Notes from the 2017 AGM

The 2017 AGM was destined to be dominated by the linked issues of the social club/bistro/futsal court operation, the club's overall commercial strategy, and the club's finances, and this is what happened. Other issues - membership value, the quality of the team, even perhaps the ongoing issues with the operation of the various Lakeside leases - fell into the background, or did not get any time at all.

The timing and organisation of the event - midweek, 6:00PM, and moved from the social club to presidents room at short notice - was not just "not ideal"; it was breathtakingly poor behaviour for a club owned by its members. I do not understand why the club cannot hold an AGM by late November of the relevant year, on a weekend, and at a reasonable hour so we don't have to rush through everything. That's not an argument by the way for AGMs to go on forever, but the relatively limited time allocated and the tendency of some of our AGMs to descend into shouting matches means that some of the more important and particular issues I would have liked to have seen discussed did not happen.

Having an AGM seven months after the end of a financial year also means that the information provided in financial statements is also woefully out of date. Questions and presentations about the club's financial performance frequently consisted of two parts - the information as it was presented in the financial report, and if not quite "top of the head" answers then at least answers requiring a board member to recall from memory and do mental arithmetic to discuss our current financial position.

I don't know what our quorum is either, but at the start of the meeting it was dangerously close to not being met. A few later arrivals trickled in during the meeting, but it was one of the poorest attendances for many years. Considering last year's attendance was a bumper session - all seats taken up and about a dozen people standing at the back - I can only think that the timing of the meeting, along with the higher price of a social club membership, took its toll on attendance. Most board members were in attendance, except for Bill Papastergiadis (in China) and Nick Maikoussis (personal engagement).

As I've also made clear a number of times over the years, for better or worse, unless a rival ticket emerges to challenge this continually mutating iteration of the South Melbourne Hellas board, we continue to function as a club at its mercy. That doesn't mean we should go easy on the board or adopt a strident and self-serving cynicism (the latter of which is a habit I'm all too aware that I can fall into), but we can't pretend that the situation is any other way.

Finances
For this year at least, I'm finding it difficult to separate these issue of the financial position of the club from the futsal court and bistro; indeed, it will probably be impossible to ever separate them again, since the social club is now at the heart of our hopes for future prosperity, unless we somehow end up in the A-League.

The club recorded a small profit (about $17,000) from normal activities, and a much larger profit due to abnormal activity - namely, receiving the remainder of the allocated government grant money for the completion of the social club. To complete the social club however, the club also borrowed close to $700,000 (in various arrangements which I did not completely understand), which brought the total cost of the project close to the $1.5 million mark.

Here is where the majority of the AGM's controversy began. Some members bemoaned what they considered to be excessive borrowing, especially considering we had just managed to pay off our previous outstanding debts (specifically the Toumbourou debt, but also the cash flow issues of mid 2017). The club's argument went something like this - you need to spend money in order to make money, and the extra spending on the completion of the social club was both necessary, and added value to the project.

The club also stated that because of the donation of labour and materials, the overall value of the project was twice what it cost us to build, though I do not believe any formal valuation of the work has been made. The main loan has been guaranteed by three of the club's directors, and the club aims to pay it off in three years time (four years overall). Removing the cloud of pre-existing biases and personal grudges that flavoured the discussion, the main point of difference in the discussion seemed to be one of emphasis. Either this was reckless behaviour by the club, or it was necessary to properly finish off the social club space.

Honestly, I'm not confident enough or knowledgeable to take a stand either way. That's not me trying to hedge my bets - I honestly don't know how all this will turn out.

Bistro
The club characterised the operation of the bistro in its first year as a learning experience. I'd be somewhat less charitable about that, but it's best to move on to some of the specifics. The club decided (by its own admission, without any sign of an obvious plan) to run a full-time restaurant operation, believing that foot traffic from the local area, along with patronage from South Melbourne Hellas members outside match days, would magically happen.

As I have noted elsewhere, one could easily see how this approach was doomed to fail. For starters, compared to Clarendon Street and its surrounds - with its many and varied dining options - the South Melbourne social club will never be a pop-in option for people. Most locals would not know that it exists, and considering that the club or whoever was responsible for promoting it conducted minimal advertising for the social club even to South members and social media followers, how were people outside the club supposed to find the space?

Likewise, most of our members do not live near anywhere Lakeside, making visits to the social club outside match days and club events extremely unlikely. That the club thought it would be otherwise shows an incredible amount of naivety or pigheadedness. Nevertheless, the club has attempted to spin this attempt at a full-time bistro operation as a worthy experiment which did not quite work, but which has at least yielded a certain amount of quantifiable data, consisting not only of sales, but also of consumer habits.

The more successful bistro trading days were specific club nights - especially during the junior season, including gala days - and early on in the social club's life, bolstered no doubt by the keenness of South fans to actually experience a home social club again. The club has decided therefore that "events" is where it's at for the social club, both South Melbourne oriented events and cases where we can hire the bistro space out to outside groups.

It was explained that the leaving of the previous venue manager was essentially by mutual agreement, because the goals of the two sides were no longer compatible. The club will run the bistro for the time being, with the option of outsourcing the bistro to an outside party an option which the club will consider, now that it has some understanding of how the social club space works, and what kind of turnover it can achieve.

Futsal court
The futsal court suffered from similar issues to the bistro - lack of awareness, advertising, foot traffic - as well as some different issues. The club had been made an offer by an outside entity to run the futsal court, which was declined for similar reasons (and on similar grounds of research and planning).

The club's best days for the futsal court were Wednesdays where they had a competition running, and on Saturdays, where the club ran a junior comp involving several different club sides. Outside out of that however, apart from the occasional hiring out of the futsal court to outside parties, the primary usage of the court was by our juniors as part of their training schedule.

Our juniors using the court is obviously one of the reasons the court was built, and it's good that they use it on a regular basis. However as noted by some in the meeting (and previous meetings) the court takes up a very large amount of space, and needs to work hard to earn its own keep. There is still potential for the court's operation to at least be partly outsourced outside of the hours it's used our juniors, but I fancy this will be of limited appeal to an outside operator.

No mention was made of the maintenance costs for the futsal court.

State Sport Centres Trust
The club claims the relationship between itself and the SSCT is reasonably good at the moment. Of course we all know that can change at an instant and under the slightest bit of duress.

More importantly, the club has renegotiated parts of its agreement with the Trust over the costs of ground hire and renumeration. Rather than the previous crowd percentage based payment made to the Trust, the club has moved to a fixed fee payment for use of Lakeside on match days. There was also a similar agreement made in the event that we ever played in the A-League.

As noted last year, the club has also negotiated to take over food and drink service outside the social club area on South Melbourne match days, and on days where parties hiring the venue for soccer (such as FFV) are amenable to us providing the food services.

In order to do this, the club has given up some of the monthly stipend it receives from the government as part of our tenure at Lakeside. Whether this will be a worthwhile move in the short term remains to be seen. In the medium to long term, the stipend will eventually end, and thus getting on the front foot on this matter seems like a good idea.

Cost-cutting
Among the cost-cutting measures there were two which stood out to me. First was staffing, some of which has been explained in previous posts in passing. This is mostly based around office and social club staffing. A number of staffing re-arrangements have been made. In the office, a sponsor liaison has been hired, while media and events positions have been ended or downgraded. There was no word on whether there were outstanding wages or superannuation due to former and current employees.

Likewise, as the club has moved away from the full-time restaurant model for the bistro, the staffing situation there has changed to I guess what would be best termed as an 'at needs' basis, and there are no plans to hire a full-time venue manager as a replacement for Phil. What this means in terms of the extra match days (the South women's NPL fixture is now completely separate from the men's match days), volunteers/interns, etc, I do not know.

The second cost saving measure was the switch from Puma to Kappa, which is set to save us about $40,000 across all of our teams. No comment on whether merchandise for the fans will arrive on time for our first home game. Each year our merchandise and kit deals get touted as something quite special and full of promise, and each year regardless of whose fault it is, it doesn't seem to work out that way. This is one area where it always comes down to praxis over theory.

Football
As far as the senior men's team goes, there is one bit of news that will please many of us - the Spanish experiment is over! There seems to have been a belated realisation of the difficulty of getting a Spanish player that is fit, has enough English to communicate properly, and can adapt culturally to Australian soccer. To that end, a question was cast over whether utilising visa spots at an NPL level was even worthwhile, with the answer being that unless it was someone of the calibre of Jaime Reed, it may perhaps be a waste of time.

It's implied every year that we (fans and board) want more of our own juniors getting a senior gig, but this year that desire seemed a little bit more sincere from the board's point of view. It was noted that while the club would've liked to have promoted more of its own youth, the quality wasn't there in previous years. This year though? Players that have been under this junior system for five or so years were on the cusp of making a breakthrough, or so we're told. The proof is always in the pudding on that one though.

Confirmation that Tim Mala had retired (whether for this year only, or permanently, it was not said), and that Jesse Daley has also left us to go back to Queensland. No definitive statements made about new players signed, though the club was confident of soon securing the services of several of the players trialling with us. (and Neos Kosmos did have an article yesterday about goalkeeper Alistair Bray signing with us)

Gabrielle Giuliano made a brief presentation on the women's teams (NPL and state league) and the success they had in 2017. When questioned about "how much money was wasted on the women's team?", she replied "not as much as the men's", which defused the question but also brought a good measure of laughter to the room.

I asked whether it was true that senior men's team manager Frank Piccione had stepped down/retired, and this was confirmed by Mesourouni. I would personally like to wish Frank all the best, and hope to see him around the club in some capacity, as he's one of the nicest and funniest blokes around the club.

The club continues to make attempts to break into the schools market, offering the services of its coaches (for a fee of course) and hoping to gain the use of some of the participating schools' grounds in return (especially for our times away from Lakeside). One member was angry that the club (according to him) had not made any attempt to get any Greek schools on board for these programs, to which the answer was that those Greek schools approached did not want to pay (or could not afford) the cost of the service being offered; there was disputation on whether any Greek secondary schools had been approached at all.

Playing facilities (outdoor)
The question about access to Lakeside was asked, and why we were again away for so many games to start the season. The answer for this season's predicament provides an interesting example of the complications we have to deal with. As the start of the soccer season starts outside our priority period at Lakeside, as well as coinciding with athletics' major events and the grand prix, this year we worked with the relevant parties at Lakeside to book in the week of February 18th for our first home game.

Unfortunately, FFV decided this year to push the start of the NPL season back a week; and thus with athletics having their major events at the end of February and early March, the necessity of pitch repairs following that, then the grand prix - and then Orthodox Easter - it was almost impossible to hold a game early in the season. No one denies that this is far from an ideal situation on so many fronts, but it seems that there's little that can be done. The women's team is effected in pretty much the same way. (it will be interesting to see how the ground holds up under the weight over senior and reserves men on consecutive days as the season develops).

The club is hopeful of at least having a better situation in terms of its temporary training options this year, but opinions on this will differ. Players and coaches have in the past been quite open with their dissatisfaction with the alternative training grounds provided for them. At least this season, thanks to the World Cup, we are unlikely to see a midyear disruption to our access of Lakeside due to the arrival of any touring teams.

In better news, our allocated turf grounds in Albert Park are apparently in the best condition they've been in for a long time, now that they have proper drainage. Here's hoping that they manage to survive through the season in decent shape. It was also noted that the lights for those grounds are among the worst in the precinct. I'm not sure what action was going to be taken to improve that situation.

I asked the question about how the club was dealing with the Albert Park Master Plan, but I was not satisfied with the answer given, which I found to be vague at best. As one of the biggest clubs (if not the biggest) in the Albert Park precinct, there's a chance here not only for improved grounds, but also perhaps more grounds, should the golf course be reduced from 18 to 9 holes.

A-League bid
The A-League bid is stalled for the time being because of the mess that is FFA, FIFA, and the matter of the National Congress. On this matter, the club remains confident that it can snare one of the expansion places in part due to the belief that:

• Melbourne and Sydney are the most desirable commercial options for expansion.
• the board do not believe that Brisbane will receive a second team.
• the board do not believe that the Victorian Government will invest in building new stadiums for Dandenong and Geelong, preferring to work with and/or improving Lakeside.

In the matter of the Roberto Carlos gala night, it was confirmed that the event did lose money, but it was claimed that the exercise was nevertheless extremely worthwhile. The loss was covered by three of our board members of their own volition; whether this was decided before or after the event lost money, it was not made clear.

Second division
As usual, it's a matter of wait and see. The club says that while it is a keen participant and observer in the AAFC and second division processes, it is not necessarily at the forefront or aiming to be the public face of these things. The club also played down the expectation that we were likely to see at first a second with promotion/relegation to the top tier, but instead were initially likely to see a truly national second tier connected to the state leagues. Wait and see, as per usual.

Closing comments
You have to expect that any South Melbourne Hellas AGM can lose time in personality clashes, statements instead of questions, and argumentative periods. Still, it is what is for lack of a better cliché. I don't know if the club's on the right track or not, and I don't even want to kid myself that I'm qualified to make a judgement either way.

Thanks to whoever the anonymous poster was who left all the questions in the comments. I'd done zero preparation for this AGM, thinking to maybe type up a quick list on the day of the AGM, but it was easier to just copy, paste and print what you'd provided. Funny how a great deal of the questions seemed to coincide with what the board covered, though not everything got covered. Where was the mention of Skip Fulton joining the board? Oh well.

Anonymous' question regarding the "South in Business'\" coterie unfortunately didn't get a run, and the board did not bring this up. This was particularly disappointing in light of that I didn't get to ask (in the meeting; I did get to have a very brief chat later) about what if any efforts the club had made to make use of the Australian Sports Foundation. Soccer does very poorly when it comes to making use of the ASF, and while FFV has made some attempts in recent times to get its clubs to get on board that programme, it's disappointing that South is apparently not one of those clubs.

There was also an absence of membership questions, discussion about how to make Lakeside (the arena area and the social club) feel more like home. The lesson from that is (and one which I have neglected) that in future if one wants to have a topic covered, they better submit it for general business in writing in the weeks leading up to the meeting after the AGM is announced.

I'll try and do better next time around.

If I've forgotten anything, or if you were there and wish to prompt me about something, feel free to add your two cents in the comments.

Thrilling artefact Wednesday - South Thrills! sticker

As with the Selangor FA pennant artefact, this photo I believe is from team manager Frank Piccione's dungeon under our grandstand - and if it isn't, then I have no idea where I got this photo from, which I assume I took. Just in case you can't figure out the text covered by the glare, the whole text reads 'DON'T FOOL YOURSELF SOUTH THRILLS!', which I imagine is a play on words on the the Transport Accident Commission 'Don't fool yourself, speed kills' safety campaign. Don't recall the year this sticker came out, though the four stars on the logo provides some clue.

Mehmet artefact Wednesday - Selangor FA pennant

Oh, so many fond memories of Selangor's tour of late 2013. I suppose it all started before they'd even thought of touring, when former South Melbourne Hellas championship player Mehmet Durakovic quit his post as South Melbourne FC director of football or technical director or whatever it was that he was doing with us, and took up the gaffer's job at Selangor, where he played in the 1990s. Then news filtered through that Selangor was in Australia as part of their pre-season schedule, and were using Lakeside as a training base. Would South Melbourne play them in a friendly? Would it be open doors? Would someone from the club say it was closed doors even it wasn't? Yes, yes/no/kinda and yes, but with appropriate caveats! And thus Gains and I went to this game expecting not very much and getting it. All of which is a very long winded way of saying that this week's artefact is the pennant Selangor presented us with prior to the game, and which was last seen somewhere in team manager Frank Piccione's dungeon. You know, because we don't have a social club and stuff.

Selangor FA pennant from our friendly kick about with them in December 2013. Also
partially visible is an 'I Love This Club' sticker from the 2010 season. Photo: Paul Mavroudis.

Speaking of which... - Bentleigh Greens 2 South Melbourne 2

Well, we matched it with them for about 20 minutes, and then we didn't, and we copped two goals and we looked done like a dinner, And then we somehow dug our way of that, not without a bit of luck, and almost snatched it.

Some of those banners are not very NCIP friendly. A good thing that it was
'erase racism' round. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Nick Epifano is a hell of a frustrating player. In the first half he was nowhere near it really, and was directly involved in the first goal we conceded, after he dithered in midfield and lost the ball, from which Bentleigh countered and scored while we had numbers committed forward. What was worse was that the danger from such half-heartedness was already apparent, after Milos Lujic had earlier stopped dead waiting for a referee's whistle that never came, sending Bentleigh on their way.

To be fair to Epifano he was not playing in his more suited wide positions, and neither did I think he that had the capacity to pull himself out of his lacklustre performance - and to be even fairer, he was hardly alone in the slack arse stakes in the first half. The whole side picked up their work rate, and the performance improved considerably, and Epifano was a huge part of that, so credit where it's due.

Less credit to David Stirton who hasn't quite lived up to my expectations yet. I've been defending him over the past few weeks despite his sluggish form from the attacks of my favourite hill and terrace loud mouth, but last night Stirton had a shocker. Subbed at half time - as part of an atypical Chris Taylor early double sub roll of the dice - his replacement Andy Brennan if nothing else provided the kind of grunt work that Stirton would not. Whether Stirton gets a reprieve for next week is anyone's guess.

Lujic is beginning to annoy a section of the supporters - this writer included - with his tendency to now play for fouls and not play to the whistle. The aforementioned incident was a perfect example, and even the penalty that we got was in that realm. Looking at the replay, he does get clipped, but the possibility that he was milking it has now entered my mindset and it's going to be hard for me to shrug off. Of course for others this is less of an issue, and they may even applaud Lujic for winning the foul, because there was contact and he made the most of it to the benefit of the team. And what of last year's game, where we were denied a much more obvious penalty? Swings and roundabouts.

Epifano's equaliser - which was well worked, though I think Alistair Bray could have done better if he'd just stood his ground - set up a show stopper of finale, where the Greens were denied a goal late on for reasons I'm not aware of, Tyson Holmes didn't score against us, and Lujic seemed to pull up with cramp just as the ball sat up for him to snatch the winner in the last seconds of the game. Both teams can play better, but I think we have more improvement left in us than Bentleigh, and more than the point we got out of the game, that's what makes me happiest - despite being very unhappy with our performance for large chunks of the game.

Next week
Heidelberg away.

Could we have had Eagar earlier?
Overhead a story yesterday that prior to joining us last year, Michael Eagar had previously trialled with us in 2013, only to be rejected.

Wavelength: 495–570 nm
My, wasn't the Kingston Heath surface looking particularly verdant last night? Maybe because someone - either the local council or the home team themselves - had it painted green! It seems as if South's team manager Frank Piccione has had a horror time trying to get the green paint off the white uniforms. Brad Norton has claimed that even after three showers, he still looks like the Grinch! More seriously, why was there paint on the field? What was the paint on the field? And who's going to reimburse us in the event that the paint has left permanent stains on the uniforms? Speaking of things green and not being what they claim to be...

Truly, the most overrated of foodstuffs in the league
Ten dollars doesn't get you very far in the south-east. Oh, in parts of the west it can get you both a meat filled roll and a soft drink, but out there in the middle of nowhere, you're left with no change from a tenner after you purchase your meat and bread product. But that's OK, as it's part of the experience of travelling to overhyped football tourist spots like FoxSports Souvlaki Stadium. What's less than acceptable is being charged ten bucks for what is essentially a bread pocket half filled with lettuce so devoid of flavour that it felt not like I was eating discarded grass clippings, but instead munching on leftover parts of the synthetic turf they used for the second pitch. Speaking of which...

Segment rescinded due to ongoing investigation
Because sometimes you gotta sure make of a few details before going off half-cocked.

Lead singer: No there's no substitute for you.
Backing singer: No substitute, no substitute!
While it escaped my attention during our last league game away to Werribee, last night while looking at the team sheets on Twitter it became very clear that we did not have a substitute keeper listed. My mind immediately went back to the 2000 Scottish FA Cup final, where Aberdeen played Rangers, a task made much harder for Aberdeen due to the fact that they had no substitute keeper. Well what do you know, their keeper Jim Leighton went off injured and they had to use one of their outfield players in goal. It didn't turn out so well.

Now when Roganovic went down heavily in the six yard box yesterday, it looked like we were in big, self-inflicted trouble. Now I had overheard that under these quite plainly unacceptable circumstances, Kristian Konstantinidis would be the outfield player to take up the gloves. But of course he's out injured. So what was going to be Plan Z exactly? Poor organisation by the club on all fronts on this matter, thought its comforting to know that we've reverted to our habit of signing 101 midfielders. Luckily Roganovic managed to get up and continue. But speaking of Gonzo...

Kristian Konstantinidis out for season?
It looks like Gonzo's out for the entire season now, or at least a huge chunk of it. Since much of our plan for this year seemed to hinge on Michael Eagar playing a central defensive role, what would be the back up plan if that couldn't be arranged because Eagar needed to played in defence? Perhaps new recruit Dane Milovanovic could fill in that role - but is he even fit? Murmurings around the ground suggest that he is not.

Dockerty Cup opponent
We've been drawn against the plucky cup outfit North Sunshine Eagles. North Sunshine have a habit of punching above their weight in the cup, most recently eliminating Sunshine George Cross on penalties after their game finished 6-6 after extra time - including coming back from 6-4 down with nine men.

Hey Martin Foley, where's the social club? (via smfcboard)
"He said the wheels were in motion, but there was no motion. He's a very bad man"

Around the grounds
Three times is a trend
This week was the first game of the league season for the state leagues, and I ventured out to the Paisley Park derby. Neither of these two sides had apparently shown much during the pre-season. Altona East were lucky to avoid relegation last year, thanks to Moreland City accepting promotion to NPL. 2015 hadn't started much better, being bundled out of the Dockerty Cup by lowly Riversdale. For their part, Altona Magic had reportedly recruited heavily with a view to getting into the NPL, only for that door to be shut by the FFV for this year. Magic, too, had been bundled out of the cup by Berwick. The game started in typical derby fashion, with a lot of strong tackling, but eventually Magic went on to take control of the match. That they ended winning this game because of pretty much scoring the same goal three times doesn't reflect well on Altona East. Each time the ball was lofted into the area, each time confusion reigned in the East defence, with the keeper and defenders at sixes and sevens. OK, so the second of the third goals was an own goal, but that was the only outlier. East did pull it back to 2-1 early in the second half, but never really threatened again after that. Echoing last year's 'Robin Egg Blue' fiasco, Ian Syson decided that the colour of Magic's away strip was 'banana yellow' (as in the skin, not the flesh), whereas I argued it was the colour of an egg rich custard. It was that kind of day.

Oh, and my hair has apparently changed colour again. I blame the sun.

Final thought
There was some, er, 'arousal' in among the crowd there last night. Perhaps it's best to leave it at that.

Lakeside Stadium Artefact Wednesday - Catacombs

Deep beneath the South Melbourne Hellas grandstand at Lakeside Stadium, through a gap in the gear steward Frankie's room, there is a whole other world. A world of wires and steel, with a sign telling un-authorised people to go no further. There's also some graffiti there for some reason. The only clue to its provenance is that it would be a post-NSL artwork, seeing as it's 'SMFC' and not 'SMSC'. If it was 'SMH', good luck trying to narrow it down. (it was probably Frank himself).

Photo: Paul Mavroudis circa early 2014.

Kiss of Death 2012 Mid-Season review

Firstly, a bit of background. While we've appreciated the efforts of the Kiss of Death over the past couple of years, it has often been a bit of a struggle to get them to send their work in at anything other than the absolute last minute.

An email exchange would usually go something likes this, usually on a Thursday afternoon, with me panicking (ever so slightly) and worrying about the Kiss of Death's legion of fans:

Me: KOD, coming this week?

KOD: Been really busy, will get it done by Friday morning.

The Kiss of Death didn't even do an awards/end of season review for last season. :rollseyes:

And yet something about this season has fired up the Kiss of Death. As the results got more and more disastrous, the Kiss of Death's submissions kept coming in earlier and earlier, like they barely sleep or eat (for me it's been the opposite - the appalling season has seen me delay and delay).

The Kiss of Death was so eager to put forward this mid-season review, that it was sent to me last week. But I told them, look, wait until after the match against the Bergertrons, the proper halfway point if you will.

So here it is, the Kiss of Death 2012 mid-season review. Enjoy! And don't forget to plant all your praise and criticism into the comments section.

Peter Gavalas - 5/10 - Aerial weaknesses constantly exposed - Has cost us too many goals - Heart in mouth stuff when the balls in the 6 yard box - Must be dropped

Tom Matthews - 8/10 - No weakness other than the panel beater job he copped at Richmond - Excellent all round performer

Rhodri Payne - 7/10 - When given a start - Hasn't been exposed this season as has seen minimal game time - No issues

Steve O'Dor - 5/10 - Captain courageous has gone missing - Expect more - Too slow to get out of the back when needed.

Philip Petreski - 5/10 - Apparently a great talent - Not ready for starting 11 - Overrated.

Dimitri Tsiaris - 6/10 - Has been played in multiple positions this season due to injuries - Yet to settle - Needs time

Joe Keenan - 7/10 - Minimal game time due to injury - When played has been the difference - Must get injury free

Dimitri Hatzimouratis - 7/10 - Works hard when on the park - Has missed easy goals - But has scored important ones - Needs time to settle

Trent Rixon - 5/10 - Poor start - Fans expect more and rightly so - Might be playing injured which is a bad thing - Must lift ASAP.

Glen Trifiro - 6/10 - Hard worker - Seems to turn into trouble - Has plenty of juice in the tank - Has been a good acquisition

Brad Norton - 5/10 - Keeping Payne out of the team - No idea how - Young talent but still very raw - Needs confidence

Luke Byles - 8/10 - Signing of the year - Unlucky to break his hand v Knights - Should be back soon to plug the leaky defence - Great talent

Fernando De Moraes - 5/10 - Hasn't seen much game time due to Futsalroos - Most likely coming to the end of his outdoor playing career - Will always be loved at the club - New system doesn't suit him

Christian Skok - 5/10 - Young talent who has seen a few minutes here and there - Very raw - Looks comfortable at U21 level - Step up to senior football will be a challenge - Still raw

Matko Budimir - 7/10 - Young Matko has been impressive when required - Seems to commandeer the right hand side with ease - Needs more exposure to senior football

Marinos Gasparis - 6/10 - Not the Gaspa we know - Rare glimpses of the past been shown - Something's up - Needs to re-focus on the job at hand

Gianni De Nittis - 4/10 - Has come off the bench in last 10 minutes - Can't do much in that time - Tries hard - Great personality - Needs game time in 21s

Jason Saldaris - 5/10 - Unused substitute. probably itching to get a run. Has been excellent in the under 21s, and must be promoted.

Jason Trifiro - 6/10 - Hard worker - Good acquisition - Holds position well - Loses possession easily at times - Needs to settle and take time on the ball

Kyle Joryeff - 7/10 - Started the season off with a bang - Must be starting 11 soon, the way the rest of the team are going

Coach - Peter Tsolakis - 5/10 - With this squad must be doing better - Leaves subs late - Must take more control

Assistant Coach - Joe Montemurro - 5/10 - Great personality - Has passion - Responsible as much as Gus - Must do something

Team Manager - Frank Piccione - 10/10 - Strips are well organised - Always clean - Works hard around the club outside his Team Manager duties - Must be applauded

Total: 139/230 (60.4%) including team manager

Overall we are failing. Our ladder position would be correct for our performances.

The win against the Bergers although important, was not as convincing as I would've liked.

A scrappy 2-1 win over a team who will be playing state 1 next season unless they start stringing some wins together.

Kiss of Death
Chief Soccer Analyst of all the Chief Soccer Analysts

Hobart Trip 2011 - Superwow!

This is the less serious look back at this trip. It likely has no particular rhyme or reason.

Flying
I hadn't flown for 11 years, and that was in a four seater. Before that, I hadn't been in a commercial sized aircraft for 15 years. I thought I'd be more nervous, but to my relief I actually found it a lot of fun. Cloud cover on the way there meant I didn't get to see much except on the approach to Hobart; on the way back, nightfall meant that we got to see Launceston lit up, but that's about it. I was a bit worried about the bloke on the flight to Hobart who felt he needed to have a bourbon and coke before eight in the morning.

Driving
If you can afford it, and if you can drive, do hire a car. You will save money, time and effort in the long or short term. Cuddles and I did several Chap Laps around Hobart's CBD and other inner suburbs. Hobart is essentially a large country town. It has an adequate but utterly unremarkable airport – for a comparison, see my notes on Canberra's airport - and the distances between Points A, B and C are artificially extended only by the confusing road system, which especially in the CBD relies heavily on one way streets where left and right turns are severely restricted. I lost count of the amount of three point turns, multiple lane changes and illegal u-turns we made.  I wish I'd brought my ipod though - it would have made a nice change from the Greek music and the doof doof I had to sit through.

Cadbury Factory
When you go to Hobart, the one mandatory task that everyone seems to have to tick off is a visit to the Cadbury factory. Once upon a time this may have included an actual tour of the plant, but these days this experience is restricted to a half hour session in which you are given basic statistics and information about chocolate production via a presenter and a short film, and the opportunity to taste the lesser refined and unmixed ingredients that eventually end up as chocolate. Apart from that, you can waste some time and and money in the gift shop and on slightly discounted chocolate. The highlight of this part of the trip had more to do with running into South president Leo Athanasakis, who recognised my hat while we were driving in the area adjacent to the factory. We had a robust but friendly discussion about board politics and personalities.

Hobart Olympia
After picking up our two companions from the airport and returning to the hotel, with about 20 minutes until kickoff in our friendly against Hobart Olympia, we decide to head off to the KGV soccer field. We make it just in time, but on the same token, everything in Hobart seems on close proximity to most everything else. Both sides field youthful outfits – South only has two or three senior regulars on the ground, and despite some occasional sloppiness, dominates proceedings – another young prospect, one Nicky Jacobs, does the damage, with two first half goals, the first an elegant looping chip over the keeper. He made it a hattrick soon after play resumed for the second half, and as more senior players were given time, the result and the game degenerated even further for Olympia.

Olympia have struggled on field in recent seasons. They obviously gave this one a good go, at least in the initial stages, but their attempt to stand toe to toe with their opponents didn't work well. As the match progress, their mistakes became worse. The locals took it in their stride though. It was refereed by a bloke we dubbed Inzamam ul-Haq, whom I was a little disappointed to later learn had the surname Collins. How plain.

Good Morning, Sunshine
At 7am on a saturday, hobart is dead. This is perhaps a relief to some people, who don't believe that anything should be in motion at that time of the week, but after taking a quick walk around the block and finding myself amongst the few living, it was a little disconcerting. It didn't even have that old school ghost town feel – it was just more reflective of the malaise perhaps (an incorrect, but still somewhat appropriate word) that seems to infect the town.

Frappé Fury
It would be quite safe to suggest that the Greek iced coffee drink known as frappé is a cultural institution in its homeland, and has a legion of devotees here in Australia amongst the Greek diaspora. Now I'm hardly one of those people who can barely last a couple of days without this drink, but at least one of the people I happened to be traveling with is one of those types. What luck then that we found a Greek restaurant in Salamanca (called Mezethes). The menu located outside didn't list frappé, but we decided to ask anyway. Much to our horror, not only did they not have frappé, but Elia Donoudis' long lost son didn't even know what it was! For some reason I was almost as riled by this fact as everyone else, and I hardly touch the stuff. I mean, even in my dad's village of a couple of thousand mostly elderly people, grown men will sip this drink through their straws, and somehow this place didn't know about it? Qué horror!

Salamanca Markets
You might as well head down here when it's open on Saturday, especially if you like Tasmanian produce like honey, jam and whatever they can carve out of wood. Me, I bought a mixed set of ginger beer (regular, 'extra zing' and alcoholic), and a couple of bottles of cider (a sweet perry and a scrumpy). The bag the cider (which is chilling in my fridge) was in was faulty, and therefore the scrumpy bottle smashed onto the pavement. The lady at the next stall helped clean up the glass, and I was offered a replacement bottle by the stallholder I'd bought the cider from, and I managed to prevent it from tearing through the paper bag until we got back to the hotel.

Let's be honest - people love hype, and they love succumbing to the overriding public opinion to the extent that it clouds their judgment. That's the case with several food items at the Queen Victoria Market, most notably the hot jam donuts and the grilled bratwurst. While the former are criminally overrated by people who like their donuts undercooked and doughy, the bratwurst are at least edible. The pork bratwurst with garlic and herbs that one can buy at the Salamanca Market are on another level altogether. It's one of those instances where you are compelled to readjust your thinking about the world. Yes, it was tasty.

The Dutch fruit donut Oliebollen (literally 'oily balls') aren't anything special, and it was a good thing I had only bought one. One of the more confusing stalls was the Gypsy Rolls food stand. Turns out they were just Balkan skinless sausages (aka cevapi). Still, we got a laugh out of it, in part due to reminiscing about the Albanian marinated chicken rolls. The ice cream at the Salamanca Markets is amazing. I had a scoop of boysenberry which came in a crispy, sugary - but not too sugary - waffle cone.

The Hellenic Club 
We went to the Hellenic Club twice. The first time was after we'd played Olympia, where the team (and the rest of us) were treated to dinner - tender goat, OKish chicken, chips, salad and Mythos beer. We were on the same table as some of the Olympia officials, maybe a bloke allegedly banned from dozens of casinos for being a champion card counter, as well the local Greek Orthodox priest who preferred a traditional VB to the Greek lager. The hospitality was fantastic all night, but being involved in several simultaneous conversations we couldn't take too much notice of the surrounds.

Going back there on the Sunday after the South Hobart game, what with our last chance to have dinner in town as well as the only known provider of frappe in Hobart, we got to have a better look. Approaching the venue, we weren't really sure if it was open, but we saw the television on from outside.

You could hardly find a more different Hellenic Club to the one located in Canberra. The Canberran version is massive, full of pokies, garishly decorated, and lacking in any real identifier outside its name of actually being a Greek venue. The Hobart version was small and cosy, and decorated in every bit of naff Greek kitsch ephemera and they could lay their hands on. Posters with the heroes of '21 and Greek singers, a big scarf over the bar with the word 'Pontian' on there. I loved it. I felt like I was home.

That feeling though was encouraged by the presence of the locals, who lacked pretension. There was a sorta disheveled bloke outside the venue, having a bit of a sleep. After we had gone in, he came in a bit later, and had another nap at one of the tables. He had a drink, another nap, got up and said goodbye. The locals seemed to take it in their stride.

More fun were the blokes at the bar, two of whom spent a good half hour talking about good fishing spots and how to cook different fish. One of the blokes eventually came over and starting talking to us about the degradation of Tasmanian soccer and the bloke who was running it about 20 years ago, and the selfishness of the southern clubs who weren't willing to make the trip up to Launceston once a season. That was the cue for one of the blokes behind to let rip with 'Αν τον πιάσω τον πουστι, θα τον γαμισω τη μάνα!', which is not a nice thing to say about anyone really, but was still bloody funny. There were several other expletive laden sentences after that, but the laughter didn't end there. We found out that not only did he live in Melbourne in the late 1960s, and was self-confessed card-player seven days a week, but he turned out to be a cousin of Kris Kalifatidis, long time South player and member of our 1984 NSL championship team. That, and there was a sign which clearly stated that foul language and bad behaviour would not be tolerated. They probably should have had it in Greek as well.

The Hellenic Club doesn't appear to have either a set menu, nor a price list, but they did a sorta Gary Ablett lookalike who offered to makes us psarokeftedes (Greek fish croquettes), which took so long to make that I wondered if he'd gone to catch the fish himself - but they were pretty good, as were the two massive bowls of salad (although someone ate all the feta cheese), and the even the all important frappedes. And the price? All up, $60, just $15 a head. Amazing value, great hospitality, too many laughs.

Boat Trips
If you can, definitely take a trip out on one of the boats. We went up to North Bruny Island and back. Saw a lighthouse, penguins, an abandoned whaling settlement. I got sunburnt, someone lost a hat (that had just been bought that day - not mine though). There's a photo of me out there holding on to my hat, and I'm not ashamed of that.

Nightlife
Hobart's restaurants seem to turn in for the night at about 10pm even on weekends.

Some people in the group were curious to know whether we would need collars to get into the clubs. Turns out we didn't.

As for the nightclubs, once and for all I had my doubts wiped away about these places. I can and do listen to and tolerate all sorts of music, but the relentless and inhuman 'doof, doof, doof, doof' I find unbearable. I was in the Observatory Bar for about 30 minutes and for 28 of those of minutes felt like I was being beaten into submission by the music. As Kyle Reese once said of another relentless machine:

Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. 

Good thing I left the building, much to confusion of my friends. Apparently I missed much frivolity with members of the Glenorchy Knights women's team, but I'm OK with that. I preferred, strangely I know, to watch the AFC Cup.

Cascade Brewery
Is definitely worth a trip, but try and go during the working week so you can see the brewery in action. It lasts a good hour and a half or so, you learn some history which isn't solely brewery related, and you get three tokens to have drinks at the end of it. The Mercury Dry cider isn't up to scratch; it lacks that crispness and kick that a 'dry' should have. If you opt for the stout, get it last; you don't get as much and it has a robust but simple coffee flavour that will dominate your tastebuds for a while. I took a bottle home afterwards, and it's better to have an entire bottle than the small sample they give you. I also had a go at the raspberry cordial, also quite nice.

Darcy Street
The welcome at Darcy Street was terrific. It's one of the most scenic grounds you could ever hope to visit. I bought two copies of the South Hobart 100 year history book. They also had caps, but no scarves. Thanks to the ladies at the merchandise tent who put aside our items until the end of the match, and for giving us a $10 discount.

There was a little bloke playing for South Hobart trying to throw his weight around, whom we dubbed Craig David; far too much time and effort was spent telling to him to just 'walk away'. South Hobart's first choice goalie got injured in the second half, to be replaced by a barrel of a bloke called Mike McKenna - he actually did OK, got off the ground a couple of times as well. He didn't have a numbered top, and apparently he'd been out of the game for a year or two with injury, but he did better than either of Hobart Olympia's goalkeepers.

David Bartlett, Tasmania's Premier, was there, though apparently he didn't stay for the whole game. The bloke next to me, a former striker for Olympia back in the 1970s was good value, he taught me about the Hobart soccer scene, I let him know about some of our players and explained the term downhill skiing. Players haven't been paid here for about 15 years or so at least. One team, Caledonians, sent themselves broke to win a championship. It's a familiar story wherever you go in this country it seems.

It was a pleasure to meet Walter Pless, however briefly.

Ephemera
South of the Border is an unashamed fan of Hellas kitman Frank Piccione, but does not take it as far as some do. Hopefully I'll never be in the position one of the traveling fans was, hoping the pregnancy test came out negative.

It was difficult, but the pacifist in me won out, and I didn't belt the Perth Glory fan that was seemingly following us everywhere - OK, maybe not everywhere, but he was at both games we played and we saw him in Salamanca as well. At this rate I'll never be hardcore enough to reach the heights of Silesian football hooliganism.

If you ever go to a hotel with 'internet', and you're bringing your laptop or netbook with you, you should pack an ethernet cable. Don't bet on them having wireless, and don't bet on the wireless being much good. Thanks to the hotel for loaning me a cable for the duration of our stay.

Contrary to what I told him, I could have spared the teenage lout we bumped into on the Saturday night a couple of dollars to buy some goon. But really, it wouldn't have done him any good.

Eddie Krncevic will from here on in be known as the Green Hornet. Not my creation, but it's so appropriate, I'm going to run it into the ground.

Other buzzwords which got a thorough working over: superwow; tsibouklou; Ceca; mounopano.

Finally, thank you to the waiter at Ciuccio, who defended my decision to drink a normal sugar laden Coke as opposed to the wussy Coke Zeros that everyone else was having.

Albanian Adventure Playground Experience - Dandy 2 South 1

Game played at fairly casual pace. Started off with quite a few senior players, fell behind 2-0, gradually took off most of the seniors and replaced them with 21s. The 21s did better, but the pace of the game died in the arse even more so. Pulled one back late when Joryeff slotted home a ball across the face of goal. Both Stefaan Sardelic and new signing from Sydney Olympic Zaim Zenelli had a half each in goals - too early to tell who if either of them is the frontrunner. Only one player in the game who got out of second gear really impressed - some 16 year old called Rob Naumovski or some such, who was at Altona Magic (and hence why when I asked equipment manager Frank Piccione who he was, he replied 'Rob Altona'). Anyway, the highlight of a day spent in the rain and cold for no apparent good reason, was the playground adjacent to the field, decked out patriotically in Albanian red and black.

SMFCTV Episode 13 - Ange Dallas gets cramp in his eyebrow

This week's edition of SMFCTV includes footage of last week's game but also scenes from the inaugural SMFC Corporate Challenge, which apparently went quite well.