Public Image Ltd - Preston Lions 2 South Melbourne 0

Prior to kickoff on Friday night, an adolescent Preston supporter, who found himself by some clerical error in the part of BT Connor Reserve allocated to South Melbourne fans, complained as he made his way around to the area designated for Preston supporters, "why was I directed to go to the South end, do I look like a Turk?".

The National Soccer League is dead. Long live the National Soccer League. Long live dubious crowd numbers. Long live cigarette smoke. Long live ethnic bullshit. I'll leave out my usual take on flares, because at least unlike last year's Dockerty Cup match between the two sides, the flares lit on Friday night didn't end up being thrown at anyone. Call it progress of a sort, at least on this occasion.

Anyway, for all that Preston has managed to achieve during its unlikely resurrection - and it has been some feat to buck the trend suffered by pretty much every ethnic soccer club in this country - some habits die hard. If that "Ellas, Ellas, Turkiye" chant happened once or twice early on, and was then stopped by their marshals, I'd understand - it's just a bunch of hotheads getting carried away, but someone from their side took responsibility for it. But it was non-stop throughout the game, and everyone's just ignoring it because it was part of "a cracking atmosphere".

It's not about being offended (because it's a chant that's too stupid to be offended by), or being humourless (I was dead inside long before this), or being unable to handle banter (there's no cleverness here). It's acknowledging that this stuff did drag down what came before, and that people ignoring it, or not acknowledging that it's happening and burying it under the guise of "atmosphere", do a disservice to the game in the here and now, as did those who excused this stuff before.

It's also not about ignoring the past, or pretending that we're all friends now, because we aren't. Some people are willing to buy into that part of the current story, because they think there's some greater good to be achieved by that. Some people in the ground are choosing not to pretend, not to hide what's in their hearts. That's their prerogative, of course. But then maybe in the return fixture, some people from our side will choose not to pretend, and what should or could be pantomime rivalry, hostile, but within the bounds of good taste and decency, instead becomes... well, you know the history. It's in print, it's on video, and it's in folklore.

I don't really care much for either pretending we're all mates, or in getting carried away by thinking that when I attend a South Melbourne Hellas match in Australia, that I'm responsible for bringing with me the badly framed and badly taught history lessons I received at Greek school 30 years ago, excised of all complexity and nuance. I want to go to a game, have a laugh, and hopefully see my team win. But I get that that approach isn't enough for some people. 

It's the age old problem of big time soccer in this country, ethnic or otherwise, that people are drawn to these games because they can get close enough to the possibility of something going wrong, potentially spectacularly so. Now most don't necessarily want something to actually go wrong, but some clearly yearn for it to at least be a possibility - if something couldn't go wrong at a fixture like this, then the kayfabe spell is broken. If all that hate isn't actually real, then it becomes just another game, like all the other games.

But for the sake of a feel good story, and especially for the sake of the Australian Championship, and for some, sticking it up the A-League, the narrative will be "passionate fans, great crowd". And yes, the fans were passionate, and the crowd was good, but that 9,000 figure... I'm not the only one querying that one. And this is where the suspect crowd figures of the past come back to cast doubts on the reliability of today's numbers. 

BT Connor Reserve has a smallish stand (nowhere near the capacity of Lakeside's southern stand, let alone that of Knights Stadium's much larger one). It also has no terraces, and on Friday night a western wing almost completely out of bounds. And the ground has no history of getting a crowd that size during the heady days of the early 1990s summer NSL years. And yet we are expected to believe that, were all parts of the ground available to spectators, that this venue could accommodate up to 13,000 - just under what the old pre-athletics Lakeside could squish in.

Goodness knows that South has an appalling reputation for rubbery crowd figures, and that's long before some people made it a social media sport. So why begrudge other clubs from getting in on the act? Why assume the worst of others, just because you assume the worst of yourself? I suppose that's the overall point for me - that whatever hope I have that things could be better, and could actually get better for us, I ultimately have no belief that they will - and especially not if I don't feel like I can trust even a fundamental element of soccer story telling, like "for better or worse, this is how many people were actually there that day".

It'd be easy to accuse someone like me of actually wanting the game to be smaller, and even for South to be small. Small fish, small pond, small problems, small headaches. But that's not the case at all. I want the club to be successful on and off the field. I want more people to come watch our club, and to support it. And somehow I want it done with honesty, and without giving in to crass attempts at public relations. I guess this is just one of the many reasons why I'll never be close to anything resembling a place of responsibility at a club.

As for the game
The high press from the first three matches of the season is gone. Thus against Preston it was more of what we've come to know and love over these past five years or so, except without Javi Lopez and Harry Sawyer (or Ajak Riak) to make it somehow work. It continues to be the case that those who see us play only occasionally and almost exclusively during so-called "big matches" were, and continue to be, surprised by the ugliness of it. The two or three hundred regulars, well, they aren't surprised at all. 

Quite what was the point of resting all the players on Monday, we'll never know. The one player who probably should have been rested (Javi Lopez), wasn't. Now, barring some luck at the tribunal, or Javi recovering in time for Saturday's match, we're down to our third choice goalkeeper, and therefore on the bench, our fourth. Nahuel Bonada getting injured means we're down to one striker, that being the Danish guy who, while he isn't fit enough, is also apparently not worth putting on to try and rescue a game at 1-0 down, only at 2-0, even though two of his substitute appearances have yielded goals this year.

The field at BT Connor Reserve is very wide. We knew this from last year, when Max Mikkola's long throws weren't getting close to troubling the keeper. So what did we do on Friday? The same thing as last year, of course. To be fair, it's pretty much the same thing as every other game anyway. If it worked at all in last year's fixture, it's because of the same reason it works in any game - the opposition is ill-equipped to deal with anything coming in from the air, not just throws. That was certainly the case in last year's match, but not so much on Friday. 

I'm not sure what the alternative was, because given our general lack of composure on the ball, once we went down, all we could resort to was knocking it forward chaotically, thus creating a series of 50/50 balls to be won, which some basic mathematical principle says will work eventually, while at the same time acknowledging that it will hardly ever work, especially once you're down to ten men. It was not a great experience for player or fan.

Next game
Dandenong Thunder away on Saturday night. Please note that due to the very hot conditions forecast for Saturday, kickoff has been changed from 7:00pm to 8:15pm.

Vale George Karantonis
The club lost of one its staunchest supporters this week, with the death of George Karantonis. A reserves player in the 1960s, a volunteer of many years, and a long time presence in local Greek language media, especially in radio, George was a big personality with strong opinions on all things soccer, and especially all things South Melbourne Hellas. I'm not going to lie and say that I had much to do with George, because I wasn't a listener to his radio programs, nor did I really run in the same circles as him at South. But I always appreciated his forthrightness, especially his contributions at AGMs.

In particular, I'll never forget that AGM around 2008. We'd just had a second lousy season in a row, the club was going nowhere, and George gets up midway through the meeting and heads towards the exit of the old social club, and everyone's just quiet... like, fuck, if Karantoni's giving up, then the club really is fucked... only for him to say in his unforgettable voice of a million cigarettes, "I just go for a smoke". The tension in the room just disappeared. He will be missed.

The cost of masochism going up
Those of you who ended up paying to go to Friday's match may have noticed that the ticket price was $20, not the more usual $15. That seems to be your unofficial notice that the price cap for NPL Victoria matches has gone up. It almost makes a certain someone want to put in more effort into this blog, so that they can qualify for a media pass again. For others, it might dissuade them from going to away matches, especially at venues lacking certain amenities like adequate shelter and seating. Some people might decide to go the footy instead. On the other hand, it just made buying a South Melbourne membership that little bit more value for money. Only on a cost per game basis, of course, not in terms of entertainment. 

Ange and the Boss national release
After a successful festival run in the back half of 2024, the documentary is now going to have a short national run. Tickets and further details available via the website.

Final thought
How did learnings become a thing? Whatever happened to lessons? And I don't care that Shakespeare used "learnings", because none of the LinkedIn Lunatics using that word have read any Shakespeare since high school.

Expert Opinion: Three seconds of fame (previously unpublished)

A little gift to close out the year.

In February 2016, Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers fans acted like twats at a game at Docklands, ripping out seats, and letting off flares and fire crackers and such. I was interviewed on the matter for ABC TV in my guise as a soccer academic, by their reporter Ben Lisson. Being my first television interview, I found the experience by turns exciting, nerve wracking, alienating, and bizarre. 

I wrote up a piece about the experience, but because it took me a little longer to finish than I otherwise would have liked, I didn't send it to my usual outlet of Shoot Farken, instead sending it to an irregularly produced magazine called Thin White Line; partly because I wanted something in print (even though they didn't have an ISBN), but also because I wanted to share the love around.

For whatever reason, the edition that the piece was meant to be published in never materialised. So here I am publishing it for the first time almost five years after I appeared on television. I don't think it's one of my better pieces by a long shot, but that's not the point,

Expert Opinion 
During an away game in Melbourne early in 2016, members of the Red and Black Bloc, the active supporter group for A-League franchise the Western Sydney Wanderers, lit a barrage of flares, as well as launched detonators which in the context of recent world events sounded not unlike the bombs let off in and around European football stadiums. Cue the expected reactions and outrage from all corners, including but not limited to: tabloid media hysteria; the pettiness of inter-codal rivalries; the self-flagellation of soccer fans; the rejection of any responsibility by members of active support groups; the obligatory conspiracy theories that ‘outsiders’ had caused the incident; and the eventual imposition of a fine and suspended point deduction penalty on the Wanderers themselves.

Now normally in these situations, I couldn't care less. Being what is described in Australian soccer parlance as a ‘bitter’ – that is, someone who displays near abject antipathy to the changes wrought to the game after government reviews and the return to the local soccer scene of billionaire Frank Lowy in 2004, which included the establishment of the franchise based A-League, which excludes clubs such as the one I follow from participating – I was content to just sit back and watch the carnage unfold.

On the following Friday morning though, the day before another potentially volatile fixture – depending on your definition of volatile of course - I received a phone call from a private phone number. It was sports reporter Ben Lisson, of ABC TV news, who said he’d been passed along my details from Dr. Ian Syson, a local soccer academic and my doctoral thesis supervisor. ‘Would I mind having a bit of a chat about the flare situation?’ he asked.

‘Not at all’, I must have said, or words to that effect, as we chatted for a few minutes about the flares and the media reaction to the incident. And so after going over some of the key issues, then came the invitation to speak on camera about these matters. ‘When?’, I asked. ‘Tomorrow’, said Lisson. ‘We’ll also be following a family with children that support Melbourne Victory to see what they think’.

So, with plans made for Lisson and his crew to visit my house in Melbourne’s western suburbs, I was already wondering what I’d got myself into. What did I know about flares? I’d never lit a flare. Apart from proximity to certain former notorious Australian soccer hooligans, I had no hooligan, ultra, or active supporter street cred worth speaking of. And while I am an Australian soccer historian and cultural observer, my main academic specialty is soccer as it appears in Australian literature. What’s more, while I don’t like flares, it’s not necessarily on the grounds of law and order, which seems to be one of the main objections to their use in Australian soccer; no, my dislike for flares is more to do with aesthetics.

Yes, there is the awful smell, and the smoke which stings eyes, nose and throat – and on a windy day, the obscuring of the playing field. But as one friend noted on the matter, they also come across as an attempt at a ‘cheap pop’, to borrow a phrase from professional wrestling. And rather than being a demonstration of a spontaneous emotional release, the premeditated launching of a flare after a goal has been scored comes across as creatively moribund almost from the get-go; rather than losing oneself in the jubilant post-goal moment, the person lighting the flare has taken the time out to perform pre-prepared material; rather than becoming one with the exultant crowd, they set themselves both apart from and outside of it.

Nevertheless, I assumed that that line of inquiry would not be at the top of Lisson’s list of questions. So instead I spent the day wondering about the mechanics of the whole thing. Where in my house would they film? Would I have to do a walking to the camera shot, or better still, pretend to be doing serious academic work on my computer or rifling through the contents of a bookshelf? What should I wear? Who should I tell? How would I be introduced to the world? And as a ‘bitter’ with a moderate online reputation, would whatever I have to say be inevitably consumed along partisan lines?

While still pondering these questions, that evening I found myself with a few hundred other souls at the Kingston Heath Soccer Complex, deep in Melbourne’s middle class south-eastern suburban nightmare, watching my club South Melbourne field no recognisable strikers in a 3-0 Community Shield loss to Bentleigh Greens. The smoke of the lamb gyros billowing across the field from the pavilion – and a short break when the ground’s sprinklers came on - was about as close as such as a game could come to being disrupted.

Despite the wonders of the internet age being able to turn anyone into a self-published viral star, there is still something to be said about being interviewed by the traditional broadcast media. And thus while I had decided to be very low-key about the whole thing, I did relent and tell a smattering of my fellow South fans about my impending interview to be broadcast on state-wide television, perhaps even national television – the common reaction being incredulity and confusion about why I’d be chosen to talk about such an issue. Still, one had to be cautious – the interview could have been cancelled, or I could have been interviewed and the entire segment discarded. Probably best not to get too much into a self-promotional state of mind then.

The next day, as the appointed time for the interview drew closer, I started to run through all the things I’d like to say. That despite claims to the contrary from some Australian soccer fans, there is actually a long-standing culture of lighting flares at Australian soccer matches. That active supporters by and large actually like flares, and can’t come out and claim otherwise when the Facebook accounts of active supporters are littered with photographs of flare shows from both local and overseas soccer matches. That flares are impossible to ban, and that all you can hope to achieve is a sort of containment, which would include the use of social ostracism. That whatever measures you attempt to take, there’ll always be one or two people who will disregard the social norms and do what they please, but the most important thing is that the third, fourth and fifth person don’t join in.

Furthermore, that there is the continuing issue of Australia and soccer having an uneasy relationship with each other, the latter often being tarred with the brush of novelty, foreignness and violence, just three items from a long list of historical criticisms of the sport. That the unsolicited advice regarding soccer’s internal cultural discussions from people with a vested interest in other sports is beyond worthless. That instead of listening to those hostile commentators, Australian soccer needs to acknowledge, understand and address the problem on its own terms and for its own sake, with no regard for the opinions of those who despise the game.

Perhaps I could put forward the idea that Australia still has a problem with multiculturalism, interpreting the word to mean the policy of gentle rather than forced assimilation into an imagined middle, instead of a pluralist model allowing many cultures to exist parallel to each other, with no privileged culture at the centre. That what mainstream Australia sees when they see the kind of active support typical to soccer, is interpreted as both a freak-show and as a vague cultural threat, challenging the notions put forward by other Australian sports that the only way to behave in an Australian sporting crowd is to sit down, shut up, and clap politely; and as an extension of that, active support as it manifests itself in Australia is also perhaps too Continental in style, even too Catholic for a nation with a more than residual Protestant fear of reckless displays of self-expression.

Ten minutes or so after receiving a text message from Lisson telling me he’s on his way, a familiar face from network TV strolled through my front gate, with his cameraman in tow. I was slightly unnerved by the fact that Lisson was wearing shorts and thongs (flip-flops for the international reader), but quickly surmised that since his job is mostly to be filmed from the waist up, that it really didn't matter what he wore below the belt.

While the cameraman went about setting up his equipment, Lisson asked me what I specialised in, and seemed disappointed that my officially designated speciality was in literature; my attempts to add my long-standing interest and credentials in Australian soccer history and culture came across as a lame attempt to prove to him that I was worth having made the journey out to Sunshine West. Having decided to film in my front garden, I was instructed to focus on Lisson and not at the camera.

During the interview, I became aware almost from the start that I was not providing the sought for answers, let alone providing them in the preferred format. Instead of clear, direct and definitive statements, the interview saw me play out all the usual academic tropes – that of the kinds of mumbled complexities which would make sense in a long form discussion, lecture theatre, or published academic paper. I thought that the most erudite thing that I’d said was that there was nothing new to see here, and that the situation as it was playing itself out had only served to repeat the standard tropes of the debate. In its own way a cynical reaction to the affair, but perhaps the most obvious one that too often gets ignored when this issue comes up.

After a few minutes the interview is over, and once the framing shots are done Lisson thanks me for my time, telling me that the segment will be on tomorrow evening. On the evening the segment was due to be played, the two televisions in my household were strategically set to everything but the 7PM ABC News bulletin. My parents, who had rightfully commandeered one of the televisions, were watching probably illegally streamed Greek channels. My brothers and I, on the other television, set about watching the rather mediocre repeat Futurama episode where Bender ends up on an island full of obsolete robots.

At some point during the evening’s syndicated viewing, I received a text message from Pamela, a friend and colleague from university who had seen the segment. There were also a couple of tweets from those who had been implored by others to look out for it, but it seemed that by and large my debut television appearance had gone unnoticed. Mustering my courage the day after the segment went to air, I decided to watch it on the ABC’s online catch up service, enduring the vox pops with the Victory supporting families, waiting for my moment of fame, and finally, there I was: ‘Paul Mavroudis: soccer academic’, complete with ruddy face, blotchy skin, and mumbling something – re-imagined as ‘an aporia in the intercodal discursive relativities’ by one online wit - which seemed to have little connection to the rest of the story.

And that was it - my supposed intellectual expertise and days’ worth of angst reduced to a three-second sound-bite. The truth of course, is that I could have backed out at any time, but chose not to out of the vain sense that I would have something important to say, and something which would be noticed and appreciated by the wider public. In that sense, my actions bore at least some similarity to the person who chooses to light a flare at an Australian soccer match; a chance for self-promotion, and a contribution to an unceasing and largely unchanging discussion about flares and Australian soccer. And thus the discursive tropes around flares and Australian soccer were repeated once more, with me fulfilling my obligation as abstract indirectly involved talking head.

Journey to the centre of the earth - South Melbourne 0 Heidelberg United 3

pic.twitter.com/Go4IM0VpNL

— Video Game Advisor (@VGAdvisor) February 14, 2020

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

For those people who were worried that there'd be drastic changes to the South Melbourne experience in 2020, this game was endlessly reassuring.

Isolated striker? Check.

More wingers than you can poke a stick at? Check.

Blokes playing out of position? Check.

Gerrie Sylaidos getting subbed off too early, and thus any chance of central corridor play being used to get back in the game? Check.

Melvin Becket having high energy but no end product? Check.

No end in sight to our goalkeeping issues? Check.

Copping a goal and falling behind early, and having increasingly diminishing ideas about what to do to score after that? Check.

Now there were things about this performance that I did like, mostly from the first half hour before we conceded the opening goal. I think the wingers we have on hand are faster than we had last year, which at least gives you a tactical option independent of skill. Provided he aims for raw power over swerve, Stephen Folan looks dangerous from free kicks. Harry Sawyer works hard, and I want to see him in a team that looks more organised before judging his skill. Lirim Elmazi was very good in his South debut, and looks an excellent pick up.

But everything else was all too familiar. After several successful seasons, Heidelberg are in a transition period, having seen much of their regular squad depart and a lot of new faces arrive. And by a Berger insider's admission (made while we were having a chat on the tram after the game), it was the worst or weakest Heidelberg side for about a decade. And their own performance never reached any particularly great heights, except for their finishing.

Someone piffed a flare over the fence near Gate 1 towards the end of the
 game. Who knows why they bothered. Photo: Luke Radziminski. 

But tactically we were outdone once again. Once Heidelberg took the lead - somewhat against the run of play, not that that makes things better - they were content to sit back and absorb our increasingly flimsy attacks. Once Sylaidos was subbed off around the hour mark, things got worse as we retreated exclusively to the wings, and the Bergers were happy enough to squeeze us onto the touchline. We got past the squeeze on occasion, but then our crossing let us down.

So it might have been a bad day, a bit of bad luck conceding the first goal, and a scoreline made worse as a result of having to chase the game. These things happen, and maybe 2020 won't be a replica of the last two years. A couple of inclusions to the midfield spine, like Luke Pavlou or even Marcus Schroen, and maybe we won't be so one-dimensional and reliant on Sylaidos having to do everything in the middle. Maybe some better crossing.

Oh god, we're one game into the season and I'm already into "if this" and "if that" scenarios.

Next game
Eastern Lions at home on Sunday. Were it not for Avondale's point deduction, these two teams would be last and second last, but as it is, Lions are ahead of us and out of the relegation zone by virtue of alphabetical priority.

Digging deeper still
While some South fans on social media have rightly caned former supporter of the club (and now cursed apostate) George Calombaris for the wage theft proclivities of his businesses, the old wisdom of "be careful what you mock, lest you become it" has sprouted its head again -  and because it seems that they're not cognisant of the fact, that goes for fans of other clubs too, who are enjoying this bit of schadenfreude.

Because over the past week or so our own alleged shoddy behaviour when it comes to paying wages has come to fill out newspaper column inches, and all you can do is hope that it's all very, very wrong, and that the players who are still with us or especially those who have rejoined us are incredibly naive or know something that we pleb fans don't.

But past examples like Kevin Nelson and Adam Van Dommelle successfully claiming moneys owed to them by us (and perhaps others who were naive enough to sign a waiver when seeking a transfer out) don't fill me with much confidence that the club has learned anything from prior experiences.

First up is the still(!) ongoing matter of Chris Taylor's sacking. At various points since Taylor's dismissal in early 2018, South Melbourne Hellas supporters have been told by the club that Taylor was owed nothing more than the week's notice he was paid out upon his sacking; and furthermore, that Taylor's attempt to take the club to a FIFA tribunal (if the club admitted that such a thing was actually happening) was unlikely to succeed.

Well, news came in last week that Taylor had won a FIFA tribunal case which states that he must be paid out approximately $80,000. The article does note that the club is considering taking the matter further, but boy, what another dent to whatever's left of our reputation. To be fair, we weren't the only club named in the article - Sydney Olympic also got its comeuppance with a coach it had sacked - but at least Olympic were able to say that they'd won a championship in part because of that decision.

Meanwhile, we've floundered in a mess of our own making, with high player turnover, poor morale, and no discernible middle let alone long-term on-field direction. Now maybe the decision to sack Taylor was absolutely necessary, even though those of us outside the board meeting which made the decision will probably never know either way. But it does show the perils of giving anyone, even someone as capable and as successful as Taylor, a five year deal in the first place.

Of more immediate concern is what this means for the club in terms of its finances and its alleged liabilities. Much was made at the recent AGM of the deep audit made of the club's books, and the plans to pay off the club's debts. Now here's another one, to be paid for how? With more director loans? And if you believe even some of what's being said out there, there's possibly another coach looking to be paid what they're owed, as well as persistent talk about players being owed money, and who knows who else.

In the Daily Telegraph it's being reported (behind a paywall which I'm not sure how I circumvented this time) there are at least three players seeking money they believe is owed by us. Just as concerning is that in terms of the comments made by public officials from various angles on this matter, there's no way of getting around that what the club is saying doesn't match up with what representatives from Football Victoria and the Professional Footballer's Association are saying.

While South president Nick Maikousis is (according to Tom Smithies' article) claiming that "Our governing body, the FFV, has not made any comment or contact in relation to these matters, nor has the PFA" the PFA and Football Victoria CEO Peter Filopoulos are on record as saying that the opposite is true. And matters aren't being helped when Maikousis attempts to turn this issue into one where the club is the victim rather than the players who are owed their rightful wages - which Maikousis unhelpfully says add up to "a relatively small amount". If the amount owed is that small, then why not pay what's due and avoid this drama?

Now there's little doubt that we are the only club at this level that will fall behind in wages at one point or another, while other clubs are paying wages far beyond what is appropriate and sustainable for this level. But until we enter a league or competition with some semblance of cartel discipline and a sustainable operating model, all we can do - all that we should do - is make sure that we operate our own business in a proper and dignified manner that avoids such things becoming an issue.

And if that's not possible in this post-shame world, than at least start backgrounding journos off the record about the shonky behaviour of other clubs, and get them into the limelight as well. The next members' forum should be interesting.

Reaching new depths
On field, off-field, in the kitchen - is there anything this club can do right at the moment?

25 minute wait to receive this stale broken pita bread Souva from South Melbourne’s
Bar 1959 tonight. By far the worst NPL food in the league last season and round 1 2020 its worse 😩

I’ll pack my own dinner next time. pic.twitter.com/YXAyV86bp5

— Chris Gleeson (@gleebo41) February 14, 2020

I'm not one to dedicate too much time to the food that clubs offer, so long as it's relatively prompt and more than nominally edible. Now I can't see the former being solved any time soon at South, but at least the burgers have been good enough. But the souvs? The souvs have been ordinary for a while now, and I made the same mistake that local soccer commentator Chris Gleeson made last week by ordering one. How could they get everything about it so wrong?

The souv was so bad that we've sunk beneath the old "don't eat at Green Gully" level. The bizarre thing is that a solution to their problem of mushy pita and indistinguishable meat content is right there in front of them - ditch the pita except for those ordering a plate meal, and use bread rolls instead with the lamb skewers on the menu instead of whatever it is that was passed off as meat last week.

Maybe we should hire Calombaris to work in the kitchen - it might not solve the wages issue, but it might at least solve the food issue.

Final thought
I find it funny - but not "haha" funny - that after all the effort that went into pushing the A-League bid and trying to draw attention to ourselves, often in the most shameless ways, that we'd complain about someone writing an article about us because they're out to "get" us.

Wrong about everything - South Melbourne 3 Bentleigh Greens 2

I can't quite figure it out, but perhaps we've just got to accept that most of us are going to be wrong about this team and most of these players on a weekly basis, and maybe even on a minute-by-minute basis.

Certainly this season is taking its emotional toll on some of our supporters, in ways quite different from 2018. Where in 2018 one (retrospectively) spent the entire season after round 3 gearing up for a relegation battle, halfway through this season we've been through the highs of two wins in the first three games, an erratic stretch of form which saw the loss of a senior coach, still more erratic form which saw us flirt with the bottom three thanks to dropping points to most of our relegation battling compadres, and yet over the past three weeks have knocked over three of the best credentialed teams in the league.

Now to be fair, some of our supporters are more susceptible to violent mood swings than others. But this season has had a knack of overturning the expectations of even the most astute commentators. Every player is wrong, every tactic is wrong, every signing is wrong, every board maneuver in regards to coaching, player management, and selection is wrong, until things just fall into place and it works. That's not to imply imminent ascendancy for this team, because the next two weeks against bottom half teams could see us drop back into old habits and poor results. But if you're hoping for grinding 1-0 wins for the rest of the year and a seventh place finish, this might not be the season for you. You should instead settle down in front of the heater and watch videos of (stereotypical) Chris Taylor coached South sides.

Though it would be nice to keep a clean sheet, something we've only done twice in the league all season.

Losing Brad Norton to injury early on (and here's hoping it's not a serious one, even though Brad had no hesitation in subbing himself off immediately) wouldn't have helped our cause, especially since he was replaced by the Much Maligned Perry Lambropoulos on the left. Having lost his spot at right full-back to Ben Djiba, Perry is basically in the squad now as cover. One person's misfortune (Luke Adams) plus another's (Brad Norton) meant where one might otherwise play Kristian Konstantinidis on the left, Perry gets a go instead.

Perry's inclusion did stymie our ability to make progress on the left, as Lambropoulos is mich less of an attacking threat than Norton or any of the rest of our full-back options. This meant Pep Marafioti had to work a lot harder on the left in the first half, and he wasn't having a great game before that of Norton's going off anyway.

Having shown some positive signs and an ability to match it with Bentleigh in the first 20 minutes or so, we were overwhelmed bu a superior side for the rest of the half. The Greens were getting numbers forward, and their opening the scoring looked inevitable, except for Nikola Roganovic pulling out some superb saves. Unfortunately another routine defensive blunder from Kristian Konstantinidis cost us a goal.

It was his third goal-costing mistake in four matches, and each of the mistakes was easily avoidable. Against the Magic he could've easily hoofed the ball upfield instead of trying to dribble his way on his own byline; against Heidelberg, he gave away a needless and reckless penalty; and here against Bentleigh, as a cross was cleared by our defenders to the edge of the box and the rest of the defensive line moved up the field, KK decided to sit on the goal-line, keeping the Bentleigh attacker onside when the ball was sent into the box again.

And yet somehow we've managed to not lose any of those games. Go figure.

At least someone's happy - for now. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

We equalised early enough in the second half from a goal so simple in its execution you wonder why teams don't try it more often. The flu-stricken Gerrie Sylaidos got free on the right edge of the box, shot low and hard across at the Bentleigh keeper, and the resultant spill sat up beautifully for Pep Marafioti to belt home from close range.

Now I'm a Negative Nancy at the best of times, so while the crowd lifted from that unexpected goal, I said to the younger lads behind me (and they can vouch for this), "enjoy the five minutes while it lasts". Well, I was wrong about that, because we held on to the 1-1 scoreline for just three minutes, as Matt Thurtell raced through on goal unimpeded and slammed his shot into the back of the net.

Oh well, being level was fun while it lasted. And how nice would it have been if Marafioti or "he of the hamstrings which are always about to snap" Zac Bates could've slotted one of their chances soon after we had equalised. Anyway, at 2-1 down it's not like it was over, but I felt like we always had more goals to concede and not necessarily any way to match that. Well, I was wrong about that too, as Marafioti - who was playing on the right on the second half - decided to take a speculative low shot from the edge of the box, which took a deflection before settling in the back of the net.

All of a sudden it was 2-2, one felt that anything could happen, even if the most likely scenario was still us losing the game somehow. Before the game I would've been happy with a point, and at 2-2 with about twenty minutes to play, I would still have been happy with that point.

When Jake Marshall (2019's most improved South Melbourne player by a long way) got subbed off, I have to say I was a bit confused and concerned. But looking at the replay - especially of Bentleigh's second goal - and thinking it about it a bit more dispassionately, I think I understand the logic of it; even though Marshall wasn't having a poor game per se, Matt Thurtell was burning past him with pure speed too often.

But then we got the winner thanks to a corner and Kostas Stratomitros being in the right place at the right time. Say what you will about Marcus Schroen's corner taking this season - and it has often been dire - it has also occasionally been good, and when it has we have looked very dangerous from these situations.

Here's the thing - and I may have mentioned it in a previous post about Bentleigh, or I may not have, I can't recall and I'm not going to back and look for it - as good as they are in an attacking sense, they are more suspect defensively this season. Now let's put that in perspective: most NPL defences once you start putting pressure on them look suspect. But Bentleigh have looked particularly vulnerable to me, and the fact that we actually had a go made things happen.

It's a tautology of sorts, I know, but there's no use dying wondering. The corner we scored from? It came because Nick Krousoratis put in a crap ball into the box and the Bentleigh defender freaked out and booted it out behind his own goal line. That's the standard of pretty much every team in this comp once they sense there's any danger, no matter how remote.

Did we ride our luck? Did we look shaky when Bentleigh threw everything at us in the last few minutes? Well yes, of course. Did we get three points? Well actually, yes, we did. I expected at most three points from these past three league games (and really, probably only one) but here we are now with what some might call form or momentum.

We've returned to equilibrium, now can we maintain that?
It was a handy win in other ways as well, because with regards to the relegation battle, the round's other results were a bit of a mixed bag. Oakleigh and Port both won on the road, while Dandy Thunder, Pascoe Vale and Kingston all lost. Probably the most surprising result was Dandy City picking up a point at Avondale, in what may be a chilling sign of things to come.

Still, some of our bottom-half rivals might be looking at the table and wondering - as many of us are - how the hell did we manage to beat three teams on the trot that were sitting in the top six at the time.

That nice run of form has some people already looking up to a possible finals run - after all, we're just three points adrift from the sixth-placed and stuttering Melbourne Knights.

I remain more focused on getting enough points to avoid the drop or a relegation playoff. Though one person is intent on moving the goalposts about what would constitute a points total that would see us safe, I'm keener to stick with the 30 point mark as the initial aim here. At the moment we're three wins and a draw adrift of that target, and if we can't manage at least that in our remaining games, then we deserve to go down.

Next game
Dandenong City away on Friday night. Dandy City have splashed out during the mid-season transfer window, signing Carl Valeri, Adrian Leijer, and Brendon Santalab. Some of you may remember the last two playing for various clubs during the late NSL era, though I'm not sure what they've been doing in the last 15 or so years, as they kinda seemed to fall off the face of the earth.

If you're one of those weirdos who love getting to the grounds by public transport, this might be one to avoid, unless you have a plan for getting back out to civilisation somehow.

The club should demand its $50 back
We made a substitution during the second half, in which the fourth official put up the number 12 on his fancy board as both the player coming off and coming on. These blokes have basically four jobs, all of them very simple.

1. Put up the correct numbers of the subs on their fancy boards.
2. Put up the correct number of minimum amount of injury time minutes to be played.
3. Occasionally tell coaches to get back in their technical areas.
4. Pray like hell that they don't have to actually get called up to do the ref's or the lino's jobs.

That's money well spent across a season, dollars which would could just as easily be spent being put into the pocket of hard working professional NPL players who entertain thousands of people (most of them overseas gamblers, admittedly) on a weekly basis. These fourth officials need to lift their game.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

Bucket of sand
Does anybody remember the last time a flare was lit at Lakeside Stadium? No, that's not a call for you to rip one and break the drought. It's just that someone noticed the flare buckets on standby during Sunday's game, and people were wondering when was the last time they were even needed.

The best that anyone could seem to recall, people affiliated with Pascoe Vale ripped one during the 2015 semi-final they lost against us. There was a flare confiscated and/or found during that Melbourne Victory game in 2016, but I think that's about as close as we've gotten since 2015. I can't remember the last time one of our fans ripped one.

Mumble grumble (social club kitchen)
Much dissatisfaction expressed on the forum this week about the food service in the social club. Mostly based around how slow it is. Now I usually eat in the social club well before the game, so I've dodged most of in the "just before kickoff and during the game" issues with getting food quickly from our social club.

What I will say is that the social club did look understaffed on Sunday, for reasons I'm not aware of. That certainly added to the problems experienced by several of our supporters looking to get food and drink on Sunday. There was one register open, and one guy responsible for taking order, making coffees, and getting people's drinks. That's not usually been the case the season, but you can see how that caused a lot of problems.

There have been three operators of the social club since the social club reopened, and while the quality and the range of food have varied between operators, the problems remain largely the same. Slow service and an ability to decide whether the social club space is going for speedy match day service (if it is even capable of doing this under its current setup) or bistro style cooked-on-request service.

I'm not in hospitality and never have been, but it seems that there are at least some basic solutions which would alleviate some of the current problems. The first would be to open up the canteen on the side of the grandstand (if it's not open already), and let people know that it is open (seeing as how most people enter the venue via the social club), taking some of the heat off the social club kitchen.

(and isn't getting access to that canteen and outside pouring rights on match days part of what we gave up some of our monthly income for?)

Second would be to get a coffee cart working outside of the social club. We're a winter competition, and some people are understandably going to want a warming beverage. Coffee takes longer and more effort to make than pouring a beer or soft drink. Why would you make it harder to access for punters to access and harder for staff to provide this service?

Third - and this is not my suggestion, but rather a popular one from the forum - just provide food that is easy to prepare, cook, and serve on a speed and scale befitting a soccer match instead of a sit-down restaurant. These people (by which I mean all these people who have attempted to operate the social club) have been experienced hospitality people in one form or another. It boggles the mind how this issue still hasn't been sorted out.

Mid-season transfer period news
Though some people on Sunday said there would be a Peter Skapetis related announcement on Monday, as of Tuesday afternoon there was no Peter Skapetis related news other than to say that there was strong word that he was no longer at Dandenong Thunder, which is the very definition of being neither here nor there.

Then on Tuesday evening, the announcement was finally made that the Skapetis signing had come to pass. Skapetis is a former South junior, who claimed with what felt like something with believability that scoring against us earlier in the season for Dandenong Thunder felt very wrong. He's signed until the end of 2020, but the more immediate question is who is going to make way for him? I'm guessing it's going to be Zac Bates' hamstrings, because you wouldn't drop your leading scorer in Pep Marafioti, would you?

There has also been simmering rumour chat that Canadian defensive midfielder Ethan Gage is on his way out of Lakeside, but as of Wednesday morning, he's still with us as far as I'm aware. Having said that, Gage's not being used in either the midweek cup match nor the Bentleigh game says to me that unless he's injured, there's something wrong here. We'll see what comes of it.

The transfer window reportedly closes on June 4th, so there's still time for lots of stuff to happen, or not happen.

On the couch

Momentary abstraction/Eventual clarity
It's the most curious thing - my zeal for watching other games from this league has returned just as South has managed to win a few games. I wonder what the connection might be? I'm sure I'll figure it out one day. Anyway, for whatever reason I was compelled on Monday night to watch Kingston vs Port Melbourne. I was hoping for a Kingston win, or at worst a draw between the two teams. We didn't get that. Sure, Kingston took the lead, but they coughed it up to, well, a team that deserved to win it on the balance of play. To go back to an earlier point in this post - being entertaining is fun, but perhaps not so much when you're on the bottom of the ladder. At some point you've got to control the tempo of a match, disrupt the momentum of your opponent, and grind out results rather than lose honourably.

Cue, meet rack... wait...
That aforementioned return of a zest for life? Yeah, I ended up at Knights Stadium yesterday because of it. A bit cold and some regret on that front, but I emerged emotionally unscathed, and actually also a bit entertained as well. There was an announcement that a white Toyota was blocking something or other and needed to be moved, and I had a momentary flash of panic that it was my Toyota... thankfully the licence plate number was different, and later on we found that the car was also an Aurion and not a 1989 Camry, which was eventually moved once the announcement was made again, this time in both English and Croatian.

As for the match, either way this turned out would've been funny, but seeing the cash-splashing Avondale bow out after putting the cue in the rack with a 1-0 lead and about half an hour to play, on the assumption (not entirely unreasonable, but still) that Knights would not pose a serious threat going forward, was pretty funny. This was a game whose excellence built up slowly, revealing itself only in the final minutes. A slow start from both team playing between arcs. Then Avondale having a goal cleared off the line by what Twitter says was a clear handball. Then missing a one on one. Then finally taking the lead early in the second half and deservedly so. Five or so more minutes of trying to put the game away seemed to be enough for the visitors, and that turned out to be their downfall. Knights had been ceded the initiative, they managed to get an equaliser, and we were off to extra time. Then Knights took the lead, and Avondale had to figure out how to get their way back into the game. And it wasn't like Knights were going to be hospitable in that - the ball at one stage went over the fence on the Quarry Hill side, and no one, not even the ball boys, made any effort to retrieve the ball necessitating the Avondale player on that side jumping the fence.

Funny thing was the gate was next to him 😂

— Andrew Golub (@andrewg_90) May 28, 2019

It was a stunt made riskier by the fact that it had started bucketing down in extra time. The chances also flowed from both sides after that, with Knights keeper Cakarun making one final, reaching save to preserve their lead, and Avondale sending a header from the resulting corner over the bar. So Knights progress against the odds, while Avondale bow out to chants of "cigane" coming from the Mark Viduka Stand.

Final thought
Googled myself on Google Scholar this week, and found that Andy Harper had cited my now six-year-old journal article in his own recently released journal article. I mean, it was only part of his literature review, but it's something I suppose.

Fanatic of the Week no. 4 - Nicholas Haddad

This is an interesting one - one where a little kid has been roped into the segment. This one actually had a photo as well, though we'll refrain from publishing it.



Welcome to 'Fanatic of the Week'.

This week’s fanatic is young Nicholas Haddad from Rowville who has been a member of the Trimmers Club since he was born just over two years ago.


See below for full fanatic profile:
------------------------------------------

NAME: Nicholas Haddad

AGE: 2

SUBURB: Rowville

INTERESTS: Soccer and Hi-5

FAVOURITE SOCCER CLUBS:
South Melbourne

ARE YOU A MEMBER OF SOUTH MELBOURNE?
Yes - Trimmers Club Member

WHAT AGE DID YOU EXPERIENCE YOUR FIRST MATCH? 
One year old

FAVOURITE SOUTH MELBOURNE MEMORY? 
Watching players with their little children

MOST MEMORABLE GAME WATCHED? 
Going to my first game

FAVOURITE CURRENT PLAYER? 
Paul Trimboli (Trimmers)

BEST SOUTH MELBOURNE PLAYER EVER? 
Paul Trimboli (Trimmers)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT SOUTH MELBOURNE? 
Happy people and the jumping castle, blue flags waving and saying "Go Blues"

WHAT DO YOU DISLIKE ABOUT SOUTH MELBOURNE? 
Fires are bad (Flares)

WOULD YOU EVER SUPPORT ANOTHER NSL TEAM? 
No

THANK YOU NICHOLAS FOR YOUR TIME! 

Dimness - Altona Magic 0 South Melbourne 3

Disclaimer
I was playing the part of one of South's designated supporter marshals during this fixture.

Prologue

Find a calm lake and wait for the twilight in silence! There, existence will visit you with all its magnificence! The existence of the Existence can best be felt in the presence of dimness and in the absence of crowds and noises!

 - Mehmet Murat Ildan

First Intermediate Period
Things started off dim at Paisley Park last night,

Very, very dark here at Paisley Park. #amvsm #FFACup pic.twitter.com/76ZDLkSsjS

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 20, 2016

then proceeded to get darker,

Now even darker! #amvsm #FFACup pic.twitter.com/CmcBB4ENIl

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 20, 2016

and all this before the game had even kicked off - a kick off which was delayed a few minutes because of the lights needing to be turned back on and get up to the maximum lux setting, or something like that. As I remarked to a one time contributor to the blog, it was a bit early for Δεύτε λάβετε φως for the mostly at least nominally Orthodox Christians in attendance.

Finally underway... but mostly Magic, not so much us.
Even with the lights on though, things would just continue to head down a murky path for the rest of the evening. For example, Kristian Konstantinidis was named in the starting line up,

Here's our squad for tonight's @FFACup game against @AltonaMagic pic.twitter.com/AtajrkfWJR

— South Melbourne FC (@smfc) April 20, 2016

but didn't seem to be on the field, replaced by Luke Adams. It seems that 'KK' may have injured himself during the warm-up, but we'll need official confirmation on that. Otherwise the lineup was reasonably strong - still mostly made up of players who had recently won championships and were part of the side that was top of the Victorian leagues - but one wondered whether the changes would both unsettle a side that had finally seemed to get in sync last Sunday against Oakleigh after several wonky weeks, but also would it be of sufficient quality to withstand the efforts of a very capable Altona Magic outfit.

The answers to those questions seemed to be 'yes', and 'not really', as South not only failed to mount any meaningful attacks during the first half, but were lucky not to be down by a couple of goals at half time. Magic, who were particularly keen on exploiting our right hand side, were undone by Nikola Roganovic on the hand and their own profligate finishing on the other. The only obvious solution for us seemed to be to make some changes and bring on some more of our A-Listers, but instead we persisted with the same lineup after the break, hoping they would come good.

And somewhat surprisingly, that's actually what happened. Chris Irwin, part of that problematic right hand side in the first half, came out a changed player, tormenting the Magic defence. It was he who burst through the lines to find himself one on one with the keeper, only to be fouled in the box and have his shot trickle wide. Confusion reigned for a minute or so, as clearly referee Lucien Laverdure had given a card to the Magic defender responsible for the foul, but had not given a signal for the penalty - had he paid the advantage instead? As it turned out, Laverdue did award the penalty, and then the lights went out again.

Second Intermediate Period
The crowd was pretty good for a Wednesday night, with most reasonable estimates ranging from 800-1000. Alongside Magic's usual supporters and their juniors, there was quite a healthy number of South fans, as well as a group of Preston fans - the 'Preston Makedonia' chants seemed to give that one away - though at least one person on the forums contended that Magic have their own active supporter crew, which makes a kind of sense insofar as that chanting group was standing behind a banner containing an Altona Magic logo.

Lively start dour finish at 1/2 time @smfc need to step up @AltonaMagic need 2 finish coach Taylor not happy #FFACup pic.twitter.com/T47C4REvHW

— Adam Russell (@adrussella3) April 20, 2016

Whoever they were and however they identified themselves, one hoped against history that they were there for the spectacle and the possibility of an upset and humiliation of a rival, and nothing more than that. Unfortunately one coward from that group couldn't help himself, coming up behind a cluster of South fans and throwing a lit flare into said cluster, hitting a young woman. She received medical attention - and I assume she is OK, but again, have no confirmation of that - and one felt that things were about to kick off. How could they not, considering the proximity of those Preston/active Altona fans to the travelling South contingent?

Somehow, despite the combination of the obvious anger of the South fans, the close proximity of the supporters to each other, the darkness and the empty spaces behind the hill, as well as the security force which seemed less than well prepared for such an incident, things didn't escalate beyond words. At least some of the credit for that has to go to those South fans who managed to keep their more aggrieved mates in check, as well as the Altona Magic marshals, who were unequivocal so far as I could tell in getting the relevant 'home' support group to move away from the South fans (even if not quite far enough for some tastes), as well as telling others to just go home.

There were reports that the flare thrower was identified, but as with many of the specifics of the incident, I have seen no official confirmation of that. A police car did arrive, but what exactly they ended up doing, I don't know. With regards to the collective identity of the group that the flare thrower came from, it was interesting in that Magic themselves put the following up on Twitter,

Sorry Altona Fans will never do that.
There are NOT Our Fans https://t.co/KYtU2uUNQX

— Altona Magic S.C (@AltonaMagic) April 20, 2016

as well as

I dont think so.........Preston chants during the match Altona dont chant. Nice try.
Disgraceful https://t.co/Ofa68GAb5V

— Altona Magic S.C (@AltonaMagic) April 20, 2016

It will be very interesting to see what comes out of this. One hopes of course that the flare thrower was identified, and will have the full force of the law come down upon them. It will be interesting to see also what punishment Magic will receive and how FFV will handle this. One interesting thing which occurred during the game in the online sphere - a sphere I did not have access to because of my marshalling duties - was the categorisation of the scenes as 'chaos at Paisley Park'. I think that tends to gild the lily somewhat - while there was much confusion due to both whether the game would get called off, as well as the aftermath of the flare incident, chaos did not break out as far as I'm concerned, even if the potential for it to do so was certainly there.

The game itself emerges out of stasis
The game resumed, with Marcus Schroen putting away the penalty in less than convincing fashion - but the important thing is that he did put it away, and now the game could be played on our terms. Magic had to push forward, and had a penalty shout called a dive, but when Milos Lujic bundled home a goal mouth scramble from a corner, we were pretty much there. When Magic's Bozinovski was sent off after receiving a second yellow card - Magic had received a free kick, and Schroen a yellow card himself for unnecessary shirtfront-esque attempt at protecting the ball, with Bozinovski than grabbing and throwing Schroen to the ground - our progress to the next round was official. Lujic's injury time tap in made the score look a lot more flattering it should have been.

In the end, because of both the way the team had performed in the first half, as well as the flare incident during the lights out period, one came out of this match as a South fan with relief at having progressed as well as not been part of a much larger and more violent incident. It was our first win at Paisley Park in since we beat Moorabbin in the Dockerty Cup in 1996, and our first win against Altona Magic at this venue since the 1993 Dockerty Cup, a record which sounds pretty until you remember that our only extended run of games there was from 2005-2010. One could have hoped for a more dull affair, but it's nice to also get that monkey off our backs.

Next game
Melbourne Victory youth team at Lakeside on Sunday. This game will be subject to changed security and seating conditions.

SMFC members and supporters will be required to enter Lakeside Stadium through the traditional Gate 2 entry point and base themselves in the traditional SMFC grandstand as normal. This includes all SMFC players (all ages) and parents, as well as FFV and FFA accredited pass holders. 

Melbourne Victory (NPL) supporters will enter through the Gate 1 entry point and be based in the opposite grandstand. 

All patrons are reminded that any anti-social behaviour contravening the Football Federation Victoria (FFV) and South Melbourne FC Code of Conduct will not be tolerated. There are several CCTV security cameras operating in and around Lakeside Stadium that will be used to identify anyone engaging in anti-social behaviour. 

With a large crowd expected, SMFC is working closely with Melbourne Victory, FFV, Blue Thunder Security, the State Sports Centre Trust and Victoria Police to ensure a great afternoon for everyone at Lakeside Stadium on Sunday afternoon. 

Sunday’s main match kicks off at 5pm, with our Under 20s match commencing at 2.30pm. SMFC will also be honouring the memory of the ANZACS in a short ceremony prior to the main game commencing.

Around the grounds
Science of the Cup
Of the three FFA Cup options available on Tuesday night, I decided to take a punt, or perhaps just chose the closest option to my place and headed to Somers Street for Avondale Heights vs South Springvale Aris. Things did not begin well:

Ground announcer absolutely butchering the Greek names in the @southspringvale line up. #afcvss #FFACup

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 19, 2016

But to the ground announcer's credit, he was at least an equal opportunity butcher.

Not doing much better with the @AvondaleHSC84 team list. Time for FFA to step in and #NCIP the names of players #FFACup #afcvss

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 19, 2016

But then Avondale proceeded to throw away any sympathy by doing this:

Creed for intro music makes things worse.

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 19, 2016

Now South Springvale had a reputation of getting above their station in this competition in recent years, so one hoped perhaps that lightning could strike yet again. This was not to be the case, as they were outclassed from the start. Yes, some Aris players had some nice close control, but when it came time to actually control possession, the best they could usually do was three or four passes before bombing it long to an isolated forward. Avondale were getting frustrated with their inability to open the scoring, but eventually broke through seconds before half time and as far as I was concerned, they may as well as have ended the game there. The goals piled on in the second half, but to their credit Aris kept pushing on and managed to get one goal back from the penalty spot, but one goal is fewer than five, and we ain't using no golf handicap system here. Overall, I felt a bit annoyed that I'd bothered to get dressed for this.

Final thought

As one of the South Melbourne players just said..."let's switch on like the lights" #FFACup #MagicOfTheCup

— Les Street (@official_lesdog) April 20, 2016

Run of the mill - South Melbourne 4 Oakleigh Cannons 1

Meanwhile, our women were away at Ballarat Eureka Strikers.

The most interesting thing about this game was how little enmity there was shown towards Oakleigh by the home crowd. Historical small-fry they may be in the greater context of Australian soccer history, but over the past decade there has been at least some (and often much) feeling, and a genuine sense of rivalry between us. Now, even with certain infamous characters like Steven Topalovic and especially former coach Gus Tsolakis making returns to Lakeside, there wasn't really anything resembling the antipathy that I'd expected. Yes, there was the odd comment, but not nearly the level of abuse one had become accustomed to in games between these two sides - hell, not even close to the level of abuse Gus copped when he was coaching us back in 2012 and 2013! The win felt like just another solid win against a midrange opponent, which in its own way is a relief - not every game needs last ditch heroics in order to be classed a success.

There were a couple of changes for this game, but we'll only know for sure at the end of this week if they were due to form, tactics or this week's crowded match schedule. Tim Mala was on the bench, Marcus Schroen was out of the squad altogether, while captain Michael Eagar made his first start for a few weeks and Leigh Minopoulos got a now rare starting role. It was great to see Minopoulos get an extended run, and score two goals for his troubles as well. The first, a looping header from a corner served to settle the nerves after Oakleigh had pulled it back to 2-1, while his second was classic goal poaching, cleaning up the crumbs to seal the deal. Overall, that right hand side of the field, with Kristian Konstantinidis slotting in at right back, looked to be at its most dangerous for a long time.

Meanwhile on the left hand side, far less endearing was the attitude of the People's Champ, who put in one of his more petulant performances for some time, after a period of what one could call 'lesser' petulance. One has come to expect his tendency for dropping his head at the slightest whiff of misfortune, even his unwillingness to feign interest in tracking back; but his refusal to pass the ball to players in much better positions than himself, instead opting for yet another attempt at replicating his famous goal in the cup against the Melbourne Knights from last year, reached new heights of absurdity yesterday - and that criticism is made because we all know that it doesn't have to be this way, and can't be this way if he wants to fulfil his dream of playing in a better league, in front of more people and making more money than he does now.

Before we move on, it is time to bust the myth of the magic of 'that' goal. This does not mean that the goal was not good. It does not mean that the goal was not important. It does not mean that the goal was not memorable, emotional, or whatever other epithet you want to attach to it. But the goal was not as good as people like to remember, and certainly not the way the People's Champ seems to remember it in his quest to make it happen again. Here is the angle that must be focused on, to be watched with the sound off, taking away the roar of the crowd. He thinks he is being skillful, but all he does is hit the ball straight, and fortunately for all concerned, has the ball hit the post and go in. There is no curve on the ball, no dip, no sign that this was the shot of a player whose skill sets him well apart from the rest of this league. The slightest breeze blowing towards the main grandstand that night and the ball would have gone out for a goal kick.

South's women managed to come away with another win, this time 4-2.

It was actually good that he didn't score from one of his myriad low percentage shots yesterday, because had he scored it would have justified his effort and intent. Meanwhile, in yesterday's game and nearly every other game the People's Champ is involved in, Brad Norton slogged his way up and down the wing, trying to bring other players into the game and then having to run back to make sure his left back position is covered because the People's Champ is above such concerns as tracking back and covering for a teammate. Despite his excellent run of form in the second half of 2015, next to no one is under any illusions about Brad Norton being a superstar meant for better things than the state comps, but no one can fault his attitude and desire to put the good of the team above his own individual glory.

For their part, Oakleigh have some capable players, but other than a couple of short bursts of attacking football, they performed poorly. Considering the fact that they have knocked off some of the better teams in the league this season, including reigning champs Bentleigh, one expected something a bit better than what they dished up yesterday. Going forward they were not so bad, but defensively they were very suspect. Some better decision making from our part, and even some better shooting in those dangerous positions we found ourselves in, could've seen the score blow out even more. Then again, scoring first and scoring early tends to make things easier for yourself. Philzgerald Mbaka even got a run, giving us a taste of the kind of player he is, albeit against defeated and demoralised opposition. Mbaka seems to have no gears, no sprinting power, gliding at a single pace across the field - but he looks calm on the ball, and his distribution was by and large first rate. With a bit of luck he may have even managed to snag a goal, too, late on in the piece.

Overall, South's performance was heartening and enjoyable, albeit soured by Chris Taylor's dismissal from the technical area. What appeared to all and sundry - except the referee, and the linesman who was right on the spot - to be a blatant handball in the box by an Oakleigh player, saw Taylor's complaints escalate to the point where he was sent to the stands. One can harp on about the severity of the punishment in comparison to how other referees and coaches behave (see this week's 'around the grounds' segment), but in these situations it's entirely up to each referee to make up their own minds on the matter, with coaches either having to play it by ear and take the risk of being sent away, or learning to just behave themselves at all times. The latter is perhaps easier said than done when your sporting livelihood depends mostly on the players on the field and the decisions of the officials.

Taylor's dismissal saw him go towards the food truck for a feed. The question that remains unanswered at this point, other than how many games he will miss, is did he ask his senior football adviser about whether to go for the kransky or the souv? That's maybe a question best left for the next AGM, at this stage provisionally scheduled for sometime during the year 3918.

Next game
Away to Altona Magic on Wednesday night for FFA Cup.

Social club news
Prior to the match I was shown a photo of a person or persons allegedly taking measurements inside the social club. The photo was on a camera phone, and it was difficult to make out the details because of sun glare, but it was good to see that something was perhaps maybe happening, sorta.

Fine, not fine
Meanwhile, the brains trust at South attempted to appeal the fine levied on the club following the flare lit by someone - as yet unidentified - in amid the area occupied by Clarendon Corner at the Veneto Club. It did not go well. The FFV's tribunal system, working as it does in these matters in the manner of the inquisitorial judicial system - that is, guilty until you prove yourself innocent - saw us pushing what was perhaps a legally and morally sound argument, but not one that was likely to work in these circumstances.

The arguments that a) how do you know it was a South fan who lit the flare? b) what good does it do and how can it possibly be fair to the club if an individual decides to go rogue by launching a flare? c) where is the responsibility of the venue manager and security in all this? and d) seeing as how South's management does not approve of flares and has form in notifying the FFV of people who have lit flares at Lakeside, what more could they be expected to do?, are all very good and sensible lines of argument, but doomed to fail nevertheless.

What is concerning about this is the possibility being put up that if it happens again with the culprit not being identified, we could be in line to be docked points. So let's look at a possible scenario which may occur this week. We rock up to Paisley Park for a night game. Entry to the ground is mostly done via driving into the ground, meaning that bags and persons can't be checked. South scores a goal, and in amid the chaos of a post-goal celebration and the gloom of a night game someone rips a flare - security doesn't see who ripped it, perhaps no one sees it, and all of a sudden we're in the situation where someone's random act of stupidity, an act not even tacitly condoned by the club, sees us in line for punishments beyond the $1,500 levied per flare lit.

This is not even just a South problem, because at least at Lakeside we have security cameras and such to act as a dissuading device against such behaviour, which takes care of the issue on the half of the season that we can kinda control. For the rest, the older heads in Clarendon Corner can and have repeated the message to the younger fans that stand in that area on a regular basis that for the sake of the club, flares are not on. But pity those clubs who don't have even security theatre levels of prevention at their disposal, and have a collection of new fans, randoms or whoever, who are determined to do something stupid.

Dredging up the past
A friend is working on an Australian soccer project of sorts, the results of which we'll hopefully see towards the end of 2016 or maybe early 2017. To that end, this friend asked me to go through my blog's unwieldy archives (I've even reinstalled the calendar gadget on the right hand side of the blog) and find posts relevant to that project. I have previously on occasion gone back and re-read some of the old material (over 1800 posts now, including guest contributions), but never on a scale quite as large as this. All I can say is, that while I still like some individual pieces, one has to give credit to those who visited and stuck with South of the Border in the first four or so years. I hope that the quality has improved enough to warrant the loyalty of those readers.

International Year of the Fence

The safest way to watch Australian soccer - several hundred yards away, with an obstructed view. #PS4NPLVIC pic.twitter.com/o2lZUfYpDa

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 15, 2016

Around the grounds
立って, 座って
Another Friday night, and another chance to get out of the house and watch some soccer. I had thought about going to Port Melbourne vs Northcote, but changed my mind when halfway to Flinders Street and decided to go to Richmond vs Green Gully instead. Richmond may not have the most luxurious spectator facilities, but what it does have is two benches and technical areas which are very close to each other, and also very close to the perimeter fence. For people like me, who like to watch neutral games from those kinds of spots, with a chance to observe coaches in action, there's no better place to a watch a game from - even if a scoreboard or marshal or fourth official can obscure views at times. This decision paid off even as early as the under 20s match, with a priceless reaction from the Gully coach to one of his players being violently fouled.

Could've sworn the Gully under 20s coach just said 'that's some Plymouth Argyle shit'. #PS4NPLVIC

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 15, 2016

And that was after the linesman on that side had attempted to clam him down using his smooth English (South London?) accent. To that end, it was good also to catch up with Green Gully senior coach Arthur Papas, that half-forgotten wunderkind of Australian soccer coaching, for an all too brief chat before the game. The match itself was a high energy affair of at best middling quality, scrappy and hard fought. Richmond, despite having some capable players, lack any sense of structure and rely too much on winning 50/50 balls and one on one battles. That's great when you win those battles. but less good if you only break even, or indeed lose the overall count. Richmond had the lead, but a Green Gully side without main marksman Liam Boland, managed to somehow get in front, and stoutly defended Richmond's mostly feeble attempts to find an equaliser. George Katsakis (or one of his clones), would have learned much I think from this match when his side plays Richmond next week.

The fourth official and the linesman on the far side of the field were kept busy all night by a shortage of seating on Green Gully's side of the benches seeing far too many people standing up. Some of the excuses used to justify included not being given enough seats for everyone on that side compared to Richmond and Arthur Papar not being able to crouch because of his bad knees. Of course the Gully crew weren't afraid to point out that Richmond, too, also had too many people standing up. Admittedly, it was hard to hear them over the protestations of Richmond's technical director Micky Petersen, as he was haranguing the officials on that side and generally making a nuisance of himself.

Final thought
Which local football food critic was taken to task by a Bulleen official, for his giving of a low score to Bulleen earlier this year on his radio segment? If someone offers you an eclair that looks too good to be true, please don't eat it!

The Great Catastrophe - Hume City 1 South Melbourne 2

It may be a bit rich for me to point this out, what with having a solid stretch of documented negativity to fall back on, but for some South supporters it appears that the greatest tragedy to emerge from this game was that we had, in fact, won.

Apparently this was an appalling outcome, which will only serve to further mask the fact that we are comparatively out of form, playing disjointed, wonky football going both forward and back. As if the coaching staff are oblivious to this.

Still, the naysayers do have a kind of point. After the debacle of the second half against Richmond, Chris Taylor promised lots of changes. However in a classic example of misdirection, this meant only one change, but what a change - the man omitted from the entire match day squad was none other than captain Michael Eagar, replaced by Kristian Konstantinidis.

Now Eagar hasn't been in the greatest of form recently, but this was still a huge move. Luckily for all concerned, Konstantinidis had a very good match, and will be a hard luck story if he is dropped for the next match. There is talk, too, that Luke Adams is in line for another extended tour with New Zealand (not sure which squad, nor for what purpose they're reputedly touring), so Eagar shouldn't be on the outer for too long.

Old mate Rama's second yellow card got tongues wagging. Was it deserved? Did it, in the end, lead to South winning a game they wouldn't have otherwise won? Did his send off, in the end, actually make South's performance look even less impressive?

For whatever it's worth, I think there was a yellow card in it. It wasn't that it was a malicious tackle, or that he was 'the last man' (a rule which does not even exist). It was purely situational. Milos Lujic is about to get past Rama, gets clipped (or not, but since the foul has been pulled up, that's what has to be dealt with in that moment), what other choice do the officials have at their disposal?

Anyway, the send off and free kick lead directly to our first goal. There are goals which glisten with style, and there are goals which very clearly don't. The old adage still applies though, that they all count the same. So Matthew Millar's header, looping high but straight at Chris Oldfield, somehow slips through the gap between Oldfield's hands and the crossbar.

Some of those who have seen the replay have said that it spun in, which whether true or not seems like a ludicrous concept, but whatever, it went in, we behind the goals went wild, and South went into halftime 1-0 up. All this after we had faced a ten minute period where we could barely exit our own half, and where those shots we did have often ended up missing by distances inconceivable.

The second half from us, I thought, was much better, and while it took an atypical Shane Rexhepi mistake to help put Millar in space for his well taken second goal, at least we managed to make the most of an opposition mistake. In Ken Bray's fairly meh and now long out of date book How To Score, Bray makes the point that most goals are scored not from elaborate build ups from the back, but from turnovers caused by the attacking team close to the goal they're attacking.

Since much of last week's disaster was due to a complete lack of pressure on Richmond's defence, should we not then celebrate this statistically minor (albeit statistically appropriate and consistent) incident? Of course not, because while the supporters behind the relevant goal end decided to once again celebrate prematurely - including by watching the replay of the goal on MFootball's live stream, which was delayed by a minute and a half or so - Hume worked their way back into the game, and pulled a goal back.

This caused a lot of angst everywhere. The supporters lost heart, but the South players, too, seemed to lose whatever confidence they had built up during this match. So instead of finishing strong, we ended up trying to scurry towards the corners, and what should have felt like a solid performance ends up looking and feeling a lot shakier and inconclusive than perhaps we would all have liked.

Still, while we can focus on how badly we supposedly played and how out of form we may or may not be, it's easy to overrate the opposition as well. Not that Hume are a bad side by any means, but Oldfield's blunder looks even worse on replay, and Rexhepi's poor touch which lead directly to our second goal was an absoluter shocker. It makes one think of some of the comments they'd cop if they made those mistakes playing for us. It's worth recalling last week's ponderings on the players at this level being here for a reason - and that goes for South Melbourne and opposition players alike.

So seeing as how we started this post with a misplaced sense of tragedy, it seems only fitting that we end it with the real tragedy that occurred on Saturday night.

Matthew Millar just ruined my Typical Taylor 1-0 Result headline. @smfc 2-0 up. #hcvsm #PS4NPLVIC

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 2, 2016

Great, another week of people arguing in the comments section about a 1-0 result that didn't happen.

Next game
At home, against Bentleigh.

Broadmeadows, it's a hell of a town. Or maybe Westmeadows. Whichever one the game was played at. Plus Coolaroo.
There was the game which included a rolling maul which ended up in the car park. The game were Gianni De Nittis scored four goals. The game where Ljubo and Jesse got sent off on a day where Hume thought it was a good idea to celebrate the glory of Ataturk.

Suffice to say you go to a game at whatever they're calling this stadium these days, and interesting things are a good chance of happening. But interesting doesn't mean good. So, they started with music blaring so loud that it made one pine for the awfulness of the Lakeside pre-match music. They played the chicken dance. They played the hokey-pokey. They even stooped so low as to play the Macarena.

So yeah, that sucked. But they also had a drumming group of sorts, with their own section of the grandstand. Which OK, it's great that other clubs that previously had no active support of any kind are making an effort to get stuff going (and people attract people), but it was also bloody irritating. Irritating because they weren't drumming in syncopation, which apart from being incredibly off-putting aesthetically, made it much harder for those few of Clarendon Corner who made the trip to be able to piggyback off the beat for their own chants.

A flare lights up the area occupied by Hume's newly
 formed active support area. Photo: David Alter.

Most surprising though was that section of the Hume support lighting two flares. Apart from being $1500 a pop - in this case the equivalent of 200 full adult tickets - you wonder if in future Hume's management will be so pleased to allocate that space to these fans. This is more the case if in fact FFV are planning to be even stricter with their punishments, with some suggestion that a second offence (where on the first instance the persons responsible were not identified) that points deductions could come into play. It's weird seeing flares at consecutive league matches now - we went through so many years where even one being lit was something rare.

And then there's the nearest train station. Coolaroo is a monolithic monstrosity; a mountain of steel and concrete rising out of the surrounding flatness, that would defy any attempt at being rendered majestic or noble by even the best attempts at urban poetry. But on a Saturday night, with the next train to the city still 25 minutes away, at least you've got time to think, with no distractions.

Basking in a barren and eerie post-victory glow at Coolaroo station. #hcvsm #PS4NPLVIC pic.twitter.com/2zgH39hO6y

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 2, 2016 

Jersey night this week
I don't know if you can still book tickets for this, but I put mine and Gains' names down for this, and we seem to have been accepted. $70 for tickets, it's on this Friday night at (sigh) Beachcomber. Is $70 too much for an annual sit down, three course meal with plenty if complaining? Of course not.

FFA Cup news
We have been drawn against Altona Magic for the next round. We are the designated away team, and as Paisley Park has lights, I assume we will be playing this fixture at Paisley Park. The next round is scheduled to be played over the last two weeks of April. More info as it arrives. While Altona Magic is one of the stronger teams in state league 1 - and have recruited accordingly, including Marinos Gasparis, and as our mate Johnny has noted, also Daniel Vasilevski, Jonathan Munoz, James Stefanou and Benji Vahid - it's another ex-South Melbourne reunion, which as we saw against Richmond, doesn't always work out for us. Still, this is one of the better outcomes we could have hoped for.

International Year of the Fence
Segment on temporary hiatus because frankly, this is such a stupid segment. Also, I forgot to take a photo of Hume's fence.

Match programmes
Uploaded the recent Richmond effort. Have a whole stack of non-South fans, but need to get cracking on developing the match programme/library website project.

Some brief thoughts on the passing of Bob Ellis
The other day, after the comedian Ronnie Corbett had passed away, one of my Twitter compadres compared my work here to Corbett's monologues, a description intended as praise, no doubt, but one which left me shrugging my shoulders - Corbett was before my time, and so there wasn't much I could add to the discussion.

But then Bob Ellis (finally) died, and I have to say I was saddened by that. Not because I had known Ellis, let alone read more than a couple of the things he'd ever written - I read his First abolish the customer: 202 arguments against economic rationalism, probably over a decade ago now, and raced through the brief The Ellis Laws, which contained short bursts of his typically incendiary forms of wisdom and some stabs at common sense (keeping in mind Friedrich Engels' maxim that common sense is the worst sort of metaphysics) which while sometimes bland or obvious, at least made one think and react. In a personal review of this book and its 'laws', I noted that:

The best one of the lot is clearly the one that talks about the internet being the chief cause of a worldwide lack of sleep, and subsequent unhappiness. The internet never sleeps, but you, a human being, do. So go to bed, and wake up refreshed. If the world has ended during the time you've been asleep, well, it probably wasn't you who would have prevented it from happening.

The kind of advice that many of us could do with. Despite having not read or taken an interest in much of what Ellis has written over the years, there was a time in my life when I had just started taking an interest in alternative radio, and would fairly religiously listen to Tony Biggs' programme On The Blower. Biggs' taste in music can be wayward, his opinions dogmatic and even smug, and those of his callers in the talk-back segment even more so.

But during my early days of listening to On The Blower, during the worst of the Howard years, there was a space for Bob Ellis to provide a spiel. For a few minutes each week (or was it each fortnight?) Ellis would pour forth simultaneously rough and elegant elegiac ramblings on the state of the nation. And however bad the progressives of Australia felt at the time, there was always that relief that a) someone could express those feelings of despair with Ellis' ragged elegance and b) that as bad as you felt about the situation, Ellis felt much, much worse. There were times during these weekly reports from the front where Ellis could barely muster the enthusiasm to provide anything to the show, such were the depths of his progressive despair. But even these moments were compelling listening.

As a novice writer back then, and still as a somewhat insecure writer, I would wonder where I fit, and who was worth imitating. Some years after I had started this blog, it occurred to me that, even though I'd read so little of his work, the style of those weekly sermons on 3RRR, and especially their tone of lament for a seemingly lost cause had seeped through, sometimes in the form of entire pieces, but more often as a general sense of feeling.

It's fair to say that that sort of lament, while nourishing in its own way at the appropriate times, can quickly turn into nasty self-satisfaction - and thus you need wit and charm and all the other things that hopefully make people come back to read your work. It's probably for the best that I've seldom ever tried to mimic Ellis' attempts at gratuitous factual libel.

I don't intend this sort of obituary to be about politics, because people like Ellis are involved at far deeper levels than most of us ever will be, and I am aware that my own mishmash of re-heated, hand me down politics and ideals is not to everyone's taste - and that's not why people visit this blog, anyway. But sometimes I like to indulge and talk about the writing process and how voices are developed over the years, and where style may come from.

Final thought
Here's to good sports.