No one else to blame - Dandenong Thunder 1 South Melbourne 0

I should have gone to the footy instead.

Next game
Hume away on Friday night. I should probably go to the footy instead.

Final thought
Who am I kidding? I'm not going to the footy instead.

Turn on the bright lights - South Melbourne 3 Dandenong Thunder 2

Let us begin by noting the following, without any sense of hyperbole: since the renovation of Lakeside Stadium into a combined soccer and athletics venue, and the transfer of management of the venue out of our control and into that of the government, we have suffered many indignities at the hands of the State Sport Centres Trust, the current managers of the venue.

This encompasses everything from the extremely petty (an attempted ban on the use of the trumpet), to the tone deaf (trying to clamp down on newspaper confetti thrown by a supporter with a mental disability), to the childishly fascistic (surveillance camera placed right in front of Clarendon Corner), to the bureaucratically incompetent (the whole Western United saga), and now this - firstly not knowing how to turn the light towers on from their little operations booth, and then when finding out that each tower could be started manually, showing absolutely no urgency in trying to get that done.

Something was clearly wrong when towards the back end of the first half, as the sun began to set and heavy cloud rolled through, the field of play began to get very dark, and there was no sign of the lights being turned on. One could speculate that there was a local electrical outage - it's happened before - but since the scoreboard was working, and the stadium PA was working, and the lights next door in the VIS pool were working, something was wrong with either the towers, or the button which makes the towers light up.

(There's a hilarious Brian Regan bit on Dr Katz about flipping a switch, which my brothers and I still quote to this day, because we are sad people obsessed with obscure even in its own time 1990s television.)

As the staff emerged from their bunker in the grandstand, they merely strolled to each light tower, to the point where it took so long to turn on the lights, that the game was called off. Unfortunately the reason announced over the PA system was that the lights were not bright enough to continue, which was obviously absurd; the lights, even before they had properly warmed up, were already brighter than the lighting currently available at several NPL Victoria venues. So South of the Border will infer that the delay after halftime had dragged on too long, and not that it was not bright enough.

To be honest, I'm not even sure why they also didn't turn on the lights in the grandstand. It was all very amateurish, which made our club look amateurish. While we're good enough at making ourselves look like colossal idiots without any outside help, it did suck that what's left of our reputation got dragged through the social media mud because of the incompetence of the Trust and its employees, even if it was worth it (to a certain degree, because I don't have to moderate the club's social media pages) to watch the outrage from the (mostly) overseas gambling community.

To which I say: fuck you. My club is irrelevant except for your interest in it? Then please just piss off and gamble on some other pissant team more worth your time. 

There was also sooking from the Dandy Thunder fans once the decision had been made to resume the game on Tuesday night, from the point at which it had been abandoned. "It should have been restarted", "Corrupt Greeks!", etc. This from the club that gained infamy for the lights going out at their ground once they fell behind in important matches.

Officially, there are a wide range of regulatory options for how to resume, restart, or simply declare a match over in the case of an abandonment. Clearly many of the people commenting on this issue had no idea about that, as evidence not only by their referring to outdated rules, but also their inability to agree on what the minimum amount of time played required for a result to stand. To be fair, the fact that all these regulatory options are at the sole and final discretion of Football Victoria - an organisation renowned for the high degree of esteem it is held in by its constituents - means that consistency in such matters may not actually exist, which can be frustrating. 

However, if ever you were going to resume a game from a specific point in time, surely halftime in a game where no subs had been made seems like exactly the best time to do so? Schedule wise, I'd have preferred the next day - preferably finishing in time so I could then head to the footy - but I can understand the issue of Monday being too short notice. I was also unconvinced by some of our fans worrying about a short turnaround from the Tuesday to the (since postponed) Friday night game against the Bergers. The previous week the Bergers had to back up on a three day break after playing 120 minutes of cup football - surely us playing 45 minutes on a Tuesday shouldn't have been that much of a big deal?

It was a real pity that the game got called off when it did, because it was actually quite entertaining. We were looking a bit suspect from Thunder players running at out defence, but I still thought we'd had the better of it. Ali Sulemani was having his best game in a South shirt by some margin, though his great finish from out wide will have a permanent question mark over whether it was offside - permanent, because the cameraperson filming the game fell asleep for just long enough to miss the build up play before Sulemani received the ball. 

Anyway, as nice as that goal was, I liked Marcus Schroen's more, because it was bread and butter stuff. A turnover won high up the field in a very good position, a shot parried back into play, and someone being johnny-on-the-spot to tuck it away. Then we got complacent, conceded a goal before the break, and then had to wait until Tuesday to finish the whole thing off.

Competing family commitments meant that I couldn't attend the Tuesday resumption, but your correspondent could still manage to watch the game through the magic of internet streaming. Which sucks from the point of view of digital latency issues that one couldn't share the experience on social media, but what else we can do? The discombobulation of the resumption soon faded, as the commentators tried to figure out who'd been subbed out during the extended break, and then we went 3-1 up, and all looked good as we then began to try an shut up shop, preserve energy, and coast to victory.

Well, Morgan Evans decided to let out his inner 2022 Ben Djiba and lunge in for a two-footed tackle, and got his marching orders. OK, ten men, ten minutes, two up, should be fine. Then Marcus Schroen, who got a yellow card in the push and shove nonsense after Evans' lunge, got sent off for petty time wasting nonsense a few minutes later, and then it was 3-1 up with nine men, with five minutes or regulation and whatever the ref decided to chuck on at the end, which just so happened to be five minutes more. 

Aside from both reds being entirely avoidable, and the issues it would cause in future matches (Evans has been suspended for three matches), it did bring unnecessary pressure to the rest of the team, which conceded a goal, and then had to hang on for dear life for the win. But they hung on, and that was that, eventually. One of three Ajak Riak-less fixtures survived, and then they end up postponing one of those three anyway. 

Next game
St Albans at home on Tuesday night. This will be our last home game at Lakeside before the finals, as the Women's World Cup will be commandeering the stadium for some time after that.

Is there a curtain raiser?
No.

When three halves don't make a whole
Watched the senior women take on FV Emerging. Half of that was watched on public transport, which took its sweet time getting me to Lakeside, and the other half in the ground proper. Got the win, in part thanks to a long-throw, but crikey it's a frustrating team to watch. 

The Continuing International Adventures of Ajak Riak
During the week South Sudan copped a 96th minute goal to lose 3-2 to Gambia. They are now out of the running for African Cup of Nations qualifying, with one game left to play in September I think, hopefully after the conclusion of our season. Riak played about an hour, and is credited with an assist. South Sudan have a friendly with Egypt coming up this week, so I don't think we'll be seeing him against St Albans.

New signing alert
The club has signed striker Luka Ninkovic from Bentleigh Greens in the mid-season transfer window. Stats and reputation don't suggest that he's some kind of world beater at this level, but he looks like a capable enough depth player option; at the very least, it should mean that we're done with chucking Andy Brennan or Marcus Schroen up front when Ajak Riak isn't available. Ninkovic doesn't seem to have got much of a go at Bentleigh this season, and during his time at Heidelberg, he seemed to come off the bench a lot, or start and then get taken off.

The food
The range, pricing, and quality of the food available in our social club is not to everyone's liking. That's fair, and I don't judge anyone for not partaking. But does it also have to be served that slowly, too? Sunday was astonishingly bad on the speed of service front. You order your food, and then you stand there like a mug for ten minutes while you wait for it to be prepared. While you're waiting, you're joined by other people waiting. You also see the preparation for the post-match meal for the participants in the curtain raiser, and you wonder why you can't have food that approximates that? I get that the pasta and salads, which require plates and cutlery, might be a no-go for the plebs, but some of those grilled or roasted marinaded chicken strips looked OK. Stick that in a roll with some salad, I'll pay for that. I don't know. I've lost pretty much all hope that the social club kitchen will ever run properly, regardless of who they bring in to operate it.

Final thought
Noticed a decline in the quality of my vision the past week and a bit, about three months after updating my prescription. Went to the optometrist, whose admittedly knowledgeable diagnosis was that I'm getting older.

Flag - Dandenong Thunder 0 South Melbourne 1

I alternate between despising how this team plays and yet still manages to grind out wins, and admiring with significant reservation how this team grinds out wins even when it doesn't play particularly well. Last Saturday was more of the latter. First half OK, second half, or at least the first thirty minutes of it, ugly. We're going to run into a team that can shoot at some point this season, and it's not going to be pretty. Until that point though, we'll make do with being the luckiest team in the world, even if you subscribe to the idea that you make at least some of your own luck.

Sight lines at Dandy are pretty ordinary unless you're in the stand, and even there are poles a plenty to get in the way; when it's not being the National Penalties League this is the National Poles in the way League. First half regular spot and regular view behind the freeway end goal. Real close up view of no one tracking Pat Langlois into the box again, and thus he has three goals in four games. Much further away from the action, and generally stymied for a second match in a row, Ajak Riak plays his part in the goal, too, something really only verifiable from our angle by watching it on the replay later.

A shortish week, and South loses players to the attrition of the early season. Lirim Elmazi off injured early, hopefully precautionary. Max Mikkola off later, hoping for the same. Elmazi, not the most skilled with the ball, is still pretty good without it, and without him, we begin losing shape. Mikkola, not the best without the ball, but almost certainly our best with it, and without him composure and implied attacking threat vanish.

But it was hard to tell how bad it really was in the second half, because at the social club end of the ground there's now this huge new fence which makes viewing the game even harder than it used to be. So much has to be left to the imagination; and since I tend to imagine the worst, everything tends to look worse. And in the end, how much worse can you get than top of the league? The only way from here is down, after all.

Next game
Friday night at home against an increasingly shambles Heidelberg. The parking situation should be fun. 

Turns out the Football Victoria constitution guarantees some
 staff a pig every month, and two comely lasses of virtue true.

The NCIP is dead. Long live the NCIP.
Wild scenes behind the freeway end goal during the first half on Saturday, with security, under instruction from a mysterious "commissioner", trying to get us to put away a Greek flag. This at a ground with an Albanian flag painted on the grandstand, while blasting out Albanian tunes over the PA system, and whose home team had massive double-headed eagles on the back of their jerseys. All of which I have an issue with on the grounds of a lack of tasteful subtlety, but not much else really.

Now those of you who attend South games will probably have seen our for now anonymous friend (who is not Greek) and his flag at some point, (those of you who don't attend may have seen it on broadcasts or in photo montages) and you may have even seen his England and Wales flags at home matches. It's something he does of his own volition. No one's told him to do it. 

Anyway, our friend had been waving it rather than hanging it on the fence, but upon the security guy's request tucked it away for a bit. The conversation between I suppose you'd call it Clarendon Corner and the security guy ended with the secco being told to go back to the "commissioner" to get them to come down personally so we could have a polite chat about it. Security guy goes off, and comes back later saying the "commissioner" says it's in his book of regulations that the flag is banned, unless it has the club logo on it or some such to distinguish it from merely being a national flag. We then told the security guy again to get the bloke to come down and show us the actual passage/clause, because the National Club Identity Policy as it was has been dead for four years, and we can google the articles to prove it. And yes of course I googled it. 

Second half and we've moved to the other end of the ground, and the security guy walks past the social club goal on his rounds. He says the "commissioner" can't find the rule. Well duh. I mean the secco wasn't being a knob about it, but don't these people read the news? Aren't they meant to be up to date with what they're supposed to be policing? More to the point, we never found out who this "commissioner" was, a question which perplexed me then and still does, since designated match commissioners haven't been a thing at Victorian grounds for what seems like well over a decade. 

Women's season begins
Our senior women begin their season at home against Heidelberg on Saturday. From a distance (ie, glancing at the club's social media), it looks like the squad is swinging back to recruiting outside of its own junior ranks. 2023 also sees the competition expand from eight teams to eleven, with Preston, Boroondara Eagles, and Southern United all finding their way back into the women's top flight after varying number of years away. That'll add a bit of variety at least by, if nothing else, evening out the ratio of teams with "United" in their name just a bit.

Two, then four, and also 25 million more obstacles to our return to top-flight glory
Oh, the humanity. The A-League is going to add two new teams to its pyramid scheme outside the actual pyramid system, in Canberra and Auckland. Then somewhere further down the track, Brisbane and maybe Wollongong. Asking price for a licence, $25 million. Good luck to them. Some may well say what's the point of even trying to get up a National Second Division under such circumstances, but the choice remains the same today as it did yesterday and probably the day before yesterday. Stay in this dead-end league (even though it is the centre of the universe), or keep trying for something even a little better, given the fact that we (and people formerly working for us) have put so much effort into trying to set up our own retro-flavoured pyramid scheme outside the actual pyramid system? Me, I say we replicate on a national scale the baffling phenomenon of the marvelously dank Sunshine Plaza being right across from the brightly lit Sunshine Marketplace.

On the streams
Filling in time until the footy starts like a normal Melburnian
One time, Frank Sinatra came in here, and sat in this chair. I say, "Frank, you hang out with Michael Eagar. Just between me and you, how old is Michael Eagar?" Know what Frank told me? He said "Hey, Michael Eagar is a hundred thirty-seven years old." A hundred and thirty-seven years old!

Preliminary final thought, also about the streams
I will watch a lot of crap on the TV and such, but I will not watch teams when they're playing in grey kits anymore. Enough. Gully, out. Langwarrin, doubly out for wearing a grey kit when their home kit is blue and they were playing against a team that wears red. Wouldn't have been in that mess in the first place if the Moreland vs Magic stream was working though. 

Final thought
Thanks to Johnny for the lift back the city, always appreciated.

Hanging in there - South Melbourne 2 Dandenong Thunder 1

Apart from collectively managing to finish the season, South's main priority in 2022 according to at least some people, was to avoid relegation. A fairly obvious goal, even taking into account that he squad had been strengthened relative to its 2021 counterpart. That feat was accomplished a few weeks ago, which was nice, considering the odd near miss with relegation since Chris Taylor's sacking in early 2018. The next priority was to make the finals, also something fairly obvious, but also something that hasn't been achieved since CT got the arse.

Last week's win against Dandenong Thunder, combined with other results, means that we are now mathematically guaranteed to play finals. Fantastic, what a relief. Next step is to claim top spot, not so much for the very minor benefits that a top two spot grant, but for the hope that we might end up with a post-season NPL national playoff run. Embedded somewhere in there is the desire to win the championship, especially because we threw away a potential cup run, and no. I am not going to get over how and/or why that happened.

So anyway, there's five games left until the finals, and we're in a reasonable spot, even if after trying to figure out how we got here, I still feel unconvinced by the whole thing. That's a me problem. Last week we quite obviously brought in the sidelines, one assumes less to help Max Mikolla and his long throws - ineffective for a second week out of three as opposition defences catch on - and more to constrict the Dandenong Thunder's wide play. That worked pretty well, as did the idea of gifting them mostly meaningless possession, which they didn't do too much of note with, except on our right-hand side, where an overenthusiastic Andy Brennan, and an underdone Perry Lambropoulos got caught out in cases where they shouldn't have.

Having managed to carve out the odd chance ourselves, as well as restricting Thunder to the kind of slower possession game style they likely don't prefer, it was infuriating to concede goal from a set piece, especially from a guy who coaches our own under 12s. Also, thanks to the under 12s in front of whatever's left of Clarendon Corner for letting us know that irritating fact. When is paint going to dry anyway? With Oakleigh having smashed Avondale earlier in the day, we were in second place on the live ladder, and though it was not impossible to see how we could come back into the game, we had lost our way a bit, getting sucked into melees and assorted nonsense.

Thanks then to one of the more unnecessary penalties you've ever seen give away. The ball was released wide right into space in the fourth minute of first half injury time. Mikolla and his Thunder opponent sprinted for the loose ball. Mikolla got there firsr, and was clearly fouled by his opponent. My only quibble watching it live was wondering whether the ball was in the box, because surely a defender wouldn't be so daft to give away a foul at that place, at that time, when Max was by himself, on a terrible angle, and would be covered comfortably by even moderate jockeying.

Harrison Sawyer added to his "non playing against Eastern Lions" goal tally by scoring from the spot, and at half time I think we all felt a little better about ourselves. Second half was more of the same, including many of the same kinds of subs we often make, including one which continues to have minimal effect. What stood out, obviously, was Pat Langlois diverting Brad Norton's long range shot into goal for the lead, and Lirim Elmazi getting sent off probably unnecessarily, meaning our already "creative" heavy midfield corps becomes more unbalanced without a designated "ball winner" type.

Indeed, unnecessary yellow cards were a big problem last Saturday, especially after some of our players went out of their recently to reset their yellow card tallies by getting deliberately suspended. So it goes. On the plus side, Oakleigh's Joe Knowles is also suspended, which you'd hope is of some benefit to us, though Oakleigh are hardly short of attacking options.

I agree with the sentiment that we need to win this match in order to finish in first place. Win this game, and we go five points clear with four games to go, with two very winnable matches (Altona Magic, Dandy City), and two very hard ones (Port, Avondale). Oakleigh meanwhile have Bentleigh, Knights, St Albans, and Hume, an easier run to be sure, complicated only by Oakleigh's Dockerty and Australia Cup committments.

Next match

Oakleigh at home on Saturday night, in case you haven't heard. Seeing as this is a reversed fixture, there's no women's match curtain-raiser tomorrow. At the time of writing, it also appears that the men's under 21s also aren't scheduled to be a curtain-raiser. There was some murmuring that the Tony Clarke Memorial Shield might be on before our senior men's match, but I have seen nothing to indicate that that's happening tomorrow. 

If you're looking to spice things up further for tomorrow in the worst way possible, tomorrow's match is also a potential title decider for the 2021 Bespoke Cup. If Oakleigh wins tomorrow night, they get the ignominy of winning that "championship". If they draw or lose, then it's up to Avondale to beat Port the week after.

A sentence or two on the women's team

With results like that, maybe they should sack coaches more often. After knocking off Heidelberg in the cup, the senior women knocked off Bulleen in the league. And quite comfortably, too, at least as far as the scoreline goes. They say that Bulleen had a few out on national team duties, but you can only beat who's in front of you, and we managed to do that. Still a massive slog from here to make the finals, but at least we have a cup final to look forward to. Too bad it's against Calder, but you never know what could happen on the day. 

Final thought

Opposition fans turned up to a game at Lakeside last week. To borrow the sentiments of Richard Rants, it almost felt like what we do still matters.

Late Late Late Late Late - Dandenong Thunder 1 South Melbourne 1

At some point life becomes a treadmill of filling out forms and going through countless e-learning modules. I hate e-learning with a such a passion that it borders on the psychotic. What happened to learning the old fashioned way? Either sitting dazed and confused in a classroom, or on dazed and confused in a gurney in a hospital ward because you had the temerity to do something stupid, which nevertheless gave you real world experience? Anyway, enough about my Thursday evening. 

Pretty much everything keeps getting a little bit smaller, and I don't just mean the blog posts. Home crowds are smaller for almost everyone, and that goes for even the "good" crowds, of which this was one. Travelling support is smaller, and no-one complains too much, because who's left to complain? Expectations are smaller, which is hard to imagine considering how small we already thought they were. You watch the coach of the South Melbourne senior men's team have an argument with the head of Blue Thunder security, and instead of trying to be a sticky-beak, you just sort of shake your head and move on, because does it actually matter?

For the record, I think the argument was about access - perhaps too much of it - to the away team's changerooms, and on the other side of the equation, something about a lack of respect. We also learned that the coach's tendency to duck out at certain parts of a half during a match is probably to do with a sensitive bladder. At least that's what eye witnesses said of last week's brief absence from the technical area.

Anyway, this whole competition is hanging on to dear life while waiting for three things, only one of which may happen in the next three years, or ever. First, that all three of the remaining classic ex-NSL clubs (South, Knights, Bergers) in this competition might make the finals at the same time, thereby creating some sort of temporary "buzz" about the league. Second, the arrival some day of the National Second Division. Third, the eventual return of Preston, the one club which seems to have its shit together on and off field.

Which of the three above listed items is most likely to happen is really anyone's guess, and I'm not seeking to influence any answer. You may as well write it down on a piece of paper and send it to your local member of parliament in the reply paid envelope many of them will shoot your way over the next couple of weeks, hoping that you respond to their kind offer of a postal vote application that they'll sort out for you, so that they can mine your data or whatever it is they think they're achieving using this scheme.

How much more moribund this whole thing can get we'll just have to wait and see. On the train and bus trip over, which was thankfully both smooth and punctual at all interchanges, I tried to watch some of South's women's team play against Bayside, and I was shocked at how slow our play was. Also disappointed. I accidentally saw a clip of Adelaide City's women's team, and it was like a different sport. One should not be too harsh though, because things have changed there, and it will take time to adjust. 

Getting to the ground at what I later learned or figured out was just after half time in the under 21s, I take a seat in the stand, and watch the proceedings. Our youth team scores one just on my arrival, then there was a drinks break after sunset I assume for the benefit especially of any players participating in Ramadan, and then we piled on several more goals, because why not? Was any of it impressive? I suppose some of the finishing was OK, but the build up play - especially when looked at on replay - saw a team essentially dissecting an opponent by merely going through three defenders, rather than an opponent whose defensive mindset was that of defending as a unit.

Such is life, that somehow players who have come through the elite pathway system for several years now are so lacking in the basics of shape. Pity their opponents, too, who aren't having to work as hard for their goals as they should be, and thus likely not learning to apply higher grade adaptations of whatever it is that they've been taught.

I'm also concerned about two other things. First, the lack of action on Thunder's electronic scoreboard. I mean, it was on, and it had a bright white patch like the blinding high beams of a truck about to smash into you head-on, but the clock wasn't working, and I don't think the score was working either. Which I suppose should make us glad that it wasn't Earth Hour or something, and that they weren't wasting precious electricity by having it on at all. Unless of course, the scoreboard is powered by renewables, in which case, please continue to use the scoreboard as extra lighting if nothing else.

Which brings me to my second point. Our insistence on wearing our dark royal blue kit against teams wearing dark home kits. With the notable exception of Bentleigh because of the painted grass fiasco, and even though I hate the Carlton SC looking away get-up (though I have been educated and/or reminded as to the practical sensibilities of why the navy shorts have been chosen over white), I can't understand why for night games, at poorly lit grounds like this one, we don't just go for the predominantly white kit. If not for anyone else's benefit, than for mine, and my worse than Samuel Pepys eyesight.

The senior match comes, and there are changes to the lineup which may make sense. I don't know. Slightly sluggish start, but eventually get the better of things. Some players aren't so good at passing, while other seems less than fond of passing. Things look more promising on the left, but for no reward. These things happen, and by "these things", I also mean players blasting high over the from six yards out. Second half, and it's a bit messier. We score a goal from another set piece I forgot the number my preferred local media darling Josh Parish told me before the game (and after he changed out of his Preston polo), that our xG (is it or isn't it a fad? I don't know) was off at some extreme unsustainable point, and that was because (in part, large or small) of the ridiculous number of set piece goals we'd been scoring.

But it's not how, but how many, right? Unfortunately the how many turned out to be just one, which turned out wasn't enough to get us all three points, as our right hand side, which involved a particular unbalancing substitution which left our right-back frequently isolated against fast opponents, saw us concede an equaliser. Then we woke up and tried to score again, but it was all rather a bit too late. At least the draw took the weight off our shoulders of having to maintain a perfect run of league wins. Next up at some point, our undefeated run will have to come to an end as well. 

Next game

Oakleigh Cannons away at Jack Edwards Reserve on Monday evening. By now everyone should know that the fixture has been reversed away from Lakeside, because grand prix infrastructure will still be too obtrusive. 

More fixture changes

There's been an adjustment made to our Lakeside lease, but I don't
know what it is or what it means. It's probably not that important.

Some people were wondering about how the senior men could possibly be playing out of Lakeside on Saturday, considering that the senior men's fixture scheduled for the same day had been reversed. Well, the senior women's scheduled match against Alamein has also been reversed. 

But that's not all. The following week's senior men's match against Altona Magic has also had a fixture change, from the Saturday to Monday, aka Anzac Day. 

And there it is

South of the Border noted last week that there was talk about changes to the senior women's set-up, and so it has come to pass. Gabrielle Giuliano has indeed stepped down as head of the women's football department, replaced by Theo Cronis, a long-term sponsor of the club and (according to the club's blurb) someone who is passionate about women's football. How things will change in practice will be interesting to keep an eye on.

Final thought

I don't know what this is all about, but it might be something to keep an eye on.

An assortment of items

Except for a lucky few, the flicker of love fades over time. Or at least it changes. Nothing stays as it was. But never doubt my commitment to this club on my good days. Sure, those good days might be fewer in number than they used to be, but what kind of idiot would otherwise take a train out to Dandenong on a Saturday evening for a practice match, unless his level of commitment was at some sort of peak?

I decided to add value to the trip by making a stop into the State Library, ostensibly to check out a couple things on newspaper microfilm. First, anything to do with two matches in Shepparton, one in 1960 and the other in 1961, between girls teams from Shepparton and Echuca, following a lead in a copy of Soccer News that has otherwise been lost to the digital ages. 

Going through the Shepparton News though, I did find one South Melbourne Hellas item of interest, a match report of a post-season friendly against Hakoah from October 1961, played at the Shepparton Showgrounds. There's all sorts of curious moments, but the one I want to focus on today is the observation by the journalist that Hellas played a short passing game, and Hakoah a long ball game. Oh, to be following a team that plays the short passing game that Hellas is adept at, instead of whatever it is we were trying to do the past few years.

Anyway, the journey from the State Library to Dandenong was interrupted by a rail replacement scheme, which meant that I missed the first bus connection to George Andrews Reserve from Dandy station, and had a 25 minute wait until the next bus... so vending machine chocolate and Christos Tsiolkas' latest thing to pass the time. Arriving to the ground five minutes late, I am made aware that we scored within the first 30 seconds of the game. But what game? I can safely say that collectively, our new and old attacking options look a cut above what he had last year, and that in general the whole team looks more assertive.

But it's just a pre-season friendly, against a mediocre looking opponent, who were absent their talismanic striker from last season because he's shopping himself around for better offers. So, several below par opponents might help build a bit of confidence and fitness, but it's nothing reliable to attach your hopes to. Even Marcus Schroen scoring another free kick - this one looking a lot more legit than some of the other ones against dodgier looking walls and goalkeepers - does nothing more than set up a situation where I get made when he doesn't get close during the whole season proper.

The thing is, however, that any sort of show of concern - of anticipation or of dread - would be stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. It used to be that there was chat about what every team is doing, who they'd signed, who they playing against pre-season. Now there's almost nothing. I know I've said it a few times, but this is really worrying. Hopefully the first few rounds, stacked with a couple of derbies for us, helps light things up, but at the moment we're in an awful, league-wide state of malaise, that might be only partly due to the pandemic.  

But like I said, love is a funny thing. A few years ago I would've moved heaven and earth schedule wise to get to South's next friendly, probably on Wednesday, likely against another lower league opponent. Instead I'll be at the Myer Music Bowl with a mate, at a concert by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. I was told a few years ago, by the most alarmingly intelligent and well-read student I came across in my uni teaching days, that the MSO was more or less a third-rate orchestra; but since I'm a comparative philistine in such matters, and the concert is free, that it doesn't matter so much as long as you have good company. 

And pandemic permitting, there'll be plenty of chances to see South this year, right?

Like doughnuts signings, and the possibility of more doughnuts signings to come

The club has signed another attacking player, one Jai Ingham. People may remember Ingham from his Hume City days; while others will remember him playing for Melbourne Victory, because they are bad people who watch the A-League. Ingham was very recently signed by Gold Coast Knights, who also put out a terse press release noting that Ingham was no longer a player of theirs. How long he remains one of ours, well, that's for Fate to decide.

In any case, it looks like we are throwing the cheque book at all sorts of older already credentialed people, while the stated goal, made so many AGMs, of trying to get more of our own juniors into the team, becomes something that only gets said at AGMs. "Yoof!", as the Victory fans used to say about something or other.

By the way, when is the next AGM?

Accredited again

Just a passing note that I have once again been accredited as an official media pass holder by Football Victoria. It was a near run thing though. I tried to apply roughly when the applications came out late last year, or early this year, but the system would not accept my photo upload. Wouldn't have a bar of it. Not interested. A sloppy email sent to the FV communications team alerting them to this fact, and letting them know to just to re-use last year's application if that was allowed, was met with no response. The application deadline drifted by, and I just figured to myself that maybe I would just pay to get into away games in 2022, I'm on a concession card anyway; and besides, the blog's output has been comparatively crap for years now.

Then FV extended the application time-frame, I tried the site again, and this time it worked. And later I got an email saying you are accredited, and isn't that nice? No need to lineup, no need to pay to get it, and all I need to do to maintain that status is keep up a reasonable output of nonsense. A more daunting task than it used to be.

Friendly on Saturday night at Thunder

7pm senior kickoff, 5pm for the u21s at George Andrews Reserve. 

Hello, Nuna! Dandenong Thunder 4 South Melbourne 1

So, for the transport engineers out there, here was Saturday's method for getting to the game. Both main car parks at Sunshine station closed, so decided to take the bus up to the station instead, thinking I would get a cab on the way back because buses stop by the time I would get back. Instead of getting the bus from my nearest stop (about 50 metres away), I walked up to the next stop (about 300 metres up the road), because my nearest stop is a bit of a mess thanks to extensive road and footpath rehabilitation works.

The wait for the rail replacement bus wasn't more than a few minutes, a stopping all stations effort to North Melbourne. Once at North Melbourne the task was to get on a train to somewhere in the city to change to a Pakenham or Cranbourne service. That didn't take more than about five minutes, getting on a train to Frankston.

Oh yes, there's this thing which still throws me off sometimes, that a train from Werribee towards the city might nowadays come under a "Frankston" designation on the screens, because Werribee trains often run through to Frankston after reaching the city. So I took the Frankston train to Richmond from North Melbourne, and changed at Richmond to a Pakenham service, which again, I didn't have to wait long for. That went pretty smoothly, and then I got to Dandenong Station.

It was freezing, and there was a 20 minute wait for the 901 bus, so what else to do but keep watching the stream of the women's game against Heidelberg at Lakeside. The NPLW can be such an unsatisfying competition to watch because of the lack of depth and its inbuilt imbalances, but the South women this season... I don't know, there's also something annoying about the way they play. It's a bit showboaty, it's a bit pull finger out only when necessary, and more than a bit careless. Heidelberg are an OK team, but we made them look a lot better than they are - at least during the first half - because there was little desire on our part to play meaningful football in the middle of the park.

Sure, there was the dangerous (and pointless) backline passing around, which attracted pressure for no good reason. But midfield proficiency? It's been a problem for much of the season as far as I can tell, where the all the caution and possession based style of the back third becomes all about booting the ball into space and hoping Melina Ayres (mostly) can run on to a loose ball and smash the ball past a helpless keeper. But where's the midfield panache, the evidence of stylistic and player growth? Hard to see where I'm watching from, but hey, we e3nded up crunching the Bergers 7-0, so everything's good, right?

Finally got to the ground, super early - because if I'm going to hike it all the way to Dandenong on public transport, I might as well get as much football in as possible - and caught most of the reserves game, which we ended up losing 4-2. One tolerable but nevertheless overpriced chicken roll was not enough to ward off the cold, and double-socked or not, there was no chance that my feet weren't going to freeze on standing on cold concrete or on dewy grass. I was disheartened also with a conversation with one of the few former South players that still comes to our games, who wanted to place most of the blame for our recent poor run of results on our injury toll, and none whatsoever on the coaching methodology. Well, we all see the game differently; we're all blind men touching different parts of the same elephant.

Still more time to kill, and not many South fans in sight, because pretty much everyone's given up, possibly for good. Having ditched the Futbol24 app some time ago because there just isn't the space on my phone for more apps, I am nowadays checking up on NPL scores via flicking over briefly onto NPL Victoria YouTube streams. Do I like what I see? Not really. That's because I see good and mediocre teams punish the poor teams in ways that we could not, even when we were "good". So you see Hume cracking four past Eastern Lions, Oakleigh crushing Dandy City, Green Gully smashing Altona Magic - with my three seconds of live viewing of that match being some goal from 30 metres out - and Port crunching St Albans. All very good, very reassuring only insofar that there should be just enough bad teams in this league that they won't all be able to catch up to us in our current mediocre state. 

And then there was Avondale vs Bentleigh, which finished 3-1 to the home side, after they trailed early on. Now, apart from the observation being made that not only does Avondale have good footballers (which costs money, I admit), there's also the fact Avondale also play good football (which doesn't cost any money, really); the kind of football that you'd like to see your team play, whether your side has the kind of resources that Avondale has, or merely half of them. It's a question of attitude, to a certain extent. And I get it - sometimes situations cause you to play more circumspect football, sometimes you need to deploy a more defensive state of mind.

But Avondale, after trailing early on, against what is a defensively suspect but otherwise pretty decent outfit in Bentleigh, amassed 21 shots on goal, and 13 on target by the end of the game. Against Altona Magic last week, a team who had not won a game all year, and whom we trailed (and eventually lost to) 2-1, we could manage three shots on target, over 90+ minutes of football. Against Thunder, we had two timid shots early in the half, to 13 on goal and seven on target from Thunder. Of course numbers don't tell the whole story, because by the end of last Saturday night's game we had more shots on target to Thunder, but that only goes to show that if want to play attacking football that we can. 

Of course the instruction to our players is obviously to play awful, boring, dispiriting football, in the hopes that we will win 0-0; which will only happen if the opposition is stupid enough to play a suspended player. But what we witnessed on Saturday night would have got most coaches sacked. Hell, I would've had the coach sacked at halftime, or even 30 minutes in if that was an option. Apart from a moderately promising opening five minutes, the team spent the rest of the half basically camped in its own half, gifting the opposition possession and territory. Thunder have good some players, they're no mugs, but they're also no world beaters, and yet we could not get possession of the ball in the opposition half. 

1-0 down, and then 2-0 down, both goals coming from corners - which is three goals conceded from corners since lockdown ended - and probably lucky not to be further down. And despite all of that, we continued to try and do the stupidest things imaginable under the circumstances. Down and out, under siege, we invited even more pressure onto ourselves by trying to play out the back from every situation. The goal kicks were the worst of it. Pierce Clark, seemingly not trusted to just belt the ball long under any circumstances, would inevitably play the ball left or right (usually to his left), no further than the edge of the 18 yard box, whereupon usually Brad Norton would pass the ball back to Clark, who would be rushed upon by Thunder forwards who knew exactly what we we're going to do all along, and then good luck hoping that we wouldn't concede.

The lack of situational awareness from anyone on field or on the bench was astonishing. In a game of soccer, there's skill level, there's tactics, and there's psychology. Our skill level is good enough to be competitive against almost any team in this competition, but our tactics are dire, but we've already said that. But our situational awareness is also completely shot. You have an opponent that is fired up, is in the ascendancy, and looking to press high up the field. They want the game to be played at the same high tempo that's benefiting them at that moment of time. So instead of taking the sting out of the game, we try to match that tempo, try to knock the ball around right on our goal line, and keep playing the game on the opposition's terms.

It was astonishing stuff, watching South Melbourne psychologically capitulate to the extent that no matter how many times it failed, that our players would robotically perform Nunawading "Evolution of the Idea" playing out of the back. Sure, there had already been the robotic qualities earlier in the season with our retreats from midfield back to the keeper, but on Saturday night the situation had become deploringly bad. It was, dare I say it, Southern Stars 2013 bad, and I don't use that comparison lightly.  It was a gut wrenching, soul destroying, club destroying spectacle. Two subs made on the half hour mark only served to show that Quintas had got the starting line-up badly wrong, and that he has no switch-up from Plan A (whatever that means in a non hit it long to Harry Sawyer world) to whatever else he might have up his sleeve.

That we came out in the second half in a more positive frame of mind, pulled a goal back, and almost levelled the score was even more dispiriting. Clearly we have the talent on our books to play imperfect, but still generally good attacking football. But let's say for arguments sake that we did equalise. Let's even say for argument's sake that we somehow went on to win the game. That would only prove the point that we are being coached horrendously, and that just about anyone else in this state could do the job better. At this stage of the season, it's barely about personnel anymore. Tactically and psychologically, we are shot. No one out there playing for South is enjoying the game anymore, you can see that at least half the senior squad is beyond fucking miserable. It's been a grind for the whole season, salvaged only by a ridiculously fortunate unbeaten run to start the year, and no amount of Shepparton bonding trips and renditions of Sweet Caroline can make playing this kind of football under this manager feel worthwhile. 

Apparently on 3XY Radio Hellas on Sunday, the sports program read out a message from president Nick Maikousis that Quintas will remain as South coach for the rest of the season. You can read that in classic "he's got the full support of the board" style, which means he'll be sacked soon, but the reality is that we probably can't afford to pay out his contract. Why this is the case when we were told that Quintas' performance was tied to certain KPIs is anyone's guess, but it seems we are stuck with him until the end of this year, unless he falls on his own sword. 

So what's left to do? Hope the players perform a quiet mutiny, by taking over control of training and matchday themselves, completely cutting out management? 

(Big hint to any of our players stupid enough to read this blog - you should totally do this) 

I mean, what could possibly go wrong with such an approach that would be worse than the last two months worth of performances, and the misery you have (and we, the supporters) have been forced to endure?

Next game

FFA Cup qualifier tomorrow night against Oakleigh Cannons at Jack Edwards. A win here gets us into the national stage of the competition, and into the Dockerty Cup semi finals. No one expects us to win though.

Final thought

Big thanks to Johnny for giving me a lift back to Footscray, and to Kartsi for offering to give me a ride back to somewhere approximating civilisation. Then when I got back to Sunshine station on the rail replacement bus at about 10:30, there were no cabs in the vicinity, so I walked the kilometre and a half home. A tiptop end to a tiptop day.

Giddy heights - South Melbourne 1 Dandenong Thunder 0

Keeping this one short because it needs to be knocked out before the game on Saturday.

Last night the strange 2021 season just got that little bit stranger. No one in the stands at South seems to seriously rate what we're doing, how we're doing it, or even the results that have come our way. And yet we're still undefeated, and top of the league after six games.

Mind you, being top of the league after six games with only three wins tells you a little bit about where this league is at the moment - it's both a very competitive league, and probably more than a bit of a mediocre one quality-wise. Put that down a little bit to the lack of visa players because of covid if you like, or just the normal cycle of things where some years are better than others. But how about that competitiveness! Just four points separate first (us! really!) and tenth, in part because teams like Eastern Lions are picking up points at a rate that no-one really expected them to, while other teams full of pricey "name brand" players aren't quite where they thought they'd be. 

And that pithy comment from our last post, about us having only picked up the points we had because we'd played three of the bottom four teams? Well, that's now two teams at the bottom, two in the middle, and two nearer the top end. I assume it'll sort itself out eventually, once the apertura portion of the season is finished, but for now let's enjoy the unexpected glory of South Melbourne being top of the league.

Starting with last Saturday's game, this was always going to be an important week for the team, one where the senior roster would have to be managed and the starting eleven positions rotated somewhat. Three games in eight days is a tough ask for teams in this league from a conditioning standpoint, especially for us as we've not been gifted one of the easier FFA Cup draws for the fourth round. And Saturday afternoon is going to be unseasonably warm, which won't make things easier for us against an opponent who has had a few extra days rest.

So back in to the starting lineup was Luke Pavlou, who was left out of last week's squad entirely. Also coming in for a rare start was Perry Lambropoulos. And Ben Djiba, having seemingly recovered from his injury issues from pre-season, was also in. Out of the starting team were Brad Norton, Jake Marshall, and Daniel Clark. Marcus Schroen was out of the match-day squad entirely, which hints to him being an important part of Saturday's game. With Luke Adams moving back to his more accustomed role of centre-back, we got to see a much more balanced attacking set-up, and evidence as well that Djiba can hold down the right-back position, at least against a pretty ordinary opponent like Thunder.

And while no disrespect is meant to Thunder, in general they were a poor opponent. Apart from whatever they could make of our mistakes from mucking around the backline, they were almost entirely dependent on a counter-attacking strategy. A more capable attacking side might have made more of some of the breaks they had; but then again, if Thunder were indeed a more capable side, chances are we wouldn't have set up the team in the more overtly attacking fashion that we did, instead reverting back to over-defensive setups of the earlier parts of the season thus far.

Though we clearly had the better of it, the first half was a bit of a mess from both teams. Part of that was down to the pitch, which saw players losing their footing on several occasions, especially towards the lake end of the ground. It will sound a little callous to say it, but my main concern with that was less to do with player safety, and more to do with the possibility that one of our players would slip over in the second half while defending at that end, leading to us coughing up a goal. That would have been less of a concern had we had a half-time lead of some sort, but we didn't. The final ball just wasn't there, though we got up to the right end of the field often enough. 

Second half, Thunder came out a bit more aggressively, pressing higher up the field, but their quality of possession wasn't up to scratch. And once we worked our way back into the half, we were if not quite all over them, then certainly the team most likely to score. Oh, but it was interminable waiting for that goal. The absence of Daniel Clark meant that our set pieces weren't up to scratch, but the finishing touches weren't there from open play either. It got to that point where you were waiting for the sucker-punch goal. But then Gerrie Sylaidos got behind the defence one more time, and shot the ball past the Thunder's keeper who it looks like got a hand on to it, which may have even deflected the ball into the net.

At least we created enough chances to say that we deserved the win on the balance of probabilities, so that if we scored from a slightly fortuitous goal, it was not for want of more orthodox opportunities. It would have been nice to have scored earlier, so that we could have perhaps rested some players a bit earlier, but what can you do? A warm evening, a convivial, mixed crowd, an entertaining game, and three points in the bag. You wouldn't want to get greedy.

Next game

FFA Cup match against Werribee City on Saturday afternoon. 

Please note that the kickoff time for this game has been adjusted to 3:00PM, from the previous (and now apparently preliminary) 2:00PM timeslot. 

As per the previous post, please note that this game is being played at Grange Reserve, the home of Hoppers Crossing Soccer Club, and not at Galvin Park, Werribee's normal home ground.

A new player? Already?

Talk on Twitter that midfielder Josh Barresi is set to join us from South Australian club Campbelltown. Barresi was a fringe A-League player (no senior appearances that I can find), and had stints in Victoria with Bulleen Lions (2016) and Green Gully (2018). If this transfer is true, I wonder who's going to be shunted out of the current senior roster.

Livestreams

Much frivolity on the livestreams last night, again. There was the (now deleted) tweet by a prominent NPL commentator about too many cameras competing for limited space at Knights Stadium. There was also the return from local commentary banishment of Teo Pellizzeri, which is good to see. Even wilder, our own game was being called by *the* voice of Channel 31 soccer, Thanis "Arthur" Arkritidis! With so much retro action, I had to check to make sure that Ian Burke hadn't been summoned to call the Gully game; no dice on that front, but we live in hope.

Yet the most important part of the livestream, the video feed itself, continues to be a shambles in 2021. In what was apparently a pretty tense game last night between Knights and the Bergers, the Football Victoria stream went offline late in the game at just the time the Bergers scored what turned out to be the winning goal. Someone out there is getting paid to provide what is turning out this year to be a less than stellar service this year.

Final thought

Speaking of being top of the league, in partial answer to last week's query about when the last time Knights and South occupied the top two places on the ladder, Andrew Howe noted that for the National Soccer League:

bit late to the party here but last time Melb Knights & Sth Melb were 1st & 2nd respectively on NSL ladder was end of 93-94 season,as they were for most of 2nd half of that season. those positions 1st held in 1985(R9), then 5 times thru 90-91(incl final ladder) & 3 times in 91-92

— andrew howe (@AndyHowe_statto) March 30, 2021

A really half-arsed search by me to try and find the last time the two teams occupied first and second on the ladder in the post-NSL era came up very short. Maybe circa March 2015? Regardless, it wasn't a situation which lasted long.

Friendly vs Dandenong Thunder tonight

Open doors, 7PM at George Andrews Reserve in South Dandenong.

I won't be there, but maybe some of you will be interested in reclaiming the sooth-eastern suburbs for South Melbourne Hellas.

Roster notes, grand final day notes

2020 SMFC senior squad roster as of 21/09/2019
It's not really a surprise - I mean, I think we kinda all expected this to go the way it did - but the club has finally announced that Esteban Quintas will continue as South Melbourne coach next season. After the two most talked about likely alternative options - even if those were more wish-desire rather than anything based in reality - in Scott Miller and Nick Tolios were snapped up by other clubs, it wasn't likely to go any other way.

And that's even if the late forum rumour of getting former championship player and current Moreland Zebras coach Fausto De Amicis had any truth to it.

Some people are willing to give Quintas and the club the benefit of the doubt - and the benefit of the off-season transfer window - but I think the more dominant reaction from our supporters has been a resigned disappointment to struggling again next year, and treating this appointment as a sign of a larger malaise within the club.

I've heard good things about some good things about Quintas, in that his training sessions are firs rate - but match day has been a mess this year, from tactics, to team selection, to Quintas' basic decorum. Then again, the club's PR blurb says that Quintas' "appointment has already been welcomed by all of our senior players", which might very well be true if it's limited to the two senior players we've managed to re-sign.

The injured Luke Adams, who spent much of the 2019 season as a sort of assistant to Quintas, has been officially appointed as Quintas' assistant for 2020. The only other news being bandied about is the possible signing of defender Lirim Elmazi from Altona Magic

Signed

• Brad Norton
• Marcus Schroen

Played for us in 2019 but now on the payroll in another guise

• Luke Adams

Played with us at the end of 2019 but who knows about next year

• Tom Aulton
• Keenan Gibson
• Peter Skapetis
• Nick Krousoratis 
• Perry Lambropoulos
• Kostas Stratomitros
• Gerrie Sylaidos
• Manny Aguek
• Ben Djiba
• Amir Jashari
• Giuseppe Marafioti
• Jake Marshall
• Will Orford
• Nikola Roganovic
• George Gerondaras
• Zac Bates
• Andrew Mesourouni
• Josh Dorron
• Melvin Becket

Exploring options in India

• Billy Konstantinidis

Maybe retiring

• Kristian Konstantinidis

Out

• Leigh Minopoulos (retired)

"I prefer the cat. He hates Mondays -
 I think we can all relate to that." 

Brief notes from grand final day (without any actual grand final notes)

Headed out last week to the Bubbledome for the grand final extravaganza, while only being interested in the first game, the promotion-relegation playoff between Dandenong Thunder and Bulleen.

I had media access to this, and gained entry to the venue via the ground level gate 5, and soon found that this year the crowd had been placed on the eastern side. Not wishing to walk all the way around to the other side of the ground, I decided to break one my personal rules of mixing with the hoi polloi and instead nestled into the press box on the western side.

The most notable sight on that side of the ground was the big set up being undertaken for the televised/streamed part of the day, with all three games being streamed not only on Football Victoria's channel's, but also on SBS' World Game page. I understand there were audio problems at some points of the first game (ranging from no audio to looped audio during replays), but FV have talked up the numbers watching (as you'd expect). One wonders if SBS, now lacking any sort of soccer match coverage, might invest in broadcasting more NPL games?

As for the game itself, it was not a completely turgid affair, but it tried hard to get there. Neither team showed any particular flair, and Bulleen in particular were cowardly in their approach against a team that had conceded goals against even the most inept attacks in 2019 (ie, South Melbourne). Every now and again a Bulleen player would make a break or beat his direct opponent, only to end up with no support from his teammates, who were lagging well behind the action. Eventually Thunder's Brandon Barnes - who otherwise had a poor game - latched onto an awful Lions defensive error late in the game, and saved Thunder's season, which has been Barnes' modus operandi for this year.

Then I went home, and caught the second half of one of the VFL prelims on TV, happy that Monday night football has been banished from the NPL for 2020.

Later it was announced that it was to be Barnes' last game for Thunder, as he was due to return to the UK with his young family. A thoroughly impressive goalscorer, and loyal to Thunder as well, but his scoring feats never led to Thunder actually challenging for the NPL title. It'll be a big hole to fill for Thunder, and his departure puts them on the back foot already for next season.

For those wondering about such things, even though the NPL 2 is becoming a 12 team division next year, I'm told that the promotion-relegation playoff will remain a feature. More discussion has swirled around other matters to do with grand final day though - including whether AAMI Park is a suitable venue for Victoria's grand final day showcase, and whether the triple-header format is the right way to go about things.

There were complaints from some of those who watched the grand final, criticising the Bubbledome's surface. The day before the grand final there had been a rugby league match, which necessitated high pressure watering to remove sponsor and ground markings from the surface. Then there were two games before the showpiece event, and it rained again during the game. Add to that the poor attendance, only some of which you could put down to the participation of Avondale and Bentleigh, two of the league's poorest drawing sides in a league full of teams with negligible supporter bases.

If it were up to me, I'd change these things about the finals. I'd work the season so that grand final day could be held on a Saturday, preferably the Saturday where the AFL has a bye week before its finals, which would mean no clashes with any footy matches. Sunday is a lousy day to hold a final, especially when the game finishes late.

Since we "have to have" a finals system, I'd get rid of this nonsense top six A-League style system which offers no benefit to the teams finishing at the top of the ladder, and either bring in the classic McIntyre final five, or if we have to have a top six, bring back the finals system that at least gives the top two teams the double chance.

I'd schedule the women's grand final for a separate day, ala 2017, where the event could become its own gala day for women's football, instead of being uncomfortably smooshed between two men's games. I'd also limit the amount of games on the day to two. Three games is far too many, especially when by necessity of having to allow for the possibility of extra and penalties, there are huge stretches of time between each game.

And finally, we should acknowledge the value of what for our purposes would be boutique stadiums, and avoid the tempting but expensive lure of AAMI Park. That there are no perfect alternatives should not dissuade us from playing in venues more suited to our crowd sizes. Rotate the fixtures between Lakeside, Knights Stadium, the revamped Olympic Village, and whatever other ground provides adequate seating and cover. If one of the competing teams ends up being the de facto home team on the day, so be it.

Safe (again) - South Melbourne 3 Dandenong Thunder 0

George Gerondaras did an admirable job at right-back.
Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

The most blessed thing about this win is not only the fact that it secures our Victorian top-flight tenure for another year, but that it does so with a nice, clean, and unambiguous three games to spare. Say what you want about the squad's calibre, its erratic performances, and its baffling inability to score goals at regular intervals - when comparing 2019's team to last year's, this year's side is officially at least three points better than what was dished up last year.

That's no claim to fame for a club like ours, which will almost certainly miss the finals for a second year running, but you've got to acknowledge even incremental improvement where you can find it.

We looked sharp from the start - Gerrie Sylaidos launching a looping shot which the Thunder keeper was just awake enough for - and took the lead about ten minutes in after a (let's call it a) right-footed cross from Pep Marafioti was bunted in - just - by Billy Konstantinidis. There was confusion in the stands about whether the goal had crossed the line, but there were no complaints from the opposition defenders, even though one of our marshals behind that goal later claimed online that the ball had not crossed the line.

Apart from a ten minute patch in the first half - predictably arriving after about 25 minutes - Thunder didn't really cause us too many problems in the opening 45 minutes, while we wasted more chances. Pep Marafioti hit a right foot(!) shot off a turn on the edge of the box that cannoned off the crossbar, and that was just one of the chances we didn't get full value for.

The second half was pretty good from us, but without having yet put away the second goal, and with Thunder's season on the line, there were bound to be some nervous moments. We got two or three big ones, and somehow managed to dodge all of them. A long-range shot which drifted wide; a goal called back late (albeit correctly) for offside; and a soft header from a tight angle which should've been harmless, but Roganovic had slipped, managing to at least palm the ball away for a corner.

What would've happened had we conceded an equaliser with 15 or so to play? Who knows, but I wouldn't have been thinking good thoughts. Luckily for us, Kosta Stratomitros headed home a Sylaidos corner for the second week running, and that killed off the Thunder resistance on and off the pitch. There had been a reasonable and quite sweary presence of Thunder fans in the stands, but perhaps not as many would've been had Preston not been playing North Sunshine in a championship decider. Once the second goal left, those fans started to leave, and missed Marcus Schroen's close range goal for 3-0.

The man of the match probably went to George Gerondaras, who played a good game at right-back in place of Ben Djiba for some reason or other. Gerondaras put in some very timely tackles during the first half, as well as one poor one which got him a yellow. Ironically, it was probably that yellow which saved him from getting a yellow later on after he attempted a very blatant form of time-wasting and slowing down of the play; either that, or the referee took pity on George's youth and inexperience. Still, it was an impressive performance, give or take the odd nervous and rushed moment.

But the thinking person's man of the match though probably goes to Jake Marshall, who kept Brandon Barnes very quiet. Shut down Barnes, who's been single-handedly keeping Thunder's season alive, and you're halfway to getting a result over his team.

Finals prognostication (status: enjoy it while it lasts)
I bet a few you didn't think this was at likely to be a possibility before last Sunday afternoon. Probably most of you still don't think we're a chance, and that's fair enough too.

Some of you may not even want a finals appearance, thinking perhaps that we'd be ripe for humiliation should be make it - or maybe you're a club financier who would hate to make a late run to the finals, which would only result in several win bonuses and a finals game (or heaven forbid, two) where we wouldn't get the gate.

The sums are pretty straightforward: barring some colossal screw up by Gully and/or Hume in their remaining three games, the best we could possibly manage in 2019 is sixth. To do that, we'd need to "run the table" to borrow a phrase from American football parlance - that is, we'd need to win every game.

That's not going to happen, especially when you consider our erratic form up to this point, our poor goal difference, and the fact that sixth placed Oakleigh has a game in hand.

Just be happy (or less unhappy) that I can omit the bottom three teams from this screen-cap.

Next game
Oakleigh away on Friday night. They're undefeated in the league for like, forever at the moment. Quite possible that a few more South people than usual will be streaming this one.

Match day revenue idea for the social club?

Flying off the production line (just don't ask where...)
Congratulations to the under 20s, who managed to secure their championship with a comfortable win over Thunder on Sunday. While I'm sure the boys would've wanted to go through the season undefeated, at least the previous week's loss to Hume allowed the team to win the championship on home turf.

I watched the first half of the curtain-raiser, as has become my late season mini-habit, from inside the scoreboard control room, and the second half from inside the social club - well, I watched the last portion of the second half in the social club once someone with authority and the requisite know-how put the stream on the screens inside the social club, while I enjoyed a burger (quite good, and also delivered quickly), and not-so-much-enjoyed a slice of galaktobouriko (too custardy and runny, instead of the proper firmer texture, courtesy of skimping on the semolina I'm guessing here; also deficient in syrup for my liking).

Speaking of the social club, what's going on in there? They've upped the prices of the souvlaki from $8 to $10 because of an increase in the cost of lamb (according to a notice at ye olde ordering station), but one food critic sitting at my table also noted that the souv had seemingly shrunk in size from the usual offering - and the large chips was also a much diminished serve compared to what was produced so far this season.

In addition to all that, one thing which came to my attention courtesy of, well, being told about it, was the periodic inability of people to buy booze at the bar because one of the main people manning the register and bar area was underage, and thus not licensed to serve alcohol to patrons. I mean, good on the kid for following the rules, but the social club operators have really got to sort this out by the start of next year.

South Melbourne, NPL under 20 champions for 2019. Photo: Luke Radziminski.

Anyway, back to the under 20s. They got a warm reception from the crowd during the early part of the second half of the senior game as they walked in front of the grandstand.

Of course while we're all very happy for the boys on their deserved title, quite a few people will be asking how many if any of them will end up playing senior football for the club in the near future.

My answer to that would be, well, who knows? It's very hard for any club to create teams made up mostly or even significantly of its youth products, and the higher up the divisions that team is, the harder it is. Perhaps with the lower senior men's wage budget, there may be more room for our youth products to come through.

Either that, or we'll do what we normally do - let them wander across the cursed earth of Victorian for a few years, before picking them up again down the track after they've played for Bentleigh or someone like that.

Final thought
Already with the rumours about who we're signing next year! Hold off until the season is officially over you ghouls!

Bare essentials - Dandenong Thunder 2 South Melbourne 2

Apologies for delay in this post getting up, and a pre-emptive apology for it being short and not very good. Feeling a bit flat at the moment, but I've also got some temporary work with the government over the next three weeks which will occupy most of my time.

Got to Dandenong nice and early on Saturday evening, thanks in part to terrific public transport connections. I was early enough to catch most of the under 20s game, but not early enough to catch the first six minutes where we were already 1-0 up. Never mind - within 20 minutes we were up 4-0, and the entertainment potential of the curtain-raiser fell away quickly, as our under 20s romped away to a 9-1 win. The only noteworthy bit was the scorer of Thunder's solitary goal shushing the crowd behind the goal.

The senior game was a classic game between a side that can't score, and a side that can't keep goals out, but which can score. We had no Gerrie Sylaidos, who is on trial with Central Coast along with other Victorian NPL players from other clubs. Don't know how long he'll be gone for, but some people are suggesting three weeks, which is more than what the other clubs are apparently letting their players go for.

We had more Marafiotis than you could poke a stick, provided that you were very poor at pointing sticks at Marafiotis; in other words, two. That was double what I expected to be out there following the tantrum thrown by Pep during the win against Essendon Royals. It was good that Pep was there I suppose, because say what you will about him having a poor attitude and having no right foot, when it came to managing to be hit in the head with the ball from an actual half-decent cross, Pep was very good at that on the stroke of halftime, when we really needed some reward for our dominance.

Nikola Roganovic was also there, despite some claiming he'd been in Bali, or that he would be in Bali. Unfortunately in one of those moments that counted on Saturday night, he wasn't there, slipping over and letting Brandon Barnes score and easier goal than the Thunder striker perhaps otherwise would've scored. It's easy to be harsh here, but the bigger problem was how easily the ball went from one of the end of the field to the other, and besides, at least Nikola is present, which is more than can be said for Alasatir Bray, whose whereabouts are unknown and whose status as an active South player seem to be no more, if terrace talk is to be believed.

Billy Konstantinidis was there for the first time after his suspension, and he made a noticeable difference to affairs, and thankfully also got a goal to get that monkey off his back. Good work by Nick Krousoratis set that tap-in up, and if Nick isn't scoring goals, it's good that he was able to set one up. I thought he did OK, but he did cop a massive bake from Marcus Schroen during the second half, which looked unseemly even if it was the right call. Can we not focus on the positive reinforcement on the field when we're actually playing our best game in weeks and/or months?

The performance was heartening, but the draw was disappointing. Thankfully results in other games went our way, and we edged another point away from the drop zone, and even managed to go up a place in the standings. The rest was the usual - the hopelessness caused by missed chances, the grimacing over overpriced cevapi rolls and tasty exotic sodas, and wondering if how we might save ourselves.

Next game
Oakleigh at home on Sunday, a game many have been waiting for, for reasons which elude me. They say that Nick Epifano has walked or been sacked from Oakleigh. I suppose it could be true. It could also be part of the elaborate ongoing saga that is his stunted soccer career. I suppose it doesn't really matter in any meaningful sense. Not sure if Milos Lujic will play. All it is maybe two fewer ex-Hellas players on the field, and another seven or so left.

More importantly, if we can manage to finagle a win here, and have other results go our war way, we could be nine points clear of the bottom three. I have my doubts about this happening, because I think Oakleigh are a better team than their results suggest, but at some point results are the only reality that matters. And if that's true for us, why not for other teams, too?

This week's curtain-raiser is the Tony Clarke Memorial Match between the Copperoos and Formeroos.

Cup News
I didn't watch the draw for the fifth round live, because I was enjoying a succulent Chinese meal. OK, actually just a bog standard Aussie Chinese lunchtime special of lemon chicken and fried rice. But when I did eventually tune in to watch the stream on delay - wondering in part who would replace Teo Pellizzeri as our host - all the anticipation was done over within a couple of minutes, as we were the second team draw out of the barrel.

We've been drawn against current State League 1 South-East ladder leader Doveton. We've been drawn as the away team, and seeing as how this will be a midweek game and Doveton don't have lights, it looks like the game will be played at George Andrews Reserve. It's very unlikely that I'll be there in person, so if anyone wants to attend and write up a guest report, I'd be happy to publish it.

Final thought
Thanks to Hellas Johnny for giving me and a couple of buddies a lift back from Dandenong and into the city, saving me at least 45 minutes on the drive home.

Take the points and run - Port Melbourne 1 South Melbourne 2

I can't tell you about wet bulb temperatures, but I can tell you about when it is too hot to wear a pompom beanie, and Saturday afternoon/evening it was too hot to wear a pompom beanie. That in itself proves nothing, but it does make you think; if Port Melbourne has lights - and it does - why did they not change the kickoff time of this game to an hour or two later?

Knowing well in advance that the temperature was going to be very hot, I am told that during the week South suggested to Port that the game be pushed back an hour or two, only for Port to refuse the request. I cannot understand why, if not for the comfort of the spectators, than at least for the comfort and safety of the players, especially the under 20s who would have to cop the brunt of the heat.

And goodness knows what was going on with the thinking out at Keilor, where the women's teams were playing even earlier in the day, and two players from the under 19s game collapsed during the match. This in a week where the Tasmanian soccer authorities pre-emptively postponed a triple header at KGV Park on the opening week of their season, because of anticipated extreme weather conditions.

That the worst of the heat had fallen away by about 7:00pm - or half-time of the senior game - only served to further emphasise the fact that the senior game and its curtain raiser could have been pushed back an hour or two and we'd all have been the better for it.

Anyway, enough complaining about irrational approaches to dealing with playing in predictably hot conditions. An unchanged starting line-up, with the only change being Alastair Bray listed on the bench. The game started off with the teams swapping ends after the pleasantries were done, catching the crew behind the Plummer Street goals out, and necessitating a trip to the Williamstown Road end of the ground.

But which way to travel? 30-40 people going en masse through the pavilion side of the ground doesn't seem convenient. Going around the back of the pavilion means we'll miss a ton of action. So, on through the famed forbidden zone we go, which just goes to show the insanity of the forbidden zone, because all you to prevent anyone coming into the area was a security guard, Port Melbourne Jesus, and a couple of pieces of string.

Anyway, we eventually camped at our attacking end, trying to find what little shade there was, as well as trying to see through two or three nets. From what I could tell, we were doing pretty in the first 25 minutes or so. We even got a goal, with Pep Marafioti finishing off some good work by Brad Norton and Nick Krousouratis.

Just on Krousouratis, I know it's only been three games, but I cannot for the life of me remember any player of ours in recent history who has slipped over so much in attack. Maybe just an unnatural sequence of events

Then came the drinks break, and then after that for who knows what reason or how, we slowly lost the initiative that we'd show up until that point. Now it's not like Port utterly dominated the remainder of the first half - and I do admit I probably exaggerated their overall dominance of the game on social media - but their equaliser felt to me like at least like something approximating a just moral outcome

Then when the second half started, we just disappeared. There was no midfield. Every clearance up the field was just walked back by Port. There was no player of ours seemingly able to take control of the game, or adjust the tempo, or even properly waste time. The goal which would see us fall behind seemed inevitable, and all that was keeping us in the game was Nikola Roganovic and Port's sloppy finishing. But as good as Roganovic was in terms of keeping the scores level, his distribution often invited Port to launch another attack with us having barely touched the ball.

Another thing which compounded the problem was that we looked gassed earlier than usual. We haven't exactly looked like the fittest team early on in the season, but the heat compounded the issue on Saturday.

Taking Gerrie Sylaidos off was a good decision. He was struggling even when we had our ascendancy early on, and Marcus Schroen's introduction at least offered fresh legs, a bigger body, and the kind of player who specialises on turning games on their head. A couple of other changes - Lamproboulos off Konstantinidis, and Howard off for the other Konstantinidis - also helped, not just because of the fresher legs, but because the team looked closer to full strength. What our eventually proper, fully-fit starting eleven looks like still remains a mystery.

We managed to slowly work our way back into the game, with Krousouratis having a rocket of shot hit the bar, but still it was almost out of nowhere that we got what would be the winning goal. Our corner was cleared, poorly, and Norton began the process of recycling the ball into an attacking area with a terrible, tired, shin-height pass to Schroen, Schroen passed it back to Norton, and Norton put in a great cross to SS Anderson Reserve goalscoring specialist Luke Adams who controlled the ball on his chest then volleyed it home.

Then the sickness of waiting for the goal that we see us fall behind turned into the sickness of waiting to see the goal that would turn our three points into one. But it, too, never came, and we somehow came away with our second win of the season. A bit like last week, we didn't play our best, but we got the points. We played better against Bentleigh, and got squat from that game.

Two weeks in a row, the goal comes from a poorly cleared corner. It's not exactly thrilling build up play, but bread and butter stuff is just as good. And there have been moments where the side looks like it can thrill as well as do the simple stuff. Right now though every win - especially against teams around about our level - counts for double. And in a season which is as much about rebuilding a shattered playing and club culture as it is about surviving and hopefully thriving, every point we earn now is one less we have to scrounge out later on.

Next game
Avondale away at the Reggio Calabria Club on Saturday afternoon.

On the couch
Bizarro Hellas
Friday night was spent on the couch, with the option of three games. These were the "one of the these teams has to wear their away strip" derby, the ongoing saga of "will someone other than Davey van 't Schip score for Pascoe Vale", and "let's see how many ex-South players can fit into the Oakleigh Cannons clown car". I decided to go with the last of these, and spotted the following at various times on the night: Milos Lujic, Nick Epifano, Matthew Foschini, Luke Pavlou, legacy characters like Ramazan Tavsancioglu and Tom Matthews, as well Goran Zoric making an appearance off the bench, and Rory Brian listed as substitute keeper. One also can't help but think that not being able to get Matt Millar, that Oakleigh settled on one of the brothers leftover in the Millar family mini-van. Of course the other point of interest was seeing if Oakleigh could somehow fail to pick up a win, giving them three losses to start the season. It seemed unlikely, what with the quality Oakleigh has at its disposal, but half an hour in and Oaks were 3-0 down, even with Thunder missing a penalty due to the unbridled greed of Peter Skapetis.

It wasn't that Oaks were that bad - the ball could have fallen their way on a few occasions, but didn't - it was how familiar some of the deficiencies in their play looked: the exaggerated slacker vibe of Lujic, the sometimes clumsy defensive midfield play of Foschini, and Epifano still trying to recreate that goal against the Knights from the 2015 FFA Cup. To be fair to the last of these three players, his efforts in the second half were the main reason Oakleigh even got close to getting back in this game - that, and Milos getting benched - but it was a bit like the Kingston-Thunder game from a few days earlier, with one side being (mostly) ruthlessly efficient in front of goal, and the other squandering opportunities at will. So Oaks remain pointless, which is not a situation I expect to last long, but which for the time being does provide its own degree of prurient interest.

Final thought
It's meant to be a winter sport, so can winter hurry up and get here already?