No respect, and no regard neither - South Melbourne 0 St Albans 3

That's right, Google Maps app, What
 happened on Monday night between
 7:23 and 9:31 is a mystery.

Just a short piece this week.

Well, last Monday was just outright disrespect. Disrespect to South Melbourne Hellas fans. Disrespect to the St Albans Dinamo team. Six or seven changes to the starting eleven coming off a week's rest, just because we have a game on the Friday coming up. Are they so worried about fitness levels by round four? What happens when the cup rounds start? Maybe we'll tank them like we did the Avondale cup match a few seasons ago.

Anyway, the depth on show was shallow. Tactics, all over the place. Javi Lopez went down for real this time, I think. You can call me Nostra-blogger-damus, but it was a simple game of mathematics - it couldn't always be playing possum. At least the flood lights seemed a bit better this week, so we could better see the carnage. Even the security dude wouldn't do us a favour and turf us out as a gesture of mercy. Oh well, at least when we win the title this year, we can look back at this game and laugh. 

Next game
Preston away. For ticket details, visit Preston's socials. There's also going to be shuttle buses and such. Again, check Preston's Facebook page for all relevant details.

- Dad, how can South Melbourne 
afford to play in all these leagues?
- It's simple economics son. I don't
 understand it, but God, I love it.
- 

South Melbourne Hellas, coming to A-League a league near you!
So I'd heard of this OFC Pro-League business last year, but didn't give it much thought then. Didn't need to, really. That's in Oceania, we're in Asia, and we're building towards the National Second Division which has imaginatively been named the Australian Championship. Then news articles came out saying that four Australian clubs had shown an interest in joining the OFC Pro-League. Now, I know what you're thinking folks: yes, South Melbourne has no shame, but surely even South Melbourne would not put its name down for this. Yeah, right. Bang, there's South Melbourne as the most prominent of the four Australian clubs looking to get into this thing. Maybe we want to be a barnstorming team? Maybe we missed the frogs invading the field in Fiji like back in 1999? Maybe we like the vibe of being a decrepit old man desperately trying to get into a nightclub; any nightclub will do. I don't know. I suppose the board will tell us all about it at the next AGM, scheduled for whenever.

More match programs added
I bought a few items towards the end of last year, and I've finally got around to uploading them. They're all from away games, which is a touch disappointing. I know that people have stuff that I'm missing, and I am still on the lookout for more programs. Anyway, here's what I've added most recently:

• 1984, round 3, away to Canberra City (the original fixture that was called off due to inclement weather, not the replay)
• 1985, round 22, away to West Adelaide
• 1988, round 17, away to Marconi
• 1989/90, round 8 away to Marconi
• 1989/90, round 16 away to Adelaide City
• 1990/91, round 25, away to Marconi
• 1991/92, round 22, away to Brisbane United
• 1995/96, round 32, away to Brisbane Strikers
• 2000/01, round 21, away to Brisbane Strikers 
  

Find them all in the usual place. For a much neater list (also with links), as well as notes establishing what programs we have, what programs we don't, and what programs may or may not exist. go to this link.

DIY zine scene hits Lakeside
While leaving the grandstand after the final whistle on Monday night, someone stuck a little zine thing in my hand. Blue and White Views, of which you can see the cover of the first issue to the right, isn't quite yet a revelatory or inflammatory piece of work. Who knows if it can become that, or even if it desires to, not that it has to. Frankly, and this is not being cruel, in case anyone misreads my tone, the most interesting thing to me from this so far - apart from its circa 1987 Hellas match program colour scheme - is its utter mystery. Who's producing this? Why are there no contact details? How can I (or you!) submit something to this project? It's all very myserious. Will it last longer than the genuinely incendiary Maverick from 1997? All they need to do is release one more issue.

Around the grounds
Actually, why am I here?
For the second time in five years (and for the second time in two weeks, but let's not get bogged down in details about why I went to Paisley Park the previous week), I was at an Altona East game. This time it was for a Dockerty Cup (you're welcome) fixture between Altona East and Hampton East Brighton, aka a team with a number of name changes over the past decade or so, and recently about five consecutive promotions under its belt. Mario Barcia was out there for Altona East. You may remember him from such moments as the worst thirty seconds of football you've ever seen, capped off by some nonsense goal from halfway. Nothing quite as interesting (or deplorable) happened in this match, which finished 2-1 to the visiting side. 

Final thought
- Sarge, let's make a break for it while the guards are partying with Jane Fonda.
- Nope. Too dangerous. We're all gonna sit tight and reminisce about candy bars.

Hubris artefact Wednesday - The Score Fanzine

This is truly one of the more bizarre Australian soccer publications I've ever seen. The short version is that it's a fanzine created specifically for the occasion of the second leg of the 1998 World Cup qualifying tie between Australia and Iran. However, the content makes this a bit more complicated than that.

The person who lent this to me claims, to the best of his recollection, that he bought this on the night of the match. Now this is an important detail, because this fanzine is so full of hubris that one can only hope it was made before the game and not afterwards as some sort of elaborate attempt at trolling. It includes everything from claiming the game as won, Pauline Hanson parodies, to advice about how to go about booking your tickets for France '98 (including entering as many competitions as possible).

While there is an email address in the fanzine, my attempt to contact the writers behind this effort was not successful, with the email address now either inactive or deleted. This was part of a collection lent to me - mostly of newspaper articles circa the end of Middle Park and the beginning of Lakeside - by the supporter known as the Agitator. Hopefully I'll be able to upload a few more things from this collection to upload soon.

Click the following link to download the entirety of this fanzine.

Update - 14/2/2016
As it turns out, there was a follow up edition - which you can download from here. Both extant editions of the fanzine have also had text recognition applied to them.

Cheap photocopies held together by staples

The other day I was looking through someone's book on the history of English match day programmes - Match Day: Official Football Programmes by Bob Stanley (of St Etienne and NME fame). I love that old retro, colour drained look, much as I love the look of old Pelicans/Penguins from the era.

Anyway, it got me thinking again about doing a South fanzine. It'd come out every home game - quite optimistic I know, but why not aim high? Hell why not aim even higher and go for every home and away game? Ok, maybe too high. And it'd have all sorts of regular and irregular segments, whatever we could come up with.

The 'we' is inevitably the problem though - it could just be me doing all the work, but it would become a drain - and I would rather have multiple voices and multiple talents. I am a pluralist after all. Whatever stupid gripe, drawing, anecdote, penchant, whatever - which of course, once again, was the point of this thing sort of, but this is also news and reportage and smfcboard exasperation safehouse.

In keeping with the retro feel there'd be a classic three column layout, colour cover, black and white for the rest, naff sponsors (we'd make them up if we had to) maybe some cartoons - in short, all the things I wanted this thing to be. Produce a maximum of 50 copies, photocopy most of it, staple it together, charge something minimal, ask for donations or nothing at all. It all depends on the printing costs of course.

As for a title? Names are the easy bit. Already knocked out a few with our friend Southpole. The title of course would be in italics, and preferably be not completely in joke related, and have room for an exclamation mark in there.

• CMON HELLAS! FORZA! HELLAS!
  
• 25 Albert Road Drive
• Singing by the Lake
  
• Sack The Board!
  
• Late Merchandise!
• Sack The Fans!
• Bill's Punjab Express!
• Greeksta and the Cloneasaurus
• Heaps Good!
• Leaving early to watch Big Brother

Of course there were a few other unmentionable ones. For the record I liked Late Merchandise!, Sack The Board! and Bill's Punjab Express! the most. If - and it's a big if, of course - I was to get this going, it'd need a fair bit of prep work. Like this in the beginning, it'd need a backlog of articles and segments ready to go. And the support of my peers. And a willingness to stick it to the man. We'll see I guess.