International club (of the century) of mystery

So last Thursday in the Greek Community Cup we beat Altona East 3-0, and then on the Saturday we beat East Kew, also 3-0. Some highlights packages have been put up of other games in this tournament, but oddly enough, not ours. Our game against East Kew was streamed live on Facebook however; which would have been nice for those watching on delay, had one not stumbled upon the result before even getting close to pressing play.

At any rate, the South team playing in this tournament so far appears to have been made up of 20s players, which would explain why the team rocked up in a uniform without any numbers of the back of their shirts. Somehow they weren't even the first team to do that during this tournament; I'd excuse smaller teams by saying it's just the pre-season, but we're supposed to be... well, maybe not a big team anymore, but could we maybe be at least a less small team? 

Because Altona East had lost two matches (one of them to us), by the time we got around to playing East Kew, we'd already qualified for the tournament's qualifying stage. So the only thing left to do sort out was whether we'd finish first or second in a three team group. Well, we finished first, and our next task is a quarter final match against Heidelberg United, who somehow finished second in their group. That'll be on this Saturday at Lalor, at 1:00 PM. 

These things happen I suppose, but assuming that we care about this cup, you'd reckon we'd have rather faced someone else, thereby allowing us to play our 20s for one more match. The quarter-finals are still only 70 minutes long, which may or may not suit the preparation of the senior team for the season proper. Of course the seniors could just organise their own friendlies, as they did last week when they played a closed doors friendly against Pascoe Vale at Lakeside. The overseas gambling community (at least those not conscripted by Putin to to bolster numbers on the frontlines) must be apoplectic with rage that they're not able to bet on games no one knew were happening.

Friendly against Pascoe Vale tonight

8:15PM at CB Smith Reserve. There's even a 21s curtain raiser beforehand. But there's also heavy storms being predicted, so you know, use your judgement. 

Mental health day - Green Gully 0 South Melbourne 0

If Football Victoria still had a prize for photo of the year, I'd submit this, but you
know the PC wowsers wouldn't allow a pic of a man having a durry to win any
 accolades, being obsessed with anodyne wholesomeness. Photo: Luke Radziminksi

Well it seems a good number of you took the advice I dished out last week and took a mental health day last Saturday, perhaps anticipating that we would be crunched by a superior team. Or maybe you were told by people at the club that it was in your best interests to stay away for a while. Or maybe you were tired from staying up all night watching the cricket world cup for some stupid reason.

Not that I have official data to back up the following claim, but this was the lowest crowd I can remember attending a fixture between these two sides at this ground since, like, I can remember attending. But then I remembered that most games this season have felt that way, especially as the season has wore on, and I was less alarmed and more placated that we actually just collectively continuing towards our ethnic senior soccer death spiral; although giving it the name of "death spiral" gives it too much balletic street-cred.

But those who did attend managed to at least see our side put in if not a remarkable than at least a creditable performance, of the sort that makes you upset with getting only a point where before the game you were contemplating sacrificing animals to petty ancient gods for us to get a mere point.

As to what caused us to put in what was for 2019 an above average performance.. I don't know. Was it the possible formation change? Was there even a formation change? I couldn't tell. There were some players not in their usual arrangement, and some players on the field with players they have usually not been on the field with this year, but that could go for a lot of games. Also the sun was in our eyes, and there was a pre-season warmth that kind of distracted a little from precise analysis of the action.

I will say that part of what was responsible for the improvement compared to several recent weeks was Gully's performance. They looked very good against Avondale the week before, but were a bit less sharp on Saturday. It's also possible that Gully played right into our hands with their style of play, playing a high line and being willing to attack. In cases such as that, this season has shown us that as long as we don't concede, this kind of situation suits us just fine, as it allows us to counter-attack via the wings and in this case also up the middle with long balls over the top of the high line.

Melvin Becket sends the ball wide of the goal and wide of
 former South keeper Jerrad Tyson. Photo: Cindy Nitsos

Unfortunately, we were unable to score from any of the four or so pretty good chances created in the first half. Pep Marafioti delayed shooting, approached the keeper, did not pass the ball to an open Peter Skapetis, and then took a shot straight into former South custodian Jerrad Tyson. Skapetis himself was more unfortunate then incompetent when his initial shot was blocked by an almost stranded Tyson, before the quick follow-up shot from the save hit the one Gully player in the way of the goal. Ben Djiba made an enterprising run on the right, but was unable to get either a shot away nor pass the ball to a waiting striker. Finally, Melvin Becket did all the hard work dribbling his way to the six yard box, only to stumble over his own feet and place his off-balance shot wide.

Having witnessed all that, one assumed that our comeuppance was near, especially within the last four minutes of the first half; but that comeuppance did not arrive. Sure, we were not as good in the second, and certainly did not find the space behind Gully's defence that we did in the first. But for all Gully's improvement, they were seldom able to seriously threaten our back four. I think they only managed the one shot on target for the whole game, and thankfully Josh Dorron was able to keep it out - a long range free kick from Jay Davies curled towards the top right hand corner, but Dorron was able to extend his large frame and palm the ball away.

Not the first lemon tree to be spotted at an NPL ground.
Photo. Luke Radziminski. 

Some of our defensive efforts were a bit more acrobatic than perhaps necessary, bringing out calls from me and Dave of "I see you know your judo well, sir", which while funny (of course) didn't fit, because judo is about throws and not acrobatic kicking. We perhaps could've made a better stab at taking all three points if we made more than one substitution, but we didn't, even though there were players like Gerrie Sylaidos who were completely gassed with about ten to play. One hopes that the reluctance to make more than one change was due to tactical considerations and not we can't afford to pay the players this week considerations.

But we could've also made a better play at getting all three points if we were a little bit smarter in the second half, and not so much trying to second guess ourselves. I'm thinking here of the mess of a free kick concocted by Billy Konstantinidis and Marcus Schroen from a good position. True, the defensive wall was a bit close for my liking, and true again that free kick taking is a hard enough business, but elaborate games of misdirection are best left to people in better leagues; in the NPL, just let someone take the shot without too much showboating and get on with the game.

Anyway the refereeing was good, until such time as the ref needed to make difficult decisions, and then his performance went down the gurgler. For those who care about such things, it was our first scoreless draw since midway through 2017, and it also continued our unbeaten run at Green Gully Reserve, which has been going since we beat Gully in the first round in 2013. More importantly, we got a point out of the whole thing, and I got a match program because Gully is one of the two clubs still producing those things.

One more thing
It was interesting to see the lack of sponsor boards at Green Gully. Now we won't get into the ins and outs of who's a paid sponsor at Lakeside and who might only be there as decoration (or even if we have that many sponsors from outside the circle of the board); but knowing that these things happen at clubs lower down the food-chain, I always wondered how many sponsor boards at NPL clubs were actually from active sponsors.

Under such circumstances, one wonders if there's scope for putting in decorative/club themed boards instead, or at least keeping some redundant sponsor boards for a heritage role... Buddy's Mobile Disco at least deserves more than it's current fate of paint and rust decay with its face turned away from the ground and toward the north wind.

Next game
The Knights at home on Sunday afternoon. They'll be coming off a midweek Dockerty Cup game against Bulleen.

Relegation battle (status: ongoing, gentlest of easing)
Not much changed on the relegation avoiding front this week - which is broadly good news for us, because it means that the teams in the bottom three who are trying to get out of the relegation and playoff spots are running out of time to do so.

Nearer to us, Port lost to Hume, the Dandy derby was a draw, and Pascoe Vale beat Kingston 2-0 to make it highly improbable that Kingston will be able to make it up to 11th. So we have a 10 point buffer to 12th (and 13th) with a maximum of 18 points up for grabs.

In our remaining games, it's the one against Dandy Thunder that'll likely be crucial. Let's hope we get some points on the board before then so that it's not crucial. Thunder are also due to play Pascoe Vale in the run home, so someone's going to have to take points off someone there.

Deckchairs on the Titanic
What is even this? I'm not going to pretend that I have any idea anymore how our football operations work, who does what, and what exactly it is they do. It's like people who work in offices - what do they do? So many buildings, so many offices, so many people in offices doing what, I don't know. Anyway back to the matter at hand. In summary, board member Andrew Mesourouni, previously in charge of junior football, is now in charge of the senior men's football department. Former general manager of the club Peter Kokotis, who was appointed football manager (senior men) last November, has now been put in charge of the juniors in conjunction with Mike Valkanis. Except that the latest article says "We welcome Peter back to the club." - so was Peter with us or wasn't he?

NCIP is gone
So it's gone. Now what? Will any major ethnic club officially revert to an older name? I can't really see that happening - especially those with a hankering to get into the mooted second division - but there's certainly more scope for blended branding incorporating old and new. I can also see some fans taking matters into their own hands, which will no doubt lead to some very mature outcomes. After all, freedom of expression for you is also freedom of expression for someone else; and has often been the case, it only take a minority of people to cause a fuss, and then for the rest of the club to either actively or passively condone the said fuss.

But I'm thinking of this stuff like it's current. Surely everyone has moved on, grown up, got a new hobby.

For our part, there's discussion about whether we should go back to South Melbourne Hellas, bring back the old logo, etc. I think most of our extant supporters are comfortable enough with the South Melbourne FC branding, and the possible use of 'Hellas' to augment that as a nickname or some such. I'd be in favour of an updated logo along the lines of the current commemorative badge, if for no other reason than that I've disliked the current one for a long time.

The most important thing though is that whatever the club and its members decide to do, it's now our choice, and not someone else's, which was one of the main points of my gripe about the NCIP in the first place.

What's happening with the Puskas film?
A few people asked about this a little while back, and I can't really provide a definitive answer. All that I know for sure is that quite a few interviews were done, that there seems to be a good story there, and after that... silence. Is money an issue? Is it competing projects? Have the boys fallen out among themselves?

If there's issues with getting the project going to the next stage - whatever that stage may be - I'm sure there's people that can help. Because as much as there's South fans wanting to know what's happening with the film, I'm guessing the people who've already been interviewed would also be asking what's going on with the film - and for them, it's not a just a movie, it's the story of an amazing moment in their lives.

You know, I actually got around to watching Rob, Cam and Tony's previous sports documentary The Galahs the other day, and I can see what they'd like to do with the Puskas film. Hopefully whatever's holding up production of the Puskas film is easy to enough to resolve, because it's a great story with much broader appeal than Harry Beitzel's Irish adventure, and a lot more archival footage to play with among other things.

On the couch
Not setting the couch on fire, yet
Watched Kingston at home to Pascoe Vale last night, in a real ordinary relegation six-pointer. It was good news for Pascoe Vale, but bad news for Kingston and people who inexplicably like Monday night football. Most frustrating of all was of course the fact that we've only been able to take three points off either team, but that assumes we're so much better than those teams and deserve to have taken more points off them. Thankfully there were also the last couple of SVU episodes with Dani Beck filling in for Olivia Benson to distract from the torpor of what was going on at The Grange.

Final thought

Holy shit, @OliverMinatel is on a fucking train! And to think we couldn't even get a banner for him on @yarratrams... no wonder he left us for bigger and better things! https://t.co/mdavFqb2rj

— dj ēļřāffő (@dvrf1878) July 8, 2019

Four more points 'til safety - South Melbourne 1 Pascoe Vale 0

I will say these things about this game.

First, if there are people still at South who are finding themselves unable to cope with the let's call it garbage football on display, then you should probably stay home. I don't mean that as an insult - I'm serious. The loss against Kingston was clearly too much for some people to take, to the point where it's hurting their mental well-being. Anyone still here watching South in 2019 has more than proven their loyalty (and their stupidity), so if you need a week's break or more, by all means, take it. If you can't deal with the club until such point that it mathematically avoids relegation, by all means, stay away.

In those kinds of cases, I wouldn't even recommend watching the game on the live stream. What good could that possibly do? Putting my Dr Phil hat and noting that "opinions expressed during the show are educational and informational in nature and are directed only at the individual show guests based on their specific and unique circumstances", if you've found yourself in an unhealthy situation, the best thing to do is to change your environment.

Look, if you're sticking around because you want to prove your worthiness in terms of loyalty, there's nothing left to prove. And even if there were something to prove, who's left that's both paying attention and actually cares about your vain and frankly stupid notions of dedication to this cause. It's like those idiotic competitions where people lay their hand on a car, and the last person still in contact with the vehicle wins the car; except there's about 250 people with their hand on the potential prize, and the prize actually doesn't exist.

All of this neglects the fact that there was a game on, and we won it! Remarkable stuff and completely deserved, if by completely deserved one means being the only team which managed to score a goal, which is the usual way of judging these things. The game was not great, but compared to the previous week's game, at least it was entertaining. It even passably resembled football, which is more than can be said for whatever the Kingston game was.

As has been our usual habit this season, we started off brightly enough, and then after about half an hour decided to withdraw into our shells and begin falling apart. In a wonderful act of mercy, Pascoe Vale started neither their talismanic striker Davey Van 't Schip - who had moved to Essendon Royals as part of Paco's week-long act of seppuku - and also had long-time South Melbourne aerial bane Joey Youssef on the bench.

When the deadlock was broken by this year's club golden-boot-in-waiting Giuseppe Marafioti, I did not celebrate with the fullest of gusto. Not because I was not happy or because I was caught off-guard, but because like others in Row H (the most sensible row, last bastion of sanity) I thought it was offside, and was frantically waiting for the linesman's flag. Thankfully it never came up, and then all we had to deal with was the saga of the last 40 odd minutes and Pascoe Vale having to throw everything they had at us and certainly equalising and then I suppose it was a 50/50 shot at them winning the game.

And yet despite South blowing several unbelievably good counter-attacking chances, Pascoe Vale could not find the back of the net. In the second half in particular, they got the first part of the attacking sequence down pat, beginning long sweeping two/three pass movements which cut through our near non-existent forward press and our doughnut shaped midfield.

Which when writing it like that, makes one perhaps realise that it's not so much Marcus Schroen's or any other player's fault that the central midfield is ineffective, but rather the blame should go on whoever thought it was wise to sign a team made up of a million wingers.

Anyway, despite attacking us for a good deal of the second half, they could not quite find a way through, not through the early season whipping boy Perry Lambropoulos (replacing an injured Brad Norton), not through the young Ben Djiba, not through whatever central defensive pairing we fielded on the day, not through Kristian Konstantinidis who came on as a sub for the re-injured Kosta Stratomitros, and not through the flying header, diving puncher, long thrower excitement machine that is Josh Dorron in goals, whom it seems we have put in as a permanent temporary solution until the end of the year.

OK, some of that is a lie. Paco did get through on one very real occasion, where they scrambled the ball across the goal line and probably onto the outside of the right-hand goal post, but that's as close as they got, and you really couldn't get much closer, and that's including the goal line clearance we had to effect in the first half after a timid shot over a semi-stranded Dorron was headed away by someone in a blue shirt.

At the end of the game with three more points in the bag, it didn't seem like too many of the South players were over the moon with the result, which could be a good thing in that they perhaps think that the job of avoiding relegation is not done, or that they thought they should've done better; or maybe bad because morale is so cooked that not even an arsey win can rejuvenate the side. For their part quite a few of Paco's players looked devastated, and if they do go down I suppose they might be missed, but not as much as when they had a wood-fired pizza van at the ground, which was some time ago now.

Next game
Green Gully away on Saturday afternoon. If the quality of the game between Avondale and Gully last week is anything to go by, we're screwed. Hope to see you there.

Relegation battle (status: ongoing, survival nominally within unconvincing grasp)
The method by which we got our win aside, this was a pretty good week. In addition to our beating Pascoe Vale, Kingston also lost, which gives us a twelve point gap to the automatic relegation positions - a four match gap, with just seven games to play. Dandenong Thunder however managed to beat Bentleigh courtesy of several screamers, so while the gap between ourselves and the playoff spot is ten points - three and a bit games - Thunder are capable of scoring enough goals to win games, and we still have to play them towards the end of the season.

You'd like to think we'll at least crawl over the line a bit more convincingly than we did last year, but last year's near death experience will have everyone nervous until safety is actually secured, and filled with impotent rage after that.

One other thing
When it comes to how many touches of the ball or how long you should hold on to it before you pass or shoot it, there is no right answer except to say whatever looks good in hindsight to the average mug punter is usually the best way to go. especially in this godforsaken competition. Still, I had to have an awful, unnatural, and unbecoming spiteful chuckle at one moment in the first half, where Pep Marafioti was forced on to his right foot and he took about three baby elephant stumbling touches trying to get set up to hit a cross on his wrong foot, a cross which didn't come off. Now I have neither a right nor a left foot, but it's interesting (and I'm going to sound like a hopelessly old geezer footy radio commentator now) to see how one-sided so many players are in this comp which is just one step below the 'elite'.

Our other teams
Got to Lakeside's operations room early enough to watch the first half of the under 20s in their top of the table clash, which they ended up winning 3-1. That's about eighteen games undefeated now, but don't ask me which players should be brought into the seniors.

Photo: Luke Radziminksi

The senior women had an important 4-4 draw against Alamein. Important, because Alamein are one of three sides in this competition who are clearly better than everyone else, including us, and yet we managed to take a point off them despite fielding what looked on the highlights like a team that was about half the size of their opponents.

Credit for the draw must go in part to goalkeeper Erin Hudson (pictured right), who pulled off a cracker of a penalty save in the final moments of the game. It could well be a handy point in the race for the last finals spot.

Did not see that coming
A few weeks ago I noted that I expected nothing to happen to Melbourne Knights for some appalling fan behaviour during (and as it turns out, immediately after) our recent cup loss against them.

Well, as it turns out, something did happen, and the net result is a fine and a three point deduction for Knights, and a $500 fine for us for being in the vicinity of nonsense which apparently occurred in the tunnel after full time.

I'm trying to figure out what's prompted this action by Football Victoria. Is the fact that it happened on the prominent stage of an FFA Cup qualifier instead of the black hole of normal league play? Is it because it happened right in front of them and they couldn't ignore it? Or is it symbolic of a turn towards the more punitive tribunal regimes of older days, when massive fines and point deductions were handed out freely by the federation.

Because while Knights got done over for racist chants, flares, and an incident in the players race, Football Victoria's press release also noted that other clubs also received hefty punishment for serious incidents. If that's the case, it may be worth keeping an eye out (as we all should) in case some of our fans are getting close to the edge in terms of what's acceptable fan behaviour. It's not like we haven't been docked points for our own fan transgressions.

Anyway, the three point deduction sees Knights drop down several spots, including below us. It's doubtful that Knights will get dragged into a relegation battle - as opposed to some recent seasons, they're too good on field this year to really worry about that - but it might cause some classic comedy capers when it comes time to sort out the bottom slots of the top six. Funniest of all of course would be if we somehow jagged a bullshit goal late against Heidelberg to secure that sixth spot by a point over Knights (because our goal difference is garbage), but that assumes the fanciful idea that we're even going to get one more win for the season.

Match programs
Thanks to one of the blokes who hosts Preston's show on FNR (I forget his name, how embarrassment), I've added three South vs Preston match programs ranging from 1989-1991 to South of the Border's match program collection.

Thanks also to the Jakarta Casual who helped us add a home program against George Cross from 1989, and Todd Giles for the home program against Newcastle KB United from 1979.

All of these can be found in the usual place.

Me and George Cotsanis at the Goals and Glory
  exhibition at Deakin's Waterfront campus, with a
 couple of the display panels behind us.
Photo: Roy Hay

Goals and Glory exhibit
Last Friday I went to the Goals and Glory exhibition at Deakin University's Waterfront campus in Geelong. Accompanied by local amateur soccer historian George Cotsanis, it was an interesting trip, which included bumping into Roy Hay, who was of course involved with setting up the exhibition.

Made up of photo collage style display panels along with artefacts placed within glass cabinets, the exhibition performs two core functions: displaying the breadth of the Australian soccer experience, and also acting as a means of raising awareness of the Schwab and Shorrock Collections hosted at Deakin University.

The display panels give an overview of a wide variety of topics, among them: youth, women's, and Indigenous soccer; Australia at the World Cup; notable players; the role of local clubs, in this case clubs from and its surrounds; Laurie Schwab and Les Shorrock; as well as the potential to use the resources in the collection for genealogical histories. The display panels also had QR codes adjacent to them, allowing for more in-depth analysis of the displays for those tech savvy enough to use them.

Within the glass cabinets there were more objectively precious and/or fragile artefacts, such as Victorian Soccer Federation (and predecessor group) minutes, but also items loaned for the exhibit such as World Cup match balls, jerseys and so forth - predominantly it seems from the Didulica family. There is a timeline of Australian soccer on a television screen, and the audio component of commentary from Australian national team games piped in through the exhibit.

I can't say for you whether it's worth the drive down to Geelong to see the exhibit - you may spend 20 minutes in there, or you may end up spending an hour there like George and I did, in part because we bumped into Roy, but also because we were happy enough to look at several of the display panels several times and discuss their importance or value to the exhibition. For example, George was able to point out the different people he interviewed on The Pioneers show he hosted on FNR. I was able to discuss the photogenic properties of Oscar Crino, especially in a medium - soccer photography - which doesn't necessarily have the same aesthetic qualities of other sports, because soccer is about the simultaneous movement of the ball and player - maybe gifs are the natural artistic form for soccer aesthetics?

Feedback I've seen from more historically minded soccer followers seemed to be impressed with the exhibit. For me, having some experience of seeing university exhibits, this was one of the better ones I've come across. The exhibition is free, and is open on weekdays until July 29th. There is scope for groups from outside Geelong to have the exhibition displayed in their own space, as it is equipped to be a travelling exhibition; though how it would be localised for your own region would need to be discussed with the exhibition's organisers, as would shipping.

And Roy, sorry about not signing the guest book, but there wasn't a pen anywhere near the guest book!

Final thought
Peter Griffin was right: The Godfather does insist upon itself.

Bad feeling - Pascoe Vale 2 South Melbourne 0

That was incredibly deflating. I want to be optimistic because of the fact that, apart from the two heinous errors committed by Alastair Bray and Billy Konstantinidis, we played well, and created enough chances to score and earn a draw.

But the other part of me agrees with Leigh Minopoulos' post-match comments, that playing well and not getting any points is, erm, pointless. So this could go one of two ways - we could continue playing well and have our luck change, or we could start playing objectively poor football and find ourselves getting humiliated.

No KK, who was sick, and no Roganovic who was also sick, certainly didn't help matters. KK's absence meant that everyone's favourite whipping boy Perry Lambropoulos (who I am told is not Con Tangalakis' godson) got a start, as did the under-prepared Alastair Bray. Bray's first touch was fine, a long clearing kick, except for the fact that it looked like he'd hurt himself in the process. Worse was to come, when he passed the ball straight to ex-South man Dimi Hatzimouratis for an easy finish and the first goal scored by Pascoe Vale this year that wasn't credited to Davey van 't Schip.

Then just as we starting to look like we might get back in the game - and it was still very early on - Billy Konstantinidis, who must've been responding to some very harsh treatment from the defender next to him, decide to punch said opponent in the guts. It made a hell of a sound, and the crumpled player on the ground pretty much made it a dead give away that something bad had happened, and Billy got his marching orders. Because it's also on video, it looks like Billy will be on the sideline for some weeks, if not months to come.

Which is a terrible shame for someone who was going to be one of the two most important players in our efforts to be competitive this year. I would've thought that being a pro for over a decade in Greece that Billy would have copped worse, but who knows. Certainly not I, who has never been in a similar kind of position like ever, except for this one time at Greek school back in the 90s, but that's another story.

The rest of the half saw Paco sit back - and while we tried to attack, there had not been time to properly reshuffle and thus Marcus Schroen was playing both midfield and centre forward, which wasn't working of anyone. Still, as unquestionable as Billy's send off was, I can't believe that Davey van 't Schip didn't get the same punishment for a swinging elbow, let alone how Gerrie being fouled from behind after he beat two or three opponents didn't warrant anything except a play on call.

Oh, and apparently you can push down on an opponent's shoulders from a corner now. Good to know.

The second half was better was from us, and it was hard to tell whether Paco were content to sit back or actually scared of what we were capable of, but we didn't have our shooting boots on. Three games in a row with no goals suggests to me that we need to send out a more attacking team. Taking Gerrie Sylaidos off when you're chasing a game doesn't seem to fit in with that equation though. Leigh Minopoulos, coming back from injury again, got about fifteen minutes, but clearly has a ways to go before being match fit.

The closest we got was a shot cleared off the line, but it was only a matter of time before Paco got out the back and finally put the game to rest. Three losses in a row, a still unsettled and imperfect line up, and you wonder if it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Next match
Green Gully at 'home', at John Cain Memorial Park. In 27 games here, we've only lost four times, all to Northcote. Not that a stat like that means anything.

FFA Cup news
Our fourth round match against Essendon Royals has been scheduled for the Good Friday public holiday next month, with Lakeside as the venue.

Match programs
Thanks to Luke Patitsas of the Sour Grapes South blog for sending over one more match program, from the 2015 grand final. We've also added a couple more from Mark Boric from the 2002/03 season, the Wollongong and Newcastle home programs - and we'll add a Carlton away program from 1999/2000 tomorrow when I can do add text recognition to it, As usual, you can find the new additions with the old, on the South match programs page.

On the couch

Good to see a soccer club that still has a pinball machine. Bad to see a photographer
get too arty for their own good and take a pic of said in table in black and white!
Photo: Luke Radziminski.

Got to see two South women's games this week; well most of them anyway. The first game was a midweek affair against Alamein out at the Knox synthetics. This was an ugly, ugly game to watch. South coughed up the early lead and had to wait until very late to claw back the game - and only via a semi-dodgy penalty. Good on Sofia Sakalis for smashing in an unstoppable shot from the spot. Imagine what player - still only 17 - could achieve if only she lost a bit of hell tunnel vision when she has the ball.

Then onto to a Saturday night game in Geelong against the Galaxy, who are now playing out of Stead Park and wearing the colours of Geelong SC - they've got to do what works and keeps them as a going concern I suppose, and playing out of Torquay the past few seasons seems to have been a sort of dead end.

Once again, a pretty ugly game, and worse, this time the side fell 2-0 behind before halftime. I honestly don't know about this team this season. We're always a little bit of a slow starting team until the W-League players return, but it feels like there's been a slip in standards. To be fair, one commentator on soccer-forum whose opinions on these matters I respect has suggested that the standard across the board has slipped a bit. Certainly I think not having Melina Ayers not the retired (to social football) Tiff Eliadis has taken away something from the team.

Still, diminished or not, the team found a way back from the brink in this game, eventually steamrolling past the home team to 4-2. Almost every one of the four goals had a bit of luck or chaos to it, but it's not how, but how many right? Just ask the senior men's team about style over substance.

Around the grounds
The game with the worst ref in Victorian soccer
Here's the thing about actually attending a game in person. Unless the game is like, just around the corner from your house, getting up and leaving halfway through the match is usually not worth the bother, because the time and effort and money (for those that pay entry) expended in getting there means it probably isn't worth getting up and going home after 35 minutes of awful football. Which is to say, that I have been spoilt by the five weeks or so of non-stop live streamed games. But someone will make an argument about fresh air, sociability, and souvs, and I suppose you have to test that theory out as well. Well out at Paisley Park the air is always refinery fresh, the sociability is limited to the same two or three sane people you'd find at any ground, and the souv, being a round one 2019 offering, was of course put into a round 22 2018 roll. The game between Altona East and Mill Park, who I'm already predicting to be among the mid-table also rans - and this is me, who never makes predictions like these. Anyway, this was a lousy game for 40 odd minutes, and then picked up thanks to a red card to East and a converted penalty to Mill Park. The game opened up in the second half. East butchered some chances, drew level from a corner, Mill Park missed a penalty, and then Jerry Karpeh - remember him? - hit one of the worst penalties I've ever seen, and East failed to take the lead, which naturally led to the visitors scoring two late ones for a 3-1 win. I'll probably be back.

Final thought

International students vs what I wear into uni pic.twitter.com/Ub3ZHEQSch

— Joe (@iconikonomidis) March 24, 2019

Going, going... South Melbourne 2 Pascoe Vale 3

The less said about the 7:00PM kickoff the better; about the only good thing about it was getting to see a mediocre game of footy beforehand. There must have been some serious turf preservation issues, as neither the under 20s nor the women's teams played on the Lakeside surface over the course of the weekend. The scoreboard was also on the blink, which lent the whole affair the unmistakable air of serious decay.

Oh, and we started the game in the relegation playoff spot, after being jumped by Hume City on Friday night after they beat Knights 3-2 at Somers Street.

As for the match itself, it started off reasonably well, and ended up in a much worse place. The proviso for most of our season has been that if we take the lead we have a chance, and that if we fall behind we're stuffed. That we were at first in front, then behind, and level again deep into the game showed at least some character. Then came another very special moment from everyone's favourite heel, and whatever positives we could've gotten out of the game - even just the measly point to get us out of the relegation zone - were soon forgotten.

Without necessarily creating too many clear cut chances, we gave a good account of ourselves early on, and did our best to keep Davey van 't Schip in check; well, as much as any team in our situation could be expected to do. As noted, we even took the lead and managed to carry the lead into the break, Ndumba Makeche putting away one of the better crosses we've put in this season. George Howard was having his best game since he joined us, and Oliver Minatel, who continues to be a minor revelation in his new role. But the second half wasn't as crash hot, and we counted off the time until we were due to concede.

I can't understand the subbing off of Makeche, who seemed to be lively and causing at least some problems for the Pascoe Vale defence, as well as of Pep Marafioti even though he was less effective. The Ndumba subbing was particularly strange, as apart from his attacking efforts he also put in a lot of defensive work on the left hand side of the park, sometimes coming up even into our half to offer extra coverage. The reshuffle seemed to unbalance the team, but at the same time it wasn't like we were far and away the better team - with a bit more luck Pascoe Vale could've been in front long before they actually were. But we were still in the game because most of the team were at least putting in a decent effort.

But Paco got there eventually anyhow, with some truly shoddy defending and clearance work, and our usual lapses in concentration. 2-1 down with just over ten to play, I didn't see us making any sort of comeback, but credit to the team they did well enough to get us back level, Leigh Minopoulos setting up Oliver Minatel for the latter's fifth goal of the season. There was at that moment even a hint of optimism among the crowd. That didn't last very long. Sadly in pushing for the win, we gave up even our nominal point in spectacular fashion. Deep in attack on the right, Nick Epifano was dispossessed when he may have copped a stray arm to the face. Perhaps expecting a free kick that never came - and the incident occurring on the referee's blindside made that call less likely to go our way in any event - or perhaps just as likely putting in one of his customary displays of on field petulance, he showed no interest in chasing his opponent back down the field, and the sequence of play ended up with what what turned out to be the winning goal to the visitors.

Epifano was booed by large sections of the crowd before the ball even made it to the halfway line, let alone into our net. And to be clear, he was booed not for losing he ball, but for making no effort whatsoever to chase back. He shushed the crowd and later performed a small fist pump celebrating the visitors' goal. Every time he touched the ball after that he was greeted with anger from the crowd. It being late on a Sunday and preferably wanting to get home before that evening's World Cup coverage started, I left as soon as the final whistle went. It didn't help my overall goal - the transport situation worked out so that I got home at 10:30 - but at least I got to avoid whatever post-match nonsense may have taken place. At this point in time there is no official word on whether Epifano is still at the club. There have been some rumours about him ending up somewhere in the state leagues for the rest of the season - the only place he can go now that the NPL transfer window is closed - but who actually knows? It would be easy to assume that there is no way he'll be allowed to come back, but how many times has that been said before? Before publishing the obituary for his colourful South Melbourne Hellas life, we should make sure it's dead first.

The only positive for the team's fight against relegation is that Bulleen thumped Kingston on yesterday, which while it brought the Lions to within a game (and much worse goal difference) of our position, it at least kept Kingston within touching distance for us rather than let them get away from us completely. It gives us something more than the illusion that survival is possible.

Sasa Kolman resigns as senior coach
Sasa Kolman is officially no longer the South Melbourne senior men's coach. It had been rumoured that Kolman had offered his resignation earlier in the season on one, or perhaps even two occasions, with that offer(s) rejected by the board. It was clear that the board had - for probably noble and ignoble reasons - a lot of faith in Kolman, but the circumstances have proved them wrong.

Kolman has and will cop stick for being the guy who knew beforehand that Taylor was going to get ousted, and that he himself was the one earmarked to replace one of the club's most successful coaches on short notice and to the surprise of pretty much everyone at South Melbourne outside the board. Hamstrung to a degree by the incredibly late move of the board to sack Taylor, as well as recruiting decisions made by the board and/or Taylor before Taylor's sacking, I have some sympathy for Kolman. It is not a sympathy that will be shared by many supporters, understandably so. He will be viewed as disloyal, which would've been more tolerable had the club done better than it has done. He will also be viewed as inept, a youth coach getting in over his head.

Kolman started off the season confidently, a good pre-season result against Guangzhou R&F and a solid first couple of league games giving him the chance to get some clear air. But bad luck (the goalkeeping mess, poor discipline by players, especially regarding concentration and suspensions, and his own two dismissals) and his own backing away from his high pitch, high energy pressing style of game have lead to a poor run of results, where each good result and passable performance is followed by two or three poor ones. His lack of confidence in his initial game plan was later mirrored by his disappearance from the club's media avenues.

It also saw an erratic shuffling of the playing decks from week to week, no two lineups ever quite being the same even when there was the chance to follow up on a winning effort. In defence and in midfield, it was impossible to tell what his preferred structure was once he abandoned his high press. Player positions changed, mostly to no improvement - except for the move of Oliver Minatel to defensive midfield - and morale obviously crashed. Some of the poor morale is on the board as well, obviously, and clearly at least some of the players have little enough respect for Kolman or for the board - leaking posts from their senior squad's private Facebook group is just one sign among many at the collapse in discipline and morale within the playing group.

And Kolman's use of the bench - or just as often, non use - was also inexplicable. I understand that he may have thought that the youth players he had there were not ready to step up, but there were situations where an inexperienced but nevertheless fit youth team player was seen as far inferior to a crippled senior team regular.

Con Tangalakis has been appointed the senior coach for the rest of the season, which was always a likely outcome once he was brought into the fold a few weeks ago. At the moment I'm hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. here's to being proven wrong. Please, prove us all wrong.

Next game
Northcote at home on Sunday, in the club's most important game in 14 years. I know I've said something like that across the past several years, but is it any less true this time around? It could be the start of something good, or just the continuation of the very bad thing we already have.

No word on whether Matthew Millar will be back from his trial at Central Coast Mariners, though the word on the street was that it was a two week stint of which last week was the second week. No word yet either on whether Iqi Jawadi will be fit enough to take part in any way this week.

Around the grounds
Grim
At McKechnie Reserve in St Albans on Saturday arvo  for the state league 2 north-west Greek derby between Westvale and Altona East. Hadn't been to Westvale for a few years now, but times there seem pretty damn tough. Very low attendance, and not much support or even volunteer culture - when you have an elderly bloke with obvious hand tremors making the souvs, it's not a great situation out there. (An OK souv at a good price by the way, which makes me wonder why South can't do something similar). Westvale on field are also in big trouble, just the one win so far this season, in second last place, and almost certain to go down to state 4. Altona East aren't crash hot, but their lower mid-table position means they're safe from relegation even at the midpoint of the season. To Westvale's credit they put in a solid shift throughout this game, and perhaps deserved to lead at the break. Altona East were better in the second half, which doesn't mean they were good, but this game had a bleak hue to it, and the increasingly dark skies - this game finished in near darkness - created a portent that this was going to be hard-fought scoreless draw. Which is exactly what happened.

Final thought
During the game someone found what appeared to be discarded membership card in Clarendon Corner, and the vibe seemed to be that someone had had enough of everything South Melbourne related, and who could blame them. I was given the card, recognised the surname scrawled in texta on the back, and having contacted the card's owner, I can relay to you dear reader that it was not "discarded", only "lost". So, one very minor saving grace from last week's mess of a match day.

Learnings - Pascoe Vale 2 South Melbourne 2

Because I squandered 7,000 words on that other post, and since nobody likes a waffler, let's keep this post reasonably short and sweet.

What have we learned so far in 2018 about what this team is?

• We have no Plan B. It's the same subs trying to fix the same problem, which is mostly players running out of gas. We have no meaningful depth, which makes implementing a tactical adjustment very difficult.
• We look great at the start, fresh and lively and dangerous. We actually look really good, and one can't actually say otherwise. Then it gets a bit iffy. We maybe concede a goal and drop our heads, lose our way quickly. Then as the game wears on, all of that disappears. Before we run out of gas, if we lose the ball anywhere, we're quick to win it back. When we lose the ball after the hour mark, the ball zips up to the other end in a flash. Our defensive transition becomes woeful.
• Our crossing is garbage. That's been the case for a long time anyway, but this season it has been much worse than usual. We also don't have a set piece taker. Again, this has been a problem for a number of years, but this year even our usual tolerable option (Marcus Schroen) isn't available. Now in terms of corners, that's near enough to a lottery anyway. But whether you hate or merely tolerate him, the Peoples' Champ is not a free kick taker.
• Last year it was the right hand side which was a mess, this year it's the left. And when Brennan runs out of steam and gets subbed off, both wings go missing, as Oliver Minatel hasn't yet done anything of note.
• The striker insurance plan is in as much trouble as last year, and every year since we've relied on Leigh Minopoulos to be the one and only back up to Milos Lujic. If it's true that Giordano Marafioti has suffered a season ending knee injury, we're in even worse shape.
• Some people got a little bit too excited about Christos Intzidis a little bit too quickly. Despite only having played against two of the smaller and weaker forward lines in the league, people - and not just our own fans - saw his good side and were talking him up big time. But the Intzidis and Konstantinidis partnership was always going to come up against sterner tests. Why couldn't people just be a little more patient?

There is that one possible saving grace that last year we had fewer points and also put up some garbage performances. Just awful really. Remember the 4-0 loss to Port? How about that abomination that was the loss to Avondale? We had five points from the first five rounds, two very ordinary performances wins against lower league FFA Cup opposition. We've already got five points on the board, and the team has looked more capable of winning games than at this point last year.

On the other hand, last year other teams were also tripping themselves up, and we're already streets behind teams that are winning all their games and winning them well. So, for those hoping for an unlikely first place finish, I'd let go of that wish for now. It's the way we've been dropping points so far that's the concern, coupled with the lack of depth, the sense of doom after Taylor's sacking which was temporarily alleviated by the win against the Chinese and the decent looking performances of the first couple of games.

But at least last year you had the idea that the team was playing so badly that at some point they could only play better. Does this team have that capacity?

Next match
Away to Northcote on Saturday. Please note that the kickoff time for this game has been changed from its original 3:00PM timeslot to a 6:30PM start. Also, a good deal of John Cain Memorial Park is under redevelopment, so the western end of the ground seems to be inaccessible to spectators.

FFA Cup news
The fourth round draw was held last Tuesday. This is the stage of the tournament where ourselves and the other Victorian NPL teams enter the competition. We have been drawn away against Hume City. It looks like the fixture has been set for Friday March 30th (the Good Friday public holiday), with kickoff at 5:00PM.

A-League expansion "news"
Um, so apparently this is back 'on' now. Looking at adding two teams in 2019/20, about ten bidding groups and maybe more coming out of the woodwork once the bidding process is made official or whatever. This is the bit I'm most excited about:

"Specific criteria for application will be released"

Though sadly this will only be released to the parties bidding for licences. But, come on, specific criteria at last! A carefully worded framework which has to ensure that the current A-League licence holders pass the mark, while also being set up in such a way to ensure that South doesn't qualify.

Assuming of course that we are even any chance of meeting A-League criteria of any sort.

And to any member of a bidding team out there who wants to sneakily pass on the FFA's expansion bid checklist this blogger's way, that'd be terrific. Utmost discretion will be practiced.

Meanwhile
Our former journalist friend Matt Windley (late of the Herald Sun) has joined the South-East Melbourne A-League bid team. Need to find another journo to suck up to.

Around the grounds
Thank goodness the state leagues begin this week.

Final thought
If I hear the word "hektik" one more time this season...

Debbie Downer Special - Dandenong Thunder 0 South Melbourne 9

I had every intention of finishing this up last night, but I somehow ended up drinking bourbon and coke while watching season one episodes of Law & Order SVU on TV, back when they used a blackboard instead of fanciful electronics, and John Munch's presence on the show was still meaningful. So it goes.

The post-mortem on a game as lopsided as this one can go one of two ways. The first approach emphasises how good the winning team was, while the other looks at how poor the loser was. In this case the emphasis, even for a South blog, can't help but be about how bad Thunder were. They were abysmal, about as bad a side I've seen play against us since we re-entered the state leagues 13 years ago.

First up, Thunder were slow. Parking an overweight Theo Markellis in midfield was a bad sign, but across the ground we were able to outrun them with and without the ball. And their setup, described by more observant punters than me as having three at the back, was a disaster waiting to happen. Against a three pronged attack of Milos Lujic, Leigh Minopoulos and Andy Brennan, it failed miserably. I guess their plan was to clog the midfield and play the ball wide. From our point of view - or at least what I thought was happening from my sideline vantage point in the first half - we wanted them to head inboard, where they would hopefully cough up the ball.

And cough it up they did, repeatedly. We know that Iqi Jawadi and Matthew Millar are able to perform that task well enough, it's their bread and butter after all, but Nick Epifano's attitude in the first couple of weeks means that our pressing approach has that extra dose of effectiveness. Playing in a version of the central role that Chris Taylor had tried to use him in every so often, but which had never quite worked, the People's Champ is perhaps on the way to his best season. It's been more of a free floating midfield role - one observer likened it to the kind of role Fernando De Moraes used to perform - and it seems promising at this early stage.

But nearly everything has seemed promising about this early stage of the season, apart from of course Milos' finishing in the first game and Alastair Bray's injury. But there are tougher tests coming up, and we'll start learning more about the team in the next two weeks. Bulleen we knew were going to be one of the strugglers, but I don't think we expected Dandenong Thunder to be that bad. The idea in my head was that coming into the game I expected a tough affair. This was a Thunder side even if they weren't considered a finals candidate, they could at least be counted on to give a better account of themselves than did St Albans and North Geelong last year.

But they were done almost from the outset. It helps that unlike against Bulleen, this time we got our goals early and took away whatever initiative and fight Thunder may have had. Thunder had a handful of shots late in the first half, and one or two chances in the second, but there was never a risk of a comeback. Perhaps Thunder got promoted in the wrong year? Had they been promoted the year before as they should've been, maybe things would've been different. Taking advantage of Dandenong City's choke has perhaps seen them come up not as well prepared, though there were also people saying their last year's team was stronger. Who knows?

The crowd, which mostly seemed to be South fans, was excited in the early parts of the game, muted in the middle, and then celebratory and cautiously cocky by the end - including a bit of dry-humping of one of the goal stanchions by one frisky supporter. There was some discussion about the improved early season NPL crowds, especially as parts of the A-League are seemingly faltering, but this crowd was disappointing in its size. The first home game back in the top flight for Thunder after several seasons, I would've expected double the 500 odd that turned up, but it was not to be.

Dandenong Thunder goalkeeper Sermin Sadikovski comes flying in
 kamikaze style on Oliver Minatel. Photo: South Melbourne FC.

We were 4-0 up at halftime, but kept adding goals almost at will after the break. At 8-0 up and the game winding down, the most surreal moment of the match unfolded. Dandenong goalkeeper Sermin Sadikovski - up to that point the one blameless Thunder player - embarked on a kamikaze mission the likes of which I have not seen for some time. A long floating ball was being contested by Oliver Minatel and a Thunder opponent, and all of a sudden there was Sadikovski, flying in with a lunging studs up tackle ten metres outside his own area. He of course got his marching orders, and Minatel fortunately managed to avoid serious injury. That's why they invented shin pads. Having made all their subs, veteran Thunder goal scorer Veton Korcari put on the gloves, noting to the South fans behind the goals that since he wasn't likely to score a goal he may as well try and stop some. He managed to hold onto an on target but tame Foschini shot, to the applause of those same South fans, but his clean sheet was soiled soon after when Epifano managed to slam one home from a slight angle.

Apart from Thunder being abysmal, what did we learn from Saturday? That we have goals in us, from multiple angles, that we are definitely playing a different style, but we kinda figured that out the week before as well. Everyone seems to love Christos Intzidis, with South and non-South fans alike noting the difference in the way he moves around and surveys the field compared to local players. Still, I'm concerned with two elements of our defensive efforts; the first is what happens when our fullbacks especially get stranded upfield - do we have the processes right where the wingers know they have to cover without being told?

(it's a pet hate of mine of Australian soccer players have to constantly be told to do things which they probably should be able to think of for themselves. This isn't just an issue at this level of course, but at higher levels from what I can tell from the little that I watch of Australians playing in better competitions.)

But I think we look our most vulnerable at the moment when teams push us back onto our 18 yard box, and we've let the two otherwise mediocre sides we've faced so far get a look in either with shots or with time enough to make passes through. But I'm not arrogant or stupid enough to think we're going to go through entire games without the opposition getting a sniff at all, and it's too early to make the jump from coincidence to trend.

Depth is the thing that seems to be bothering people the most. Centre-back is covered well enough with Konstantinidis and Intzidis, as well as Ajdin Fetahagic and the injured Jake Marshall. If something happens to one of our wing-backs? Yes, Konstantinidis can play either full back position, but would you want to break up his partnership with Intzidis without just cause? Can Josh Hodes play senior NPL football? It was impossible to tell from Saturday night, and you'd never want to write someone off based on 25 minutes of an increasingly decrepit match. Our wingers are talented, but do they/will they have enough gas in the tank to run out games? And still we pray and hope that Milos Lujic does not get injured or suspended, at least until Giordano Marafioti is ready to come back from injury. Depth is going to be the issue that's going to follow the side throughout the year, as the matches pile up, and as risks with tired and injured players get taken.

New scoreboard for a record score. Photo: South Melbourne FC.

I had turned up to the gate in my Shoot Farken t-shirt, which the gate attendant loved the sentiment of, though he clearly wasn't aware of the website. He probably wishes now that we didn't have the chance to shoot (farken) so often. Thunder also had what looked like a new electronic scoreboard, which got a workout no one was expecting, the scoreboard attendant not even bothering to update it to 9-0 at the end of the game. That final whistle was an overdue granting of mercy to not just Thunder's players, or its fans - those few who had stayed to the end - but also to everyone else. This game crossed the line from where a thrashing is enjoyable to where it's almost tedious, pitiable even, where doubts about your own's team efficacy emerge to compensate for how poor the opposition were. Are we really that good? At halftime I was thinking yes, possibly; at full time, I wasn't sure; by the time I got home two or so hours later, exhausted, I could only look ahead to the next few weeks and better opponents and hopefully some clarity of where we stand in 2018.

Of course the other approach is to stop over-thinking it, and just enjoy the win!

On penalties
We got three of them on Saturday, and I thought that maybe a couple of the penalties we got were a bit soft, but you know what? Maybe we've been conditioned to think that a penalty should require a more robust kind of foul than anywhere else on the field. But why? A foul in the box is no different to a foul anywhere else, right? It's the same rules, yes? And if we happen to be on a trajectory where we receive an above average amount of penalties, it's only because we actually get into the box, surely? Remember the Gus Tsolakis years, where we didn't ever get in the box? Once we're in the penalty area, it's up to the opposition defenders to behave themselves, and if we get past them, maybe not nudge bodies or tug at shirts. And I would say the same for our defenders at the other end of the ground. Maybe stricter enforcement of fouls will mean that players will have to learn to defend better.

Next game
Oakleigh away on Friday night. Oaks have lost their opening two matches, an unlucky loss against an at this stage improved Knights, and a narrow loss to Bentleigh, so they're under the pump at the moment. Some will point to our rubbish record at Jack Edwards in recent years - I think that our last win there, apart from that cup semi-final win against the Bergers, was back in 2013 - but this is a different team and a different style which may be able to get a win over Oakleigh here at last. Apart from losing both their league games, Oakleigh are also dealing with a mini-injury crisis, with both their starting centre-backs being injured in the first week, and midfield enforcer Wayne Wallace also coming off hurt against Bentleigh. Who knows how many of those injured players will line up against us? Oakleigh keeper John Honos has committed costly howlers in both games so far, so he'll have a blinder on Friday. They still have a lot of firepower in midfield and up front though.

Alastair Bray out for the season
Coming into this season having recovered from a shoulder reconstruction, goalkeeper Alastair Bray will miss the rest of the 2018 NPL Victoria season after the injury he received late against Bulleen was revealed to be an ACL rupture.

Hard to accept the fact I’ve ruptured my ACL in my first game back after a year out with a shoulder reconstruction. Thanks to everyone who has messaged me. I’ll be back https://t.co/Hd6eXUp53w pic.twitter.com/7E8sXxx2AD

— Alastair Bray (@alastairbray21) February 28, 2018

There is talk that the recently retired Nikola Roganovic may come out of retirement to help bolster our keeping stocks. One assumes that if this is true, that it will be as a backup option to Coulter, but stranger things have happened.

Puskas film update
I've been told that the Ferenc Puskas in Australia doco I spoke about last year is going well. Plenty of the notables have been interviewed, and the insights and memories collected sound terrific. But Rob Heath and Tony Wilson still need to get homemade footage from South fans. Apart from costing less than having to buy footage from the ABC and SBS, homemade footage of Puskas and that era of South Melbourne at Middle Park will add a real layer of authenticity that commercial or professional footage just can't match. So if you have footage, or photos, or just a good story to tell about that era, please do not hesitate to get in contact with me. Your archival material - maybe even you yourself! -  could end up in a great little film project, paying tribute to one of the greatest soccer players of all time, as well as the club he called home for three memorable years.

Also, if anyone knows who owns this YouTube account, please get them to contact me, Tony, or Rob.

AAFC roadshow hits Melbourne this Thursday
The Association of Australian Football Clubs, the upstart collective of NPL teams making a big racket around the issues of promotion-relegation and the FFA's congress issues, is in the middle of a national roadshow. The roadshow arrives in Melbourne on Thursday, so if you didn't manage to get a ticket to the Jordan Peterson thing or you don't have to attend soccer training, this AAFC thing might be worth a look. I'll probably be there, arriving with an open mind, and hopefully keeping up that facade for at least three seconds.

The event is being held at Sports House, 375 Albert Road, Albert Park, near MSAC, with the meeting starting 7:00PM.

Around the grounds
Same Knights time, same Knights channel

In lieu of the flyer that was attached to my windshield for
 a concern by some Cro singer coming out to Australia, I'm
 putting up this Croatian bank ad up instead.

Another decent crowd in for a 7:30 start at Somers Street, though clearly not as big as the week before; last week I was forced to park my car on the back fence, this time I parked in my usual spot of the quarry side fence. Ex-South man Shaun Timmins got himself sent off on seven minutes for slapping a Pascoe Vale opponent on the wing in front of quarry hill, and got an earful from teammate Nikola Jurkovic for his troubles - more on Jurkovic later. Pascoe Vale's front three of Van 't Schip, Bernabo-Madrid, and Osmancevic couldn't get much going because Pascoe Vale were playing the most garbage kick and chase football I'd seen since, well, the last time I saw it. Let's just say 2017  Avondale for the sake of it. Knights were holding their own despite being a man down, but then gave a penalty, fell behind, and then looked a bit rattled. On half time Pascoe Vale also went a man down, a denial of clear goal scoring opportunity card that Ben Surey (sitting near me  in the stand with a broken foot) though was only given because of the earlier red card. Now that I've thought about that response in more depth, I've come to the conclusion that that attitude is probably why Surey and his Knights friends get sent off so often. Knights looked the better team when it was 10 vs 10, and equalised thanks to a goalmouth scramble back heel from an uncleared corner. The game had actually got watchable by this stage, and then Knights decided to shoot themselves in the foot when Jurkovic (who else?) got himself sent off. The home side coughed up the ball in defence with five minutes to go, went behind, and in the 95th minute desperation sent everyone up for a last ditch corner, The ball fell to the feet of a Pascoe Vale sub who looked about 15 years old, who ran up the field being chased by the Knights keeper; the aforementioned sub rolled the ball towards goal, and Van t' Schip tapped it home. Then everyone got splashed by the sprinklers as we filed out of the grandstand.

Final thought
That is some birthday cake.

Happy Birthday Stef. What a present, another hatrick!! pic.twitter.com/XDDO7FYSpv

— John Patitsas (@johnpatitsas) March 3, 2018

Jelly beans and road rage - Pascoe Vale 2 South Melbourne 0

I scored two free packs of jelly beans on my way up to the ground, thanks to the rail replacement bus scenario (no trains from Coburg to Upfield), witnessed some road rage at the intersection of Jukes Road and Sydney Road, and that's about as much as any South person got out of our trip to Fawkner yesterday. Pretty much everyone expected the team to be flat and tired after the week's events, and that's what happened.

Stefan Zinni and Tim Mala got rare starts, and Luke Adams was also brought back into the starting line up. Jesse Daley, Marcus Schroen and Michael Eagar all rested. Frankly, I don't think anything different would've worked. We had the aid of the strong wind in the first half, but could only really manage to loft balls over the top to Milos Lujic which would eventually drift into the arms of Pascoe Vale goalkeeper Peter Gavalas.

We had a few corners in the first half, but generally struggled to get in behind the Pascoe Vale defence. When the home side scored with a deflected shot, any doubts that this wouldn't be 'one of those games' were put aside. The second half going into the wind was worse, obviously, and when the opposition has who I consider to be the best player in the league in Davey van 't Schip, it's always going to be tough. Of course he scored to put us out of misery. The team rallied a bit from there - one of this team's virtues is that they push through to the end - but it wasn't going to amount to anything. Pascoe Vale could've won by more, but two-nil seems a fair enough scoreline.

I don't want to single anyone out in particular for not delivering yesterday - though I'm sure there's plenty of opinions on who may be apportioned more of the blame - because as a whole the team never looked quite right. The loss hurts our chances for top spot and national NPL playoff qualification, as Heidelberg beat Bentleigh 4-2 on Friday night, re-establishing the Bergers' three point buffer at the top. It was always going to be tough to make up the ground we lost in the first seven games, and once having made it up, to maintain the pressure.

As far our match last night goes, its main point of interest lay in another farcical example of poor duty of care directed towards a player from an opposition coach. This time it was former South man Gavalas who was the victim. Having copped a knock in the first half, he found himself on the receiving end again in the second. Milos Lujic had been released into a rare bit of space and found himself one on one with Gavalas. Lujic dinked the ball past Gavalas, who fell at Lujic's feet and copped a blow to the head.

Under normal circumstances it would've been a penalty, but the flag had gone up for offside, and thus several minutes were spent checking to see if Gavalas was OK. Despite looking pretty damn groggy, someone made the assessment that he should stay on the field. When play eventually resumed and after some time had elapsed, we endured the bizarre situation of Pascoe Vale coach Vitale Ferrante telling the South support behind Gavalas' goal to shut up so that he could ask Gavalas what day of the week it was. If this (and let's not forget this moment as well) is what passes for duty of care and concussion protocols in the NPL, especially in the case of goalkeepers, then we have to start having a really good think about our values as a sport. Gavalas was eventually subbed off in injury time with Pascoe Vale up 2-0 and cruising. He didn't look well.

Next game
Wednesday night in a catch up game against Avondale, back at Lakeside.

Around the grounds
Once more, with feeling
My last time at Somers Street for the season, and what a season it's been. I can't say I paid too much attention to this game, especially in the first half, seeing as I was talking about Joe Gorman's new book with a mutual friend. It was a pretty open game and Knights gave as good as they got except for the whole scoring a goal thing. Gully led at the break thanks to a wonderfully struck shot from a loose ball at the edge of the box, the kind of goal I'd like to see South score a bit more often. The second half was more of the same except perhaps a bit crappier. Putting their obvious limitations aside, Knights did everything they possibly could to get into dangerous positions and then did everything they possibly could to not score from them. I was actually kind of surprised that they did score, levelling the game and giving their supporters something to cheer for. The poor dears, as if anything other than Green Gully scoring late was going to happen. And that's exactly what happened. I missed the goal because I was looking at my phone because I'd been tagged in some silly Twitter discussion, but I am assured by a Knights fan who did see it that it was the 'kind of goal we would concede against South'. Which is good enough for me.

Final thought
After the game had dinner at this Sri Lankan place near the ground, but it took forever to get home yesterday; interminable wait for a replacement bus at the Gowrie stop, another 15-20 minutes at Coburg, and a half hour at North Melbourne. Mood not helped by reading Seneca's On the Shortness of Life, which puts forward the idea that the thing people waste most of all is time, and this includes games. He probably wouldn't have thought much of public transport delays or watching the NPL. But he's a bit of a know-it-all miserable bastard, and we can forgive him for being one, especially because he'll never experience the thrill of walking at night to a car parked near the soon to be derelict supermarket in the dodgy car park near Sunshine station.

Is this form? South Melbourne 3 Pascoe Vale 0

OK, so just about no-one was there to see it for who knows what reasons, but those who were there saw it and were pleased by it. Well, maybe - but who wants to go deep into the hearts of Hellas fans?

You can't say there wasn't a plan, and that it wasn't carried off with aplomb. Do people still use that word, aplomb? Seems like the kind of word that was long ago destroyed due to overuse by sports broadcasters. South let Pascoe Vale, with their much vaunted attack led by Davey van 't Schip come to it time and time again, and survived most of what Paco threw at them. Us? Why not. for the time being it seems we're mostly on the same page.

In return, we went up the other end the bare minimum of times, and scored three goals. The first two were hardly pretty - the first of which saw a ball headed forward, then headed forward again, ending up with the flatfooted Paco defender being out sprinted by Matty Millar who proceeded to chip the ball over the keeper. For all the flak I've given him, I keep forgetting that Millar won the NPL's young player award last year.

The second goal was almost as bad, a free kick from out wide by Nick Epifano, headed sideways by Milos Lujic, which the commentator on the South Melbourne produced video will say was deliberate but to which I will disagree, and not just for the sake of being a contrarian. It found Luke Adams unmarked at the back post, who tucked the ball away well. So after having signed Carl Piergianni as some kind of English non-league superstar defender - with his penchant for scoring goals the added bonus of the acquisition - it's the same old faces doing the business.

Adams popping up at the back post to get his one goal a year ('he scores once a year) and an injury free Michael Eagar playing something like his old self. Of course that's no slight on Piergianni, like everyone else who isn't Milos Lujic and at a pinch the People's Champ, he has to earn his position, and with Adams coming off injured he may get a starting get on Friday. Oh, and credit on the defensive front also to Tim Mala, whom I've had in the 'sack him' crosshairs for some time now, and yet who has improved significantly in the last few weeks or so. Maybe he took the news of Kristian Konstantinidis' reduced suspension as a motivating factor in order to lift his performance?

But back to the main thrust of the game. We sat back, absorbed pressure, hit on the counter and scored from set pieces. That won't work against every team, but it did work this week because while Pascoe Vale have a potent attack, or at least one potent attacker, them not being allowed to shoot from within the 18 yard box made things harder for them, as did former South man Joey Yousseff trying to score with anything other than his head.

They were also a bit of a shambles at the back - and a bit slow, too - and we were right to take advantage of that. Marcus Schroen's clever and perfectly weighted pass to the People's Champ, who scored with a class finish was a very nice sequence of play, but it also depended on exploiting the opposition defense being slow and out of position. And there's a lesson in that for everyone - we watch our team every week, and because of this and because we are South fans, we get to know all our weaknesses on a very intimate level.

But we (in the general sense, you know, those South fans who have lives or who don't turn up to non-South NPL games other than to do Dodgy Asian Betting calls.) don't watch other teams, and don't get to see how bad they can be or learn their general and specific weaknesses. And a variation of the old (new) adage applies - if they were really any good, they wouldn't be playing in this league.

So, just on that, Nikola Roganovic's goalkeeping efforts ranged from the expected - full length diving saves; to the not so good - where a regulation catch somehow went through his legs and almost into his own net; to the sublime, a triple effort to keep out van 't Schip and one of his buddies from scoring when it should have nearly been a given. But, there's that other lesson: all goals count the same no matter how pretty they are or aren't, and all no goals are worth exactly diddly squat regardless of the effort applied into achieving that diddly squat.

So a slightly flattering 3-0, another home win, another step further away from the relegation, another step closer towards the top six. The injuries to Millar and Adams on a short turnaround aren't good news, but Luke Pavlou did OK filling in for Millar, Piergianni wouldn't mind another chance to prove his worth.

Next game
Bentleigh Greens at Kingston Heath on Friday night.

FFA Cup news
The draw for the next round is on Friday. Still a few games to be played in the current round at the time of publishing.

Desserts
I saw last week somewhere that 'desserts' backward is 'stressed'. Coincidence? Probably, but there was some stress in the terraces about the lack of loukoumades. Where are the loukoumades people? Are they ever going to turn up? Why can't they shoot them out of novelty cannons into the crowd? What would the liability insurance be like if a loukoumada with peanuts hit was shot by a cannon into the crowd and hit someone with a nut allergy?

Maybe this problem is confined to three of four people, but for all the good cheer and service that the social club has provided, where are the desserts? And no, I'm not going to come into the club on my day off just because you have pancakes on those days.

More document uploads
Super thanks to Todd Giles for several Newcastle KB programmes from the late 1970s and early 1980s; glad that South of the Border could help fill in with some of the gaps in your collection. Thanks also to Ian Syson for the 2006 home game against Heidelberg. You can of course find those things here.

The jewel in this week's crown is the Vic Soccer '88 annual. Borrowed from Mark Boric, it took me way too long to scan considering its magnificence - as Boric has noted, it's what every season summary or yearbook should aspire to. Team photos of NSL, State Leagues, Amateurs and Victorian State Representative Junior teams. An amazing document.

I've also scanned some old Carlton programmes. I haven't linked to them anywhere, because it's all getting a bit unwieldy, but if you want those I can send you the links. Really need to set up that separate Oz soccer library site.

This photo of an Apex gang member wearing a South jacket
while being interviewed for A Current Affair has been doing
 the social media rounds. For those confused by the jacket's
colour scheme and provenance, it's apparently from the long
 defunct affiliation with the Piranhas academy set up. The
more pressing concern is that people are apparently
still watching A Current Affair.

Around the grounds
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Pumpkin Seeds
Another Saturday afternoon, and another trip around the corner to Castley Reserve, because Westgate seem to have received an inordinate number of home games - in their home away from home - to start the season. No complaints from me, except to note that they play some pretty rubbish soccer. This time Westgate's opponents were Keilor Park who were apparently having a very good season; Hard for me to tell from watching them plod around this match. In the first half, Keilor tried to pass their way into the 18 yard box, which didn't work well because they're not that talented and because Westgate were sitting pretty deep. Having limited the effectiveness of their opponents, and managed to eke out the only two chances of the first half - at least of which they should have scored from - Westgate decided to change their setup in the second half. They conceded a goal from a corner and never looked like they could get that goal back. At least the cevapi roll was decent. The small Altona Magic contingent in attendance would have learned nothing from this game.

Final thought
My blogging celebrity only goes so far, with last week another Paul receiving misdirected credit from a club legend about the things he writes on the internet.