2026 senior men's fixture updated on blog

Manny's guess post the other day focused on the worst case scenario for the logistical nightmare we've signed ourselves up for in 2026. No need to retread that just yet,

This post is just to indicate that I've updated my fixtures page on the blog. Many OFC Pro League details are still yet to be finalised, including the venue(s) for the Melbourne circuit of that tournament.

One will notice a lot of Monday night home games, before eventually settling down into a 3:30 Sunday afternoon slot further into the season. Speaking strictly from an NPL perspective, there is one new opponent (Melbourne City NPL), and two new venues: Casey Fields (Melbourne City) and City Vista (George Cross). Apart from the away game against Preston being scheduled for a Saturday afternoon - because it falls on the Orthodox Easter weekend - there aren't too many surprises.

The other interesting thing about the fixture is that as far as curtain-raisers go, there are no senior men's/senior women's double headers this season. The women's team (and their reserves) will be predominantly playing home games on Saturday afternoons at Lakeside. The Sunday senior men's games will have the under 23s as the curtain raisers. The senior men/senior women double headers seem to go in and out of fashion at Lakeside, and I guess we're in the part of the cycle where we say damn the cost of match day operations, let's go for maximum occupation of Lakeside.

EDIT:
One of our eagle-eyed readers noted that our round 4 game against Bentleigh couldn't possibly be at Lakeside because of the grand prix. After checking the fixture list again, rather than hosting rights for that match being reversed, we will be hosting it at the Home of the Matildas.

2023 fixtures released

Let's try make some sense out of this.

OK, so there were going to be unavoidable issues of ground availability regarding Lakeside and its use as a Women's World Cup training venue. Thus we have eleven confirmed home games at Lakeside, and two remaining to be confirmed. Either venues have't yet been secured for those two games, or we may even be allowed back in to Lakeside at that time. The World Cup training venue issue also applies to Avondale, so the details of their home game against us also remain unconfirmed.

The grand prix also comes into its own, as per usual, seeing us away from Lakeside for three consecutive weeks in March and April, followed by five consecutive home games. The fixture finagling associated with the exclusion from Lakeside means we'll be playing our final five matches away from home.

Now, to the elephant in the room.

The justification for Friday and Saturday night home matches in 2022 (apart from trying something new) was that sponsors prefer Fridays, and that Sundays are too expensive because of penalty rates and such. It was also the case that having the women play standalone fixtures at Lakeside was too expensive. 

So we had a lot of Saturday home games in 2022, which included double-headers with the senior women. Now we're back to a mix of (mostly) Fridays and Sundays, and more standalone NPLW fixtures, including a couple of home games for the women out at Knox. Go figure. 

And if that wasn't confusing enough, we've also got what looks like a home game against Bentleigh on Orthodox Good Friday. I'm also not sure why we are playing a Monday night home game against the Knights the week before the public-holiday Monday. 

Still, one should be glad I suppose that we've got some Sundays back, and that there's still a few Fridays especially during the warmer months. No Saturday home matches might mean the chance to attend some state league soccer for me for the first time in a long, long time.

Some other NPL clubs have also changed up or mixed up their home game scheduling. Green Gully are back to Friday nights. Bentleigh's Friday night kickoff times have now been brought forward an hour to 7:30, while they're also throwing in a few Saturday afternoon games, including their game against us. 

Knights are keeping their Friday nights of recent years, but also chucking in a few Sundays, though not the game against us. The Bergers have gone almost all-in on Friday 8:30 PM kickoffs, including against us. St Albans are mixing in Fridays and Saturdays in among their usual Sundays.

Of the newly promoted teams, Moreland continue their tradition of being a Saturday afternoon side, even at their 2023 home away from home, CB Smith Reserve. North Geelong will largely be a Saturday afternoon team, including against us. Speaking of which, this year's final home and away round will be on a Saturday, not a Sunday. That might be because the final of the Women's World Cup will be on the Sunday. 

Speaking of which, for those like me attending Women's World Cup games in Melbourne, no South game will be going up against any World Cup matches in Melbourne. That's because they'll all be weekday matches, or held during the catch-up round / Dockerty Final weekend in between rounds 24 and 25.

2022 fixtures are out

A long time ago now, it didn't used to be this way - but nowadays Football Victoria does a consistently excellent job of getting its fixtures out before the arrival of a new year. You can see our fixture here.

Of course in these pandemic times, who knows how long any of these fixtures will stay in their allocated slots, or whether they'll get played at all. 

But let's assume that everything somehow ends up going smoothly, here's the gist of the fixture as it relates to our senior men's team. What days are our home games on? 

NPL match days

One Thursday night home match, our opening round game against Heidelberg. Four Friday night home matches, with two of those in the early part of the season. Eight Saturday evening home games, all with 6:45PM starts. 

The Thursday and Friday home games will all be standalone affairs - no reserves curtain raiser, as was mostly the case in 2021 for Friday night home matches. All eight of our home Saturday games will have an NPLW match as a curtain raiser, expanding the experiment that the club has been tinkering with for a little while now.

Home and away, seven of our matches will be on Friday nights, while the majority of our matches will be on Saturdays, with most of those being night games. That marks an interesting shift away from Friday nights, a situation which had reached saturation point when five games would be played on the same night. 

For fans of old fashioned Sunday soccer, you'll have three away games - St Albans, Heidelberg, and Avondale on the final day of the season.

FFA Cup rounds

If my understanding of Football Victoria's 2022 calendar is correct, it looks like cup rounds for all matches involving NPL teams will be midweek affairs, scheduled initially around NPL rounds 6 and 7. Usually an NPL team's first match in the tournament would be on a free weekend allocated for this purpose, but not in 2022 it seems. 

The final of the Dockery Cup is scheduled for the weekend between rounds 24 and 25, which is otherwise designated as a catch-up round.

Easter complications

In 2022, Catholic/Protestant Easter is on the weekend of April 16th/17th. We have a home NPL/NPLW double-header on the Saturday night of that holiday weekend, which is no big deal for us.

The big deal is the following weekend, with Orthodox Easter coming through to create fixturing chaos for everything below Australian soccer's top tier. 

Somewhat strangely, on Orthodox Easter Saturday we are scheduled to play away at Altona Magic; a club which, like us, has a heavy Orthodox Christian contingent withing its supporter base. 

Usually the fixtures are arranged to try and avoid having any team with a predominantly Orthodox supporter base from hosting games on Orthodox Easter weekend. 

An early Saturday evening time slot seems like an OK compromise, outside of the solution Oakleigh are adopting of playing on the Monday after that weekend, or playing on the Saturday afternoon up against most state league fixtures. 

I somehow can't see Heidelberg sticking with its scheduled game on Sunday afternoon, but that's not our concern.

The grand prix

What is our concern is the scheduling of the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix, and the chaos which sets in for us every year as preparations for the event see us go on long streaks of away games, and which flings us far and wide looking for training grounds.

The 2022 Australian Grand Prix is scheduled for the weekend of April 7-10th. We're, sensibly, playing away that weekend, but have NPL/NPLW double headers scheduled for the weeks immediately either side of the race. Can we really believe that we'll somehow have almost minimal disruption to our schedules from this event?

One more thing

I can't see anything on the Stadium Trust's calendar for upcoming events at Lakeside. Usually local athletics has its big events in mid-to-late February, which occupies entire weekends and scuffs up the playing surface a bit, usually requiring repair and resurfacing works.

This week's game is going ahead, but you can't go

So the news - as it currently stands - is that tomorrow night's senior men's game at home against Port Melbourne will be going ahead, but that fans will not be allowed to attend.

I don't expect that arrangement to change any time soon, but keep your eyes tuned to official channels just in case something miraculous happens.

The game will be live streamed as has been customary these past few years, so at least there's that.

This is obviously disappointing on so many levels, but these are the times we live in. Also, while not a direct factor in why Lakeside specifically is out of bounds to crowds (because every stadium in metro Melbourne is supposed to be out of bounds), have you seen how many exposure sites are in and around the South Melbourne area?

People have suggested that the clubs would have preferred to wait another week, so that crowds could be welcomed back, but I guess Football Victoria thought the backlog in the schedule was already getting out of hand.

Still, it's not just about the desire of fans to get back out there, or even the gate and canteen money that will be lost, but also whether the players will be match fit after this break. Of course every club will have had its mid-season injury toll, which this break would have alleviated to a certain extent, and here's hoping for us that Josh Wallen at least has been finally given the all clear to resume playing.

Quite how games played in what are essentially public parks will be policed is another question, but not something that concerns us terribly much.

Venue and kickoff time change for this week's match - UPDATED

What was rumoured to be the case earlier in the week, has now been confirmed as fact - although a few details remain undetermined. 

The Heidelberg United vs South Melbourne match for this Sunday has been moved from Olympic Village, to Jack Edwards Reserve in Oakleigh.

The kickoff time has also been pushed back from 5:00pm, to 6:00pm.

There will be no curtain raiser match - these are still being played at Olympic Village.

There has been no information released yet as far as I'm aware about what the crowd capacity will be limited to. There is also no information yet on whether there will be pre-sold tickets.

While the situation could develop quickly, at this stage I am not recommending heading to this game, until such time as matters relating to capacity and ticketing are resolved.

UPDATE 27/02/2021

In lieu of any official guidance from Heidelberg and Football Victoria in regards to a crowd cap and ticketing arrangements, I was very much leaning to not attending this game. 

However, after watching last night's games on YouTube, especially the Dandenong derby, my opinion has changed insofar as no one seems to want to take any responsibility for how games are organised on the covid safety front, 

So my advice now is, if you're going to go, do what I plan to do, and get there early enough so that in the event that they do reach a point where someone decised there are enough people there, you'll be in Jack Edwards Petri Dish Stadium rather than outside of it.

2021 senior men's and women's fixtures released

Well, here's something to look forward to, maybe. The 2021 senior men's team fixture has been released, and there are a handful of points worth bringing up.

The first thing to note is that the senior men's running order is pretty much the 2020 fixture repurposed for 2021. There are a couple of minor changes in the early stages - our opening round fixture against Heidelberg will be at Olympic Village instead of at Lakeside; and our round six game against Thunder will be a Wednesday night fixture at Lakeside, as part of a league-wide midweek round.

Everything else appears to be about the same, except for the allocation of South senior men's home match days. And if you like Sunday afternoon/early evening soccer at Lakeside, you're out of luck. In 2020 we were due to play just the one Sunday home game - the Eastern Lions game early in the season - this year, there will be no Sunday home games.

The club has committed to exclusively trying out Friday and Saturday nights, with a couple of exceptions - the aforementioned Wednesday night game against Thunder, and a Saturday 3:00PM kickoff against Hume, the latter of which is an accommodation for Orthodox Easter.

The only Sunday games are St Albans away (naturally), Eastern Lions away (unusually), and Bentleigh away (final round simultaneous kickoff). All up for home games, it's one Wednesday night, four Friday nights, one Saturday afternoon, and seven Saturday nights. 

The senior women's fixture has also been released, and the news on that front is that there will be six NPL-NPLW double-headers on those Saturday evening senior men's fixtures. The women will be relieved at not having to trudge out to Knox or Darebin for their home games.

Late-November mutterings to oneself

AGM news
No sign of a South Melbourne AGM on the horizon, although there's enough time yet to sneak one in before Christmas. Someone said on social media that news of this would come soon. It might.

2020 fixture released
Not too long ago the clubs sat down at Football Victoria HQ to work on the fixture for next season, and it's already out. Remember when we used to have to wait until a much later date than this to see the fixture? How times changed the last few seasons.

There are three surprises for the senior men's fixture. The first very pleasing surprise is that we've managed to score two home games to start the season. Can you believe it? It's been several years now of, at best, being able to squeeze just one home game in at Lakeside, before the grand prix sees us wandering across Melbourne for a few weeks. So, I think most of us will be happy to get a couple of games of summer soccer at Lakeside under our belts before the point in the season where everyone stops caring.

(though I have seen one complaint about the round 1 game being scheduled in Valentine's Day).

The other surprise is a far bigger change. As the seasons have rolled on in the top couple of Victorian divisions, we'd become a rare breed of club - one that would play almost all of its home games on Sunday afternoons. Out of what might be called the old guard of important enough ethnic teams, only a handful had held onto that tradition with any sort of consistency (us, St Albans, Preston), and in recent years even Heidelberg and the Knights had moved to other days.

Without even taking into account the fact that more and more clubs right through the divisions have been moving games to Friday or Saturday nights when they have the lights for it, last year we were the only team of the NPL1's 14 teams to play on Sundays. In 2020 this changes, as the club will play just one home game on a Sunday, the round 2 match against Eastern Lions.

The rest of our home games will be split between Friday nights and an assortment of Saturday time slots. The Friday night games will be kicking off at the early-ish time of 7:30, which must mean that Football Victoria has relaxed its rules about how early games can start on Fridays. I was under the assumption that previously 8:00 was the earliest allowable kickoff time for Fridays, with special dispensation given to Knights to begin at 7:45.

It's also worth mentioning Knights in this discussion because they've been the pioneers of instituting Friday night kickoffs at the "normal" kickoff of sometime before 8:15/8:30, by dispensing with the under 20s curtain raiser, and moving said reserves game to a different day. It looks like a couple of other clubs are also looking to earlier Friday night kickoffs, including Port Melbourne and Green Gully - the latter seemingly going back to Friday nights in 2020 from Saturday afternoons in 2019 from Friday nights in 2020.

The hidden 'surprise' in all this is what will happen to the under 20s games. Well apart from being played on a separate day from the seniors, it appears that not only will the under 20s games not be played at Lakeside, they won't even be played in the Albert Park area. Rather, they will play the majority of their games out of the Darebin International Sports Complex. The exception to those games scheduled at Darebin are a couple of home 20s fixtures scheduled after the seniors game, taking a leaf out of Hume's book.

I suspect that this move is in part a cost-cutting exercise - the cost of fielding two senior teams (men's and women's) and their respective reserve teams across multiple days at Lakeside just not being financially worthwhile, despite the hope that such a move would have seen us extend our footprint at Lakeside across more of the calendar. As for why Darebin and not our grounds in Albert Park, I guess it's got to do with a preference with natural grass over a synthetic pitch?

It's not a great look in terms of the ongoing stability of our presence at Lakeside. A 40 year lease is fine and all, but if having to traipse across Melbourne to host regular season fixtures seems a bit... off. On the one hand it's a strength to have multiple options in terms of grounds, including Lakeside, Albert Park, and Caulfield, but we also ended up having games at Darebin last year (women's and probably some men's 20s), Knox (women's), and that senior men's game at Northcote against Gully.

I hope that at least we are able to cut down on the number of games that the women have to play at Knox, and that the women's senior team gets to play all of its home matches at Lakeside. The NPLW fixture isn't out yet, but it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine that given the men's under 20s are being farmed out to Darebin, that we could see a few more men's/women's double headers on our Saturday fixtures.

(I also wonder if we could see more youth gala days at Lakeside now that Sundays at the ground have been vacated by the seniors...)

The other thing to think about, especially with the Friday night games, is whether the social club will be able to cope with dinner service. Our crowds on Sundays this year were noticeably poorer than usual. A combination of having only occasionally good results, the colder than usual weather, the arrival of the live streams, and an increase in all-round battle fatigue all seemed to contribute to an obvious erosion in our attendances. Yet even with that, food service for those who didn't turn up a couple of hours before the game was often notoriously slow. Now that the club is moving half its games to Friday nights, you assume people will be turning up to games hungry - and you just hope that the social club's food service operation works a bit better than it has for the last three seasons since we reopened the social club.

I suppose we should at least acknowledge that the club is trying to do something on the fixturing front. If Sundays no longer work for us for all sorts of reasons, than why not at least try and not succeed on a different day? The last time we had any noticeable change to our normal home game days was in one of the later Chris Taylor seasons, where we played a handful of games on Friday nights for the ostensible sake of player recovery during the congested mid-season period where the midweek FFA Cup games came into play. This change seems to come from an altogether differet place.

Is this it? Probably.
Only a couple of squad changes have occurred since the last time we spoke, and one was not even really a change. Kristian Konstantinidis was already out the door, but now he also has a new destination - which is really an old destination - in Northcote City. The other change is the departure of Will Orford to Western Pride in his home state of Queensland. I guess with the way Orford's 2018 season ended that some of us would've expected to have seen a little more of him in the senior team in 2019. That didn't happen, and yet I'm still sad to see him go.

The other thing is - and I feel this is an observation worth making - is that assuming that we have 20 odd players signed up already, that we're not likely to be seeing a lot of trialist types during the upcoming pre-season period.

2020 SMFC senior squad roster as of 16/11/2019
Signed

• Daniel Clark
• Lirim Elmazi
• Stephen Folan
• Chris Irwin
• Amadu Koroma
• Perry Lambropoulos
• Matthew Loutrakis
• Jake Marshall
• Josh Meaker
• Brad Norton
• Luke Pavlou
• Harrison Sawyer
• Marcus Schroen
• Gerrie Sylaidos
• Giorgi Zarbos

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

• Luke Adams

Previously signed until the end of 2020 - or even beyond - but you know how these things can go

• Melvin Becket
• Josh Dorron
• Nick Krousoratis 
• Peter Skapetis

Reputedly posting on Instagram about getting ready for 2020, but who knows for what club

• Nikola Roganovic

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

• Keenan Gibson
• Manny Aguek
• Ben Djiba
• Amir Jashari
• Zac Bates

'They' say that he's not coming back for whatever reason

• Kostas Stratimitros

On the proverbial knife's edge 

• Pep Marafioti

Has he even been in Australia since early in the 2019 season?

• Andrew Mesourouni

Last time anything was heard from him, he was exploring options in India

• Billy Konstantinidis

Out

• Tom Aulton (Brisbane Olympic)
• George Gerondaras (Kingston)
• Kristian Konstantinidis (Northcote)
• Leigh Minopoulos (retired)
• Will Orford (Western Pride)

Cruising

FIXTURE THIS!
The 2019 NPL senior men's fixture came out some time last week. There was some good news for South fans: we're guaranteed* 3.5 home league matches in the first half of the season, an increase of half a home game on 2018's offering. The uncertainty factor comes from South being unable to say exactly when or where its round seven home against Green Gully will be played. 

But at least we get a home game early on this time around, a round two affair against Dandenong City. Not sure why a round one home game couldn't have also been fixtured considering our traditional grand prix and athletics affiliated home ground access issues, but I'm sure there's a really good reason for it not happening; there always is. 

In terms of what the other clubs are doing, it's more of the same for the most part. Kingston are sticking with Monday nights. Most other clubs are going for Friday or Saturday nights, while Gully seem to have considered their Friday night experiment a bust, and are going back to Saturday afternoons. The recently promoted Dandenong City and Altona Magic are doing Friday nights and Saturday nights respectively. By comparison, our club's persistence with Sunday afternoon kickoff is the height of civilised quaintness.

As usual, I've written up our fixture on the blog. It's probably chock full of mistakes, but what are you going to do about it? Go to another website there and get the info from there? You think by doing that you'll be both better informed, and crash the blog's advertising yield? Well you'd be wrong on both counts, but whatever, it's your life.

*not a guarantee

No friendly - Maybe friendly - Future friendly
An article posted to the Greek section of the Neos Kosmos website said that we were due to play a pre-season friendly at Lakeside last Saturday afternoon against Geelong. Lucky for me I asked the club on Twitter whether this was actually happening (in a manner of speaking), and they quickly replied with no; my subsequent mail is that Geelong cancelled some days before the friendly was due, and that for whatever reason that info didn't make it to the person responsible for the article. These things happen.

The same article says we're going to play Moreland City at Lakeside on Wednesday evening, but geez, you'd want to check your local guides for confirmation of such, because you might want to go check out the Shaft/Super Fly double feature at the Astor instead.

In a different Neos Kosmos article, also in Greek, we have what may be considered confirmation that we'll be visiting West Adelaide in February as part of our pre-season preparations. The game will also be the official opening of West Adelaide's new facility, which looks pretty snazzy.

I listened to the new iteration of South Radio so you didn't have to even though you probably did anyway
Keep in mind that this is me commenting on this matter as a long time listener of many kinds of radio, including being a reasonably dedicated listener of the previous version of South Radio, and certainly not me commentating as a radio industry veteran of four episodes of my own show co-hosted on the same network. In summary:

• It's slicker than the previous version of South Radio, which was to be expected, especially when you have George Donikian dominating or directing proceedings.
• Related to this, the show had the kind of awkward banter that comes with making a show that's basically a pilot episode going out to a much larger potential audience than the old show would have done. Thus the 'banter' was affected by no longer being informed by the pre-existing friendships that the former South Radio cast had - and that includes this audience member being 'in' on many of the in-jokes - and which was also a way for members of the then South media team to let their professional guards down.
• There was quite a bit of content dedicated to the A-League bid, but nothing new. After having been promised at a members' meeting during the season itself that there would be more information revealed to the public as the various deadlines approached, nothing happened. Bill Papastergiadis suggested again during this show that they would release more information. I'll believe it when I see it, not that any of that matters.
• There was quite a bit on the culture and history of the club and how great it is.
• There was a little bit on the powerchair team, which I would like to hear more of in future. 
• There was nothing that I can recall on new signings or any such things.
• There was an obligatory shout out to South of the Border. I thank David Henning for recognising this blog's ongoing importance to... something. Shall we call it sublime-pettiness? Arch-contrarianism? You-can't-handle-the-truth-ism? But I must admit, it was nice to reminisce about the social club's official opening in 2017, and the geekiest cutting of a ceremonial ribbon anyone could think of, back when I was still if not friends with certain people, than at least on friendly terms. Ah, that's where this blog's importance lies: adolescent woe-is-me-ism! 

Over time I expect the show to become less stilted, and even if the shadow of the club's oversight will always be there, I imagine I'll be listening in most weeks. Someone close to these things suggested to me that I call in during a show, to which I demonstrated the likely outcome should I choose to do so.

Speaking of South and FNR, tomorrow night from around 6:30 there'll be an A-League bid special. 

Join us from 6.30pm on Monday night for an FNR #ALeague Expansion Special!

Representatives from Team11 and South Melbourne will be in studio, while the interstate bids will join us over the phone.

Call on (03) 9944 9999 or send us a tweet with questions to any of our bidders. pic.twitter.com/FY0PJEZzDP

— Football Nation Radio (@FNR_Radio) December 2, 2018

The Western Melbourne/Region/Universe bid people won't be there, but it might be worth a listen anyway, just in case someone says something mildly interesting. It could happen.

2019 SMFC senior squad roster as of 2/12/2018
Not much news this week on the signings front. Backup keeper Rory Brian has signed at Preston in State League 1 North-West.

Signed

• Dean Bereveskos (Bonnyrigg White Eagles)
• Kristian Konstantinidis (signed until end of 2019)
• Nick Krousoratis (Green Gully)
• Perry Lambropoulos (Port Melbourne)
• Brad Norton (signed until end of 2019)
• Gerrie Sylaidos (Northcote)

Seen hanging around pre-season training

• Luke Adams
• Manny Aguek
• Alistair Bray
• Ben Djiba
• George Howard
• Giordano Marafioti
• Giuseppe Marafioti
• Jake Marshall
• Leigh Minopoulos
• Nikola Roganovic
• Tim Mala

Holiday in Cambodia (It's tough, kid, but it's life)

• Marcus Schroen 

Rumoured

• Visa player no. 1 (English striker)
• Visa player no. 2 (Canadian midfielder)

Out

• Rory Brian (Preston)
• Matthew Foschini (Oakleigh)
• Christos Intzidis (who knows)
• Milos Lujic (Oakleigh)
• Oliver Minatel (who knows)

Unknown / MIA / Assumed dead from 2018

• Josh Hodes
• Iqi Jawadi
• Ndumba Makeche
• Andrew Mesourouni
• Will Orford

December 2017 digest

Puskas documentary
Remember the Puskas documentary that Tony Wilson and friends were making? Well the crew managed to get their most important interview subject on tape!

Interviewed Ange for our @smfc Ferenc Puskas documentary. Was generous, funny and effusive in his love for the a Hellas era that forged him. If you have Puskas photos & film, let me know! #smfc #hellas #ferencpuskas pic.twitter.com/mGBGRVcy44

— Tony Wilson (@byTonyWilson) December 30, 2017

But as Tony notes in his tweet, they're still looking for Puskas photos, film, artefacts, stories, so if you have anything, get in contact with him, or get in contact with me and I'll act as the middleman. 

AGM
The 2017 AGM date has been announced, and it's Wednesday 24th January, in the social club. The two meeting times are set for.

• 6:00PM South Melbourne Hellas Club Ltd
• 8:00PM South Melbourne Football Club Ltd

If you are a member and you didn't receive notification and the relevant attachments via email, check your junk mail folder - that's where my email inexplicably ended up.

Friendlies
Three friendlies - against Kingston, Oakleigh, and Dandenong Thunder - have been booked over consecutive Saturdays in January, all out at Springvale White Eagles. The Public Transport Faction does not approve. Check the 2018 fixtures page for details.

2018 fixture released
As with 2017, another brutal start to the season with six away games to start, and nine of the first ten away. Some other things worth noting

• The WNPL fixture hasn't been released yet, so I've no idea about men's/women's double headers.
• While most of our home games have been kept at the Sunday 4:00PM timeslot, three fixtures differ. There is of course the simultaneous 3:00PM kickoff in the final round, but against Oakleigh and Pascoe Vale in June, we have a Saturday 5:00PM game and a Sunday 7:00PM to act as lead-ins to Socceroos World Cup matches. Convenient!
• Orthodox Easter week falls on the first week of April, which for our purposes coincides with our entry into the FFA Cup qualifiers.
• The Veneto Club's synthetic pitch is being relaid. Somehow we'll still end up with another 2-2 result there.
• Green Gully has moved its home games to Friday nights.
• Our away game against Port Melbourne seems to have been scheduled for a Saturday evening.
• While Avondale have apparently struck a long term to play out of the long out-of-action Reggio Calabria Club in Parkville/West Brunswick, our away fixture against Avondale hadn't been updated on FFV's site when I did this update. Word is that the place needs a lot of work to get up to scratch.

If you want to see the current state of the Reggio Calabria Club's soccer field, this tweet by Chris Gleeson gives you some idea of how much work needs to be done to get the ground into shape.

pic.twitter.com/FbUxOSk6xI

— Chris Gleeson (@gleebo41) December 24, 2017

Check South's senior men's fixtures here, as per usual, if I've screwed anything up let me know.

Arrivals and departures
Some more 'outs' were announced early in December, most notably former captain Michael Eagar.  Confirmation from the club also that David Barca Moreno, Zaim Zeneli and Stefan Zinni are also no longer at the club. But you already knew that.

 It had been strongly rumoured Eagar was on the way out through parts of the 2017 season. Eagar's omission from the starting XI throughout the second half of the season especially confused a lot of fans, as there seemed to be no clear reason for it, and indeed, we seemed to play better with him in the team than out of it. So it goes.

Luke Adams is also out, which means that our central defensive pair will be undoubtedly new next season. To that end we've signed young defender Darby Dexter from Port Melbourne, and Kristian Konstantinidis has re-signed for two more seasons. Matthew Millar has re-signed for 2018.

For whatever it's worth, the following players are assumed to be contracted for next season.

• Matthew Foschini (signed until the end of 2018)

• Milos Lujic (signed until end of 2018)

• Jesse Daley (signed until end of 2018)
• Jake Marshall (signed until the end of 2018)
• Nick Epifano (signed until the end of 2018)
• Darby Dexter (signed until the end of 2018)
• Matthew Millar (signed until the end of 2018)
• Kristian Konstantinidis (signed until the end of 2019)
• Brad Norton (signed until the end of 2019)

Out

• Stefan Zinni (Avondale)
• Zaim Zeneli (North Sunshine Eagles)
• Michael Eagar (Port Melbourne)
• Luke Adams ('overseas', whatever that means)

Centre Forward is online!
Four years ago I did a hasty review of a North Korean soccer flick that I'd seen at the Melbourne International Film Festival. It turns out that since then someone has actually uploaded that film to YouTube, so you know, if you're looking for something a little different, you can watch it or something.

Goal weekly archives now available!
A nice bit of news for those into the Australian soccer archive business. Goal Weekly has put up its entire back catalogue online in pdf format.

Finals fixture news and other stuff of no consequence

So there it is: our semi-final will be against Bentleigh Greens on Friday night, with kickoff at the rather civilised time of 7:30PM. Bentleigh have been paired up with us because they're the highest ranked winner from the first week of the finals. Bentleigh dispatched Green Gully 4-0, and Oakleigh knocked out Avondale 2-1 after extra time.

We'll have the nominal advantage of being as fresh as possible for this game, what with our week and a half's break compared to the Greens' three, as they play Western Sydney Wanderers on Tuesday in the FFA Cup. That doesn't guarantee anything of course, but you'd rather have them coming off the short run up.

Let's just hope that for the sake of visual clarity, the visitors wear their away kit.

Around the Grounds
I did not go to any grounds. I went to the supermarket instead.

Japan vs Socceroos in the social club.
The social club will be showing the Japan vs Socceroos World Cup qualifier on Thursday night, so come throw your money down the bottomless pit that is the South Melbourne Hellas Soccer Club: it's like a wishing well, but for idiots.

Sore Loser department
Humanity is divided into many pointless categories, all of which obscure the most important division among us: those who think trivia nights are just a bit of a laugh, and those who think they are an opportunity to vanquish and humiliate opponents via the use of obscure and irrelevant knowledge. Of course I fall into the latter category.

Too bad then that the recent South Melbourne Trivia Night was hosted by a company which swings hard toward the other, 'stupid' end of the ledger. Just five rounds of trivia, two of which were dedicated to film and television. It's bad enough that I don't watch films or television that aren't repeats I've seen a million times before, let alone having not listened to top 40 radio for about 18 years.

Nevertheless the team I was on did quite well considering there were only four of us - some tables had closer to eight adults (there were an inordinate amount of children there as well). Based on regulation scoring, we would've tied for first, which wasn't too bad considering our small team and the severe lack of proper general knowledge questions (like history, politics, geography, literature, games of the Sega Master System).

As a measure of how amateur the whole thing was, at one point the host asked each team to mark their own answer sheets. Surely there is no more intractable rule in trivia night protocol as not allowing teams to do this? Our host also provided an incorrect answer to the lyrics to Eurythmics 'Sweet Dreams'. We weren't even given the opportunity to come up with team names, being reduced to being 'Table 16' and so forth. And this after I had "Roberto Carlos' Bounced Alimony Cheque" ready to go.

Now some will say that I'm taking all this way too seriously, and that it was all meant to be a bit of harmless fun and a chance to raise some money for the club. Well you'd be right. But unfortunately there were bonus points given away for such nonsense as singing and dancing, and the winning team racked up most of those 'bonus' points giving them an utterly, utterly unjust win. Points for being an egregious extrovert instead of knowing pointless crap? It goes against everything trivia nights should stand for. And I reiterate Cindy Nitsos' point from Twitter - enforced public singing is one of the worst things you can ask people to do.

If you thought I was a miserable piece of work about Australian soccer, do take the chance one day to be on my table when we lose (inevitably unjustly) at a trivia night. If I can hold a grudge from a long forgotten trivia night from 2003, you bet I can remain pissed off about this one for many years to come. Credit to Foti for giving the stupid karaoke segment a go on behalf the team and doing a good job. Food was OK, except for the weird sort of mushy sweet toasted bread. Not sure what was going on there to be honest.

IMPORTANT FIXTURE NEWS

There were some rumours about fixtures being changed and such, and somewhat surprisingly, they've all turned out to be true.

Here are the details of those changes, some of which you can check on the official site.

Round 16 vs Avondale - Postponed
This week's scheduled league match against Avondale has been postponed, due to the unavailability of Lakeside because of Brazil's visit to Melbourne and their extended use of the ground. Avondale have had a little bit of a sook about this, which would be all well and good if they didn't play at someone else's ground because their own ground is a piece of crap (playground excluded).

Women's fixtures - moved to Knox
The WNPL team has had its fixture for this week against Southern United moved from Lakeside to the Knox Regional Football Facility.

Round 17 vs Heidelberg - Venue and time changed
Due to the unavailability of Lakeside, this game has been moved to AAMI Park, with the kick-off time being changed from 4:00 to 6:30. The WNPL match against Alamein will act as the curtain raiser. The date remains the same.

In terms of entry at the gate, it is a South home game and thus South members will be able to use their membership to gain entry to the match. I anticipate that most of the ground will be closed off and everyone will be bunched up into one side of the ground.

As a one-off, this switch does not bother me in the slightest. My information is that we have been appropriately remunerated by the Victorian government for being forced to relocate the game from Lakeside. It's an opportunity to experience something different, and maybe engage a broader audience for the novelty value if nothing else.

For those South fans who have never been to any events at the Bubbledome because of:

• FFA/A-League/Socceroos/Asian Cup related boycotts.
• No interest in other Victorian soccer teams who have played there for cup finals or grand finals.
• No interest in rugby league or rugby union.
• Did not attend 2010 AFL grand final replay fan site broadcast, or post-match celebrations.
• Have never been to a concert there.
• Were unable to attend closed doors Victory vs South game from last year.
• Some other reason I can't think of between now and the start of a Simpsons repeat coming on in five minutes.

You are in for a real treat. It's a terrific stadium. I hope we win big and I hope that you get a kick out of the venue. I also hope all the Negative Nancys who apparently don't come to Lakeside because of the running track come out of the woodwork for this game.

The only real drawbacks so far as I can tell are that a 6:30PM kickoff will mean that it will probably be freezing, and that the pitch may not be in the best shape because the Wallabies will have played there the night before. Here's hoping that for the sake of the surface it doesn't rain during that weekend.

Dockerty Cup semi-final details
Rather than being played next week, our Dockerty Cup semi-final against Bentleigh has been pushed back to Thursday 22nd June with a 7:30PM kick-off. The neutral venue that has been arranged by FFV is Jack Edwards Reserve in Oakleigh.

In the meantime..
We'll be looking to post up one or two new posts during the week to keep you occupied.

Disheveled pre-season report - South Melbourne 3 Kingston City 1

Wednesday night, we had a hit-out with Kingston City, we scored three goals, they scored one. There's talk that A-League mercenary Nick Ward has been seen around the joint, along with such names as Andreas Govas and Gavin De Niese, the latter of whom has been sprinting up and down the athletics track as part of getting back into the swing of things. And people criticise Lakeside having an athletics track!

Our next pre-season match seems to be against Brunswick City on this Saturday at 11:00, at the Clifton Park synthetic pitch located in between Victoria and Albert Streets. Of course, if this turns out not to be true, you can't hold me entirely responsible. Just to make sure at least one of us looks like an idiot, I'll be heading out that way.

Some other stuff that happened? We signed a couple of players that are ex-Brisbane Roar youth. Both are midfielders. The initial report that Mathew Theodore may have retired is apparently premature, and apparently it's only a sabbatical.

The fixtures got released. Lots of away games to start the season. What's that about I wonder? Anyway, I've added them to the 2017 fixtures tab. Monday night public transport trip out to The Grange, hip hip hooray.

Oh, and I will try and get an AGM preview of sorts up some time I hope by Monday evening. It's not only that I'm totally strapped for time (if we believe in the nonsense human idea that time actually exists, and even more importantly that it matters; look, my el cheapo watch broke or something a while back and I no longer wear it, so now people can't make fun of my mannerism where I shake out my wrist from my sleeve to check the time and instead they can focus on my habit of not smiling which is sometimes deliberate and sometimes not and that other habit I have where I push my glasses up from my nose, hahahaha), but also because I am totally over this AGM business already, yes me who always looks forward to it, me who was part of a duo collecting signatures earlier this year to make the last overdue one actually happen.

Look, there's a lot to discuss on that front, and I need to get my head around it.

Also, there's about 20 seats allocated for carers of disabled persons at the bottom of our grandstand. Not sure if that should be added to the final seating tally, but worth nothing that they are there.

December 2014 digest

Memberships are available
The usual deal. Head here to make your purchase. Support your club. Good to see that entry to all home league and potential Dockerty and FFA Cup games is included.

In...
Dane Milovanovic, most recently of some mob in the Maldives.

and out...
general manager Peter Kokotis. Or at least that's the word on the street. Interesting to see if they choose to replace him, and if so with who. And to think I still haven't managed to get that Yarra Park Aias photo with the team list off him. Score that as a failed KPI target.

and no word yet...
On who'll be keeping for us. Will it be Peter Gavalas? Nikola Roganovic? Chris Maynard? And what about who'll be the technical director. Because you can't have your senior coach also be your technical director.

In case you missed it... 
The fixtures for the 2015 season are out. Here are some of the issues of slightly lesser importance. First, finals are back, which is good for people who get bored when their teams are out of the ruuning five minutes into the season, but bad for those people who hate finals in soccer. Worse, FFV have inexplicably decided to use the A-League top six model, which is a straight knockout affair, with the only benefit to the top two teams being a week off. That just ends up making the finals series even more of a who's in form at the 'right' time of the season lottery.

There's at least a couple of new venues to visit this year as well, of a sort. We'll be visiting North Geelong Elcho Park for the first time (as far as I'm aware) in round 2, and in round 23 we'll be playing at the revamped CB Smith Reserve for the first time (as well as the first time at that venue since the 'why' game in 2008), as Pascoe Vale have moved their senior matches there for 2015. Avondale Heights - who have re-branded themselves as Avondale FC, which I won't use - are listed as playing out of Doyle Street Reserve, which falls well short of the requirements of the NPL for senior matches, so it will be interesting to see how that pans out.

For some inexplicable reason most of our home games are on Fridays, which without a social club seems to be a rather daft decision, but one that's still apparently subject to change. The club even held a survey asking for feedback about preferred times. I reckon Sunday 3:00PM is best. It will be interesting to see what arrangements are made for the home game against Melbourne Knights, which reportedly falls on Orthodox Easter week.

But back to the social club for a moment...
The fashionably late 2014 South Melbourne AGM will be held on Thursday January 29th, at 7:00PM in the President's Room. Unfortunately, your correspondent will almost certainly miss the affair. The reason for this is that around that time I'll be having laser surgery to remove a blister on my non-functioning left eye, which I anticipate will see me out of action for a few days at least. If anyone attending would like to do a write up for the blog, please get in contact with me.

Adelaide trip 2015
Which doubly sucks because it's been said that we'll be going to Adelaide in the first week of February to play one or two games as part of the pre-season, with one of the games definitely being against West Adelaide. Let's just hope they get around soon to booking the tickets and accommodation.

OK, here's the problem
I will be attending seven Asian Cup matches during January, as well as a local academic sports conference, eye surgery and whatever else may come up during January and February. This will mean that I will miss several South Melbourne pre-season friendly fixtures. So I'm looking for people that will be going to these and related events to maybe pitch in and provide some short reports, otherwise the quality of the South related content during January may well and truly suck more than usual. Send all your inquiries to the usual address. Especially keen on someone covering the prospective Adelaide trip.

The house (aka Eddie McGuire) always wins
So the Socceroos won't be training at Lakeside, but rather at the hollow shell of what Eddie 'sometimes I love soccer, but most of the time I don't because it's played by wogs' McGuire turned Olympic Park into. I think Lakeside might be hosting Uzbekistan instead. If someone could get me access to the latter's training sessions, that would be nice.

Some thoughts on getting ahead of ourselves (but not really)
I was going to write some sort of brief spiel about the ramifications of the move away from small markets in the A-League and what that might mean for us, but then I figured that since we're never going to be in the A-League anyway, that the point was probably moot.

Nick Jacobs, Memphis Tiger
An interesting post was recently made on smfcboard - and then followed up by George Kouroumalis on the official site - alerting people to the fact that former player Nick Jacobs, who reportedly retired from soccer following a long lay off with injury, has surfaced in the US playing college football for the University of Memphis Tigers, where he is also studying engineering.

It seems like the guy who used be to the punter for them, the highly rated Tom Hornsey (another Aussie), had been drafted by the Dallas Cowboys (and since released as a free agent), and that Nick has managed to dislodge Hornsey's replacement as the first choice punter.

Good job Nick Jacobs. Every punt inside the 20. One on the 1yd line! @ProkickAus #memphisfootball #aussiesdoitbetter pic.twitter.com/idLIEmRCLh
— Tom Hornsey (@tom_hornsey) September 21, 2014

Jacobs has been averaging around 33 yards per punt (with a season long of 42), which isn't great (I think NFL punters aim for around 45 yards net gain?), but on the other hand Jacobs hasn't had to make too many punts either, which is generally a sign that the offence is doing its job - and those punts he has made have invariably ended up inside the 20.

Now I'm hardly an expert an college football - the bowl election process and the random ways One HD would show games made it terribly confusing - but Memphis appear to be one of the more minor teams in the top NCAA divisions. Still, they've done well this season going from a 3-9 season in 2013 to a 9-3 record in 2014, and even reaching a bowl game, which is a rarity for them and a fair reward for their reversal in fortunes. Their conference record of 7-1 saw them win a a share of the conference championship, their first championship of any kind since 1971.

Memphis won their bowl match against Brigham Young University 55-48 in double over time, a game which also included a massive on field brawl. It was Memphis' first ten win season since 1938.

Mandatory Frank Lowy succession comment
Here are some of the things that are bothering me about this process.

• People using legalistic arguments as opposed to ethical ones in order to justify the potential hiring of Steven Lowy as Frank's successor.
• The continuing and fervent apologia hinting at, or openly appealing to the abstract notion of 'the greater good'.
• The fact that we apparently have such a lack of capable people to call upon in the game that Frank's boy seems to be the 'most obvious' candidate, even as we conduct another patented Australian soccer world wide search.

The moment where FFA does or doesn't choose Steven Lowy as Frank's successor is almost irrelevant. It is the process which allows that to even be a possibility that's a concern. But what to do about it?

Labored analogy based upon an old review of Eels' Daisies of the Galaxy album.
Sometimes I feel like my writing on the game has becomes so insular that I can't come out, and that only the existing members of my hard won and loyal audience can possibly continue traveling with me on this mildly eccentric faux indie ride.

Fixtures and memberships released for 2014

Fixtures
Fixtures for the 2014 NPL Victoria season were released late on Wednesday. Among the many, many highlights:

• An opening round match against the Bergers. On a Thursday. It's a good thing that no one who follows the VPL NPL works for a living, or has anything else to do, you know, like attending training or something.
• Six of our first seven home games away. I can understand the first few - grand prix curse - but how they figured out the rest of that I'm not sure.
• Our first home game on a Wednesday, which is brilliant for memberships.
• Six consecutive home games in the middle of the season. 
• A Wednesday game away to Bentleigh (public transport nightmare at the best of times), followed by a game 48 hours later away to Pascoe Vale.
• Playing Ballarat Red Devils in rounds 5 and 7.
• Not playing Northcote until round 19.
• Having to wait until the final round for the Shepparton trip.

The fixture list as it relates to South is now updated under the 2014 Fixtures/Results tab on the blog. I can't wait until games start getting washed out, and pitches get torn up.

Memberships
A stripped down affair this time around. The basic package is $120 ($90 concession), which is decent value for 13 home game at one of the premier soccer venues in the league. A pity about no social club yet, of course, but it's about the team on the park first and foremost - and how good was it when we started getting some decent crowds towards the end of last year, especially the Gully final?

Head to the club's membership portal site at wearesouthmelbourne.com.au to buy your membership for 2014. Nice to see they've decided to stick with last year's slogan, something to build upon in years to come.

More than ever it's important to support the club by becoming a member. It's a pity that the fixturing has done us no favours at all with regards to selling our product.

If you're in the corporate membership frame of mind, you'll have to wait a little longer.

Next friendly
This Saturday we're away to Springvale White Eagles. Seniors kick off at 6:00PM, under 20s at 4:00PM. Being the public transport black hole that it is, your correspondent may not be there for this one, but we'll see.

2013 fixtures are out

Came out yesterday I think it was. Let's see, what's interesting about them... oh, we play everybody twice, which isn't always a guarantee. We have our third Greek derby in a row to finish off the season, and this time it's also local derby, what with it being away and against Port and all. Will we have to pull out the heroics of 2011 against Northcote again? Or will it be a nothing game like the 2012 Bergers match up?

What else... oh, we start off with four consecutive away matches. Now, I'm lead to believe that there will be athletics events during the first two rounds of the season, so I don't have any problem with that. Curiously though, the FFV claims that the precinct will be out of action for eight weeks while works to remove the grand prix infrastructure take place.

I find this odd because, well, apart from the athletics people using Lakeside just two weeks after the grand prix (scheduled for 17 March), I can't recall ever having to miss that many consecutive home matches ever because of the grand prix, and certainly not six weeks after the race is finished. The mysteries of life I suppose.

More Spanos/Learning Greek Is Fun/Fixtures! Wait, Fixtures?

James Spanos Wins Under 21s Best and Fairest
I don't know why we're surprised anymore - James Spanos does it again, winning the under 21s best and fairest. The man is incredible, especially since he goes almost completely unnoticed by this blog and even most other pundits. Maybe it's time we truly admitted that our infatuation with one particular under 21s player this season has clouded our judgement to the detriment of our reporting.

So well done to Spanos, and well to the South Melbourne Super Duper Academy Revolution 3000, for not needing to actually have a proper voting system for finding out who the best 21s player was this season, and just going for Spanos. Excelsior!

Pateraki and Rombotis, Behind the Bike Sheds After School
Congratulations to all my non-Greek readers, you're about to get an off-season lesson in this beautiful language.

• Τζαμπατζήδες, tzambatzithes - freeloaders or cheapskates is a good start, but this Greek phrase its own certain je ne sais quoi.
• ψευτες, pseftes - liars
• Kύριος Kεραυνος, Kyrios Keravnos - Lord (or Mister) Thunder
• παπαγαλοι, papagali - parrots
• Βραζιλία, Vrazilia - Brazil 
• σπορια, sporia - seeds

If you missed the 3XY sports program, well hooley dooley, did you miss some fireworks. Host Kostas Paterakis was mad. Really mad. It seems as if Stathis Rombotis said so0me really nasty things about Pateraki and 3XY, because Pateraki was breathing fire.

Now, I haven't read the original article that seems to fired Paterakis up so much, but for the next hour or so, he laid into Rombotis. For once South wasn't copping the brunt, or indeed any flak in their coverage. This was personal.

It started off with παπαγαλοι and σπορια, and got more hilarious from there. Judging by Paterakis' tirade, Rombotis (whom Paterakis kept calling Kύριος Kεραυνος) seems to have made the allegation that the whole 3XY (and perhaps by inference, Greek-Australian sports journalist fraternity) are Τζαμπατζήδες. Well, Kostas didn't take kindly to that, nor the allegation that he and his colleagues were ψευτες.

During elaboration of the matter, we somehow ended up in Βραζιλία, and the 2000 World Club Championships and who paid for who to get over there. Then we moved into the 2004 efforts to save the club, from which Paterakis claimed that Rombotis was absent.

Then Paterakis, absolutely fuming at this point, basically called Rombotis out, daring him to call, as long as he kept his call to five minutes, because they didn't want it to drag on for an hour. If Rombotis did call, he didn't make it to the air.

Some other highlights:

• The thunder sound affects they played at one stage
• Playing, I'm pretty sure it was this παπαγαλο song. I nearly died.
• Once again confirming why they have no time to cover anything on their show, by talking about this issue for about 50 minutes (and let's not forget the 20 minute chat with Kevin Muscat - I switched it off for that discussion).
• Mind you, they had finished with the issue, then George Karandonis turned up and it kicked off again.
• The claim made by Paterakis that, if they wanted to, they had plenty of other ways of hurting South. 

What was great about this hour long tirade, is that apart from the times when they're wrestling with whose microphone is supposed to be on, and callers dropping out, is that there was some actual effort put into the show. Little things like song selection and sound affects add so much. More please.

Still, disappointed that there was no sign of the promised extended talkback session on South's recent crisis. Nor was there any reference made to the previous week's promise to have a South representative on the show next week. Don't tell me that's going to end up not happening like the last time they made that promise?

2013 Fixtures
Apparently these were supposed to come out today. No such luck. A certain παπαγαλο has told us that the season will be starting on the week of April 6th.

2012 Fixture updates

Been a little bit of adjustment since these first came out. Notably 3pm home kickoffs changed to 5pm... our round three home match against Green Gully switched to an away game... and two Friday night games, against Southern Stars and Richmond.

2012 VPL fixture released

You can view it here. A section for only our fixtures will be created on this blog some time this weekend.

First up, home again, home again, jiggidy jig, against newly promoted Generic Black and White Italian Backed Team, with a few of our exes playing there. Of course again we play Oakleigh away in the first half of the season. No ANZAC Day Cup nonsense against Hume. And a final round trip to Olympic Village. No sign of the mooted inclusion of the Heart and Victory youth teams, nor of the NTC/VTC.

Before we go, kudos to the FFV PR person for their sense of humour on their media release.

It’s the always popular battle of the Greens when defending champions Green Gully Cavaliers travel to Kingston Heath to take on Bentleigh Greens.

2011 Fixture released

The things to note

• All our home games to be at Northcote this coming season. I endorse this - Kingston Heath, where we played two of our relocated home games in 2010, is a nightmare to get to with public transport.
• 5pm starts early in the season for home games before moving to 3pm. 
• Finally seem to have got rid of the situation where we'd go without a home game for a month or so in the middle of the season.
• Following on to that, no more than two consecutive games played at home or away.  
• A new Friday night away fixture, at Springvale White Eagles - should be fun getting to the ground with public transport.
• The ANZAC Day game against Hume seems to have been moved back a week earlier, probably because the Easter holiday also falls on ANZAC Day. I wonder if we'll still play off for the trophy?
• Orthodix Easter seems to have fallen once more on the same date as the Catholic/Protestant Easter. Convenient.
• There's a Queen's Birthday week off, and a break between rounds 20 and 21, but no obvious free weekends created for the reinstatement of the Dockerty Cup. If the FFV still intend to bring it back, it looks like it's going to be midweek.
• There are NTC matches again this year, which I've not included in my fixture list, because even though they are allegedly for points this time, if they finish in a finals or relegation spot they supposedly won't get counted in either. Which makes one ponder what the point of it is.
• Finish up at 'home' to Northcote - could result in some hilarity if results need to fall certain ways, especially if one of the teams doesn't want to play along to 'expectations', ala Melbourne Knights vs St Albans in the final round of 2005.

Fixturing updates

Confirmation that our remaining home matches for 2010 will be at John Cain Memorial Park starting with this week's game at home to Northcote City. There is of course, an exception to the rule, and that is with the round 16 match against Dandenong Thunder, which will be held at Kingston Heath Soccer Complex. All home matches will be Sundays at 3pm.