Showing posts with label Moreland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moreland. Show all posts

Tuesday, 1 November 2016

October 2016 digest

Two weeks after the season was finished I was glad it was over. Now I'm bored. Anyway, here's some stuff that happened during October.

 Congratulations to...
Matthew Foschini for winning the Theo Marmaras Medal for our best and fairest this season. Best and fairest? Maybe just best. Or maybe the guy the who TOLD IT LIKE IT IS AND/OR WAS in post-game interviews more than anyone else. I don't know what the criteria is. But that's small fry news because, drumroll...

 Social club news
Well, actually, yes, there is actually some news on this!

First there was this photo from October 13th by board member Tony Margaritis' (who is also working on the redevelopment in his guise as someone who does electrical work, which I suppose is more useful than getting in someone to write a poem or provide an undergrad level cultural studies critique) Twitter feed, showing something maybe happening, albeit two guys just standing around looking busy doesn't automatically mean they are busy being busy. I have a whole bunch of photos of Steve from Broady from when he was on work placement for school at the club when we cleaning out the social club, and I can tell you now still shots of people holding boxes aren't evidence of any work actually being done, especially if they don't include photos of people playing foosball.

Funny story about that foosball table actually, which I can't remember if I've told here before, but ti's the off season and we've got to pad out the time until the new season starts. In cleaning out the absolute junk heap that was the back part of the multimedia room, Steve and I found an old 'assemble it yourself' foosball table. In between actually doing work, we found that there enough pieces available so that we managed to put it together, and I killed Steve in every single game we played - that's what happens when you outlaw spinning and play properly. Anyways the table eventually ended up in the senior change rooms, which may or may not have contributed to the alleged party atmosphere in the change rooms under Gus Tsolakis, and the eventual decline of the on field performance and off field discipline.

Anyway, the talk that there was something to be released from the club on the social club matter got the cynical juices flowing. But then a few days later there was the photo below posted on the club's Facebook page, accompanied by a very low-key media release which included pretty much only the following statement. That's right, I said low-key. No more grandiose verbosities for this matter, just for the time being.

South Melbourne FC would like to confirm that construction has begun on our exclusive areas at Lakeside Stadium.

As part of the extensive development, we will be completing our new offices, social club, restaurant / bar, shop and futsal court.

We anticipate completion by early 2017.

My understanding is that rather than start with the offices first as was originally envisaged, the whole thing will just be done in one big go. There is also of course the matter of the club borrowing money to supplement the government grant allocated for this process.

No one's really talking about what role, if any, dank will play in the design, which is a concern. But early 2017! Who can't help but excited about that? For Twitter folk, Tony's Twitter account might be the best place to get spontaneous updates. That means you'll get little tidbits like the hoped for completion date
and stuff about the museum
It's all very exciting.

AGM date news
Not yet.

 Arrivals and departures
While player movements around the rest of the league have been taking place at a brisk pace, there has been little news on the South front. Three departures are the main bit of news -  confirmation that midfielder Iqi Jawadi has officially departed the club, as well as the departures of Amadu Koroma and Chris Irwin. All three departures are sad, in their own way: Jawadi had given good service in midfield, and even added a goalscoring string to his bow, but injury and apparent disaffection took their toll; Koroma filled in for a struggling Tim Mala on several occasions, and added an attacking option, but injury it seems saw him left out of consideration towards the end of the season.  Irwin, whether you thought he was worth the punt of signing in the first place or not, never got much chance, his 'as late as possible substitutions' becoming maddeningly predictable.

As per last time, the following players are known to be contracted for next season.
Players who have left the club.
South Melbourne offered WNPL licence for 2017
South Melbourne has been offered the single expansion licence on offer for the 2017 season of the WNPL. While there were apparently two other applicants, one of which was from a regional consortium, it was expected that South would win the bid, and that's what has happened.

That that expectation has been fulfilled has not been met with acclaim by most people involved with Victorian women's soccer; nor has the reaction of some South fans online, who know very little about the state of women's soccer in Victoria, done much to endear them to those who have doubts about this decision.

Apart from the natural self-interest of the existing licensees, there are also valid questions about whether there is enough depth of talent to go around at this time; as an extension of that question, whether it would have been better therefore to place a team in another regional area; and even some more conspiracy laden accusations that South was granted the licence because FFV president Kimon Taliadoros' daughter plays for South Melbourne.

I can't speak for the depth of talent matter, suffice to say that one shouldn't just brush aside the concerns on that front. On the other hand, much as I like to question South Melbourne's genuine commitment to women's football, if the club does indeed take this seriously - and judging by more recent actions and even their licence application, they do - then South Melbourne will be able to offer facilities to women's football in this state that few other clubs or franchises can or are willing to do.

Having said that, it will be interesting to see how the relationship will then work between South Melbourne with a women's team, and the still nominally independent/it's sometimes hard to tell what's going on there South Melbourne Womens FC. Will there be enforced name changes? How will the two different boards - and unless special exemptions have been made for SMFC, there will still need to be different committees - function? Many interesting questions, but I think on the whole this is a positive development.

Puma Pride!
For the first time since about the year 2000, Puma will be the club's merchandise and kit supplier. That means the end of the deal with BLK, which was touted last year as a boon for the club both financially (massive savings compared to our Adidas deal) and aesthetically (in our being able to design our own playing strips as opposed to getting off the shelf stuff). That the three year deal with BLK lasted just one season probably comes down to the disastrous delivery times produced by BLK - any savings the club may have made, and any benefits from being able to customise our kits meant nothing if couldn't even get anything to sell to fans or even to kit up our players.

Some weren't fond of the BLK merch anyway - I wasn't too amazed with the home or away strips - but I did like the hooped socks (which you can buy online anyway, being just regular footy socks), and the modernised heritage strip they provided for our FFA Cup appearance in 2015 was rather excellent I thought.

On the face of it people are happy to be back with Puma. There's nostalgic reasons for that of course - they were out kit supplier in the club's on field peak. Compared to BLK, it's also a name brand and a soccer brand. Here's hoping that customisable kits are part of the arrangement, and that a trip to Brazil doesn't undo everything like it allegedly did last time we were together.

Verified!
In recent times Twitter has relaxed the criteria for which accounts it chooses to award its 'blue tick of verification'. And thus the long battle for South Melbourne FC to have that blue tick next to its name is over.
Not a major thing in the scheme of things, but it does make the account look a smidgen more professional and therefore reliable in the minds of those who take things like blue ticks and verification seriously - I'm thinking potential sponsors and everyone who will subliminally hold South Melbourne FC twitter in higher esteem because of this badge.

Offseason digressions - Vicbowl XXXII
Here are the reasons I went to Lakeside during a Sunday evening some time in mid-October to watch the Victorian gridiron championship game.
  • It was at Lakeside, and I was interested in how the field dimensions would work.
  • I don't actually mind American football.
  • I was bored.
The fact that it was free helped, but it wasn't a primary motivating factor.

The field dimensions were interesting. Plenty of space on the sidelines for both teams, thanks to the narrowness of the gridiron. The length of the field was more problematic, because the end zones took up almost all the length of the field. The goal posts were portable (and short) rugby posts rather than the fork goals of American football, but this is understandable given most of these teams probably use rugby goals during the regular season - not that they got much use, as you'll see. To that end, I was also interested in how the thing would be organised. For a small organisation probably not awash with funds, they did a pretty reasonable job. Both stands were open, and there was plenty of security on hand. Not that the crowd warranted the opening of both stands, but on a showpiece day, why not?

One really cool thing was the production of a simple eight page match programme.
Nothing fancy. Full colour, team lists, the gist of the rules. Less impressive was the first game running over time by quite a bit from its scheduled end time, and thus the Division 1 game started close to an hour late, because there were some ceremonial and award duties to be attended to as well. But there was at least some comedy there, with the marching band on hand not getting the memo to hold off their entry until later.
Interestingly the costumed marching band didn't get much more air time than that during the evening.

The match arrangements for the game were pretty professional though. Live video screen, with replays. Commentary over the PA that somehow didn't feel intrusive. No match clock as far as I could tell, but there were play clocks at either end of the field. The referees were miked up, so we got the thrill of NFL referee style explanations.

The crowd was probably split 50/50 between the two sides, with the Footscray (and by association western suburbs based) Western Crusaders having a number of Maori and/or Pacific Islander players and thus also family members and/or friends and relatives in the crowd. The Monash Warriors had their own crew doing some sort of soccer style chanting at times, and there was a decent atmosphere all things considered. Not very much NFL gear in the crowd - if anything, people tended to prefer wearing their team colours.

As for the game itself.... look, here's my take on American football. 
  • It's wonderful to watch when played by two high calibre, evenly matched teams.
I watch a reasonable amount of NFL on 7Mate, but I can't maintain an interest in really lopsided games, or games between mediocre teams.
  • First you love the passing game, then the running game, then you love defence.
That's how I've rationalised my developing relationship with American football. Sure, big down field throws to wide receivers are exciting, but it can get boring pretty quickly, like too many sixes in cricket. And the running game is great, especially when a team gets its rhythm going. But defense! The battle of a great defense against a great offense, where the former has to second guess everything the offense is going to do, and not make any mistakes - which is why my brief exposure to college football was so disappointing. So many high scoring games because of inept defenses. But what to expect from a bunch of amateurs in the truest sense?

Well, I didn't expect quarterback theatrics or pinpoint rapier passes. And that was certainly true of this game. The rain didn't help, but even before it came down, the run game dominated. There were two or three nice long bombs from the Crusaders, but the Warriors scarcely bothered with such antics. If defense, too, is the pinnacle of the professional game, then both sides struggled to deal with the running game, which made the game resemble a stop-start of version of rugby league, perhaps resembling the game as it was a hundred years ago before the use of the forward pass was used with any regularity. One thing which was in sharp contrast to your professional gridiron experience was how quickly the game flew by. I guess with no two minute warnings, few injury breaks, no score reviews and no coach challenges, there's less reason for things to slow down. The game almost felt, dare I say it, brisk.

The game itself was close. The underdog Crusaders opened the scoring with a touchdown, but completely botched the snap for the extra point. The Warriors scored two touchdowns after that, converting one of two attempts at the two point conversion. Another Crusaders touchdown, this time with a failed two point conversion saw them trail 14-12 at halftime. The third quarter was tighter, thanks in part to some desperate goal line defensive stands from the Crusaders, but their ill discipline (chop blocks, especially) and poor decision making cost them in the end. I mean, on 4th and long on your own goal line, just punt it! Instead they went for it and conceded the safety. They got the ball back for one more go, but couldn't do anything with it, losing 16-12. All in all, an interesting and eye opening day, 

MCFC 100 Years doco - some thoughts
Moreland City, via production company 3 Nerds - the same people who did the Fields to Dream series for the FFA Cup last year - put out a film on the 100 years of their club. While that 100 year time frame is contestable if you think it about for more than a few seconds, it's more useful to focus on what the film actually talks about and how it goes about trying to tell Moreland City's story.

And that story is complicated by a number of factors. First is the fact that we are talking not just about one club, Moreland City, nor even about the three clubs that merged to form Moreland City, but also about the other digressions - the split from Brunswick that lead to the formation of Moreland; the war time merger between Moreland and Hakoah; the intermediary merger between Moreland and Park Rangers. There are so many dead ends and diversions in this story, some of which by necessity get covered in more detail than others - and as you'd expect, the more recent something is, the more detailed the story that can be told.

Thus the foundations of Coburg are sketchy at best; Moreland's split from Brunswick, and Brunswick's fate even more so; and the transition from what kind of clubs Moreland and Coburg in particular were before 1945 and after never get satisfactory answers. What we do get though in the post-war analyses is a look at the British migrant soccer experience from an angle not often covered or taken into consideration. While for better or worse, the British player and coaching influence on Australian soccer is reasonably self-evident, the kinds of clubs and people involved with more or less explicitly British (as opposed to Anglo or 'native' Australian) soccer clubs is hidden behind the focus on the exploits of Contintental Europeans.

And in a lot of ways, this angle is the film's greatest strength, even as it avoids being as upfront about that as it could have been. The interviewees are almost all British. Moreland and Coburg apparently had a clear Irish and British influence (visible now in its iconography of the rose, thistle, leek and clover); even Park Rangers, which began as a split of sorts from South Melbourne United/South Melbourne juniors, eventually came to have a strong Scottish/Celtic influence by the time Hugh Murney came along.

It's that sense of Britishness which ties the different strands and different histories together. Post-war, it's quite clear that many of the players for Moreland and Coburg aren't locals; they were Moreland and Coburg in name only, almost in the abstract, much as clubs like South Melbourne eventually came to represent almost nothing of South Melbourne the suburb once all the Greeks moved out of the local area. The same seems to be the case for Coburg and Moreland.

That Britishness is also a hindrance on the short term and long term successes of the various clubs involved in this story. In the short term, despite the pluck shown by Moreland into the late 1950s, the crowds and the cash just do not arrive as they do for other migrant clubs. That great, often unspoken question of why the British migrants - whose numbers exceeded those of every other ethnic group combined - didn't take up soccer as did their Continental equivalents doesn't get teased out more than just the merest hint. But even that small interrogation of the question makes it clear that the absence of broad British migrant interest in Australian soccer held Australian soccer back for decades; more broadly, because their absence made the game look more exotic than it should have done to mainstream Australia, and more narrowly, it prevented clubs like Moreland from becoming anything more than small time community clubs.

That interpretation, much as I think it needs to be made, downplays the importance of clubs like Moreland to their supporters and the communities that converged around them. The Moreland and Coburg rivalry gets a spell, as does the difficulty in coming to terms in merging in order to survive. The success the club gained from the merger - surviving and thriving where before there was seemingly terminal decline - while both opening up the club to the community and attempting to preserve what made the clubs tick is an example to many other clubs going through the same processes of renewal. In Moreland City, meaning has been created which incorporates both the old and the new.

[Naturally this is easier for clubs from ethnic groups which are already more closely culturally aligned to the mainstream. For the old 'wog' clubs, full of old men much further away from the mainstream, the ability to transfer control of their clubs to younger generations - many of which will be made up of junior parents with a more solipsist perspective, or with little concern for the history of the club they will soon take over; but that's another story]

The film is professionally produced, and comes up with clever solutions to certain problems, chief of which is the lack of archival footage and even artefacts, a common problem across the game in general. What Moreland does have compared to other clubs is high quality photos, and some old jerseys, which act as useful additions to the interviews and transition overlays. But there are also drawbacks. The film is clearly too long, with some of its digressions - especially the 1956 Olympics portion of the film - destroying the momentum of the film. Not that that material is unimportant, but it and the tribute to Frank Loughran could have been integrated into the film better.

There is clearly an attempt to squeeze as much as possible into this film, and thus what some people would consider as peripheral matters - pitch alignments, council relationships and aborted 1980s merger talks with Pascoe Vale and Sandringham - get into the discussion. That's OK with me, as I love that kind of information, but it doesn't necessarily make for the most chronologically or thematically coherent film. Nevertheless, there are moments in these matters which could have been tied more closely to the British migrant experience - I'm thinking specifically of a former migrant hostel building in Preston being transported to Campbell Reserve in the guise of club rooms.

But even if you have no interest in any of these historical and sociological questions, the film can still be enjoyed for what it does well - letting the subjects speak freely, and allowing them to get across what Moreland City means to them, and on that front succeeds handsomely. The filmmakers make the various interviewees come across as eloquent, dignified and relateable - the club has its own special qualities (in part because of its theoretical longevity), but it's also 'every club', fighting the same battles that Victorian soccer clubs have had to fight over decades.

I just wish there was more on Park Rangers to be honest, especially before they moved out to Kew.

Around the grounds
Stuck in a rut
Headed to the Socceroos-Japan fixture. Prior to this match your correspondent caught up with a child psychologist and a guy in a suit. That was OK. The game itself was an event spent with a party of four; then one bloke dropped out; another came in, then also dropped out; and then the spare ticket was taken up by of all things, a woman. How modern. The match itself was wearisome - an introverted Japan which after scoring the opening goal, preferred to sit back and wait to be gifted the ball back; and an Australian team that moved from side to side so much that it was like watching a game of Space Invaders, but with much less forward progress. The second half was better, although the penalty was a fortunate one - a player running towards the byline and away from goal on a tight angle probably doesn't need to be fouled. Plan A was eventually enacted, but that didn't work well either. A certain journo friend of mine is right - everyone's gotten too complacent. We just expect Australia to make it through to the World Cup now, and thus there is no tension, no sense of impending doom. Might it be better for Australian soccer to fail at some point to qualify, just to shake things up a bit?

Just remember that...
The ancient Greek oracle was probably high on fumes.
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Saturday, 14 May 2016

Frustration - South Melbourne 0 Pascoe Vale 1

Even if I had said that according to the laws of probabilities we were due for a loss, and it doesn't negate the fact that losing still sucks, no matter how mcuh you psychologically prepare for it. Losses being comparatively rare nowadays compared to some of our worst periods during the post-NSL era doesn't make things any easier; on the contrary, it stings even more.

Are there good times to lose? Probably not, but there are better times to lose than any others, and most would take a loss here if it meant that mistakes were learned from for the important games coming up. Are there good ways to lose? Again, probably not, but one would probably prefer a side to go down fighting, against adversity or through sheer bad luck than have to put up with such a mediocre attempt to achieve what was expected of you when the situation was so much in our favour.

We had it all laid out for us. The indirect free kick for a back pass (which I maintain was a good call though I'm willing to allow for a different interpretation); the red card, which saw Pascoe Vale play with ten men for 70 minutes; and the penalty which had we scored would have likely seen us take all the points.

Instead the People's Champ run of penalty scores came to an end, and we spent the game reminiscing about how great the Palm Beach game was, sending in poor cross after poor cross, wasting corner after corner, and refusing to adjust tactically - especially not seeking to support the tightly marked Milos Lujic.

Even after that, there was the Pascoe Vale keeper dropping even innocuous efforts on goal, and yet we were seldom there to make the most of those opportunities. Indeed the longer the game went on, the less likely we looked like scoring.

Credit to Pascoe Vale, who played for a win even with only ten men, who looked more dangerous than we did and not just because they were counter attacking, but because their shots had some sort of venom and purpose to them. They also managed the clock brilliantly, using up as much time as the referee would allow.

For South only Nikola Roganovic in goal could be said to have had a good game, even if he didn't probably know much about how he made some of those saves. Every other outfielder, even those who came off the bench, generally failed to make an impact on the game. Whether it was just one of those days or the sign of a deeper malaise we'll see in the next month or so.

Next week
Green Gully away on Saturday, to complete the first half of the home and away season.

Stretched at the back 
Defender Luke Adams has been called up into the New Zealand squad for the upcoming OFC Nations Cup, which spans from late May until mid-June. One assumes he will be present at a pre-tournament camp before that, which could see him miss as many as three or four weeks. With Kristian Konstantinidis suffering from some sort of injury, it will be interesting to see how the side gets re-shuffled - especially in that crowded part of the schedule where we have cup matches to play as well.

Nick Maikoussis farewelling the NPL, as South prepares to enter A-League
Willing and able (so long Stinktown!)
South Melbourne director Nick Maikoussis was a guest on the Mark van Aken hosted Daily Football podcast, making the case for South 's ambitions to the enter the A-League. Now before anybody gets upset (just wait a second, you'll get your chance), this was not as I understand it a South initiated burst of attention seeking, but rather part of a weekly series where this podcast looks at those who may be interested in putting their hand up for A-League licences should the opportunity to apply for them ever come up again.

For those who listened in (not me), the things that stood out from this discussion were the claim we would get an average crowd of 12,000(!), calling ourselves a franchise (which lead to the chant on Friday 'we're just another franchise'), and describing the NPL as a lifeless competition - which while certainly arguable, is interesting to hear from a director of the club who has to sell the league and our club's role in it to sponsors and such. Still, credit to Maikoussis for taking off some of the PR filters I suppose.

Anger is a gift (but keep the receipt just in case)
So the one-time capo of the one-time leading Melbourne Victory terrace group Blue and White Brigade - one Adam 'Tunna' Tennenini - earned the ire of South fans and assorted well-wishers (and he'll note that not all of them were Greek) on Friday by unleashing a pretty full on tirade on Facebook in response to the latest bout of discussion on South's A-League ambitions.

(And before we continue, I'd like to say that I understand where he's coming from even if I disagree with his reasoning, but he's really going about this the wrong way by giving into base emotion, instead of attempting to rise above it all)

The tirade - displayed here - was eventually deleted, but the internet being what it is, there was little chance that the screen-grab was going to disappear into the aether (update/correction - it has come to my attention that the post was made on Tennenini's 'private' Facebook, and that the post still exists there - nevertheless, the point that once something has been published on the net, it never really dies, still stands - something which we should all keep in mind. Tennenini has also claimed since that it was a private joke intended to wind up some of his Greek mates, a claim which had begun circulating several days ago, but one which people are rightly skeptical of, including myself.)

Now unlike some others who displayed genuine outrage, faux outrage, fauxrage and 'I can't believe it's not outrage!', I was neither surprised nor disappointed by Tennenini's comments, as they are in line with his beliefs on these matters stretching back a number of years - though I've always wondered if there's been some sort of personal slight he's suffered at the hands of South to come up with nonsense about us being an unrepentant mono-ethnic club hiding in plain sight, with only people like him being able to see the 'lizard people' interior beneath our human skin.

Because of that, I decided instead to provide a series of increasingly monotonous and unfunny tweets on the matter while killing time on the train on the way to a hipster burger joint on Clarendon Street.
Your correspondent did (eventually) manage to note the irony of Tennenini actually having participated in the self-evidently mono-ethnic Hellenic Cup for Essendon United back in 2010, including having played against that The Great Satan of Australian Soccer. Seems like his principles have their limits, or perhaps he reasoned that being a team-player was more important that night.

Still, in amid the mostly pointless mud-slinging of both sides, it was well spotted (by SMFCMike) that Tennenini is a currently serving referee, even having recently refereed NPL under 18s matches; meaning that Tennenini could be in contention to officiate games involving clubs that he believes, if we are to take the relevant post as reflecting his most honest opinion, shouldn't exist in Australian soccer.

While one would be very reticent to allege these views would ever find their way into being enacted into his refereeing duties - and having marshaled at matches Tennenini has played in at the Corporate Games several years ago, his teams were among the best behaved and organised - it's still an astounding thing to say for a referee, especially one with the profile he has gained over the past decade.

Many of the protestations fell into the usual tropes of bitter vs new dawn, although some were more sensible and flavoured with the personal touch of those involved with South who are not Greek, and at least got closer to the heart of the matter (even if indirectly); that just because some people have an idea that clubs like South still act like they're in 1959, the reality is far from that; and besides which, shouldn't clubs be allowed to change and evolved over time anyway? (and isn't that inevitable?)
Though Umberto Eco notes in his essay on 'inventing the enemy' that these ways of understanding are ‘the prerogative of poets, saints or traitors’.

To be honest, rather than the broad thrust of Tennenini's argument, I'm most interested in just one of his remarks - that on his being willing to abandon the A-League should 'Hellas or any mono-ethnic club' return to the A-League, with the further assertion that many others would also do the same.

This is an argument which I have not seen made, and certainly not so vociferously, for a long time - and even back then it was my perception that it was never that widespread even in its heyday of the earliest years of the A-League. What's strangest about making such a boast is that in all likelihood there will never be a time where we will be able test this theory out in a practical sense. (those of you who think South's entry to the A-League is as good as imminent or inevitable can just skip along a few paragraphs).

Through various practical machinations and ideological mutterings, it has been made fairly clear by FFA that South Melbourne is not destined to ever be an A-League team. Because of this near irrefutable fact - prove me wrong, uncaring universe - bleatings like Tennenini's promising to abandon the A-League and Australian soccer are at best postured idle threats, and at worst postured caricatures of forum discussions from 2005. One could of course be tempted to wade in and take down each argument one by one, but the arguments have so little relevance to the way most people go about following and talking about Australian soccer that they come across as quaint.

It does say something though for the insecurity which still persists among some followers of the A-League, that even eleven years down the track and with all that's passed, there are people who still think it's worthwhile to get angry at this stuff! Still, it would be interesting to find out how widespread this point of view is - and how willing those who hold this belief would be willing to act upon it. Indeed I noted, only half-joking that,
Though the internet's own 'jgrb' did make the salient point that,
Now the question then becomes how would one go about enacting this experiment? Suggestions are most welcome, as the best that I could come up with was an idea so ludicrous you'd need another set of A-League franchise owners as well as another Australian soccer TV deal to make it happen.

As to the consequences, well, one could only hypothesise as to how these things may turn out. My preference would be for someone much more more talented than me to write some speculative fiction on the matter; I'd do it, but I'd be too torn between writing something vaguely plausible, and something that would see Australian soccer suffer the same fate as the Montsou mine after Emile Zola's anarchist Souvarine blows it up because he thinks that only by starting from scratch (and by that I mean really starting from scratch, not the comparative half-asred A-League re-boot) can we have any chance of setting up a proper and just society.

Don't mind me, I've just been reading some work by that nihilist romantic Chuck Pahlaniuk.

The eternal battle for street cred (let's not end up back at Kappa snap pants)
Old chum Chris Egan wrote a piece on last week's ROY HAY'S ORIGINAL MELBOURNE DERBY, which sent the blood flowing to the groinal area of Knights fans and upset some South people. But what was the main point of discontent? Egan's description of South fans being middle class by virtue of being snappier dressers. Some people thought that broadly speaking we were just as scungy as Knights fans. Not that I want to start a bad fashion arms race or anything.

Attention Lou Z! (re: match programmes)
You sent me an email a couple of weeks back about lending me some match programmes for the purposes of scanning. Unfortunately, when I tried to reply, I got a 'postmaster fail' message. If you could either send me the same email from a different email address, or come see me at a game, I'm sure we could arrange something. Cheers.

Moreland vs Hakoah, Dockerty Cup, 1956 (a historical digression)
I went to ACMI on Wednesday to see a short archival film, called 'Australian Notebook No. 3'. The first part of this newsreel (which had no sound, even on the original film), contained a demonstration of fly fishing; the second part contained a segment on a pilot returning to Essendon Airport having flown non-stop from Fiji; and the third part contained footage of a soccer match.

The soccer match was between Moreland and Hakoah, playing in the semi-finals of the 1956 Dockerty Cup. The game finished 1-1, with Hakoah winning the replay. The footage of the soccer match, which went for about two minutes, showed the two teams entering the stadium, with action mostly from one end (mostly scrappy play and lofted balls) and some crowd shots. The footage was of surprisingly good quality - it had been digitised from degraded 16mm stock, but there are also other better copies from which one could get even better quality conversion.

Unfortunately getting the film out to the wider public, especially online, is very unlikely. While anyone can access the film at ACMI's Mediatheque facility, the copyright of the film is such that there's very little chance of it being put online on either ACMI's or the National Film and Sound Archive's online channels. In copyright terms, the film is classified as an 'orphan' - there are no details about how the film was sourced, let alone which company could possibly be classed as owning the rights to the film.

The best we could probably hope for is to get a limited licence on behalf of the FFV Historical Committee (of which I am a member), which would allow us to use the film for private use. Nevertheless it was a delight to see the film, especially because the game was played at the Showgrounds, and I can't imagine there'd be much footage from soccer matches played there; there is also the novelty of seeing Victorian soccer of that era on film in any capacity.

Final thought
I lost my USB key - here's hoping that someone has handed it in to my university's lost and found, because it has most of my work on it. :(

First update - I think I remember now where I saw it last.

Second update - found with the help of an Adelaide City supporting security guard.

Post-script
Several people noted on Friday night that Kosta and Blue Thunder security were no longer in charge of security at Lakeside. While some folks noted that perhaps our poor performance was due to some sort of curse was placed on the club by Kosta, it's only on this Sunday morning that this writer remembers that Kosta was a former Pascoe Vale player...
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Wednesday, 6 May 2009

A few digressions with Ted Smith

This was the third of my and Ian Syson's interviews/chats with former players and administrators... and this time we ended up with former Socceroo, Moreland, South Melbourne Hellas and Hakoah player and coach Ted Smith. So it's off to Caffe Sienna on Chapel Street. That's a regular haunt of his and a bit of a surprise to me, but it's an opportunity nevertheless for me to finally see this place that some smfcboarders like to frequent.

Now Ted at 74 is sharp as a tack - a phrase I will seek to avoid for awhile - but he does to love to digress a fair bit. So let me try and put in some sort of chronological order what went on in his career and involvement in the game. His first taste of senior football was with Moreland, one of the stronger teams prior to the migration influx, who even managed to hold their own briefly, winning the 1957 Dockerty Cup, the last major Victorian title won by one of the old Anglo teams before the utter dominance of the ethnics. During this time if I recall correctly, he also spent some time with the Victorian Colts, a sort of prototypical Victorian Institute of Sport, years ahead of its time and ultimately scuttled due to politics. Ted moved to Hellas midway through the 1961 season under Len Young, and left for Hakoah at the end of 1963 to join Hakoah.

I'd forgotten that Ted was amongst the people interviewed for Our Socceroos and so a little of what he had to say is already in that book, such as South's players receiving 70% of the gate takings after a win, 50% for a draw and 30% for a loss. Astounding and surely unsustainable numbers, but which in the vagaries of time and circumstance mean that these days they'd receive the princely sum of 4.75 each, as my friend Cuddles put it. It appears as if the long term was not something thought of too highly. which became a pattern repeated for far too long, to the demise of some clubs and to near the demise of others.

One thing that came through was the impression that soccer would find a foothold eventually in Australia, and not just minor one. Whether it would take over or simply peacefully co-exist with the local sporting culture - a point of view which neglects Australia's very long soccer history - was not elaborated upon, but it raised for some interesting questions about soccer's resilience even in the most hostile environments (and I'm counting both external hatred and internal mismanagement in that).

The issue of clubs and club loyalty came around as well - with so many players and even committee people jumping from club to club as they see fit, what does it do to the culture of our game? The effect is overstated perhaps, but it does potentially rob us of the feel good propaganda stories that other codes with more limited player movements might have - but this can just be a condition of having a multi-tied system, allowing for movement of talent upwards instead if just sideways as would happen in a suburban aussie rules competition.

The usual issues of the forgetting Australian soccer history came up as well. It was noted by myself and Ted that it's not only the current New Dawn movement which is involved with the process of forgetting, but rather it follows a pattern of historical forgetting, which goes back some time in the code but also crosses codes. The New Australian migrants didn't seem and don't seem too interested in remembering what came before them on the soccer field - and thus we have the whole 'wogs brought soccer to this country' argument. But we also have a lack of knowledge of players and clubs from other states - hardly surprising considering a wide range of factors - and it's a habit that's also intrinsic to the mythology of the AFL as well. Other competitions and their were not even sub-VFL - they don't even exist. But I digress.

But it wasn't all seriousness. Ted was happy to talk about some of the great players and coaches of the era. Manny Poulakakis was talked about in fairly glowing terms, in that he knew how to arrange a team on the park properly, but also as someone who once you found yourself on the outer, there was no way back. Con Nestoridis was described as someone who barely ran, and rather ambled, but who had excellent touch and control - his corner kicks were legendary in their time. Ted's experience of moving from one footballing culture to another was interesting too; from being just another bloke on the street while at Moreland, his time at Hellas saw his walks down Lonsdale Street garnering him minor celebrity status.

The best story perhaps was the tale of Slavia's match against a VFL combined side - at soccer. The 1963 Australian Cup champion Slavia won easily - hopefully we'll dig out the article one day - but what the VFL contingent thought they were doing at trying to play soccer against professional soccer players is anyone's guess. If they were trying to prove how easy the game was, they failed miserably. If they tried to prove how weak soccer players were, they also failed. Ron Barassi himself came off 2nd best in 50/50 challenge for the ball, injuring his knee. It's not the kind of thing that you'd hear much of the soccer knockers talking about though.
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