But I digress - Altona Magic 0 South Melbourne 0

It's gotten so bad that now we're being overrun by teams nearer to the bottom of the table than even we are, and that's with them being down to ten men. At least we somehow kept a clean sheet for the first time in a couple of months.

Next game

Home against the Bergers tomorrow (Sunday) evening. Curtain raiser is the senior women against Brunswick Juventus. 

Yoink?!

?

So, Gustav Moller is gone, and more than fittingly going by the last twenty years, his exit is actually the most South thing that I can think of - like 99% of our now former fans, rather than stick around Lakeside being miserable, Moller realised he wasn't having any fun, and just walked away. Honestly, I'm a little jealous. Granted, Moller didn't have the same level of emotional attachment that most South fans have (or at least claim to have had) to the club, but the gesture was achingly familiar:

This sucks, why do I have to be here? Wait, I don't? OK, bye.

It was a strange situation from beginning to end. Since our game plan over the past five years was based around two pillars - outrageously over-competent goalkeeping, and a big guy banging in goals up top just by being big, the departure of Harrison Sawyer late last season threatened to bring down the entire Esteban Quintas edifice one and for all, as was the case when Sawyer got injured in 2021 and we were barely able to win a game after that - thank goodness (sort of) that COVID destroyed most of the rest of that season. Enter Gustav Moller from the sixth division of Danish football who, from the scant online evidence available, was basically nobody, had played for no one of note, and was being signed because whoever's in charge of this stuff at the club these days could apparently find not one person better anywhere else.

(There's some talk that he was recommended to us by Thomas Sorenson which, if true, would make a kind of awful sense - what with Gustav Moller being the son of Danish pundit and former international forward Peter Moller. But who wants to think that we signed someone based on someone at the club being starstruck, and that the famous person making the recommendation was just trying to do a mate a favour?) 

Still, whatever Moller's credentials or lack thereof, and whoever recommended him to us, the club did get to see something of him in the pre-season, and ultimately made the decision to sign him either as cover for Nahuel Bonada, or with the intention that Moller would at some point become the main guy. The latter, were it to actually happen, would have taken awhile. Gustav Moller was clearly not match fit. I don't know if he'd been in Carl Piergianni-style holiday mode - and we saw that once big Carl did get fit on returning to England, that he was actually decent - but whatever the case, Moller wasn't able to last more than fifteen minutes without becoming completely gassed. 

And whatever his skillset may have entailed - he was probably OK in the air, and he seemed to at least have some semblance of touch - he was utterly the wrong player, for the wrong system, for the wrong coach, at the wrongest club possible. It was a hopeless situation for all concerned; but while Moller can walk away with perhaps only his ego and dignity bruised, the club is now down to one forward for the next few months until the transfer window opens. 

Neos Kosmos digital archives, free to access
Now, I was aware that Neos Kosmos had digitised its archive going back to 1957, Initially I think they were charging for access to it, but I've been informed that the archive is actually free to access. The user interface is a bit of a pain to use, and nowhere near as good as what you would get with Trove - and I have no idea why Neos Kosmos didn't go with Trove - but it's still good that it's available. Search works a lot better when you have exact phrases at hand, and also in later years where the quality of the scans is better.

The club's official historian John Kyrou sent me an email alerting me to the fact that the archive was free to use, as well as some notes on the 1960 season after he went through the archives, a frustrating season from a historical perspective both for broader coverage as well just plain statistical stuff. At first, Neos Kosmos shows indifference to the club. Indeed, sport is not a big part of the paper in 1960, which accords with my memory of the last time I went through the 1960s papers on microfiche. What sport coverage exist is initially centred on the Greek league and local pro-wrestling, mostly Alex Iakovidis. When Hellas establishes its on-field bona fides, it gets not just more coverage, but also more detailed coverage. Eventually reporter Nikos Kyriakopoulos' column becomes a fixture of the paper, to the point where you begin getting not just full lineups for most games by the end of the season, but also ratings of each player. 

Kyriakopoulos is particularly savage in his criticisms of players he considers lazy, unsporting, or not team-oriented. The senior squad is large and hard to manage. Some players do the right thing, but others have poor attitudes to training, and the team is prone to arguing amongst itself. They're a cut above their league, but arrogant. Kyriakopoulos is effusive in his praise of Terry Budgen, one of the few non-Greeks in the squad, as well as goalkeeper George Karpouzas, but has it in for Antonis Karagiannis (lazy, arrogant), Stefanos Fortomanos (unsporting, greedy on the ball), and captain-coach Chris Georgoussis (listless, heavy).

He also really hammers home the angle of the club's role as representative of the Greek community in Melbourne. That's not just limited to the players, but also the supporters, whose behaviour he's often critical of - except perhaps when it counts most, after the ugly scenes in the Dockerty Cup semi against Hakoah, where he blames the referee for the riot by the Greek fans. Kyriakopoulos also places much emphasis on the Laidlaw Cup - a local mini-world cup tournament, where Team Greece was effectively South Melbourne Hellas rebadged. He also promotes the club's and the Greek community's wider effort to build a stand at Middle Park. Little mention is made of Yarra Park or Hellenic, none of Alexander or South Melbourne United, and nothing of Hakoah in the context of being a co-tenant at Middle Park.

The crowds fluctuate between the very large (10,000 at games at Olympic Park, far and away the best venue in Victorian soccer) and a few hundred at games at Middle Park and elsewhere, where shelter is extremely limited. Indeed, wet weather sees games postponed, and one game at Coburg was played "in an ocean".

One bonus of running through and double-checking the club historian's reading of this material, is apart from confirming several lineups and a few scorers, we can now confirm one previously elusive club record detail, that of most goals in a league game. For ages the provisional club record for most goals in a league game was four, held by ten different players. Hellas racked up some big scores in 1960, but confirmation of the scorer details proved elusive for whatever reason. Thus, Antonis Karagiannis' six goals against Moonee Ponds stands alone.

Final thought

Well, seven years too late for my thesis, and five years after the old man passed away, I finally found it. Silly bugger insisted it was from the 1980s or early 1990s, but it was from February 1995. It's probably not even the complete poem - whatever drafting page that was on is long gone - but it's more complete than the couple of stanzas I had access to for my thesis, and which sent me searching in vain for the published version on several trips to the State Library. 

Like the rest of his poetry, it's doggerel, but that's beside the point. As I wrote in an appendix to my thesis:

My father, Athanasios Mavroudis, despite his limited formal education – only up to grade six in rural 1950s Greece – fancied himself as somewhat of a poet. He wrote  several poems in his scrapbooks, and even had some published in the letter and editorial pages of Neos Kosmos, the Greek-language paper of record in Melbourne. 

His style is plain and straightforward, and if we are being fair, not far removed from doggerel. His themes were broad, and usually related to the issues of the day – the political and cultural concerns as they related to the Greek community of Melbourne, and the Greek diaspora as a whole. This was in keeping with one strand of poetry submitted to Neos Kosmos, the other, more common one being poetry on important dates, festivals, the seasons, the sanctity of mothers, and the pain of living in a foreign land. 

I have included my father’s two extant and complete soccer poems here for a couple of reasons. First, as a way to preserve them in some fashion on the public record. Second, because whatever their literary merits, they are outstanding examples of what this thesis is about – the search for the most obscure portrayals of a marginal game, written by a member of a marginal community, preserving moments and points of view otherwise destined for utter oblivion. Also, they have a naff charm which appeals to 

me.

Death and its malcontents

I'm tired of the old shit 

Let the new shit begin

Eels - Old Shit/New Shit

I had begun writing up a post about last week's final friendly, but it was maudlin and stiff to the point of self-parody. Normally that would only bother me a little bit, but there are times when I feel like I've pursued that angle as far as it will go, and that I need to lay off it lest the blog becomes emotionally monotone - especially when there's a whole season to go, where we can all be as pantomime miserable as we like.

So before re-writing the sections I'd already written, I thought I'd write the thing that I should have been writing about in the first place, that being the reason for my break.

Three weeks ago, my father died.

He had been battling pancreatic cancer for the better part of a year, and for most of that time was holding up relatively well; but as was explained to me by the oncologists in what turned out to be the final couple of weeks of his life, at some point the body can no longer fight the fight. The blog's hiatus came on the day before his death, though at the time I only knew that dad's time on this earth was limited, and not necessarily that his end was imminent. So it goes.

I could write about my father's life in great detail, but my telling of it would be incomplete, and besides which, this is not really the place for it. Suffice to say, he was born and raised in difficult circumstances, worked a series of back-breaking jobs throughout his life, and spent most of his life - 49 out of 72 years - in a country he never was able to quite get his head around. It's a story a good chunk of my readership will be all too familiar with.

But there was joy, too, and one of the things that brought my father joy was soccer. His village in Greece, now close to collapse from population decline, was large enough then to have its own soccer team, and in one way or another dad's interest in the game remained for the rest of his life.

Arriving in Australia in 1971, the football scene he saw here was past its 1960s state league peak, but it was still healthy enough for there to be good players and good entertainment. Dad picked Alexander as his club not because he was from the north of Greece - though that became more important later on - but because when he first arrived in Melbourne he lived in the inner-north, in Collingwood. It was about as good a time to get on the Alexander bandwagon, as for the next decade or so they would be at their peak. Later the combination of distance (it's a fair hike from Altona North to Olympic Village), work and family commitments (my brothers have no interest in sport), and off-field politics (Macedonia issue, NSL and Soccer Australia bull-crap, internal club stuff) which gradually wore down not just the Bergers as a force, but also my dad's diminishing optimism about the game's prospects.

Thus he gradually drifted away from the local game; never completely losing interest, but never doing much to reverse that trend. When I came back to South in 2006, dad came with me for a few games, but eventually for all sorts of reasons - not least because I'd managed to attach myself to Clarendon Corner and the smfcboard bunch - his attendance at the soccer became minimal. He would still keep up to date via the Greek papers and radio, but most of his interest in soccer regressed to what was available on free-to-air TV. For a while there in the early-to-mid 2000s, I was headed much the same way, but turned that around in a story I've related in a number of places already.

My love of the game exists both because of, and in spite of, my father's relationship to the game. It exists because of his love for the game, because the game as it was for a good chunk of his first twenty years in Australia, contained a language he understood both in terms of what was happening on the field as well as off it. It's not that he didn't like Aussie Rules, but he had no cultural connection to that game. I only went to one footy match before I was 18, and that wasn't with my dad. When we went together to see a sporting match, it was inevitably a soccer match.

So we went to soccer matches. At Paisley Park initially, where we saw Altona East win the Hellenic Cup on its home turf. Then to Middle Park and Olympic Village and Olympic Park, and even after the Bergers were kicked out of the NSL, he would take me to South games at Lakeside. Dad had the habits a lot of his generation had. Park miles away from the ground and risk a parking ticket instead of paying for parking; never pay for a grandstand seat; always time your run to get to the ground five minutes from kickoff, and always start getting ready to leave five minutes before the end of a game, regardless of the score. So many of these things infuriated me, and still do, but it's just the way he was, and none of my nagging was going to change things.

Besides which, I had found my own way to annoy him. I became a South fan instead of a Berger because I saw the 1991 NSL grand final on TV, and because the team did well after that, too, and because there were enough nearby relatives at the time who were also Hellas fans to keep me attached to that. The novelist Christos Tsiolkas relates the story of how the first time he disappointed his father was when he chose Aussie Rules over soccer, and I guess my picking Hellas over Alexander was something dad could never quite get over.

Dad kept that feeling buried pretty well though, still taking me to South games when he could, and using the line (that was only a half a lie) that watching a good game of soccer, and watching talented players, was more important to him than his team winning. He'd use the examples of someone like Ulysses Kokkinos, or Branko Buljevic, or Dusan Bajevic when he came out here with AEK. The Bajevic example he loved to roll out a lot - on that day the Olympic Park pitch was a mud bath, and yet Bajevic came off the field without having gotten dirty at all. Why? Because Bajevic refused to make an idiot of himself and chase balls when people should have been playing the ball to his feet.

But when I say it was only a half a lie that dad preferred entertainment and quality over the glory of victory, it was because deep down my dad really was a Berger tragic. In 2008, the Bergers' 50th anniversary season - and probably the last proper Bergers game my dad went to that I can remember - the home team came from behind and beat South 2-1. As their second goal went in, he smiled in a way that I hadn't seen him ever do, and he even did a little fist-pump. I didn't even know that he had a fist-pump in his gesticulation repertoire. The ride home in the station wagon from the Village to Altona North was almost unbearable for the smugness in that Kingswood, the years of being humiliated by South during the 1990s melting away for him during the trip back.

But our trajectories as followers of local soccer nevertheless drifted further and further apart. He had a passive aggressive tendency, too, with my attendance, especially because I would take public transport to most grounds. He both wanted and was happy for me to to go all sorts of soccer games; but there were also times when he was befuddled by the notion of my taking a lengthy public transport journey, which would see me return from the other side of town in the early hours of the morning. "Why do you need to go, when there'll be other people there? Does the team specifically need you there?"

And like a lot of the older generation, if it was raining, so much the worse! Why would someone deliberately go out and get wet for no good reason? And don't get me started on what he thought about anyone who would be stupid enough to volunteer at a club, and especially anyone who trusted anyone on a committee, ever. At some level, what my dad would've considered as my crazy and now decade-plus renewed dedication to South Melbourne Hellas and soccer - in terms of attending, writing, and thinking - is my attempt to make up for lost time, and to avoid becoming so jaded that I stop caring about something that matters to me so much. I'm trying to make up for all those games I didn't get to see during the NSL years, for all the soccer friends I didn't have in the 1990s and early 2000s, and for the culture I was not as connected to as I wish that I was.

It's also my attempt to not fall into the trap of self-defeating cynicism that my father fell into. My friends and readers will know that I love to complain, that I instinctively first see how things could go wrong instead of how things could get better, and that I am prone to being openly caustic; but I've seen the alternative, and I'd rather be attached to the glorious mess of Australian soccer than be apart from it. In other words, unlike my dad and so many of his generation - and later generations - I'd rather be mumbling to others at a ground that things will never get better, rather than sitting at home mumbling to myself that things will never change.

But we still talked about all the off-field and on-field happenings, and we would still watch most of the major world tournaments at our disposal. I remember him taping Greece's first World Cup game in 1994 against Argentina, and then when I woke up and asked about it, him telling me it was not worth watching because we'd been smashed. I remember sitting in my uncle and aunt's lounge-room in 1997, where in the only time I ever believed he had any clairvoyant ability - because he'd make these kinds of predictions often, whether one way or the other - he picked Iran's coming back from 2-0 down.

We were both stoked when Australia finally qualified for the World Cup, and like everyone else we watched the Socceroos with awe in Germany, and with less awe in later World Cups. But the best time was probably the 2014 World Cup, where we stayed up late and woke up early and I watched far more of a World Cup than I ever had before, and my dad became a sort of ancillary character in my sleep-deprived narration of events, waking me up for games, and supplying me with tea and biscuits.

The final confluence of our soccer interests was the most unlikely set of circumstances I can think of. Throughout my extended career as a university student - a botched stint at Melbourne University in 2002 and 2003, and a much more successful stint from 2007-2018 - the things I was studying almost never came up in discussion. When I was writing my doctoral thesis on Australian soccer literature, for the first three or so years of that he must've just assumed that I was doing "something", but who knows what. But one day he asked what it was that I writing on, and after I'd explained it his face lit up and he started talking about his own poetry.

Now I knew that he had once fancied himself a poet, and that he had been published in Neos Kosmos in the early 1990s, writing poetry on a variety of subjects - such as the commercialism of the modern Olympics, and the Macedonia issue - but the key here was that he remembered that he'd written a soccer poem, an ode to Heidelberg United Alexander while they were having a difficult season. Not only that, but it had been published in Neos Kosmos in an abridged form, and a Bergers committee member had seen it and was so moved by it that my dad was offered a double pass to their next home game.

But that wasn't the whole of it - dad had also written a poem on what he saw as the unjust sacking of Jim Pyrgolios as Hellas coach and Pyrgolios' replacement by Frank Arok; as well as a lengthy poem on Altona East PAOK's Hellenic Cup win in 1992, which was printed and placed on the window of the wooden portable which was then PAOK's social club space. The Pyrgolios poem and the PAOK one survived in draft form, but the Bergers one I was never able to trace down a complete version of, except for a couple of stanzas in a draft. Maybe when Neos Kosmos completes its digitisation I can finally find the rest of the poem.

Now to be honest, the quality of dad's poetry was firmly in the category of doggerel; but since one of the points of my research was its focus on what existed in terms of Australian soccer literature, rather than the quality of what existed, I was stoked to learn about his soccer poems, and that some of them had survived. I transcribed the remnant drafts, transliterated them, added them as an appendix in my thesis, and cited the poems as works and my father as a writer in the main body of my thesis. I used my dad and his work specifically as an example of how hard it was to find examples of Australian soccer literature by non-English language writers, but also how important it was when one did find examples of them.

Passing my doctoral thesis was an ordeal - I had wildly disparate examiner's reports - so the day that I got notice that the third examiner had passed me with minor corrections, I was more relieved than elated. But the day I graduated was a joyous moment, because I got to share that with my dad, having written a work which had him in it. Like many of the people who followed soccer in this country, my dad's experiences, memories and thoughts of the game will soon be lost. It's in Australian soccer's DNA that we keep forgetting the past, and keep attempting to re-build Troy on top of the rubble and ashes of the cities which  came before. And the nature of most theses is that once they are finished, they will soon fade into irrelevance or insignificance - but knowing that I was able to preserve my father's work and part of his life in some format was reward enough for the effort.

As for last week's friendly...
Returning for my first bit of South Melbourne action for the 2020 campaign - or more correctly, preparation for the 2020 campaign - I felt that not much had changed in the months since I last watched a South game. The greeting at the door before I pick up membership pack was the same.  There were the same old faces sitting in the social club, and later watching the game, in this case a friendly against NPL2 side Northcote. Not everyone was there - more will be back this week - but there were no unfamiliar attendees except for the subbuteo faction on the futsal court, and even they've been there before.

If there were changes to be noticed, they were subtle ones. The complimentary scarf is longer than usual. The faces behind the bar are a little different, but they're still pouring spirits somewhere between a shot and a free-pour. The burger is much the same, including the wait time. At one point, social club manager Vic had Clutch(!) on the social club's stereo system. Outside, the sun-and-rain-bleached blue of the athletics track has been touched up to be of a more robust royal blue hue, while the city skyline to the north was clouded in smoke.

But the meaningless of the hit-out, bushfire relief aspect notwithstanding, was much the same. Whether pre-season form is magnificent or disastrous, there is no oracle which can reliably predict what it will mean for the season proper. But I asked those who had been to more pre-season games than I had this year to offer their assessment of what they've seen anyway, even if I knew that the answers would be non-committal. The most optimistic refrain was that it seemed that at least the team no longer hated each other and themselves which, if true, would be a step up from last season and the season before that.

Then again, give it five minutes and anything could happen. It's a very long season and a very large squad, and all the woodfired pizzas in Shepparton might not be able to prevent internal schisms should things go wrong.

On the field, I don't think it was a full-strength line-up for us. Peter Skapetis was out there, and initially at least he ran harder than I'd seen him do at any point for us last year. Chris Irwin played further up the field, as a pure winger, than he usually did during his previous stint with us, where he was much more likely to be used to as a wing-back. Harrison Sawyer is big, runs hard, and has spindly legs that I predict he will repeatedly trip over, Melvin Beckett looked exactly the same as last season, a lot of sizzle and not much steak. Marcus Schroen was not out there, so someone else was taking corners, free kicks, and penalties.

The tempo was high throughout the friendly, but you know what I think about high tempo at this level - that it's the Max Power Paradigm - not the right way or the wrong way, but rather the wrong way just faster. Both sides created a ton of chances in part because of this high tempo, which has freaked out the kinds of people who treat pre-season friendlt games against lower tier opposition in which we don't run them into the ground (with what I assume is nowhere quite near our likely starting eleven) as an ominous portent of doom for the coming season. Of course, had we belted our NPL2 opposition, the calls may have been that it was not a real hit-out against a comparable opponent. I say let's just wait for the Bergers to bury us on Friday night before we get legitimately panicky. 

Aside from what has been happening on the field, it has been as low-key a lead-up to a Victorian top-tier season that I can remember, apart from the bizarre Avondale points deduction which happened very late. There is no buzz. It's not just us, either - pretty much the whole league, and the federation, too, has approached 2020 as if there is nothing to get excited about, nothing to look forward to. Of course it doesn't help matters that most teams in this competition have no fans to get excited about anything, but even those clubs with what might be classed as "actual supporters" have mostly been quiet.

So is this it? Is this the end, the point where everyone finally, genuinely acknowledges the futility of state league football? One can only hope, though we'll have probably have to wait until after the game against the Bergers to be sure.

It's official
I am glad to say that I am once again officially accredited by Football Victoria to provide the public with South Melbourne Hellas nonsense. Also other nonsense, too, I assume, but I'll have to check the accreditation agreement.

Yes, it has arrived, with "South of the Border" instead of the usual "freelance". pic.twitter.com/KydJkOXXES

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) February 12, 2020

The law of averages - South Melbourne 1 Edgeworth Eagles 0

I find myself attracted to the safe and meaningless, and repulsed by the risky and meaningful. There's no risk and little meaning in what South Melbourne does in its day job as an NPL club. When people call such an existence 'living in the wilderness', it's not merely an existential turn of phrase. Like wild animals left to roam free and undisturbed, people only pay attention to us occasionally, most usually when an Oz Soccer David Attenborough type comes drifting in to take stock of our oddness, before moving on to the next oddball species.

However events like last night's match much more resembled a zoo. We were there not just to play a game, but also to be marveled and gawked at by the audience at home, neutrals and unfamiliars at the game, and the roving cameramen and photographers. It was quite unlike anything I'd ever experienced at a soccer match. Since the NSL ended, we've had games with bigger crowds than this, games with actual silverware on the line as opposed to the most rank outside chance of achieving such in four month's time. But nothing quite like a situation where Lakeside and the club were the main point of interest.

An inflated special occasion Clarendon Corner in action last night
against Edgeworth. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

So apart from feeling compelled to eat down the road because the social club was being used for a sold-out pre-game function - and I'm led to believe by some that got to Lakeside earlier than I did that the transition from private to public function wasn't entirely smooth - one found oneself on the terraces not only with a couple of thousand of more or less strangers, but also sharing Clarendon Corner with people I wouldn't know from a bar of soap. Of course the club in its public pronouncements spun it a different way, framing the match as a dress rehearsal for what they hope is something bigger.

And speaking of dress rehearsals, what about going for the Kappa kit last night as opposed to a Puma one? It was rather like the use of BLK as opposed to Adidas for the Palm Beach game two years ago, do not be surprised to see Kappa become our kit sponsor next season. Of course with Kappa being the signature label of the 1990s Altona North effnik techno bunny test station KISS (or Hitz or KIX or Stomp or Clomp or some piece of crap) FM listening demographic, that rules me out of buying any merch next year. - unless it's a beanie with a pompom.

Anyway, while I don't begrudge the club framing the match as a sort of top-flight audition, I and others have an issue in the things said as part of that process. But that's no secret, and if one must turn to someone who almost by necessity bucks this trend, it's Chris Taylor. Taylor acknowledges the importance of the team's success in the FFA Cup and the implied magnitude of the opportunity, but he also has to make sure the players don't get too far ahead of themselves, and instead treat the game on the field on its own merits.

Alas, at South Melbourne that's probably an impossible task to accomplish. Everyone has expectations, and the players are no different, regardless of whether they were there two years ago against Palm Beach, were making their South FFA Cup national stage debut last night, or had experience of playing on bigger stages than this one. None of it seemed to make a difference early on for us, because even if we didn't exactly crumple under both the implied pressure of the occasion and the real pressure of our opponent, we didn't exactly set the world on fire either.

The first half had a a measure of ebb and flow about it, but no one is under the illusion that anyone other than Edgeworth should have led at halftime. We relied on Nikola Roganovic being right on top of his game, Jesse Daley just manging a goal line clearance onto the crossbar and out, and Daniel McBreen butchering the best chance of the entire game just before halftime, to keep things level. At that point I was wondering how we would come out in the second half, and not much more than that - things were getting too hectic and nervy to pay attention to the fact that unlike every other team in our league, Edgeworth played with two up front.

That we started the second half a lot better didn't entirely reassure me. 'How long is this going to last?' I wondered. As it turned out, apart from probably one more chance for the visitors requiring another Roganovic save, that improvement lasted for the rest of the match. Our runs forward went deeper, our ball retention lasted longer, and apart from the monotonous and repetitive long ball tactic, we looked far likelier to score than our opponents in the second half.

Milos Lujic had been double-teamed all night, and effectively so. It's not that bombing it into him was absolutely the wrong idea, or the only idea we had, but Edgeworth's tall and tight defense kept close check on our man. I guess the aim then was if there was so much attention being paid to Lujic, that there would be free players in and around the box to pounce on a loose ball and have a crack at goal. Unfortunately that seldom happened, the ball landing unfavourably for us when it was not properly cleared by the Edgeworth defense. The good thing however was that in the second half at least, our midfield had the composure to keep the ball and stick to their plan of moving the opposition from side to side. Granted, this was made easier as the match wore on by several things.

First, Edgeworth clearly didn't have the fitness to keep up for the whole game. I had a decent discussion after the game with one of the behind the scenes folks, who reckoned that had Edgeworth been playing in our NPL, that would be an area they'd improve on quickly, and that they would finish in the top four in our league. I'm not so sure - they'd be competitive, but I couldn't see them finishing higher than 5th or 6th - they just don't have the spread of talent. Second, their lack of fitness was also tied to a conservative game plan, which saw them sit back deeper and deeper as the game wore on. Because so much of their emphasis was on Lujic, and then on negating our left hand side, they also played exceedingly narrow in defense. Thank goodness that the right hand side eventually clicked into gear - helped by bringing on Leigh Minopoulos for the 'having a bad day' Jesse Daley - and the midfield, especially Pavlou were able to do as they pleased.

Once the increased room down the left made itself apparent, our chief weapon of Nick Epifano and Brad Norton overlapping on that wing and crossing the ball started to get into gear. Speaking of the People's Champ, last night was far from his most glorious game in terms of getting on the score sheet or putting in the pivotal pass, but it was by far the most composed and complete game I've seen him play for South. His penchant for losing focus and turning inward was almost non-existent, his willingness to do his defensive duties unquestionable. The slide tackle near the sideline towards the end of the game was a highlight, but the more important stuff of covering his part of the pitch was more noteworthy.

Third, when we needed players to step up, we had them. When Edgeworth needed players to do the same, they were found wanting. At the pub before the game, one of the more perceptive people made the observation that Edgeworth had four good players against our seven. I didn't bother asking about who those seven might be for us, let alone who Edgeworth's four may have been (McBreen? The Japanese guy? The goalkeeper?). It occurred to me however afterwards that the observation played out as being fundamentally true. Millar, Schroen, Daley, Foschini - none had good games. But Foschini's output in the second half improved significantly, and Schroen came into the game late on. He delivered the pinpoint corner to Lujic, who was heavily marked even then, for what was the winning goal which sent us all into pandemonium.

Marcus Schroen and an Edgeworth opponent both go to ground in search
 of the ball. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

The first half was topsy-turvy, but ended up with Edgeworth being unfortunate not to be ahead. The second half we made our adjustments, had players who hadn't been good in the first half increase their input in the second, and there was little that Edgeworth seemed to able be able to do to counter that except batten down the hatches and wait for extra time and penalties. It's my well-researched opinion that when it comes to the leading sides in each NPL, just about all of them are of equivalent quality to each other. But it's also true that some NPLs are more equal than others. Whatever setbacks and quasi-disasters we've endured at a national level in recent years - the losses to MetroStars, Palm Beach, and Hobart Olympia - it's not for having been played off the park by any of them. At least two of those losses we were all over our opponents, without being able to take our chances. Call this result the law of averages sorting its business out for us at last, at least on the field.

Off the field - the crowd, atmosphere, stadium - is where much of the attention was. I don't think anyone expected a huge Edgeworth contingent to come down for the game, and that turned out to be the case. Situated mostly in the balcony section - they were VIPs I suppose - they made a bit of noise, having the advantage of being able to stamp on the wooden floorboards and having decent coverage from the roof to carry their chants. Too bad for them it took them a while to figure out who they were playing:

Edgeworth fans chanting "we can't hear Olympic sing" Took 15mins & two chants later to correct it to South Melbourne. lol #FFACup #SMFC17

— Steven Chang (@Gixibyte) July 26, 2017

I guess our fame has either diminished in the time we've been absent from the national spotlight, or it hadn't traveled as far as we'd thought it had in the first place. That, or the Edgeworth fans were being casually racist in thinking that every Greek team's nickname was Olympic, as is the case for the main Greek mob in Newcastle, Hamilton Olympic.

Some of their other behaviour was less than endearing though, and that's coming from the perspective of South fans who themselves don't always have the best reputation of being either gracious hosts or guests. Coming up the stairs next to Clarendon Corner, they got a bit lippy, as well as making a few objectionable gestures. Not that I would countenance any retaliation - which from our end didn't happen anyway - but it seemed like a stupid thing to do and something that could've easily led to something worse than moronic banter. From some accounts closer to where they were camped for the match, their behaviour up on the balcony wasn't much better.

The crowd was reported at being 2,622. Being a South crowd, I'm not going to go into the debate about whether the number was 'real' or not. How would I even know? The crowd looked good on the broadcast, and seemed to sound good when there was something happening (or when there was chanting), otherwise it was a lot like the old NSL days of reactive noise, which I don't mind. I hate when crowds become so self-absorbed they don't pay attention to the game. There were a lot of free tickets handed out by the club, and there was clearly an effort - or directive - made to to get as many of our juniors and their parents out there as possible.

But you can hand out as many free tickets as you want, but it doesn't mean people will turn up. Given the opponent, the weather, being midweek and every other complicating factor, I was expecting about 1,500, hoping for 2,000, and glad if we were able to get anywhere near filling the stand. As it was, the match was reportedly the second best attended in the FFA CUP national stage between two NPL sides, and the best between two NPL sides at the round of 32 stage. What does that prove? I'm not sure it proves much beyond what we already knew - that the NPL is of little interest to anyone but a few hundred diehards, and that South has a core following of about 2,500 who can be counted on to come out for 'occasion' matches. Oh, and that should there be bigger occasions, and more favourable fixturing circumstances, we could get more of the old recalcitrant, drifter, fickle South fans back for such games.

Of course it was a relief to win for the sake of getting the national stage monkey off the back. But it was also a relief to win for the sake of not having to put up with the usual torrent of crap that emanates from people who hate us whenever we talk ourselves up and go on to cock up in one way or another. Instead right now all we have to deal with is pockets of online saltiness, mostly based around the usual complaints - Greeks this, ethnic that, chanting Hellas, and something to do with the Crawford Report despite the person making claims about its contents not having read it. But there were also unusually desperate comments, complaining about our playing style, or that the quality of game was not up to scratch. Quite what people like that expect from two semi-professional teams, which play in a second tier whose talent is spread thin across eight or nine divisions, and without the benefit of starting lineups being half made up of visa players, I'm not exactly sure. People are funny like that.

But for every knocker there are people who found the contest at the very least entertaining, and not only for its climactic finish. Which is more than can be said of the broadcaster covering the game. Waiting at the tram stop and watching the Fox Sports coverage of the winning goal on my phone was a little underwhelming - not for the goal itself or the wild celebrations, but for commentators Brenton Speed and especially Simon Colosimo sucking the life out of a 94th minute winner.

@MilosLujic he scores when he wants. We can't get enough of this #FFACup winning goal last night. We're through to the Final 16. pic.twitter.com/fbGsbzDwDF

— South Melbourne FC (@smfc) July 27, 2017

People took the piss out of Brandon Galgano and his over the top call of our win against Dandy City, but at least and the understated Rick Mensik seemed to care about the game they were calling. Still, no tram that terminated early, and certainly no rail replacement bus, could take the edge off the win.

Meanwhile, for those keeping track of these things...
It appears as if our fixture didn't manage to crack 40k viewership on Fox Sports. While obviously finishing too late for Neos Kosmos to do a write up today - though it managed to get brief pieces in on a couple of NPL teams playing A-League teams in the latter's pre-season friendlies. Our current best friends at the Herald Sun got their piece in, while I assume The Age's Michael Lynch had a day off, which is why The Age relied on an AAP piece for its FFA Cup coverage, as did The World Game. Looking at ABC News Breakfast this morning, and Channel Ten News this afternoon, there was no mention of the FFA Cup. But I think someone noted that Channel Nine had something in its evening news broadcast, which if true, would fit insofar as they also featured our win over Dandenong City.

Lest we start howling at the torment of our own irrelevance though, it's worth noting that for 'some reason' Fox Sports persists in showing our FFA Cup games, even without an A-League opponent draw card, and that the wider lack of media coverage says as much about the wider sporting public's disinterest in the FFA Cup and Australian soccer as a whole. The competition may have captured the attention of some dedicated members of Australian soccer, but it has a long way to go before it crosses over to being anything like a mainstream concern.

Next game
Back to league action away to Pascoe Vale on Saturday night.

Final thought
It's rather a minor thing of course, but Fox Sport's on screen scoreboard and clock having us listed by the three letter shorthand of 'SOM' just seems unbalanced at best. What's wrong with a two letter initialism of 'SM'? If they insist on three letters, why not even 'SMH'? Of course, I kid...

Everybody happy! Or not! Avondale Heights 0 South Melbourne 2

As one would expect, there was only a small crowd on hand to watch this game, with a good deal of South's usual traveling support probably performing part of their one bit of socio-culturally mandated religious duty for the year. So even with three quarters of the ground off limits to spectators, there was still plenty of room to stretch one's legs out at Knights Stadium in its Avondale hosted configuration. Not that this fixture was likely to attract a blockbuster attendance anyway.

Oh Marge, I went to plenty of NPL matches and it never hurt me.

Both before the game and during halftime the host team blared out music at a ridiculous volume, probably in a poorly thought out attempt at creating 'atmosphere', or perhaps trying to reach those Avondale supporters on the other side of the quarry. I'm not much for stadium music as it is, but could we at least keep the volume down to a level so that I could talk to the person next to me without needing to yell?

I thought we got off to a reasonable start. The handball decision which lead to our opening the scoring via the penalty spot seemed harsh - I'm not sure how much the Avondale defender knew about it as he was tracking back hoping to block the cross into the box. The game was fairly even at this point, though I think we looked the more likely to score the next goal. Sadly we didn't help our cause in this matter by resorting to playing corners either short or along the ground, a strange decision considering that opposition keeper Chris May is not the tallest goalie in this league. We also didn't do our cause much good by virtue of one of the most amazing botches of an otherwise certain goal you'll see for some time - the low cross fizzed across the face of goal, barely a metre in front of the goal line, and somehow three of our players missed it despite being in prime position to get us to 2-0. So it goes.

Avondale gradually started getting on top, and while some may say that the removal of Mathew Theodore for Iqi Jawadi during the second half was a catalyst for that, to be honest I think that the rot had already set in well before that. We found it very hard to keep the ball and were camped in our own half during the second stanza for long periods of time; and while we managed to scramble well in defense and repel most of the aerial bombardment, Avondale's poor finishing (and the tidy goalkeeping work of Nikola Roganovic) was as important to keeping the home side from scoring as whatever else happened on the night.

Having said all of that, we did manage to get into promising attacking positions in the second half, even if that was partly due to Avondale committing players forward, but that's the price you pay for falling behind. That need to push forward saw Avondale take more risks than they really needed to, with Chris May flying out of his own area; on one occasion a poor clearance saw him stranded, with the long range shot striking an Avondale defender and triggering calls for another handball, waved away this time by the referee; on another occasion, in May's haste to get the ball as far up the field as quickly as possible, it looked like he carried the ball about a metre outside his own 18 yard area before kicking it. Probably the only people who didn't see this were the officials, as even May looked around wondering how he'd managed to get so far up the field.

We did manage to score again via the last kick of the game, making the scoreboard look more respectable than a dispassionate analysis of the game would warrant. The result left some of us happy because we'd won, while others of us happy because we hadn't played well, and their feelings of vindication will only be magnified when we eventually do crash. Avondale were happy because they outplayed us, which is worth more than the three points on offer if you haven't managed to get those three points - though useless of course if you find yourself in a relegation battle. Massimo Murdocca came off the ground smiling for reasons one can only speculate on. The referees, too, would have been happy to get off the field without copping any abuse from the South fans alongside the players' race, as Roganovic distracted those supporters with a rendition of the trumpet chant. Clever man, that Nikola.

It's interesting to ponder the nature of the team as it has been developed during Chris Taylor's time. Not that the team has only ever played dour, results oriented football under Taylor (I can sense the objections flying in already...), but to some extent it was built to play and succeed in the conditions traditionally associated with Victorian soccer - crap, bumpy, muddy grounds. Think back to the years before Chris Taylor, where ball playing South Melbourne sides would often look much better at home on the usually well kept surface at Lakeside, only to struggle away where the grounds were often in much worse condition. But in 2016 most of the surfaces have been in great nick so far. Life persists in providing such paradoxes,

Like John Cain Memorial Reserve when we had a co-tenancy with Northcote, the surface at Somers Street is beginning to show signs of wear and tear, though it seemed to be far from unplayable. Barring the possibility of being drawn away to Knights or Avondale in the next round of the cup, we'll likely only have the one game left there this year, so we probably won't see it at its worst. Then again, is our team perhaps suited to grounds in poor condition rather than good? And after all the fence mania in 2016 - which seems to have died down already - I finally got to see the newly asphalted car park behind the grandstand. It was very asphalt-y*.

*Keep in mind that it could have been bitumen, not asphalt. I don't know anything about this stuff.

Next game
Melbourne Knights at Somers Street. At this stage the game is scheduled for Friday night, but this could conceivably change to a more traditional Sunday afternoon time-slot, so keep an eye out for that.

Update from South Melbourne regarding incident against Melbourne Victory
For those who have not come across it yet, the club released a statement yesterday providing an update on the investigation and identification of those Victory supporters involved in the attack on our supporters.

South Melbourne FC wishes to update its members, sponsors and the general football public on the recent progress made by the Club in regards to the incident against Melbourne Victory’s NPL team last Sunday 24 April 2016. 

SMFC has so far positively identified 21 individuals connected to Melbourne Victory Football Club that organised an unprovoked attack on SMFC supporters in the designated SMFC grandstand early in the second half of last Sunday’s match. 

Relevant information relating to these individuals, including names, footage and photographs have been given to Victoria Police, Melbourne Victory Football Club, Football Federation Victoria and Football Federation Australia. 

SMFC thanks the many people – including non-SMFC members and supporters – for assisting with information that has helped lead to the 21 positive identifications. The Club continues to investigate the incident as there may be more individuals that need to be identified. 

SMFC wishes to once again praise the actions of the SMFC supporters, who despite the unprovoked attack on them, remained in their allocated section to allow for security, parents, Board of Management, staff and club marshals to de-escalate the situation. 

Senior Coach Chris Taylor, his football staff and the players have all condemned the actions of the Melbourne Victory supporters but have praised the SMFC supporters and give their best wishes to anyone that was affected by this appalling incident. 

The players urge all SMFC supporters to continue their fantastic support of the team tonight against Avondale FC at Knights Stadium.

I think the club itself has done well with its public relations efforts, which is not something you can always say about South Melbourne, especially when an incident like this occurs.

Neos Kosmos
Some South Melbourne fans were wondering how much would be dedicated and how hard Thursday's Neos Kosmos would go regarding this incident, and how it would be spun; especially when compared to some of the criticisms levied at South Melbourne by Neos Kosmos in the past for unruly fan incidents by South fans. For the benefit of the non-Greek readers, in this piece, Elias Donoudis says more or less the following:

• Donoudis calls these Victory supporters disorderly and hooligans (on several occasions)
• Makes the erroneous statement that the Victory hooligan behaviour started after Victory fell behind on the scoreboard.
• Says that eyewitnesses reported to him that the Victory fans (who grabbed banners, threw bottles, etc), created the kind of atmosphere not seen in Australian soccer for some years, especially in the state leagues where the crowds are so small that they know each other by their first names.
• He claims the situation was eventually diffused by calmer heads and the police (which is wrong, because the police didn't turn up until after the main incident was over)
• He makes the point of how by the incident making it into mainstream media, those responsible for the incident also damaged the game and served the interests of those who oppose soccer.
• He mocks (cynically) the fact that Victory, South Melbourne and FFA made press releases on the matter, in a snarky manner adding 'good, we're saved now'.
• He hopes that these hooligans are already banned from the A-League, and will be banned from the state leagues.
• With some more sarcasm, he notes that in an era where we're told the game has made large strides, the continuing presence of these extremists will see the game go nowhere.
• He finishes with noting the irony of Vaughan Coveny (one of the nicest boys and a good footballer) coaching Victory Youth, having worn and done honour to the South Melbourne shirt as a player.

For whatever it's worth
The whole post 'botched banner stealing incident' reaction has been interesting. Most Victory fans have condemned the actions of those involved, even if some of those took their time on the matter. Pretty much the only ones not condemning the action have been people close to those allegedly involved, and that's hardly a surprise, though one attempt to turn those Victory fans attacking South's grandstand into the real or at least co-existent victims was at the strange end of those showing a lack of contrition. Still, it was better (and more amusing) than those feeble attempts by some to make both this and last week's incident of a South supporter getting hit by a flare somehow South's fault. I'm not so sure that some of the internet lynch mob efforts by our fans are appropriate, but welcome to the internet I guess - not every place is populated by people as kind and serene as those who read South of the Border. Add to that the fact that so much of this stuff is played out on the internet anyway, where everyone can spin events their own way. Thank goodness this blog has nothing to do with the internet.

The most interesting comment I came across regarding this incident was not on the internet, but rather on the physical plane of existence, demonstrating that the real world still has something left to offer. At Paisley Park today, where Altona East were hosting North Sunshine Eagles, I overheard some North Sunshine supporters discussing last Sunday's incident, with the woman among the group not buying South Melbourne's claim that they had identified 21 people. Now considering North Sunshine's own problems with the FFV tribunal during recent years, including a massive point deduction in 2016 for a pre-season barney with Sunshine George Cross which relied a lot more on eye witness testimony than the documentary evidence gathered in the South-Victory case, you'd think this supporter could be a bit more cautious and/or circumspect with such assertions.

Anyway, best to let the justice system run its course in this matter. Besides which, there were more extra curricular activities which took place today which had nothing to do with us, so this thing now has its own momentum independent of us.

Talking head for hire
Spent some time at Lakeside on late Thursday afternoon being interviewed for a uni project by a couple of budding sports journalists from La Trobe University. Usual drill in terms of questions, not sure if it will get a release beyond the confines of their class. The lads were very professional though - production had the works, discreet microphone, establishing shots (including hokey looking into the distance stuff). I hope they get a good mark, and remember the little people when they become famous journalists.

Match programmes
I got given some more stuff yesterday, late 1990s and early 2000s. Hope to begin uploading that stuff soon.

Around the grounds
Another favourite goes through to the next round. How inspiring.
Found myself making my way out to Port Melbourne on Wednesday night to see the Sharks take on the struggling Sunshine George Cross. Apart from languishing near the bottom of the NPL2 division, Georgies were lucky to get this far in the cup according to those who saw them play Keilor Park. Anyway, the Georgies showed a bit of pluck as you would expect them to do, but as soon as Port scored their second goal, this game was done. Port won it 6-1, and could have had double that, all while barely raising a sweat. Some fresh air and casual exercise walking to and from the ground was about all I got out of this game.

You get what you pay for
I was greeted at the entrance to Altona East's side of Paisley Park with 'hello, Mr Pass Man'. So off to a good start there. To make up for not paying entry I bought a souv (which I usually do anyway), but also a couple of raffle tickets (which I rarely do), and of course I didn't even hear the winning ticket announced. The first 15 minutes saw Altona East and North Sunshine provide some lively entertainment, which must have then buggered off to the pub or something, because the rest of the game was pretty ordinary. North Sunshine bundled in a corner at the back post, and made sure of the points with a goal at the end. Altona East never looked like scoring; even when they somehow beat the offside trap early in the game, the player in possession decided that instead of aiming at the entirety of the goal face he'd put it wide. The only other fun to be had was in spotting the Dodgy Asian Betting guy at the game. It looks like Victorian soccer's version of Where's Wally has infiltrated the state leagues.

Final thought
Clearly the problem last week was that our security measures were too sophisticated.

Extensive security measures in place to segregate fans at Epping Stadium to today's match #BunningsHazardTape pic.twitter.com/B4b5qCBAOL

— NPL Vic Football (@NPLVic_Football) April 30, 2016

An older social club artefact Wednesday - Middle Park redevelopment

My, isn't it good to finally have this issue resolved!*

Of course this saga (in its Lakeside format at least) started all the way back in 2005 with a George Donikian thought bubble; became 'official' in 2008; got the 'yes' vote from members in 2009 or thereabouts; saw South of the Border gain the briefest bout of infamy imaginable March 2014, and the had these wonderful moments in 2014 - hedging our bets with with separate photo ops with the then Liberal Party candidate for Albert Park (plus the top brass), and and reigning and still your Labor Party MP for Albert Park, Martin Foley kicking a ball.

Or of course you could just trawl through all the articles on here that have the label 'Lakeside redevelopment' attached. Far more detailed, messy and just plain fun than what the club has been able to produce over the years; then again, I'm not quite beholden to the same standards of truth, accuracy and a fair go that they are.

All of which seems as good as time as any to post this little artefact of sorts. Earlier this year, while searching through early 1990s copies of Neos Kosmos in the State Library's newspaper archives - I was looking for a poem my dad wrote about Heidelberg, which ended up getting him a double pass to a game; I haven't found the poem yet - I came across this article in the English language 'New Generation' supplement of 11th January 1993 edition of Neos Kosmos. 

New Generation was edited at the time by George Bisas, and one time South Melbourne club historian Petros Kosmopoulos. You can see for yourself that the club had lofty ambitions for its Middle Park redevelopment. Improved facilities for members which would also be accessible to parts of the local community, and the status of being an enduring legacy for the Greek community; ideals which have also been taken off the shelf and dusted off for 2016.

Of course the arrival of grand prix to Albert Park saw improvements come to our facilities in a similar but different way. One always wonders though, had this project gotten through rather than the eventual Lakeside move, whether things would have turned out better.

*Assuming ti is actually resolved. You know, building permits, grant money coming through, all necessary legislation getting throigh parliament, etc

Wake - South Melbourne 1 Avondale Heights 0

You can divorce your spouse, change your religion, and sadly these days even change your soccer team, but one thing that should remain a constant - as long as its feasible - is the bloke who cuts your hair. I've been going to the same barber for 28 years now, a bloke named Chris who really only knows how to cut hair in two styles: a buzz cut, and what one of my brothers calls 'the Hitler'. I had the Hitler (or variations thereof) up until I was about 15; then he went overseas for a bit and had another barber take over his shop for a few months, and she convinced me to try a buzz cut. Nearly 17 years later I'm still here: I chose my haircut when I was 15, my fashion sense when I was 18, and have barely deviated since.

If anyone can explain why back in the day South fans had a
chant for the English medley pianist and singer Mrs Mills,
I'd really appreciate it, because it's got me baffled.

I bring this up because my barber, as all good barbers should, likes to talk about sport. Sure he knows next to nothing about the topic, but as a living example of the changes in Australian sporting tastes, he's as good as anyone. There used to be a TAB outlet across the road, and the local Greek bums would go back and forth between the TAB and Chris' shop with the radio, and the shop's copy of the form guide going from hand to hand. Chris was also once the first aid man at Doxa Yarraville; he even has a signed Mark Philippousis photo from when the Scud decided he'd do a pre-season there during the Hellenic Cup one summer. The shop being located midway between East Altona PAOK and Doxa Yarraville meant that you'd get all the local goss about those two sides. And sure there was always talk about Liverpool, Olympiakos and Footscray, but the centre of it in my flawed recollection was that there was always local soccer in there in amid the dirty jokes (told around a ten year old with a nod and a wink), perving on attractive women who walked past the shop, all done to a soundtrack of easy listening, the races, and Greek radio only when there were no ξένοι in the shop, or no races on.

The TAB outlet closed, and most of the bums moved on. Our conversations over the years became harder, now that I was at the centre of them, with no or fewer distractions from other people. As I became estranged from watching local soccer except for Hellas (when I could), then as my support for Liverpool evaporated, my fleeting interest in Greek soccer succumbed to apathy, and as he moved towards watching the A-League and I moved away from it and fully back into the local scene, all that was left was a ritual repeated for the sake of obliterating the silence. Yarraville would have high hopes but do nothing, while Altona East would plod along a division higher, and we would discuss the reasons why they wouldn't merge. Even if I had an interest in Liverpool or Greek soccer or the A-League, the lack of pay television would have made all these things redundant. And thus while he gives me my $10 haircut ('only for you Paul, because I've known you for nearly 30 years'), we stumble through a haphazard conversation, where if I spoke in English he would answer in Greek, and if I spoke in Greek he would answer in English.

When he asked me on Friday if I was going to the soccer that night - meaning the Victory-Heart game, for which he allegedly had a ticket - I said yes, I'm going to watch Hellas. He asked who we were playing and I said Avondale Heights, a team Yarraville would have once been accustomed to playing against in the middle tiers of Victorian soccer. But then he said something weird to me, and I assume it was based on my saying that I was going to Lakeside instead of Docklands: 'The reason I like you Paul, is because you don't have any friends'. He then went on some bizarre spiel about friends betraying you, an eye for an eye and all sorts of guff, but that line really got me thinking. Is that the reason I go to South?

If that's a long-winded way of eventually getting to the bit where I discuss the game, I think it still fits neatly enough into how the night was passed. At the pub, which had reputedly only bought a few weeks worth of sponsorship, and thus we were not obliged to drink there from now on, much of the time was spent in lament in terms of where we were, and where we had been. This in and of itself was not a first, and most of it was still centred on humour, but the wistfulness of remembering some of the long lost faces and voices, who had either given up the ghost, or would now prefer to go watch the game up the road, along with some of the players who had disappeared into thin air had a certain fatalism attached to it.

At the ground the self-declared Ultras group Enosi 59 were nowhere to be seen, and thus chanting took a while to get going, what with being relatively miserable as we collectively stared into the face of Australian soccer oblivion. Andy Brennan's cross to Milos Lujic for the game's only goal livened things up a bit, and even as the standard of play deteriorated, there was a sort of joy restored to the situation even if it was mostly a celebration of mediocrity. Thus chants on being aspirational, about Frank Piccione wearing a sports bra (originally intended for Griffo), 'we're gonna breakaway/fuck the FFA', 'we only chant for promotion (but also relegation)', and a whole series of handbag related chants that had nothing to do with the Ladies Night theme but were there nonetheless.

VPL legend and current South goalkeeper coach Bojo Jevdevic, in action
during the halftime penalty shootout match day experience gimmick.
Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

At halftime one of the sponsors was giving away a prize of a cosmetics pack to a lucky lady who was good enough to win a penalty shootout competition with Bojo Jevdevic in goal. That went on for probably 15 minutes, and probably ten minutes too long. The second half was largely forgettable muck from both sides. The visitors hit the crossbar, and had a goal disallowed for offside, but that was about it. Everything remotely useful seems to be going through Brennan and Lujic at the moment, while the rest of the team responsible for attacking maneuvers flounder. Nick Epifano was back in number seven, but was otherwise a non-entity (it's also being rumoured that he'll be flogged off overseas somewhere during the upcoming transfer window). Iqi Jawadi is not at the level he was last year, while others struggle with fitness and/or form. And yet we're still picking up points, we're still undefeated, and we still could make some good signings during the transfer window to liven up the side. I just hope the team finds its bearings again sooner rather than later - but things could definitely be worse!

I'd rather be watching @SMFC! Myself at St James' Park today. #HellasInTheUK #Hellas #Australia #Football pic.twitter.com/X1Yt6FEj8P

— Andrew McTernan (@AndrewMcTernan) May 9, 2015

Next game
Tuesday night at home against Dandenong Thunder, at the spiffing time of 8:30PM even though there won't be an under 20s curtain raiser.

Edit:
They may be a curtain raiser held after all.

Vale Fotis Antipas
The following is taken from the South site's article.

South Melbourne FC is in mourning after learning of the recent passing of founding member and club volunteer Fotios Antipas.

Mr. Antipas played for Hellenic in the 1950s, with history showing that Hellenic merged with Yarra Park and South Melbourne United to form South Melbourne Hellas in 1959.

When his playing days were complete, Mr Antipas volunteered at South Melbourne FC and was a very proud supporter and life member.

SMFC President Leo Athanasakis added that “on behalf of everyone at SMFC, we extend our condolences to the Antipas family on the recent passing of Mr Fotios Antipas, a man who has been involved at our great Club ever since it was formed over 55 years ago. We have also lost a link to our history as well, with Mr Antipas being involved with one of the three pre-merger clubs in Hellenic. We mourn his loss.”

Our thoughts are with his family at this very tough time.

Antipas is in the team photo of Hellenic in this post. Former general manager Peter Kokotis, whose family was involved with Yarra Park back in the day, informs me that Antipas was originally from Panachaiki, and that Yarra Park had tried to sign him, but that Hellenic via Antonis Karagiannis (also spelled Carayiannis) managed to get him first.

@smfc #he used to run the old scoreboard at middle park in the 70s and 80s. Lovely man

— paul giannakis (@GiannakisPaul) May 11, 2015

Around the grounds
Only the lonely (Dum-dum-dummy doo-wah)
While not a Western Suburbs fan, I'd still been to Ralph Reserve on several previous occasions, but yesterday was my first match there as a West Sunshine local; conveniently, it was against my pseudo-genetic-geographically allocated state league side Altona East. The souvs in the social club are still only $7, and they also had a wide range of pastelia on sale. Being probably the only person left in Victoria who gets a craving for a pasteli at the soccer, I was appreciative of the gesture, even if it's likely that most of them have been sitting there for a decade. In amid the motley mix of Greek music and classic hits being played over the PA system to the crowd of 50 people or so (I blame Mothers Day for the diminished crowd), they also played Kurtis Blow's 'The Breaks', thereby almost completely redeeming the concept of playing loud music at a sporting venue.

@PaulMavroudis NCIP worse than before! That's the breaks, that's the breaks! Can't call yourselves PAOK anymore!

— Ante Jukić (@a_jukic) May 10, 2015

The view from between the benches at Ralph Reserve, as Western Suburbs
and Altona East prepare to kick off . Photo: Paul Mavroudis

I couldn't figure out where to watch the game from, but eventually settled for the outer side in between the benches. The media box was out of the question, not only because I did not bring my media pass with me; nor for the isolating experience it would be being in there by myself; not even for the hilarity of having anyone bother to make the appearance of writing a genuine match report on this fixture; but also because I know the day I actually legitimately get into a media box, that a little part of whatever street cred I have left will be annihilated.

The home team's jerseys had player names on the back. The away team had strips where some of the jerseys had thick stripes, while others had thin ones. Suburbs had three or four African players, a smattering of Brazilians, former South player Andy Bourakis, and Terry Antoniadis as coach, who avoided getting Altona East relegated when he coached there in 2013 and 2014 mostly because of the NPL sucking up teams to a higher division. Altona East had a Japanese forward, a Turkish captain, a Welsh midfielder who sometimes barked like a dog at his opponents, and a Neighbours tour bus worth of British players of varying degrees of mouthiness.

Panellinios: Honoured the Greek name.
Everyone to Middle Park on Sunday!
Hellas - Brisbane City.

Suburbs started the stronger, but soon East began getting behind the home team's defence, and the pattern of the game was set. The Fernando de Moraes of State League 1 (complete with black gloves) was ineffective, Suburbs players got too physical for the referee's liking, and Antoniadis got more abusive to everyone as the half rolled on. For their part, East's coach (who seemed to be the assistant taking over for the regular guy, probably due to suspension), spent most of his time quietly giving instructions and telling one of his players ('Robbie') to shut his mouth.

East eventually worked out how to a score a goal following some comical finishing before that, as the little Japanese bloke Honda (one of the blokes nearby made the reassuring comment that Honda was fast) squeezed the ball home. Just before half time, as the referee was busy talking to a Suburbs player, a loud thwack was heard, and the linesman in front of the social clubs started waving his flag. A few metres away, an East player was down on the ground, and the inference was clear - he'd been decked by an opponent, who got his marching orders. Antoniadis was filthy, thinking that that player had just cost him the game.

The view from Ralph Reserve's stand. Photo: Paul Mavroudis

But early in the second half when Suburbs found themselves clear on goal, an East defender pulled the attacker back, and while the ref played advantage, the failure of Suburbs to make the most of the chance saw the foul called back with the East player sent off, and numerical parity restored. East scored a goal from a free kick which was called back for offside I assume, but then the rain came down, and since I only act hardcore for South, I decided to go into the stand.

The combination of long grass, flat balls, the sun poking through, the fine mist of rain swirling around like Jamie Oliver scattering herbs from a great height (most of which are destined to miss the plate), made the game hard to watch - and that's not even taking into account the relatively poor standard of play. But the one on one duals, the physicality, the ebbs and flows of the match, the small crowd made up of old men, reserves and assorted dateless wonders, and of course the struggle against the elements all gave the game a sort of backhanded sense of nobility. It wasn't pretty, but there was endeavour. The game had minimal meaning, but it still meant something. Suburbs fought back and took control, but could not manage an equaliser. As I was leaving I saw a likeable but opinionated South fan I knew stuffing his face full of hot chips, and maybe that's what the game meant - a chance for the lonely to go outside of their homes, and find something to eat in the alleged company of familiar faces. Maybe my barber was right, but it's maybe not just me who doesn't have any friends, and the question then becomes 'where would senior men's soccer in Victoria be without us?'

Final thought (courtesy of FS)

Need more gas in the tank - Heidelberg United 1 South Melbourne 1

Took one of our reader's suggestions and used the route 250 to get to the ground, and though the walk to the ground was all downhill, it did take longer than I'd anticipated, and of course the ancient turnstiles at the front of the ground weren't working. At least the bus ride allowed me to meet Tim McGlone, one of the newer faces in the ever expanding South Melbourne media team. There was a minute''s silence for a Heidelberg member who had passed away, and then the Greek national anthem for Greek national day (NCIP!) and the Aussie one (crackling badly through the PA system), all combined with the smell of the rankest cigarettes I've smelled for some time, and then we were off. Also, 3XY and Michael Lynch were there.

We started off a bit slow, but eventually got on top and started bossing the game, pulling together some wonderful passing play. The lineup was the same as the one that started the second half against Bentleigh the week before, including no substitute keeper again. This arrangement didn't last very long, as Cody Martindale had to come off early with an injury, and on came Andy Kecojevic. Soon enough we took the lead, Milos Lujic hitting a wonderful shot after some excellent lead up work.

Later on in the half Brad Norton was viciously cut down, and soon after half time Tim Mala had to go off with injury as well. Unlike last year, where we managed to keep most of our starting eleven players on the field for the entire season, this season, while not being quite the disaster on that front that it could be, has been a challenge. Dan Heffernan didn't play for the Bergers which helped our cause, as his replacement Kenny Athiu kept finding himself offside. Still, our defensive stocks at the moment are thin, and it will be interesting to see how we cope once we hit the more crowded part of the schedule where we have to play three games in a week.

The second half saw the arrival of a persistent problem this season - not enough gas in the tank. Last season we were able to win games in part because we were better able to run out matches, including often making substitutions quite late in the piece. This season, even with early subs, we look unable to run out games convincingly. I hope this is all part of the plan to help us peak later in the year, and that once we hit our stretch of Friday night home matches, that our recovery and fitness plan kicks into action and gives us some kind of edge. Until that moment arrives however, we are looking particularly vulnerable.

While last season we started off well and became tired towards the end, it's still not a good look to be struggling the way we have been. Having said that, had we scored the goal that we should have in the second half to make it 2-0, this probably would have been game, set and match. As it was the Bergers took it up the other end and scored immediately, and then proceeded to dominate proceedings. Andreas Govas hit one of the hardest shots I've seen for some time from long range - thank goodness that we have Nikola Roganovic in goals this season - he's been doing an outstanding job, and looks safe as houses in the air as well.

Injuries and lack of fitness aside, what made matters worse is that we lost all composure on the ball. Nick Epifano got himself into good position on a couple of occasions, but failed to make the most of his opportunities. Several players were guilty of making horrible, rushed passes, as well as bombing the ball long to the increasingly isolated Lujic. Leigh Minopoulos came on and added a bit of spark and pace, as well as level headedness - the problem there is that we appear to be heading into a problem we had several seasons ago, that we have a lot of players that look good coming off the bench, but not as many who can start and finish a game off well.

Milos Lujic still looks ominous, but he needs a reliable friend up front. David Stirton didn't start this game, nor was he used off the bench. Andy Brennan, the player Ian Syson and I had come to see most of all, worked hard but was visibly tired even in the first half. He also learned that the space he was accustomed to in Tasmania, as well as the tricks he could use to beat an opponent one on one, are not as reliable in Victoria; still, I think there's huge upside, and that it's all part of the learning process for him. I also love Leigh Minopoulos, but I have my doubts about whether he could be as effective as a starting player. The midfield for the most part battles hard, but they're undersized, and where we should be using Michael Eagar or Dane Milovanovic in defensive midfield as an enforcer, defensive necessities and lack of fitness respectively are leaving us scrambling for makeshift options.

In the end, while the officiating didn't help us - and I say that as someone who usually enjoys Lucien's relative finickiness, as long as he's being even handed and accurate - we were a little lucky to get away with the point, Still, we also had our chances, and if we can get our fitness right, and figure out the exact starting eleven that we want to settle on (injuries notwithstanding), we have a lot of upside to come, which I'm not sure can be said for a lot of the other teams around us at this point in time. To only be playing 25-30 minutes of good football, against mostly the teams likely to be in the finals race, and still be picking up points - that's the positive that I'm going to take out of this opening part of the season.

This sucks

Players from both sides today had wallets and phones stolen from the rooms as they were playing in the derby #smfc #Hufc #PS4NPL #scum
— Paul Touliatos (@pavlaki1969) March 29, 2015

This also happened to Preston late last season at Keilor Park. Someone on Twitter said that there are actually FFV rules that the change rooms must be locked, but even with that, surely it would be common sense to lock the rooms anyway? I don't know, this just seems like something that's so easily preventable.

No substitute goalkeeper again comedy commentary piece

Our officials saw there was a problem and they fixed it, didn't they?

Next week
Of course our charmed run of results - if not quite personnel issues - could all come crashing down this week, when we play Green Gully away on Saturday afternoon. Another difficult game to be sure, but at least it's our last away game for this stretch before we get back home to Lakeside.

Jersey night
Having just missed the 96 tram to St Kilda, I waited patiently for the next one, only for the driver to let off passengers, pick up almost no one and then bolt off. At least I handled the situation slightly better than the bloke who swore out loud and thumped the side of the tram, scaring some children inside of it - his own admission, made somewhat shamefully. I eventually made it to the venue, where I tried to psych myself up for some classic cynicism.

Live from Beachcomber Cafe, it's the Krusty the Clown Show: Prison Special. #smfc #ps4npl
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) March 27, 2015

Seriously, how churlish can you get before the event even starts? Anyway, many famous people were there. Kimon Taliadoros, always on an insatiable quest for power; Mal Impiombato, the latest FFA bureaucratic heavy hitter we're desperately trying to woo; Tara Rushton, something, something, hot chick, something, something, where's Mel?; Martin Foley, the local member of parliament, who's stuck his neck out for a bunch of Greeks who mostly don't live in his electorate; and Santo Cilauro, of various projects including one where they let Sam Pang boast about the fact he knowns nothing about the game - mind you, that's someone else's interpretation, because I don't watch the relevant show.

There were also the usual sponsors, board members and sprinkling of ordinary fans, thrust into the back corner, and the firm establishment of an SMFC media team cartel, minus one very important member - and no, it wasn't me! Thus, mingling was made very difficult, and created a sort of sullen mood in certain areas of the venue. Nevertheless, it was nice of Chris Taylor to pop around, while the movers and shakers were busy trying to schmooze people with money and influence.

Had a delightful chat with Chris Taylor about longevity, networks and haircuts. #SMFC #ps4npl
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) March 27, 2015

If this was a Greek wedding though - and I use Greek weddings as the example only because they're the only ones I've ever been to - there'd be much complaining that no member of the committee came around to thank us for attending and ask us how we were faring, apart from collecting our money. Speaking of money, the player auction was of course a central feature of the night's proceedings. It was a more muted, but evenly spread affair this season, no ridiculous over the top amounts, but none of the lesser players went for the measly sum of $500. Kosta from Blue Thunder Security of course bought Matthew Theodore, while Nick Epifano - despite his absence on the night - managed to get the equal top amount alongside Michael Eagar. A pity that us ordinary fans were too disorganised and/or poor to be able to buy someone. Maybe next year.

Anyway, as was the case last year, local MP Martin Foley got a chance to have his say, opining on the frustrations that the Lakeside lease still hasn't been sorted out yet - especially given that he had promised March 15th of this year as a deadline.

Martin Foley says directive has been issued to relevant departments to sort #smfc lease issue by end of April. Better be true. #ps4npl
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) March 27, 2015

One of the people inside the tent had a more detailed version of Foley's commentary, as posted on smfcboard.

Foley essentially said that it will all be done and dusted in the next few weeks by the latest with the deadline set by government April 29th. George Lekakis (Multicultural commission) has been appointed to oversee the process to ensure we get what we have been promised, while the senior ALP members have sent a formal directive to the department to also ensure the above happens. 

He also went on about how South has acted in good faith in the past 5 years and how badly they have been let down by government. While he couldn't control what Liberal did, he did apologise on behalf of the ALP.

But what's another arbitrary deadline between friends? Then it was time for the football panel discussion chaired by Tom Kalas, which touched on prospective FFV president Kimon Talidoros' desire to align the states with what FFA was doing, something to do with promotion/relegation, and pointing out how awesome South was or is. I think SMFCMike enjoyed this segment a lot more than I did.

Tom Kalas introduces a powerpoint presentation. My night is complete. #smfc #ps4npl
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) March 27, 2015

The meals were a step down from last year's efforts.

Fucken hell, φακή for the entree. This atheist doesn't do nistia. #smfc #ps4npl
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) March 27, 2015

This sparked some Twitter discussion at least about the merits or otherwise, of Greek lentil soup, The chicken for the main was quite good, even with the creamy pasta side dish shenanigans. On the other hand, dessert was a disaster.

Already disappointed by no dessert course, only to be offered most half-arsed fruit platter this side of a mid 1990s Olympic Airways flight.
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) March 27, 2015

And that's even leaving out the pathetically small pieces of cut up cherry ripe slice and lemon slice. What happened to the pannacotta from last year? It was good to meet FFV media dude Alan Delic at the end of the night, where I commended the recent work FFV has been doing in the media area. I also mentioned how I'm a big fan of FFV giving the NPL clubs cameras to film their own games, which I know is not necessarily popular with some people because of the low quality of some of the filming, and 'more urgent priorities'. Overall, it wasn't the most enjoyable night, and I'd had more fun in other years at this event. Swings and roundabouts and all that.

Πολύ γκρινιάρης δεν είσαι?

It's 'speak Greek in March month', but @NeosKosmos still going with Σάουθ Μέλμπουρν instead of Ελλάς Μελβούρνης. Ντροπή σας. #smfc #PS4NPL
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) March 27, 2015

Nick Epifano fan abuse issue borrowed comedy commentary piece

I am very interested in seeing how this will be dealt with - on a purely intellectual level of course.

80' Play is delayed as some @gomvfc fans light 6 flares, and steal the corner flag before leaving the ground #BRDvMVC pic.twitter.com/Kn7RwYOzuu
— PS4 NPL Victoria (@nplvictoria) March 28, 2015

Final thought
I might be a cunt, but...