Show me the money! artefact Wednesday - Hellenic Cup cheque

In this week's artefact segment we head back to the year 2007. Truly, it was a great time to be alive. South weren't yet in the A-League (any minute now some must have thought), but we had a state championship to defend, and a social club in which to socialise while eating bain marie dim sims.

There was also no South of the Border to upset people and take up my precious time; instead I was spending too much time posting on forums. And while we're still stuck in this interminable death spiral of irrelevance, at least back then the pre-seasons were more interesting if for no other reason than due to the existence of the Hellenic Cup.

Ah, the Hellenic Cup. Instead of spending your weekends travelling to public transport black holes to see a bunch of people try out for South that you'd probably never see again, with no food on hand and nothing even remotely at stake in a game played over three thirty minute periods, you could do the following.

You could go to a ground that had food, multiple teams in multiple categories playing in 70 minute matches on rock hard grounds in a compressed fixture, and for which pleasure you were asked to pay an exorbitant entry fee. It was expensive, it was often shoddily organised, but compared to this aimless schedule based almost exclusively out of venues that Chris Taylor seems to have the keys for, it was brilliant. South playing too far away from home in a midweek fixture? No worries, you could get out to the other side of the draw and get some spying going on. Oh, and there was prize money! Good prize money at that, too, rivalling what you'd get for winning the VPL championship proper.

In the 2007 Hellenic Cup final itself, played out of Northcote, we beat Oakleigh in a penalty shoot-out, celebrated with a low key pitch invasion, and collected 10,000 dollarydoos for our efforts. I don't know whether or not a giant novelty cheque is as legitimate as a normal one, but this item was in the boardroom when I took the photo now many years ago - so many years, in fact, that the various Christian denominations will probably agree on a date for Easter before we actually build a social club.

Happy Valentijn's Day!

After our 2006 championship, in late December, the club started its trials for the new season. So we found ourselves, for some reason, out in Burnley, at Kevin Bartlett Reserve, in the evening sun, playing a game against Richmond's trialists. We got smacked something like 7-1, but there's a tall blond kid who looks kind of interesting.
Then in early 2007, I was standing on the outer side of Chaplin Reserve, watching the lads have a pre-season hit out against George Cross, with a few more regulars and new signings playing, including Yusef Yusef. The tall blond kid, who rumour has it is Dutch and named Jasper, and has walked in off the street, does well in defense but looks less sure when crossing the halfway line. Bloke next to me says he looks ok, but lacks control. Cue Jasper pulling out two 360 degree turns to get himself out of trouble.

He gets a few starts in the Hellenic Cup, and we kinda assume he'd be close to getting in - after all he does get his picture taken in the new jersey on the official website - but come the start of the season he is nowhere to be seen. Not on the bench, not in the country. So that little saga was seemingly over. But whatever happened to Jasper Valentijn?

Well, his career didn't end. He kept playing back home, and in 2009, was playing in the Finnish 2nd division for Atlantis FC - the Heidelberg of Finnish football, if the following excerpt from this article is anything to go by

The problem at Atlantis boiled down to money. Like most Ykkönen clubs, Atlantis find it difficult to finance operations. Unlike most, they signed new players while failing to pay those already under contract, before sacking the coach and bringing in a new man after a poor start to the season.

So several players walked, amongst them Valentijn, to FC Honka, where he's still apparently on the list at Pallohonka, FC Honka's 2nd division feeder club. Before we let you go, here's some more things we've learnt about Jasper.

• He was a product of Heerenveen.
• His dad, Jos Valentijn, was a speed skater in the 1970s.
• His mum, Haitske Pijlman, was also a speed skater.
• His sister, Rikst, was a competitve gymnast

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.

2007 Hellenic Cup Final - South 1 Oakleigh 1 (South wins 4-2 on pens - soccer forum artefact)

Touching a ref is just something that you should never ever do, no matter what the comp, one of those things that goes beyond the game itself, so should make no difference what kind of comp he was playing in.

Hellenic Cup semi final - South Melbourne 2 Western Suburbs 0

South beat Suburbs 2-0, both goals in the 2nd half from De Vito and Baser.