All Greek To Me artefact Wednesday - 3XY Radio Hellas' Oceania Club Championships final broadcast

This week's artefact pays tribute to two anniversaries, although I was more aware of one than the other when I started writing this piece.

It seems kinda sad that - so far - the club's 60th anniversary has gone by without too much fanfare, but that the back-to-back championships and the Oceania triumph have also slipped by. Maybe there's something in the works to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the club's peak, but we'll see I suppose.

2019 marks twenty years since South won the Oceania Club Championships, although this post also missed the boat by a good month. Closer to the mark - in fact, being celebrated right now - is 3XY Radio Hellas' 25th anniversary, the Greek-Australian radio station which has been both friend and foe to the club, depending on who (and when) you ask.

On September 26th, 1999, after a gruelling run in which the team played four games in about eight days, South Melbourne Hellas was crowned the inaugural club champions of Oceania; an honour which saw the club win the right to represent the Oceania confederation at the first World Club Championships in Brazil the following January.

South had qualified for the tournament by virtue of winning the 1999 National Soccer League grand final against minor premier Sydney United. The fact that the minor premier didn't qualify for this tournament probably sticks in United's craw to this day, but doing these things via grand final winner is the Australian way. Still, an administrative bungle by Soccer Australia could - in theory at least - have seen United go to Fiji in South's place, as seen in this August 1999 article by Michael Cockerill in the Sydney Morning Herald.

South must win the Oceania club title before confirming their passage to Brazil, but that seems a formality, despite an amazing administrative blunder by Soccer Australia. 

A fax bearing the signature of NSL general manager Stefan Kamasz and sent to the Oceania Football Confederation in Auckland on July 27 nominated minor premiers Sydney United as Australia's representatives, instead. Kamasz is in Greece on holiday and unavailable for comment.

Anyway, the Oceania Club Championships were played in Fiji, in tumultuous weather, difficult pitch conditions and occasionally, as in the final, in front of large, boisterous, crowds. The tournament also seems to have been marred by an overly physical style from some of the Pacific Island teams, the occurrence of which took its toll in particular on the team that South Melbourne would have expected to play in the final, New Zealand's Central United. United were so beaten up by the schedule, that not only did they lose their semi-final, but the third place playoff was called off because of their injury toll.

So South went on to play Nadi of Fiji in the final at Prince Charles Park, in front of 10.000 locals

The South Melbourne squad on the day was:

Milan Udvaracz, Steve Iosifidis, Fausto De Amicis, Robert Liparoti, Con Blatsis, David Clarkson (George Goutzioulis 67'), Steve Panopoulos, Vaughan Coveny, Paul Trimboli, Michael Curcija (Jim Tsekinis 55'), Goran Lozanovski (Anthony Magnacca 46').

(One of the heroes of the previous two grand final wins, John Anastasiadis, missed the final because of injury.)

There were apparently only about 70 South fans present for the final. The rest of us probably had to make do with either waiting for reports to be published in the print media, or if they were too impatient for that, listen to the 3XY Radio Hellas broadcast of the game. I was never a big fan of listening to the 3XY broadcasts of our NSL matches. I mean, if you didn't have a choice in the matter, you tuned in regardless, but the signal quality was often crap, and as for the quality of the commentary... let's just say that it could be ages before the commentators would update the score.

But at least I understood enough of the Greek that was the predominant language of these broadcasts! It must've been much worse for fans of ours with a sketchier or non-existent knowledge of the Greek language. During the NSL, there were sporadic updates provided in a heavily accented English, but this was years before livescore apps. And what else could you do, if you weren't at the game or didn't have subscription television? I suppose if you were ahead of the technological curve at the time, you could've used a mobile to call a mate a the game. But that was probably not an option for this game, what with it being in Fiji and all.

Anyway, when I was cleaning out the old social club back in the day, one item I took with me rather than allow to be packed into storage was an audio cassette with the label:

OCEANIA CUP FINAL 

Sunday 26 September 1999 

PRINCE CHARLES PARK, FIJI 

NADI (FIJI) 1

STH MELB (AUST) 5

I don't know who the person was who recorded the broadcast, nor what the circumstances were, nor if they're even still South fans. You'd like to think they're still with us, but the past 20 odd years have done a number on the club and a lot of its supporters,

Back in the day I was dabbling with transferring some JJJ Live at the Wireless tapes (The Strokes, Something For Kate, Pollyanna) onto my computer, ending up with huge WAV files and not much knowledge about what to do with the material after that. And that's kinda what happened with this tape, albeit a few years later. A couple of chunky WAV files, converted into appalling quality MP3 files, and then no real idea about how to get them to the stage where they could be uploaded to the internet, especially in an era when YouTube still restricted you to very short videos of a maximum duration of ten minutes.

That, and for the longest time I couldn't really bother listening for long enough to figure out which side had which half of the game, and what the hell was actually going on. So, a mea culpa on my part for exaggerated slackness. But here we are, finally, with this little artefact now available for all to enjoy.

The recording begins about four or five minutes into the game. The chief commentator is Kostas Paterakis, a long time contributor to both 3XY and its sports content, who while commentating on the game, also liaises with "Aleko" back in the Melbourne studio.

Apart from calling the game, Paterakis also makes observations about the weather (heavy rains the previous two days); the state of the pitch (muddy and soft, but at least no longer the rock hard version of earlier in the tournament); the nature of the local crowd (a party atmosphere, ala Brazilian football); the attempts by someone to steal the match ball as a souvenir during an early part of the second half; an observation that Fiji is first a rugby nation, and then a soccer one; and that the Fijians are a very devout Christian people, with many of the crowd leaving the game early to attend evening church services..

The audio quality isn't the best, but is mostly clear enough to understand what's going on.
The recording on the tape is also incomplete. Apart from missing the first few minutes, signal problems mean that the first two minutes of the second half are missing, and of course there's also a small amount of time missed when the tape is flipped over to "Side B".

There's a very brief English language summary midway through the second half, but the overwhelming majority of the game is broadcast in Greek. At the end of the game, Paterakis corrects an early mistake he made, where he credited Steve Iosifidis with a goal that belonged to Fausto De Amicis. It would've been Iosifidis' first goal for the club - I'm not sure Steve actually ended up scoring any goals for South.

Post-match there's a summary of the game and its meaning; speeches and the trophy presentation in the background; a brief chat with Steve Iosifidis; relaying the congratulations of then Victorian state Liberal MP (and later WA state Liberal) Peter Katsambanis;  a chat with "Eleni" and her husband "Vasili" - Eleni had assisted Paterakis during the week; and a chat with some random from Greece named "Dimitri" before the tape ends.

So, while not nearly as good as video footage, for those with the language skills and patience to listen to its lo-fi entirety, it's a worthy artefact in its own right.

More Spanos/Learning Greek Is Fun/Fixtures! Wait, Fixtures?

James Spanos Wins Under 21s Best and Fairest
I don't know why we're surprised anymore - James Spanos does it again, winning the under 21s best and fairest. The man is incredible, especially since he goes almost completely unnoticed by this blog and even most other pundits. Maybe it's time we truly admitted that our infatuation with one particular under 21s player this season has clouded our judgement to the detriment of our reporting.

So well done to Spanos, and well to the South Melbourne Super Duper Academy Revolution 3000, for not needing to actually have a proper voting system for finding out who the best 21s player was this season, and just going for Spanos. Excelsior!

Pateraki and Rombotis, Behind the Bike Sheds After School
Congratulations to all my non-Greek readers, you're about to get an off-season lesson in this beautiful language.

• Τζαμπατζήδες, tzambatzithes - freeloaders or cheapskates is a good start, but this Greek phrase its own certain je ne sais quoi.
• ψευτες, pseftes - liars
• Kύριος Kεραυνος, Kyrios Keravnos - Lord (or Mister) Thunder
• παπαγαλοι, papagali - parrots
• Βραζιλία, Vrazilia - Brazil 
• σπορια, sporia - seeds

If you missed the 3XY sports program, well hooley dooley, did you miss some fireworks. Host Kostas Paterakis was mad. Really mad. It seems as if Stathis Rombotis said so0me really nasty things about Pateraki and 3XY, because Pateraki was breathing fire.

Now, I haven't read the original article that seems to fired Paterakis up so much, but for the next hour or so, he laid into Rombotis. For once South wasn't copping the brunt, or indeed any flak in their coverage. This was personal.

It started off with παπαγαλοι and σπορια, and got more hilarious from there. Judging by Paterakis' tirade, Rombotis (whom Paterakis kept calling Kύριος Kεραυνος) seems to have made the allegation that the whole 3XY (and perhaps by inference, Greek-Australian sports journalist fraternity) are Τζαμπατζήδες. Well, Kostas didn't take kindly to that, nor the allegation that he and his colleagues were ψευτες.

During elaboration of the matter, we somehow ended up in Βραζιλία, and the 2000 World Club Championships and who paid for who to get over there. Then we moved into the 2004 efforts to save the club, from which Paterakis claimed that Rombotis was absent.

Then Paterakis, absolutely fuming at this point, basically called Rombotis out, daring him to call, as long as he kept his call to five minutes, because they didn't want it to drag on for an hour. If Rombotis did call, he didn't make it to the air.

Some other highlights:

• The thunder sound affects they played at one stage
• Playing, I'm pretty sure it was this παπαγαλο song. I nearly died.
• Once again confirming why they have no time to cover anything on their show, by talking about this issue for about 50 minutes (and let's not forget the 20 minute chat with Kevin Muscat - I switched it off for that discussion).
• Mind you, they had finished with the issue, then George Karandonis turned up and it kicked off again.
• The claim made by Paterakis that, if they wanted to, they had plenty of other ways of hurting South. 

What was great about this hour long tirade, is that apart from the times when they're wrestling with whose microphone is supposed to be on, and callers dropping out, is that there was some actual effort put into the show. Little things like song selection and sound affects add so much. More please.

Still, disappointed that there was no sign of the promised extended talkback session on South's recent crisis. Nor was there any reference made to the previous week's promise to have a South representative on the show next week. Don't tell me that's going to end up not happening like the last time they made that promise?

2013 Fixtures
Apparently these were supposed to come out today. No such luck. A certain παπαγαλο has told us that the season will be starting on the week of April 6th.

SM Crisis 2012 - It's for your own good!

Great radio again last night.

After rocking up ten minutes late, and then spending another 10 minutes waffling on about the opening of a Greek migration exhibit, the 3XY sports guys finally got around to talking about South Melbourne Crisis 2012.

With the apparent resolution of the Toumbourou issue, there was interest from myself and some other South fans about how 3XY and Friends would report on the matter. And when they promised that they would open up the phone lines (for a massive 15 minutes) to take some calls live on air, they just about made my week.

Of course, one then had to sit through about an hour's worth of other guff, including:

• A-League
• Bentleigh Greens president (they signed Luke Sherbon)
• Oakleigh's Aki Ionnas
• Attempts to try and justify the comments that Elias Donoudis made in last Thursday's Neos Kosmos, which we discussed here.
• George Karandonis talking about Greek soccer and what matches were going to be on television that night.

Karandonis and the hosts were all in agreement that the Greek Media Group's reporting was actually beneficial to South Melbourne, because South ended up sorting out their issue with Peter Toumbourou - even though the club had been trying to avoid court proceedings right from the start, and had been attempting to deal with this issue for over a year.

Now I would agree with their rationale of performing a public service, if the reporting on the recent issues was even half decent. But as we've seen throughout the duration of this scenario, the reporting was sloppy in its handling of facts and fueled by personal agendas against the current committee.

That kind of writing does no one any good, and harms the Greek Media Group's credibility in the event that they stumble across actual mismanagement or corruption at South Melbourne.

Talking about issues as if they are explosive revelations, when in fact some of these issues have been talked about for years, is just ridiculous. There was a sober, impartial way of going about this reporting, which they disregarded in favour of hysterical sub-tabloid theatrics.

Anyway, on to the much anticipated talk-back session. The first caller was one 'Theodoros', who started by saying that he was a South fan who didn't have access to online news sources, and was therefore reliant on newspaper and radio reporting for his information.

Theo then asked the hosts, very slowly and carefully, why no one from the sports show had talked to any South people (such as committee man George Triantos, who used to be the regular contact point, or head coach Peter Tsolakis) for a whole year, like they do with people from the other clubs.

The main host, Kostas Paterakis, tried to deflect this line of argument by saying he'd personally been away for most of that time, and besides, they still talked about South. But to his credit, Theo wasn't satisfied with that answer, and kept asking them to answer his specific question.

Eventually the host, sounding increasingly nervous during this exchange, backpedaled to the point where he admitted there were 'problems with personalities'. There was no elaboration about what those problems may have been, nor why personal issues between South committee members and 3XY would extend to Peter Tsolakis, who as far as I'm aware, has not been involved with any of the behind the scenes/off-field issues.

Theo's call turned out to be the only they took. 3XY claimed they were short on time, but promised to open up the lines again next week. In addition, they appeared to say that some South representative would be appearing on the show in a fortnight's time. We look forward to listening to both events.

SM Hellas Crisis 2012 - Stathi Rombotis

Here's a very interesting article which popped up in the Greek Herald/Ellinikos Kirikas, Sydney's Greek paper.

For those who can't read or understand Greek, the basic story is this,

Basically this South supporter, Stathi Rombotis is saying, that after seeing all the mud thrown at South by 'the few, thankfully', he tried calling 3XY during their radio show, to be given air time like other people had been given. He claims he was told by one of the hosts, Kostas Paterakis, that he would only be dealt with off air.

When Rombotis asked why, he claims Patarakis gave him the impression that he didn't want to hear the voice of South Melbourne on the air. So Rombotis finishes off by now asking, why hadn't they (3XY Radio Hellas) talked about South for a whole year? Why are they so scared of letting Rombotis have his opinion heard on air like other callers?

Good questions, Stathi. I wonder what the answers will be.

3XY Radio Hellas stick to its guns...

... and fires a few more shots across the South Melbourne bow.

Last night's sports program on 3XY Radio Hellas was some of the most incredible radio I've ever heard. Among the many feelings the program evoked were fascination, disbelief and incredulity. It was also often an unnerving listening experience. The stakes have been raised.

Throughout the extraordinarily lengthy coverage given to the issues covered in the Ta Nea's recent articles - I would hazard that at least 70-80 minutes of their alloted 130 minutes was spent on the matter - there was the constant and very defensive catchcry about the lack of a personal agenda in pursuing these matters.

What was particularly mind boggling to them (and to me, although for different reasons) is the way that the Ta Nea articles have created a sense of panic among South's supporter base. They're confused because they believe they are reporting the truth - however I'm confused as to why they're confused about the panic that's spread which is an inevitable result of the articles they've written.

The great swathe of South supporting family, for better or worse, relies on either the South official site or the local Greek press for its information. The former has been near silent on the issues as covered by Ta Nea, excluding whatever material they've published before. The latter saw a chance for some cheap thrills, and have run with it.

The net effect? People brought up in a culture where corruption from authority figures is seen as de rigueur - indeed those who are not corrupt are as σουρδοι, a word from Kozani meaning naive, innocent, with an unusual negative attachment to it - buying into these conspiracies.

One major breakthrough is that the Greek Media Group, in one of its guises, finally put names to the disaffected former committee members. These are now confirmed to be George Koukoulas, Lucky Chrisomalidis and Tom Karatzas.

Among the other claims that the program made either directly or indirectly:

• That the club disrespected the two people who loaned the club money back in 2004, Chris Christopher and Tony Toumbourou.
• That the club has disrespected former president Leo Anezakis and his family.
• That the club was being run like a dictatorship.
• That anyone who agreed with the board is a sycophant. 

Prominent longtime supporter George Karantonis (who also hosts a Greek sports radio show on community radio station Southern FM) was also on the show. Karantonis is a regular contributor to the 3XY sports program. He complained about:

• The fact that South no longer controls Lakeside.
• The $2.50 Ticketmaster ticket surcharge on games at Lakeside.
• That South is the only club not working with the other clubs to, I assume, oppose the NCR reforms (an approach other supporters are also concerned with).
• Treatment of life members (one of his favourite causes)
• Regarding the $300,000 annual government stipend (I suppose about it not being used correctly), acting as if it that money is clear profit.
• About the changes to the junior academy, berating both the costs, while claiming that the club will pocket about $30,000 profit from the program.
• Smoking bans inside the stadium on match days (though he was corrected by one of the hosts, who mentioned that this is no different to AAMI Park or the MCG)

Another longtime supporter and volunteer, named Argiri, was also given time to air his grievances. His main complaint was that the club's plans for the social club would be disastrous, having being attempted before under previous administrations with no success. This was the same position he took at the meeting where the club's plans for the social club were detailed - for details of that meeting, see this post.

There was no mention however, that rightly or wrongly, most of the supporters in attendance were supportive of the club's direction on this matter. The way the matter was presented on the show was thus incredibly skewed toward Argiri's (and George Koukoulas') minority position.

Equally, when they had asked people to call in, the reaction to those callers (all off air) that seemed to criticise the Greek Media Group's approach was noticeably hostile. If this is the 'Greek community's team' (a laughable and long outdated notion), surely those who support the current committee have just as much right right to have their views heard fairly as do the naysayers?

The presenters and contributors also asked what the board have achieved in the past seven years. The focus was often on on field results, and well, who hasn't been annoyed by them? Equally they could ask their frequent guest Aki Ioannas of Oakleigh what they've achieved in the same time period. Or any of the big spending clubs who haven't managed to snare a title.

If we're talking about off-field issues though, well, including those persons who are now on the outer, the board has actually done a pretty decent job of keeping the whole thing afloat for as long as they have, to the point where it seems we've turned things around and are ready to build again instead of just survive.

What's odd though, is that despite all the problems and mistakes the club has made over the past seven years, and all the enemies and enmities that they've racked up, that not one of those three aforementioned persons, who have spent varying amounts of time on the committee since the end of the NSL, are apportioned any of the blame for these failures.

I Hope You Guys Know What You're Doing Department
The relative silence on all these issues being undertaken by the club is intriguing, and not without risk. By not responding, they're obviously taking the chance that the momentum of this anti-committee campaign will eventually run out. Combine that with a belief that the proof will be in the pudding - Toumbourou's sons dealt with, social club and lease sorted, balance sheets in the black - and the hope that news of these possible successes will filter through to the hoi polloi.

Mud sticks. But I suppose getting dragged into a street fight isn't worthwhile either - you end up lowering yourself to the level of those making vague accusations, hiding behind phony anonymity, and you lose anyway. And what chance is there of actually changing people's opinions, when people would rather believe the worst?

The notion that 3XY/Ta Nea has offered an opportunity to the board to tell their side of their story, and that they've knocked it back, won't play well in the sticks. But if the board wants to stick to their approach, especially after reportedly being black banned from the program for about a year anyway, that's their prerogative.

Here's hoping that it all goes to plan.

Ephemera
Also interesting was later on they had a representative from Bentleigh Greens on the show, who was at a loss to explain the poor crowds his team got in 2012 despite playing well, making finals etc. He seemed to put the blame squarely on Joe Public (and in my mind, not necessarily without good reason), but I couldn't think of why the hosts let him get off so easily for making that call, and especially how $12 was not expensive in terms of ticket prices, when earlier assertions were made that South's current committee were to blame for poor attendances since the end of the NSL, and that the Ticketmaster surcharge, which the club does not control nor receive, was somehow excessive.

Lastly, Hellenic Cup committee chairperson/president (and a 'χωριανό' of my dad) Jim Massis stated that the Hellenic Cup would not be held next year, as the organising committee had not received any expressions of interest to host the event. He appeared to apportion blame towards the restructure of the league system, rather address the issue of host clubs not making any money from the competition. Is this the end of the tournament? Wait and see I guess.

South out of 2011 Singapore Cup - Albirex Niigata 3 South Melbourne 0

Everything I am relating is from the info gleaned via the radio broadcast.

South Melbourne fell at the first hurdle of their second Singapore Cup campaign, going down 3-0 to the S-League's Albirex Niigata.

Albirex seemed to control the tempo of the game, and were the better organised throughout the contest, as well as making fewer mistakes. Their superior fitness certainly came across as well.

Albirex took the lead in about the 24th minute, after South had apparently matched it with the White Swans up until that point. Thereafter Albirex seemed to dominate, and it was thanks to Zaim Zeneli in goal that the score didn't blow out earlier than it did.

Despite this, South still had its moments, in the early parts of the game and after withstanding a lengthy bout of pressure in the second half, where Stephen Weir and Jesse Krncevic in particular had chances to score - the latter hitting the post from a corner which would have made the score 1-1.

Eventually, needing to push numbers forward, South was left exposed, and conceded two late goals. It was perhaps no more than Albirex deserved however, and not being able to hurt the home side on the scoreboard meant that increasingly South would be on the backfoot.

For South, Daniel Vasilevski seemed to be controlling the early parts of the game, but then faded out; Jesse Krncevic had his share of chances but couldn't capitalise; Sebastian Petrovich continued his poor run of form; Junior de Carmago also seemed to struggle; Zaim Zeneli seemed to spare our blushes on quite a few occasions; Carl Recchia seemed to be involved in much of the play, though his effectiveness was unclear; while most of the other players seemed to not feature too much either negatively or positively.

After managing to impress last season in both the first round and quarter finals, this was a bad loss, and one that sadly felt inevitable. Partly this was due to our poor domestic form; partly due to being so ill-prepared squad wise; and partly due to running into a better opponent this time around.

Having not won a domestic title since 2006, one wonders if the entire concept of a Singapore trip will be looked at in a lesser light next year. Sure, there was and is a buzz in getting away from our own dead end league and playing in another dead end comp overseas, but if it's come at the expense of local trophies, people will rightly ask if it's worth it. No doubt something to ponder for all concerned.

The promise of a radio broadcast was fulfilled, however there were several issues with that service. It seemed that several people using the live streamed service had that cut out and were unable to regain it. More problematic for those who were able to maintain access was the difficulty in assigning commentary duties.

The press release made the claim that the commentary would be in English, with periodic Greek updates; what actually happened was that the commentary seemed to change every ten to fifteen minutes between an English language commentator (George Triantos), and a Greek language commentator (3XY's Kosta Paterakis).

This came across as just plain confusing to people who could understand both, such as myself, and utterly disorienting to those of our fans who don't understand Greek. Somehow I felt we would have solved these issues by now, but I now realise I've been kidding myself. It was better in the second half, as Triantos did more of the calling duties, but still, Pateraki performed extended bouts of commentary duties.

All in all, a disappointing night, capping off a disappointing week. A huge match coming up against the Oakleigh Cannons at 'home' on Sunday. Despite everything that has happened so far this season, we are somehow still not far behind the VPL leaders. If anything positive is to come out of this disappointing week, it'll be that we have no more distractions and nothing else to aim for but a VPL title.