Oh my goodness, it's 2019

2018 Annual General Meeting announced
Late as per usual. The club put a notice up on its website. You may have received an email. I'm not sure if the club sends out letters anymore for this kind of thing. If you haven't received due notification and you think that you should have, I'd get on to the club pretty quickly if I were you.

Anyway, both the South Melbourne Hellas and South Melbourne FC AGMs have been set down for Thursday January 31st, in the social club. The SMH one starts at 6:00PM, and the SMFC one at 8:00PM.

As screen-capped from the club's Instagram page.

Club launches 60th anniversary logo
As they did in 2009 for the club's 50th anniversary, the club has launched a special logo for the club's 60th anniversary, And as was the case back then, so too this time have the calls been made for this logo to replace our current effort.

For whatever it's worth, I agree with those sentiments, not least because the current logo looks dated, but more so for the fact that it doesn't really say anything. Of course those hoping to make a variant of this logo our new logo must understand that its very clear references to our Greek heritage make that idea very difficult to pursue at this time.

As with the example of the 50th anniversary commemorative logo (see right), this logo is probably a) a co-logo, not a replacement one and b) almost certainly done with the cooperation of Football Victoria to get around certain 'issues' to do with the National Club Identity Policy - issues which would likely be more difficult to deal with were we to decide
to make it our permanent logo.

Still, let's be happy that it looks good, and let's hope too that it won't be the only thing done by the club to commemorate our 60th anniversary.

Oh yes, how careless of me, I forgot to mention...
...that at least year's Christmas party, I met the bloke to whom the club has outsourced the operation of the social club and futsal court, the big news of which is that the club has outsourced the operation of the social club and futsal court in its entirety. Now, it could be that in the two weeks since I found that detail out that the club or the presumptive operator have changed their minds, but I haven't heard anything like that.

2019 SMFC senior squad roster as of 05/01/2019
There was a rumour that Ndumba Makeche had joined Penang in Malaysia. Wherever he ends up, it's pretty certain that he won't be at South this year.

Signed

• Dean Bereveskos (Bonnyrigg White Eagles) 
• Kristian Konstantinidis (signed until end of 2019) 
• Nick Krousoratis (Green Gully) 
• Perry Lambropoulos (Port Melbourne) 
• Brad Norton (signed until end of 2019) 
• Gerrie Sylaidos (Northcote) 

Seen hanging around pre-season training

• Luke Adams 
• Manny Aguek 
• Alistair Bray 
• Ben Djiba 
• George Howard 
• Tim Mala 
• Giordano Marafioti 
• Giuseppe Marafioti 
• Jake Marshall
• Andrew Mesorouni
• Leigh Minopoulos 
• Nikola Roganovic 
• Marcus Schroen 

Rumoured

• Visa player no. 1 (English striker) 
• Visa player no. 2 (Canadian midfielder) 

Injured

• Alastair Bray 

Out

• Rory Brian (Preston) 
• Matthew Foschini (Oakleigh) 
• Josh Hodes (Oakleigh?) 
• Christos Intzidis (who knows) 
• Milos Lujic (Oakleigh) 
• Oliver Minatel (who knows) 
• Ndumba Makeche (Penang FA?) 

Unknown / MIA / Assumed dead from 2018

• Iqi Jawadi 
• Will Orford

Whatever You Do, Don't Panic!

Remember this crap? Well, because Melbourne Heart got another crappy crowd, we're once more at the stage where two things are happening. First, the usual South suspects have come out to dance on the Heart's impending grave, without noting the inherent ironies of doing so, while on the other side of the equation, Heart's supporters are by and large looking either to blame everyone and everything bar the model their club is based on, or attempting to come up with ever more ludicrous solutions to their plight.

I won't bore you with the full range of those ideas (examples include moving the team to Geelong, buying a Greek marquee player, getting a 10k capacity boutique soccer stadium built at Glenferrie Oval), but one idea that comes up from both sides of this issue is a merger/amalgamation/takeover scenario with our very own South Melbourne Hellas.

The South supporters who are keen on this train of thought put forward the idea that our club should wait until Heart is just about dead (or not, in some variations), and then buy a stake in that franchise and change it South Melbourne by stealth. Never mind that like any half astute Australian sporting body, the FFA controls the licensing and naming arrangements. Never mind entering a competition with high overheads and almost no one making a profit. Never mind that our main goal should be to try and get what we're doing now right, because there are a lot of people who would love it to fail.

The Heart fans' idea tends to run a different way - that they should play out of the cheaper and smaller Lakeside Stadium in order to tap into the supposed latent A-League support buried within the South Melbourne community. Never mind that:

• Our actual active support, like every other state league club, is poor.
• Most of those people who could become enchanted with the A-League are already there.
• If you want to find big numbers of Greeks at sporting events in Melbourne, you're more likely to find them at a Collingwood or Richmond AFL match.
• And what's the obsession some Heart fans have with attracting Greek-Australian fans anyway? Aren't they meant to be a 'mainstream' operation?

The best parts of this situation (which seems to come up at least once every season) are the ever more ludicrous lengths people will go to back up their particular point of view. The person who created the two logos included in this entry deserves a prize for creativity, and for highlighting the difficulty in establishing whether anyone on either side of this issue is being genuine in this debate. That they are the views of a small minority of internet warriors is not much consolation.

Good excuse to use an Asterix reference

First up it was the Melbourne Victory, with their 'Parade of Champions' charade. An explanation if you're not up to speed with what that was - prior to their fixture against the Wellington Phoenix earlier this year, they invited us and the Melbourne Knights to parade our NSL championship winning teams around Docklands. Both clubs told them to stick it - there's no need to show us off in the manner of Vercingetorix. But that wasn't the end of it.

There's a new club on the A-League beat. Melbourne Heart, another top down franchise, just like every other 'club' in this competition, who are now competing against the Melbourne Victory without any clear indication, at least amongst vast swathes of the local soccer public, of why they should even exist. Geographical reasons? Hardly. Playing style? They're using that argument now, but since when have playing styles at clubs ever remained static? And surely the need to eventually grind out results will become a factor in their quest for glory. So, sure, that argument, of a different method of play to Evil Ernie's might work for some. But that's not quite enough. There has to be a social reason why people will attach themselves to this organisation, so that it feels like a group of people seeking to win something together rather than a budget Aussie soccer Harlem Globetrotters.

So, the route that Melbourne Heart have attempted to take is this. We're not actually another heartless franchise - we're actually one of you! We love tradition and stuff! It's heaps good! Of course this means the requisite clinics all over the shop (no complaints there), but what does it actually mean to be 'traditional' and why is it even a worthwhile trait to pursue? Traditions are merely the things we have been doing for a very long time. In themselves, they do not contain any sort of intrinsic value, except to make us feel safe and secure by providing a solid basis of routine, the steady ground which allows us to continue our miserable lives without complaining too much.

The issue at the core of these political games, is the 'we'll decide when you are useful to our ends' approach. The knocking down and enforced exclusion of ethnic clubs from top flight football, and the looking away while the FFV tries to make us third tier. The rearrangement and erasure of history in order to facilitate the building of this new regime. And when it needs or desires it, for reasons I can't fathom - considering we've been banished by these same people to the shadow realm - oh, please come across and give us some sort of credibility with the weight of history at this stage only you have, and we (perhaps) fear we may never possess.

And so a Melbourne Heart supporter group, Yarraside, decided they'd get in on this show of alleged empathy, and put up a banner (click on the image to enlarge) which included the logos of the past Victorian NSL clubs (or at least the Melbourne based ones). I don't doubt for a second that it was done with the utmost respect in mind - unlike their management, which includes several former boardmembers and financial contributors of the Victory. But they shouldn't have done it. South's history, the Knight's history, does not belong to Melbourne Heart. For Melbourne Heart, its administration and support, no matter how much they would like to convince themselves and us, the so called bitters, that they understand us and our grievances, and most importantly, that they are not a replica of the Melbourne Victory, for the minority of us left at Knights Stadium or Lakeside, I would safely bet that it just doesn't wash.

I've also read that it was an attempt to prove to the Victory that football was here before them. Well, duh. That's why we have the A-League - because what constituted top flight soccer before was considered at best inadequate and at worst a front for ethnic crime syndicates - mostly by the people who are following this new league! And apparently some of their fans didn't feel they needed to ask the permission of those clubs to use their logo to make that point - way to reinforce the whole us and them approach of the FFA and A-League. And leaving the bleeding obvious until the very end, while also neatly reconnecting with our Vercingetorix analogy made at the beginning of this post - Melbourne Heart defeated a bid backed in part by South Melbourne! The mind boggles at some of the logic being used.

Honouring our takeover of Melbourne Hakoah

These South Melbourne Adidas members polos are top notch.
Just one thing though.
Have you seen the logo?
I mean, really looked at it?
Four stars as is normal.
But four stars now with six points as opposed to the previous and customary five.
Not quite Star of David, but pretty close.
Subtle. Hooped socks and a red v away top can't be too far away.
You know it makes sense.