Oakleigh vs South Tonight

Where in the world is this week's Kiss of Death? Possibly rescuing long forgotten POWs in Việt Nam, after already having of course, busted out of the aforementioned POW camp, visited a Thai strip club on the way back, in order to hook up with the guy that has the weapons. It's strictly business, or so we're lead to believe. Anyway, there's a game on tonight which we'll lose. Should be fun. Apparently several South fans have received mobile text messages from Oakleigh promoting this game. How did this happen? One theory is that the Hellas Fan Club, of which several South fans were or are members of, have had their details passed along or something. It would explain why I haven't received any correspondence - not that I'm complaining. I'm not entirely convinced of this theory, mind. Just that my limited lateral thinking abilities are only able to come up with one paranoid conspiracy this late at night. And what happened to our own text message service? I don't know. Doesn't bother me, I don't leave my phone on most of the time anyway.

I wish the tennis would just go away forever

A small group of mostly young local Croat fascist sympathisers acted like tools on the way to the Australian Open on Monday. They got rightly slammed in the press for their dickhead behaviour. But Linda Paric, spokesperson of sorts for the Australia Croatia Community Services committee, thinks they're being hard done by. Of course, the local press isn't always the most culturally sensitive institution in the land. But when the offending party drapes itself in Croatian insignias and performs obvious Nazi salutes... I'm not sure how you can defend that in the way that she does. But Linda has a stab at it anyway. And of course, the reason I mention Linda Paricand this incident is because she's found a link to... South Melbourne Hellas. Zeus bless her.

A couple of years ago soccer fans caused serious damage to shops and public infrastructure after their team, South Melbourne, lost a game. No, they were not Croatian because if they had been all the headlines would have identified them as such. They remained identified as soccer fans.

Now I don't know what games or groups she's talking about. Maybe the Hellas Fan Club? But as a collective and mostly even as individuals, they haven't been to South games for a fair while now, since mid 2007, and there were no reports of South fans running amok in the streets as South fans. Is she referring to the South - Preston idiocy of 2005? No running down the streets in that one. Is she referring to the water polo and/or tennis incidents of a couple of years or so back? If she is, that's not soccer and therefore nothing to do with us. Or is she referring to the late NSL era stupidty that was the smashing of several Clarendon Street shopfronts, which the now semi-apocryphal stories say were actually Melbourne Knights fans running from the police?

I don't think she actually knows which game she's talking about. Instead of trying to play the boys will be boys angle, or the you're making people hate Croatians angle, maybe she should have just said, these are a minority of thugs that don't represent the broader Australian Croatian community. But then you'd get other types of phone calls, and it might make you look within yourself, and ask the question, where did these people come from? For the sake of balance, I think the following passage quoted from the Geelong Advertiser (a much better article than some of the nonsense being peddled) by Paul Saric is far erudite and encouraging, and it's a message not just limited to Croatian youths

"My message to them would be to be proud of what you are, be proud of your heritage and yourself and family but by expressing yourself like that doesn't mean you're a bigger Croatian," Mr Saric said.

Fanatic of the Week - Paul Mavroudis

So we've exhausted our stash of genuine vintage Fanatics of the Week. And I'm bored and dismayed - and just because I'm typing this up on a rainy Saturday afternoon for release on a Wednesday, it doesn't mean that I won't be bored and dismayed at the moment it's published or when you read it.


FANATIC OF THE WEEK

Saturday, 14th March, 2009

This week’s fanatic is Paul Mavroudis who likes the club because, to paraphrase Lift To Experience "we have to, not because we want to".

----------------------------------------

NAME: Paul Mavroudis

AGE: 25.

SUBURB: In the Darkness On The Edge Of Town

INTERESTS: 'Football'; the other football; books; alternative 'music'; Wikipedia; collating statistics; blogging; providing highly educational but seldom understood pearls of wisdom on Internet forums; stopping myself from writing cliched serial killer fiction where I annihilate everyone that shits me and handing it in as part of my coursework; public transport; retro gaming; providing constructive criticism of classmates' mostly pisspoor attempts at short fiction; stickers; Fred Negro's 'Pub' strip when it isn't just St Kilda in jokes; a fair few crazy animated television shows; dessert.

FAVOURITE SOCCER CLUBS: South Melbourne.

ARE YOU A MEMBER OF SOUTH MELBOURNE?
Yes. Until the Hellas Fan Club comes in and sets everything right again, back to the way it used to be, in the Beforetime, the Long Long Ago. Soon I hope. Put us all out of our misery.

WHAT AGE DID YOU EXPERIENCE YOUR FIRST MATCH?
Probably around 9 years old, the home game against West Adelaide in season 1992/93 where we won won 4-2. They were introduced as our cousins from South Australia or something like that, hmm.

WHITE COLLARS OR BLUE?
Seriously, should it really matter?

FAVOURITE SOUTH MELBOURNE MEMORY?
The day everyone realised Acropolis Now was actually farken shithouse. Which is technically not a memory since it hasn't happened yet, as can be seen from this review of Stephen Hawking's 'Brief History of Time', which I did end up reading the entirety of, and not just get bored by page 3, thank you very much John Safran. Not that I understood all or even most of it, but I got something out of it I think, and Carl Sagan's question in the introduction to that book about why we can remember the past but not the future struck a quixotic physical and philosophical chord.

Our ability to remember past but not future also coincides with the arrow of entropy. The reason, Hawking says, is that whenever a memory is made, in either a brain or a computer, the smidgen of energy required to light up a neutron or move an electron is released as heat. Heat ---roiling, chaotic heat--- increases entropy. Memories, then, because they release heat, increases disorder, too. Entropy increases from yesterday to tomorrow. That`s why memories are made in the past --- to Hawking a more convincing explanation than the pedestrian statement that one can remember only what has already occurred." (Newsweek, January 4, 1993.)

MOST MEMORABLE GAME WATCHED?
The 2006 VPL Grand Final, because within a few seconds a whole bunch of people forgot we'd just won a championship and were more interested in throwing rocks at other people who were piggy backing for a day on the fat woman's current club in order to pursue some sort of justice for issues of blood, land, culture and history located mostly in the Balkans and who were also throwing rocks. Halcyon days.

FAVOURITE DEGRASSI MOMENT
The scene where Wheels is for some inexplicable reason wearing a Footscray guernsey.

FAVOURITE CURRENT PLAYER?
James Spanos. Doesn't even have to do anything to be part of the senior team. Doesn't make mistakes. Known by people who don't even know of the actual players.

FAVOURITE BISCUIT
Arnott's Kingston, the grownups chocolate biscuit.

BEST SOUTH MELBOURNE PLAYER EVER?
Paul Trimboli. Stupid question.

ASTERIX OR TINTIN?
Asterix, but they're both pretty cool.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT SOUTH MELBOURNE?
Oh wow, where do you begin? For starters, I like the lies. The little ones, like why we didn't wear the South Melbourne United heritage strip, to the medium ones, to the big ones, with the claims of 10,000 strong crowds at pretty much every game in the 1980s, because the people making those claims either have dementia or only went to the games with 10,000 people, and not to the games with 800 people against teams such as Brisbane Lions.

I also love the fact that we've never played in South Melbourne.

I love the hypocrisy which pours fourth constantly out of every orifice, especially with regards to the A-League and the AFL.

I love people living off past glories and thinking it's enough to last a lifetime.

I love the fans who see only what they want to see and never what's actually in front of them.

That's just the stuff off the top of my head.

WHAT DO YOU DISLIKE ABOUT SOUTH MELBOURNE?
The food could be better at times.

WOULD YOU EVER SUPPORT ANOTHER NSL TEAM?
No.

WHY?
Well, the league doesn't exist anymore, so I guess it's impossible to support another NSL team.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME PAUL!
My pleasure.

Not that I was aiming for one, but it's about freaken time!

On September 14th, 2005, I joined smfcboard. I was a nobody then; no job, no school, no friends, no life. Thanks to that forum, and because of my getting re-connected to South, whom I'd lost touch with since the end of the NSL, I was able to put myself back together again; I made heaps of friends, or least acquaintances; got involved with the club; got back to school; in essence got my life back after years of self pity and stagnation.

But something was missing. Sure I got myself a reputation amongst some forumites was waffling on and getting on my high horse far too often, and amongst others for clarity, objectivity and cutting through the krap. But today, the missing piece was finally filled in. And all it took was the resuscitation of a three year old thread about mainstreaming the club, and a prompt from a fellow fan to correct a mistake I had made in reference a Dr Katz episode, to finally get me that yellow sticker above my avatar, which signified that I am just a little bit badass after all.

Hello, a secret history

You account on smfcboard.com has received a warning.
You have now a total of 1 warnings, if you somehow receive more than 5 your account will be blocked.

The reasons for this are numerous, this warning is received because of this post:
http://www.smfcboard.com//viewtopic.php?p=437944#437944
that you made.

Here are a reminder of some of the terms you accepted when you registered, we kindly ask you to respect them in the future

Quote:
"You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any applicable laws. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned"

If you don't see why you've received this warning you could try contact thrylos7, who gave the warning, explaining your post,
and that you don't understand why this warning is given.


--
Thanks, The Management


But maybe it wasn't the unnecessary dredging up of the thread for mine and Southpole's amusement that finally made moderator Thigh Rolls crack. After all, we'd been doing it to amuse ourselves all summer, and while Southpole got banned outright for it, that wasn't such an irregular occurrence. No, maybe what did it was the bringing up of that particular topic, containing replies, opinions and persons which are unfashionable now but were safer to admit to liking and agreeing with back then. When the fury was stronger and more evident, and there was still a misguided ambition of a kind to revive what had, in it's own way, failed.

Those who argued against mainstreaming most fervently, because of their nationalist bent which would come to fruition in the Hellas Fan Club and its various adventures, are largely long gone. The argument itself about mainstreaming is mostly dead... certain agitators persist with trying to reverse the trends of time and assimilation, but those things will don't care about feelings, as in the riddle in The Hobbit;


This thing all things devours;
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers,
Moulds iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to mill,
Slays king, destroys town,
And beats the highest mountain down.


And yet the argument, or perhaps more accurately one of the things that fueled it, is still unresolved. What should South do now? The knee jerk reaction has always been to go back, or hold on to what the club has now; which while holding the club back from whatever possibilitites may exist in trying something new, is preferable because it is familiar, and at the same time reassuring because it allows people to believe that they are being loyal to the cause. The point here being that not that change or no change are good or bad within themselves; but the attittudes attached to taking either of those stances, and what they say about loyalties and views of the club are important. While we like to think that we're all one happy family, each of us has had a differenct experience of the club, which in turn gives us a dufferent idea of South, and different ideas of where we want it to go; forward, back, upwards, sideways, nowhere.

Anyway, the thread that was dredged was not utterly useless; it contained one of the most clear and concise arguments on the matter, from someone deeply involved with the club, who could see its potential, but like most of us, unable to do much about it, because the receptive and half receptive audiences, as small as they were in comparison to these days of plenty for soccer, are gone for us. We had our great chance, and we didn't take it. Now we scrape and struggle for piecemeal gain. Such is life.


By Kartsi

To be Greek or not be Greek, that has been the question for as long as I can remember. It has sparked as much debate as any other issue over the last 10 years or so and at times, I have been dragged into it.

One thing people seem to forget is that the club will always be known as a club of Greek migrant origins. No matter what you do in the future, you can never take away the clubs history and the core of the support base will inevitably come from the Greek-Australian community. So what do many feel so sensitive about it?

What I see as mainstreaming, is about marketing the club as a football club, with passionate supporters, with great history that plays attractive football and makes people of all races feel welcome. This feeling that somehow the club will lose its traditions, history and identity by doing as such, is nothing short of nonsense. And I honestly feel this strange insecurity has held the club back for years and is continuing to do as such.

Let’s build on what we have and build in all directions. Do you honestly think going back to the days of the past will keep the club afloat and take the club forward? Dare I say it, people’s perceptions of the ‘good old days’ are nothing short of perceptions. I can remember many a days at Middle Park where there were a handful of people at the games, but people only seem to remember the 1 or 2 big gates we had against teams like Heidelberg or Olympic. If you look at the stats, I’m sure you’ll find our best period of crowd attendances have been at BJS, during periods of marketing (limited as they have been). Our Greek community has let the club down over the years, if the 300,000 Greeks in Melbourne haven’t got behind the club in the last 46 years, why will they suddenly do as such by somehow making the club more Greek. In any case, how do you make the club ‘more Greek’?

Note: more Greeks are probably members of Carlton, Richmond or Collingwood than they are of South!

The club must look to the future and most will agree there really is no long term future in the VPL, quite frankly the thought of spending the next 50 odd years following SMFC in the VPL makes me feel sick. Every club’s ambition is to play at the highest level and winning National Championships. Plain and simple SMFC is a football club 1st and foremost. If it is a Greek social club, then I have been grossly mistaken for the last 26 years.

Do you honestly think investors will get behind a club that markets itself to 5-10 % of Melbourne’s population? Do you think the FFA will look at us twice if we are not being proactive in marketing the club to the wider community whilst we are in the VPL? What strange thoughts do people have that suddenly we’ll change our spots if the FFA come calling? We need the A-League more than the A-League needs us and we should be doing everything to get in!

At the end of the day, what better way to preserve the clubs traditions, than to be playing at the highest level in front of the masses. I’ll use the usual line about the Boston Celtics, A massive club for all Bostonians with Irish background.

Keep the existing fans, keep the souvlakia, keep the passion and history. But build on it, as our great club deserves nothing less.


Of course, one of the usual subjects couldn't be bothered reading it. So mods, go ahead and hand out your yellow cards; they can only stifle your guilt for so long; the ghost of South Melbourne Hellas past lingers on. The damage has been done; only thing to do now is get your shovel out so we can try and dig our way out of this mess. Happy 50th anniversary everyone.

South women play final game of season Sunday

... against the Bendigo Vipers at Field 13, 1:00 start I think. I'm going to try and make it down there, and not only because I don't mind a bit of the old women's football, but also because I've got this strange feeling. The feeling that, as good as open forum's are, and gutsy or foolish as Leo is being in this situation, I've got the feeling that some numpty or numpties are going to unleash a tidal wave of stupid. So being a couple of kilometres down the road seems like a good idea, in the wide open spaces, cold wind coming across the lake, picturesque pit lane behind me... anyway, the last time I had this feeling was in early 2007, before the Richmond away game, where there was a analogous level of tension for different and yet, oddly, somewhat related reasons. So therefore I won't be in a position to relate directly the events of what will transpire in that meeting. Maybe someone else will do it for me, maybe Ill just relate 2nd hand facts, but either way, I'm choosing not be there, just as a happy coincidence prevented my being at the Richmond game last year. In that case, I was at the Prince of Wales seeing Elbow for the 2nd time, and having a blast. This time Elbow are busy touring overseas - hopefully they come by next year - and therefore other arrangements need to be made. At least this time they'll be South related.

Canberra Trip Part 1 - Night journey through frost

Plans fretted over for weeks were finally in place. Bus booked, an itinerary of sorts planned. The Hellenic Club of Canberra informed of our needing 40 odd seats for lunch. A date with Eamonn of Football In The Capital set up. No turning back now. Skipped the Altona City-Altona East derby game in order to rest up a bit for the overnight coach ride. There's meant to be a small gathering at a pub beforehand, which turns out to be just that; three of us, a bowl of fries, and drinks. Somehow this is where I get roped in initially to helping a mate do his dodgy betting syndicate work. But more on that later.

After having a drink at the Water Rat, we rock up to Lakeside a little early, and see only a few recognised faces there, and a bus which may or may not be ours. About 10 metres away another group of people stand around, like us, waiting, but I'm not sure what for. They're probably thinking the same thing about us. Slowly more people start to arrive, and then we figure out that, yes, that is our bus. Moving across we greet those already there. The last one to arrive is of course a boardmember. Parking permits handed out, names checked off, banners and eskies are loaded onto the bus, finally on our way, Australian banner with South logo draped over the back seat.

I take a spot right at the back, with space next to me, and away from the majority of those intending to drink. The climate control chucked it in early. Frost blocked whatever view one could have seen, on a dark and overcast night. Not sure if anyone can see the flag out the back, but not sure that it matters anyway, more symbolic than anything perhaps. The first part of the official in-flight entertainment are highlights of South's early 90s years. From the back of the bus, it's hard to make out if people are appreciating what's being shown; while there's no pressure of course to make people watch, I wonder what all the complaining is about. If football didn't start in this country in 2005, did it start in 1996? Perhaps I'm too harsh. Perhaps I have too much reverence for that era. Perhaps people were busy enjoying themselves in other ways.

We stop at places with names and others, like Avenel, where it doesn't seem to matter either way. Like my trip by bus to the Gold Coast back in 1999, with so much of it night, it's hard to tell whether there's any civilisation connected to the petrol stations. And hard to tell what's on the other side the embankments, apart from shadowy black hills. The highlight of the stops was a McDonalds somewhere still in Victoria, possibly outside Wangaratta where one cook and one worker on the register were suddenly faced with the prospect of feeding 30 hungry South fans on what was probably meant to be quiet night at work. People patiently lined up, ordered, stood to the side while their meal was prepared, ate. It all went rather smoothly.

At every stop, getting off means getting the blood flowing again, staving off a sleep that won't come anyway for a little while longer, waiting until morning. It also means dodging cigarette smoke and toxic and noisy bursts of flatus. While the early part of the trip is lively enough, with the highlight being the necessary 2am phonecall to a supporter who pulled out to due to illness, and HFC chants while travelling through their Northcote heartland, eventually most people end up getting some sleep. I'm hoping to see at least some of the sunrise, but the frost, the mountains and the constantly shifting direction of the bus as it winds through looking for an entry point to Canberra defeat me. All in all, the journey was a blast, even this review may not seem indicate it was. How can you communicate the already forgotten conversations, the in-jokes, the hilarity of the moment which can't be transcribed, only experienced. Oh, and the multiple renditions of Frozen Tears' 'South Melbourne', which everyone gets thoroughly sick of by the end of the trip, but will treasure in their hearts regardless.

In the interests of freedom and plurality

My less tolerant side says not to give right-wing pricks any sustenance. But there's two problems with that. Unlike them I genuinely love freedom; and I've already given enough plugs and valuable oxygen in the way of criticism to those who eat pumpkin seeds, so really, it'd be a double standard of sorts. And I don't usually go in for that kind of thing. Besides, having being listening to Fantomas also means that I'm a state of confusion which will almost certainly lead to make a bad decision. I saw Fantomas once back in 2003 at the sadly departed Palace. Man, they were good, though I never could understand how someone could mosh to scattergun jazz-metal. Tomahawk were better though, bloody scary good. Maybe you were there? Or perhaps you attended on the other night they played? If so you'd know what I mean. So anyway, there's a new South Melbourne Hellas forum. It promises to be more democratic than smfcboard, which I suppose wouldn't be hard. But by virtue of the fact that it's also being run by and for predominantly people of a right wing Greek nationalist persuasion (from moderates to extremists), it'll be interesting to see how truly democratic and open it can be. As well as in the long run watching how much of it has to do with South at all. Already plenty of the videos posted there are of the Hellas Fan Club rather than South. And who exactly is running it? My guess has it narrowed down to probably 1-2 people who would make the effort, not taking into account the possibility of it being a non-South supporters prank. And what are their rules? Will they be really strict? How much leeway will there be for people whose opinions they dislike? Policy on opposition fans? How much will they clamp down on libelous statements? How will they deal with the smfcboard gimmicks, who may see an opportunity to cause havoc? Also, am I on there? If not will I be on there? Would I post? How long before their open house dream starts falling apart? Will it even get to the stage where heaps of people will sign up? Time will tell how successful they are I suppose. Link on the right hand side.

Press Release from Hellas Fan Club, not turning up tomorrow

Not something I would've liked to have seen come out before this game, and from one of my least favourite sources at the moment, but we can't just report good news can we? I suppose they could've not turned up and not said so, and let their absence speak for itself, but they're well within their rights to let everyone know anyway. Whether this means that people who are HFC members will turn up 'unofficially' is anyone's guess, as you would expect. I do disagree quite strongly with much of the content of the press release, but the South of the Border readership are a fairly clever bunch, and could probably guess for themselves where I think they're wrong. As for their beef with President Leo, I've said my piece already, no need to add anything further. So with the intro out of the way, I'll hand you over now to the Hellas Fan Club.


HFC Press Release regarding this match:

MEDIA RELEASE - Round 6 - Preston Lions FC vs. South Melbourne –

The Hellas Fan Club Melbourne (“HFCM”) have advised its members not to attend Sunday’s clash against arch Rival Preston at BT CONNOR RESERVE.

The HFCM refuse to show support for a sporting club that constantly fails to take responsibility for its deficiencies. The purpose of this release is to ensure that the HFC and HFCM are not used as scapegoats by South Melbourne Football Club, or subjected to any further inaccuracies which have caused great distress to many members of our club and our image, in recent times.

The HFC and HFCM are hopeful that the events of 2005 are not repeated, and that both clubs work co-operatively to ensure a safe environment for all supporters.

The HFC & HFCM wishes SMFC fans the best of luck, and hopefully it is a incident free event.

In further news, The HFCM can confirm that legal advice has been sought and a potential action is being considered against Mr Athanasakis (current President of South Melbourne) in relation to defamatory comments made against Mr Chris Vlahogiannis in January 2008.

Never a dull moment at South Melbourne, alas

Here we go again.

Link to article

The president of Greek-based soccer club South Melbourne FC, Leo Athanasakis, said Mr Vlahogiannis was a serial pest.

"These guys seem to be the common denominator in all of these incidents. They've got no credibility with anyone, especially the Greek community," he said.

And now a whole lot of argle-bargle has been started about this more or less true statement. Why did he say it, why say what he said, why say anything at all, why dob in your your own race, I'm tearing up my membership; all the usual and all too predictable comments have started flowing thick and fast. It's times like these when all the usual suspects come out to play, and yet when the time and opportunity is there to act or take up the challenges the club faces on a daily basis, it's never or seldom their turn, and after all, who has the time, or knows how to actually do things away from a keyboard? As evidenced recently in an unrelated incident (which, alas, is not for publication) everyone always seems to know better when they're not the ones faced with the responsibility of making the tough decisions, which more often than not whichever fork in the road you choose will get the bile going in our all too frequently emotionally combustible supporters.

Pause.
Take a long deep breath.
Play.
Chris Vlahogiannis and some members of his posse are far from my favourite people in the cosmos. I don't know the bloke well enough, and he seems like a nice enough person, but he's got an ideology and a way of going about things that seriously clashes with my own strongly held beliefs. What went down at the tennis I don't know. I wasn't there and it's all second hand information that I'm getting. Perhaps he and the Hellas Fan Club are in the right this time. As far as I'm concerned that's for the law to decide, and for the Victoria Police and HFC to sort out amonsgt themselves.

Pause.
Went out to the city to see if I could get Missing Link to get me The Autumns self-titled disc. They'll get back to me tomorrow.
Play.

But the stick Athanasakis has been copping is, in the main, uncalled for. The wording wasn't great, and he underestimates also the respect that Vlahogiannis has amongst some in the Greek community. But he was basically damned if he did and damned if he didn't. The mainstream media in this country is fairly lazy. Even before the President made his comments, the media were linking it to soccer and South. It's probably reasonable to say that the public in general were linking it to soccer and South. What's a guy to do? Obviously to say nothing or 'no comment' would seem like an admission of guilt to the media hounds. Saying what he did, in his vernacular style, probably didn't help, but at least he wasn't being defensive and negative. But ultimately a no nonsense, neutral toned press-release style statement like the one below would probably have done the trick

South Melbourne FC has nothing to do with what happened at the Australian Open tennis, and is disappointed that the media has linked us to this incident. 

Chris Vlahogiannis, the leader of the Hellas Fan Club is not a member of South Melbourne FC. 

All further queries should be directed to the Victoria Police and Hellas Fan Club. Have a nice day.

Pretty easy. Even easier in hindsight, especially for someone who's done Intro to Media Writing. Of course, you're never going to please everybody. And at South, unless you bring in the championship three years in a row, most people will always find truckloads of things to whinge about. What's done now is basically done, and the ramifications will play out over the coming days, weeks, months, and become another chapter in the typically over the top, never by halves history of this club. But for now at least, there's going to be a lot of showboating, grandstanding, frothing at the mouth, and higher than usual amount of random crap being spilled out. How long it goes for, and what the net effects of it will be remain to be seen.

But until it all subsides, and eventually one way or another it more or less will, the sane supporters on both sides of the issue (and there have been opposing statements made to Leo's comments that have been within the calm, reasonable part of the spectrum), this is just another one of those really stupid things the club will have to ride out. How many more of them the club can withstand is probably a good question, but I'm not going to panic. I saw a $12 million turnover student union go insolvent. This really is minor stuff, and the club itself has gone through worse. But the more pessimistic amongst us may not see it as just another thing to get over, but rather as part of the whole process of the club's decline. The sad things is, they may be right.

While you were sleeping, part 2.

2007

* During the pre-season, South defeats Oakleigh in the Hellenic Cup final on penalties, triggering the most half-arsed pitch invasion in history.

* Also during the pre-season, a young Dutch defender named Jasper Valentijn makes his mark, and is never seen again except in the annals of myspace.

* A highly professional membership drive (by VPL standards) is enacted, but despite the effort, the membership numbers remain essentially the same.

* A press-release is er, released, signifying South's intention of making a bid for the A-League. Lots of people get very excited, and hell, even optimistic.

* South gets off to a reasonable start, but poor squad management (everyone knew those players were going to leave for the A-League) coupled with a goalkeeping crisis, leads to some very inconsistent results, from which the side never truly recovers.

* Owing to a foofoorah between certain people at the Australian Open tennis and Water Polo championships, South decides to play its home match with the Melbourne Knights behind closed doors. The FFV says no. The Police have it both ways. The FFA looks the other way. South lose, as the game is never played, and the three points are awarded to the Knights, using some sort of FFV logic.

* A breakaway faction from the Clarendon Corner supporters group, calling itself Gate 1, forms.

* Despite playing pretty crappy football throughout the tournament, Australia almost in spite of itself, almost reaches the semi-finals of the 2007 Asian Cup.

* Halfway through the season South hosts the Melbourne Victory in a pre-season warm up match for the latter, and gets spanked 5-1, with Nathan Caldwell scoring for South. But the game will be remembered more for the large crowd (7,000), the large amount of flares ripped by the visiting fans, with one hitting fringe South player Andrew Bourakis in the head, and the argle-bargle which essentially lead to the dissolution of Gate 1, and which also earnt them the nickname, 'gate one game'. The optimism of the press-release dies a lonely death.

* South struggles to score for the rest of the season, except for a brilliant 5-2 thrashing of Oakleigh.

* South's finals chances come to a dispiriting end at Ralph Reserve against Western Suburbs, losing 3-0. A 2-0 win against Kingston in the last round follows, but no one really gives a toss.

* A bit of a clean out starts taking place.

* Some people, for reasons perhaps known only to themselves, start peddling the notion that 'big things' are in store for the club.

* In a rather strange coincidence, the club's coterie group is renamed Southern Cross, the same name as an alleged bid of the second Melbourne A-League license.

* South starts off preparation for season 2008 proper by winning two meaningless games against Altona Magic and Coburg United with a bunch of nobodies who still got to live one of my dreams by playing for South.