Plates! - Social club (and friends) artefact Wednesday

South Melbourne Hellas' commemorative plate, currently in storage while
we await the building of the social club. Photo: Paul Mavroudis.

Here's one that should have been posted a lot earlier. A Philips Soccer League commemorative china plate from the earliest years of the National Soccer League, with the contemporary logos of the then participating clubs. Quite a few of these plates seem to have survived the decades since they were released circa 1977/78 - at least that appears to be my impression based upon the 'Australian soccer before the A-League' Facebook group and the soccer public's general familiarity with these plates. Made by Coalport Fine Bone China or some such - a company which according to Wikipedia was absorbed into the Wedgewood group even before these plates were made - these plates are pleasing to look at, and are a real snapshot of the pluralist enterprise that was the National Soccer League at the time. The first photo shown here is of the plate belonging to our very own South Melbourne Hellas, and which once had pride of place (or something akin to that) in one of the glass cabinets which made up our museum space in the old social club.

Photo of a commemorative plate sent to us by 'Lakeside Spy'.

The photo of the second plate shown here was sent to South of the Border by a mysterious correspondent known only as 'Lakeside Spy'. Lakeside Spy's plate is also in its original box, and includes a sticker on its surface with 'A VICKHOAD 705' on it, which I'm not sure of the meaning of. While the plates come from a limited release of 750 - and are numbered as such - I would guess, having not seen the South Melbourne one in the flesh for some years now, that such a number would be on the bottom of the plate. Both photos shown here, as well photos I've seen from other people who have these in their collection, all seem to be in good condition, with the plate in the original box.

The third photo here is from the aforementioned 2015 auction.

Less common as far as I can tell is for the attendant paperwork to be included in such photos - certainly, I don't recall those elements as being part of the South Melbourne set. While I believe they hold considerable value from an Australian soccer perspective, it's harder for a non-specialist like me to place a monetary value on them Antiques Roadshow style. An auction last year which valued two of these plates and some attendant materials at just $40 only managed to raise $30. Yet on a Gumtree advertisement someone is or was attempting to sell two of these plates for $350.

Social club artefact Wednesday - Club Italia pennant

A few weeks or months ago - I can't remember exactly, but it was towards the end of the home and away season - I ended up chatting with a couple of the older heads, and the Club Italia '82 tour popped up in discussion. One of the two older blokes in this discussion could not remember anything about this tour, which was unusual as he's usually good with this stuff. As for myself, I'd never heard of it. Club Italia? What was that? Turns out it was a team made up partly of players from Italy's 1982 World Cup winning team, which toured Australia sometime in 1992, probably during the first half of that year (see below for exact date). And then I had a little bit of a light bulb moment - hadn't I seen a Club Italia pennant when I was cleaning up the social club? Indeed I had. That pennant had made little sense to me then, but it makes perfect sense to me now. Club Italia had beaten Adelaide City 1-0 before our meeting, which we lost 2-1, and then onto Marconi who they beat 4-2. That Marconi game actually has some footage online, which makes one hope that out there, somewhere, there is some footage from South's match against Club Italia. There may also be a match programme out, which we'd also love to see. Apart from the video of the Marconi exhibition match, the only online information about this tour (that I can find in English at least) comes from this link, which is a description of the Marconi match. What's interesting is that Marconi also used some guest players from other clubs for this match, so I wonder if South did the same. Of course, any further information on this tour, and especially the South game, would be appreciated.

Update
Thanks to Mark Boric for digging through some of the old Italian-Australian papers for us to get some more info on this.

For the Melbourne leg of their tour, Club Italia were due to arrive on the day before their match (on an Ansett flight), immediately heading to the Veneto Club for a welcoming reception, before holding a clinic for junior players. That evening they were to attend a reception in their honour. Their game in Melbourne (Thursday 27th February, at Olympic Park) was meant to be against a composite team coached by Ferenc Puskas, but was mostly made up of South Melbourne players. The lineups for the game were as follows:

'When classes does not get old'. Paul Wade receives the Club Italia pennant.
Image scanned by Mark Boric.

Club Italia: Copparone, Gentile, Mozzini, Filippi, Fontolan, Guida, Cirelli (Scarnecchia 62), Roggi (C. Sala 49), Rossi, Causio, Graziani (Briaschi 41). Coach: Valentino Angelillo

South Melbourne: MacLaren, Wright, Micheil, Durakovic, Fernandes, Wade, Taliadoros, Petersen, Trimboli, Tsolakis, Hasler. Coach: Ferenc Puskas.

At the start of the second half the following players took the field for 'South Melbourne', though in most cases it isn't clear who they replaced: Lilikakis (incorrectly listed as Lilikas), Michalokopoulos (incorrectly listed as Nichalokopoulos), Boutsianis, Healey, Tsoumerkas (incorrectly listed as Tsoumarkis), Tombolato (Fawkner), Della Rocca (Juventus), Di Martino (Thomastown), Ruccia (Bulleen). The crowd was approximately 12,000.

Joe Gorman on David Hill's attempted shoving of the NSL into the 'mainstream'

This article is, I think, a well researched and balanced look back at the mid 1990s attempt at de-ethnicising Australian soccer. A bit Sydney centric, but very interesting - and good to see someone analysing the multicultural factors more thoroughly then I'm used to seeing.

Boutsi's 100th NSL goal

Who could forget it? Marconi needed to beat us by four goals to make the finals. They suffered a setback when Boutsi scored a 40 metre half volley lob over Michael Turnbull. And then he came up with this to bring up his ton, and seal the visitors fate well and truly.

Fragment No.7

South is playing their second leg match tonight, could be their last ever in Australian top flight competition, so I’m quite disappointed at not being able to go.

South Gallop Into Top Six - Neos Kosmos English Weekly

Fragment no.2

Today South Melbourne defeated Marconi 6-1.

Mark Taylor's Scrapbook - Marconi vs South Melbourne, NSL, October 1992

For more on Mark Taylor's scrapbook, see this post.