Looking ahead - South Melbourne 2 Hume City 2

Apologies for the very late and very short thing.

In just one week we went from arguing with volunteer parking attendants, to being able to park anywhere, and kids with homemade dirt bikes blowing dust into the air. The souv was good, and that's about as good as the two-week Yarraville stint was. It wasn't Yarraville's fault, mind - we've just gone back to being garbage, and borderline unwatchable. Borderline, because there are still people watching the games. More fool them. 

After taking an early lead thanks to confusion in the Hume defence more than anything we did, it was back to getting absolutely swarmed. They say why would you stand behind the goal that we're attacking, a pretty ordinary view. Well, that way you're a least further away from whatever's going on at the other end. Who can understand the lineup decisions, the sub decisions, who is liked, and who isn't. 

Anyway, we got a point. Just trudging along to the finals. Get two (or more likely now, three) stupid wins then, and no-one will care about whatever preceded it.

Next game
Bentleigh away on Saturday afternoon. My attendance at this game is unlikely, for reasons other than my disgust at recent performances.

Upload news!
Super thanks to Nick Guoth on the Australian Football Memorabilia Facebook page, who uploaded the pages of the program from the 1965 Australia Cup semi-final first leg match between South Melbourne Hellas and APIA. I have collated those pages into a PDF, and made that document available here.

Women out of the cup
Well, look. I can't say that our senior women didn't give it a good shake. Dominated the first half, had pretty much all the good chances - how many point blank chances can you have saved? - but in the end, it was a familiar story; Calder, in the cup, the end. A real shame, because in that first half, this team played as well as I've seen them play for a while now. 

Around the grounds
Spirit of the game
The spirit of the game is threatening the opposition coach that you're going to come across and break his neck. The spirit of the game is both coaches relentlessly abusing and undermining the officials. The spirit of the game is players arguing with spectators behind the fence. The spirit of the game is, apparently, Harry Noon getting paid who knows what to run around the fifth tier of Victorian soccer (north-west section), bang into people like an old school footy sniper, and barely touch the ball. Depressing, really.

Final thought
Thank you to JJ for noticing an error in my fixture list page.

Drama Queens - South Melbourne 2 Altona Magic 0

The scene was set for an all-time classic snooze-fest. Two teams winding down into the close of the season, nothing to aim for either up or down. It was raining, and no-one had bothered to put up the sponsor boards, which would have annoyed the sponsors if we had any that weren't board members. And the crowd was muted in interest, given the whole thing had a bit of a pre-season feeling, albeit with a bit less passion.

During this game (or after it) you may have seen an overly dramatic tweet describing the utter destitution of Clarendon Corner on Sunday afternoon:

@PaulMavroudis The sole person in Row H today #FightTillTheEnd #HooliganBlood #SMFCvAMFC pic.twitter.com/5BC8Mtv70j

— Foti Stavrakis (@FotiStavrakis) August 18, 2019

Let me assure everyone that it was not all quite like that. There were other Clarendon Corner people within the general vicinity of that photo - they were just sitting a few rows further back, in the dry areas covered by the roof.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

When it stopped raining, a few people gradually moved down towards the famous Row H, which for those not in the know, is the row claimed by those of us in Clarendon Corner who do not wish to associate with the nonce brigade which tends to gather in the rows immediately in front of Row H.

And while it's not like no-one turned up, the low turnout overall, and especially in the areas quasi-traditionally inhabited (since 2012) by Clarendon Corner, created the perfect opportunity for me to enact a performance of despondent human misery.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

But don't be concerned for me - it wasn't raining that hard, when it was raining. And don't be sad for those that were there and treated this game like the dead rubber it most surely was - there was nothing to play for, and nothing to get particularly excited about, even though the game did produce a number of chances for both teams. And don't even blame those that didn't turn up, because people do have other and/or better things to do; and besides which, didn't I tell people not to come to games if it no longer made them happy, and especially if attending games actually made them seriously unhappy?

Performative, self-preservationist, and self-conscious proto-martyr creating misery works for me, but it's not for everyone. And it's not like there's still not plenty of other naturally miserable looking people at South if you're into that kind of thing.

Some of the players didn't even bother turning up. Peter Skapetis was not present, as he's apparently in Greece. Who knows how long he'd had that planned, but it's a good thing we're not in a relegation scrap.

Having said that, some of our injured players did make appearances in and around the ground. Luke Adams was on the South bench, not on the team sheet, but still present to offer support. Brad Norton was apparently seen trying to calm down the very upset Pep Marafioti in the tunnel outside the change rooms. And injured keeper Josh Dorron was seen tucking into a burger in the grandstand, helping put some coin back into the club and advertising the food on offer in the social club.

And can I just say, the quality of the burgers has been steadily improving week by week, even if last week's patty was almost too big to comfortably fit within the bun provided. Now let's have a round of applause for the players that did turn up, and in general put in a solid shift.

Sadly there was also a moment of too much pride and passion, which has likely seen the end of one player's time at South. Having created several good opportunities early in the game and not taken them, the team won a penalty, its second of those in two games. Hey, when it rains, it pours. Credit to Perry "the Pez Dispenser" Lambropoulos for winning the spot kick with some nifty play; I have been one of the people who was less than enthused about his being signed at all, and after that unimpressed with what he offered in the first half of the season; but I am willing to admit that I was perhaps hasty to judge his capabilities, as in general he has been one of our better players in the second half of the season (even getting forward on occasion), and I would not be completely averse to him being at the club next season.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

Now back to the penalty. One would have assumed that some people's probably nonsense generic superstitious bias against left footers taking penalties aside, having the person who scored our only penalty for the season just a couple of weeks ago take this one as well would just be (and I am loathe to use this term) common sense. Pep Marafioti however, for who knows what reason, did not see it that way, and attempted to take the ball off acting-skipper Marcus Schroen, which almost saw the two come to blows right there in front of everyone.

(and when I say "everyone" here, I mean the small crowd in attendance, as well as the audience watching either from home or from some decrepit gambling den in the Caucasus, Indochina, or Arabian Peninsula.)

They tell me that team morale is good, despite everything that has gone on this year, and certainly light years ahead of last year's mess. And yet only Nick Krousoratis bothered or had the good sense to intervene and try and defuse the situation between his teammates which was threatening to get even further out of hand. He's had a rough season has Nick, but that's the kind of level-headed person I'd want on my team. And for whatever it's worth, I still think he's a very talented player who could still do a lot of damage for our club (rather than against, like some others have done) next season.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

As for why Pep thought he ought to have taken the penalty, I do not know. Someone on a thankfully very dusty and forgotten corner of the internet suggested that there was an extant arrangement - possibly originating from preseason - to alternate penalty takers. If this is the case, that is the dumbest thing I've heard for quite some time, especially when for almost the entire season we'd earned just one penalty before last Sunday's. Now since Pep was nowhere near the league golden-boot running, and considering that Marcus had scored the only other penalty we'd earned this season, and considering that Marcus was wearing the captain's armband, I don't know what Pep was trying to achieve.

Marcus probably could have handled the situation better, but I suppose he was caught off-guard not having a taser or can of pepper spray on hand to incapacitate the man trying to accost him. Maybe he was just as shocked and surprised at the rest of us at the playground antics taking place out on the hallowed turf of Lakeside Stadium. Or maybe this is an argument to go to the practice of netball or basketball, and have whoever was fouled in the penalty area take the penalty?

(at some point around here while typing up this post, whose segments were not compiled in order anyway, I got up to go to a local bakery to get some lunch)

The worst thing that could have happened after all that was for Schroen to miss the penalty, so thankfully he did manage to score the goal and put us up 1-0. I shudder to think what would have happened had he missed or had his shot saved.

As awful as that part of Sunday's spectacle was, I suppose it did at least offer the live-stream commentary team something to talk about in this dead rubber, though I'm slightly miffed now that I wasn't on special commentary for the day, the number of my guest commentary appearances having stalled at "two". Slightly more problematic was the task of the South Melbourne highlights editor, who had to try and edit out as much as possible of the nonsense between Schroen and Marafioti, an impossible task to complete to 100% levels of erasure of important moments of South Melbourne history.

It may have been unprofessional to do it the way I'm about to suggest, but I feel like my video editor friend missed an opportunity to augment the experience with the addition of an obvious yet also classic Simpsons gag.

Anyway, as expected Pep was not out on the field for the second half (replaced by Billy Konstantinidis), and I fancy that's the last time we've seen him in a South shirt. It's a pity that it's ended up this way - for all his character and playing foibles, he was one of our better players this year (though some cruel persons might say that was a problem in itself). But two brothers gone in the one season, what are the odds? And both of them ex-South juniors, which will make the board's aim of a title with 60% of our squad being South juniors a bit of a harder task.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

The game continued being a free-flowing affair, with both sides squandering chances. Magic - who have apparently just had a major backer of theirs announce his resignation from the presidency, though who knows how it will affect them next year - had a goal ruled out for offside. Eventually Konstantinidis tapped home a late goal to finish this game off as a contest.

Next week
Heidelberg at home on Sunday afternoon. This will be the final game of the season for the men's team, and I don't think it could come any sooner. Unfortunately, the game also doubles up as an important fixture for what I'm still calling the minor premiership, which Heidelberg are in best place to secure.

After largely going unnoticed in 2019, apparently the club is going to make the final game a bit of a showcase of sorts for the club's 60th anniversary celebrations, so there's that to look forward to I suppose.

Cripes, it'll be the last time some of us will see each other for months! And it'll be the last time we see some or many of these players in a South shirt. I'm getting all misty-eyed. If only we knew who we were planning to turf now, we could have the Streisand backed montage ready to go.

Women stumbling in quest for finals
I was going to go to the senior women's game against Box Hill at Lakeside last Saturday, but got roped into another game instead - see the "around the grounds" section for that story. Anyway, the women lost 3-1 to Box Hill, and made things more difficult for themselves in terms of trying to secure the final spot in the finals. Again, not that any of the three teams (ourselves, the Bergers, or Box Hill) vying for fourth are likely to do any damage in the finals - especially as they'll have to play Calder first up - but it would be nice to at least make it. So the loss against Box Hill was a pretty important one, but not quite the season-ending game it could've been

That probably came yesterday, with the side playing out a 1-1 draw vs the NTC at Knox. I didn't get out there, of course, but I manage to watch the game (or at least most of it) on the stream. It was not one of our better performances, something I could tell from the stream despite it being filmed at ground level, having no commentary or graphics, and with the placement of portable goals all around the perimeter giving poor depth perception having me even bigger problems than usual trying to figure out what was going on.

Skip Fulton graciously let us know that at half time we were 1-0 up, thanks to a Nat Martineau goal, scored before confusion about the stream - which was originally tagged as Southern vs Heidelberg - was cleared up. I did see our late-season replacement keeper save a penalty during the first half, adding to her short-term reputation as being something more than a short-term fix.

The second half was just as confusing to me as the first (not least in part because I was switching back and forth between the stream and another project), because I thought we'd scored a goal from a Leia Varley free kick but then a comment online asked why it was disallowed. When NTC scored, I wasn't sure then if it was an equaliser or just a goal clawed back, and the initial social media response from the club at the conclusion of the game was that we'd won the game 2-1.

That was later corrected (with an apology) to 1-1, with Varley's goal being disallowed at it came from an indirect free kick; a result which sees us sit a point behind Heidelberg, who have a game in hand against Southern United. We play the Bergers in the last round, and the Bergers also have a game against Box Hill whee they could drop points, but at this stage it appears that even if we beat Bayside this Saturday afternoon at Lakeside and the Bergers in the last round at home, it's the Bergers with the best shot of making finals. It's been that kind of year.

More videos uploaded
I've uploaded a couple more hour long compilations of South Melbourne highlights from circa 1988-1992. These come from Banger's collection, and you can check them out on my channel here, along with other South videos. I've tagged/timestamped the individual games in the description sections, but there's often little snippets of other stuff which I haven't bothered to tag - consider them bonus material.

Puskas film update
A few months ago, some readers showed some concern about whether this film was actually still being made. I did not have a definitive answer then. I can say now that 'yes', the film is still in production. Work related and other commitments slowed down the process, but it is still going. I don't have much directly to do with the film's production, but I will do what I can to keep the ball rolling. I'd give you an estimated time of completion, but it's really up to the guys making the film to get the film to a stage where it can be finished and shown to the public.

Around the grounds
Please make this season end
Trundled out to Quarries Park or whatever it's called for Clifton Hill vs Yarraville. You want a game that meant nothing? Here it was. Two teams so bad they deserved to be relegated, but thanks to a mass restructure of the league system coming soon, they've been left to spin their wheels for most of the season, like so many clubs in a similar position. It's half the reason I've barely been to an Altona East game this year. Maybe because it meant nothing, there was hardly anybody there. I was there to watch a friend's son make his senior starting debut as goalkeeper for Clifton Hill. He did OK, but his team still lost 2-1.

Operation Italian White Whale
I've started the idiotic process of trying to update the infamous Victorian Italian club merger chart. It will take a very long time, will probably kill me, and end up being heinously incorrect if I ever do finish it. That being said, if you or someone you know actually knows the dates of Italian club mergers hitherto unrepresented in the current flowchart, please get in contact with me.

I've already had several good leads and prompts, with Anstey Roma's 1970 merger with Triestina, the Cobram split and re-merger, and the Mildura split in 1979/80.

Final thought
Το καλό πράγμα αργή να γίνει as my old man likes to say.

P.S.

Forgive the lateness of my reply.

This Sporting Life

Before we begin working backwards (preface for Maurice Bisetto)
By all means, have a go at Lakeside as a modern multi-purpose sporting stadium; but if you happen to be the president of a soccer club that plays in a mud pit, while also working for an A-League bid in the form of Geelong's Victoria Patriots - whose desired rectangular home ground doesn't even exist - maybe you should be a bit more circumspect about such things, eh?

Monday morning
Frozen tundra of Soldier Field
Upset at the Seahawks' offensive line for not protecting Russell Wilson properly, and Aaron Rodgers for not throwing to Devante Adams enough, but the Galloping Gazelles were rescued this week in part by a seven sack and one defensive TD effort from the Steelers. Let's be honest, that kind of good luck won't last, and in the end the main thing is to have the best avatar and the best and most accessibly obscure television referencing team name.

Sunday
There but for the grace of God go I
So it'd come to this, Melbourne Knights playing in a match to avoid being relegated to the Victorian second tier. Their opponents were Dandenong City, the upstart Croatian team from the other side of town. The story circulating around some quarters weeks in advance was that this game was fixed in favour of Knights, with City to defer to the prerogative of the standard bearer of local Croatian soccer to maintain its place. I think that's being a little melodramatic in what would have been a 50/50 game at the best of times, and more so in favour of Knights after Steven Topalovic got red carded last week, and Shaun Kelly out with a broken leg. But Daniel Visevic starting on the bench? That would have those looking for suspicious motives raising their eyebrows in a kind of 'I told you so' fashion.

The plainer truth of the matter is that the game was pretty timid for the most part, on the field and in the stands - the crowd wasn't as large for this first game in the double header as some have been making out, maybe a solid 800-1000, and they were very quiet. That's understandable, insofar as there was no right answer for the non-neutrals in the crowd. I was hoping for a good game first, and if Knights were to be allowed to stay up, to at least be forced to be earn it. On the former point, it did not live up to any sort of competitive or quality hype one would have hoped for. On the latter point, the fact that Kym Harris, who had done nothing all year - and as I pointed out to anyone who cared to listen, I saw enough games to make that judgement - scored a hat trick, said something about the nature of this game.

It was just as well Harris did pull his finger out, because there was no Tom Cahill for Knights. If the game was fixed, it was disguised well enough, though Dandy pulling two goals back late perhaps made it look a lot more suss considering that for most of the game they were incredibly limp going forward - a couple of headers over the bar in the second half when the game had already slipped away, and a free kick which hit the post in the first half were as close as they got. So far as Knights are concerned perhaps, 2017 as a whole was a hard lesson learned with the fortune of not needing to learn it next year in NPL 2 with a cash splashing Altona Magic to fight against.

In all honesty, I have no strong feelings either way as to whether it would've been good to see Knights go down. It wouldn't have made our lives significantly better or worse. There would have been a momentary or temporary period of schadenfreude, but that kind of thing only serves to distract one from one's own mess. Most of the Croatians who had come to see this game left after its conclusion, I suppose wanting to put the whole unseemly business behind them as soon as possible. Who can blame them?

As for me though, the whole thing felt like compromise ending to Pretty in Pink. Did you know that the in the original ending, Molly Ringwald's character is meant to end up with Duckie? But test audiences apparently reacted badly to that ending, so they instead had her ending up with the rich snob. Here, too, it seems we had a whole film pointing us towards a certain conclusion, only to rip it away from us at the last moment for no good reason whatsoever.

At least us public transport types were saved* from having to go out into the middle of nowhere police paddocks out the back of Endeavour Hills or wherever Dandy City play.

*Pending a possible FFA Cup trip out there.

May the best team win on the day we decide that it all counts
The grand final itself arrived, and proceeded to be if not a dire affair, than a rather unmemorable game nevertheless. The game was tight, chances were few. Some say that Bentleigh had the better of the midfield battle, but I reckon the Bergers created the better chances throughout the game in spite of 'King' Kenny Athiu being marked out of the game for the most part. The first half finished 0-0, probably should have been 1-1, but so it goes.

The second half was better. In part this was because Bentleigh opened the scoring through a dreadful error by Heidelberg captain Luke Byles, not the first time he's provided such a moment this season (see his horrendous under-hit square ball against Knights at Somers Street) or for a certain other team he used to play for. Bergers got a penalty to push it to extra time. Lambros Honos apparently scored a wonder goal to win it in extra time, I didn't see it and I don't have any regrets on that.

In a fair and just world, Heidelberg would have been crowned champions this year by virtue of finishing well clear on top of the table. Likewise for Bentleigh last season, and to a slightly lesser extent for South in 2015. While we're not going to be rid of a finals system BECAUSE STRAYA, could we at least get a nominally fairer finals system? I nominate the McIntyre Final Five.

Learning from past mistakes, mostly
After last year's mess of a grand final day, when FFV grossly underestimated the walk up attendance, yesterday there were far fewer issues with how the day went. The northern stand was opened up early on, including it seems the northern ticket booth, and patrons did not seem to take long to purchase their ticker and enter the venue.

Our social club was open, but it took a little while to sort which side to have it open from. Initially the plan seemed to be let people in from the futsal court entrance - that is, from outside the venue entirely - and allow people to enter from the arena side only if they had already purchased a ticket via the use of a pass-out system. At some point this was changed, and the outside door was locked, with people being able to come in and out from the arena side as they pleased, provided they didn't take any liquor outside

This is interesting in terms of what's been happening at Lakeside since we moved back in, whereby if there is not a South Melbourne match event in progress, than the door which leads from the social club to the arena is supposed to be locked, with an alarm going off should anyone try to access that door. The reasons for this seem to boil down to a combination of whatever agreements we live under as well as the continuing pettiness of the Trust.

The social club seemed to get more action once the entry switch was made. I don't think it was packed at any stage, but it seemed to be doing OK up until the last point I checked in, which was in the time between the two games up to just before kick off in the grand final. That it had to compete with the food outlets outside, including a Nando's truck, didn't help its cause, but things could have gone worse. That's my take on that anyway.

By the time grand final started, I'd estimate the southern stand was about 2/3 to 3/4 full at most. There were few people behind the goal ends, and not many standing alongside the fences or on the concourses. All up about 3,700 people turned up across both games. If I absolutely had to hazard a guess, the grand final itself had about 2800-3000 spectators. As expected there were few Bentleigh people in attendance.

There was a good smattering of Bergers support, but also a lot of neutrals. The Bergers fans made little noise, apart from a repetitive drum. The snake charmer I heard only once, the Ah-ah-lexandros chant only after the Bergers equalised. I didn't expect South Melbourne/Clarendon Corner levels of effort and relative co-ordination, but the lack of banners and flags surprised me, as on carnival days the Berger fans are at least good for that much.

The most irritating thing about the event as a whole was whoever was put into ground announcing duties. As I noted on Twitter, they were one novelty branding iron away from yelling 'OPEN WIDE FOR SOME SOCCER!'. It really was too much, and the crowd did not respond to his calls 'to make some noise' in any event.I didn't stick around for the post-game ceremonies, and wouldn't have done so for either team. It was only on the day itself that I committed to sticking around for the second game at all, my overwhelming interest being in the curtain raiser.

One thing that comes up consistently
If there's one thing which delights me about Lakeside Stadium above all others it is its status as a non-smoking venue. This rule isn't always adhered to by patrons, but for the most the smoking ban means that the air at NPL matches at Lakeside is a lot more breathable than at pretty much every other venue. This of course upsets smokers, especially those who are at best irregular visitors to Lakeside and who are more used to puffing away at will at suburban grounds. Apart from some smokers' indignant propensity to shout 'POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD' in such situations, I think part of the problem is people not realising that legally Lakeside Stadium is treated no differently to other major sporting venues in this state, despite the incongruity of most of its football matches being not very major events at all.

To which I say, suffer in your jocks.

If there's one thing Oz soccer struggles with, it's in sourcing
stickers that are hard to rip off wherever you've decided to
stick them. You can't go cheap and local and buy them off
the local sticker place selling 'fuck off we're full' designs
at the local trash n' treasure market. You've got to make the
effort to source stickers from wherever European ultras
groups get their stickers done.
Photo: Paul Mavroudis

Saturday 
With apologies to the South women, but I'll see you in the finals
Last day of the home and away season for the state leagues and for WNPL, I could - should - be at Lakeside watching the South women winning what I call the minor premiership, but I've made a promise to go see Clifton Hill once this season. Fuelled by the righteous indignation of someone arguing that we bend reality to our own will just like that, I settled in to watch a pair of dead rubber matches. In the reserves Clifton Hill held out Mooroolbark 2-1. The seniors was even more pointless, Clifton Hill out of the title running, the Barkers already relegated. The first half was even enough, 1-0 at the break to the Hillmen, but it was mostly close because the home side couldn't finish properly. They fixed that in the second half, running out 6-1 winners. The most notable moment was not one of the goals, but a low drive from way out by a Clifton Hill player, a shot whose laser-like qualities managed to hit one of his own teammates who failed to get out of the way; the shooter declaring in frustration 'oh, now you win finally win a header'. As expected the souv was mediocre, undressed salad and not much meat.

The notion also came up and was developed that, Tiamat willing the A-League fell over and we needed to get a new national league going, that first dibs on entering should go to Mooroolbark. They could of course reject formal participation, but like Greece leading the parade of nations at modern Olympic Games, there'd be no harm in offering a symbolic gesture on that front.

Friday or Saturday...
Famous production line
South under 20s forward Giordano Marafioti has been picked for the Young Socceroos squad going to Qatar for some reason or another.

Friday
The Glamorous Lives of Professional Athletes
On a whim I decided to head out to Traralgon with Chris Egan to watch the Perth Wildcats play the Adelaide 36ers in a pre-season tournament in Gippsland. It was only my second time in Gippsland, my only other trip out there being a trip to Morwell. Fair to say that Traralgon isn't impressive by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems like a slight step up from Morwell. Believe me, you don't go there for the architecture - even the walking tour sheets they hand out at the local tourist centre seem to refer mostly to buildings that have been knocked down. I suppose that's why the people in the information office were shocked that anyone came visiting by train.

ASIC building in Traralgon. Photo: Paul Mavroudis.

After visiting one of the local bakeries (above average sausage roll, average chocolate eclair)  we did walk around the town for a bit. Visited the library to see what kind of local history section they had (not my idea of fun, but go with the flow), and noticed that their footy book display had references only to AFL books and nothing about the local scene. But there was this (see right), the amazing federal brutalist (is that even a correct term?) government building that turned out to be an Australian Securities and Investments Commission building. What was ASIC doing having an office in Traralgon? What were ASIC doing having an office in Traralagon in a building like that? I don't know the history, but I'd love to know the history. Went to a local bare bones pub, then an oddly designed and rather dull Catholic church (my first Catholic church visit, got nothing on the Orthodox).

Traralgon is also strange in how little it seems to make of being the birthplace of a Nobel Prize winner. There's a small bust somewhere in the town's CBD (I think outside the too fancy by half post office), and a room named after him in what may be the council chambers, but nothing else visible so far as I can remember. Maybe it's because some of his later views bordered on being eugenicist. 

Looking towards the south/south-eastern end of the Traralgon showgrounds.
Photo: Paul Mavroudis.

We then walked out of the compact and dull CBD area (yes it still has a Sanity outlet, but that's hardly a real attraction) which meant we eventually reached the combination Traralgon football ground and showgrounds. I was taken back to a time during the mid 1990s when the then floundering VFA/VFL was looking for regional teams to help fill out the space left behind by most of the VFA's teams going broke over the preceding decade. Traralgon (along with North Ballarat and Bendigo Diggers) was part of that attempt at regional expansion, and on face value that made a sort of sense - Traralgon were a very strong club in the Gippsland region. But of course it didn't work out, with the Maroons winning only four and a half games over two seasons. Possibly, too, there was not so much interest from locals in rivalries with Melbourne based clubs they knew little of and cared little for.

Entrance to the Traralgon showgrounds, with the decorative gates
installed fir the 1988 Bicentennial. Photo: Chris Egan.

But I wouldn't want to be too bold in my assertions, because my entire experience of that period of history was occasionally seeing this ground on ABC TV on Saturday afternoons after I'd finished Greek school.The ground was open to the public, so we had a bit of a wander around. There wasn't a great deal of cover or seating, but the scoreboard had a clock going up to an hour, instead of the usual 45 minutes that most footy grounds have. There were also semi-elaborate gates out the front, installed as part of the 1988 Bicentennial.

The north side of Traralgon City's club rooms. Around the corner on the
left hand side were City's grounds. Around the corner on the right hand side
were Olympians grounds. Photo: Paul Mavorudis.

Wandering up further north, we ended up finding what could be considered Traralgon's soccer precinct, though when arriving there it didn't seem to register as such. From the angle we walked in from, all we could see was Traralgon City's grounds and small club rooms, with no seats. Walking around the north side of the club rooms however was revealed an interesting sight: the home ground of Traralgon Olympians, with separate club rooms.

Now being an Altona East follower of sorts means that I'm used to having two clubs share a common club room facilities while having separate fields, but I could not think of (off the top of my head) a situation where two clubs in Melbourne were so close to each other while having entirely separate facilities. It was all a bit small scale Dundee and Dundee United, for those familiar with the proximity of Dens Park and Tannadice to each other.

Looking south-east from the Jim Fkiaris Stand at Traralgon Olympians'
ground. Note the plentiful cover, terrace standing room, as well as
comfortable seating. Photo: Paul Mavroudis.

It's fair to say that while it's not really much of a difference, Olympians have the better facility. The Jim Fkiaris Stand caters to everyone's needs: plenty of room for standing, but also half a dozen or so long wooden benches with plenty of leg room, all undercover. It's the thing that should conceivably be within the reach of any suburban club that has a space with adequate cover and elevation to achieve, let alone for local councils to be able to implement. Of course the latter are more interested in elaborate and arty designs which provide neither shelter nor seating these days. So it goes.

Of course some of the more trainspotter types out there will recall that Traralgon Olympians did participate in a couple of Hellenic Cups in the mid 2000s, though if memory serves me correctly they were never in one of South's groups. If anyone's willing to tag along for the train ride, I'd be more than up for a day out at the Traralgon derby next year, provided the fixture was one being hosted by Olympians.

Traralgon Olympians' match day canteen menu. Photo: Paul Mavroudis.

Just don't expect any miracles on the catering front though. While the offerings are cheap and cheerful, Australian soccer food tourists looking for regional souv action will be left disappointed if the menu (see right) is an accurate reflection of what's on offer at an Olympians match day.

Eventually came time to head to the Traralgon basketball centre, which didn't require a bus trip but we made use of one anyway. The facility was pretty much one expected, at least in terms of the main court, except for there being seating on both sides. Oh, and there were Wildcats fans other than Chris Egan in attendance. I've been to two basketball matches before this, and fair to say that the sport is not my cup of tea. One was a Melbourne Tigers (remember them?) vs 36ers game at Hisense Arena I think, after a spare ticket became available in a party of four. I didn't end up writing about that because things got a bit congested on here during February of I think it was 2014. All I can remember is that the standard was poor, especially the shooting, and that there were a lot of families in a solid crowd, which made me wonder why they bothered re-branding later on. Oh, and I also went to a Dandenong Rangers WNBL game.

This game was as you'd expect from a pre-season affair, a heady mix of free-flowing and sloppy, with not much pressure on the shooters (and consequently what seemed like a decent field goal rate) but also a lot of fouls off the ball. The highlight of our time there was a half time competition where fans got to take a shot from the half way line to win $1,000. A red-headed lad managed to get the prize with the very first shot, and I felt good for him, but also a little concerned. What if this was the highlight of his life and it was all downhill from here? And how unlucky in a sense that he nailed this shot in Traralgon, where the best he could hope for would be $1,000, and not somewhere in the state where the potential prizes could be worth a lot more.

Walking out at three quarter time because of my mistaken perception of what I thought was the last train back to Melbourne, we at least got to see the Sydney Kings pile out of a couple of rental vans, which kind of made the boast in the tournament programme that the NBL is one of the world's leading basketball leagues seem a little hollow. The realisation once we reached Traralgon station that we could've watched the game upset my OCD need for closure sensibilities, but at Chris pointed out, at least we got back to town early enough that I didn't have to deal with any obnoxious Richmond fans after the footy. Still got to see a nutbag arguing with staff at the Elizabeth Street KFC, the aftermath of which we avoided by going across the road for bad pizza instead.

Friday, somewhere on the way to, or in, Traralgon
Numbers
Somehow Travis Kelce only gets five catches for forty yards in a game the Chiefs rack up up 42 points in.

Thursday, about 1:30 in the afternoon
Waivers
After being sucked in to filling out the league slots in an NFL fantasy league, I found myself in the Vic Uni library participating in a serpentine draft with pick no. 2 instead of doing thesis work. I had only half an idea of what I was doing, ended up being ranked the worst ranked team. Missed out on all the good running backs, or even the ones that will have to make up for being on teams with lousy quarterbacks. Oh well, as long as I can get Danny Amendola on waivers later...

Thursday, or maybe Wednesday
Keep Australia Beautiful
I peeled off a North Terrace Boys sticker off the bottom of a gantry at Footscray station.

Final thought
The highlight of the week was during the Knights-Dandy game, when two little girls walked through our row and meowed in the direction of Big Griff.

The less said about industrial strength mineral water and the people who drink it however, the better.

Dead of Winter - South Melbourne 1 Bulleen Lions 0

After the abject horror of Tuesday, it would be foolish to expect miracles on Sunday. Indeed, were those miracles to occur, they would almost certainly manage to enrage the South Melbourne Hellas public far more than the wayward performance that was actually produced today. Had we come out all guns blazing and slaughtering an at best mediocre Bulleen, people would have wondered - and not without some justification - where that kind of competence was just days before. Instead, we got to see roughly where the team is located at this point in time - and not just within the context of this season, but in the context of the past three years since our revival under Chris Taylor.

It's worth noting that Taylor provided what we believed was needed at that time - an extreme back to basics approach, a team and style designed for the VPL as it was then, able to grind out results against all the other grinding, fighting, scrapping teams and the awful, potato patch fields they called their home grounds. But the old adage of 'be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it', reminds us that the peculiar mess we're in at the moment - still top of the table, but hardly feeling like we deserve it - is in part due to us, the fans. After so many incoherent and chaotic seasons following our 2006 championship, where we were occasionally brilliant but mostly just not good enough, the call went out for an experienced and no-nonsense coach, and a team that would play to win, and do whatever it took to do so - even if that 'sacred' South Melbourne Hellas trope of needing to win while also being entertaining got shown the door.

And to be fair, that approach has broadly been successful. The revival in the second half 2013 got us to within one game of a grand final. In 2014 we came storming out of the blocks and won the league with two games to spare. In 2015, despite struggles with injury, we managed to rally from behind to finish top of the table again, recovering well after the FFA Cup loss to Palm Beach to put together a stunning run that included the Dockerty Cup win. The grand final loss hurt, but the feeling was that perhaps Bentleigh deserved it. We'd had an amazing two and half season run, and we'd come back next year determined to redeem ourselves, especially after the catastrophic performance against Hobart Olympia.

But if that grand final loss, and the two losses against Bentleigh this year (and even our win) have shown us anything, is that the desirable attributes required now to succeed in this league have changed. No longer are the grinding, ugly teams, personified by the Green Gully sides of 1999-2011, the ones that do well. The game has changed. Irrespective of the relative competencies of the current leading teams (or at least those teams making up the top six at the moment), the emphasis has changed to teams trying to play better football.

And on that front, we have been found wanting. There are games where we have mauled teams this year, but there have also been games when we have been mauled, and rather than being considered an off day, those losses have mounted up - and we are now looking at something far more serious. And rather than see it as something which we can turnaround, the navel gazing mood at the present time is such that it's not just this year's losses, but all the 'big game' losses of the past three years, that have snowballed into an avalanche of despair.

In part due to suspensions, players traveling overseas, and apparently even some unverified sooking in the background, the team that took the field against Bulleen was not the one which played against Bentleigh. The bench even included a couple of under 20s players! But the set up was much the same, The inclusion of Andy Kecojevic showed a measure of attacking intent, as did the necessary inclusion of Amadu Koroma because Tim Mala was playing at centre-back, but the structure and ideology were the same.

Stand in captain Brad Norton competes for the ball against a Bulleen opponent,
with Andy Kecojevic in the background. Photo. Kevin Juggins.

In that regard we were fortunate to have two things in our favour: first, that our initial burst of 'we mean business after Tuesday's embarrassment' efforts saw us a score a goal, scrappy as it was. Second, Bulleen, either because they're in their own rut, or because they've lost important players, or because they weren't playing on their own synthetic turf, were poor. Getting that early goal made one hope, perhaps even expect, that we would run over the top of Bulleen. And it's not like we didn't have our chances to do so, and promising patches of play, but it just didn't happen. The longer that anticipated storming of Bulleen's barricades didn't happen, the more muddled and less inspiring things started to become. On several occasions today we arguably reached the point that no team wants to reach - the point in which one can identify players not wishing to take responsibility when they're in possession, preferring to pass it off to someone else.

As with Tuesday's performance, our players began playing balls without even looking where they may be kicking said balls. This is not entirely unreasonable - if you're a midfielder or a forward who's developed a rapport with your teammates of such a high level that a 'sight unseen' pass reaches its target in part due to cosmic understanding, great. When your defenders start pulling those moves, leading to turnovers in dangerous areas, not great. The whole experience eventually reached the stage where people were beginning to expect Bulleen to eventually equalise. This expected equaliser, had it actually happened, would have been scored by a team some in the crowd judged to be the least capable side we have played in the league this year.

Unlike some people, I think Chris Taylor is a good coach, one capable of reforming the team. But to do that he will also require a measure of self-reflection, and the acknowledgement that the task he was brought in to perform has been completed. He's got us back to being consistently competitive and among the leading pack. But the style and ethos that got us there needs to be, if not discarded, then adapted for a new reality - one where our nearest rivals have adapted, and begun to outperform us. This may mean the end of the line for some players. But the other problem is, because Taylor is a conservative and risk averse coach, whose recent success has been based on those attributes, it will be difficult to change those habits. Even today, it took until the 88th minute for Chris Irwin to get a run. Yes it's twice the game time he would have received had he come on during 91st minute, as has been the custom, but I'm not sure anyone's getting the best out of that situation.

¡Machismo!
The desire to witness within our team even the evidence of that intangible combination of the qualities of skill, ambition, desire, hunger, tenacity, was perhaps partly sated by the second half appearance of Manuel 'Manolo' Padilla Herero. While he was disappointingly placed in a wide position instead of closer to Milos Lujic - such is life at the moment - he did manage to show glimpses not only of his talent but also of (as one punter put it) testicular fortitude. Putting aside the PC abstractions inherent in that description, one wonders how one measures 'testicular fortitude', and how frighteningly literal such tests may be. Less literally, I can see where our punter was coming from, because even though Manolo has thus far played in less than ideal situations (one under 20s match, a lost cause, and a bit against Bulleen), there were signs that Manolo could be something worthwhile - provided that he can prove his worth against 'good' teams, and that his loan period lasts the entire rest of the season, instead of until whenever Leganes want him back.

Next game
Richmond at home on Friday night.

Censorship on SMFCBoard, again
Some of my more anally retentive readers will recall that I commented last year on the increasingly arbitrary censorship that was occurring on our beloved SMFCBoard. That comment lead in part to a more relaxed and tolerant approach to letting people post what they felt, and what I perceived to be a less secretive and arbitrary approach to forum moderation.

Well I'm sad to say that that period of gentler moderation has once again lapsed, and is unfortunately now worse than what had occurred before. I won't trawl over my own reasoning again for a more lax approach to moderation and censorship - anyone who visits this blog regularly enough knows where I stand. But I will say this - when one deletes an entire thread because one does not like the comments of a few within that thread, you take away not only that person's right to have their say, but also the right of others to read those comments, to engage with them, and to approve of, disregard, ignore, argue against, or even just plain old skim over those comments. The same goes for banning people because their view of the club doesn't fit your own ideas of what that should be - and I say that as someone who often disagrees with what the poster known an Buffalo Cup has to say.

It's not the only form of censorship on SMFCBoard - the lack of open registrations is one such other example - but as it is another step towards turning the forum into an echo chamber, I'm boycotting the forum until the people in charge of moderation as a whole come back to their senses.

Though it's possible I'll cave in before then.

Victory tribunal decision pending - coming soon?
Over the past two entries, I'd forgotten to mention the ongoing saga of this particular situation. Victory's tribunal session was held a little while back, with the details of the adjudication held back for 10 to 30 days, depending on which source you believe. If it is ten days, then tomorrow we should get news of what Victory's punishment is. Meanwhile, we also wait to see what the FFV tribunal have to say on our part in the affair.

Brandon Sanderson's Elantris, in case you were wondering

Reading a high fantasy novel during pre-match, because it's not like you can have a conversation with this loud music #smvbl #PS4NPLVIC

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) June 19, 2016

Around the Grounds
Disappointment
After Tuesday's calamitous performance, I had no real desire to watch any non-South soccer. Still, a friend's son - a goalkeeper - had been called up from the youth ranks at Clifton Hill to play in the reserves. and having known the young man for a number of years I felt it was my duty to go and watch. Also, something about vitamin D. Sadly, the young man was first relegated to the bench, and then to not even being on the team sheet, but we stayed on and watched anyway, as a swift and clever Clifton Hill edged an older Mornington 2-1. Not bothering to stay to watch the seniors, the young goalkeeper was dropped off home, and then his father and I went to see what was on offer around the burbs. Ending up at an open park with a pitch black cricket square somewhere in Flemington, with a deep slope towards one end adjacent to the establishment bowls club, we saw a green team playing a maroon and orange team. The greens were quickly identified as being Maribyrnong Greens of State League 4 West, with their opponents being Newmarket Phoenix. But after watching about five minutes, I dropped any pretense at interest in the proceedings, and we left.

Final thought
Lest we forget that today the fourth official finally became useful for something other than holding up a blackboard and playing babysitter to the competing coaches.

One hand on the title - South Melbourne 2 Northcote City 1

After the kick in the teeth that was the Bentleigh Greens - Oakleigh game on Friday night (more detail in 'around the grounds' below), the tension was heightened for our game against Northcote. Northcote, the team that would assuredly not just roll over and take this as just another match with nothing on the line; a club that has caused us almost no end of grief since they were promoted into the Victoria top flight, us having beaten them just once in the league (and once in the cup), while we've been the end of some hideous spankings, not least the 5-0 preliminary final loss from last year. How much that history matters is anyone's guess, but with two lynchpins of Northcote's 2013 championship - Michael Eagar and Milos Lujic - now playing for us, there'll always be someone looking to bring it up

The opening goal though came early enough so as to settle the nerves somewhat. Iqi Jawadi, who has apparently caught the eye of A-League scouts - he played in the second half for Melbourne Heart in their midweek friendly against Hume, and is also rumoured to be on the Newcastle Jets radar - eluded two Northcote players on the sideline, and found Tyson Holmes in space whose cross ended up reaching Milos Lujic perefectly at the back post.

Northcote though would not go down lightly, and at first worked their back into the game, and then became the dominant side as South sat back. The problem with this approach is that I'm not sure that this South side is as comfortable shutting down games once they have the lead as when they decide instead to drive home their advantage. The results may show otherwise, but it's always a difficult decision to make. A good thing then that generally we defended well, though our retreat into relying onto longballs (the last refuge of the scoundrel?) was incredibly frustrating to watch.

Marinos Gasparis' freekick was in a way both inevitable - in that Northcote had being getting closer and had had the general run of play - and telling, in the sense that if South has lacked one thing this year it's been a set piece specialist, someone who could be relied not only to score 3-4 goals a year at crucial points in a match or season (say, when there appears to be no other way to break down a disciplined defence, or you need that sealer to put a stake in the opposition's heart), or even just to force a corner or desperate save.

And while Jamie Reed hasn't been completely awful in that department, neither has he reached the heights of the 2006 vintage Fernando De Moraes, who when all else failed, managed to find a way through via a freekick (I'm thinking the opening goal late in the elimination final against Gully especially). Thank goodness then that we have Milos Lujic, who has become the first South player in probably 29 years - I'm thinking Charlie Egan in 1985 was probably the last player to get there - to score 20 goals for South in a single season.

That he got the ball from a player I've been critical of recently in Matthew Theodore says volumes about our depth, and the ability of Taylor to pick the right player for the right situation, which is why he's potentially the championship winning coach and I'm just some chump on with a keyboard. Still, once we had that lead we had to keep Northcote out for the remainder of the game, and full credit to them they didn't give up. On that note, special mention must go to Chris Maynard in goal, who pulled out some fine saves, and whose kicking was generally excellent. Maynard had not been tested almost at all in the previous two games since replacing the out of favour Jason Saldaris, but he was usually on top of whatever came at him yesterday.

If this post - and probably even the last match report for that matter - comes across as a little weary, it's perhaps because it's been an exhausting season; a longer home and away season than we've been recently accustomed to, a Dockerty Cup campaign in the middle of that, the Lakeside situation, and hell, even attending pre-season games from back in December. The saving grace is that we're this close to securing the title. It must have been hell for the supporters of those teams who weren't going to get relegated or win the title. That's their cross to bear though - meanwhile we've got a title to win, which we're in the box seat to take out.

Next game
A week off for the Dockerty Cup final and assorted catch up games, before we take on Oakleigh at home. We may have already won the title by then if Oakleigh lose to the Knights in their catch up game in 10 days time, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it.

Doing the sums
Well, here's how it stands. South is on 62 points, with two games left. Oakleigh's on 55 points, with three games left. So, in other words:

• A win for South in either of our two remaining games, and we take the title.
• A loss for Oakleigh in any of its three remaining games, and we take the title.
• A draw between ourselves and Oakleigh in round 25, and we take the title.

In any other season it probably wouldn't have come to this. For one, in Victoria a finals series would have taken the edge off the race to what would have been the minor premiership, in much the same way that Oakleigh's clear dominance of the 2006 season was all for nothing once they went out of the finals in straight sets. On the other hand, it's been a weird season for the simple reason that, in any other year, either team with such a record would have clinched the title already, having lost just four games between them. So it goes.

And yes, I'll probably be at the Knights - Oakleigh game, just in case we end up winning the title at that game.

They've been watching us

@IanSyson @smfc @NorthcoteCity yes Ian. Checking out @smfc our likely NPL elimination opponents
— South Hobart FC (@SouthHobartFC) August 24, 2014

Around the grounds
Urge to kill, rising
I was just one member of a healthy contingent of South fans who turned up to watch Bentleigh host Oakleigh, hoping first for an Oakleigh loss and secondly for a good game of football. Well, on the latter front there was excitement of a sort, but sadly on the former matter Oakleigh took advantage of relentlessly shithouse defending from the Greens to be up 4-0 during the first half. At least three of the goals looked majorly dodgy, as the Greens gave their opponents far too much space (seriously, who stands 3-4 metres off Nate Foster and dares him to run past you?) and insisted on playing the ball out of the back for no discernible gain. The fourth goal was perhaps the most absurd, as a botched and harmless short corner (and pretty much all short corners at this level fall into that category) was somehow parried by Alastair Bray back into the path of the Oakleigh attackers who eventually finished it off. To make matters worse, the Greens squandered several good chances in the first part of the second half, but whether they were a real chance of a comeback is unlikely. My blistering public transport run to the ground aside - one hour, fifteen minutes from Newport station - this was game was a letdown on several fronts.

Eight dollars for a Clifton Hill souvlaki is highway robbery
Headed out to Quarries Park on Saturday to see Clifton Hill play Southern Stars. Clifton Hill were third last, but in no danger of relegation. Southern Stars, starting from scratch after last year's betting scandal, started the year on -8 points, and were still in minus territory coming into this game. Nevertheless, they did win their first game of the season last week against South Springvale, so maybe there'd be evidence of further improvement here? Sadly, no. Clifton Hill took a little while to break the deadlock, but once they did this game was as good as done. Only poor finishing theoretically kept Stars in it, but they eventually fell 3-0 behind and even a late own goal to get it back to 3-1 never saw the home team threatened. Stars aren't the first team to have to rebuild after exiting the Victorian topflight, but there's seems an altogether more difficult task. Realistically though, Clifton Hill aren't in a much better position. The Hillmen increasingly appear to be a subsidiary of Heidelberg United Alexander (the 'HUFC' sponsorship on the back of the shirt seems very awkward), which may not be a very palatable thing to have said about a club which would like to assert that it is still an independent entity, but it's not like there were that many home fans there anyway to argue the point.

Quiet time
This blog will be very low key over the next week and a half or so. While we'll still have the Wednesday artefact segment, unless something super drastic happens, don't expect any significant posting from our angle. Enjoy the week off, and I'll see you all on the other side.

Final thought
As Gains I exited via the back gate in between our stand and the 1926 stand, a little kid saw us and said to his dad, 'they're so shifty'. Further reinforcement of my dislike for children.

South Melbourne 4 Clifton Hill 2 - Low key pre-season friendly

Highlight was Steve From Broady running the line.

Heroes and Villains - South Melbourne 3 Northcote City 2 (after extra time)

This was a game that had nearly everything. It was characterised by open, attacking football from both sides. There were red cards, there was blood, and there were heroes and villains in abundance. And there was even mass confusion on more than one occasion.

There was tension on and off the field, both during and after the game. If you weren't there, or if you left early for whatever strange reason, then you missed one of the more entertaining games you're likely to see this season. The good thing is, I suppose, that you can catch up on at least some of the goodness on SMFC TV.

The other good thing is that we won.

Call of the year so far
Directed towards the Northcote goalkeeper, who was wearing a fluoro green jersey and shorts, with black socks: 'You look like a highlighter!'

A false start of sorts
Northcote launched a free kick into the box, and saw it headed home, for what looked like on first impression a legitimate goal. But the linesman on the far side had raised his flag straight away, and the effort was disallowed. To be honest, I can't really say for sure either way - my hunch however is that it was a goal. I'm not sure the video will be conclusive, but we'll see.


Taken from Shauen Kelly's Twitter feed.


There will be blood
While the officiating was often pedantic, some of the players didn't do themselves any favours. Shaun Kelly's head was busted open halfway through the first half, and blood poured forth from the wound. He soldiered on, with the kind of bandaging that every well proper central defender wears with pride. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to continue, and was soon replaced by Matko Budimir.

That wasn't the end of the carnage though. About 30 minutes in, Alan Kearney, having his first start after several weeks off with injury - although he did come off the bench last week - was sent off for an off the ball incident with a Northcote player, who was also sent off.

Northcote were the better side in the opening half, and seemed to adjust to the more open spaces better than South, often finding wide men in space. This was especially so on our left hand side. Any hope of surviving until halftime at 0-0 and then re-organising went out the window when Northcote justly opened the scoring, with Milos Lujic tucking away the mess of South's attempt to clear their lines.

The second half
It's fair to say that we were the better team for the majority of the match from this point onward. This is not to discredit Northcote, who still kept looking for their second goal, but the stats in this case are perhaps a little misleading. While we didn't get that many shots on goal, the fact is that we should have. Our counter attacks in particular went unrewarded so often that it was maddening. Our refusal to shoot was only part of the problem - the major issue was not even being able to hit a proper cross where a striker could run on to it. The balls into the box would elude literally everyone, like, literally. 

At last though, Rhys Meredith cut in and curled his shot around the keeper from the right, and it was 1-1, and the game's momentum was clearly with us. We kept peppering away, and subs were even made before the 85th minute -Trent Rixon off and Andy Vlahos on turned out to be a pretty important decision. Fernando De Moraes also got onto the field, to a massive cheer from the faithful, though I'm not sure if he or the coaching staff were expecting him to end up playing 50 minutes rather than a pinch hit 20 at the end.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
I reckon Peter Gavalas has had a very good season. So much so, it's like having an entirely new recruit. And in this game, he actually played well, coming off his line and making some fancy diving saves, until late on during regular time when he tried being way too fancy at exactly the wrong place and time. His attempt to play around James Kalafatidis failed dismally, and gifted Northcote the easiest of finishes for 2-1.

At that point we were all having horrible flashbacks to 2012. Thankfully, for everyone's sake, Andy Vlahos, probably the shortest player on the field, somehow got onto the end of a free kick launched into the box and headed it home. And believe it or not, that's when this game started getting really interesting.

And it finishes 2-2, we'll see you again next week...
A lot of people at the game didn't seem to realise that this was a cup match, and that as a cup match in the modern era, we were not going to have an infinite amount of replays until we had a winner. Maybe some people were walking out to have a cigarette, or put some extra coins into the parking meter, but somehow I very much doubt it.

Fence runs ain't what they used to be. Photo: Gains.

Great, who's he going to cross it to...
... because to me it seemed like there was no one in the area waiting for the pass. And then Brad Norton, perhaps my favourite much maligned South player of recent times, appears to me as if he's come out of nowhere to put it away and give us the lead for the first time in this match. Cue a fence run of all things, with people running out of the grandstand to revive this once great tradition.
And then the scoreboard shenanigans started. Among the many mistakes - which included an out of synch match clock and listing all the South scorers as 'Goal' - was having Northcote leading 3-2. It did confuse one of the South fans near us who had gone out for a smoke.

There were five in the bed, and the little one said...
This cup tournament allows you to make up to to five substitutions, which is a bizarre sort of situation. It did lead however to Anthony Giannopoulos finally making his senior debut. Long time readers of this blog will recall us banging on about giving this kid a go to the point where people got absolutely fed up, and then we stopped doing it for the good of everyone. 

Fix the scoreboard! Photo: Gains.

 Now I admit that I do know the lad, although I only see him on match days, when he greets me with a 'hey, Juniper', which then leads into a Hattrick discussion. While we've never believed he's been the best thing since sliced bread, all of us of a certain ilk at South Melbourne who have watched him for years, both in underage competitions and at Clarendon Corner social football, are stoked that he's finally reached this milestone, playing for the club he loves.

We're just as glad that he didn't get sent off - though it was nervous times when he while standing over a fallen opponent and giving him the death stare!

Post match follies
Did Peter Gavalas flip the bird at the supporters, or was he putting his hand up in acknowledgement of his blunder? Who do we play next, is it Preston? Don't know for the former. Yes to the latter. Waiting for all conmspiracy theorists to appear in 3... 2... 1...

New segment!
One of our readers, identifying themselves only as 'Manny', has sent us this comic as a first offering. Now he's not promising that it will be a regular feature, but I'm glad that someone with the even merest hint of an artistic bent has offered us their services. That brings the current number of regular contributors on this blog up to four, which is kinda insane when you think about it. Any good suggestions about what to call this series are also welcome. It was sent to us last week, so if it feels a little out of date, that's completely our fault.

Around the grounds
I was at the Clifton Park synthetic pitch on Saturday afternoon. Somehow the Moreland City - Clifton Hill match was only the second best cup classic I got to see this week. Footage by Football Chaos. By the way, while I've not seen much of Clifton Hill's goalkeeper Mason Interlandi, what I have seen of him suggest to me that he won't be a state league 2 keeper for too much longer.



Tonight
The Socceroos play Jordan at Docklands. Myself and Gains will be at the opposite end of the stadium to the newly formed and FFA approved Australian home end group 'Terra Australis', but if you do somehow see us in the crowd, do come and say hello.

Next week
Melbourne Knights at home. There's talk that some chap named Ljubo might be starting for them.

Final thought

Congrats to @smfc today, a great game. Well done to our boys, ready to get back on track in the #VPL this weekend! #Northcote
— Northcote City FC (@NorthcoteCity) June 10, 2013