Role reversal - South Melbourne 1 Green Gully 0

After coming through the dross months, and experiencing the brief Southelona sojourn after that, we're halfway back to grumbling again. OK, so it wasn't the most polished performance, but it was no fluke. Gully have their method, we have ours, and it just so happens that we're now at opposite sides of the beautiful/practical dichotomy that our two clubs occupied for a good chunk of the Victorian Premier League era. What a time to be alive that was. Sometimes playing well, sometimes not, but almost always getting bullied by a more ruthless opponent. No one watched Gully games for style, but they got the job done. Of course they still had talent, but their guiding principle was winning. 

That kind of thing - utterly remorseless practical football - doesn't always fly well at South. I mean just look at some of the (very) minority grumbling about the Chris Taylor era, and of course, much of the grief directed (including by this reporter) at Esteban Quintas' teams. Thankfully we've moved on (fingers crossed) from the worst excesses of Quintas' defensive methods, and it's not just Javier Diaz Lopez making 15 million saves (give or take) to keep us in the contest. He had to make some interventions last week, and that was fine. He was a difference, but he wasn't the only difference. The weather was a bit shit, we started slowly, and our coach threw enough of a tantrum to be banished from the bench by the officials. And yet, we weren't second best, and we deserved our win. What else can you want? Yes, more goals, more action, more domination.

But entertainment? It's there in spades. The aforementioned tantrum, Gully's Nahuel Bonada apparently throwing a water bottle from the bench into the stand, some really quite beautifully times sliding tackles from both sides, and occasionally some action on goal, too. Oh, and Andy Brennan came on pretty damn early for an injured Alun Webb, and then got subbed off late because it was ridiculous that he was out there for as long as he was; that's not a complaint about technical output, more about the old gas tank. I agree with his comment from the week before, that running doggies sucks. 

Another three points, and another week hoping that Ajak Riak doesn't get abducted by aliens during the finals.

Next game
Away at Melbourne Knights tomorrow night, in possibly the most anticipated league game between the two sides for a decade. Well, it should be the most anticipated, but you know, no one gives a stuff anymore. 

Is there a curtain raiser?
No. 

Transfers
Apparently the transfer window is still some weeks away, owing to a change to align our local transfer calendar with with FIFA's transfer windows.  

Perfunctory report on the women's team (not a report on perfunctory women)
So, look. It's a chaotic league. We were 2-0 up against league leading Boroondara by the time I got to the ground, 3-0 up by the time I got up into the stand, and 3-2 up by the time I was leaving the media operations box at halftime. By the time I was just tucking into my (above passable) lamb "souvlaki" (it isn't a souvlaki, or even gyros, but whatever), we were at 3-3, and all I could assume was that soon enough we'd be down and out. And yet, we won with a late goal. Now the margin to top spot has been cut to two points, but who knows what the second half of the season will look like with all the A-League players coming in.

Final thought
After mentally preparing for rail replacement troubles, I got almost all the way to Lakeside before the no. 12 tram made us disembark at Park Street. Tram replacement! If I'd known that ahead of time, I would've brought a bag with me to go op shopping. Oh well, at least I had some company on the way back - now that's a rare occurrence these days.

Lavender Blues - Green Gully 1 South Melbourne 3

Bringing order to chaos, but at what cost?
You know I'd almost forgotten that we didn't go to Green Gully Reserve last year? Rocking up to the game, I was shocked to be welcomed to a paved parking lot. Unfortunately it's one of those hideous concoctions which actively reduced the number of available spots. That'd be more a problem if there were actually any people there. Crowd was ordinary. There was no curtain raiser game to artificially fill out the concourse with parents and reserves players. There was also no Maltese marching band. Instead there was a dated Artie K-like mix playing over the speakers (ugh), and a free match program (very much appreciated), but hardly any sort of vibe from us or them. Can't wait to take this energy into the National Second Division.

What about all the times I didn't wear a tutu?! Nobody ever brings those up! 
You wear a suit to one game, and then that's all you are: suit guy. To get around that, I got home early on Friday, got changed into my South Melbourne Gunners t-shirt, only to find that I'd started an unholy trend. Me, the fashion trend-setter. Θα χαλάσει ο καιρός, as my mum likes to say.

Granny chic
Speaking of fashion, we were thankfully spared by virtue of being the away team, from seeing Green Gully's awful grey away kit. I don't know what it is about teams that think silver and grey are god kit colours, but anyway. Gully's goalkeeper kits this year include a shade of lavender that's pure old lady hand soap. Admittedly, I pine for the days where goalkeepers wore a solid clash colour jersey, and a shorts and socks combo that matched their teammates. 

Apples and Oranges
Unusually (I think? I'm not so sure now) the NSW NPL started earlier than its Victorian counterpart this season, so I've seen a little of their games and highlights. Their synthetic pitches and too many futsal players posing as outfield players gives that comp if not quite an air of effeteness, than certainly at least a postmodern sense of digital, anodyne precision. NPL Victoria, by comparison, though being played on better quality fields than ever, still has a bit more physicality. NSW players may more regularly score top bins goals, but it's always a bit easier when the ball doesn't bobble, and there's no Nikola Jurkovic types waiting to kill you.

One may not have thought it possible based on their 2000-2011 iteration, but Green Gully would nowadays almost fit in better north of the Murray than they do south of it. Remember when coming to Green Gully Reserve as a South fan meant not just an inevitable loss, but also a bruising one? Now we haven't lost there since 2013, and it seems to get that little bit easier each time. The old grinding, ugly Gully is gone, replaced by a ball playing side that could do great things, were it not for the fact that they play in a predominantly counter-attacking league.

And which team is both more conditioned to and adept at playing pure counter-attacking football than South Melbourne? Based on a statistically insignificant (but still instructive) two matches, not much has changed for us, except for the height of the balls going forward. Last year they were very high; this year they're a bit lower. That's all down to having Ajak Riak in the place of Harry Sawyer.

Now I may have gone off half-cocked on the forum a few weeks ago when watching choppy footage of a Greek Community Cup match, claiming Riak would not score a goal this season except by accident, such was his apparent lack of coordination. People at that relevant claim that he looked OK, nothing like what us stay-at-homes were watching, and maybe they've been proven right.

Riak seems to know how play off the shoulder of the last defender, he seems to know where to move, and how to generally make the right or at least better decision when provided with two or more possibilities. His cause (and ours) were helped by being up against a team that's no longer the old thug Gully on a choppy field, (pointless baited into it Zidane headbutts notwithstanding), so there was enough space to do his thing. It might not be so useful when teams play more compactly against us.

Still, his mere presence makes us more watchable (and that's no slight on Sawyer's very productive 2022 season), but overall there's not likely to be much change to the way we play. Maybe the full backs will get a bit further up the field a bit more often. but the entire race to be runner-up hinges on Ajak not getting hurt - the rest of the squad will be rotated in and out on a needs basis. The small bonus is if we transfer to playing a more ground ball attacking game, instead of a high ball one, it will be easier to switch to someone like Alun Webb playing up front when Riak inevitably gets injured.

Next game
Melbourne Knights at home on Monday night. No, it's not the Labour Day public holiday Monday; that's the week after. Athletics has the field over the weekend; fair enough. Also, kickoff has been moved from 7:30pm to 8:15pm to accommodate apparently "overwhelming interest", which is just code for let's make it even harder for Paul to get home after the game, because there's going to be rail replacement buses, and cabs that don't turn up even though they're allegedly one minute away, and then you walk home. And all this just to watch us lose to the second best team in the NPL (after Oakleigh, of course). Should I just go home after work and watch it on the TV? Maybe. 

NSD news
More and more teams have put out their little press releases that they're expressing an interest. We haven't done that yet.

AGM news
None. Might as well just privatise the club.

On the streams
Hip to be square (balls)
It occurred to me, much later than it should have, that this season is another pointless one. Just as pointless as the usual pointless ones, when there was misplaced hope of getting people back to the club by winning stuff. More pointless than the ones where we were all accosted by A-League bid nonsense. More pointless than those seasons where winning the league didn't matter, because it was all about the FFA Cup. More pointless than those aborted COVID seasons, and the pointless (but at least ultimately hilarious) Bespoke Cup season. Oakleigh's going to win the title this season or, at best, be cheated out of it by an Act of God. So could we at least enjoy the relegation battle (24 more points to go...)? Well, no. Thanks to the NSD (which is totally going to happen), there's possibly going to be three or four or five Victorian clubs getting out of this circle of hell, which will shake up the entire local league system. So what then if Port or Avondale score bangers against relegation candidates? So what if Moreland gets an upset win against a now zero and two Bentleigh? So what if Preston drop a point here or there on their way to promotion, to what exactly? Thunder vs Dinamo eight goal banger? Pointless, unless you're a gambler living in that particular moment where you're sweating on + or - 3.5 goals. Yes, I suppose we could just enjoy the games on their own merits, as they veer from one goal from a misplaced pass to another goal from a set piece. 

Final thought
Turns out that one of the court officers I work with is a Perth Glory fan. Just when I thought I'd shed all proximity to Western Australian nonsense, it's right there three metres away. 

Shambles to shambles, farce to farce - South Melbourne 1 Green Gully 0

This Federation! This competition! Every week there's something new. In especially good weeks, you may get several bits of nonsense all on top of each other. And if you've been very good, the Victorian soccer farce fairy might even bless you with the gift of multi-farce in grand final week. This week has been one of those glorious occasions - and we still have grand final day itself yet to come. The way the events transpired, Football Victoria comes out looking like an organisation that did not seem to have a Plan A, let alone a Plan B.

I can't help but think this is all South Melbourne's fault. If only we had folded in 2004 like we should have. If only we had not won the 2006 grand final that Oakleigh didn't qualify for, thanks to their legendary choke. If only we hadn't won the 2015 Dockerty Cup final at Lakeside against Oakleigh. If only we hadn't won the 2016 grand final n home turf against Oakleigh. If only we'd smiled and said "please sir, can I have some more" whenever Oakleigh inevitably came for another one of our players, in their vain and ongoing attempt to be us. If only we had sucked just that little more than we have managed to over the past 17 years - not quite as bad as Melbourne Knights, but somewhere in that ballpark - then there wouldn't be an issue at all.

Can you imagine anyone caring about all the things that happened this week, had it been an Oakleigh vs Green Gully final instead? Sure, there might've been some fuss-kicking, but it's probably fair to say that had Gully qualified for the grand final instead of us, the grand final double-header would have been played at Lakeside, Lewis Italiano parachuting into Jack Edwards Reserve onto the corpses of Oakleigh's seven or eight eligible goalkeepers would have been grumbled upon mostly by a handful of Heidelberg fans, and there's no chance that federations and clubs would feel the need (at implied gunpoint, in some cases) posting notices reminding people not to take recourse to abuse on social media.

But we mucked things up making the finals, then by winning the minor premiership, and we especially mucked up last week by defeating Green Gully despite much inconvenience. Within the first 20 minutes, the referee missed (apparently due to an unfortunate angle) Ben Djiba having his leg snapped by a Gully defender. The we had Andy Brennan go off with a groin injury. Twenty minutes gone, and two of five substitutions gone, and two of the three (not including half time window), substitution making slots gone. And yet, somehow despite this - and despite having to take off substitute Josh Wallen early, because had a yellow card, and who'd want to (hypothetically) play with ten men for 50-60 minutes deep into injury time in the event that Wallen got sent off - we got through.

Sure, we were the better team for most of the game, but my goodness was there also some arse involved. Morgan Evans had a solid game replacing Djiba. Alun Webb's outside-of-the-foot winning goal, past a wrong-footed and blindsided Gully goalkeeper, looked magical live, and much less magical on replay. I haven't even dared look at the last ten minutes of the match, where we sat back to hold the lead, and saw one cross after another flash across the face of our six-yard-box. I don't even really want to think about long throws, or no Harrison Sawyer, or as some (including this pseudo-reporter) have put it, getting this far with basically no midfield. I'll say this of this team - one thing it hasn't lacked for all season is heart. Normally that shouldn't be enough to get you this far, but here we are.

You won't die wondering this year. "Swoop the ref" has
 already been crowned South of the Border's chant of the year.
I will not be taking any further questions on this matter.
Photo: Luke Radziminski.

So on Sunday evening, having won our way into our first grand final since 2016, we were faced with the absurd situation that no-one knew where we were going to play the grand final, or when. To be fair, the warning signs were there even in the lead-up to the finals, when media pass holders received an email to apply for grand final access, and there was no detail about when or where the grand final would be played.

Normal people had perhaps assumed that as per the most recent grand finals prior to the Covid cancelled seasons, that'd we end up at AAMI Park. But as the finals series wore on, it appeared less and less likely that would happen. Uncertainty about if/when Melbourne Storm would host an NRL finals match was certainly something to consider. Cost too exorbitant to hire, especially in the event that South didn't make it, especially against an equally marquee opponent? Also sensible to take on board. Where else could they play it? Knights Stadium, with its pitch troubles? Olympic Village, with its lighting troubles? Anywhere else, with its everything else troubles?

It was a surreal moment when post-match some South fans threw out as a suggestion - completely in jest - Caroline Springs George Cross' ground in Plumpton, I mean, it was just a joke. It was also surreal seeing South championship winner, former Football Victoria president, and current Football Victoria CEO Kimon Taliadoros being corralled in our social club by several people, all asking the same question: where is the grand final going to be played? And all he could offer with certainty was "not Lakeside". Which, despite all the rumours going around, seemed to be the most certain detail once we'd qualified for the final. 

That only serves to reinforce the conspiracy theory that our winning the game on Sunday was the worst thing that could've happened to FVs grand final plans. You can almost guarantee that had we lost, the grand final would have been held at Lakeside, and pretty much no-one would have complained. But we had won, and our opponent would be Oakleigh, a long-term grumbler on being made to play cup finals and grand finals against South at Lakeside.

So Lakeside was out. And night fell, and no announcement had been made. And then the next morning, and still no news. Until finally the announcement came. City Vista! With 280 odd seats, limited shelter, and no elevation around the outer. City Vista, with its small car-park and poor public transport connections. 

Some of us have been around long enough to remember the 2013 preliminary final at the neutral SS Anderson Reserve in Port Melbourne, and what a magnificent occasion that was: lines out the door, crap sight-lines, rain pissing down with next to no shelter. Some of us are also able to recall the 2016 grand final at Lakeside, and in particular its shambolic organisation. Limited ticket booths and that slow Ticketmaster printing mess. People not getting in until 20 minutes after kickoff. The outer stand not opening until the second half. Not enough food vendors. The crowd being let in for free because of the gate shambles. 

Some of the people who made the City Vista decision were literally in charge the day they realised too late that they should've opened the other grandstand for the 2016 grand final. Instead of remembering that farce, they decided to play the 2022 grand final in a phone booth. What about the elderly, those with children, those who are unable to stand for long periods of time - hell, what about short people? A venue chosen purportedly in part for its accessibility - unlike some other options, it has four changerooms, which can accommodate both the women's and men's finals - ironically excludes almost every other class of soccer person.

Even as a relatively tall, able-bodied person, I can't say that I would want to watch a match of this importance at a venue like that. Judging by the highlights videos that Essendon Royals made from their away games there, the only elevated part of the non-seated areas is the media tower. And you've also got those big, black benches like Hume City have, which also obstruct views, and those big black fences at each end. 

While things have changed over the past couple of years for me and my sojourning around Melbourne's grounds, I still like to think that I generally make an effort to get to far-flung and below par amenity wise grounds. I think my record on that speaks for itself. And yet, the decision to play this match at City Vista was so insulting, so degrading, I made the choice early on that I would not go. I'd watch the game in the social club, or at a mate's place, or at home. I'd rather not do that - I'd rather be at every game we play, especially this one, supporting our players -  but at some point even I have to think about my own sense of dignity. Others were torn on the matter of whether to attend or boycott, and I had no quibble with that. But it's fair to say that regardless of whether you were planning to go or not, the reaction to the announcement of City Vista as the grand final venue was intense.

What a way to start grand final week. The original
 announcement on Facebook had attracted tons of
mostly negative commentary before the deletions
 started; and then it was locked completely. 

And it wasn't even just South fans having a go. No one loves a crisis (and a whinge) more than Australian soccer fans, but it's been years since I've seen this level of engagement with Football Victoria's social media efforts. Like most social media efforts at this level, most posts enter the world while barely leaving a footprint in the digital engagement snow. Here though, it got to the stage where there were so many people voicing their frustration, that a Facebook post promoting the first local grand final in three years had to lock comments. Just about the only people defending the decision were a couple of George Cross supporters. I feel sorry for the people running the social media for FV. They're the ones being asked to put lipstick on one hell of a pig. This should be the week where they get to do some of their best work; yet they've been relegated to deleting comments to shield an incompetent and unaccountable board from their incomprehensible decision. 

So FV couldn't promote the final. South Melbourne couldn't promote the final. Even Oakleigh weren't promoting the final. This wasn't just because of the backlash, but also because even after having announced the venue and timeslot, and having announced the time that tickets would be available for purchase online, no tickets - not even a link for those tickets - were available at that designated time. 

One hoped that the radio silence was because alternatives were being thrashed out. It's hard to admit when you've got it wrong, especially with everyone hammering you - but there was still time for FV

to fix their mistake. Take the social media outrage on the chin, and just do what was best for the game. Show some leadership. Maybe even make a display of that core value of "openness", and explain how we got here, and how we're going to move forward to a better solution.

Somewhat incredibly, that's (kind of) what happened. 

Football Victoria put out a press release announcing a change of venue for the double header from City Vista to Olympic Village. It even explained that AAMI Park was ruled out due to expense, and that Lakeside was ruled out because it would not be a neutral venue. Fair enough. But surrounding those brief explanations about why two grounds weren't used, there was also some extremely salty prose on why City Vista, and why that was actually still a good decision. And that justification basically comes down to the venue having four changerooms, better accommodating the men's and women's matches, making sure that "the player, officials and sponsor experience would be exceptional."

The fans appeared to have been nowhere in FV's consideration of choosing a venue. What's quite astonishing about that is that it reveals a belief within Football Victoria that they doubt that there'll be much of a crowd to a first NPLMVIC (and even NPLWVIC) grand final day in three years. It's one thing for fans to moan about the state of local soccer crowds but it's quite another for the organising body itself to come out and say that a venue with 280 seats (many of which will have their sight-lines blocked from people standing on the fence line), no meaningful elevation, no shelter, big black benches, and big black fences at each end, would be more than adequate. 

Either that, or Kimon's comment in our social club following the Gully match - that they had no idea where the grand final would be played, except certainly not at Lakeside - was absolutely true, and that they made the City Vista decision on the run. Honestly, I don't know which would be worse - that FV were going to play the grand finals at City Vista all along, and only pretended to not know that in advance; or that they had no plan of what to do in case Lakeside did not present itself as an option, and then had to get their PR crew to write retconned guff about how City Vista was the perfect venue for such an occasions, if only it wasn't for the pesky fans demanding that they be allowed to enjoy the day, too. 

And even though Olympic Village is an improvement, it still could have been better. Pave Jusup, president of Melbourne Knights, noted that his club had offered Knights Stadium to FV weeks in advance of the finals, and that the problematic pitch would have been prepared with due care for the day. The lack of changerooms which apparently ruled out Knights Stadium, with its 4,000 seat covered grandstand, plentiful parking, and elevated terracing, did not rule out Olympic Village. One could gripe about not making the "perfect the enemy of the good (enough)", but the persistence in playing both men's and women's finals on the same day is an obvious part of the problem.

Given that they apparently had no plans about what to do either way, it doesn't make sense as to why FV didn't just choose to play the NPLW grand final on a different day, as a standalone fixture. They've done it before, and it was fine, good even. They could even have played it at the City Vista venue that they apparently think so highly of. That way you could also play the men's 21s grand final - which also includes South - at a venue with only two changerooms, but also one that can accommodate fans in relative comfort. The decision to play the NPLW and NPLM grand finals on the same day at a venue with only two changerooms, also means that there will be incredible delay between the two games. The men's final will now start at 6:30PM on a Sunday. If there's extra time and penalties, with all the post-match awards guff it might not even finish until 10:00PM. People have work the next day. Kids have school the next day. If we win, we can't even celebrate it properly.

As if everything else wasn't farcical enough this week, FV decided to crash a fuel tanker into the flaming rubble of grand final week, by finally making a public announcement of journeyman goalkeeper Lewis Italiano's eligibility to play for Oakleigh. He has been allowed to arrive at Jack Edwards well after any and all transfer windows have closed, but apparently because all of Oakleigh's (four, or six, or eight, or whatever it is) other eligible goalkeepers are not fit enough to play, well they were allowed to sign him. Was Heidelberg allowed the same dispensation for their goalkeeper availability issues? Do the medical certificates all check out that, over Italiano's last three or four weeks at Oakleigh, not one of the other keepers has come good?

I really want to see the hospital records, or the death certificates, whichever may be relevant. I want to know which of Oakleigh's keepers is in hospital due to gigantism caused by abuse of brain and nerve tonic. I want to know which Oakleigh keeper is lying on the barroom floor having come off second best in an argument about who was England's greatest prime minister. And I certainly want to know which Oakleigh keeper Chris Taylor sacked, because said keeper wouldn't shave off his sideburns.

Such antics are not without precedent in Victorian soccer, and yes, there are rules which make allowances for replacing keepers. Your correspondent recalls late in the 2012 season, when Bentleigh Greens lost their on-loan keeper Lawrence Thomas back to Melbourne Victory with three games left in that home and away season. Thomas was replaced by Griffin McMaster, who up until that point of 2012 had been busy playing in a hopeless Moreland Zebras side. McMaster came in for Thomas, was part of a team that scraped into the finals (at our expense), and got knocked out against an Oakleigh side who featured some bloke called Lewis Italiano; that Oakleigh side went on to lose the grand final to the rocket flare powered Dandenong Thunder side coached by Chris Taylor. 

Which just goes to show how pathetically small Victorian soccer is, and that we need more Queenslanders just to open up the family tree which seemingly more resembles a stump. And yes, Oakleigh also have a bloke who played in a championship with us eight years ago (and against in our loss in 2015), and another bloke who played in a championship with us six years years ago. 

Anyway, history lessons aside, there's now a venue and a time, and those of who can go, should. But my goodness, I am expecting the worst. Not just on field, where I expect our luck/charm/whatever to come wanting, but off it, too. Kimon Taliadoros has already copped it online, but so has FV president Antonella Care - who just so happens to be the spouse of one Aki Ionnas; the long time and well known - and already not very much loved among South fans - power-broker of Oakleigh, whose management of that club over the past 17 years has had more than the whiff of trying to become a pseudo-South Melbourne.

You can imagine the commentary that's come out, both level-headed and otherwise, trying to draw connections between Oakleigh being in the grand final and not wanting to play at Lakeside, and getting their wish; by being able to sign a replacement goalkeeper, when another club could not. Just about the only thing that they haven't got is a changing of the date away from tomorrow, which would allow them more rest before (or after) their upcoming FFA Cup semi-final. I imagine that vitriol tomorrow will be much worse which, from a purely angry perspective, I understand. What I don't hope to see is the clu  getting punished because things go too far, especially of things are going badly for us.

I guess the best that I can hope for is that nothing said or chanted tomorrow crosses the lines of targeting someone based on protected category (race, gender, etc). I already expect for any all FV officials to cop a worse reception than Tony Labbozetta did after the 2001 NSL grand final. Maybe the aim tomorrow should be for sarcasm? Instead of chanting "fuck the FFV", how about "we love the FFV"? They couldn't do much against something like that. 

Anyway, all this, and the grand final to come tomorrow.

Awards

Somewhat lost in the kerfuffle over the venue, South picked up a few awards at the Gold Medal night on Monday. Our media team won some kind of award. South fan and photographer Luke Radziminski won the Les Shorrock award for best photo. Harrison Sawyer was officially awarded the golden boot, and finished just one vote behind the two joint winners of the Gold Medal; one naturally wonders what would have happened if he'd closed out the home and away season with us, instead of heading to India.

Our biggest win on the night - and really no surprise - was Javier Diaz Lopez winning the goalkeeper of the year award. That sees Javier join Dean Anastasiadis (2005, 2006), Peter Zois (2010), and Peter Gavalas (2013) as state level goalkeeper of the year prizewinners. 

Final thought
Only just figured out this week that my new job is basically Dodgy Asian Betting commentary, but in a courtroom.

Lead at the top down to two points - South Melbourne 0 Green Gully 0

A few years ago, and probably on more than one occasion, I quipped that should the unthinkable actually happen and South return to an/the Australian top-flight competition, that there should be a special section for the fans who continued to support the club through the pee-pee soaked heck-hole years, so that we would not have to interact with all the people who jumped off the South bandwagon when the club needed them most.

Looking back, the most fanciful part of that suggestion was not that South might get into the A-League, but that there would be enough people to even fill such a privileged section. Last week's game was on a Friday night, which I suppose was more pleasing to people at least in theory, but not so many more of them that it might make a difference in the places where the hoi polloi sit. It's a good thing that assorted random friends and well-wishers of Brad Norton's turned up to add alcohol-assisted enthusiasm, after the Celtic-Ange bandwagon seemed to last about one match. We await with baited breath the arrival of the next random group of attendees to a match at Lakeside.

Still, the seating arrangements at South matches are getting ever more garish in highlighting (assumed) cost-cutting, as well as the difference between gods and clods. The so-called "painting" works remain in progress, last week creating a rather farcical situation where not just the bays nearest the social club are roped off, but also the top half of the bays in the middle of our stand. And still, those of us still attending continue to look for evidence of the painting works. 

At some point they may as well just fence us all into a little bracket - that way Stevie's confetti show can also get contained, although it may mean his shredded newspaper might have more chance of ending up in your box of chips. At least the sponsors and their fellow travellers came in good numbers, and since they're the ones keeping this club afloat, I guess we plebs should be glad for that fact; even if we can't buy a beer to drink outside like at every other ground in the state, and even if beer isn't actually that good of a drink, and who made beer the boss of sports venue drinks? I suppose there should also be options for people who don't like beer anymore. Insert the sound of a cash register chiming right here. 

But that could just be me griping for griping's sake, seeing as how the on-field performance continues to exceed by a long way the relatively low expectations I had for the team not just before the season, but also up until about some time a few weeks ago. Even being held scoreless for the first time this season, I could hardly find the effort to complain about how the team is playing, though it would have been nice to have taken at least one of the very gettable chances presented to us. All I could think of however. apart from being glad we had not lost - which would have been an injustice, regardless of Gully's own more than passable performance in this match - was just how entertaining the match was.

It really was an enormously fun game to watch. And indeed, if one dares to quibble with the quality of skill on display in this and other 2022 NPL Victoria games, one can hardly say that South games have been boring. It helps when the team's ding well, and there's something to play for beyond a mediocre position on the table, but one of the tragedies of this post-covid interrupted seasons, is that people are looking at all sorts of things to complain about, and even if they're right (and they probably are), they're missing the point that the team has been providing an entertaining product.

Even Brad Norton's yellow card was hugely entertaining. He was looking to get a yellow to get his set of five, so he could miss the Eastern Lions game where his absence one assumes would not be sorely missed. Now when he did get the yellow, either it was a case of him not wanting to get that yellow then, or it was merely a great display of kayfabe, because his reaction to being carded was a beautiful example of "selling". Then you had the carry on from the Gully bench at various times during the night. Then our squandered chances, including what looked like a shocker by Marcus Schroen. And at the other end, some ridiculous saves by own Javier Díaz López.

The match was so entertaining, time not only flew by, but we also wondered whether or not Max Mikkola really needed to make as many long throws as he did, because they increasingly seem to wear him down. Gully also seemed to figure out, at least temporarily, how to defend them, which involved a tactic no more complicated than putting a lot of numbers back deep. Even Andy Brennan managed to get to 77 minutes, which is about 17 more minutes than his usual presence on a football field. So many stories within the larger story. 

A shame that Port couldn't even get a point against Oakleigh the next day, but them's the breaks.

Next game

Eastern Lions on Saturday afternoon at Gardiners Creek Reserve. I probably won't be there, because I looked at the kickoff time, competing commitments both before and after the game, as well as the location of the venue vis-à-vis public transport, and decided to take a different course of action: namely, to watch the game at a convalescent friend's place. Looking forward, somewhat, to the the three week stretch of home matches.

Final thought

If anyone can figure out what's going on with the social club kitchen, that would be great. Last week's burger assembly would have failed to pass any reputable building inspection. Also, half-way through the pre-game dinner service, shoestring fries gave way to a slightly thicker cut of chip. Are they just winging it on supplies?

Cobbling together wins and blog posts - Green Gully 0 South Melbourne 2

Someone wants the perfunctory report straight up, while others want actual genuine detail about the game. 

So here's the perfunctory report: have you seen the five matches prior to this one? Well it was more of the same. Thirty minutes of good stuff by us, followed by sixty minutes of slop. Gully were alright once we let them into the game, certainly a notch or two above several opponents.

Not entirely unlike last year, we are hanging on to top spot and undefeated run, with increasing unease about when it will all come crashing down. To be sure, this year is looking better, which is to say, we are winning games instead of drawing and winning. In addition, our good bits this year look more convincing than our good bits at the equivalent stage of the season last year. But we are still stuck in the same ideological mire, in the sense that even while we have scored an impressive amount of goals, the astonishingly quick deterioration of our midfield once we retreat to protect a lead is really bloody worrying.

I suppose we should be glad, even as our fears last season were a bit of an overreaction, that in 2022 we are in no way shape or form relegation candidates. And yes, we didn't win a league game for about a three month stretch last year, but we probably had enough points on the board to go around again in NPL1. But still, the same problem remains, and in some cases you can only really tell how bad it is when standing behind the goals - for it's when you can conduct an extended discussion with the opposition goalkeeper, without any fear that it will be interrupted by an attacking move your team, that you know you're in a bit of strife.

Meanwhile, 110 metres or so away at the other end, you see a purple blur bouncing around making all sorts of audacious saves to keep your team's clean sheet intact. On those few occasions the ball did come to our end of the ground in the second half, we had to deal with the ignorant petulance of the Gully players, who apart from trying to intimidate the referee, also asserted that that assistant referee had no right to make any calls that the referee night have missed.

"Stick to your job" I believe was the line, which I did note to the Gully players was actually anachronistic. While assistant referees are not meant to replace the main referee when it comes to making the vast majority of decisions, they are to be encouraged these days in making calls when the central referee is blindsided, or when the central referee gives a subtle indication asking for confirmation of something he may have suspected to have happened.

But back to conversations with opposition goalkeepers. I must say those few of us behind the goal really let ourselves down on that front. We had done no preparation of material or talking points. We managed to figure out that Liam Driscoll was 22 years old, and thus ripe for some "banter" (ugh), but we hadn't done any homework. Which better clubs had he played at? What was his stance on Australia's dominant preferential voting system vs Hare-Clark? What is the meaning of life? Instead we had to resort to "let's see what's in the news" gags. Had he seen the Hume keeper's stuff up? Did he want some near undrinkable vodka mixed in with Powerade? Things of that nature. 

Being neither that kind of drinker, nor a 14 year old trying to make unpalatable alcohol taste just that bit less unpalatable by being mixed in with other garbage, I did not imbibe, but each to their own. Planning for this trip started all the way back when we found out we were playing this match in Ballarat instead of Green Gully Reserve, without ever knowing quite why it was being played 95kms (or thereabouts) west of Keilor. In the time since, I've narrowed it down to two possibilities of how it came to pass:

1. Green Gully genuinely wanted to take a major fixture of theirs on the road to regional Victoria, hosting it in an otherwise underused soccer specific stadium. If it went well, it might be the start of more such adventures to regional Victoria.
2. The Green Gully Reserve pitch was getting a necessary touch-up, and while Gully had requested that we swap our fixtures around - with us playing this match at Lakeside, and reversing the later fixture - South Melbourne, remembering Gully's refusal to accommodate us in a similar request in 2019, told them to stick it.

It could really have been either of those, but who knows for sure?

Anyway, fifteen years ago a long range trip like this would have attracted a good chunk more people for a train trip except... maybe it wouldn't have? I remember the 2014 trip out here, and I'm pretty sure it was just me and Gains on the train to and from Melbourne. OK, so that eight years ago, rather than fifteen and the days of Frankston train trips and Canberra bus trips, but maybe the occasion just wasn't big enough then or now. Maybe only interstate trips for FFA Cup games is what people care about, and can limit themselves to now that a good chunk of Clarendon Corner is in its mid-30s and having babies and responsibilities.

So there were four of us, thinking of taking the 12:!4 out of Southern Cross, and hitting a Ballarat pub for an hour or so before the game. Good luck with that. Rail replacement buses made one of our quartet miss the 12:14, which meant all of us sticking around for the train in a further hour's time, by spending that hour at the bar inside Southern Cross station. Also, there's a bar inside Southern Cross station, who knew?

So an hour later we're on the rails, admiring the scenery when it's visible. Some people who hadn't traveled west of Harvester Road in Sunshine since 2015 wanted to see what remained of Chaplin Reserve, not realising (where it was it actually located in relation to Sunshine station), and not understanding that thanks to the massive trench through which trains heading west from Sunshine now travel through, that you could not see anything of the (not very much left to see anyway) remains of the former home of George Cross.

Arriving in Ballarat around 2:45, my fellow travelers wanted to find a pub, even though it would have been cutting things a bit fine in terms of making it to kick off. As luck would have it, the pubs around the station seemed to be closed because of covid-related under-staffing, or because they weren't serving drinks until 3:00. Walking down to Sturt Street, because Google maps said we had to do that to catch a bus down to the ground, even though apparently (and logically) we could've caught a bus from the station, we waited for the number 25 bus that either came earlier, or was incredibly bloody late.

While waiting for the 25 we got asked by some kids about what we were chanting, and whether we were going to a soccer match. We ended hitching a ride on the 24, which unlike the 25 which dumps you on the front side of the Morshead Park precinct on Pleasant St, instead dumps you out the back on the western side, necessitating a walk around the back of the trotting club. Also, on the way there we saw another match day at Trekardo Park, doubtless full of persons oblivious to greatness that was soon to be on display down the road.

The reward for trudging through the back lots of Ballarat was a Gully match program, a six dollar burger turned into a five dollar burger because they didn't have any change, and a fence you could safely place a drink on without worry that it would fall over. Oh, and another win, marred only by having to watch us scrap and scrape in defense for an hour, and Josh Wallen getting what looked like a serious hamstring injury.

On the way back two of the blokes watched rugby league, I watched juryo day 14 of the haru basho. A good day all around.

Next game

Australia Cup against Avondale, at Broadmeadows Valley Park, on Wednesday night.

All information available at present indicates that this match will not be live streamed.

I'll be giving this game a miss for various reasons, but mostly because of competing commitments at home. 

Final thought

Thanks to Johnny for giving us a lift back to Ballarat station.

Boking Accident - South Melbourne 1 Green Gully 1

Dear readers of South of the Border,  I have been given a most precious gift; the gift of an epiphany. I wasn't looking for it, I didn't realise that I needed or wanted this gift, but I was chosen to receive it.

Since South of the Border was launched in December 2007, I believed I had the right to voice my own opinions, whether they were right or wrong, fair on unfair, and untethered to popular or official opinion. 

I now understand that this was a dangerous illusion, a devastatingly heretical one. I now understand that not only were my opinions wrong, but so too was my belief in the right to have my own opinions. I cannot express how much I was crushed by the sudden onset of the reality of my long-running egoism! All the lost years spent agonising about what to think and how to think it and how to express those thoughts, when all I needed to do was to look at the status quo, and just sit back and bask in its perpetual and permanent acceptability; no, its divine infallibility, for whatever happens must by design surely be good and right. 

As recently as last week I was like many of you, criticising people at our club who make decisions, focusing my stern judgments on those who have more than nominal responsibility for where the team has found itself this season. Ladies and gentlemen, I now know that it was wrong to feel this way. I don't blame the coach anymore. It is clearly the players' fault that we are where we are. They're the ones not following orders, or following orders too hard - I'm not sure which anymore. They're the ones who need to weather Spanish insults screamed at them for 90 minutes, and being rotated in and out of the match day squad for reasons they cannot comprehend. They need to play with less flair and intent! They need to comprehend better! It's for their own good! It's for our collective good!

But hold on - what if "blame" is the wrong word, too? What if this has been the plan all along? Maybe apportioning blame to anyone is not good enough or supportive enough of the team either? Forgive me; I'm new at this no longer thinking for myself caper. So instead of apportioning blame, let's start apportioning credit. I credit the coach for where we are now. I pay homage to the quality of his management skills, which see a squad capable of more, achieve less. Credit also has to go to the board. It takes a lot of guts to stand up to so-called reality. It's imperative that we South Melbourne supporters also reject this false reality, and substitute it for the one that management sees. My new and enduring hope is that one day those of us left in the crowd who don't agree with the current trajectory of the team, can squeegee their collective third eye and come to the same conclusion. Only then can we become not the bitter few defenders of a rump state, but rather, the discerning few.

This revelation means that I now understand that the last two months of football have been incredibly adequate. Maybe even more than adequate! Why demand excellence, even relative excellence, when you can accept the sweet comfort of midtable, or wherever we end up? Higher, lower, what difference does it make? What sweet release to now see that we are not in competition with other teams, but only with ourselves and our own expectations; even then, the only worthwhile struggle is to stop struggling. to stop having expectations, so that we can finally and genuinely let go of the infatuation of competing. 

You win this year or the next, or you lose this year or the next, what does it matter? And I don't mean what does it matter in the context of no one caring about this club or this league. I mean what does it matter at all what we do, if concerning ourselves with whether it matters only causes more psychological and spiritual torment? I've been going to games and seeing the anguish on our supporters' faces, and not seeing it for what it is; the agony of trying. So why try? Why not just be? Just go out there and do anything, and let the chips fall where they may. Give up trying to understand, give up the idea that South Melbourne Hellas should be doing better. Acknowledge the genius of the strategy, and acknowledge its genius wherever it leads us. 

Ideas of stature and pedigree? Let them go. Consistency? Throw it to the wind. Fluency? Ask yourself why we should make the effort. Come to the realisation that forwards and backwards are actually the same thing. Learn to love short corners. 

Next game

At St Albans away on Sunday. Now I know many of you aren't quite with me yet on the path to "who gives a stuff" enlightenment so I'll phrase this next section in a way that will hopefully gently start you on your journey. St Albans are struggling, but I don't us expect to roll over them; I expect us to walk alongside them, being neither better nor worse. Why make the opposition feel bad about themselves? We have a great chance to make them feel better about themselves - not so much better because they've managed to beat us, but hopefully at least enough to give them the taste of being able to know what it's like to match it with the great South Melbourne Hellas. And you also wouldn't want to win, because you only really need 26-30 points to definitely (probably) avoid relegation, so anything more than that would just be a waste of effort, and of course win bonuses. So, no showboating please, and absolutely no goals unless we need to equalise to keep our draw tally going. 

Women's news

In all seriousness, despite playing against an obviously inferior opponent, I was pleased with what I saw on the live stream on Saturday by our senior women against Alamein. Granted, Alamein didn't push as high up the field as say, the Bergers did the other week. But I think we moved the ball around well in midfield, and seemed more in control of the tempo of the match, even in those moments were Alamein had a decent spell. Big game at home against Bulleen on Saturday though, to show how far this team has really come.

Final thought

At least the last half hour of the game was kinda entertaining, if you're into that sort of thing. But if you are into that kind of thing, I must warn you, because it's a hell of a drug, and you're going to be chasing that high for the rest of your days if you're not careful.

For now, just shut up and enjoy the ride - Green Gully 0 South Melbourne 1

Marching bands, match programs, and a grassy hill that's deteriorating into dirt. These are some of the reasons why you should turn up to away games, instead of sulking at home. I mean, sure, if you have something better to do, you should do that, and more power to you. But watching your team from home when you have the option to go to a game? That's just madness. If one of the supposed (accidental) advantages of not being in A-League is the fact that you can see your team in person every week, why not take up that opportunity?

That's for those people to deal with. On Friday night it had not crossed my mind that with an 8pm kickoff, that there wouldn't be a reserves game. So here's me and Gains making a terrific argument for the experience of turning up to games in person, by getting to Green Gully Reserve about an hour and a half before the game, to find the entrance to the ground locked. What to do, other then try and find the alternative entrance to Gully's social club and bistro, which meant wandering around many doors trying to find the right one, before figuring out that it must the be the entry with the people smoking.

Oh, and how wonderful to be forced to go through the gaming area in order to get to the bistro. I'm sure such an arrangement is down to trying to minimise the amount of entry and exit points due to pandemic protocols; but how convenient that they didn't open the main doors which give you the option of not passing through the gaming room.

Anyway, eventually they did open the gates to the ground, and we were greeted by sprinklers on the field for some reason - because it wasn't like it hadn't already rained in the western suburbs earlier that day. But also, there was a marching band, that wasn't really marching so much as standing most of the time, parked next to Gully's covered shed thing, blasting out the tunes like it was 1885 and the Kaiser was due in town.

Some people on Twitter may have come across my recent footy posting about the music at AFL matches; this was not quite in that level of annoying, as well as my gripes over the selection of music at South games; but at least it was a band and not a recording, and at least they were playing full length songs, even if their repertoire was short. But damn it if there just wasn't anywhere to get away from it without leaving the vicinity of the western side where the food/toilets/drinks/etc were.

It was bloody loud is what I'm trying to say. Hard to hear oneself think, and you know I was missing out on some golden thoughts because of the noise, and even worse, finding it difficult to relay those thoughts to people in my vicinity, who were all desperate for my wisdom. On the plus side, credit to Gully for being one of the few clubs persisting with a (free!) match program, which made it easier to figure out who was who for them, and for reminding us both of the Maltese love for 1950s and 60s tribute acts, and for the existence of ex-South personnel at other clubs - in this case Steve Laurie (assistant coach), Peter Gavalas (physio), as well as the still active Shaun Timmins, Jerrad Tyson, and Melvin Becket.

Much to one person in particular's disappointment, Becket didn't even make the bench for Gully, nor he did he return the greeting offered by his biggest fan. The lesson here being, of course, never meet your heroes. Stranger though was the lineup that we put out, which after weeks of complaining about Esteban Quintas' ultra-defensive set-ups, on Friday night instead looked like something that was 65-80% compiled by the collective wisdom of the South forum.

Ben Djiba starting at right full-back, and Luke Adams on the bench. Daniel Clark on the bench (apparently for arriving late to the ground), and Zac Bates starting. Basically, it was the most attacking line-up we'd put on the park all year in the league, and that helped produce what was a pretty open game. Neither side was particularly good at producing quality final third product, but it was entertaining, which was a real change of pace for what we've dished up this year. But for the few hundred people at the game (up on the more usual mere couple of hundred for this fixture), at least they got their fifteen dollars worth in terms of end-to-end action.

It was weird to see a Quintas coached South side actually going toe-to-toe with an opponent of roughly similar calibre. I'm not so confident that it will always work out well, and the second half was in particular was much messier for us than I would have liked. Our midfield, or at least our desire to play through the midfield, disappeared almost entirely. Instead we resorted back to long ball after long ball to Harrison Sawyer, with Gerrie Sylaidos and Bates trying to pick up the scraps. It was invigorating to see Sylaidos and Bates unleashed, given licence to break lines and zip forward, at least in the first half. The second half's long-ball plan worked better than it should have, and I can't see it as a viable long-term prospect, but Sawyer did well enough with little help from either teammates or the officials to set up the winning goal.

He still looks as awkward as the proverbial baby giraffe, but for the time being he's getting the job done. Who knows what will happen if he gets injured, but you'd almost not want to think about it. 

That it took until the 80th minute or so for the deadlock to be broken is down to bad luck and poor finishing rather than a paucity of chances or lack of daring from either side. And then we got a bit lucky with a goal line clearance, but we escaped with a third 1-0 win for the year, and the players got to do their rendition of the dreadful 'Sweet Caroline', which is apparently their thing now instead of the 'Celtic Song'.

Along with the win came injuries both physical (Wallen's arm injury) and to one's pride (Daniel Clark), who seemed not quite as enthusiastic in his play as he usually is, after he had come on as a second half sub. We also continued to pick up yellow cards, and

Next game

Back at Lakeside on Saturday evening against St Albans, who are winless in their last four matches. Please note that the under 21s match will not be played as a curtain-raiser, but rather will be played after the senior match.

FFA Cup draw news

"So you like South vs Knights cup fixtures, eh?"
"Uh-huh"
"Well, have all the South vs Knights cup
 games in the world! Ahahahah, hahahah!

or the fifth round we've been drawn at home against Melbourne Knights. Quelle surprise. Did not see that coming. Here we go again. Fourth time in seven years. What is the point of even tuning in to the draw? You sit there at your computer or hold out your phone, waiting for the draw to start, then you find out that the draw is delayed by an hour and a half due to "technical issues", and then you just end up with this anyway. 

Football Victoria should just make South vs Knights a default fourth round FFA Cup game each year, and that way at least get rid of the pretense that the draw isn't rigged. Just alternate the home team each year. Save on the electricity bill by not having to heat up the balls in the microwave. I suppose we should be glad that we at least avoided the banana skin (on field and off) that would be a game against Preston - unless you're one of these people who want a big pay day - but that's really small comfort. Give me the cruisiest path to the cup any day of the week.

Expect the game to be fixtured pretty close to whenever it is we're supposed to play them in the league.

Rout via (mostly) the right hand channel

Judging by the opening half of their league season opening game against Bulleen, it looks like the senior women are back into overpowered squad domination mode. Which is fine by me, though I wish the audio on the NPL stream wasn't so unbalanced as to come out almost entirely through the right-hand speaker. The women were six goals up at half time, and finished with a 7-1 win. Who knows if this is an aberration on Bulleen's part - they looked a lot sharper in the second half than the first - but this could be a long season for pretty much everyone else other ourselves and Calder if that's the kind of performance we can dish out to a likely finals team. 

Image edited from original photo found on
 Wallen's Instagram page (IG:joshuawallen)

Anyone for a bowl of tea?

Josh Wallen's arm injury, which has required two surgeries, will rob us of one of our better players for several weeks. My guess (and probably yours) is that Luke Pavlou will probably take his place, but it could well be that Marcus Schroen has picked up enough match fitness to be able to start a game, if not quite finish one.

We can rest assured that Wallen is being well taken care of, because clearly the photo on the right was not taken in a public hospital - that toast certainly looks better than anything I've come across in the public system.

Of more concern in this matter is the size of the cup of tea that Wallen is seemingly about to drink while injured. That thing is so massive, you wonder how someone with a broken arm is supposed to safely lift that much hot liquid without spilling it on oneself.  

On the couch/On the streams/In the stands

Here's to getting into arguments with strangers at a game, on the topic of why the team you both support just so happens to suck so very, very much.

Here's to me sitting on level two at the Punt Road End on Saturday night, and somehow ending up next to one of the few people who apparently regularly attends Avondale matches, who himself may have been wondering how he ended up next to someone who still goes to South matches. Don't ask how the topic of soccer came up in conversation, only know that it was the more genial part of the conversation, as we spent most of the next three hours disagreeing about why exactly Collingwood sucked. He repertoire on that front was straight out of 1992, while I was - unusually for me, perhaps - very much in the present. I did check out some of the NPL Victoria stream action at halftime, when it wasn't drizzling so much, by which I mean I was trying to skim through to where the goals were. Certain teams really loving draws this year.

Irksome

I will say this for the Bentleigh vs Heidelberg game, and not much more. It was the first full-length game I watched on a stream for quite some time (though I say that with some frequency), and I still cannot get over the fact that several years down the live-streaming track, and NPL Victoria's offering still doesn't have a instant replay option. And no, I'm not talking about sliding the cursor back a few a seconds yourself, but something that's part of the coverage itself. If they can do it Tasmania, why can't they do it here?

Final thought

We're now thirteen points clear of the relegation zone; or fifteen more points to go as the kids like to say.

Streaming - Oakleigh Cannons 1 South Melbourne 1

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, and because my family circumstances have changed, but on Friday night I found that I had a limit to what it would take to keep me away from a South game in Melbourne - and that limit was what I surmised as being a train replacement bus service that was just going to be too much bother.

Getting there wasn't going to be a problem - and it usually isn't when it comes to getting to Jack Edwards Reserve, one of the NPL's better grounds for the public transport minded - but getting back was going to be a different story. Basically, it would have required getting a train for one stop to Oakleigh (or walking through the dark industrial backblocks), a bus out to Burnley, a train back to the city, and then another train to Sunshine.

On a normal night, when everything goes as planned, I'd get back home about midnight. And maybe something similar would have happened last Friday even with the altered travel arrangements, but lord help us if something went askew. And while I could've, I guess, asked someone for a lift back to the city on the night, I'm not a big fan of doing that because of my first rule of using public transport to get to a ground - that being, always be sure you can actually get back.

I made the call early enough in the week so that I could arrange other entertainment for myself and a mate, in this case seeing Luke Howard (piano) and Nadje Noordhuis (trumpet) at the Melbourne Recital Centre, playing material off their Ten Sails album. If this was early last year, I'd say it was unusual for me to head to a concert of any sort; but as it's this year,  it's unusual for anyone to head to a concert.

Aside from the sauna-esque conditions of the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, and some problems with a crackly speaker during the performance of the seventh piece, the night was otherwise the epitome of middlebrow contentment, in the best sense of jazz-classical improvised compositions, complete with overpriced drinks from the bar next door. 

And despite not being at the game, I still reached my weirdo quota for the week, when some blokes - who may or may not have been attached to the Free Julian Assange protest on the Flinders Street station steps - trailed me and my mate, trying to recruit us for what they called an Oceans Eleven style attempt at busting Assange out of jail. Luckily as we were walking past the National Gallery of Victoria, our potential recruiters noticed that some bloke was standing in the gallery's moat looking for something, and we were able to walk on in peace.

All of which is a very longwinded introduction to my actually watching the game on YouTube the next morning. I thought the biggest issue would be coming across something to do with the game on social media, especially on Twitter to which I have a serious addiction. But actually avoiding news of the game was quite easy. The most difficult part? Turning on the stream on Saturday morning and having Brandon Galgano's voice blaring out of the television. Now I'm a morning person, but Brandon's enthusiasm was nonetheless a bit startling, but one became accustomed to it soon enough.

It looked like a decent crowd, but since the effects mic (if they had any) wasn't picking up any noise, I don't know if the atmosphere was any good. Bit too much food talk for liking, of which I have a low tolerance even when it's meant well and with zero attempt at being patronising. I tell you one thing though, this is the closest attention I've paid to a South game for some time, not because I'd stopped caring, but mostly because in-person attendance is also a social and sensory experience. 

One thing that surprised me however was how much I still care. When Henry Hore tore that Oakleigh defender a new one, and Josh Wallen subsequently tapped home, I was in raptures - and I don't think it was just because it was unexpected. Within the context of the game we were the better side in the first half, and even though it wasn't like Oakleigh weren't in the game, we actually looked the most competent we have so far in 2021. Big sample size I know, and I wasn't getting carried away with anything, but it was nice that even within the strictures of Esteban's ultra-defensive setup, that we could be competitive against one of the league's better squads.

After half time though Oakleigh adjusted and started playing a few more balls in the channels either side of the 'D' the 18 yard box. When the ball got played there, there was confusion between our DMs, CBs, and FBs - all of whom are generally playing deep - about who was meant to step up and fill the space. That doesn't mean one should excuse the apparently blatant handball in the leadup to the goal, only that on the balance of probabilities, Oakleigh were going to score a goal eventually, and they did.

The disappointing thing for us, as is likely to be the case going on, is that because we are set up in an obviously unbalanced manner, scoring one goal is going to be tough, but two or more even harder. That's especially the case if we decide to just hold on to a 1-0 lead for 45 minutes. While at least in this game the long balls to Sawyer were less a case of being the first option, and a bit more of the being the next option, when he got subbed whatever our one plan is for going forward this season went to the bench with him. 

But back to that unbalanced lineup. If you were to take a stab at who was going to be our most important player in 2021 based on these three games, it's got to be. He's the midfield lynchpin, he's the pivot, and he's the main harasser. If he's not being marked out of a game, if he isn't gassed an hour in from the workload, and if he doesn't trip over the ball under his feet, we might have a chance of jagging a goal. If he's not in the game, the midfield becomes rudderless, and there's not enough pressure to create a turnover higher up the field - because Quintas basically only has Clark and Sawyer doing that job.

Sawyer is our second most important player, because as streaming co-commentator Lachie Flannigan noted, we're playing Sawyer as the bounce-pass forward for whoever's meant to be running off him. I don't think Sawyer's particularly suited to the hold-up role despite his frame, but if we're going to play with one up front and using this method, he's all we've got. 

(though one should remember, when extolling the success of the Chris Taylor era, that as much as Milos Lujic was a superior talent to Sawyer, Lujic barely missed a league game from 2014-2017, an astonishing run broken up only very rarely for injury or suspension; things might have been a different for us back then if Lujic hadn't played as much as he did)

Our third most important player? It's go to be Brad Norton. Why? Because he's the only attacking threat from behind the halfway line, considering how defensively this side is set up. Quintas needs to decide once and for all to select players in their best position, and where necessary in their best tandem. We have several full-back options. Lirim Elmazi, Brad Norton, Ben Djiba, Perry Lambropoulos, and yet we play Luke Adams at right-back, who cannot effectively make his way up the field.

If Adams is not the best option for a centre-back pairing with either Jake Marshall or Marco Jankovic, then he should be on the bench. If Adams is a better centre-back option in a pair with either Jankovic or Marshall, then one of those two should be on the bench. Because Adams is at right-back, one whole side of the field is taken away from us going forward, and we are essentially already pinned back there when we're defending.  

Watching this team is becoming annoying, not because I think it's capable of winning a championship any time soon, but under another coach there'd at least be the chance to pick the best eleven to start a game without playing favourites, and without thinking you're halfway to losing a game from kickoff. Whatever enthusiasm the team is showing - and they're certainly having a go - playing ninety minutes of frightened or neutered backs to the wall football every week is going to wear thin eventually. 

And that's got to have a deleterious effect on our attacking options. Gerrie Sylaidos looks like he's lacking confidence. There were moments in this game that, had they happened even last year, Sylaidos would have certainly acted more assertively. His refusal or inability to pull the trigger so far this year, whether that's in the form of a pass or shot, is of a deep concern. Henry Hore finally got the ball at his feet and managed to show what he can do, but like Gerrie offers nothing going back. Now that's fine if the team is set up in a way where Hore and Gerrie don't need to do things they're not equipped for; but everyone else (apart from Norton) is sitting so deep that Gerrie and Henry have to run themselves ragged, and if they do get the ball up field, they then have to wait for everyone to come up by which time they've been dispossessed by a stronger player, or had to make a backwards or sideways pass which kills the momentum of the forward thrust.

And bloody hell, are we actually going to manage to get behind an opposition defensive line by design rather than by fluke? And some of our players need to stop looking for soft penalties, too.

All of which is to say that, as usual, you'd have taken a point before the game, but you hate the point you got at the end of it. Hard to please, it's true, but I know this team can do better. I'm not sure anyone with the agency to make that happen believes it though.

Next game

Port Melbourne away on Friday night. I should be there for that one.

This Luke, That Luke

Last week I wondered Luke Patitsas of fellow South blog Sour Grapes would resume his efforts in 2021; word is that work and study commitments, as well as inconvenient fixturing are going to limit his output this year, though he is looking to write some stuff when he can.

But if you want Luke action, Luke Radziminski - better known for his photography - has been writing pieces on South games for the Footy Almanac, which you can find here. 

On the streams

Wet n' Wild

At home, just because. No genuine opportunity to go see a game of any sort, but there's streams, always streams. And then when it starts raining, staying home looks like a sensinble deicision, even when it's not really a decision. Mark Van Aken and a cameraman are huddled together under a tarpaulin in the media scaffold at the Reggio Calabria Club. It starts raining, and then bucketing down. The camera operator periodcially wipes the lens clear. Van Aken's research notes are ruined by the weather. He pushes on, taking his commentary a step back from naming individual players, as Gully scores, has a man sent off, and as the rain comes in sideways late during the first half, he decides that people shouldn't have to work under these conditions; he's had enough, and as he abandons his post, I can't say that I blame him. The cameraman stays in place, and we get the rest of the game, Gully gets the win, and we find that collectively we have a long way to go before our facilities catch up to our ambitions.

Unwatchable, and to some people, also unlistenable

Found myself with a little bit of spare time late on Sunday afternoon. Decided to drop in on the stream of St Albans vs Melbourne Knights. Now Greg Blake as main commentator... I get it, he's not everyone's cup of tea. I can tolerate his style when I'm in the right frame of mind, or when he has someone like George Cotsanis in special comments. But a game should at least be watchable. Thanks to Melbourne Knights style-over-substance kit preferences - wearing some of grey and black number - watching passages of play that drifted into the shadowed parts of Churchill Reserve absolutely pointless. So I stopped watching, with Knights 1-0 up, and moved onto something else. But then I decided, what the hell, let's just have the video and I'll listen to it in the background, and what do you know, that was a nice payoff as Dinamo scored two goals in the last ten minutes or so. Squinting at the video was a little more fun than usual.

Final thought

More nothing than you can poke a stick at

Even though the pandemic is hardly over, Australia is gradually opening up again, and across the board sports are looking to resume in some form or another. So are is the NPL Victoria coming back this year?

Last week indiscreet murmurings on internet forums suggested that in our division, nine of the fourteen clubs weren't too keen to resume in 2020. Furthermore, the other five clubs, while wanting to resume, were sympathetic to those that didn't want to start again, especially if it meant not having crowds and the associated revenue at games.

But this apparent understanding began coming undone when news seeped out that the NPL 2 and 3 teams were keen on getting their seasons underway. How this would work without promotion to and relegation from the top division is an interesting question.

The whole notion of a detente however was blasted out of the water by Hume City's president Steve Kaya, who railed against the apparently ten NPL Victoria clubs refusing to resume, and noting that his club had resumed training. So, one team named within one faction, thirteen more to go across both. Then Green Gully announced that it was also resuming training, and the question for me was where did South sit?

My hunch - and it was only a hunch - was probably on the side of South being one of those not keen on coming back. That's less because of middling our performances had been, and mostly because our president Nick Maikousis had said at the beginning of the competition's shutdown that he didn't think the competition would return.

But according to Michael Lynch, alongside Hume and Gully, it's our club and Eastern Lions who make up the group of four clubs looking and/pushing for a resumption in play. Though there's some soccer-forum conjecture about Lions are actually in favour of resuming.

Football Victoria, which has been sending out intermittent updates on the situation via email, has a hopeful target of early July for the resumption of NPL senior football. From my isolated locale, I can't tell what's likely to happen.

Do the fans really want play to resume so badly that they're willing to put up with not being able to go to games? Are the players keen enough to come back even though it would mean having to put up with extremely stringent safety procedures on match days and at training? Is there even genuine scope for a return while the corona virus is still active within the community? What's the point of resuming if the whole thing can probably get shutdown with just one case if the virus in a player or official?

As usual, I've got a lot of questions and no answers.

Lakeside to receive funds for renovation
In other COVID-19 related news, the state government is planning to upgrade a wide variety of sporting facilities, as part of a pandemic economic recovery plan. According to this article in The Age, that includes renovation of Lakeside Stadium, whatever that means.

Match programs
Program-wise I've added the "possibly incomplete" Canberra City away 1980, the "I recently bought a copy off eBay" Sydney Olympic away 2004, and the "I was tardy in scanning it" Green Gully away 2019 to the collection. You know where to find these by now.

Mental health day - Green Gully 0 South Melbourne 0

If Football Victoria still had a prize for photo of the year, I'd submit this, but you
know the PC wowsers wouldn't allow a pic of a man having a durry to win any
 accolades, being obsessed with anodyne wholesomeness. Photo: Luke Radziminksi

Well it seems a good number of you took the advice I dished out last week and took a mental health day last Saturday, perhaps anticipating that we would be crunched by a superior team. Or maybe you were told by people at the club that it was in your best interests to stay away for a while. Or maybe you were tired from staying up all night watching the cricket world cup for some stupid reason.

Not that I have official data to back up the following claim, but this was the lowest crowd I can remember attending a fixture between these two sides at this ground since, like, I can remember attending. But then I remembered that most games this season have felt that way, especially as the season has wore on, and I was less alarmed and more placated that we actually just collectively continuing towards our ethnic senior soccer death spiral; although giving it the name of "death spiral" gives it too much balletic street-cred.

But those who did attend managed to at least see our side put in if not a remarkable than at least a creditable performance, of the sort that makes you upset with getting only a point where before the game you were contemplating sacrificing animals to petty ancient gods for us to get a mere point.

As to what caused us to put in what was for 2019 an above average performance.. I don't know. Was it the possible formation change? Was there even a formation change? I couldn't tell. There were some players not in their usual arrangement, and some players on the field with players they have usually not been on the field with this year, but that could go for a lot of games. Also the sun was in our eyes, and there was a pre-season warmth that kind of distracted a little from precise analysis of the action.

I will say that part of what was responsible for the improvement compared to several recent weeks was Gully's performance. They looked very good against Avondale the week before, but were a bit less sharp on Saturday. It's also possible that Gully played right into our hands with their style of play, playing a high line and being willing to attack. In cases such as that, this season has shown us that as long as we don't concede, this kind of situation suits us just fine, as it allows us to counter-attack via the wings and in this case also up the middle with long balls over the top of the high line.

Melvin Becket sends the ball wide of the goal and wide of
 former South keeper Jerrad Tyson. Photo: Cindy Nitsos

Unfortunately, we were unable to score from any of the four or so pretty good chances created in the first half. Pep Marafioti delayed shooting, approached the keeper, did not pass the ball to an open Peter Skapetis, and then took a shot straight into former South custodian Jerrad Tyson. Skapetis himself was more unfortunate then incompetent when his initial shot was blocked by an almost stranded Tyson, before the quick follow-up shot from the save hit the one Gully player in the way of the goal. Ben Djiba made an enterprising run on the right, but was unable to get either a shot away nor pass the ball to a waiting striker. Finally, Melvin Becket did all the hard work dribbling his way to the six yard box, only to stumble over his own feet and place his off-balance shot wide.

Having witnessed all that, one assumed that our comeuppance was near, especially within the last four minutes of the first half; but that comeuppance did not arrive. Sure, we were not as good in the second, and certainly did not find the space behind Gully's defence that we did in the first. But for all Gully's improvement, they were seldom able to seriously threaten our back four. I think they only managed the one shot on target for the whole game, and thankfully Josh Dorron was able to keep it out - a long range free kick from Jay Davies curled towards the top right hand corner, but Dorron was able to extend his large frame and palm the ball away.

Not the first lemon tree to be spotted at an NPL ground.
Photo. Luke Radziminski. 

Some of our defensive efforts were a bit more acrobatic than perhaps necessary, bringing out calls from me and Dave of "I see you know your judo well, sir", which while funny (of course) didn't fit, because judo is about throws and not acrobatic kicking. We perhaps could've made a better stab at taking all three points if we made more than one substitution, but we didn't, even though there were players like Gerrie Sylaidos who were completely gassed with about ten to play. One hopes that the reluctance to make more than one change was due to tactical considerations and not we can't afford to pay the players this week considerations.

But we could've also made a better play at getting all three points if we were a little bit smarter in the second half, and not so much trying to second guess ourselves. I'm thinking here of the mess of a free kick concocted by Billy Konstantinidis and Marcus Schroen from a good position. True, the defensive wall was a bit close for my liking, and true again that free kick taking is a hard enough business, but elaborate games of misdirection are best left to people in better leagues; in the NPL, just let someone take the shot without too much showboating and get on with the game.

Anyway the refereeing was good, until such time as the ref needed to make difficult decisions, and then his performance went down the gurgler. For those who care about such things, it was our first scoreless draw since midway through 2017, and it also continued our unbeaten run at Green Gully Reserve, which has been going since we beat Gully in the first round in 2013. More importantly, we got a point out of the whole thing, and I got a match program because Gully is one of the two clubs still producing those things.

One more thing
It was interesting to see the lack of sponsor boards at Green Gully. Now we won't get into the ins and outs of who's a paid sponsor at Lakeside and who might only be there as decoration (or even if we have that many sponsors from outside the circle of the board); but knowing that these things happen at clubs lower down the food-chain, I always wondered how many sponsor boards at NPL clubs were actually from active sponsors.

Under such circumstances, one wonders if there's scope for putting in decorative/club themed boards instead, or at least keeping some redundant sponsor boards for a heritage role... Buddy's Mobile Disco at least deserves more than it's current fate of paint and rust decay with its face turned away from the ground and toward the north wind.

Next game
The Knights at home on Sunday afternoon. They'll be coming off a midweek Dockerty Cup game against Bulleen.

Relegation battle (status: ongoing, gentlest of easing)
Not much changed on the relegation avoiding front this week - which is broadly good news for us, because it means that the teams in the bottom three who are trying to get out of the relegation and playoff spots are running out of time to do so.

Nearer to us, Port lost to Hume, the Dandy derby was a draw, and Pascoe Vale beat Kingston 2-0 to make it highly improbable that Kingston will be able to make it up to 11th. So we have a 10 point buffer to 12th (and 13th) with a maximum of 18 points up for grabs.

In our remaining games, it's the one against Dandy Thunder that'll likely be crucial. Let's hope we get some points on the board before then so that it's not crucial. Thunder are also due to play Pascoe Vale in the run home, so someone's going to have to take points off someone there.

Deckchairs on the Titanic
What is even this? I'm not going to pretend that I have any idea anymore how our football operations work, who does what, and what exactly it is they do. It's like people who work in offices - what do they do? So many buildings, so many offices, so many people in offices doing what, I don't know. Anyway back to the matter at hand. In summary, board member Andrew Mesourouni, previously in charge of junior football, is now in charge of the senior men's football department. Former general manager of the club Peter Kokotis, who was appointed football manager (senior men) last November, has now been put in charge of the juniors in conjunction with Mike Valkanis. Except that the latest article says "We welcome Peter back to the club." - so was Peter with us or wasn't he?

NCIP is gone
So it's gone. Now what? Will any major ethnic club officially revert to an older name? I can't really see that happening - especially those with a hankering to get into the mooted second division - but there's certainly more scope for blended branding incorporating old and new. I can also see some fans taking matters into their own hands, which will no doubt lead to some very mature outcomes. After all, freedom of expression for you is also freedom of expression for someone else; and has often been the case, it only take a minority of people to cause a fuss, and then for the rest of the club to either actively or passively condone the said fuss.

But I'm thinking of this stuff like it's current. Surely everyone has moved on, grown up, got a new hobby.

For our part, there's discussion about whether we should go back to South Melbourne Hellas, bring back the old logo, etc. I think most of our extant supporters are comfortable enough with the South Melbourne FC branding, and the possible use of 'Hellas' to augment that as a nickname or some such. I'd be in favour of an updated logo along the lines of the current commemorative badge, if for no other reason than that I've disliked the current one for a long time.

The most important thing though is that whatever the club and its members decide to do, it's now our choice, and not someone else's, which was one of the main points of my gripe about the NCIP in the first place.

What's happening with the Puskas film?
A few people asked about this a little while back, and I can't really provide a definitive answer. All that I know for sure is that quite a few interviews were done, that there seems to be a good story there, and after that... silence. Is money an issue? Is it competing projects? Have the boys fallen out among themselves?

If there's issues with getting the project going to the next stage - whatever that stage may be - I'm sure there's people that can help. Because as much as there's South fans wanting to know what's happening with the film, I'm guessing the people who've already been interviewed would also be asking what's going on with the film - and for them, it's not a just a movie, it's the story of an amazing moment in their lives.

You know, I actually got around to watching Rob, Cam and Tony's previous sports documentary The Galahs the other day, and I can see what they'd like to do with the Puskas film. Hopefully whatever's holding up production of the Puskas film is easy to enough to resolve, because it's a great story with much broader appeal than Harry Beitzel's Irish adventure, and a lot more archival footage to play with among other things.

On the couch
Not setting the couch on fire, yet
Watched Kingston at home to Pascoe Vale last night, in a real ordinary relegation six-pointer. It was good news for Pascoe Vale, but bad news for Kingston and people who inexplicably like Monday night football. Most frustrating of all was of course the fact that we've only been able to take three points off either team, but that assumes we're so much better than those teams and deserve to have taken more points off them. Thankfully there were also the last couple of SVU episodes with Dani Beck filling in for Olivia Benson to distract from the torpor of what was going on at The Grange.

Final thought

Holy shit, @OliverMinatel is on a fucking train! And to think we couldn't even get a banner for him on @yarratrams... no wonder he left us for bigger and better things! https://t.co/mdavFqb2rj

— dj ēļřāffő (@dvrf1878) July 8, 2019