Despair - South Melbourne 1 Dandenong City 3

Monday night was pretty bad. Outcoached and outplayed, morale down the toilet. In the relegation zone, no chance to get reinforcements for another three months, and no trust in what depth players we do have, including the one notable off-season signing who's been banished to the bench. The captain chucks a wobbly and gets sent off, we've run out of strikers, and the "get out of jail" long throw plan has stopped working. No wins since round 2, no clean sheets since round 1. So much for being the team built on a solid defence, although we know that stacking players in the eighteen-yard box from minute one was never really good defending, just weight of numbers.

The bigger concern is, as always, the bigger picture. Teams lose games and have bad runs all the time. But it's everything above those losses that amplifies the sense of doom. The cheapskate recruiting, the last minute major sponsor announcement, the lack of any friends anywhere. Who wants to hang out with South Melbourne? Not our fans, who ditched us en masse 20 years ago, and of those who remained, still gradually drift away. Not the media, who have no interest in whatever it is that we do. Not the Trust which operates Lakeside, which gets far more out of a single marquee athletics day than whatever we can muster over several years. Maybe only Preston likes us, and that's only because they need other teams for the Australian Championship to go ahead; but also, Preston doesn't really need the Australian Championship either, not like we do.

And just as an aside, if you can, have a look at the scenes from the athletics last week where Lakeside's stands and terraces are full, and the numbers on the concourses are six deep. That's what a legit crow of 10,000 looks like.

Anyway, we seem to tread water every season in one way or another, but is 2025 the year things finally come to a head? If the Australian Championship fails, if this Oceania business turns out to be the impossible insanity it appears to be to an outsider, does it even matter if we get relegated from the NPL or not? Good results won't bring people back to South Melbourne, and neither will good football. Only the impossibly long and difficult graft of trying to reengage the community that has abandoned us remains as an option, but it seems like a task so massive, that one can't quite conceive.

All this seems like something that could at least be discussed at an AGM, but it appears that we may never get one of those again. Fair enough, it's not like we're a member based club. 

Next game
Altona Magic away tonight.

Manny swears he came up with this one before
I rocked up to a South game in a suit and tie
for the third time this year already.

Blue and White Views
This 100% unofficial fanzine which, for the record, I have no hand in creating, is really winning people over, even at the most basic level of "oh, that's who number 88 is". For those who miss out on the physical copies handed out at games, there is a website you can visit, which includes comic strips which are in the style of former South of the Border contributor Manny. That's probably no accident. Once the season is done, I will be scanning all issues of Blue and White Views and chucking them up somewhere.

Around the grounds
Value for money
Last year it was $7. This year it costs $10 to buy a ticket to a fifth tier Australian soccer match in Melbourne, the same price as for a second tier Australian rules match. I suppose because I'd had a media pass for so long, and then COVID happened, and then my eyesight made it so that going to non-South games was largely pointless, I'd become distanced from the reality of what others had been putting up with for so many years in regards to prices at the gate. But $10 for a fifth tier match? In Melbourne? At least Western Suburbs has some elevated seating and some shelter. No goals on offer last week though against Banyule. Not the worst game I've ever seen though.

Final thought
Man, these crazy online gamblers, accusing us of throwing games, as if the preceding five or six weeks hadn't happened. They should take up knitting, jogging, volunteering for the homeless, anything but sports gambling, not for any moral reasons, but simply for the fact that they clearly aren't any good at even the most basic aspects of sports betting.

Inauspicious - South Melbourne 1 Dandenong City 0

We said we weren't going to bring this up again, but our
win against Dandy City did see us finish as runner-up in
the 2021 Bespoke Cup. Not a bad effort after starting
so far back at the start of this mess.

Started off this adventure by getting to the ground early enough to watch the second half of our senior women's match, as their season gradually winds down. Nothing much to write home about here - the cup run is over, finals hopes are gone, and the most one can hope for is that the move away from a big name roster in 2022 will yield fruit in 2023. I think there's some scope for that, and besides - apart from Western United joining, apparently the next A-League Women's season will have a three month overlap with the the start of the 2023 NPLW season - so it's best that everyone gets used to seeing their national league players a little less.

As for the senior men's game, for a match that had little to nothing riding on it for us, there sure seemed to be a lot of misplaced angst. I get that everyone, especially the players and coaching staff, want to finish first. After all, it's a nice marker for all that they've achieved this season. But really, without the lure of the NPL national playoffs, finishing first is not much different from finishing second. It's the same reward - a week off, and then a sudden death finals match on your home ground. Considering there isn't going to be an NPL national playoffs series this year, Football Victoria might as well have used the top six finals format that was used in the VPL days, where the top two at least got a double chance.

But let's assume the match did matter to us, and that was why people got upset with us not playing particularly well. Lots of long balls. Lots of reliance on the long throw. Lots of bad decision making. Par for the course in 2022, but it's worked so far, so why not more of it? Well for one thing, we don't have Harrison Sawyer on field anymore, so we may as well try something new to better suit the personnel we do have. That's my main gripe, and last Saturday it wasn't even really a big gripe for me, because I'm rationalising it like this: that we have three or so inconsequential Sawyer-less weeks - two weeks off, and a couple of essentially dead rubbers - to try and figure out what we're going to do.

And if trying the old thing with new people didn't work, well, that's no good, but maybe we can see that it doesn't work, and try something different. The home and away season is more or less over, and the nonsense will soon begin of two games meaning more than the preceding 26 put together. But that's me speaking, a measure of calm in a perpetually emotional sea. Too many others keep looking to fulfill the truth of Tommy Docherty's observation that South fans are "the best winners in the world, and the worst losers". And we weren't even losing last week! 

Some credit must go to Dandenong City who, as per our match earlier in the season, had a red hot go, being unafraid to take the game to us. They had long odds on getting out of the jam they found themselves in, but at least gave themselves a shot. All for nothing as it turned out, as their loss - and Hume's come from behind win over Dandy Thunder, the latter of whom blew its own slim chances of making finals - means that there would be need to be two really outrageous results on Sunday for City to avoid the drop. 

And while looming relegation can't be a pleasant experience, I'm not sure that justifies calling people "tsigane" and Greek so-and-sos, especially unprovoked. (And I don't think any one of us even paid much attention that fan "favourite" Steven Topalovic was still out there for City, much less former wunderkind Peter Skapetis.) And the less said about the smashed up soap dispensers in the toilets, and the unpleasantness late on in the night with broken glasses in the social club, the better. Some people are annoyed that it's not Hume going down instead of City; I wish it could be both, but if wishes were fishes and so on. 

Next match

Final match day of the home and away season, away to Avondale on Sunday. There has been some conjecture about which way to take this game. Should we go hard core, and try and make Avondale miss out on the finals? Or should we focus on trying to avoid injuries and suspensions, and to hell with whatever happens with the race for the final two finals spots? Should we turn up to support the boys? Or should we stay at home, and not give Avondale any money? Would anyone notice either way?

For whatever it's worth, I reckon the most important thing is to use this week as another opportunity to figure out how to win games without Harrison Sawyer. 

Speaking of which

While he is no longer with us on the field, the big striker was still with us off-field last Saturday, taking part in the post-match celebrations. Still waiting on his visa to come through perhaps? South fans may have seen recently that the All India Football Federation was suspended by FIFA for "undue interference by a third party". India has already, at least nominally, lost the hosting rights to the U17 Women's World Cup, scheduled for October. While the suspension also means that no Indian team - club or country - can play international matches until the suspension is lifted, any hopes that the suspension would also block transfers of non-Indian players to the Indian Super League seem non-existent. Well, it was worth wondering about, anyway.

Also top of the league

The under 21s also finished top of their league, thanks to a comfortable 7-0 win. Several senior players stuck around to see the end of that match, including chanting everyone's favourite, "come on Hellas, score a fucking goal". Think about all the times Clarendon Corner have been told off for swearing, especially in chants, and then this happens. Well, I'm taking it as an endorsement, and something to hold on to in the event that we ever get called out on it again.

Q. When is a title not a title?

A. When you have a final series.

For whatever reason, Football Victoria has decided that this season the under 21s competition will also have a finals series. So that means that our 21s are not quite there yet. What it also means is that there's a chance that South could be host to a finals double header, possibly against a club that we'd also be matched up against in the seniors. 

The decision to go for a double-header would almost certainly preclude the match from being played on a Friday night, because even starting the 21s at 6:15PM, there would need to be the allowance for extra time and penalties, which would push the senior kickoff time to well beyond 9PM. Considering also that the second week of NPL Victoria finals coincides with the first week of the AFL finals, it's likely that no one would want to come up against a possible Saturday night blockbuster AFL finals match. So could we see ourselves playing on a Sunday, the way everyone apparently wants us to?

Final thought

Thanks to Will for the lift back into the CBD.

I'm voting for apathy - Dandenong City 0 South Melbourne 1

Sincere apologies for another short and late post. I'd blame work, but work actually pays for things, whereas following South only tends to cost me. Better to learn this later rather than never, perhaps.

I didn't venture out to Endeavour Hills for this match, and I was so much the better for making that decision. Hiking out to the middle of nowhere, standing in the pouring rain, eating another chevapi roll. It's been done.

Instead I decided to go and visit an old South supporting friend who hasn't been able to go to games as of late. Watching the live stream with someone else sure as hell beats watching it by yourself. And no problems getting a gin and tonic.

Nevertheless, even in good company, a stream is not as good as the real thing. That's especially true when the stream doesn't even work. And waiting to see when or even if the stream will start, isn't all that fun. Cue a photo of said "stream will resume shortly" making its way to social media, only for the commentary to focus on the shocking state of my friend's cable management, with people thinking that it was my room and my TV and my cables!

Also, I didn't realise how much people cared for cable tidiness.  

Sitting on my mate's couch, waiting for something to happen on the TV, and then seeing that on the phone app, the stream and the match had started, and the just waiting for the TV stream to catch up the minute or so it was behind some version of reality. 

We got there in the end, though as the match went through its ebb and flow, you couldn't always tell who was the ladder leading team, and the team that very much nearer the other end of the table. Post-game people bitched and moaned about this, and I suppose I can't really get too crestfallen about that, because I've done it, too. 

But last week I was just, do you even remember where we were not that long ago? Farcical, flukey, or otherwise, it's still just nice that we're in a good place ladder wise, even if people think were not that hood, or the competition's even worse, or that it'll all fall apart sooner or later. That could just be more contrarianism from me though.

Yet, really, so what if Dandy City stuffed up several chances, and that we had to rely on former South championship player Shaun Timmins putting the ball in the back of his own net, or if some of our players were arguing among themselves post-match. Take the last as evidence that they care, if not about South, than at least about playing the game, which is something to latch onto in these apathetic times.

Next game

A 2021-2022 six pointer against Avondalet at Lakeside on Friday. Maybe with a sea of green and white, the likes of which we have not seen since the Bohemians visited in 2014, but probably not. Not even sure I'll be able to make it. Hope that I can, of course.

Final thought

I'd make an observation about some conditional changes recently made to the operation of the no. 12 tram when the footy's on, but I'm the only South fan on that tram most times, so forget it.

Top of the league with low expectations - Dandenong City 1 South Melbourne 1

Before I wrote the previous post, I assumed that I wasn't going to be at this game, but through the magic of the South of the Border audience, there I was at Frank Holohan Soccer Complex, eating a raznjice roll instead of a pork belly roll (because Gains apparently got the last one), and drinking a non-zero sugar CC & Dry. What a magical evening this was already, and then it was ruined, absolutely ruined, by the muddling team selection. 

With a nearly a full week between the St Albans game and this one, and over a week between this game and the next one against Hume, I could not, and cannot for the life of me understand why Esteban Quintas chose to once again rotate the squad Mickey Arthur style. Pick the best damn attacking options and get on with it. My lord, it is so frustrating to watch this team knowing that if its optimal attacking set up was unleashed, it would be in a much better position not just to win games, but to also win them well.

I'm sure Quintas has his reasons. Freddie Sey got a start instead of Gerrie Sylaidos or Zac Bates, and on five minutes should have had a goal, or at least a shot on target. Instead he hit Henry Hore's cut back in such a messed up way, that even watching it half a dozen (and them some) times on replay, I can't figure out what Sey was trying to do. It looks like he hit the ball with both feet at once, but even thinking about the mechanics of that just make me dizzy.

Anyway, these things apparently happen. But despite controlling the early part of the game, having not taken the lead from a great early chance early mean that City could afford to continue to play the game on its terms, in the sense that they were built for rapid counter attacks and making the most of mistakes in the middle. Since we were carrying the ball up field and committing numbers forward to do so, and since the pitch - by far the bumpiest I've seen this season - made ball control in the middle of the park difficult.

And despite being bottom of the table, City were hardly terrible. Certainly they looked more likely than St Albans. To wit - they opened the scoring thanks to a new recruit, secured with a transfer system loophole, a great finish even if our friend did have too much space on the edge of the box. On first glance it looks like Ben Djiba gets turned inside out, but the replay suggests that he's effectively being asked to mark three opponents while some of his midfield teammates are ball watching.

Some may say that wouldn't have happened under, say, Melvin Becket's watch, but that's a story for another day. Second half, a couple of attacking substitutions, and there we were, hunting for the equaliser in a game that had gone from messy and tolerable in a "I'm watching an NPL match, so I need to remind myself not to expect too much" way, to helter skelter, up and down, attack and counter attack, being on the edge of your seat wondering if the next gial would be ours or theirs.

As it turned out, the next - and only - goal was ours. Henry Hore with another cute assist, though Daniel Clark had some work to do to turn on his right and toe-bash the ball into the back of the net. Former South man Gavin De Niese, who was marking Clark, would probably be disappointed with himself for being so far off Clark when the latter got the ball. Either side of the equaliser City's goalkeeper pulled off any number of good saves, though he was also helped by the post after he cocked up one sequence, and also helped by us stuffing up a three on one opportunity.

  

There's a part of me that can't decide if we thought this game would be easier than it turned out, or if we gave too much credit to the home team. Either way, it was two points dropped for us, and being top of the league playing bottom, there's no way of getting around that. While there are no guarantees in any match, logically a team such as ours, on top of the table after eight games - even if we're not quite sure how we did that - should be winning these games, especially with the quantity of chances we created,

Still, after the game ended there followed the applause of much of the crowd, for I assume (I hope) both teams, who put together a very entertaining second half. And then some argle-bargle happened down near the players race, which kinda took the edge of the feelings of good sportsmanship and appreciation of a good game of football. At least we didn't cop anyone giving us a Nazi salute this time, so that's a plus.

Next game

Hume City at home on Saturday afternoon. Prior to the senior game I believe the annual Tony Clarke Memorial Shield game will take place. The under 21s will be playing after the senior game.

I'm not expecting a big crowd up against all those state league fixtures, and on Orthodox Easter Saturday to boot. Even I won't be there, as I will be in Wollongong for a friend's wedding.

So if you want to write up this week's match report, send me a line, because chances are I won't even get to watch this game on delay.

Now it's official

Our cup game against Knights is on Tuesday May 4th, 7:30PM at Lakeside. South memberships won't get you into this game, but tickets are only $10.

I did not expect that

Last night on a whim, I decided to head out and catch our senior women in action at Lakeside against FV Emerging, because that's how much I love Monday night football. Considering the spanking our women gave Bulleen in round 1, and how even an at times half-arsed performance in round 2 gave us a win over Calder, I was expecting good enough things for round 3. Big mistake. I'd heard that the Emerging program (re-badged from whatever its previous name was) has been looking good this season, but I didn't expect it to be this good. I'm told they train four times a week, getting up at six in the morning, and have the odd over-age player, but notwithstanding any of that, they looked damn good. Scary good. They made our team look second rate. We couldn't get the ball; and when we did get the ball, we couldn't do anything with it; and when we did do something with it, it was hardly spectacular. I don't think we had a shot on target all night. And despite one cock-up, if not for Melissa Barbieri in goal, we wouldn't have only lost 5-0.

It wasn't down to fitness, or the individual physical qualities of players such as speed or strength. It was down to the quality of the teamwork from Emerging - their passing and movement a real cut above almost anything I've seen in local women's soccer. Much to think about for our women's team then, and much to think also I assume for any opponent of FV Emerging.

Promotion and relegation chat

I don't normally do this, but on the Australian soccer history podcast that I co-host, we recently had a chat with Australian soccer statistician Andrew Howe about the way promotion and relegation worked in the National Soccer League. Might be worth tuning in just in case you ever wanted to weigh in on the topic on social media.

Live streaming

First you get the streaming; then you get the gambling; then you get the women

Saturday afternoon, and I could not be arsed driving to Paisley Park. I also could not be arsed walking to Ralph Reserve. Decided instead to sit on the couch, fire up the Xbox, and watch some streaming matches on YouTube. Congratulations to all the streaming service advocates, you've won. I was flipping across multiple games, with no loyalty to any one contest. Devonport vs Olympia held my interest for as long the underdog Olympia were leading 2-1. Then when Devonport equalised, that was it for me. Bergers vs Port? Flat sounding commentary and no crowd ambience meant that the game didn't hold much interest, and it looked like the Bergers were in control anyway. The choice then was to flick back and forth between the Avondale-Thunder, and Preston-North Sunshine games. North Sunshine had four ex-South players in its lineup - Mala, Epifano, Zeneli, and Budimir - and the game had its share of tension and a big time feel. And the game at the Reggio Calabria had Avondale trying to win to close the gap to us... and yet I wasn't able to fully commit to the story of either game. It all came across as so frivolous, having all that choice. Richey Edwards had a line about that in a song the Manics completed years after Richey's mysterious disappearance, but that's really only of interest to exactly one person reading this: me.

Final thought

Thanks to Paul C. for giving me and Gains a lift to and from the ground - it was very much appreciated!

Crap - Dandenong City 3 South Melbourne 0

Photo: Luke Radziminski

I was death warmed up on Friday night thanks to some stupid virus, and part of me wishes that I'd not bothered making the trip out to Endeavour Hills to watch the slop that we dished out, especially if meant being mostly bed and couch-ridden for the next few days (and who knows how many days after this post).

A word about the location of Frank Holohan Soccer Complex. By NPL standards, especially NPL public transport standards, it is the Middle of Nowhere, Beyond the Black Stump, and Out the Back of Bourke all rolled into one. Thankfully I got lifts to and from the ground, because walking through the mud and darkness, and in this case the rain, would've been utter madness. I say this as someone who's read enough Australian bush gothic literature to understand the dangers that lurk in that darkness.

The public transport guide that nobody reads but me has been updated accordingly.

The game itself was a dog's breakfast from our point of view, played almost entirely on the opposition's terms. That meant a lot of contested ball, lots of aerial ping pong, and few moments where we able to maintain possession, keep it on the ground, and get numbers forward.

A South Melbourne Hellas version of Where's Wally. Photo: Luke Radziminski

That being said, even though it wasn't looking like being a good night for us, it was fairly even for the first half hour, and we largely kept City from making too many threatening advances. Of course I worried about every set piece we had to defend, because we have been poor at defending those all season, but I was still harbouring the optimistic (and in the cold light of Tuesday evening, clearly foolish) belief that we could at least get a draw out of this game.

When we did manage to get it on the ground and control the game for a ten minute spell late in the first half, we looked great, consistently dangerous, often *this* close to scoring. It was mostly down to Gerrie Sylaidos, who all of sudden was able to assert himself (and thus establish a a Hellas midfield presence when none existed previously), bringing into the game Zac Bates and Pep Marafioti, who were also able to bring in Billy Konstantinidis. Unfortunately we managed to take none of the three or four very good chances we created during that timespan - though some doubts remain about the legitimacy of the offside call which denied Billy Konstantinidis a goal.

Then we coughed up the opening goal late in the first half from a set-piece, and we were cooked. Now, someone asked after we copped that goal "who was that smartarse who said we'd cop a goal from that free kick", and I owned up to making the statement - but let's be honest, anyone could've done it at any moment during the season and it would've come out to be true, not because of some sort of voodoo, but because we have been garbage at defending corners and set pieces. And no amount of supposed voodoo would ameliorate the poor attempt at a punched clearance (and even coming out for that punch) from Nikola Roganovic, and the poor attempt at a recovery from the whole defence.

Any hope that we would be able to recover in the second half disappeared quickly. Without any midfield drive or control, all we had was long balls to Billy, most of them from Roganovic, which I think tells you where moist of those long balls were reaching Billy - a long, long way away from goal. Eventually we copped a second and a third goal, capping off a horrible night all round. We were tactically outdone by a fairly straightforward opposition game plan, executed by a collective of experienced players who were able to impose their will on the contest.

Few players were blameless in our defeat, and the coaching staff will have to their share of the responsibility too. The younger, inexperienced players I can forgive to a degree, but our more experienced players failed to show the way. Marcus Schroen for mine was the key culprit. He's had been all over the shop this season, but in recent weeks has at least been able to showcase his value to the team with some crucial goals and passes. Friday night he had a stinker, the de facto midfield captain being nigh on invisible.

I've got to say though that the poor personal discipline of some of our players leaves a lot to be desired. And I don't just mean team orientated things like tracking back (which fell away across the board on Friday night as the game wore on), or even emotional intelligence (chin up, etc), but stupid, irrelevant, hopeless moment of action. Billy Konstantinidis, for all his indisputable talent and worth to this team, is someone who doesn't quite seem able to control his worse instincts when he becomes frustrated. There's already been that suspension from his punch against Pascoe Vale, and several niggly incidence aside from that. But the push on Adrian Leijer which saw Leijer collide with City keeper Damir Salcin and begin pouring blood all over the place was a cheap, unnecessary and as it turns out very dangerous thing to do.

That he didn't get a yellow card for it - while he was already on a yellow - is a little strange to me. Just as disappointingly, Peter Skapetis - who came off the bench for his senior South debut - also engaged in pointless off-the-ball antics. What did they achieve? What could actions like that achieve? Having never been a player myself, maybe there's some hidden, unknowable (to me) psychological reason for it.

Anyway, the whole experience (except for a $2 can of soft drink) was absolute garbage, and hopefully it's a while before we have to deal anything resembling that, including the children whose screams were straight out of a horror film.

"Hail my Führer, you Greek cunts"
There have been plenty of 'charming' characters we've come across in our time in the VPL and NPL. Sadly, sometimes these are South supporters. More often than not though, the aforementioned charming characters tend to be big egos and the safety of a home ground - and sympathetic home ground security and marshals who see South Melbourne supporters as a nice, big, soft target.

This week South fans noted an escalation in abuse and threats of violence from opposition fans, with the principle offensive character being a a hi vis Hitler fan. Not sure what his issue was, as no one had said anything to him or that group of City fans along the fence. Anyway, if anything it just goes to show that making a pre-game announcement about not tolerating anti-social behaviour is a perfunctory act if nothing's done to enforce standards.

One more very petty thing...
And this applies as much to Bulleen and Monbulk as much as it does to Dandy City. If you're going to host night games, that's fine - but if you do so, could you make the effort to either have adequate lighting, or if that's possible, at least wear a kit that doesn't blend in entirely with the surrounding night?

Next game
Port Melbourne at home on Sunday, in the first of our traditional mid-season stretch of home games.

Relegation battle (status: ongoing, stable)
Aside from own rubbish result, the other results actually largely went our way. Port Melbourne and Oakleigh both drew, keeping both behind us. More importantly, Bentleigh managed to come from behind to beat Pascoe Vale, and Kingston beat Thunder, keeping Paco and Thunder six and seven points behind us respectively. And if you're really desperate for glass half full validation, even Altona Magic remained (figuratively) within the relegation battle, losing 2-1 to Melbourne Knights.

Of course much of this would matter a lot less if a) we had at least beaten or drawn a few games against the teams so rubbish that they are somehow - still! - below us, and b) didn't have such a terrible goal difference. But all of this will matter until such point as we are no longer in a relagation battle.

FFA Cup news
We have been drawn against the Melbourne Knights in round 7 of the FFA Cup. Of course, the typical South of the Border reader (whether you are South fan or a Knights fan), being highly educated and completely of the belief that there are no such as coincidences, already knew this was going to happen.

The only thing that rivals the surprise is the all NPL2 fixture that was also drawn; all of which is a reminder that there's no such thing as magic, just the combination of sleight of hand, warm balls, and enough people willing to suspend disbelief in order to make the spectacle work.

Oh, we've been drawn as the away team this time, so bonus points to Football Victoria

Mid-season transfer window comes to a close
A couple more signings to round out whatever it is we think we're doing this year.

We've signed Keenan Gibson, a central midfielder from Avondale. We've also signed Tom Aulton, a defender from Brisbane City, has also joined up. He comes with this glowing reference from up north:

Easily our best player last season at City. A rock at the back but he's got feet and plays it forward with ease. We'll miss ya' Tommy, give 'em hell! ⚪🔵

— James Freidman (@jamesfreidman) June 4, 2019

Talk seems to be that Dean Bereveskos has been moved on to Dandy Thunder, while question marks remain over the fate of Ethan Gage.

Final thought
Many thanks to Mark for helping Gains and I get to the game, and to Johnny for getting us away from there.

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.

Spent - South Melbourne 2 Bentleigh Greens 2 (South lose 5-3 on penalties)

I took a little longer to get around to this post not because of some sort of despair, or anger, but because I didn't know what to say. I did some reading, I went and watched a couple of other games, and yet still I didn't find myself particularly motivated to write this post. Maybe because I had expected we'd lose this game? Sure we'd beaten them in our last meeting and they were coming off a three day break, but that was different. This time around their three day break was not so bad, because they rested a good portion of their squad.

It's actually kind of funny - after beating North Geelong, Melbourne Knights and Hume on the road, the only team we beat in the league was Bentleigh - in fact we won more games in the FFA Cup in that period than in the league. So basically our form has gone out the window, though who knows why... the usual gimmick for the club, at least under Chris Taylor, is to start solidly, slip up in the middle somewhere, and time our best run for the end of the season. Perhaps because we sucked in the middle, had to claw our way back in the middle, and then had the money issues (which some say still exist...), everything's just come to a point where everyone is mentally and physically drained. Or the team is just not that good this year. It's been able to scrape and fight and pinch wins against the odds in circumstances say we shouldn't have.

Milos Lujic has scored a lot of goals, but in the last month or two it feels like the well has dried up a bit. The early part of the season his tally was initially buffeted by penalties, but his four year bonanza had to stall at some point. And the service and style hasn't helped. Players like Marcus Schroen and Matthew Millar have fallen away. Schroen has the ability to turn a game on its head even when he's having a down day, but those efforts seem to few and far between. Millar is the opposite, a workhorse whose turns to shine on Friday night were left wanting no fewer than four times.

Michael Eagar has ended up on the bench for several weeks, for reasons no one I've spoken to seems to understand... some fans seem to think Eagar is on the way out. Luke Adams and Kristian Konstatinidis have been good, KK more than that when he keeps his feet, but Eagar was one of the players that turned the season around when he returned from injury after our horror start to the season. The other player to contribute to that turnaround was Nick Epifano, but on Friday night he wavered between his best and worst. He was a menace to Bentleigh on the left hand side, but also went missing, regressing to his bouts of low self-esteem. Leigh Minopoulos was handy, but was dragged. He doesn't have the stamina. Jesse Daley came on, and could've done more.

Luke Pavlou came on, a decision which confounded those of us who wanted us to chase the win. Stefan Zinni's pace was never used. Considering that Zinni played a good deal of the pre-season, often as a starter, and considering that we were apparently disappointed to see him leave for his Wanderers stint, upon his return we haven't seen much of him. Where we could've used someone with fresh legs, someone who could exploit a tired opposition and rejuvenate our own spirits, we had old fashioned Chris Taylor caution. Not exactly the kind of thing some of us want to see before a game against the former Palm Beach Sharks.

Both teams ran and then walked themselves into a standstill. We had enough chances to win it in normal time, and didn't. In fact we probably started withdrawing into ourselves around the eighty minute mark, which I can understand if there's going to be a renewed emphasis on attack in extra time, but it didn't happen. At some point during extra time I walked down to the fence. By the penalty shootout I was back in the stand, waiting for us to lose it. We hit most of our penalties well enough, but Brad Norton's was tipped onto the post by the keeper. Every single one of their shots seemed unstoppable, but Nikola Roganovic had also seemingly resigned himself to not saving them. I'm not sure he even got close to any, but that's me and my bad eyes and pall of doom looking at it from a hundred metres away.

The team should not have found itself 2-0 down. It did well to get itself level, and it should've won the game, but nerve and skill failed us at critical moments. Tyson Holmes' goal to open the scoring will be the cause of some angst for our fans for some time. It was probably a handball, it likely shouldn't have stood but the officials didn't and probably couldn't see it clearly. Neither did our players, who are more than happy to call for even non-existent handballs, seem to get up in arms at the decisions. And while Holmes should never have had the chance to even get his head or hand on the ball, neither can we get on our high horse about these things, lest we forget another 2-2 finish and we earned that point.

Though of course that's a logical response to such matters, and there's no imperative for you folk to be held to that standard.

If it feels like I've singled out a lot of people for the loss, that's not the intention. The squad is a good one, it has deficiencies, but so does the rest of the league. The team did well enough to finish second, but under the current nonsense finals system, received little more advantage for doing so than a home game and in this case a short turnaround for our opponent. They should either bring in a fairer finals system - my preference is the McIntyre final five - or ditch the finals entirely. But that's another debate for another team.

It feels odd not having anything to show for this season, having won the championship in two of the past three seasons and a Dockerty Cup in between those. Maybe this will shake things up a bit during the off-season. But of course there's also our...

Next game
Our FFA Cup quarter-final in a few weeks time...

FFA Cup news
Hahahaha, lol, roflcopter etc. We've been drawn against Gold Coast City, the former Palm Beach Sharks.

The match has been scheduled for Wednesday September 20th, 7:30PM at Robina Stadium, Robina - otherwise known as CBUS Stadium, you know, the place we played at the last time we played these guys.

I'd like to have been able to go, but I've got a specialist's appointment the next day. Also, I hate the Gold Coast. But as for the rest of you, start booking your flights and accommodation before the algorithms pick up that people are interested in heading up for the game.

Who knows what form we'll be in by that stage - probably no form, because it will have been 19 days since our last official game, and probably the same in the event that we can't rustle up some local oafs to play against in the mean time.

Gold Coast City will be in much the same position as us, except for playing at home. The prize here is an almost certain lucrative home gate against an A-League opponent, for our boys who lost the corresponding fixture a couple of years ago a measure of redemption, but really it's about the cash. We need the money, we need to show off our magnificent stadium, we need to keep up the delusions of grandeur and relevance.

Speaking of which
I got to the ground before 5:30, but apparently those who got to the ground closer to the 7:30 kickoff faced long queues, with many people not getting into the ground until 15 minutes into the game. Now I assumed that the main gate would be opened, but apparently the club thought it could get away with having two people at the social club entrance. As if charging members for entry wasn't going to piss off enough people! What are the few absolute basics that every club needs to be able to sort out? Cobbling together a senior team; securing a patch of grass to play out a season; rustling up enough cash to pay the refs; having some sort of food service; where necessary, being able to organise orderly entry and exit points if the venue demands such.

Everything else seems optional, and I know that we have particular circumstances which make our situation less than ideal, but one never stops being in awe of how we make things even more difficult for ourselves.

In amid all that...
The WNPL team keeps rolling on. They're on top of the table going into the last round of the home and away season, two points ahead of Calder. We play Geelong at Lakeside on Saturday afternoon. I'd love to have been able to go, but I made a promise to Clifton Hill coach Leigh Tsoumerkas to go see his team at Quarries Park before the season was out, and time just flies when you try and put something like that off.

Apart from matches played as double headers, some of which I watched the entirety of and others I only saw bits and pieces of, I would've liked to have seen more of their games. Most of the women's away games being on the very wrong side of town for me with atrocious public transport connections made things harder, but the one game they played near my place - against Calder in Keilor - I skipped because I went and saw Altona East vs Rosebud in an early round FFA Cup match instead. I guess some part of me knew that it would be the only time I'd watch East win a game all season.

Nevertheless there'll be a finals campaign for the women to get on board with soon, and I look forward to doing so.

'Clog wogs are not real wogs' part 7472902

Look, it was my own fault for looking, and it'll be my fault again when I do the same tomorrow and the day after that
There were some preliminary sketches here about something or other that I was going to post about something I read on Twitter, but I thought better of it and bailed. I might unwisely revisit it someday, if and when I get annoyed by that same theme.

Around the grounds
That's it! If I go, I'm taking you to hell with me!

The fixture was last placed Altona East vs second last placed Westgate. Two mediocre sides who have done their best to undeservedly avoid relegation in the past few seasons but were now this close to going down together. Taking into account possible tribunal decision ramifications and theoretical league reshuffles, the win here for either side would give them a chance to survive at the expense of the other. So of course they drew the game. East went in front twice, Westgate equalised twice. Westgate took a 3-2 lead, but in a classic example of mutually assured orthodox brotherhood destruction, East equalised with about a minute to go. There were great goals and great drama, and in the end a great big nothing result for two very ordinary sides who deserve to go down, and who would maybe even benefit from being relegated, but who may yet survive due to nothing else but arcane post-season machinations.

Strange priorities
Aside from our own involvement, I haven't been a to VPL or NPL Victoria grand final for many years. I missed the 2013 Northcote vs Bentleigh lunchtime at AAMI Park affair. I missed the 2012 Dandy Thunder rocket flare/Oakleigh choke. I missed the 2011 Green Gully win/ Oakleigh Choke. In fact the last time I went to one of these deciders was in 2010, and that was as much to see the Bubbledome as anything. But as for relegation and promotion playoffs, well that's a different story. As long as there isn't an A-League team's youth side playing in the game, I do my best to get along. This year is going to be extra special, because Melbourne Knights are going to be playing sister club Dandenong City in a match to decide whether Knights can legitimately call themselves the most important Croatian club in Melbourne for another year, while simultaneously seeing to it that Dandy City have pissed a lot of cash up the wall. Happy days that this year this fixture will coincide with the grand final day, at Lakeside on Sunday. City won their way to a playoff having finished runner up to Dandy Thunder in NPL 2 East, and proved their league to be stronger than the West side by pretty comfortably beating Moreland Zebras 1-0. You know I didn't even notice that Steven Topalovic was sent off in this game for City? Apart from being a lesson to look up from my phone every so often, it made no difference to the game whatsoever. Dandy City took longer than they should've to open the scoring against a very mediocre opponent, but were rarely under threat themselves. Losing Topa for next week will make things harder. Me, I look forward to an enthralling contest, one which satisfies me so much that I would not feel guilty in skipping the grand final afterwards, like I didn't care about skipping the meaningless Dandy Thunder vs Northcote game held after the City-Zebras match.

Final thought
It feels like the end even though it's not. One day it will be over and perhaps we won't feel that it is.

Broken down and rebuilt from scratch - South Melbourne 5 Dandenong City 4

We have options
For a well balanced review of last night's game, read the Corner Flag's story on the match.

For a professional report, see David Davutovic's Herald Sun piece.

The short version

...you will be broken down to the level of infants, then rebuilt as functional members of society, then broken down again, then lunch, then, if there's time, rebuilt once more.

Prelude to mediocrity
Two weeks ago
I decided belatedly to get a flu shot. I hadn't had one for a couple of years, but decided to do it this year because I'm in the final stretch of my thesis work, and besides which, I watch a lot of soccer during the winter and didn't want to be laid up at home unnecessarily. Apparently it takes two weeks to work, so it was a good thing I didn't get sick during that time.

One week ago
Someone used a pair of scissors to break into my car, but found nothing of value to take except for a box of tissues and a pair of my dad's reading glasses. I'm not sure what they were expecting to find in a 1989 Toyota Camry with two of its rims missing. I haven't even bothered checking to see if they took my Achtung Baby cassette; it's not like the cassette player in the car works anyway.

Saturday
I experienced the brief visceral thrill of watching Collingwood beat Hawthorn on television, before rationalising that it was a Hawthorn side missing five of its best, while at the early stages of re-build, and how did we get seven goals down anyway? I then watched Spinal Tap on SBS2, not really thinking that I'd be rationalising anything like that Pies' win on Wednesday, not even really thinking about Wednesday at all.

Sunday
Get to Lakeside, and have a blast watching a game that no one really cares about. Get home, have dinner, write a slapdash and uninspired match report for a game that no one cared about.

Monday
Trying to get some work done. Started to feel that nervousness kick in. Hating every second of it. But so far it's been bearable. As usual, Twitter provides a useful distraction. Late in the afternoon I get a message from a mate about a conversation he's overheard on the tram (see right). I don't know what to make of it, because on the one hand, it's completely unimportant - I mean, it's only South Melbourne after all. And there's also the paranoid matter of it possibly being part of a disinformation plan.

If you're talking about @smfc transfers out loud on your phone while on a tram somewhere in our great city, don't assume no one's listening.

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) May 22, 2017

Just because the man with the hat and glasses isn't in sight, it doesn't mean one of my many agents isn't. Show a bit of discretion, please!

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) May 22, 2017

Of course the Fahid Ben Khalfallah (whoever he is) stuff has been doing the rounds on Melbourne soccer focused internet forums for a couple of weeks at least, lest a certain Sydney based radio programme tries to convince you of its having snared some kind of 'scoop'. Later on I find myself thinking about the cup fixture as I'm trying to get to sleep. At least the distraction of an inflamed eye (again) diverts my attention to something else.

Tuesday
Realised I'd lost my USB drive at uni, again. But fortunately found it where I'd left it the day before.

"Bobo, I know I say this every century, but I'll never leave you behind again". pic.twitter.com/XTaKmm1o3W

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) May 23, 2017

Wednesday
Juniper Hill earned a hard fought 1-0 win on the road in the fourth round of the Oceanian Cup. I skimmed through the relevant parts of Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters and Ange Postecoglou's book for my thesis. And then it was finally time to go to Lakeside.

Nick Epifano shoots and scores with his left for the opening goal.
Photo: Jason Heidrich.

Frivolity leads to near-despair
Having a drink and a feed in the social club while watching a futsal match, the mood was light and festive. I even made lighthearted quip toward Milos Lujic as he was walking in about his choice of hat. I honestly did not feel as nervous about this game as I normally would have. Even when we got outside and Clarendon Corner inexplicably split into Upper and Lower factions, the fact that there was a Rod Stewart lookalike wandering around our bay just reinforced the nonchalance I was feeling. That, and Nick Epifano opened the scoring within two minutes, with a left foot shot of all things. Even when we conceded the equalising goal soon afterwards, I didn't feel particularly bad. Annoyed, but not bad. In any event, the team spent the next twenty minutes carving up the visitors, so surely another goal for us was coming soon, right?

When Milos Lujic was pushed in the back in the box, I thought surely that would be the chance to retake the lead, but the ref didn't call it, and City went up the other end and scored. And that's when things started to look really rubbish. We'd had City where we wanted them, off-balance and chasing shadows - especially Stefan Zinni's - and now we were behind and forced to play the game on their terms. We lost our nerve, and started bombing the ball long to Milos, and every one of those balls was cleared away easily by the City defense. Worse, we weren't really putting any pressure on City's players on the ball, so they were able to play as they wanted to.

In the last five minutes of the half it looked like we were getting our mojo back just a bit, so it was a surprise to see Zinni benched and replaced with Leigh Minopoulos. Is Zinni not match fit? Was the plan to only play him for an hour or so and hope we'd have wreaked enough havoc that we could sub him off safely? Whatever the initial plan was, I give credit to Chris Taylor for going for the early sub instead of waiting, even if it's not the sub I would've made myself. The move and whatever was in the halftime talk seemed to work, as we came out in much the same way we had in the first 25 minutes of the game.

[I am reminded here of something I'd read in Postecoglou's book earlier that day, about a coach having really very little opportunity to make an impact during the course of a game, and realistically only four or so minutes in ideal circumstances during the halftime break - it's probably a bit different in a fully professional environment compared to one merely aspiring to reach that level. The overall point here though is that the coach, while not being absolved of match day results and decision making consequences, must do most of their work during the training sessions, and not just on fitness - they must prepare the team to be able to handle itself on the field without the coach's constant interference.]

But the elephant in the room - the makeshift defense - came back to bite us on the arse repeatedly. Letting former South Melbourne Hellas defender and golden boot (2012 season) Shaun Kelly score once was bad enough, but twice? The marking for both goals looked abysmal. How he was able to get so free for that header beggars belief. So 4-1 down, and now I'm slumped in my chair. Worse is to come, because we revert to that nonsense long ball crap, which Ljubo Milicevic deals with easily. As eccentric as he is, he's a fine player, and among his greatest assets is his ability to read the play - not much of a challenge the way we were going about it though.

We had begun the season with four senior and experienced centre backs, and somehow started this game with just one. So while the coaching staff don't escape any of the blame for what happened last night, I would like to berate two people in particular before anyone else. Those people are Kristian Konstantinidis and Luke Adam. Konstantinidis for his finger business suspension; Adams for going on holiday during the season. Oh, and a special brickbat to whoever couldn't manage to keep Carl Piergianni around for one more week knowing that we would be short staffed in this area.

[I am reminded here of a game away against the then all conquering Dandenong Thunder in 2012, where we squeezed out a meritorious draw despite being similarly short-handed, in part because we'd managed to get Filip Jonsson to stick around long enough to play one more game.]

The lack of centre-backs meant that we ended up using Tim Mala at centre-back and Luke Pavlou at right back, throwing our whole backline and system out of whack. It was scenes straight out of Gully from earlier this year. You can't blame a player for under-performing in a position they are clearly not used to or suited to playing in. At some point someone decided that Matthew Foschini at centre-back and Pavlou in the defensive midfield role wasn't the way to go, We got punished for this repeatedly. Every time City went up the field they looked dangerous. They didn't even do it that often, because we had most of the ball, but their efficiency in front of goal showed not only how makeshift our defense was, but also the quality of the chances City created. But that didn't mean that their defense had magically improved. We'd just reverted to being dumb and playing dumb. You might call it a lack of composure, you might call it a lack of leadership; you might call it both, and you wouldn't be wrong on either count.

[Discussing this issue with one of the coaching staff after the game, he felt it could be one of those things which changes the side as we've known it during the Chris Taylor era. Having managed to dig really deep and find that intangible something in order to overcome the frankly ridiculous odds, one wonder what the long term consequences may be. That's not to say that the team hasn't been resilient, that it hasn't won things, that it hasn't come from behind in big games - but has it overturned a game in this fashion? This game wasn't about Taylor's rhetoric and conditioning of a team to win mere 'moments' - this game and its comeback were about overcoming our own implied/inferred mental fragility and the spectre of repeated failures in similar occasions of elevated importance.]

So to get back on track. I enjoyed the first two minutes of this match. The other 90 odd minutes, increasingly not at all. That's a strictly personal take, and I do not in any way wish to lessen the excitement and joy felt by our long suffering and loyal supporters which materialised during the comeback; nor do I want to diminish the achievement of the players in somehow finding their way back. But last night, this team broke me.

I only have two sporting loves. The Collingwood Football Club and South Melbourne Hellas. Both have caused me an immeasurable amount of mostly manageable grief, but when in attendance at a game of either of these two I have only voluntarily walked away twice that I can recall. Both times were at Collingwood matches, once in the old Ponsford against Geelong in the early 2000s, and once in the new Ponsford in the mid-2000s against Fremantle. I can't recall what exact minute or what particular sequence of play triggered my walking out of the stands last night - maybe it was the general trajectory of play and the team's attitude - but I'd had enough. I couldn't take anymore, and so I walked into the social club to sit quietly waiting for the inevitable to play out.

I loathe the FFA Cup. I hate how it skews things so much in our league that league performances - the bread and butter of any soccer club - become secondary in importance. I hate the perverse financial and promotional rewards. I hate the gimmickry, and the patronising commentary. I hate the crap-shoot. I hate how this peripheral tournament has taken centre-stage, and set in course a new player wage arms race. That doesn't mean I don't understand the FFA Cup's appeal, its novelty, its charm, its so-called romance. But all those things belong to dare I say it, smaller clubs than ours. Not less worthwhile clubs, but smaller certainly in history and ambition, and indisputably smaller in ego.

For almost no other club in Australia is a knockout tournament hinging on the luck of the draw more than just about a fleeting moment in the limelight, and a happy payday if they're so fortunate. It's not even about making a passing political point for us. The way we think of ourselves, distorted and anachronistic as it may be, forces us to treat this thing as being incredibly serious. This seriousness lends a bizarre and unearned sense of legitimacy upon the worth of the FFA Cup. We judge our success and more often our failures now based on this, These are failures which have, and successes which could have, or so we like to believe, serious long term consequences. This is even in the likely event that those consequences are unquantifiable and what's more, indistinguishable form everything else that we have to contend with in our hopes to get back into the top flight.

On top of our own complicity in setting up this paradigm, everyone outside of us who hopes we do well - or just as likely, hopes we fail - also places a ridiculous amount of conceptual leverage. We could win ten Victorian titles in a row, and none would warrant as much merit for South as reaching the FFA Cup semi-finals, or so the thinking goes. What an atrocious situation to find yourself in every year; not just for us supporters who are locked into this for seemingly years to come, but also for the players and coaches who have an elevated sense of pressure on top of whatever other expectations they have to deal with. Is it any wonder then that I lost the plot yesterday? I thought I could see what was coming, having seen it so many times before.

At 4-1 down, and while I was still in the grandstand, we had some nut in the back of the stand start abusing Chris Taylor, and folk from Clarendon Corner abusing that bloke back. The scene was overwhelmingly familiar - a disastrous performance on a stage set up for us and by us, followed by eating our own, and then onto a Sunday league game in front of 30 people. Then of course there would be the pile on of the haters, the fence-sitters. Left in that wake would've been the people who turn up every week, both in the stands and behind the scenes, who cling on to misguided and repeatedly dashed hopes that this club might somehow dig its way out of this unceasing and only partly deserved purgatory.

The first goal in what came to be the comeback came from a clumsy penalty, which on other days may not have been given. It was certainly not as obvious a call as the push which Milos received in the first half and which should have been given as a penalty, and from which City scored from immediately after. Enes Sivic wasn't in any way malicious, but the way he threw his body at Milos Lujic just looked incredibly stupid. It got Sivic a second yellow, and eventually for Milos Lujic a hundredth goal in South colours, a milestone completely overshadowed by the massive hole we still had to dig ourselves out of. Not that I thought we had it in us, as I remained in the social club feeling miserable alongside various staff members.

Even when we got it back to 4-3, I still didn't think we'd get it back to 4-4. Watching the replay afterwards, my attention is caught by Leigh Minopoulos. Yes the pass from the People's Champ is the right one, as is the run into the box by Leigh, but there's a moment where Leigh does a quick head check just before he collects the ball. It's probably just a reflex, but that moment is so crucial to what happens next, because instead of going for the direct, low percentage but perhaps even necessary shot at goal, he cuts the ball across the six yard box and not only is it perfectly placed, but someone is actually there to drive it home.

The goal for 4-4, I heard it before I saw it. As I've noted before, even though there is a stream of the game being played in the social club, it's on a few seconds delay. The social club's proximity to the arena means that should anything of note happen - especially a goal - you'll hear the cheer well before you see it on screen. What strikes me only now after watching the goal several times, is that for probably the first time in a year - the last time being Kristian Konstantinidis' goal against Bentleigh at home - that we actually had someone waiting at the right spot at the edge of the box. Let's not make it to be something greater than it was - it was an absolutely horrible shot - but at least Daley was in the right place to take it.

There was some discussion about whether Jesse Daley's goal was helped by Michael Eagar obstructing Dandenong City goalkeeper Damir Salcin from an offside position, and possibly even Eagar getting a touch (so far I've only seen Daley as being credited with the goal in official channels. Eagar however was kept onside by one, and possibly two opponents. (After publishing this piece it occurs to me that Milos Lujic is more guilty of obstruction than Michael Eagar, but that shouldn't matter if Milos is also onside, and I think he is, though the footage from stream's broadcast side doesn't make that clear.)

Image credit: Paul Zaro/SMFC TV.

Being off in mental no-man's land, I didn't give Daley the credit for being one of the catalysts of the comeback, but others have noted that after he came on he seemed to bring a bit of poise and composure to the team. I'll take their word for it.

So at 4-4, despite feeling like a ton of crap even though we'd almost got ourselves out of this mess, I went outside again but could not enjoy what was happening. There I was watching one of the most ridiculous comebacks you will ever see, and all I could do was pace up and down the concourse, where much of the grandstand had decamped to, Upper and Lower Clarendon Corner Egypt having combined again in their excitement. I was even told, probably rightly even though I have no truck with any kind of superstition, that I should go back inside the social club so as to make sure of things for us.

If nothing else, coming back outside and pacing up and down the concourse like a maniac saw me end up pretty much right in line with the final, incredible, incredulous moment of the game. In the sequence which would lead to the winning goal, it was certainly unfortunate for Dandy, but for mine that was a handball any day of the week. That's not partisan feeling talking - after all, I was almost guaranteed to be in a foul mood regardless of the result - that was gut instinct. And if I am wrong on many things to do with the game, one thing in which I usually find myself in total agreement with the referees and their decisions is that when it comes to handballs, we're almost always of like mind. You can talk all day and all night if you like about accidental handballs, and ball-to-hand instead hand-to-ball. But gut instinct told me handball, and that's what the ref gave.

Lujic stepped up and scored. A hat-trick on the night, and goals 100, 101, and 102 in his South career in all competitions. Despite everything that had happened that night, and even at 4-4, I couldn't see City getting past us in extra-time had Lujic missed his second penalty. We would have overrun them. As it was, the final score was a stupid 5-4, the method madder than the end product. I am still stunned and upset by the whole experience, probably unconsciously why I have so much of my self-esteem attached to this club in particular, and being amazed that I even had a breaking point. The South fans had gone absolutely mental, and I've got Joe Gorman yelling at me as I stand there in a daze.

Whatever misgivings and unease I had and possibly still have, I felt good for most of our supporters. I felt good for the people working at the club above and beyond the call of duty, as they have done for many years, trying to put in place everything so that the club can leverage opportunities like this, opportunities which we have inevitably blown. I felt great for our supporters, who have to put up with a lot of crap. And I felt good that for the first time in seven years that we could celebrate a win like this in our own social club. I even managed to join in with the general joy, admittedly after I'd consumed a neat gin to restore some sense of existential equilibrium.

I would also like to relate a conversation I had with a now former contributor of South of the Border. This contributor and I have often had very different views on any matter of social issues. In more recent times, our views on matters at the club and those running it have also gone in wildly different directions - these things happen. But on certain matters, we do find ourselves in agreement, and informed by a sense of vanity I like to think it's because we watch a lot more football at this level than most people at South. I probably watch too much.

The point here is that there were people at South who apparently were happier to play Dandy City over Northcote. Now, no offense to Northcote, who have beaten Dandy City this season, but I would have rather played the mob from John Cain Memorial Park any day of the week. Northcote are a team based on heart - they will grind out results, but they have no outright star quality. They are team fortunate enough this season to be in the weaker side of the NPL 2 divide, and they are team based around winning promotion in a competition that is a marathon, not a sprint.

Thanks to Dion for passing along these screenshots of this text
message conversation his dad was having with an absent fan.

Dandy City, in the stronger NPL 2 East, are also gunning for promotion, but the kinds of players they've recruited and the gradual build from a slow start also seems to indicate that they were taking very seriously an FFA Cup push. Apart from knocking out the Knights and Bulleen, the quality they had on the park last night should have been enough to dissuade even the most foolish of our people to think that this was a safe or easy draw. Certainly it was better than many of the other options, but it was not the best of all possible outcomes. After all that, it was impossible for me not to feel a little bit sorry for Dandenong City's players, but what good would mine or anyone else' sympathy do? As for our people, I let Leo Athanasakis and assistant coach Chris Marshall know that if our players ever tried a stunt like that again, they'd have to answer to me. A stupid, nonsense threat if ever there was one.

On the way home, the tram was on time, and the connection to the train was good. What else could any reasonable person want?

Next game
Now that the circus has left town, it's back to plain old unimportant league action against Port Melbourne at home on Sunday.

Comings and goings
Gavin De Niese has left the club, joining NPL 2 East side Springvale White Eagles.

Dockerty Cup news
Concurrent with our victory last night taking us to the national stage of the FFA Cup, that win has also seen us move into the Dockerty Cup semi-finals, where we have been drawn against Bentleigh Greens. The game will be played at a neutral venue. The game will be played on one of Tuesday 6th, Wednesday 7th, or Thursday 8th June.

Final thought

A-League or NPL, it does not matter to us;
The only thing that really matters, is FFA Cup South Melbourne Hellas.

See everyone on Sunday.