2015 Asian Cup adventure - Day 1 - Self-Perpetuating Nostalgia Blues

Seeing as I have tickets to seven matches of the 2015 Asian Cup (along with Gains and his housemate), all in Melbourne. I really wanted to write something that was akin to the greatness of my World Cup pieces for Shoot Farken, but that's not going to happen. In part this is because if you don't have pay TV, as I don't, the tournament may as well as not exist, but also inspiration just hasn't struck. So instead please enjoy or disregard the following, the usual dose of moroseness.

First stop was the Precinct Hotel to catch up with Steve from Broady, because he reckoned that the Cricketers Arms, where the Green and Gold Army was planning to set up, was a hole. Let's be honest though, the Precinct is also a dump. Eventually we did wander over to the Cricketers Arms - but not before bumping into now former South player Shaun Timmins on the way there - in order to meet up with a South supporter who is not completely disillusioned and/or cynical with whatever it is that the Green and Gold Army is meant to be these days.

Aside from inexplicably watching Australia vs India during the 2011 Asian Cup at the Celtic Club - an event which somehow did not make it to this blog in any form - my one and only other close up experience with the Green and Gold Army was back in 2009, which I wrote up in a hyper jaded manner on this blog. The ensuing years have made it harder to hate the Green and Gold Army though. Stripped of relevance by pretty much everyone, replaced by the one game wonder of Terrace Australia [sic], but still kicking on, who am I to kick a dog while it's down?

I must admit that on face value the Cricketers Arms is perhaps an odd choice for such a meet and greet. Apart from its close proximity to the ground, both the interior and the beer garden out the back were liberally decorated in VFL, AFL and cricket paraphernalia. Apart from re-telling unpublishable South gossip, the only other significant thing to do was to become complicit in someone's alcohol problem. But I suppose that's what going to a pub is all about anyway.

Steve from Broady wanted to head to the ground early for some unknown reasons. On the way there we spotted a suited up Alan Davidson talking to someone, before we crossed over into Gosch's Paddock (named after some long dead Melbourne City councilman) and tried to get a handle on what the pre-match festivities consisted of; as it turned out, it was mostly a handful of tent booths with skill games for the kids, and a merch stand.

Outside the Gate 2 entrance at the Bubbledome, there was ethnic dancing of a sort, though I didn't hang around long enough to notice if it was a generic (or specific) Levantine dabke, or something altogether more Kuwaiti. If it indeed was a Kuwaiti folk dance, one wonders if they'd have been allowed to do it in Kuwait proper, where dancing (among other 'fun' things) is prohibited. And of course, my thoughts turned to the NCIP and all that, before being distracted by the white line on the concourse with the attendant instruction 'no smoking beyond thus point', as if the cigarette smoke and the wind could read, much less care where they would end up. But back to the NCIP for just a moment, how good was it that Asian Cup organising committee managed to choose a meat pie as our national dish? It's one of those things that in reality is almost entirely inconsequential, but because of that in-consequentiality manages to rankle my feathers even more. For the record, I would have gone with stale bain marie dim sims.

Once inside, Steve and I did a lap around the inside of the ground to kill time. I bought a scarf in part because it was going to get colder and the threat of rain, and because my green with one gold star Hattrick t-shirt wasn't going to cut it on that front. We bumped into two fellow South fans as well, which just goes to prove that we're not all Socceroo hating, old soccer Nazis. It was my first Socceroos game for a year and a half, the last time being a forgettable (in that I'd forgotten about it entirely) World Cup qualifier against Jordan at Docklands. The last time I was at the Bubbledome was for a Rebels game. The last time I saw a soccer match at the Bubbledome was for another, earlier World Cup qualifying game against Saudi Arabia. It was interesting to see all the elements of the normal Bubbledome stripped back, by which I mean the sponorship boards, but there was also a very large expanded media space on the western side of the ground. Otherwise it was pretty much the same place.

Now it's true that unless you're shoved into some corner, there are not really any bad seats at the Bubbledome, but it was probably a bit dishonest to class the seats we had as 'category A' seats, considering that we were behind the line of the goal - surely that definition should have applied more strictly to areas including only more central bays. At least we could get a good look at the scoreboard from where we were, which became became more necessary in the second half as the bloke next to me was an unnecessary leaner, meaning that we, too, had to lean forward every time the ball went down toward the Olympic Boulevard end.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott made an appearance and was booed by large sections of the the crowd, unlike the time I saw him make an appearance at Brookvale Oval in 2014. Of course back then he was in his own electorate, and accompanied by a sick child as well. Frank Lowy got a much kinder reception though, except from me. If you're going to have a chip on your shoulder, you may as well be sincere about it.

The opening ceremony was all a bit ho hum, some strange inflatable set up, three artists I knew next to nothing about - one song I recognised from some ad campaign on television - and music played at an earth shakingly loud volume, which jarred with the tolerable volume of the pre-game entertainment before that. It probably didn't help that I was seated right behind some massive pitch side speakers, covered in plastic I assume to protect them from any possible deluge, but because of this also making a huge distorted rustling noise. If anyone can make head or tail of all the people running around and doing backflips and cartwheels, good to you. Opening ceremonies are for television audiences anyway, not for people in the stands with obstructed and only one view of the action.

Would've been a much more authentic piece of Aussie culture if opening ceremony was people running through sprinklers pic.twitter.com/wm2Gn7haFx
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) January 9, 2015

Oh yes, as warned in an email before the match, there was also audience participation by way of what the organisers called a 'tifo' - which was really getting a coloured card out from the back of your seat and making sure you flipped it at the right moment. We even went through a taxing practice run; taxing in that we flipped the cards several times during that warm up, while it only required one flip during the opening ceremony itself. More on those pieces of cardboard later.

"TIFO" at the Asian Cup... lame! #AsianCup2015 #AC2015 pic.twitter.com/Q1Pc6uOzkz
— Cindy N (@cindyn) January 9, 2015

The first 30 odd minutes was pretty mediocre stuff from the Socceroos, the goal conceded from the corner being the highlight of said mediocrity. A close runner up however was the first corner we took which was played short RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! Aside from whatever irrational hatred I have of short corners, we have this guy called Tim Cahill, who even though he's a self-aggrandising, right wing nut job associating shill, has a magical forehead onto which every lofted ball we can send into the area should be sent to.

Nevertheless, as was expected but not assured, we managed to run over the top of them. As we all rose up to celebrate the Socceroos two first half goals, I got accidentally elbowed in the side after each time by the Unnecessary Leaner in bis excitement, which took the edge off the celebrations for me. Further injury was avoided because for the third goal everyone was standing up in anticipation of the penalty, and the the fourth goal was a such a junk time effort there was no real point in celebrating it anyway.

At half time the sprinklers either turned themselves or were turned on by someone for the same reason (which escapes me at this moment) they were turned on before the match. Either way the photographers had to make a bit of run for it. The second half was entertaining at least as we peppered the goals, but the Kuwaitis were also able to break through the offside trap on a handful of occasions and barring some good work by Mat Ryan in goal, it might have been a tighter finish. Instead the crowd grew bored as the Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! chant started going through the crowds, and the pieces of cardboard used for the opening ceremony were crafted into paper planes. A handful were well crafted enough to make it onto the field; most seemed to make it as far as the space behind the ad boards, while a good few didn't even get that far, managing only to collide with the back of people's heads, reminding me of the time I got hit in the head with a coin at a Victory game.

At the end of the day, the man of the match was clearly the referee, who bucked the trend of all referees being rubbish all the time,  what with having an excellent game all around, especially in not falling for pretty much any of the diving antics of the Socceroos. Remember the days when we were all self-righteous about the diving and feigning of injuries of Asian teams? Well judging from last night's match, that's gone completely out the window now, as we have now become the petulant equals of our region's finest in this matter. Welcome to modern Australian football.

Iraq! Iraq! Makedonia! More mingling with the mainstream

Trundled down to Swan Street yesterday for the Socceroos match against the Saudis. This post will likely have much the same content as this post last year, so if you're not keen on me repeating myself, you can skip this article.

Ah, the semi-dead rubber. That is, it was a dead rubber for the Socceroos, but for the visiting Saudis, there was everything at stake - they needed to win. I suppose there was some incentive for our side as well - apart from fringe players seeking to impress, it'd be fair to say that if there was one team that we'd rather not progress to the next stage, it'd be the Saudis, rather than Oman or Thailand.

Quite a decent crowd in attendance, about 25,000 people, quite good for such an occasion with a kickoff also pushed back an hour - on a school night! Plenty of kids in the crowd, too. If there was a rule about no club colours, it didn't get through to some. I had my South beanie on, and while most of the crowd were arrayed in some sort of green and/or gold merchandise, there were the usual suspects in their club tops, both A-League and overseas.

Credit to the bloke with the vintage Manchester City shirt with Danny Tiatto's name on the back. That was one bloke who'd obviously been following that team before City's Arab ship came in, when they were a team that went up and down several divisions and were just another side of no consequence. Speaking of Danny Tiatto, he was awarded some sort of accolade at half time, but the only club mentioned was his junior side Bulleen. A shame, as that Melbourne Knights side he was such a crucial leg chopping part of, was probably the best Aussie club team I've ever seen.

The Green and Gold Army may just as well have not been there for most of the match. I was in the corner about a bay across from them, and barely a peep was heard from their direction until Archie Thompson got some sort of whisper in his ear while he was warming up in the first half, and then nothing again really until we scored that barrage of goals at the end. They were put to shame by the Saudi away end (though really, it should be Saudi away corner, as they were shoved into the metaphorical crawl space on the Yarra side of the stadium). At least the Saudis had an excuse for eventually losing their voice - their team got done like a dinner.

At least the Mexican wave and Aussie, Aussie, Aussie chants didn't come in until the very end. I felt also that the crowd couldn't read the game. Fair enough, they booed what they considered were soft fouls, the occasional milking of a foul and the obligatory rolling on the ground. But we've been in Asia for something like 5-6 years now? Time to just get used to it, maybe even play along with it. Me and Gains were just laughing at both the Saudi antics and the crowd's reaction. The WWE should look into marketing to this crowd, they fell for that heel routine like nobody's business. The absolute best moment was when the Saudi player felled himself on the verge of halftime, when they were 2-1 up. Out comes the stretcher, eventually - of course within ten seconds of being stretchered off, the bloke gets up. Crowd goes nuts. Classic stuff.

Rudimentary clearances and interceptions were being cheered like it was Simon Prestigiacomo making a last ditch spoil on Warren Treadrea in his prime after Presti's deceptive closing speed made up a five metre gap. Case in point - David Carney came on late, had the ball kicked into him in a failed attempt to dribble past him, and the bloke behind me burst out with 'classy stuff, Dave!'. Indeed every player was a champion to this bloke. No questioning of the need to play a bunch of 30 year olds, or why Mark Schwartzer flew halfway around the world for his match, or why we played with four centrebacks, why we couldn't figure out the Saudis' fairly obvious plan for most of the match, why we couldn't hit a five metre pass etc. That's not to say that the Socceroos didn't improve as the game wore on, and the stereotypically mentally fragile Saudis collapsed in tremendous fashion. And it was nice to be at an exciting and entertaining national team fixture - thanks for nothing, Pim.

Still, as entertaining as the game was, crowd watching was still just as good. There was the bloke with the A3 sheet of paper with Arabic text scrawled in permanent marker. Not sure if his message got on screen. There was the young woman with the dyed blonde hair and tight shorts, wearing a Saudi flag around her shoulders - good thing there were no mutaween there. And then there was was the bloke with the modern Iraqi flag, who seemed to enjoy the win more on two fronts. They may have got rid of the sectarianism that held the national league back, but its heartbeat is still kicking on at some level in the present. Which is more than can be said for Richmond station, which had no electricity in its station building before kickoff and was still pitch black at 11pm.

Iraq! Iraq! Ma-ke-do-ni-a! This fan got two wins for the price of one. Photo: Gains.

'Insert Airline Sponsor Here' Socceroos 2 New Zealand All Whites 1

Last week, during my Monday evening class out at Footscray Park - Key Debates in the Humanities if you must know - my teacher Julie Stephens said that she'd be absent the following week. Involuntarily my arms shot up in a gesture of thanks and triumph, making everyone turn around, 'til I explained that now I could go to the sockah. One guy said, 'oh yeah', and really, it was more support than I thought I'd get.

So during the week I started trying to round up a posse to go with me. Already bought tickets. Cleaning my apartment because the landlord is coming around. I'm finishing work late. I'm going to be flying to Singapore. Bah, humbug. So I trundled down to my local Ticketek outlet, located conveniently about a couple of kilometres away (fark you inconvenient Ticketmaster), and bought me a ticket for the match (and also one for The Eels in August, yes I suck for giving Mark Oliver Everett more of my monies but that's my problem not yours, so fob off).


Krowd Watch 
The last Socceroos game I went to see was the Oman Asian Cup Qualifier last year. The last MCG Socceroos game I saw at the MCG was the Japan World Cup Qualifier also in 2009, where I breached some serious journalistic ethics by performing various sorts of character assassination on unsuspecting members of the New Dawn. I was high up in the Great Southern Stand for the latter game, only a few rows back from the edge though (about on the 50 metre line if memory serves correctly). This time I got a spot on the lower deck of the Ponsford, behind the goals, a few rows in undercover. Right next to the bay with all the Kiwis.

The crowd looked lousy, but built up steadily, and I thought 55,000 was fine for choosing a meh opponent on a terrible night - I mean, Monday night, seriously? But here's what gets up my goat. I thought people paid to watch the game - and yet there were an abundance of people going back and forth getting more food and drinks. Dudes (and dudettes), this is why we have before the game and halftime. What else pissed me off, let's see... the almost utter lack of cynicism amongst my fellow Australians towards our performance. Lousy, desperate, last ditch defending was being cheered, as were basic tackles sending the ball out of play. The most annoying thing (about the crowd, anyway) was the the Asian woman in front of me who got excited very, very easily, and kept standing up, hear head getting squarely in front of mine and several others view of the goals. Now I have no problem standing up at a football match - I mean, I attend the VPL and State League 2 on a weekly for crying out loud - but little lady, there is standing room behind the seats you can use if you like.


Hellas Watch
Several past Socceroo players retrospectively received national caps from the Federation/Mark Schwarzer, which in theory, is a nice gesture - but here's the thing. The vast majority of the crowd would have no idea who Kris Trajanovski, Tommy Cumming, Jason Polak and whoever the other guy was that they mentioned first because I didn't catch his name, were. The guy reading out the names mentioned their Socceroo appearances, but the only player to have a club mentioned was Sarkies (Melbourne Victory). One feels, perhaps, that he didn't know, and that really, the vast majority of the crowd didn't want to know, because that would trigger New Dawn guilt and questioning. Oh well, I clapped Jason Polak, even it wasn't the cool thing to do for some people.

Kiwi Fan Watch 
They all had their little flags and such, and they made a fair bit of racket - not that I expected to hear much from the Green and Gold Army, but their performance last night seemed diabolical. Flares? How childish. No, that's not fair. More like, isn't that what the dirty wogs do? Anyway, back to the Kiwis. There was one bloke who kept yelling out 'It's so cheesy'. I struggled to figure out what he meant by that, but when he said, 'Yellow is the colour of cheese', it all made sense. But here's what the dingbat didn't realise - white is also the colour of cheese. Must be really white bread not to know that.

The Game Itself
Deeply troubling. Especially for the fact that BRETT HOLMAN scored the winning goal, and made me instantly think of The World Game Forum, which means I am one sad little geek. How Vince Grella stayed on the field after that heinous two footed studs up jump tackle who knows. Maybe the ref was sourced from the VPL.

The Best Thing About Going To This Game
Not wasting my limited bandwidth on streaming the game and listening to the inane political correctness gone overboard of the FoxSports commentary team.

Last thought(s)
Now I know everything's for sale, and that I should just get over it, but the amount of product being pushed was just phenomenal. Especially the underpants. And if you're going to check my bag for knives, bottles and explosives, you should actually check it properly instead of seeing a black plastic bag in there and going, yep, that's fine.

No matter what I do, bitterness seeps through

Warning: The following post may be interpreted by some as bitter and elitist.


So I went to the Australia - Japan match last night. Not under duress mind you. But it was a strange experience. But let's start from the top.

I had a fair few choices as to who to go with... but first in and best dressed was an Internet associate of mine from Perth via Adelaide... or is that Adelaide via Perth... nevermind. I'd delayed in purchasing a ticket for some reason, maybe to see if others wanted to join us, but they didn't. So Great Southern Stand about five rows back in what would normally be the Punt Road End forward pocket about 30 to 40 metres out. Tickets at $42 a pop.

But first things first. I arrange to meet with Chris at Federation Square, where he'll be with some of the Austadiums crew. They're friendly enough, even if the first call is 'no club colours' (lacking any Socceroo gear, I was wearing me South scarf and beanie) and one member asked to try to on my glasses (you wouldn't ask a paraplegic if you could try out his wheelchair... then again I don't know you, so you might - but I think you get my point regardless).

More than the flakes of ash landing on me from their cigarettes, what I found most interesting about this encounter was the lack of football talk that wasn't A-League related. It's winter, it's the A-League off season, so what else entered the discussion? Local soccer? Not one bit. The group, with members from five states, discussed mostly WAFL, SANFL, VAFA etc... and the myriad inter city politics of the Green and Gold Army.

I did get grilled though by one chap about why a club would choose to take up the role of outsiders by focusing just on one ethnic community. How to answer a question like that asked with the earnestness of the converted? I said they were treated like outsiders from the start so why wouldn't they choose to head down that path? And if this is a genuinely pluralist society, why should there be barriers on the existence of a diverse range of clubs, including those who choose to cater for a very small segment of the population? Historically these clubs have a shelf life of about 40-60 years - why not let it be on their own head if they fail due to the restrictive nature of their clientele? Mind you, he didn't seem to recognise the fact that ethnic clubs were obliged to change their names in the mid 1990s... and at various time before that too, but that's another story.

Some of us headed down towards the new Swan Street Stadium under construction. There's happy snaps of the sporting precinct, and jokes made at the expense of the legends of Australian tennis, who have bronze busts which often don't look very much like those who they're supposed to resemble - except for John Newcombe, but you could just make a bronze bit of his moustache and everybody would know who it is anyway. The stadium itself is an interesting work in progress. There's glimpses of what it might end up looking like that aren't an 'artist's impression', but I guess no matter how cliched it sounds, we'll only really know what it'll look like when it's done. A stadium unlike anything built in Australia thus far I'm guessing, not necessarily a bad thing.

We then end up at the Corner Hotel, where the Green and Gold Army have decided to decamp for pre-match drinks and stuff. It's not a hostile environment, but there's something alienating about the experience - there's boasting about trip made to countless overseas Socceroos matches and as based on mere extra sensory perception as this is - and I don't like that at all - the stench of newness. There is nothing old about these fans, it's all new and it all seems to have come out of nowhere. But that's impossible, they must have come from somewhere - but where? There's hints in the day's discussions and perhaps on the countless Internet forum debates about this but the university student in me is starting to kick in, and I want something empirical, not emotional and based on personal experience and observations.

There's an SBS camera crew floating around with Mike Tomalaris interviewing people - I ponder for a moment whether I should get up and try and get on tv with my South stuff, but I'm no media whore, and besides, would they have even included me? Opportunity lost perhaps but we'll never know, because I'm dragged back to discussion on South and the A-League and B-Leagues. What's in store in the future for South? I don't know, because soccer keeps changing in this country, but hopefully with the stadium redevelopment we can be in a great position to take on any challenge, a reasonable enough answer. A brief rundown of the history the V, B, Eastern Seaboard leagues and their viability, and what scuttled them for my Canberran inquisitor.

And then the question that everyone's been waiting for - why don't you support the A-League? I run through my list of justifications, about atmosphere, and culture and whatever else my feeble mind can dredge up - but the best answer is of course that it's not my club. I have a club. It's South Melbourne. It's been my club since I was about eight years old. It's not entirely because I'm Greek - because by rights I should have been a Heidelberg fan like my old man - but it's the club, it's my club. I did give the new thing a go - but it wasn't mine, it was someone else's, for those who didn't have something. I had something, I have something, why the need to take on something else? South Melbourne is sufficient to my needs, more than sufficient in fact. My initial curiosity notwithstanding, the fact that I already had a club was merely reinforced with my season long experiment. Did I get through to my opposite number, a former Northern Spirit fan for whom the politics of ethnicity and football are worked into seemingly neat little packages, and thus supporting Sydney FC is a logical conclusion? I don't know, but I think there's some sort of breakthrough, a small opening in the time-space continuum that separates us.

Chris and I then head out for something eat. We walk up Swan Street and decide on the Mexicali Rose. I like the vibe of the place, but the food is a little pricey for what they're putting forth, especially portion wise. My pollo con avocado is quite nice, except someone's over grilled the chicken so that it's tough as hell. Overall not a terrible experience, and we can't just eat pub and cafe food all the time, can we now?

We make the trek towards the ground, and we arrive well before kickoff. After just getting though the gate I get this text message from a mate 'Lol at all th cocks w footy gear on'. Our seats are good. Real good considering how late I bought them. And we get four or five Greeks in the row behind us, who happen to have a sense of humour as well as some sense of history - a discussion they have about the lack of Greek Australian players lets me rip out a reference to Eric Hristodoulou which garners some recognition, an occurrence far removed from everything else that day.

The game itself is by no means spectacular. Australia's first half is simply dreadful, and we're getting killed down our left hand side. Not that Japan is playing scintillating stuff, but they deserve their lead regardless. The 2nd half is a vast improvement from the Socceroos, but the old Verbeekisms are still in plentiful supply... little width, slow movement of the ball, hit and hope skied balls to Kennedy. The Green and Gold Army barely raise a whimper throughout most of the game - sure you could hear them, but it was hardly stirring stuff. The Japanese support was evident, but also not particularly amazing. The flares amuse some but not me. There's some members of the Fanatics to my right, but for once they are not the most offensive people in the stadium. That award goes the knobs on our left who grow weary of the game quite early on and start persisting with attempts at getting a Mexican Wave going. Timmy Cahill does what he does best and gets Australia out of another hole, though to be fair Australia's 2nd half was better than Japan's 2nd. The 70,000 string crowd seems mostly content, but I worry about taking that style and form to the World Cup. I train and taxi it home, try to keep my eyes open to watch the Spain vs Iraq match but I give in. Maybe that's what they want us to do.