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.

Attencao all people with kickarse mobile internet

Our friend Po Hui from the Bolosepako blog has posted this curious article on streaming live games yourself. I'd assume you'd need some decent wireless internet, and a willingness to do the camera work, but it'd be interesting to see if this stuff worked. Eamonn from Football In The Capital also recently made a call for interested Canberrans to do live radio calls of Canberra's W-League games, though I'm not sure of how successful that was or will be.

Which all brings to mind something I thought of around about the time Eamonn's call went out. Since tv coverage on Channel 31 can be erratic in terms of putting us on, why not create our own streaming radio calls of (home) games? People will come out and say that will lower our crowds, but seriously, look at them now. It may also enable us to create new sponsorship opportunities, and you wouldn't even need South people calling the games per se, as there are likely quite a few people out there who would love to have a stab at commentating whether in terms of amateur interest or with a view of getting into that part of the industry. And it also opens up the possibility to engage people who don't come to games, miss games, or whatever, keeping them connected them to South 'the idea'.

Now, back to reality. Obviously this fanciful. hopeful suggestion is far from likely to happen. Hell, you're more likely to see the return of a match day program. But nevertheless, strange swirling rumours located within a particular room have said that the former may happen, in conjucbtion with an ouitside enterprise. And despite South fans being notoriously unsupportive of paying for match day programmes, a reevaluation of the funding model may see that come back too, next year. Whatever happens, it's clear as day to me that it's up to us to create our own content, because we obviously can't rely, on the like of Neos Kosmos or 3XY Radio Hellas for regular, supportive, reporting and news, let alone the mainstream which has moved on to focus on its key advertising demographics, of which recalcitrant oldskool soccer fans are not included. It's the reason I started this enterprise, and I gather it's why the people from Goal Weekly started their thing, and why other groups have started their perhaps marginal projects.

Nevermind for the moment that these projects and ideas seem overly focused on people who are already nominally interested and engaged, thereby further playing into the hands of the internet phenomenon of the ultimate niche product. What's more important is perhaps that there is little hope of a change in the attitudes of those who once reported on us - indeed it's going the other way at a rapid pace - we now have the tools to at least to offer the semblance of choice. We'd be careless in the extreme not to use them.

FourFourTwo's recent South obession continues

South: 'We Must Evolve For A-League'

South is struggling at the wrong end of the Victorian Premier League after a stuttering start that saw coach John Anastasiadis – an NSL winner with the club as a player – depart Bob Jane Stadium two weeks ago following a 3-0 home loss to Green Gully.

Michalakopoulos, 38, was installed soon after but could not stop the slide as high-flying local rivals Melbourne Knights beat his outfit 2-0 last weekend at Somers St.

South Melbourne now sit third bottom on six points while the Knights sit atop the VPL with 18 points from eight rounds.

But Michalakopoulos, a former 1992 Olyroo, is still upbeat that his side can claw its way into the six. “I’m positive and excited by what I’ve seen so far,” he told au.fourfourtwo.com.

“It’s still early. We’ve got 18 rounds to go. But what I’d like to bring in to the side is a more free-flowing style.

“I like having two wide men aside of the striker almost as a three-man strike force.

“There is certainly enough talent in this squad to turn it around.”

The new South coach will get a chance to turn things around when second bottom Fawkner visit Bob Jane this weekend for a cellar-dwellar dog fight.

And Michalakopoulos is hoping his time as a player under legendary South coach – and Hungarian football icon Ferenc Puskas – will stand him in good stead.

“I was part of that golden era when we won the old NSL at South under Ferenc. That was back in 1991. I learnt a lot from the great man.”

As for the other hot topic bubbling around South Melbourne FC – the club’s stated desire to put an A-League bid together in three years – Michalakopoulos said the club needs a measured approach.

“Look, this is a big club," he said. "And we have a great junior set up. But an A-League bid needs to be done right.

"There is a good committee at the club and they are on the right track. But this needs a lot of work.

“We need to evolve as a club, however, still have some links with the current set up.

“Melbourne needs a second team. For South, perhaps an image change would work. We should be prepared to do what it takes.”


So M&M puts in his two bob. And the world keeps turning. Firstly, let's deal with the minor issue, the team's performance. Puskas is long gone, the mainstream didn't care when he was here, and his memory and the part you played in it and the things you learned aren't going to be of much use here. Because memories of the Galloping Major aren't going to make the team complete simple passes, shoot away from the keeper but into the goal, or make Deano stop flapping his arms and punching away high balls that he should easily catch. Sad but true. This isn't a go at Puskas' time here; indeed the fact that he was here at all is still treated as if it didn't happen or meant anything of importance by almost everyone in Australian soccer. Rather it should be noted that perhaps the most relevant advice for these difficult times can be found in the words of former Melbourne Croatia player Joe Biskic: 'Put ball in goal'. 'Nuff said.

As for the A-League stuff... now I don't know if M&M was put up to this by the board, or whether the people at FourFourTwo Magazine are that desperate for content during the Z-League's 23 month off-season that anything to sell a a few more copies of their rag, using the faint and distorted collective memory of South Melbourne Hellas as an important entity. Anyway, is there anything there that hasn't been regurgitated by the fifty-four stomach cow that is the Melbourne Victory forum, by those for, against and middle? Not that I can see. In fact, unless I see concrete evidence of anything, and I don't mean half-arsed press releases used to jazz up fading interest - which I used in a media writing class (to much amusement and astonishment) as part of an example of how effective baseless press-releases can stir up all sorts of unnecessary and unsolicited reactions - I mean actual, nuts, bolts, etc stuff.

Now I've heard rumours from reliable people of equally reliable people preparing a bid. Seen sketches of what 'our' logo may look like. But nothing made of bricks and mortar. Admittedly, Melbourne Victory had even less than what we have, mostly Geoff Lord lying about how much money he had, Tony Ising's fantasy (see the relevant entry on here for how that turned out), but when it comes to South, people reckon we've already had our chance, and with the addition of the faulty collective memory of our past, as well the blotting out of Geoff Lord trying to destroy Hawthorn... anyway, kinda lost my train of thought there.

Basically, M&M should focus on winning games, FourFourTwo should try harder to come up with articles, - perhaps trying to figure out why Puskas' time here gets ignored by everyone - and all those people spreading Z-League rumours, could you please stop? My life's depressing enough without this bullshit getting an airing every few months. Thanks.

Australia vs Qatar 3-0, shame I missed it

Firstly, here is my favourite picture of Socceroo training at Bob Jane Stadium. Why? Because it actually includes the smfc.com.au 'a-frame' that I helped move across so it would get into some media shots. Of course the media being fuckwit revisionist monkeys, you likely didn't see it on mainstream television stations. More photos on the South forum.


I also totally picked the wrong day to start throwing up every couple of hours. Pissed off that I missed this game, and of course the tv rights being the way they are, could only listen to it on the radio, and even then only the first half because I fell asleep due to exhaustion early during the second. Of course, we're not alone in this. The most important thing is we got off to a great start.

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.