the ire of South fans was already at breaking pont.

The "heat of the moment" is the Faustian pact that all sports lovers make, whether players or spectators. It is the extreme and essential thrill of living in the now that makes sport compelling, knowing that what is done at any given moment cannot be undone later on, only potentially made up for.

A stray Heidelberg pass was heading out for a goal kick, and despite it seeming evident to all that there was no way to keep it in, Harry Noon decided to lunge for it, managing to get only a touch on the ball and collecting the corner flag for his troubles. The corner flag was dislodged from the ground and flew into the air, and Noon went down injured, but not before trying to get up from the initial fall to respond to the bronx cheers of the South fans.

Noon didn't get up again. Possibly a hundred metres away from Clarendon Corner, and obscured by the ad boards, it was unclear what his injury was nor how serious it was. Thus came the chants of "karma" and a "dig a hole", and variants thereof for some time, as confusion surrounded what was happening. The game was stopped, but there was no serious sign of a stretcher being moved out to toward Noon.

Anger at the lack of information provided to the crowd - - at one point it was announced that the game was delayed "for now" - coupled with the apparent lack of any obvious signs of distress from the support staff. That's not to justify some of the nastier stuff that was said during this time (from both sides), only to set the context for how it came about. Once word filtered through about the exact nature of the Noon's injury, most of the jeering and chanting stopped, and when it was announced that the game was abandoned as they waited for the ambulance to arrive, the crowd filtered out of the stadium fairly quickly and without much complaint.

Still, much like Noon may regret his feigned stomp or his reaching for a ball that was not worth going for, so too there will be South fans who will (probably) regret some of the carry on they were involved in. Or at least I hope that's the case.

Others are debating the safety of the type of corner flags used at Olympic Village last night, including whether they were banned several years ago by FIFA and thus by extension FFV. South goalkeeper Jerrad Tyson was one of those shared his opinion in this matter last night:

2/2 A horrific injury that would hav been avoided w a simple folding corner flag.
Clubs need to be serious about the safety of their fields.

— Jerrad Tyson (@jerradtyson) April 28, 2018

While an interesting topic and one that should be looked in the fallout from the incident, I'm not qualified to go into these matters. I just don't know enough about corner flags to make even speculative judgements.

An issue I do know something about is posting on the internet, and that stress combined with sleep deprivation do not make for good or sympathetic posting. The late Bob Ellis noted that the internet never sleeps, but that people do. Should the world end while you sleep, chances are that you wouldn't have been able to change the course of history, let alone enjoy those final few hours.

Then again, Bob probably didn't stay up into the early hours to watch overseas soccer matches.

I woke up this morning to see that there was discussion on the matter well into the morning, which continued later into the day. Some of the back and forth on social media leaves neither side of the issue looking particularly classy, especially given that after the heat of the moment had dissipated, all the concern should be on Noon's condition, and making sure that even such unlikely and one-in-a-million incidents never happen again.

Final thought
I would like to wish Harry Noon all the best in his recovery.