One game too many - South Melbourne 0 Oakleigh Cannons 5

What a letdown, and yet... I almost expected it. I think many f us did, even if half of that would have been setting up excuses for any possible loss. I don't think anyone was expecting it to be quite that bad, obviously, but still. Losing Harry Sawyer when we did always made something like this a possibility, even if we kept scrounging up wins in his absence. But the game plan largely revolved around two things - a big guy up front, and a big performance from the man between the sticks. on Sunday, we had neither. Conceding two goals from corners to an unmarked player at the back post only made things harder. Putting in our corners short didn't help. The rest was just a result of us chasing the game.

For all the controversy around Oakleigh getting to hire goalkeeper Lewis Italiano, his presence was almost a non-factor. He barely had to make a save until the game was beyond us. It would have been nice to test him, with the ball and without, but we seldom got close. So much of what passed for getting forward for us resembled a bunch of angry kids just getting stuck in and belting the ball long. Composure, spending time on the ball and moving it around, out the window. That's fine in the last ten minutes when you're a goal or two down and desperate, but if it makes up a good chunk of the rest of your day, you're not going to get far. 

There was a spell from after about the 15 minute mark where things weren't so bad, but the rest was largely a mess. When Max Mikkola left the field with concussion, after receiving an elbow from the eventual man-of-the-match that everyone seemed to miss at the time, that was pretty much it. No Sawyer, no Mikkola, no Andy Brennan, and having to make to do with the woefully underdone Jai Ingham for a much larger part than we should have ever done.

The worst part was that Oakleigh played the kind of soccer that South fans would like to see us play. On the ground, attacking football. Look, I get it - it was a one-off game, one loss, and these things tend to even themselves out over the entirety of a season. Thus we finished well clear on top of the table, a reward for consistency (however flukey you want to consider it), and had every right to feel ike we had been the better team over the year. But this is Australia, and for the most part we do finals. There have been times when that has been to our favour,. This time, it wasn't.

So, with the game being a bust, one then turns to the only other matter of interest, which was the match day experience, which left a bit to be desired. Considering a good chunk of people were coming from parking at Northland - and your correspondent from public transport also at Northland - only having the main Catalina Street entrance as an entry point was crap. I got there early enough that the queue wasn't an issue for me, so I can't comment, but I didn't bother trying to buy any food or drink, because that seemed chaotic throughout the entirety of my time there.

Quite why a drinks table wasn't set up at the southern end of the grandstand is really for Heidelberg to know, and the rest of us to guess at. And despite all the welcome improvements to the venue of late, quite why a PA system that works across the entirety of the venue isn't in place seems like the kind of thing that could rectified sooner rather than later.

In any event, there was a very healthy crowd of South people, augmented by Heidelberg fans, others neutrals, and Oakleigh friends and family, in that order. Someone put out the nice round number of about 4,000 people, which was good considering the negligible Oakleigh presence, lousy kickoff time, and especially lousy weather. It rained people. It rained before the game, during the game, and after the game. It rained light, mediumm and heavy. The ground held up, and there was enough shelter for everyone.

Now imagine that same weather at City Vista, or some similar venue. Really, you don't have to imagine it, because this is Melbourne, and it rains sometimes, and the weather doesn't even care if you have a major sporting event on. Quite why or how Football Victoria personnel couldn't figure this out is something for those with more intimate access to FV operational conduct to consider. 

Atmosphere wise, considering how poorly we played, it was quite good. The grandstand had a festive feel, as you'd hope for such occasions. Matthew Foschini copped his share of grief, and he sought to give it back. You could almost hear a pin drop when Oakleigh scored, really, but that's just the way it is when you get outside the big four or five in Victoria (South, Knights, Bergers, Thunder, Preston). Losing to an opponent with fans that can appreciate it hurts differently to losing against an opponent with negligible support. You're cheering for your team of course, but you're cheering against a phantom when you play these kinds of teams.

You become overly reliant on pantomime villains, worrying about focusing too much on pantomime villains, and in the case of one person, letting it all blow up Ned Flanders post-hurricane style after bottling it up all season long. We lost, it sucked, we try to do better next season in the same sucky league, while we wait for a new league that may or may not be less sucky, and which may end up being made of all these old teams we used to play against on the old days anyway. If you wanted a more psychologically healthy hobby, you'd do that instead.

A small, petty man - Avondale 0 South Melbourne 1

Your reporter could have purchased a ticket to the big AFL game that day, but instead did what he almost always does in such situations, and decided to head to the South game, regardless of the circuitous public transport path chosen, and especially regardless of the (as it turned out) even worse than usual public amenities on offer at the football arena portion of the Reggio Calabria Club, which at least in previous times had a half decent/passable canteen. Good luck to the food truck offering prawn twists and other novelty items at outrageous prices for making Lakeside's food offerings seem almost sensible by comparison. It's never a good sign when you don't see almost anyone eating anything at a game.

The worst part of the whole thing is that I got there early enough to catch about 60 minutes of the under 21s curtain raiser, so it was a hell of a long day to spend without consuming other than a can of coke, and a bit of someone's novelty Snickers bar.

For us, this was a dead rubber. A chance to continue working out the immediate future without Harrison Sawyer, while avoiding serious injuries and unnecessary yellow cards. For Avondale, it was basically win or bust, with Heidelberg likely to smash Eastern Lions, and Bentleigh Greens favourites against the all-but-relegated Dandy City. Now there was that one observant person on Twitter who noted that we must really hate Avondale considering that we played a pretty strong starting line-up, and there might be something to that. But otherwise, I think we went in pretty much as expected, minus the odd player here or there that didn't absolutely need to be out there.

And we got the job done. A 1-0 win thanks to an earlyish goal which highlighted a big part of Avondale's slip from preeminence this year; namely some pretty soft defending. I was disappointed that we couldn't add to the tally, especially as Avondale increasingly had to chase the game to give themselves some chance of making the finals; but I was otherwise happy that we seemed to be a bit more assertive overall, looking more like the side from the early parts of the season that pressed its opposition higher up the field. A good outing by Ben Djiba as well, after a few sketchy performances - when he was in the side. 

And, yes, it felt good to not only dispense with Avondale, who have given us a torrid time n recent seasons, but also to stick it up some pretty annoying characters at that club, who sought to target our supporters in prior visits to the Reggio Calabria Club. Yes, pity our poor feelings and all that, but good riddance (for the time being) of some pretty sore winners and now, also pretty sore losers judging by the antics of their coaching staff in the car park after the game. Not that I stuck around for such shenanigans, as I was hoofing it up Brunswick Road to catch a tram that would not properly sync up with the train arriving at Royal Park station.

Still, all the good feelings of the home and away season are now worth not much, as we head into the finals, which means we're either two wins from glory, or one loss from what will be deemed failure. But that's the Australian way I guess, even if New South Wales - the soccer state which loves finals systems more than anyone - is apparently dumping finals next year. Good luck to them for the principle of that move, but damned if I think they'll actually keep first past the post in the long run.

Back in Victoria, we're stuck with finals, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't this particular finals system. In other respects, things remained much the same, as the top six was made up of five Greek teams, well earning the competition the title of NPL Greece. I mean, look at this for the most recent title winners:

• 2019 - Bentleigh Greens
• 2018 - Heidelberg United
• 2017 - Bentleigh Greens 
• 2016 - South Melbourne
• 2015 - Bentleigh Greens
• 2014 - South Melbourne
• 2013 - Northcote City

I know that it helps that the last two seasons being obliterated means that run wasn't interrupted by Avondale winning the title, but Greek teams have also frequently been the runner-up during those seasons, and have won five of the past seven Dockerty Cup finals.

Next match

Thanks to finishing in the top two, we have a week off this week, and are back again next week. We'll be playing the lowest ranked winner of the first week of the finals. As it turns out, that will be fourth placed Green Gully, who knocked out Bentleigh last night, and are the lowest ranked team remaining thanks to Oakleigh defeating Heidelberg.

The match will be on Sunday 4th September at 4pm. Apparently that's also Fathers Day, though I never took much notice of such things. It was a choice between going up against the AFL finals on the Friday night, the AFL finals on Saturday afternoon/evening, or Fathers Day. I think the club made the right choice. Port, the host of the other semi-final, are going up against the sold out Geelong vs Collingwood game on Saturday.  

The under 21s final will take place after the seniors' game.

Nag, nag, nag

People scoff, but gentle intermittent nagging can sometimes achieve serious results. My nagging is now on record as seeing the restoration of the Dockerty Cup, the production of pompom beanies at South, and perhaps my greatest accomplishment so far, the recent availability of South Melbourne Gunners merch. Does it matter that it's via a RedBubble style outlet with $10 postage? Does it matter that the Gunners gimmick was loathed back when it was introduced, and still remains largely unappreciated now? Not a damn bit. If you can't appreciate the magnificent irony of the early 1980s attempt by Rik Booth and friends to de-ethnicise the NSL and introduce ridiculous gimmick team nicknames, and yet somehow make the South Melbourne Hellas logo even more ethnic, then that's on you. Or you could just buy the re-make of the Hellas World Order shirts, which may be more to your liking.

My Everest

Some people are asking, now that I've accomplished this trifecta, what's next on the nag wishlist? And after thinking about it, I have to say: the abandonment of short corners, which I realise is outside the control of pretty much everyone that pays attention to what I say at South. However, I will note this: last week the team played a short corner. It failed, as most corners (short or otherwise) tend to do, and I didn't even entertain the idea that we would score from it. But it was at least a short corner taken in the right circumstances, with the opposition scrambling to organise itself and not exactly paying attention to what was going on. It's a start.

Absentee Golden Boot

Congratulations to Harrison Sawyer, who despite missing the final two matches of the home and away season due to signing with Indian side Jamshedpur, nevertheless managed to finish the season as the league's top scorer. Sawyer finished on 17 goals, two ahead of Oakleigh's Wade Dekker and Heidelberg's Kaine Sheppard.

On the streams

Hello, hello (and goodbye)
Saturday last I got home in time from the supermarket to watch most of the Moreland City vs North Geelong game. The sums were pretty straightforward, even if I cocked them up twice on the South forum. First-placed North Geelong, already promoted, only needed a draw to be crowned champions. Second-placed Moreland City needed a win to guarantee promotion, and to win the NPL2 championship; a draw would leave them vulnerable to being overtaken by Brunswick Juventus, who were playing relegation threatened Werribee City. Well when I said I got home in time early enough to watch most of the game, I meant that arrived home about twenty or more minutes into the game, with the score already 1-0, and who'd know that that's the way it would stay for the rest of the game? A pretty tight, kinda ugly game, ideally viewed from the ground level camera. North had a couple of good chances late on to take the draw and the title, but didn't.

Brunswick Juve then allegedly threw their game very late against Werribee, conceding what some have called two very suspect goals, which kept Werribee in NPL2 for another season. Having not seen the late comeback in question, I could not possibly comment on whether the result was indeed suspect, much like I could not possibly comment on Port Melbourne's equally allegedly suspect 95th minute equaliser against Werribee in the final round of 2014, a result which incidentally kept both teams up. But where was I? Oh yes. We'll be seeing North Geelong and Moreland in NPL1 next season, at the expense of Dandenong City and Eastern Lions, neither of whose grounds I was able to get to this year, and in the case of Dandy City, I'm not sorry they and their impossible to get to ground are gone, even if the eually ridiculously located Elcho Park is its replacement.

But what of Moreland City? Their Campbell Reserve ground might be up to scratch (just) for NPL2, but I doubt it will pass muster for NPL1. The thinking seems to be that they'll end up playing out at CB Smith, but good luck with that considering Fawkner, Pascoe Vale, and Brunswick Juve also play out of there. Anyway, while I won't buy into the rhetoric that Moreland City have returned to the top-flight for the first time in 75 years (or whatever the number is), because I'm counting their history from their 1989 merger rather than from their individual constituent parts, we can I suppose talk some history. We last played against Moreland in a competitive fixture in 1962; against Coburg, another merger constituent in 1960, our first season; and we never played against Park Rangers. Still, the fact that the Moreland City family tree does include Park Rangers, it means that next season will see a meeting of distant cousins, in that Park Rangers were born from an early 1940s offshoot of South Melbourne United. Think of it like the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac getting together.

Through the fog

Against all your natural inclinations you try to be kind, you hope to be forgiving, you want to be understanding, and not even from a "what if I was in their place" mentality; just because it's the right thing to do, and there's not much to be gained from being unnecessarily cruel. But the NPL TV product is not up to scratch on so many levels, and while I wish it wasn't so, there's no way of getting around it. Even the things the offering does well, get undone when they're not done well or at all. To wit: the last couple of weeks, NPL Tv's social media (at least on Twitter) has begun sharing goals as they happen. A marvellous innovation, long overdue, but welcome nonetheless. But if you wanted to see last week's winning goal in the Avondale vs South game? Not there. And if you were watching the Oakleigh vs Heidelberg game on a unwieldy stream cast from a laptop to a television, because there is no dedicated NPL TV app even though the host technology Cluch TV app exists, and you wanted to catch up painlessly with the goals ftom the Green Gully vs Bentleigh game on social media, because you don't want to deal with the mobile NPL TV app... well, they weren't on the socials last night either. Sure you could get the goals from the dead rubber Kingborough Lions vs Olympia game, but nothing from last night. So it goes, but damn if it doesn't suck, despite the best intentions of everyone trying to make it work.

Now I will note of this game that it was exciting. It was of a pretty decent standard at times, albeit too fast at times. There were two injury time goals that bailed Heidelberg out temporarily, plenty of near misses, a penalty shoot-out, and lots of shenanigans. And yet so much of the experience was undermined by a stream beset with technical issues - including missing the first part of what turned out to be an anti-climactic shoot-out - and so many bouts of out of focus camera that one felt bad for the people trying to put together the product. 

I never (OK, maybe not never) like to think I go out of my way to be cruel when I criticise, but the quality of the footage stream last night was not up to scratch, I know that it's done on the smell of an oliy rag, but if we are going to offer this service which dissuades people from going to games, the least we can do is make it good. How many times last night was a team streaming towards goal, only for the footage to look like a news segment on some sporting scandal which blurred the images so no player could be identified?

The penalty shoot-out turned temporarily into a radio broadcast, and though it came back eventually,for a moment there I had to use my imagination, like some sort of caveman. The graphics for the scored/missed penalties also got botched, though I suppose luckily for all concerned the shoot-out was over almost as soon as it started.

Anyway, as for the match itself, people will talk about things like Sean Ellis' free kick with the last kick of the game. Me, I'm all about Matthew Foschini acting like a pork chop, in this case trying to start nonsense with the Heidelberg bench after Oakleigh equalised against the run of play in the first half. It was so petty and stupid, and he got the yellow card that he deserved, but it was also disappointing in a different way. Foschini has had his back and forths with us over the past few seasons, but seeing him get it on with the Berger bench and fans, well... I thought we had something special. 

Well, those kinds of antics at least help explain in part why our so called leaders at the time had so much trouble reigning in the excesses of the People's Champ.

Final thought

It's a shocking thought, but it would be nice to win the grand final.

In / Out / Other

Another quick update on what's being going on at South over the past week.

We've signed players! The new signings include Perry Lambropoulos (see right), a right-back from Poet Melbourne, and who had re-signed at Port and had been announced as doing so as recently as a month ago. That probably shows you how much these signing announcements are worth. Lambropoulos had previously played for Oakleigh, including against us in the 2016 grand final if memory serves me correctly, and even if two of the three goals we scored came from his right -hand side, we must remain optimistic and believe that Perry will at least be an improvement on an end-of-the-road Tim Mala.

As noted last week, we've also signed young winger Gerrie Sylaidos, who had been at the recently relegated to NPL2 Northcote. Sylaidos was reputedly being chased hard by a number of teams. so it's nice to snare a promising talent like Gerrie.

There had been talk of the club making a signing from the NSW NPL, and this has turned out to be midfielder Dean Bereveskos from Bonnyrigg White Eagles. I'd asked my NSW #sokkahtwitter folk for some intel on Bereveskos, and Tony Tannous supplied the following.

Had a very good 2017 at Hakoah, but didn't quite work out as hoped after a hyped move to BWE, who were relegated. Wasn't always fit. More an 8 that likes to break & get fwd than a 10. Talented, good technically, consistency the key

— Tony Tannous (@TonyTannousTRBA) November 16, 2018

They say more signings could be announced this week, but we'll see.

 On the departure, front, apart from losing Milos Lujic, we've also parted with Matthew Foschini by mutual agreement (some say he had two more years on his contract). Like Lujic and Nick Epifano (via North Sunshine), Foschini has also joined Oakleigh, where Chris Taylor and co seem to be trying to get the band back together (minus Andy Brennan, who's shipped off to Green Gully), but being South Junior/South 2.0/Diet South has been part of Oakleigh's program for over a decade now. 

Oh, and it also appears that Nick Marinos, the coach of our best youth team (the 2018 under 16s) is now the under 20s coach at Port Melbourne.

The list below is an unscientific attempt to corral where we're at this particular moment with our senior men's squad. 

2019 SMFC senior squad roster as of 21/11/2018
Signed

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

Seen hanging around pre-season training

• Luke Adams
• Alistair Bray
• George Howard
• Giordano Marafioti
• Giuseppe Marafioti
• Leigh Minopoulos
• Nikola Roganovic

Out

• Matthew Foschini (Oakleigh)
• Christos Intzidis (who knows)
• Milos Lujic (Oakleigh)
• Oliver Minatel (Japan?)

Unknown / MIA / Assumed dead from 2018

• Manny Aguek
• Rory Brian
• Ben Djiba
• Josh Hodes
• Iqi Jawadi
• Ndumba Makeche
• Jake Marshall
• Andrew Mesourouni
• Will Orford
• Marcus Schroen
• Tim Mala

If you know your history episode 2
Yes, they let us make another one.

‘If You Know Your History’ episode 2 on @FNR_Radio, where @IanSyson and I talk about rationales - my doctoral success - Harold C. Wells and The Earth Cries Out - soccer literature - missing trophies and memorabilia - 100 years ago today https://t.co/GhPcnatMah

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) November 19, 2018

It's not the end of world, yet - Oakleigh Cannons 4 South Melbourne 1

Necessary note
Anyone looking for the post on the Melbourne edition of the AAFC's roadshow, it's not included in this post. Probably tomorrow.

Was Andy Brennan subbed off at halftime, or did he merely
 transpose himself to another dimension? Photo: Mike Owen.

Omens, I don't believe in them, but...
It didn't start off well. First, the galette place off Flinders Lane I was going to have dinner at was closed for renovations. Then upon arrival at the ground, an apprentice loan shark handing out home loan pamphlets n behalf of a bank inside the gate couldn't take 'no' for answer after I told him that as a student I didn't have the secure financial standing of taking out a home loan. And then in the middle of a conversation about trains and public transport that I was having with (ex-South player) Gavin De Niese's dad, some bloke starts talking to me about the Macedonia issue, when if he'd waited five minutes he could have had that conversation with the kid wearing the blue Star of Vergina t-shirt.

But enough about omens of no meaning. Nothing gets the juices on the South forums going like a loss, so I guess there's that to be said for Friday's loss. Three games in, and everyone's an expert on season 2018, which is good for me, because I don't need to write any more South match reports for 2018. The gist of it is this. We play a different, cuter brand of football, one with a higher potential upside, but equally frightening possibility of getting mauled. It was apparently visible in those parts of the pre-season which I missed, and it has only be reinforced by our first three games.

It was the same lineup for a third game in a row, and though you wouldn't change a winning team unless you had to, you know that for the time being at least it's going to be the same lineup unless forced to be otherwise, and what's more, it's also going to be the same substitutions unless compelled otherwise. So, Brennan off for Minatel, and Pavlou on for Jawadi, and names pulled out of a hat or not at all for the third sub. Short of suspensions or injuries this is going to be it for at least until the mid-season transfer window, or until Marcus Schroen is ready to come back into the lineup.

That's not an out and out complaint. The first eleven is good enough to play well and do well, and the board has made what seems like a deliberate attempt to at least pay more than their usual lip service to youth development by having some youth players on the bench. But it also means that there's not nearly enough depth at the moment to implement Plan B when Plan A goes astray, only the chance to rest some players should Plan A be going along well enough during a game that such luxuries as putting on players promoted from the youth team would do no harm.

The first half, barring the fact that we didn't manage to score - thanks to the ball somehow not crossing the line in our best attack, and some crappier than you'd like crossing - was good enough. We had the better of the play, we looked decent going forward, and we won the ball back well when we had to. We were getting more pressure on us on the ball than we had the previous two weeks, but we still looked good, especially in moving the ball around midfield. Then the second half started with conceding a lobbed goal - people disagree on how much the keeper should be blamed, I'm on the side of not much after watching the video - and you didn't know which way this was going to go now. Getting the goal back only to concede again within seconds was sealer, in fairness.

Just on Oliver Minatel's equaliser. Yeah, there's an argument for wanting the dodgiest goals possible against your opponent, especially in a big game like this, but I was very close to the incident and I didn't feel much like celebrating. A large part of that was because for a while I was sure that one of the officials would eventually overrule the goal - after all, it was as blatant a handball as you could get. But there was another, secretly moralistic part of me that was kind of sickened by its shamelessness, because it didn't even look like Minatel needed to punch the ball into the goal, because he could've easily headed it in.

The officiating was pretty ordinary all around to be honest. How neither of those two karate leg chop attempts by Oakleigh within seconds of each other didn't get a yellow card says volumes about what is acceptable in Victorian soccer. To be fair though, Oakleigh looked a different team in the second half to what they've been putting up so far this season, and they played well. Lot of people caning our defence for this loss, and there's something to that - what was Konstantinidis doing dribbling along the edge of the box like that - but for mine more blame should go to the midfield, which disappeared from the field for long stretches of the second half.

Part of the problem was Brennan going off - either because of form or because of an injury - because even if he wasn't having a blinder going forward, he was doing well with Foschini in winning the ball back, and forcing Oakleigh to cough up the ball in midfield. When we fell behind for the second time, all sense of structure and attacking synchronisation went out the window, and we went back to long balls and not really believing that we could get back in the game.

Still, in my estimation it's not quite wrist-slashing time yet. Anyone moving the dial forward on the South Melbourne Hellas doomsday clock just because we lost another game against Oakleigh at Jack Edwards probably doesn't deserve to be in charge of said doomsday clock on the first place.

The one day of the year, which seems to be at almost every time we play away from home
Decent crowd at Oakleigh on Friday night, a few more than I expected upon kickoff because it looked like there was no one there when the game was starting. Fair enough, everyone loves to come see South lose, or win, or most likely whatever, because most of these people will only go to this and maybe one other NPL game for the season and not give it a second thought afterwards. It is what it is, and it's going to continue being what it is unless someone unlocks the secret of actually getting people to NPL games outside of a gimmick game.

There's no point getting too upset about it. It's funny though when you see Kingston and Oakleigh people having a go at a poor Bentleigh home crowd on the same night, when as if the roles were reversed that most of the people attending Friday night soccer wouldn't be Kingston Heath instead to watch a Green-South game, with the Oaks crowd lucky to get get intro triple figures.

As I noted on said forum:

Let's be honest, most teams in this league and the one below it have stuff all home support, less than stuff all away support, and rely on the visits of the two or three teams with slightly above stuff all support to bump up their attendance figures a couple of times a year.

And giving Pascoe Vale stick for not bringing away support when none of the minor Greek teams bring pretty much anyone ever to away games further than a five minute drive away is really something.

Next game
Pascoe Vale away at CB Smith Reserve in Fawkner on Friday night. Keep in mind that this game has a kickoff time of 8:15PM.

Meanwhile
The word going around the terraces on Friday was that the club attempted to get special dispensation from FFV to sign Nikola Roganovic as an injury replacement player for Alastair Bray, but the FFV said no. I'm hearing also that we'll be appealing that decision, Normally I'd be all for telling teams - any team, not just South - to suck it up, but in the case of an injured keeper over an outfielder, I'm more sympathetic. But if we were to get knocked back on appeal, one hopes that this is a standard that gets applied to all clubs from now on.

But I ask you, what is a contract?
For whatever it's worth, and who knows if it's actually worth anything, Matthew Foschini has been signed up until the end of 2020. So that's the right back slot sorted for the next few years. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile 2: Is he or isn't he?
While we're on the subject of contracts with mysterious and possibly disputable clauses, they say that Chris Taylor is set to become Green Gully's coach soon, with Arthur Papas set to depart for more lucrative lands. What a time to be alive.

Or not.

Contrary to earlier reports, Chris Taylor will NOT be replacing Arthur Papas at Green Gully.

— damirkulas (@DamirKulas) March 10, 2018

The good thing about the internet is that it gives you the full range of options when it comes to believing something about a particular person, circumstance, fact, and yet to be even tested fact.

Speaking of which
It's kinda cute when someone without access to certain long closed off founts of all Victorian soccer knowledge and innuendo sends you something as if you didn't see it three days before.

I'm not judging, but it is funny. And to be honest, there's much lamer behaviour on the internet.

Perpetual Motion Outrage Machine Dumpster Fire Car Crash
As far as the timeline of @smfc Twitter mentions go, there are good weeks and bad weeks, and there are quiet weeks and busy weeks. This week was bad and busy. I'm prevented from seeing a fair chunk of it, due to being a blocked by a regular poster to that timeline, but geez louise even I could figure out that there was a massive pile on Shouty Mike. Before that, people got sucked in to fighting with a Glory-supporting alt-right wannabe, arguing with him for what seemed like days, but was probably only a solid 36 hours.

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time online, there are some lessons to be learned from this week. On the former point, never, ever tweet. On the second issue, don't engage with people whose only purpose is trolling. I mean, people are free to do as they wish on social media, it's their free time, but is hammering away at someone who isn't going to change their mind worth that much of your time and effort?

Around the grounds, not this week
With both Knights and George Cross on the road this week I was looking forward to a weekend away from Knights Stadium. Then I looked up the FFA Cup fixtures, and saw Strathmore Split playing Bell Park at Somers Street, and I was all ready to go - until I saw it was set for the outside pitch. Any other day I would've been there with bells on, but with the mercury well over 35, it was a no from me. Shame, as there were a few goals in that game.

Final thought

I wish there was a prize, or some sort of t-shirt, or a customer loyalty card I could stamp, but there's nothing I can give you to reward you for that effort.

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) March 11, 2018

Maybe a South of the Border t-shirt would be a good idea, but I'm no graphic designer.

November 2015 digest

Social club and Lakeside lease saga
Unresolved. And what's worse, none of the important people I tweeted yesterday asking what's going on have seen fit to respond.

So @LAthanasakis, @MartinFoleyMP, @tom_kalas, @sthmel, @johnerenmp, @rwynnemp, any news on the @smfc Lakeside lease issue?

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) November 29, 2015

Look, I know it's a slightly informal way of going about things, but I thought I'd save myself the postage and make use of the wonderful internet we have in Australia. Have I been blacklisted like the Kiss of Death? I hope not - I thought we were all friends. Maybe big news is just around the corner? Or are they looking for a way to tell us we're only going to get 21 years and not 40?

Season 2016 start date
NPL Victoria's 2016 season will begin on the weekend February 19th/20th/21st/22nd.

Trip to Sydney in 2016?
There has been talk from both South Melbourne and Sydney Olympic folk that South will be making a trip to Sydney in either late January or early February to play Sydney Olympic in some pre-season fixtures. 

I've also come across a rumour that Olympic may also head down to Melbourne for some pre-season fixtures, but that has not been corroborated yet.

South Melbourne in the National Youth League?
An article by Mike Cockerill on the revamped and cut down NYL seemed to slip under the radar somewhat, at least as far as it concerns South Melbourne. To a degree, that's understandable - having being split into two five team conferences, it's merely another step in the process where youth football is done as cheaply as possible by most of the franchises, by dumping them in the state NPL systems. The best playing the best? Hardly. 

But more to the point, Cockerill makes this observation about where such a two conference, cost cutting summer NYL system may end up:

According to the grapevine, NPL clubs like South Melbourne, Blacktown City, Perth SC, Gold Coast City (replacing Palm Beach Sharks) and Wollongong Wolves, as well as state federation-funded entities Tasmania United and Canberra United, are also exploring their NYL options.

So, does Cockerill's rumour have any validity? I don't know, but if it does, it will be a situation which will no doubt serve to spread division and hatred throughout our membership. Which, to be fair, is as things should be at our club, but you have to wonder if too much self-loathing can be fattening and therefore dangerous to your health. Anyway, if there was a chance for our boys to take part in the NYL as South Melbourne, for me it'd be a good thing - you'd hope that at the very least it would help attract and keep talented youth players at our club instead of having piss off to other teams. That, and it'd be just going back to what we had in the NSL anyways, except this time we'd be the state league club with delusions of grandeur.

The (re-)construction of Ange Postecoglou
I don't know why Australian Story has introductions to their episodes. Unless you're adding genuinely adding something to the experience, in the manner of the legendary Des Mangan, I don't really see the point. As for Santo Cilauro's comment on the game in Australia being called 'soccer' by the unconverted, there's about 50 million things wrong with the question is where would you start?

I did have to laugh at the mention of 'lead, follow, or get out of the way', but you would too if you had seen Idiocracy; the use of Fleetwood Mac's 'Tusk' by comparison for the intro music is just confusing, unless they only wanted for its tribal rhythm. And then there's Les Murray, talking about the reason for the existence of ethnic soccer clubs in Australia - first and foremost, they are used as a refuge by people in a strange land. A refuge is one thing, but surely there were also people at these clubs who maybe liked soccer? Because soccer is not the only avenue for safely expressing Greekness, or Italianess or whatever the case may be?

But at least Les has the right to make that judgement by virtue of once upon a time spending much of his spare and working time in around ethnic soccer clubs. In contrast, I'm less sold on the notion that Francis Leach knows squat about Greek football, let alone the squalid third division cesspool that Panachaiki were in at the time and the circumstances in which Ange found himself there, and then found himself leaving.

The main thing that I took out of this show was how Ange's character was portrayed as some sort of lone wolf; a pioneer who, if not quite coming out of nowhere, had few antecedents or direct influences. Anything that may have influenced him was almost limited to the environment he was in, and even that took a secondary role compared to his own drive to succeed. It's hard to know if the show took the direction it did because of Ange himself, or perhaps more likely, the production team generally had not very much knowledge of Australian soccer and thus skewed the final edit in that direction.

At the beginning, there is Ange's father and his love for his son and the sport; but there are no mentions of Ferenc Puskas, or Len McKendry, or Frank Arok, or even George Vasilopoulos, the bloke who gave him the South job because he was the least expensive of the suitable candidates available for the job. Ange claims, quite fairly, that his own interest in the game is to see attacking football - but how did he come to that conclusion? Was it not influenced in some part by the expectations that South Melbourne Hellas fans had of South Melbourne Hellas teams? Was not a huge part of the joy of the 1984 and 1991 teams their free-wheeling, free scoring manner? In Joe Gorman's article on South Melbourne and Middle Park, Ange doesn't shy away from acknowledging the impact of playing under Puskas (as well as being his interpreter).

The second, post-Australian youth teams era of Ange Postecoglou is remarkable in terms of succeeding to a large degree on his own terms, but also for having now no (obvious) mentors, and no patronage. But that question of soccer lineage remains frustratingly out of reach. Here's one of the chief links between old soccer and new football, and yet there's nothing made of that. Instead the image is of a sort of compulsive loner, sitting at a computer for hours looking for obscure Australian talent; a man who once read everything to do with soccer because of his love of the game, but who now is interested if not more so by books or management - something which you would not learn from this doco, but rather the first edition of Leopold Method.

Player movements and contract statuses
Confirmation this month that forward David Stirton is on his way to Port Melbourne. Meanwhile, back up goalie Fraser MacLaren has joined Dandenong Thunder. He has been replaced by Thunder keeper Zaim Zeneli, back for his second stint at the club. Hume City midfielder and former South junior (and two game senior player) Marcus Schroen has also joined South. Never did quite find out how that happened when Hume were supposed to have signed him for next year.

@CornerFlagOz @NPLVic_Football @smfc What happened to Schroen re-signing with @FCHumeCity? https://t.co/XyvJ1E1ANb pic.twitter.com/X6VRFteBgq

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) November 11, 2015

We've also signed former Wellington Phoenix midfielder Jason Hicks, and utility Matthew Foschini, most recently of Oakleigh Cannons. South fans with razor sharp memories will recall that Foschini was listed as part of the 2009 squad, but disappeared soon thereafter. No word on any potential forward recruits. By the time of the next monthly update, the squad will have begun its pre-season regime.

• Kristian Konstantinidis (reportedly signed up for 2016)
• Luke Adams (reportedly signed up for 2016)
• Cody Martindale (reportedly signed up for 2016)
• Nick Epifano is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Iqi Jawadi is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Michael Eagar is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Milos Lujic is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Leigh Minopoulos is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Tim Mala is contracted until the end of 2016.
• Chris Irwin has a two year contract with the club; it is unclear whether that contract finishes at the end of 2016, or 2017.
• Stephen Hatzikostas is contracted until the end of 2017.
• Brad Norton is contracted until the end of 2017.
• Luke Eyles been signed until the end of the 2017 season.
• Chris Taylor has a long term contract with the club, believed to be five years.

Players signed until the end of the 2015 season.

• Matty Theodore
• Nikola Roganovic
• Andy Kecojevic

Players with unknown contract statuses

• Jake Barker-Daish

Gone

• Andy Bevin (Team Wellington)
• Thomas Lakic (Oakleigh Cannons)
• Fraser MacLaren (Dandenong Thunder)
• Dane Milovanovic (Hong Kong Pegasus)
• Nick Morton (returned to South Hobart)
• David Stirton (Port Melbourne)

In

• Zaim Zeneli
• Marcus Shroen
• Jason Hicks
• Matthew Foschini

Meanwhile, in 'Internet is Serious Business'...

Ah yeah ! Achievement unlocked ! Ole ! @PaveJusup @PaulMavroudis pic.twitter.com/i8mrs6RGC2

— KissOfDeathFootball (@KODFootball) November 26, 2015

2009 squad announced

This is the 2009 squad... as announced on the official website. Sfetkopoulos is a goalkeeper, signed from Altona East and is quite solid, having seen him numerous times out at Paisley Park. Foschini is a youngster from from Oakleigh/Victory youth, and a signing confirmed from a while back. I'm not quite sure who Torrens and Payne are, but Radojicic has been impressing in trial games apparently. Some number changes as well with De Nittis going to no. 10 from no. 9, Tommich to 1 as you'd expect, Petrovic(h) loses his no.8 to Horsey, and a probably a few others I've missed. The number 16 vacated by Tansel Baser is still vacant, and the question of who's going to be captain is still up in the air. Will Coveny or Rama get it? You'd think Vaughan would have to be the favourite at this stage, and that Rama will have to wait another season at least for the honour. 

1. Tomi Tommich 
2. Shane Nunes 
3. Rhodri Payne 
4. Steven O’Dor 
5. Con Blatsis 
6. Eddie Cetkin 
7. Nic Curtis 
8. Vaughan Coveny 
9. Joseph Youseff 
10. Gianni De Nittis 
11. Yusef Yusef 
12. Sam Torrens 
13. Francesco Stella 
14. Ramazan Tavsancioglu 
15. Fernando De Moraes 
17. Stiven Mrkela 
18. Danni Radojicic 
19. Goran Zoric 
20. Nathan Caldwell 
21. Stefan Sardellic 
22. Matthew Foschini 
23. Sebastian Petrovich 
24. Andrew Sfetkopoulos