The Old Adage - Melbourne Knights 3 South Melbourne 2

It's not how, it's how many. Truer words have never been spoken. OK, maybe they have, I'm not conducting an audit here. And now that I think about it, sometimes the how is as important than the how many, perhaps even more important. No, as important.

Anyway, three set piece goals, nearly identical to each other for the appalling decision making which lead to the cheap fouls gifting the opposition the chance to swing in dangerous balls, the appalling goalkeeping which saw Keegan Coulter get nowhere near two of the balls he came out for, and the appalling marking in a team with three or four centre-backs on the field at any given time. At the other end of the ground you had the farcical situation of attacking players being unwilling to shoot, or unable to put in a proper cross, or be in the right spot to receive a pass or latch on to a loose ball. It's like a variation of the Dr. Katz joke about the three most dangerous parts of flying, where our three biggest problems at the moment are attacking, defending, and everything else.

Having said all of that, I thought we actually played pretty well. Truth be told, Knights were rubbish after halftime, and ran out of gas well before full time, but still we dominated general play, looked good on both sides of the field, controlled the ball in the middle, and created many dangerous situations. It's probably the best we've played over a whole for several weeks. It didn't get us any points though, and that's all that matters at the moment, because as the arch-miserablists have been keen to remind everybody, we've pretty much played only the easy teams so far, and have all the leading sides to come.

Actually, and this isn't just contrariness on my part - or at least I hope it isn't - but the more I thought about the loss on Friday night over the weekend, the more optimistic I got about what's to come. As far as I could tell, we didn't pick up any new injuries, and with Andy Brennan due back this week, we at least have one more genuine starting eleven option. Marcus Schroen, even though far from my favourite player, is back in training. The return of Jake Marshall to the field means that we have more flexibility in how we line up defensively. And perhaps most importantly, after our troubles finishing games with any energy, we managed to run out the game with a decent head of steam.

But then I saw Brad Norton's post-match interview, and I felt like crap all over again. I know it was straight after the game when we all felt like crap, and while he said all the right words, the agony and despair of the situation was there for all to see. It's not the kind of thing that will be cured by a nice cup of tea and a biscuit, only by wins.

If I sound like I have nothing new to add it's because there's nothing really new to say at the moment. You try and find the motivation to come out and type up gibberish to a diminishing audience about a diminishing team (on and off field) without realising that maybe there's something more worthwhile to do with your time. Oh look, I missed three episodes of Batman on to watch us cough up a lead. OK, time to write some stuff, but there's double episodes of season one Law & order SVU on free to air. What about now? No, the lawn bowls is on the telly.

The past six or seven weeks have been like waking up from a wonderful dream. OK, so winning NPL titles and riding the crest of a ridiculous FFA Cup run is a pretty lame dream to have, but it's still better than this descent into awfulness. I mean, from a South perspective, who was even at the game on Friday? Heathens and pagans, that's who. The devoutly religious and the culturally religious were at Orthodox Good Friday services, others probably went to the footy, leaving some very strange people to cheer on the Hellas in its hour of need. I'm not judging, it's just the way it is.

So there we are, maybe ten to fifteen of us behind the goal, twenty at a pinch, trying to lift the team even though in our heart of hearts we don't think we've got a chance in hell of overhauling the 3-1 deficit. We're watching the game from the worst spectator vantage points deliberately out of spite, or to be on camera. So why are we there? Sense of duty? To what, the team, the club, the players, each other? Sport does this strange thing where you end up befriending or at least hanging around a whole bunch of people you'd otherwise have nothing to do with, and who would vice versa have nothing to do with people like me.

But general despair at being crap in an irrelevant league is one thing, but having to endure some of the other nonsense which you'd thought by now should have gone away, is quite another. No one is surprised when Knights fans bring out the "I'd rather be an Abo than a Greek" chant. It makes its appearance at just about every so-called derby game between us, and will in all likelihood be brought out again in every future contest between us. It's offensive on several fronts, but it's also sad to hear it in terms of its time capsule quality; like, have we not arrived yet in 2018, and are still actually in 1988? Is there a time-portal at the gates of the Somers Street car park?

There are three groups who could put an end to that chant but which probably won't. They are Knights fans themselves, the Knights committee, and FFV. If the first two choose not to, then you would think that FFV would, if not for any moral or governance dimensions associated with the racist chant, then at least from a public perception point of view. After all, the chants were made right next to the broadcast tower, from which FFV were conducting a live radio broadcast of the game. Or maybe FFV don't care because neither myself nor Mark Boric were at home to listen to the game online, and there was therefore no one actually listening to the live stream, in which case it's carry on as you were and as you always have for those Knights fans; and a reiteration from me to South fans to avoid similar behaviour if not because it's the right thing to do, then because you just know for sure FFV will take a different view on the matter.

But that's "just words", and as a very helpful random anti-political correctness police officer on Twitter informed me and some others, we shouldn't be policing other people's language, in a discussion which ended up discussing the non-existent anywhere in the world abstraction of freedom of speech. It wasn't even an interesting attempt to police our attempts to police other people; the least our out-of-the-blue friend could've done is put on the persona of Libertarian Cop for our amusement.

Of greater concern however were incidents of intimidation directed towards some of our fans after the end of the game. OK, Somers Street has never had the reputation of being the most family friendly sporting venue in Australian soccer, and if we're being honest Knights fans have often revelled in that reputation. But there are limits, no? Stealing scarves from opposition fans? Really? Gloat about the win and how awful we are as much as you like. No one's expecting gracious winners, and goodness knows South fans are hardly gracious losers, but we're living in a society for crying out loud.

Oh, and there was also this

Just got barked at by a dude wearing a macedonian flag outside knights stadium whilst calling me a fucking dog. #nplvic

— Davey Raff (@dvrf1878) April 6, 2018

which is some straight out of NSL 1995 shit, that strange period where some Preston fans would tag along to Knights games against Greek teams for the sake of causing trouble, because their team was relegated and they wouldn't get to the play the Bergers or us on a regular basis until "insert the year each of those clubs got relegated to whatever division Preston was dwelling in". If your hardcore manifesto is being the Chester to MCF's Spike in order to push around scarfers, are you even doing this ultras thing right?

Next game
A home game at last! Bentleigh Greens on Sunday afternoon. The curtain raiser will be the men's under 20s game.

The first home game of the season is when nearly everyone pays for and picks up their memberships. I can't say with any certainty that it will be an orderly and well run experience. If it's not, please don't take it out on the volunteers. Ditto for the paid and volunteer staff whatever the situation is in the social club with food service.

I don't know what kind of merchandise will be available on the day. I'm only interested in getting a pompom beanie, but will not cry into my corn flakes the next morning if they don't have any. You have my permission though to cry into your breakfast cereal of choice if you are displeased with the range of merchandise on offer.

Variation on a theme
The club, in the form of our NPLW or WNPL side (I don't really know which acronym is the right one, but I assume it's the former) was back at Lakeside for a match for the first time during the season proper in 2018. The NPLW team's form has been erratic: some wins, some losses, lots of goals for and against, and a tendency to only get going once they fall behind. The lineups have tended towards the young side, as they tend to do in that part of the season closest to the end of the W-League season, but the starting eleven against Geelong Galaxy was as far as I can tell our strongest for the season. Galaxy, last year's losing grand finalist, had also been in less than stellar form. So even if this match was hardly a slam dunk for us, surely we'd be favourites to win? Not so.

After a tepid start from both sides, things started going bad when we copped the opening goal of the game from a set piece. I mean, what is even the point of living? To be fair, after copping the goal the team woke up, as I was promised they would, and they equalised, but the goal to get ahead never came and eventually giving Geelong chances on a silver platter cost us. Young gun Sofia Sakalis was brought on with about twenty minutes to go to try and salvage the game, but things just got worse for us. Needing to chase the game, we found ourselves opened up the back and instead of making inroads we copped a third and fourth goal, to give Geelong a deserved win.

On the topic of Sakalis, she's very good with the ball at her feet - though some of those who watch her more than I do say she could try and pass it a bit earlier - but wow, those offsides on Saturday. In my many years of watching soccer, I've seen players caught offside repeatedly in games, I've seen players whose speciality is being off instead of on, and I've seen players, usually strikers, too lazy to work back onside; but I've never seen anything quite like Sakalis' wilful offsides on Saturday, where she would keep running forward ahead of the ball instead of trying to work off the shoulder of a defender or at least be behind the ball waiting for a cut back.

It reminded of Greek school soccer matches on asphalt where the offside did not exist, or like a small child running forward with joyous abandon. And then you remember that Sofia is actually only 15 years old, knee-high to a grass hopper. I mean, she was born after I graduated high school. How many times have I failed and what exactly have I achieved in those 15 odd years to be criticising to a teenager playing soccer? The one possibly meaningful thing I could hope to achieve in this lifetime  hangs in interminable balance as I await the results of my thesis. The last time I played soccer was on the old Lakeside in the shit kicker curtain raiser to the Clarendon Corner vs OM21 where I was gassed out after five minutes

Really, it was no criticism at all; just an observation of a soccer novelty, a muffled and anguished scream from someone who lives vicariously through athletes in order to make up for everything else that's gone wrong in my life. People like me are not fit to tie the laces of those playing any sport even semi-competently.

More unpleasant news
Someone said to me the other day that our attempt to outsource the operation of the fustal court hasn't gone well, with the private operator walking away from management of the court. Here's hoping that one of the other purported offers leads to something.

Final thought
Got some text message from someone saying they were having "blog withdrawals", but probably because I recently bought a new phone - and you know how transferring your numbers from your old phone to your new phone is the one thing technological advances haven't been able to properly solve - well, I had no idea who it was that was writing to me. Of course I could've just asked them, but then I wouldn't have been able to get out this paragraph.

South claim WNPL title over Geelong Galaxy in dramatic grand final

Despite the senior men starting pre-season in late November 2016, the 2017 South season just doesn't end, and so we - the few, the proud, the geeky - found ourselves out at Broadmeadows for WNPL grand final day. I got there early enough to see almost all the under 18s final, which South lost 2-0 to Calder United. It was an uphill battle for most of the game for the South girls, who trailed 2-0 at the break and took a long time to get going in this game. They were up against the bigger bodied opposition which didn't help matters, but they fought their way until the end and had they snatched a goal late, things may have have ended up differently. As it was, Calder were the better side by some margin

The bombshell news before the senior grand final was that the league's golden boot winner Melina Ayres would be out, reportedly at the behest of the national youth squad selectors who did not want her playing and further aggravating a calf injury she had picked up while training with them. It left a sour taste in the mouth, but one had to have confidence in the rest of the squad which had done so well this season. And besides which, we had the services of the Matildas' all time leading scorer in the form of Lisa de Vanna.

Lisa De Vanna shields the ball from a Geelong opponent. De Vanna was a crucial element of the championship win, even if at times her teammates went all mid 1990s Collingwood with her by looking to pass to her at every opportunity, as did those Magpie players of that era with Nathan Buckley. Photo: Mark Avellino.

After a sluggish start from both sides, it was De Vanna who put us ahead early on when she smashed a low cross from Natalie Martineau into the roof of the net. Still better was to come, with De Vanna setting up a shot for Jamie Pollock, only to have that effort sharply diverted with a header into the back of the net by Martineau. 2-0 is never a done and dusted scoreline, especially only half an hour in. This is perhaps especially true in the women's game at this level where shifts of momentum can be quick and devastating.

And thus in the second half, Antonia Niteros gave away an unnecessary penalty which was converted by former South player Laura Spiranovic, and soon enough Geelong were level when South keeper Molly-May Ramsay misjudged her positioning and saw a shot curl around her from distance into the far corner. Times like that you think the game is going to slip away, but the introduction of Caitlin Greiser off the bench, along with renewed resolve from the South players saw us get on top in the final ten minutes of regular time.

Caitlin Greiser tries to win the ball from a Galaxy opponent. Photo: Mark Avellino

We hit the woodwork four times. We should have stormed over the top of them. And while Greiser was the main culprit, missing one sitter in particular, saying something like we would've won easily if Ayres was playing is a bit of a misnomer - the chances were there were to be taken, and we didn't do it. So the game went into extra time, and this time Greiser found herself at the back post and made no mistake. 3-2 up early in extra time, and looking good, only to cough up another equaliser. So as it was two years ago when South last played in and won a women's Victorian top flight grand final, the game was off to penalties.

One got the feeling of an immense injustice about to take place, but we worked our way to a two goal buffer in the shoot-out; only to try and Melbourne Croatia 1991 grand final our way out of the game by botching our chance to finish Galaxy off. When De Vanna stepped up to take our fifth penalty, it just looked wrong. Galaxy keeper Emily Kenshole had been doing a good job in the shoot-out, and she easily saved De Vanna's tentatively placed effort. Skipper Alex Cheal stepped up in the sudden death round, and though among some of the watchers in our behind the goals group thought that this would be another Michael Eagar/Palm Beach 2015 moment. But Cheal put her penalty away, and then Geelong had their next effort saved easily by Ramsay.

120 minutes and still no winner, so now into the shoot-out. No one here seems particularly confident. Photo: Mark Avellino.

It was fitting but also pleasing that Greiser scored the decisive penalty in the shoot-out. The striker has been understandably overshadowed by Ayres' goal scoring feats this season, but got into enough good positions to win the grand final on her own and yet came away with just the one goal. Credit to Greiser though, she held her nerve brilliantly and placed the ball out of reach of the goalkeeper, who had done a good job of guessing where our penalties were headed. And thus South won the title, adding 2017 to our previous wins in 2011, 2014, and 2015, and the enforced State League 1 title from 2016 - although to be fair, the 2011-2015 titles were done under the auspices of the SMWFC.

Tiff Eliadis was awarded best on ground, and she was a worthy recipient. She was important at first in midfield, and then in defence later in the game. It also wouldn't be a South championship without the trophy coming apart upon presentation, and that was the case again yesterday as the base came free right on cue. Later on the team and some of its well-wishers returned to the social club. The kitchen was closed, but the bar was open, and there were pizzas from Blue Room up the road, and later unfortunately from Pizza Hut. Nevertheless the vibe was good, and why wouldn't it be? You'd just won one of the most dramatic grand finals by the skin of your teeth.

But all's well that ends well! Trophies, pennants, and big smiles all round for a fine season. Photo: Mark Avellino.

It's in the nature of women's football (so far as my observations go) that at this stage of its development that teams are less cynical in their play than the men, and are always looking to attack rather than defend. Even so, this South team from what I've seen of it is even more obsessed with scoring goals over not conceding than even that stereotype of women's football allows. Some of the keener watchers of this team put that down in part to the coaching of Socrates Nicolaidis, and I like to think that somewhere in that influence is a bit of the old, classic South - the one which sought not just to win, but to attack, to fear no team. If the men's team under Chris Taylor has understandably taken on a more pragmatic approach during its run of success, then it's at the very least pleasing that in the women's teams and in the juniors, the old South ethic of winning and winning well is kicking on.

The grand final win however will no doubt annoy many of the other teams. Few if any of them wanted South included in the WNPL this season, crying both for lack of depth in the local women's game as a whole, but also for what they perceived as favourable treatment from FFV in us getting in at all after we missed out on the inaugural WNPL intake in 2015. For those who kept the faith, especially those players who remained with South during our short WNPL exclusion period, yesterday's triumph will be especially gratifying.

Just quietly, too, this grand final was a cut or two above that 2015 decider at the Veneto Club, a messy and mistake riddled game. Geelong had given our women a good run for their money throughout the 2017 season, twice drawing 3-3 with us and losing the other game we played in circumstances which could've easily led to another 3-3 draw. While I think we deserved to win this game both on the balance of the day and on the balance of the season, Geelong would be devastated knowing they that threw everything they had at us and it still not being enough. Still, those of their supporters in the crowd were good sports about the whole thing, and there was a great feeling after the game at the entertainment which had been provided by both teams.

Those who weren't there missed an entertaining game of a good quality. Those who were there maybe just for the day for a bit of fun, saw themselves perhaps being surprised by how much they cared by the end.

FFA Cup semi-final ticketing news
Details have finally been released by the club.

If you haven't received an email about it yet, head here for a rundown of what's been announced so far.

Please keep all comments about ticketing for that game in that thread and not in this one.

Around the grounds
Double dose of joy and despair
The Saturday before last I headed out to Port Melbourne for a couple of state league promotion/relegation playoffs. These are my favourite fixtures in the Victorian soccer calendar. There's something on the line, and you get two sides playing against each other, on a neutral venue, who are of a roughly equivalent level but who may seldom if ever meet because of geography. And unlike a similar meeting in an FFA Cup game, the rewards are a bit more tangible, if modest. For clubs at this level, it's not the wishy-washy 'promise' of the impossible getting to the FFA Cup round of 32, but rather the more tangible and hard-earned slog of getting promoted up the Victorian soccer pyramid.

First up was Ashburton against Dingley Stars. Ashburton had been relegated to State League 4 under the stewardship of former coach (and one time South player) Steve O'Dor, but had done well enough to earn their way through to a promotion playoff. For Dingley - the old Southern Stars, who were in turn the old Dingley - a loss would mean another relegation. First things first - the temperature was up in the high 20s, which was going to play havoc with the fitness of both sides, especially if the game was going to go the distance into extra time and penalties. Secondly, it's not often you get two sets of bantering, chanting supporters to a game at Port. Usually it's the 50 old blokes who are hanging on to Port for grim life and maybe whatever of Clarendon Corner or MCF decided to turn and try and create some atmosphere. No aggro here, just good old fashioned passion.

I'm not going to pretend the skill level was the greatest, but at least the two teams got to play on a pretty decent surface and provided a very entertaining contest, and well with the $5 entry fee - because the weather was so nice, I'd left my media pass at home in my good jacket, but no gripes from me. Ashburton looked to attack on the wings, Dingley with balls over the top. It was one of those balls over the top that gave Dingley the lead, as the lofted through ball ended up being misjudged by the Ashburton keeper and bouncing over him into an empty net. In the second half Ashburton had the breeze and appeared to be taking control of the game. They drew level thanks to a deep cross to the back post, and that moment it looked like momentum was such that Dingley would get overrun.

But Dingley worked their way back into the game, and the game went into extra time. If one was to say who deserved to win it in normal time, it'd have been Ashburton, but they didn't take their chances. Yet it was Dingley who found the breakthrough in extra time, a cut back from the right being bundled into the back of the net for an own goal. But Ashy wasn't finished yet, and managed to get another equaliser, from a corner if memory serves me correct, their many corners before that point being almost all garbage. The penalty shoot out saw both teams supporters congregate behind the Williamstown Road goals. Dingley were the better team here, winning the shoot-out 4-2, leaving Ashy to wonder what if - but at least they were good sports about it. Just a pity that I don't think anyone was there to film this game.

The second fixture was State League 4 Sebastopol vs State League 3 Fawkner (the seniors of the junior wing, not the original senior wing which ended up at Mannginham). This game was a major let down after the previous one. Both sides were ordinary. Sebastapol had the better territory, but were ineffective in attack. Fawkner were solid at the back, but couldn't really get the ball forward. About 25 minutes in, Fawkner finally managed to get the ball upfield, and scored a very easy goal. That didn't improve the game in any way, and it took a dog's breakfast of a goal for Sebastopol to get level midway throough the second half, a series of headers from an uncleared corner ending up with one being looped over the Fawkner keeper.

Fawkner went down to ten men, and then survived an almighty keeper mistake to send the game into extra time. Not much happened in extra time, unless you count Sebastopol also going down to ten men, Fakwner cracking a shot into the crossbar from six yards after the keeper spilt the ball, and Blue Thunder doing a lousy job of preempting the problems that would arise from the rowdy Sebastopol support behind the goals which was liquored up and launching unceasing vitriol at certain Fawkner players. You can bet that if that was Clarendon Corner they would've had the security teams out there from the start, but for some reason it took one of the Fawkner defenders getting into slanging match with the Sebastopol support for security to cotton on the issue.

The game went into penalties, and Sebastapol won the shoot-out 4-2 to win promotion to State League 3. Unlike the earlier game, which was finished in a very sporting manner, the Sebastapol supporters and certain Fawkner players almost came to blows on the non-social club side of the players race, with security reacting very slowly. I'm not quite sure how it didn't kick off, but credit to those who few people from both sides who managed to assert their authority and eventually calm the situation down.

Final thought
Trivial as it may seem, and loathe as I am to finish on a sour note, it was disappointing not to see any members of the senior men's team in support of the senior women.