Ten blog posts that will probably never see the light of day

In lieu of Kiss of Death's absence this week - and I'm disappointed, because you know KoD would've had something good for derby week, if only they had the time - here's a self-indulgent piece from me instead.

If you think most of what gets put up on here is crap, then you've obviously never seen what doesn't make it to publication, and is just sitting there in draft form waiting for some attention. So here's a list of some of the half baked ideas, poor attempts at humour and victims of 'never found the time to finish', sitting in the South of the Border vault. Thank goodness most will never come to fruition.

1. On Modernity - an earnest, and perhaps over earnest, piece about the whole Against Modern Football movement, and how its faulty nomenclature in particular betrays a self-interested and broken sense of nostalgia. Some of the ideas are rock solid, but when even I choke on the earnest tone of a piece, you know it's best to just let it go.
2. Les Murray as Paul McCartney - a smidgen of an idea at best from several years ago, where I would discuss how everyone hated Les Murray rather than Johnny Warren because Warren, like John Lennon, was dead, and we show a lot more respect to the dead than the living. The article never got very far - just a few hackneyed paragraphs - and eventually I came to despise Murray as much as the next bitter. Good thing then that I never even got close to finishing the piece.
3. 10 possible reasons Peter Kokotis is no longer general manager - Oh dear. A 'humourous' piece, this one is actually complete, but just very unfunny, in the way that a non-humourist like myself writes it and thinks it's funny, and then five seconds after finishing it realises that it's clearly not funny. 
4. Is Blogging Enough? - last year maybe, someone - probably Dean Rosario - had a crack at the thinkers and writers of the Oz Soccer world, especially the bitters. That prompted some brainstorming on my part about the worth, effect and role of blogging and writing on the game as opposed to getting your sleeves dirty in some more traditional, authentic and 'practical' manner. Everything I would have said in the piece would have been in defending what I (and others) do, but these people have their own axe to grind anyway, and besides, who wants to hear writers talk about writing?
5. Match report in Hattrick style - Hattrick is an online football management game whose games, played in real time, are entirely text based. It has its own very particular style of reporting on a game - only significant events are reported, and sometimes there just aren't a lot of them - and I wanted to experiment with adapting Hattrick's style to real world football, and then write about it for Hattrick's internal press site, I tried this once with the 2-2 Southern Stars game from a couple of years ago, with help from Gains while taking notes, but too much happened in that game to make it workable then. I would love to revisit this idea, though it would need a duller game and someone to help me point out the precise players doing significant things.
6. South Melbourne matches or yearly reviews based on celebrity/guest reviewers - Like the Hattrick match report idea suggested above, I would have used the style of particular types of reviewers to liven the experience up for myself. Potential imitations included Robert Christgau (already done sorta in my Heavy Sleeper stuff), David and Margaret and reviews (good and bad) from Amazon customers. This could be revisited as a gimmick at some point, but who knows if I'll ever have the gumption, or the requisite self-discipline.
7. The search for the ultimate South Melbourne player - Born from times when we were in a bad patch and the supporters would twist themselves into ethical knots about what kind of players we should sign (loyal, Greek and Greek Orthodox, not traitorous dogs, young but experienced, and who would play for free). The fact that I couldn't draw did not help this article's case, but as you may well have guessed, that was only part of the issue..
8. It was and always will be our fault - Defeated and defeatist - but still fighting - piece aimed at Paul Daffey of The Age and Footy Almanac. Back in 2010 Daffey had a go, as so many of his ilk have, about how our South has destroyed the Lake Oval, while ignoring the facts that a) South Melbourne footy club left the place in 1981, and b) our South lost its traditional home of Middle Park due to a stupid car race, yet still had a desire to remain in the local area. In the end, the points that I made in the relevant comments section were far better than the apoplectic ramblings I had metaphorically scribbled into the draft page here.
9. Steve from Broady's 2015 Asian Cup diary - No one got into the Asian Cup like Steve, and I mean no one. He followed the Socceroos up and down the coast, watched games from other teams in the relevant cities, managed to squeeze in some tennis and one day cricket along the way, and at one point even make a tray of lasagne. He told me once that he'd completed the first six days, but I haven't seen it, and I'm not optimistic that I'll see the rest either.
10. Annotated review of Tony Wilson's 'Australia United' - I didn't like this book for all sorts of reasons, and I was all ready to put it up a review at some point late last year or the year before - I can't remember exactly when - but I sent it to someone else first for perusal. They said it was good, but mean, and that discouraged me from putting it out. Following a reading of Stewart Lee's autobiography, which included annotated transcripts of three of his shows, I gave the same treatment to my review. I think it actually turned out pretty good (if still self-indulgent), so the reason this isn't getting published here is due to aesthetic grounds rather than content - it needs to be in print to project the full effect of annotations. Sadly, unless something miraculous happens, it'll probably never see a print run.

South win Supreme Court battle - but will it be enough?

Justice Pagone handed down his judgement today, agreeing with the FFV that they may substitute additional charges as is allowed under their constitution, but that in this instance they did not properly offer South an opportunity to defend the newly created charge, which included both not giving enough notice and not articulating the charge. Justice Pagone also awarded legal costs to South - though it seems like we did not get all our costs paid, but rather the majority.

The crowd was the biggest of the trial thus far. At least four South fans in attendance pondering whether to start chanting when the verdict was handed down, asking if anyone had any flares, and whether we should have brought our South scarves to pretend to be ultras for the cameras outside. In the end, nothing happened, and people got quickly to replying to the several dozen phone messages they'd received asking about the case.

The press also turned up today, filling up at least four spots in their section of the courtroom. One bloke was from the ABC, and you should probably keep an eye out for a brief segment featuring Nick Galatas speaking to them outside the court. According to the journo, when asked what the significance was of this case, he said it was something a little different and unusual. Obviously not familiar with Victorian soccer. If I'm not mistaken, Michael Lynch was also there. Probably hasn't reported on a game of ours since 2005 (apart from the Victory friendly), but there he was. Meanwhile Paul Daffey gets a weekly column talking about the VAFA. Beggars can't be choosers I suppose.

The net result is that sometime soon, possibly as early as tonight, the appeals tribunal will be reconvened to hear the case once more. Justice Pagone made the point that he did not have the authority or the will to demand that the FFV use an appeals board made up entirely of people who had not been part of the original appeals tribunal. So the situation basically is that we can still get done over at the appeals tribunal - it'll just be that little bit easier for us to defend ourselves this time. Should we have results of the appeal go our way and we make the finals, we'll end up playing Heidelberg in the elimination final this week. Lovely little coincidence. We'll see what happens.