Tangalakis resigns - Quintas new senior coach

Word had got around last night that Con Tangalakis was out, and today the club confirmed that news. The club have framed it as a resignation, which will do little to convince at least a good chunk of our support that it was a sacking in all but name.

After a positive start to the season, further wins have failed to materialise in the past four weeks. Some misfortune aside - Billy Konstantinidis' early season absence and later suspension among that bad luck - the weekly lineup put out on the field by Tanga never seemed to match what many fans thought was the optimal set up.

Two visa spots used up on defensive midfielders has also stumped people, but no issue has been as contentious as the usage, lack of usage, and misuse of Gerrie Sylaidos. Putting whatever conspiracy theories may exist aside for a moment, the one thing I can say with some certainty is that there was obvious friction between Tangalakis and long-serving players, who could not understand Sylaidos being removed from the field when matches were on the line.

What if any influence this actually had on Tanga's resignation only those close to the action know for sure.

Tanga helped get us out of a jam last year, with a team not of his own making. He used some youngsters, fought against an alleged fifth column from within the squad, as well as rumours that the club wasn't up to speed with its player wages. Yes we needed a bit of luck to avoid the relegation zone, but he was in charge when we avoided the drop.

He handled himself well as the club sought to bring back John Anastasiadis. There were always going to be those who doubted Tanga's suitability for a coaching gig at a club like South. Whether out of necessity or by natural occurrence, the budget is not what it was in recent years. Some of the pre-season recruiting, but especially the pre-season match selections, which emphasised variety over cementing a definitive starting eleven, had fans concerned.

But in the first three games at least, a good performance against Bentleigh, and two wins over Dandy City and Port, had people optimistic. Not just for the wins - whose performances were arguably not as good as the Bentleigh game - but for the way the team was playing. An expected loss against Avondale could be psychologically brushed aside, but the losses against Kingston and Pascoe Vale were in their own way devastating - we could've/should've beaten teams like that, but the failure to do so has us much closer to the relegation zone than anyone would be comfortable with.

Why after the draw with Green Gully though, and not say, after the FFA Cup with Essendon Royals, I don't know. Maybe they didn't want to repeat last year's mistake of letting what some may consider free-fall to continue unabated. Maybe someone's trying to head off a 'vibe'?

Luke Patitsas of the Sour Grapes blog made an interesting observation about the team last week:

I’m not sure if this is just a South Melbourne problem, but every time we miss golden opportunities, and are not already in the lead, its feel like the score is being undermined. It may be 0-0 on the scoresheet, but for me we are actually losing.

Is it possible that such a mindset had become prevalent in the players themselves? Maybe those of us outside the inner sanctum can only clutch at straws, like Tanga disappearing - as Kolman did - from club media duties, leaving it to the players to front the supporters.

Tanga's replacement is assistant coach Esteban Quintas, who has little senior coaching experience; just the one game in charge of Bendigo City back in 2016. Naturally quite a few people think we're doomed now, and I wish I could find reassuring words to allay those concerns, but I'm stumped. All we can do is support the team and hope that things improve from here on.

Yet another off-season placeholder post

Not much going on at the moment, but it's up to you to decide if that's any cause for alarm. Maybe they're trying to keep it all hush-hush so other teams don't come in and swoop on recruits.

With other teams making announcements on signings, it's natural to get antsy about what it is we're doing or not doing, especially since a player like Oakleigh's Dusan Bosnjak - someone who, even if there was no firm intel that he was heading our way, would still seem like a good fit, and thus his eventual whereabouts the natural preserve of rumourmongers - has signed at Altona Magic. So it goes.

Last week Con Tangalakis was on 3XY Radio Hellas' sports program last week, but I only found this out later, via the South forum, where someone posted a screengrab of a tweet that had been sent to his phone by someone else, with the original tweet coming from SMFCMike. So thanks to Mike for listening and providing the summary, while some of us were listening to jazz noodling on community radio.

So that's Gerrie Sylaidos, and two visa players. Meanwhile, another person has said that we have signed a defender. So, not up to the bare minimum of the seven players required to start a match, but we're getting there.

Of more genuine concern is that when the 2019 fixture gets released, we'll have another ridiculous run of away games to start the season, followed by an equally ridiculous run of home games. So that's something to look forward to.

Generic car engine sputtering into life noises

Where was the kaboom? There was meant to be an earth shattering kaboom! 
Like an apocalyptic cult waiting for doomsday, we reached the hour of judgement and... nothing happened. How do we go on with our lives under such conditions? Well, like any good cult with a failed doomsday prediction, we'll reconvene and let everyone know of our revised date at some future point of time.

More seriously, the transition from one FFA board and Congress model to another was always likely to cause issues. The current board of FFA, which has been treading water since Steven Lowy succeeded his father - and which cobbled together a half-hearted expansion process that neither they nor the current A-League teams really wanted - has failed to deliver an outcome to its own purported deadline.

These things happen. And what's more, if we are to believe certain media platforms, there are ongoing concerns about the viability of all six final bidders. Well, duh! I said the same thing when there were three times as many bidders; that there was no magic bullet Wanderers-style bid which would solve (or at least alleviate) the persistent issue of stagnant A-League metrics, while also not requiring new stadiums, suffering from uncertain investment streams, or significantly cannibalising the fan-bases of existing franchises.

The more conspiracy minded of you will no doubt gravitate towards the theory that despite its obvious drawbacks and deficiencies, South is probably the only ready-to-go franchise of the remaining bids, but that there's no way that the authorities or whoever succeeds would let that happen. And I'm not here to disabuse you of that belief; after all, since the only way I could ever see South returning to the Australian top-flight is via an extraordinary case of last resort default. I can't entirely deride a line of thought which bears some relation to the way that I think about these things.

Anyway, even if we kept the receipt, it's not like we're (or whichever director was responsible) going to get our application fee back. We're just going to have be a bit more patent as this farcical process extends into the indeterminate distant future. Not that any of that matters, even if it is frustrating.

Of course there is always that second division and promotion/relegation idea
And if you're interested in such shenanigans, then the AAFC have a treat for you. They'll be hosting a forum for potential candidates for the chairpersonship of FFA. Register here if you'd like to go, though I think Football Nation Radio may cover it as well. I'd like to say I'd be there, but I may be otherwise occupied.

But back to more important things
Con Tangalakis' appointment as senior men's coach is finally official. Now that it's official, what can we say about such an appointment? Purely on a surface level, both on the appointment itself and the way it happened, it seemed like Tangalakis was not our board's first option.

Whether Bentleigh coach John Anastasiadis was serious about considering our offer to him, or whether he was merely stringing us along, there was an offer made from us to him - and it didn't work. Whether the club had anyone else in mind, I do not know. Whether anyone else would've been interested is also a question that you'd hope would be answered in the affirmative, but it could be that we are seen as a basket-case not worth bothering with, a condition working in tandem with free-agents of any worth being vacuumed up by cashed-up clubs.

When combined with scandalous rumours and articles about our perilous cash-flow situation, and 2018's unceasing aura of senior squad disharmony, things aren't exactly looking chipper. Anyway, pre-season training starts in a couple of weeks - or so some of the forum people say - and it'll be interesting to see which players actually turn up. Speaking of which...

Farewell Milos Lujic
It was a fait accompli, some would say from months ago, but it's now official: Milos Lujic has departed the club. Five times our leading scorer, even in 2018 when his commitment levels (and the service to him) wasn't at its best. That's going to be a huge gap to fill, but it probably won't be the only one.

And just in case some of you were holding out hope...
Former skipper Michael Eagar has re-signed at Port Melbourne for 2019. So we're not getting him back.

From a distance, the world looks blue and green (and the snow capped mountains, white)
Mike Valkanis has been appointed as "Head of Football Development", which seems an odd thing to do for someone who fairly recently decamped for The Netherlands to work in football there. So is Mike coming back? Er, not quite.

While the reaction from our own fans on social media was one of unbridled enthusiasm for having a sort of favourite son "come home", the supporters of Dutch club PEC Zwollw - where Valkanis is currently employed in some sort of assistant role - certainly seemed to be confused by the situation.

Valkanis himself clarified that he would, in fact, be remaining in The Netherlands while delegating day-to-day operations to other people. How all that will work is a question best left to those who have made the decision and those tasked with making it work.

Besides, as long as the stream of players from Queensland to Victoria doesn't stop, do we even need juniors anyway? I mean, apart from fulfilling our duties under the NPL licence agreement?

South Radio to return in 2019?
Heard some talk that there's a chance of a South Melbourne Hellas radio show returning to the digital airwaves in 2019. If it happened, it'd be via Football Nation Radio, who are trying to fill out their programing with club specific shows. Not sure if we're likely to take up the offer, though I believe other clubs are keen to grasp the opportunity.

Haven't done this in a while
Match programs! Well, one South one, and one Queensland one. The South one is from our ill-fated first attempt at the FFA Cup national stage - ie, the Palm Beach game. The other is from 2017 NPL Queensland grand final. Many thanks to Garry McKenzie for sending these our way.

I've put the call out Knights fans for what South of the Border is missing in terms of Knights vs South match programs from 2005 onward... we'll see what happens. I'm more hopeful of getting match programs involving South Melbourne and Newcastle's various NSL representatives, though we'll all have to be very patient with those.

Carrier Pigeon Express

Hi, how is everyone? I'm doing OK, thanks for asking.

Not much news from me or anywhere else, but I'm posting something quick here just to keep things ticking over. Let's just assume the club is waiting for the A-League expansion decision on October 31st - aka Not That Any Of That Matters Wednesday - before remembering that we have a supporter base that would like some news about anything related to our NPL fortunes,

Anyway, so former general manager of the club Peter Kokotis is now our director of football, or our football director, or something like that. Don't know if that means he's joined the board - I mean, I'm guessing not, but I'm trying to read between Greek lines here. Kokotis does say in the article that it was a mistake to sign Chris Taylor up to a five year contract. Of course the club hasn't announced how long we've signed Con Tangalakis up for, or that we've signed him up at all, but it seems that we have signed him up as our manager.

Further reinforcing the likelihood that Tangalakis is our coach is that Neos Kosmos' Greek pages refer to him as such. Today they noted that it appears that we've agreed terms with Northcote's Gerrie Sylaidos, a signing rumour that's been doing some of the forum rounds and probably the northern suburbs Greek café rounds before that. The article also says that South has reached agreements with a player from overseas and a player from New South Wales, whoever they are.

The journo then goes on to note that the South stints of Milos Lujic, Nick Epifano, Christos Intzidis, Iqi Jawadi, Matthew Foschini, Oliver Minatel and "probably Matthew Millar" are likely over, which is strange on so many fronts. I say strange, because for most of those names a majority of us would probably assume were out the door ages ago, not least because Epifano left during the season. But the Matthew Millar is even more bizarre, because he is - last time anyone cared to look - in the A-League, again something which happened yonks ago.

Well, that's all for now. I've got a ton of marking to do over the next week or two, but I'll try and keep up with whatever news comes up during the next week.

Hmm, I don't remember a bowling alley being there

Last week I remarked at how eerily calm everything seemed to be, and how I didn't want to hear anything to the contrary, if for no other reason than that I was (and am) busy marking essays, making corrections to my thesis, and generally trying to earn a living by pretending that I am an actual productive member of society until the end of October when my sessional teaching contract effectively ends.

Well, starting last Friday the club did a great job making headlines, even if they weren't all part of some greater plan. Now that the dust has settled on a few of these things - and since I have just enough time on my hands to write up some nonsense on all of it - let's recap what's happened over the past week or so.

Hail to the Chief
As reported on the official South website, which has otherwise been near comatose in the off-season - so much so, that by comparison it's made the necessarily semi-dormant South of the Border seem like the proverbial hyperactive kid dosed up on red cordial - we have a new president and a new vice-president. The director primarily responsible for senior men's football, Nick Maikousis, has been elevated to the role of president, while the director responsible for women's football, Gabrielle Giuliano, has taken up the role of vice-president. I'm not sure and I can't remember who the previous vice-president was, and going off the most recent update to the club's board of management web page (see above), it seems like the club was pretty much in the same boat as me. Who is even actually on the board apart from Nick and Gabby? I don't even know anymore. I'm assuming they've got their minimum requirement of seven.

I'm not privy to the behind-the-scenes machinations to know if it was an orderly handover of power; I'm not even sure that really matters. I wish Nick all the best, because there's this vibe around the club that we're in this real deep hole, and someone or some persons have got to take responsibility for what's going on. Anyway, Leo got to thank everyone and wish them well at the presentation night last week, so it can't have been too traumatic an experience. For his part, Leo says he always intended to leave his post at the end of 2018, which might be news to a lot of people. Though he did add this idea into the mix.

“If we do make it to the A-League, I will take a position on the A-League Board, but not as a chairman or in any leadership role there. I will continue on the Board until South Melbourne goes to elections,” he says, reaffirming that another SFMC board member, Bill Papastergiadis, had already put his hand up to be the Chairman of the A-League team.

Not that any of that matters, of course.

That's right, there was a presentation night last Saturday
It wasn't exactly a secret, but at the same time it was barely promoted as well, at least in online places that I visit. Given the events of the day before - and more on that in a later segment - a few people who didn't go to the presentation night later spent their time scouring the club's increasingly elusive social media presence looking for clues as to which senior men's players weren't completely pissed off with us, coming up with no one apart from old reliable Leigh Minopoulos. Later updates at least showed us Brad Norton was in attendance, along with most of the women's team, and... you guys who went need to tell me who else showed up, because I wasn't one of those slinking around social media like a madman looking for clues which would up at the RAND Corporation and the reverse vampires.

Anyway, Leigh won the Theo Marmaras award/prize/medal for our best and fairest, which just quietly, I think is a good choice, not that the club would or should take any advice from me on such matters.

Do we have a coach? And do I have to read the Greek papers to find out?
While everyone has concerns about everything going wrong at the club, some concerns are more equal than others. Those of us with only small barrows to push - or even no barrows at all, because I've either misplaced mine or loaned it to someone and I can't remember who now - only really want to know who we've picked to be the senior men's coach for 2019. It's something that really should be a run-of-the mill decision, and something that probably should've been sorted out by now, especially once John Anastasiadis made the decision to stick with Bentleigh.

The rumour had been going around that Con Tangalakis has been offered a three year deal. In true South Melbourne fashion that rumour had been reported as hard fact by a few people, showing that we'd learnt nothing from the previous week's antics. Other people have said that it has actually been reported in the Greek press, but it certainly hasn't come up in our club's once legendary social media presence. I guess the club must have lost its social media profuseness somewhere between a couch cushion in the last couple of months.

Though my Greek is getting rustier by the day, I think somewhere in this article is confirmation that Con Tangalakis has been appointed as coach... but you know, wait and see and all that.

And you want to be my A-League franchise / And you want to be my hard-hitting Australian soccer news-breaker 
Late on Friday afternoon a news report was published with the eye-catching headline accusing the club of wage theft. The story quoted former player Liam McCormick, a former employee of the club in Despina Donato, and an unnamed current player. The club, via outgoing president Leo Athanasakis, claimed that the allegation that staff and players are owed money is false.

(As an aside, I wonder if Leo made that comment with the endorsement of the rest of the board, or felt that he could do so in his capacity as president even as he was soon set to leave the post. Eh, it probably doesn't matter.)

Some people say you shouldn't laugh at things like this, and I won't. But I will note a few things which I find hilarious, in that grim, clenched teeth kind of way. First, Clement Tito, the journalist who wrote the story, was attacked by some South fans for doing his job, as opposed to our fans asking relevant questions of the club. Now where have I seen that kind of behaviour before? Oh yes, the time a young photographer was hauled over the Twitter coals for taking a photo of Kristian Konstantinidis jamming his fingers where he shouldn't have.

I mean, I get the innate desire to defend the club - and there are times when we should be doing that - but there are ways of going about this which are more effective (and ethical, if that's a relevant consideration - it probably isn't) than others. Our normal online fan behaviour in such situations tends to be of the foaming mouth rabid dog variety, but every now and again people surprise you - like here, where one pseudonymous supporter provided evidence contradicting McCormick's claim that he was owed money.

How about this signed document that clearly shows Liam McCormick was owed $0! Correct not owed a thing!

Can also advise Liam's father was banned from Lakeside for attacking a supporter with Downs!!! pic.twitter.com/IZSVMLLXdv

— Mr Football (@MrAusFootball) October 12, 2018

That such information was posted online by a pseudonymous character is a bit of a concern - where did they get the document from? It has to be either someone from the club, or someone connected to the board. It doesn't seem like the best way to play the game, especially when board members have often been critical of the anonymous posters on this blog - but why should I apply my own flawed notions of ethical purity onto others? It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and since I prefer the aloofness of cats, it's probably not my place to cast aspersions.

Though another possible interpretation is that McCormick was owed money at the time of his departure, but agreed to waive his rights on those matters in order to get a clearance to different club which, by the dubious sources I rely upon, was going to pay him a lot more than what we were doing anyway.

Still, the line being run by some people that the article was part of the great masonic anti-South Melbourne Hellas conspiracy was, as usual, a bit over the top. Tito was accused by some South fans of writing the article in order to damage our reputation and by extension our A-League bid (not that any of that matters), and taunted him and the website which published the piece with the threat that he'd be sued. Tito didn't do himself any favours by not actually standing up for his work (at least on Twitter). Maybe he has better things to do than hang around on social media all day and argue with people, and good luck to him if he does. But my feeling on these things is that if you're going to post incendiary material like that under the guise of being a professional journalist (as opposed to the hackiest of hack bloggers, such as yours truly), you should probably be prepared to defend your work, especially if your mates come to your defence and you kind of leave them hanging.

Unless of course Tito has another article up his sleeve, and wouldn't that be fun to read?

Insofar as the wages and benefits owed to Donato (who is no longer at South Melbourne) and other staff members and volunteers (who are still at South Melbourne) it is pretty much an open secret that various staff have been or are owed money or benefits, though I'm not as up to date on these things as I used to be. Maybe all those issues were sorted out ages ago. I do know that former and current staff members have taken different paths in dealing with these issues, and it's not my part to judge how they go about collecting what they're owed, if indeed they are owed anything. Suffice to say that Donato and any other staff member owed money is fully entitled to be paid what they are owed according to their contracts and the law, and if the club is in the wrong, then it deserves just about every bit of grief it receives.

As far as what the players may be owed, since I don't talk to them about such things - and unless personally approached, I never would - it's always going to be rumours as far as I'm concerned. McCormick's pisspoor attempt at getting back at the club aside, the fact that another, current player has spoken out (albeit under the promise of anonymity) should be cause for concern. As a general rule, whatever players say to each other in private about wages, they rarely come out and talk about such matters in a public forum, especially in cases where they could be theoretically identified. That they have done so here should be ringing alarm bells.

The situation with regards to the player payment situation takes me back to the comments section in this post from just over a month ago, where an anonymous poster claimed that "Players have not been paid in over two months. PFA has been contacted apparently. This season is turning out to be a nightmare for the club." Another anonymous poster responded with "What a pathetic rumour to post, well done Paul." for my approving the original comment, but with nothing more than competing allegations/points of view, it was pretty much a case of the irresistible force against the immovable object cancelling each other out. Until Tito's article came out anyway, and then the club responded, and then nothing happened. I'm not saying it's a letdown, just an anti-climax.

The funniest thing though by the length of the straight is thinking back to the A-League information night a few months ago, and the pleas from Bill Papastergiadis to the fans to not do anything stupid which would embarrass the club. Well our fans being who they are, some of them did engage in some less than stellar behaviour - at least according to the club - and were banned from Lakeside for various indeterminate lengths of time. But even the worst of those fans would have been doing well to drag our club's name through the mud in the way it has been here. Still, there's always new depths to plumb.

As alternately horrifying/comic as this situation turned out, it is also worth putting things in some perspective. Most clubs in Victoria who pay players go through periods where they struggle to resolve their wage bills. Some clubs end up making the difference at the end of or after the end of a season, and plenty of others never even get that close. Some players have enough street-smarts, or have been around the block enough times, that they know how to work around the issue, or are content to cut their losses and move on. A special few talented players know precisely the value of their on-field worth, and can wield their reputations both to collect their owed moneys and move on to another club to start the process again. Probably everyone else is content enough to move on with whatever they've managed to squeeze out of clubs, considering that below the NPL2 level players aren't meant to be paid at all, except for expenses.

It's easy to target South Melbourne, because who cares what "insert other no-name brand club" does in this matter? But people should care. Wage inflation in Victoria has gone bananas, and since a good portion of clubs in our fair state are supportive on a second division - and wages will be an important part of the increased costs of such - it would be worthwhile actually having a mature debate on the probably untenable salaries being paid to part-time footballers playing in front of very few people, and bringing in very little revenue. But again, some people who promote the pro-rel argument also promote the live and die by the sword manifesto as it applies to soccer, and the idea that there'll always be some club available to replace one that fails. If that's the driving philosophy, then let the wage recklessness continue.

But just because these things happen on an all too regular basis across the state leagues, it doesn't mean that it should happen. It especially shouldn't be happening at a club with top-tier aspirations even if the vast majority of funding from any A-League bid attached to South would be provided by private interests. And how stupid did those internet heroes look trying to make out as if this would actually have any bearing on South's A-League ambitions, especially when they already claim to believe that we're no chance anyway. It also doesn't even matter if these things have happened in the A-League with their own alarming regularity. South boasts of its on and off-field professionalism, and even the suggestion that it fails to live up to those boasts doesn't do the club any favours.

I'm not enamoured either of the idea put up by some fans - even if it was an idea largely made in jest - that because the players didn't do well this season, that they don't deserve to be paid anyway. That's a crock. The fact is we've made legal commitments to players in the form of professional contracts, and we are obliged by the law if not common decency to honour those commitments. Any other response is flat out immature.

The club did eventually release a more formal response to the article, hinting at players breaching contractual obligations, as well as accusing Clement Tito of declining the opportunity to check the club's accounts in person. But really, the biggest mistake Tito made - apart from relying on McCormick as a source - was getting the article published on the same night Usain Bolt was pissfarting around against park footballers. Who cares about South Melbourne Hellas' sideshow antics when you have the three ring circus in town?

Also, geez man, if you come at the king, you better not miss.

Preparations for 2019
If I understand some of the things I've read correctly, we've been invited by Newcastle's Hamilton Olympic to go up there for a preseason game, though I can't see if we've actually accepted that invitation. Seemingly more certain is that we're doing a preseason game in South Australia early next year against West Adelaide. Whether we have a team to take up to either locale is another wait and see proposition.

South gets another red rose in A-League Expansion Bachelor(ette)
Well, well, well. After some people said last week (and don't people say so many things) that the FFA had decided who they wanted to be their A-League expansion franchises, and that it wasn't us, Ray Gatt noted yesterday that the Wollongong and Ipswich bids had been turfed, and that the

Six left are: Southern expansion, team 11, WMG, south Melbourne, Canberra, south west Sydney.

— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) October 16, 2018

Not that of any of that matters, because apart from clearly just being strung along for laughs and/or an insurance policy in case the FFA and A-League's preferred bidders turn out to be hollow nothings, will expansion even happen next year? There's plenty of talk (always so much talk) that the FFA or whoever ends up running this process is going to Honey Badger (why do I even know what that is?) the process and not pick anyone, or make them wait another year.

Which is fair enough in my opinion, because like a puppy, an A-League franchise is not just for Christmas, although most puppies probably have a better anticipated lifespan than some of the A-League's former and possible future franchises.

Lastly, good to note this particular extract from a recent Vince Rugari article on all these things.

"It's believed some A-League clubs would view their (@smfc) inclusion as a retrograde step for the competition. The proximity of their home ground, Lakeside Stadium, to AAMI Park is also a concern." 

That sounds a lot like something you'd read on the FourFourTwo forums or from a columnist on The Roar. Which is not having a go at Vince by the way (and congrats to him on getting the Sydney Morning Herald gig), who like others obliged to cover these events is only reporting what he's being told. It's just an observation on the kinds of things being fed to journalists, and the ways in which they sometimes seem to align with tropes used on popular discussion boards populated by people even less credible than South of the Border's chief correspondent. 

Unless... what if those forums were also being used by people connected to competing bids, extant A-League licence holders, and/or FFA? Hmm, I'll have to consult the positions of the sun, the moon and the stars, and maybe read the φλιτζάνι to see the likelihood of that being true. Not that any of that matters.

The latest from the off-season procrastination corner

Judging by the deafening silence from official sources regarding almost all things South Melbourne, I have to say that everything must be going really well, and I have no interest in hearing otherwise. I've got my hands over my ears, I'm singing "lalalalalalalalala", and all I can see is you people's mouths going up and down, your tongues twirling and teeth shifting from side to side, and your hands gesturing wildly in some vain attempt to get my attention, I assume in a vain effort to tell me that, actually, we're all doomed.

Well, I'm not having it. Everything is going to be fine. Relax ρε, etc. And even if our 2019 season - our 60th anniversary season - is a bigger failure than 2018, well, so what? As the middle-aged Clarendon Corner kids like to say, "we had a good run", and isn't that true?

I can see already that what's left of the regular South of the Border audience might be a bit suss about this new-found positivity, and I sympathise. But maybe I should try being big-hearted and open-minded about things, and just let the universe do as it pleases. To that end, rather than scoffing at every transfer rumour, I'm going to choose life and believe everything posted on soccer-forum and at least half of what gets posted on the current iteration of the South forum, especially the stuff that contradicts the other stuff. I could be cautious, but since when that has that got me anywhere?

Months ago we had a big info session about our A-League bid, one of whose elements included the promise and/or threat that there would be more information released to the general public, and yet here we are months later, with almost no new information about the bid. Some of that delay has to be put down to a rare case of South's board exercising some proper restraint, what with us being in danger of relegation for a good chunk of that part of the year; but even after that pitfall was avoided we have still heard diddly squat, other than to note that we had indeed submitted our bid.

Not that of any of this matters anyway, but assuming that the whole expansion process isn't effectively delayed for another year because of the changes in the FFA Congress and the A-League licence holders getting their dirty mitts on the mechanics of expansion, do we - or rather our anonymous financial partners - even have the $15 million now rumoured to be the asking price for a licence fee? And who are these mystery bottomless pits of money? Is it the Chinese, who will eventually be forced to bow out by the Communist Party? is it Harry Stamoulis, formerly of the Tasmanian A-League bid, former Victory shareholder, and former possible maybe South fan? Anyway, all the leading journalist boffins have said that we're not anywhere near the frontrunners for one of the two available licences, so what does it matter, except now we have other anonymous self-declared insiders blathering away on social media that we're actually in a good spot, and it is other groups which have failed to impress, and you can apparently take to the bank.

Speaking of money, I look at the absurd wages and sign-on fee figures being bandied about for the NPL next year, and I just have to laugh, before remembering that we have to believe that all of it is true. Like Altona Magic offering $40k a sign on fee and $1.5k a week for the nonce formerly known as the People's Champ, and I call him nonce for obvious reasons (boo hiss etc) but what if he is going to get that money? Who's the fool then? Certainly not him unless he fails to declare it on his taxes and the tax man comes calling, but how likely is that to happen anyway? Victorian semi-professional soccer players are all very diligent in declaring their earnings from football, especially the stuff that they get in brown paper bags out in the carpark every second Thursday after training.

And look, if clubs are dumb enough to hand out that kind of cash, then who's fault is it if players take it? Players are only human after all. But when most places have two men and a dog following them, are they even actually clubs any more? Because let's be honest, the vast majority of the time it's not clubs funding the players wage arms race, it's money-men and the occasional money-woman, for purposes that are best known to them and their accountants. Now every level-headed person knows that soccer is a bad investment, and our local leagues are an especially pertinent example of that. And yet we here are, with wages and the like still escalating, even as people still cry "but the prize money for winning the championship is stuff-all!", as if the people chucking in the money don't know this, or that even most successful FFA Cup runs are largely a bust.

But like I said, here we are, where tens of thousands are squandered each week by clubs in order to win games played in front of nobody. Now if there were crowds and media attention and sponsors to be impressed, I'd understand, but there aren't, and because I don't understand and because I have no money, I probably never will understand. That's OK, understanding is overrated anyway. I've tried ignorance, half-ignorance, half-knowing, and with full-knowing being out of the question, I've come to understand that as far as these matters go, ignorance is best.

Back to us for a moment though. Last week or thereabouts the whole South world was abuzz with the news that Johnny A hadn't quite said yes but also hadn't quite said no to us, and therefore we had people saying it was a lock and/or imminent that he would be our next coach as soon as Bentleigh's FFA Cup run was over. Therefore because of the certain fact that Johnny A was going to be our coach, certain folk had to start doing the mental gymnastics needed to accommodate this return of a newly re-minted favourite son because of the, er, unpleasantness, which had come to pass us lo this past decade. For the sake of being able to get a coach with some pedigree of success and good football - and more importantly

And then whether because we couldn't stump up the necessary money or because he's some twisted genius, Johnny A signed up with Bentleigh for another season, leaving us with our pants around our ankles. But while we don't have a coach as other clubs start making signings and begin thinking about pre-season, and we have no idea if Con Tangalakis hasn't been insulted enough by our bypassing him for this long after he saved us from relegation, we at least get to boo Johnny A again assuming we have a club next year.

If you believe what's been said around the traps, we're not going to have any players left anyway, that we'll be starting from an even worse position than our return to soccer in 2005 after our long lay off, and that even long-serving players are considering their options and shopping themselves around. Now half the rumours around that include the notion that we owe players two months wages, the other half being rumours that we only owe them four or five weeks wages - which if true is still bizarre and horrific considering how rarely we had to pay for win bonuses in 2018 - and further to that, that we're being taken to the PFA, and FIFA, and the United Federation of Planets. But who cares if some of these players are leaving, because according to dark corners of the internet, some of them tried to get us relegated anyway.

So like I said, it's going well. At least I have other things to distract me now.

Safe - South Melbourne 0 Port Melbourne 1

Having looked for it in a few places since I first read it several years ago and come up empty, the following anecdote is possibly something I've made up. When the late Les Murray  published his memoir By the Balls, he joked that he wanted to use the title The Great Poison instead, alluding to the hold that soccer has on its most dedicated supporters. And whether my recollection is true or not, the trope of football fans joking about how their support of their team is like an illness is a well-worn one anyway.

Usually we laugh when we talk about such things. In the first place, it's because it's just an absurd thing to say. In the second place, it's because when we say such things we seek to establish a sort of self-valourising and self-justifying aspect to it; we add a moral dimension to our support of the game and our particular club, clothing ourselves in the idea that we are making a noble sacrifice, both misunderstood and not understood by those poor souls who exist outside that cultural milieu. The more dour the experience, the worse the results, the more obscure and downtrodden the club, the more football fandom karma we accrue if not quite the benefit in the next life, then at least the ability to be smug in this one. What would those other people know about loyalty, dedication, and good old fashioned sticktoitiveness?

But there is of course the other side of this fable: that the unconditional attachment to this kind of cause can be very unhealthy. Thus I put it to you, dear reader, that South Melbourne Hellas' 2018 season consisted of little to no nobility, honour, valour or whatever other lofty epithet you want to attach to it. Indeed, it probably actually made people sick. Proximity to the abomination that was this season made just about everyone who came into contact with it much worse off mentally, socially, and in some cases maybe even physically.

Things were bad enough as they were leading into the game, and worse when we saw Sunday's squad weakened by the absence of Luke Adams with injury, Then when Tim Mala got himself sent off a minute and a half into the game with one of the dumbest challenges you'll ever see, all thoughts turned towards waiting to see how much worse it could get, which didn't take long: youth team debutant Ben Djiba, thrust into the left-back position as a starter, gave Sam Smith - one of Port Melbourne's many ex-South players taking the field that day - the perfect chance to give Port the lead and thrust them towards the finals, and send us toward relegation.

At that moment I just wanted to leave, or throw up. I've had nervous spells and felt dizzy at football matches, I walked out (as far as the social club) once, I've had my arms go numb, but the only other time I ever wanted to spew was round one, 2010 in the AFL, when Collingwood dodged a bullet by beating the Demons by a point when some Melbourne plonker dropped a mark with about two seconds left. Thankfully for the patrons in the top deck of the Great Southern Stand that day, I was able to collect myself and not chunder across the row in front of me.

What made things much, much worse on Sunday was that all things considered, we actually started playing well. Sure we were shaky or less than competent across different areas, but we weren't nearly as bad as we had been at times in 2018. One felt that Port were the more likely to score next, but it was not the fait accompli that the previous two weeks had been. At times we even outplayed Port, though you knew the goal was never going to come, and thus we had to do that thing where half our time was spent watching our phones for updates of other games. Hume had taken the lead at Pascoe Vale, but Kingston were doing well against Gully, and thus despite being down in our own game, things were looking up.

Apart from a couple of near miss free kicks, our great moment came late in the first half, when Pep Marafioti squared the ball to an unmarked Marcus Schroen on the edge of th six yard box and right in front, only for Schroen to blast it over the bar. Realistically, we weren't going to save ourselves, and some atrocious refereeing didn't help, as the game threatened to flare up into several scuffles. The worst decision was none of the three officials seeing one of our players getting potted by a Port player behind play in the middle of the field. Not that any of that mattered. Kingston went up 3-0 late in their game, and for good measure Paco equalised late in their match. So, without having to do any heavy lifting of our own over the last four games, we survived thanks to the kindness of strangers - and that 3-2 win against Gully before things fell apart well and proper for the last month of the season.

As our survival was secured well before full time, there was time to ponder things half relevant. Like if we got into the A-League, how good would it be to have Clarendon Corner located in the few surviving spectator amenities of the 1926 Stand? It would fulfil so many of our requirements - in the best Clarendon Corner tradition it would be the worst spot in the ground to watch a game from; it would be perfect for making sure we were nowhere near the returning bandwagon; in a few decades there'd eventually there'd be just a couple of people left, leaving two lucky fans the chance to live out a real life Statler and Waldorf fantasy.

Some people broke out some chants, willing us to score to get Kingston into the finals as payment for rescuing us. Milos Lujic got benched, to his disgust. Everyone has the feeling that he's on his way out, probably to Oakleigh and Chris Taylor. We can talk about ignominious ends, but there almost no one came out of this year clean. You looked out onto the field, at the players who took part on the day and even those who weren't there, and wondered how many would be back next year. Brad Norton, probably. Leigh Minopoulos, if he feels his body is right, perhaps. Kristian Konstantinidis, if his head's screwed on right. Luke Adams if he wants to settle down in Australia permanatently. But the rest? Makeche, Howard, Foschini, Jawadi, Mala, Marshall, Minatel you'd all assume our likely to be gone.

Will we keep one or either of the Marafioti brothers? Pep did well enough I thought to earn another season; Giordano was meant to be the great white hope of the youth system, for whom so much was sacrificed for, but injury and insanity meant his season was a wash. Will the once implausible but now perhaps merely unlikely happen, and Nikola Roganovic stick around? We went through four goalkeepers this year - one injured, one discarded, one flew in and flew out, and the last came back in our hour of need but can he commit to something more substantial? What's the fate of the several youth players we tried once Sasa Kolman left? As promising as almost all of them looked at some point, did anyone of them do enough to warrant anything more than fringe bench spot next year? Next year, eh? What a luxury to be able to say that without a complete and overbearing sense of shame.

Those who still listen to 3XY say that they heard president Leo Athanasakis had re-appointed Con Tangalakis as our coach for 2019, but as usual with these things, I'll believe it when I see it. A strange coaching decision at the start of the season set all of this in motion, to the point where we were two bad results away from a relegation playoff, and our now on the verge of a player exodus the likes of which we haven't seen since the end of the NSL. Now maybe the sacking of Chris Taylor was necessary, maybe it wasn't - regardless one gets the feeling that things were coming to a head one way or another behind the scenes for reasons that probably have as much to do with interpersonal dynamics between Taylor and the board than any issues of competence.And even if his sacking was executed brilliantly from a Machiavellian, didn't see that coming point of view, clearly everything else to do with that decision was done so poorly, that one wonders if people actually thought this through properly.

At the end of the day and at the end of our season, there was relief, and time for a rum and coke. But there was also the feeling for me that had this season gone on any longer, then I would have had to follow in the footsteps of Julianne Moore's character in Todd Haynes' 1995 film Safe, and remove myself to an igloo in the desert, where none of this mattered, or even existed.

But, please, South, don't drive into that chasm!
Now a lot of this next segment originally made its appearance on Twitter, so if you've already seen it there, you can skip to the bit.

As much as South Melbourne's car crash 2018 season was (rightly) the focus of many people's attention, let's not let it obscure Green Gully's remarkable decline. After round ten, where Gully had crunched us 3-0 at Lakeside, Gully sat in fourth spot with six wins, two draws and two losses. They were eleven points clear of us, and in a good position you'd think to make a finals run, and certainly not be considered a likely candidate for (provisional) relegation. Yet Gully picked up just one win and three draws in their final sixteen games. For a club with a stable income, no obvious external sponsor and supporter expectations to live up to, as well twenty years of alternately successful/competitive teams, it's quite an astonishing situation.

Gully also have some quality players - who many clubs will be circling in the event they lose the playoff game - played some decent football, and seldom got belted (especially in the way that did). One shouldn't write them off in the upcoming playoff, of course - but you have to wonder how they of all clubs ended up in this situation. The on again/off again affair with Arthur Papas hasn't helped; and for a coach touted by some as part of a young generation of up and coming Australian coaches, that should put a solid dent in what's left of his local reputation.

Part of the word on the street is that Papas shared at least one trait with fellow young full-time coach Sasa Kolman, in that his expectations of semi-professional players - especially the time they could reasonably be expected to give to their soccer careers - were wildly optimistic. I'm talking extra training sessions, before work morning sessions and the like. Now well may we say that for the money players in the NPL are getting, they should be doing more than what they do (especially since their ability to draw cards is negligible at best), but as long their chief source of income comes from a day job, that's not going to happen.

Alongside playing in a second tier cut up into a dozen pieces, we are all aware that the differing levels of professionalism between the A-League and the aforementioned second tiers is one of the most-significant barriers to Australian players making the step up to professional ranks. As we all know, there are people working on fixing at least one part of that issue, by virtue of getting a national second tier up and running, but one wonders whether it'll be worth it if the players are full professionals. But that's for the optimists to figure out.

In summary, this is another warning that in NPL Victoria you don't even have to completely sabotage your own season like we did to find yourself in trouble - just the slightest complacency in a tight season, and you're in the relegation playoff. And it's only going to get tougher next year with Altona Magic and Dandenong City getting promoted. For the moment just be grateful that were at least three teams worse than us in 2018, remarkable as that might be..

Off-season winding down mode, pending...
Usually when the senior men's team season ends, South of the Border goes into our half-arsed off-season mode. In recent times that's meant at least a few more weeks of blog action, but since this will be the first time since 2012 that the men won't be involved in any post-season antics, we find ourselves in the slightly anomalous situation insofar as the blog is concerned. That's because even though our men have greatly disappointed all of us, the senior women's teams are still very much alive and kicking, and looking to add several pieces of silverware to their collection.

This week they're aware to Bulleen on Saturday afternoon, hoping to clinch what I still anachronistically call the minor premiership, and after that they will be embarking on a finals campaign which will hopefully see them make an appearance at AAMI Park on grand final day. It'd be great to see a few more people at their games, because they are worth watching, and lopsided as the NPLW can be, at the business end of the season things get a lot more competitive.

Now that's all well and good for those who have an interest in our women's teams, but I get that's not a sentiment shared by everyone at South Melbourne. As noted ad nauseum recently (OK, twice), I'm a bit busy with work and stuff at the moment, and I don't expect that to let up until early November. Nevertheless, along with the women's stuff, there'll eventually be the usual off-season winding down of South of the Border. So that means the usual patchwork awards, book reviews, maybe some historical guff, and possibly drawing into the archives for draft pieces that maybe should see the light of day at some point.

There will also be some A-League bid news (not that any of that matters), and I assume there'll be an AGM at some point. So, there'll be enough to talk about: just gotta find the time to do it all.

Speaking of the A-League bid
The club has confirmed that it has "submitted its formal bid to join the Hyundai A-league in season 2019/20". Some have mocked the "60 years in the making reference", though I'm not sure why. If anything they should be congratulating the club on at least making the sensible decision to post the notice after we had avoided the relegation playoff, rather than putting it up beforehand.

Final thought
It's well before my end of year round round up, and it'll sound typically self-pitying as I write this, but I feel as if in a lot of ways I've let down the South of the Border readership this year with my writing efforts. There are some personal reasons for this - which I can hopefully let you all know about in due course - but mostly it comes down to me being utterly depressed and demotivated by the experience of watching and attending South Melbourne matches this year.

That goes for almost the whole experience - the performance of the men's team, the often self-serving and self-preservation antics of the board, the decline in quality of the social club (I'm leaving out manager Tegan, and Noula the cook, who did the best they could with the resources given to them), and the sometimes (often) embarrassing antics of the fans, myself included. The things that kept it all together? The fact that enough players gave enough of a stuff for just long enough to get us over the line, showing us that there was at least some residual pride left in the squad; the persistent camaraderie of the ramshackle operation that is Clarendon Corner, including some of the younger boys; lastly, the fact of what else are you going to do when there's a South game on?

Here's to the hope that this is a serious wake up call to the club that a half-arsed approach to running and supporting South Melbourne Hellas is going to end very badly. Here's to the hope that 2019 will provide us with a much better season on the field than the rollicking shambles that was 2018.

Going, going... South Melbourne 2 Pascoe Vale 3

The less said about the 7:00PM kickoff the better; about the only good thing about it was getting to see a mediocre game of footy beforehand. There must have been some serious turf preservation issues, as neither the under 20s nor the women's teams played on the Lakeside surface over the course of the weekend. The scoreboard was also on the blink, which lent the whole affair the unmistakable air of serious decay.

Oh, and we started the game in the relegation playoff spot, after being jumped by Hume City on Friday night after they beat Knights 3-2 at Somers Street.

As for the match itself, it started off reasonably well, and ended up in a much worse place. The proviso for most of our season has been that if we take the lead we have a chance, and that if we fall behind we're stuffed. That we were at first in front, then behind, and level again deep into the game showed at least some character. Then came another very special moment from everyone's favourite heel, and whatever positives we could've gotten out of the game - even just the measly point to get us out of the relegation zone - were soon forgotten.

Without necessarily creating too many clear cut chances, we gave a good account of ourselves early on, and did our best to keep Davey van 't Schip in check; well, as much as any team in our situation could be expected to do. As noted, we even took the lead and managed to carry the lead into the break, Ndumba Makeche putting away one of the better crosses we've put in this season. George Howard was having his best game since he joined us, and Oliver Minatel, who continues to be a minor revelation in his new role. But the second half wasn't as crash hot, and we counted off the time until we were due to concede.

I can't understand the subbing off of Makeche, who seemed to be lively and causing at least some problems for the Pascoe Vale defence, as well as of Pep Marafioti even though he was less effective. The Ndumba subbing was particularly strange, as apart from his attacking efforts he also put in a lot of defensive work on the left hand side of the park, sometimes coming up even into our half to offer extra coverage. The reshuffle seemed to unbalance the team, but at the same time it wasn't like we were far and away the better team - with a bit more luck Pascoe Vale could've been in front long before they actually were. But we were still in the game because most of the team were at least putting in a decent effort.

But Paco got there eventually anyhow, with some truly shoddy defending and clearance work, and our usual lapses in concentration. 2-1 down with just over ten to play, I didn't see us making any sort of comeback, but credit to the team they did well enough to get us back level, Leigh Minopoulos setting up Oliver Minatel for the latter's fifth goal of the season. There was at that moment even a hint of optimism among the crowd. That didn't last very long. Sadly in pushing for the win, we gave up even our nominal point in spectacular fashion. Deep in attack on the right, Nick Epifano was dispossessed when he may have copped a stray arm to the face. Perhaps expecting a free kick that never came - and the incident occurring on the referee's blindside made that call less likely to go our way in any event - or perhaps just as likely putting in one of his customary displays of on field petulance, he showed no interest in chasing his opponent back down the field, and the sequence of play ended up with what what turned out to be the winning goal to the visitors.

Epifano was booed by large sections of the crowd before the ball even made it to the halfway line, let alone into our net. And to be clear, he was booed not for losing he ball, but for making no effort whatsoever to chase back. He shushed the crowd and later performed a small fist pump celebrating the visitors' goal. Every time he touched the ball after that he was greeted with anger from the crowd. It being late on a Sunday and preferably wanting to get home before that evening's World Cup coverage started, I left as soon as the final whistle went. It didn't help my overall goal - the transport situation worked out so that I got home at 10:30 - but at least I got to avoid whatever post-match nonsense may have taken place. At this point in time there is no official word on whether Epifano is still at the club. There have been some rumours about him ending up somewhere in the state leagues for the rest of the season - the only place he can go now that the NPL transfer window is closed - but who actually knows? It would be easy to assume that there is no way he'll be allowed to come back, but how many times has that been said before? Before publishing the obituary for his colourful South Melbourne Hellas life, we should make sure it's dead first.

The only positive for the team's fight against relegation is that Bulleen thumped Kingston on yesterday, which while it brought the Lions to within a game (and much worse goal difference) of our position, it at least kept Kingston within touching distance for us rather than let them get away from us completely. It gives us something more than the illusion that survival is possible.

Sasa Kolman resigns as senior coach
Sasa Kolman is officially no longer the South Melbourne senior men's coach. It had been rumoured that Kolman had offered his resignation earlier in the season on one, or perhaps even two occasions, with that offer(s) rejected by the board. It was clear that the board had - for probably noble and ignoble reasons - a lot of faith in Kolman, but the circumstances have proved them wrong.

Kolman has and will cop stick for being the guy who knew beforehand that Taylor was going to get ousted, and that he himself was the one earmarked to replace one of the club's most successful coaches on short notice and to the surprise of pretty much everyone at South Melbourne outside the board. Hamstrung to a degree by the incredibly late move of the board to sack Taylor, as well as recruiting decisions made by the board and/or Taylor before Taylor's sacking, I have some sympathy for Kolman. It is not a sympathy that will be shared by many supporters, understandably so. He will be viewed as disloyal, which would've been more tolerable had the club done better than it has done. He will also be viewed as inept, a youth coach getting in over his head.

Kolman started off the season confidently, a good pre-season result against Guangzhou R&F and a solid first couple of league games giving him the chance to get some clear air. But bad luck (the goalkeeping mess, poor discipline by players, especially regarding concentration and suspensions, and his own two dismissals) and his own backing away from his high pitch, high energy pressing style of game have lead to a poor run of results, where each good result and passable performance is followed by two or three poor ones. His lack of confidence in his initial game plan was later mirrored by his disappearance from the club's media avenues.

It also saw an erratic shuffling of the playing decks from week to week, no two lineups ever quite being the same even when there was the chance to follow up on a winning effort. In defence and in midfield, it was impossible to tell what his preferred structure was once he abandoned his high press. Player positions changed, mostly to no improvement - except for the move of Oliver Minatel to defensive midfield - and morale obviously crashed. Some of the poor morale is on the board as well, obviously, and clearly at least some of the players have little enough respect for Kolman or for the board - leaking posts from their senior squad's private Facebook group is just one sign among many at the collapse in discipline and morale within the playing group.

And Kolman's use of the bench - or just as often, non use - was also inexplicable. I understand that he may have thought that the youth players he had there were not ready to step up, but there were situations where an inexperienced but nevertheless fit youth team player was seen as far inferior to a crippled senior team regular.

Con Tangalakis has been appointed the senior coach for the rest of the season, which was always a likely outcome once he was brought into the fold a few weeks ago. At the moment I'm hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. here's to being proven wrong. Please, prove us all wrong.

Next game
Northcote at home on Sunday, in the club's most important game in 14 years. I know I've said something like that across the past several years, but is it any less true this time around? It could be the start of something good, or just the continuation of the very bad thing we already have.

No word on whether Matthew Millar will be back from his trial at Central Coast Mariners, though the word on the street was that it was a two week stint of which last week was the second week. No word yet either on whether Iqi Jawadi will be fit enough to take part in any way this week.

Around the grounds
Grim
At McKechnie Reserve in St Albans on Saturday arvo  for the state league 2 north-west Greek derby between Westvale and Altona East. Hadn't been to Westvale for a few years now, but times there seem pretty damn tough. Very low attendance, and not much support or even volunteer culture - when you have an elderly bloke with obvious hand tremors making the souvs, it's not a great situation out there. (An OK souv at a good price by the way, which makes me wonder why South can't do something similar). Westvale on field are also in big trouble, just the one win so far this season, in second last place, and almost certain to go down to state 4. Altona East aren't crash hot, but their lower mid-table position means they're safe from relegation even at the midpoint of the season. To Westvale's credit they put in a solid shift throughout this game, and perhaps deserved to lead at the break. Altona East were better in the second half, which doesn't mean they were good, but this game had a bleak hue to it, and the increasingly dark skies - this game finished in near darkness - created a portent that this was going to be hard-fought scoreless draw. Which is exactly what happened.

Final thought
During the game someone found what appeared to be discarded membership card in Clarendon Corner, and the vibe seemed to be that someone had had enough of everything South Melbourne related, and who could blame them. I was given the card, recognised the surname scrawled in texta on the back, and having contacted the card's owner, I can relay to you dear reader that it was not "discarded", only "lost". So, one very minor saving grace from last week's mess of a match day.