Are you not entertained? Well, now that you mention it... - South Melbourne 2 Melbourne Knights 1

One South fan decided to come up with their own
hospital treatment plan. Who said watching
South Melbourne was bad for your health?

OK, look. It wasn't great, I think we can all agree with that. The effort was there for the most part, even from some of those who we love to single out when they don't put in. You know who I'm talking about. Yeah, that guy, but not only that guy, but especially that guy.

Anyway, apart from some stupid tackles - and congratulations to Knights' Damien Miskulin for getting himself sent off against us for the second time this season - this didn't have much of a 'derby' feel. Everyone at South seems too jaded to care, while Knights were out of the running for finals, and have a much more important game (to them at least) coming up on Wednesday.

There was even cross-cultural happenings between a couple of MCF who wandered over to Clarendon Corner for a very friendly chat - and there is absolutely no euphemism, allegory, metaphor or other reality distorting literary double meaning on there.

We had the better of the contest as you'd expect. Our first goal seemed, to me at least, more or less inevitable, even if Milos Lujic had missed a sitter just before it. Things were going along much as you'd expect - though the bizarre indifference of the entire South team to an injured Manolo was there for everyone to notice - and then the Knights went down to ten men.

Of course that's the cue for someone to press the self-destruct button, and we copped a goal within minutes. From a free kick on the edge of the box no less - and not even a particularly well taken one - which if we had such an opportunity ourselves we would butcher, but it's no use crying over it especially when the only continuing contributor to South of the Border at this time also supports a team with Travis Cloke in it. The world is full of disappointments.

Then we ran around like headless chooks for a bit, like we were trying trying to find our bearings like we'd just going on the tea cup ride a dozen times. Eventually we either kind of remembered that Knights weren't really trying, or the team reacted to the building hostility of the crowd, or someone pressed ctrl-alt-del, and shut down Windows Explorer in the Task Manager and got everything going again. The second goal however still seemed unlikely, until someone - Marcus Schroen, in this case - did something unlikely, that being putting in a decent cross, with Matthew Millar on hand to nod it home.

We still tried to throw the game away in what little time was left, but wouldn't you know it, we didn't. A win's a win and those of us without black holes for hearts will enjoy it, even if one has to go back all the way to round 13 for the last time we picked up a win against a fellow top six side. At the end of the game as we were walking out, one of the uniformed police officers at the game - I assumed initially that they were they there as an overhang from the old boy Socceroos vs Copperoos curtain raiser - was on the phone, or radio or Krusty brand walky-talky, saying 'no flares, and no incidents'. Everyone happy then, or close enough to what can reasonably expect.

An artist's conception of two Chris Taylor hating South fans attempting to
 have a possible 2016 South Melbourne grand final victory end up in a forfeit.

We're gonna lose!
Now some people - not me, mind you - seem to be very close to crossing that line where they want us to lose, because they may deem that such a happening will hasten the end of Chris Taylor's tenure as South manager, and perhaps take down a whole bunch of people with him. Hey, it's their call, and what with South of the Border being too scared to oppress people for having contrary opinions the way we should be oppressing them, we're not going to be too judgmental. It's been a long week. Hell, it's been a long season. Which would make it all the more hilarious if somehow pull off a Portugal and storm stumble accidentally pull off a grand final win despite performances of abject mediocrity. And there will be few gladder about such a win than yours truly, not out of any sense of jaded hipster misanthropy, but because it'll mean another notch on the South title belt. That it would be done via second or third or fourth place would just make it that much sweeter. Any saltiness - is that how the kids say it these days, saltiness? - would be a bonus.

Having said that, everyone knows we're going to tank in the finals, so there's no point getting our hopes up. There, covered all the bases.

Next game

Pascoe Vale away on Friday night.

Marketing idea no. 8733b
So in the early part of the season, we get what, one or two marketable warm weather home games where people turn up like it's Orthodox Easter in Melbourne - that is, their one obligatory appearance at church, or in South's case, to pick up their memberships. But after that comes the grand prix, and we get locked out of Lakeside for several weeks, and whatever whatever momentum we may have had. So how do create a sense of momentum again? I'm thinking we lobby for two home games at the start of April after the grand prix, and market our matches as being part of the Comedy Festival. It'll be avant garde (read, improvisational), interactive (get to feel like you're at a soccer match) and totally meta what with the match being the play within the play so to speak. And let's not undersell the comedy value of a South match day experience.

The answer to one of my questions
I asked, and got no answer, but then I asked again - or maybe overheard a conversation - and found out all I needed to know. Remember how I was banging on about the mystery of the split paths leading out of the players race? Well, it was apparently done because the area of the pitch where the players came onto the field had gotten very muddy or something, and they didn't want the players treading all over that. Makes sense, even if it's a bit anti-climactic.

Around the grounds
If you get one up his butt, it's a million points
Headed to the Δόξα Yarraville vs East Altona ΠΑΟΚ match on Saturday afternoon. Tried to work out what was wrong with South in 2016 with some of the locals. Reminisced, too, about the first time I used a media pass - or was it just a standard FFV pass? - to get into Paisley Park. Copped some indirect grief from one of the blokes manning the gate about people coming in with freebies. Freebies! Do they not know how hard it is to make such dire contests read like a Homeric epic? There were no moments of 'Mighty Sonny Kul, midfielder relentless' or 'Whoever Yarraville's number 7 was, ingenious creator of destruction'. Hmm, maybe I should give up applying Homer to soccer and leave that Fay Zwicky? This was a terrible game of soccer, lacking skill, entertainment, aggression or any of the other qualities that make soccer worthwhile for spectators. It made one feel utterly apologetic for suggesting to one's friends that attendance at this match, part of the relegation scramble, would be a worthwhile experience. The two teams couldn't even manage to hit the Rolls Royce parked adjacent to the field - didn't they get the memo from FFV that the team that knocked off the hood ornament would get a immunity from relegation?

Time for FFV to get serious on insidious scam
I don't care if they're rigged - in fact I just about expect it - but if clubs are going to sell raffle tickets for bottles of scotch and such, then the very least they can do is announce the winning ticket over a public address system, or get someone with a white-board to walk around the terraces announcing the winning number. Time to start docking points for non-compliance with this royal decree I reckon. Before any South people come hunting after me, I'm talking about pleb suburban Greek clubs here, not Hellas, OK? OK.

Scanning news, of a sort
Nothing new to share, but they tell me Victoria University's new ultra deluxe scanning machine is almost here... looking forward to scanning some stuff that deserves better treatment than what my old Canon 3-in-1 can provide.

Hooped socks

Got gifted a pair of BLK blue and white hooped socks by a reader of South of the Border and fellow South fan at the game, and let me say, that they are a quality product. Cheers!

Final thought
In 50 years time this match will be known as the place where the South Melbourne Hellas and Melbourne Croatia merger talks started taking place. Good grief, you think you've seen everything.

Limited internet blues - South Melbourne 2 Melbourne Knights 1

(Preamble) Sign of the Times
While waiting at the tram stop in between Flinders Street and Federation Square to catch a tram to the pub (as it turned out, no one else turned up, so that was a bit of a waste), a Yarra Trams employee on the platform started chatting with me about South and who we were playing. I mentioned 'Croatia', and he asked me about what kind of crowd the game would get. I said probably 1000-1500. It turned out that my new mate was a lapsed South fan - who else would reply to my hopeful crowd estimate with 'but we used to get 8,000 for this game'?

How do you respond to that assertion with anything resembling good grace? Here was a bloke bemoaning the fact that South crowds had gotten smaller, while not acknowledging that he himself was part of the problem. After I somehow made that point to him without directly implicating or blaming him, he then wished me a happy Easter, to which I said 'not for me'.

'Why not?' he said.
'I'm not a believer' I replied.
'You should go anyway' he responded, before I clambered onto the No.1 tram towards South Melbourne Beach, and he went on to help out some other commuters.

The tension mounts (on with the body count)
A Saturday afternoon kickoff, up against just about every other senior men's soccer match in Melbourne - not exactly the most ideal kickoff time, despite the horribly pristine and un-winter-like weather. Upon entering the ground I picked up my 2014 championship pennant souvenir, which was in a soccer style, whereas my idea had been for a baseball/Happy Days style horizontal triangle, in part because of some people at South calling me Richie Cunningham; no matter.

The apparently newly relaid turf was described by one person who had walked on it as having been left long, as well as being both sandy and moist; somehow later in the day, I thought I'd heard overheard someone chanting to themselves 'Epifano walks on quicksand'.

An early detour
Speaking of Nick Epifano, he was both there (in that he was on the bench), and not there (in that he didn't seem to celebrate the winning goal, nor did he get subbed on). I have been told and I have read from the more sympathetic side of this issue that Epifano wants to be at South, and that he had made that decision before the season despite receiving several better monetary offers, combined with denigration of South from persons involved at other clubs.

If that is true, and I don't doubt that to be the case, then he has an awfully strange way of showing it, for example by remaining expressionless on the bench when we do something good, or being the first to leave the ground after a game. That's not a crime in and of itself - the bloke's probably an incurable introvert - but it does cut against the grain of expectation in a vocation where overt and obvious physical and emotional expression is expected as standard.

After last week's episode of rank stupidity, the club went into lock down, and while my initial feeling was that Epifano would have been sacked, every day that went past seemed to make this less likely. What was the hold up for? Why had there been no comment from the club, even if it was only to acknowledge that the incident had happened, and that more news would be released later?

As it turned out, the club went on an atypically 'thorough consultative process' to try and figure out what the best solution would be to this scenario. They even engaged stakeholders across the club, including some members. And in the interests of openness, I was one of those members consulted. Without going into too much detail about that process, my recommendation was that the club sack Epifano, because while I believe that there is a substantial player welfare element involved here, that we as a club do not have the capacity to deal with that problem, as well as being doubtful of Epifano's remorse, especially considering the behaviour of some of those people in his camp.

Whatever the motivations of the club - and they may genuinely believe that this is a player welfare issue, and not merely be seeing it as a case of Epifano being a very talented player who'd they'd rather not let go - it takes a fair amount of guts to take it down this direction. That will sound wrongheaded to a few people out there, who will more naturally equate this is being a sign of weakness and indecisiveness. But undoubtedly, this is an attempt if not to implement than to at least mimic the 'professional' solution a top tier sporting club would apply in the same or similar situation.

The word that I've received on the matter is that within all levels of the club - coach, board, player leadership group - failed to adequately deal with the initial Facebook comment issue; so that while Epifano can't be nor should he be absolved of taking responsibility for his own actions, at least some part of the problem was in the ineffective and inadequate response from the club itself to the initial fuck up. Of course those in charge are well aware that this could all blow up in their face spectacularly, but as far as I'm concerned on this matter, if they can somehow make this work for the benefit of all involved, it would actually demonstrate an increase of maturity and professionalism in the club.

I don't think it's going to work for all sorts of reasons, but it'll be very interesting to see how this all plays out. What's already surprised me is the response from many of those on smfcboard.com - and I don't mean those who are only protesting we keep Epifano because of his talent, because that's no surprise at all - but those who have provided measured, nuanced responses outside the Kiss of Death's 'knee-jerk hard arse' response and the SMFC Mike brand of 'how much deeper can I crawl up the board's arse' response binary.

OK, back on track now
There was also some sort of camera crew attached to someone who looked like George Donikian (wearing his ground access pass on a Melbourne Heart lanyard) who, as far as I could gather, were filming some sort of feature on Australian soccer, starting with community clubs, then NPL, then A-League. Someone bemoaned the fact that they turned up to a fixture that was likely to have a poor crowd, but why not capture the true spirit of forcefully inflicted mediocrity that we've succumbed to? The mood lightened somewhat when the camera crew started filming Clarendon Corner, and we started singing 'We only sing when there's cameras!'.

Even the early Knights goal didn't sink people's enthusiasm, perhaps because we always looked likely to score. A large part of this was due to Andy Brennan, who was given hectares of space to run into on the right hand side, and which he duly used to take apart the inexperienced and/or substandard Knights defense. When he got past them, he put in several good crosses; when he failed to get past an opponent, the result was usually a foul, often with a yellow a card to the offender, though it took some time for the ref to get to that point. Having seen (via videos) the kind of space Brennan was gifted in Tasmania - usually way too much - I was surprised to see him allowed to roam the way he was on Saturday. That's not a complaint mind you, only an observation, in that less space was one of the issues I thought he'd have to deal with in Victorian soccer.

Placed here just in case you've never seen this
before.

The equaliser when it did come was pretty damn contentious for all sorts of reasons. The penalty call was so soft that it caught everyone by surprise. Milos Lujic's celebration following his successful spot kick only made things more interesting. Instead of running towards the home supporters, or being crowded by his teammates, he made his way towards where MCF were located, and produced an elongated 'shush' celebration, before crossing himself (in the Orthodox manner) and pointing towards the sky. Somehow some folks interpreted the gesture as a return to the Bobby Despotovski incident of many years ago, a claim which soon spread to social media.

While that allegation was later shown to be false, the immediate result was the referee blowing his whistle for halftime, and a scuffle between the two teams as they headed off towards the tunnel. Whatever Lujic did, and however much we've copped from opposition players over the years, I'm not a fan of celebrating in front of the opposition; but then again, I'm not one for outlandish goal celebrations anyway. Under normal circumstances, my personal goal celebration preference list is:

1. Thanking the player who passed the ball to you.
2. Celebrating with your supporters.
3. Dedicating the effort to Jesus/Buddha/Allah/recently deceased person/currently ill person/new born person/your high score playing as Questor the Elf on Gauntlet
4. Only carrying on like a complete pork chop if you've scored an absolute cracker or decisive, season defining goal.

Still, it was rather absurd that Knights fans were getting in an uproar, all while some of their supporters had resuscitated the old NSL era chant "I'd rather fuck an Abo than a Greek'. The notion that some have put forward - and it's not a notion that I disagree with - that the Knights are possibly the worst possible club to challenge the FFA's National Club Identity Policy got a bit of an unnecessary boost there.

The second half saw us more or less pick up where we left off. Brennan continued to take the piss, and got his due reward when he battled hard, caused a turnover and received the resulting through ball which he slotted home. It was a little ugly, but damn was it effective. The rest of the game saw us alternately try to ice the game - a Chris May double save made that part harder - and try to weather the visitors' attacks. There were a few of those, mostly from the air where we didn't look that comfortable, but we held on and that's what matters most.

As the game wound down to its tense finish, I casually remarked how nice the ground now looked with its new signage; if only it had more people to appreciate what the club is doing these days; and if only the signs were perhaps a metre further back, because they looked pretty close to the touchline. One last thing on the game itself. Now, I'm going to completely disregard whatever the exact rule may be, but how Chris May's blatant and deliberate handball miles outside of his area - and the follow up pretence of being hit in the face - got only a yellow card, when Tim Mala missed two games for calling Kieran Gonzalez a dickhead is beyond me.

On the tram back towards the city, a Knights supporter with either his dad or his grandad bemoaned Hellas' diving tactics. Me, I tried to persuade Steven Chang of the virtues of Frozen Tears' club theme song, to no avail.

Deluxe Ultra Crowd Estimator Segment 3000
Due to a certain amount of demand, here is the beginning of a new crowd estimator segment - and maybe the end, too, because new segments on South of the Border are never guaranteed to last. To be honest, I hadn't even thought about this last week, but one of our readers came up to me during the game and suggested what he considered to be a 'realistic' number. While I was trying to come up with a catchy name for the segment - which as you can see, didn't happen - another fan wearing a Manowar hoodie also provided a 'propaganda' number.

So in an effort to spread the love between both factions, and in lieu of the club actually releasing genuine attendance numbers unless you happen to be in the car with El Presidente at the time, here are both possible answers.

Realistic: 1000
Inflated South propaganda: 1800

If you would like to participate in this segment, please see me at any South game in order to provide your answer.

Next game, holy crap, that's on tonight!
Dockerty Cup action against North Sunshine Eagles at Lakeside. The game is free for members, but not free for the general public, after a stadium issue arose making the previous announcement from the club that it would be free for all, redundant.

A Magyar homecoming at Melbourne’s Greek Derby
It's been a fairly hectic few weeks for me of late. One of the downsides to this chaos is that I haven't been able to keep up with my reading as much as i would have liked, and that includes stuff on the net. Nevertheless, I finally got around to reading Engel Schmidl's latest piece on Shoot Farken, and it was well worth the wait. It's set during the most recent Heidelberg-South derby game, which is the angle I'm using to justify promoting it. Do check it out.

Next year in Jerusalem
Did you know that the 'no social club' clock on the blog doesn't come up in the browser on my crappy mobile phone? Anyway, thanks to the good people on smfcboard.com who noted that we've notched up five years without a social club, except for some casino night and the doomed from the start attempts to make Beachcomber Cafe a temporary replacement of sorts.

Around the Grounds
So it's come to this
I went with Steve from Broady to Port Melbourne vs Heidelberg, and apart from picking the worst spot on the ground to view the game, it kinda felt like old times, before 'Griffo' became a massive Victorian soccer celebrity, at the same time as the amount of non-South games he watched decreased dramatically. No matter. I was expecting big things from this game, what with both teams doing well this season. Alas, I was left disappointed. The Bergers scored a goal in the opening couple of minutes, and finished off the game with a second goal in the 91st minute. In between all of that, very little of note happened, except for Port skying the odd chance way over the bar. Slightly more interesting was Port's canteen, which was serving cans of Fosters, and the linesman who before each half thought that it was a matter of great importance that the goalkeeper's water-bottles were on the outside of the side netting rather than on the inside. Heidelberg goalkeeper Griffin McMaster, who received the lesson just before the start of the second half, could only comply with a look of utter disbelief, while exclaiming that he'd never come across that request before.

Final thought
After 28 years, it's farewell to Altona North, and hello Sunshine West. Where did the time go?

Apparently this was a friendly - South Melbourne 3 Melbourne Knights 1

Perhaps it's because a fair few of them live around Sunshine, or perhaps it's because they've got real high hopes for the upcoming season, but there were plenty of Knights fans at Chaplin Reserve. The MCF even had their 'MCF' and 'Against Modern Football' (whatever that means; a more accurate description would perhaps be 'against post-modern football') banners out. On the flip side the South contingent was very small. A couple of board members, some support staff, an out of action for this game (courtesy of a keeper collision in the Heidelberg friendly) Hamlet Armenian, the odd fan and one grand slam tennis line caller who turned up at half time. Of course attendance by South fans is rarely anything approaching awesome at these things, but this was pretty poor. Maybe they were at the tennis, or still on the forum banging on about Leo. Goodness knows the forum's rarely that lively when there's an actual soccer match to talk about, which is a little bit of a cause for concern.

Anyway, the game itself lacked any real fluency, on a level but rock hard ground. For South, Poutakidis, Diaco and Fernando played the first half, Natsioulas did not play. New South recruit MacDonald scored about 10 or so minutes in from a corner. Knights leveled after the break with Deano in goal. Perhaps a little against the run of play South scored twice late to take the game, with Caldwell providing a good low pass for the third for De Nittis to put away. A number of players from both sides received knocks. Fernando hurt his left knee, but should be fine. New keeper Neil Young collided with Ramazan, the former getting a cut inside his mouth as a result. Danny Miller somehow got a broken rib which made it difficult for him to breathe.

I'm concerned that De Nittis is still being persisted with in a midfield role, instead of his usual place up front. Goran Zoric is a real gem, but will his small stature work for or against us? A pleasing aspect was the hard tackling put in by some players, a very good omen. Not the most brilliant work from either side, but there were enough signs that both will be up there probably fighting for a top four spot. Most noticeable on things to work on for both sides was the back half. South's new look defense is still taking time to gel, but should have enough games in between now and Round 1 to sort most of them out, as well as working on linking up with the midfield. For the Knights, their defense seems a little slow, and a little vulnerable on the counter attack, so quicker sides, like South, may well be some of their more difficult opponents this year.

So now on to Saturday (tomorrow) where a decent squad will take on Port Melbourne at the Hellenic Cup, so that should be worth going to see. On the way home while sitting on a bench at Sunshine station, some nut driving by in a car I presume threw an egg which missed me by about a metre, hitting the rock on which the stolen plaque which contained the names of the victims of the Sunshine train disaster used to be. And also in between Spotswood and Newport stations there is a crateman on one of the buildings (west side). If it's still there by tomorrow might try and get a photo.