Party like it's 1998

I'll play them if I have the chance - usually by being the stingy sort and just borrowing it from the local library - but I'm not a big enough fan of modern soccer video games to go out and buy my own copy. But I know some of you are, and you've probably already seen this making the rounds.

Someone has gone out of their way to apparently try and re-create the glory days of Australian soccer for play on the latest Pro Evo game - and by glory days, I guess this means the National Soccer League circa-1998. And who of us could argue? Though like Billy Natsioulas, one does have to query whether they got Trimmers' speed stats right. They also misspell the sponsor's name, bit that's neither here nor there really. Seeing how they no longer exist, Viviannes Collection is hardly going to issue a cease and desist anyway.

I assume those of you who bother with such things know how to download and make the option file work.

Assorted reactions to FFA's Whole of Football Plan

Now I'm not going to go into too much detail about a document whose contents were already decided before they'd even conducted their infamous box ticking consultation from 2014 (for some reason the most popular article ever on this blog). So they want to be the number one sport and cement their autocratic rule by abolishing the states. They told us that months ago - and if we're fair dinkum, there is nothing in this document that should surprise any of us. So here are a bunch of mostly hysterical reactions to this announcement.

Misplaced anger
Some people have been upset by the For Modern Football site's satirical take on South's press release. If anyone should be upset though it should be me, because I was doing this kind of stuff years ago.

Cynical
The stated aim of making soccer more affordable to play, especially junior registrations, is a motherhood statement that should be eclipsed by certain realities of the situation, including the backgrounds and statements of those putting forward that rhetoric.

When during the NPL consultation process former FFV CEO Mark Rendell compared the then potential cost of the NPL junior fees to a sport like swimming (as well as classifying South's then $3,500 program as a 'Rolls Royce' program); when Tom Kalas tried to justify the cost of that South program by comparing it to dance, music or karate; and when Kyle Patterson compared the costs of junior soccer to his kid's violin lessons - what does this mean in the context of making soccer more affordable for kids?

At best it's another motherhood statement in a document full of them; at worst, it's insincere about soccer's attempts to go middle class. It's language which speaks to an aspirational segment of Australian society which is not concerned primarily with cost, but with value. In the same way that increasing numbers of middle class people scrimp, save or make sacrifices to send their children to expensive private schools - and to hell with those left behind the in the public system - it's the perceived value that's more important than the price of that sacrifice.

[A side note - whether there is also a cultural and class consciousness element to this is also worth considering. Several years ago on a certain forum, a bloke posted his observation that some middle class English people were moving towards the upper class game of rugby union, in part because of the persistent and/or residual association of soccer with the working class. I don't know if that observation was accurate, and the English class system is obviously quite different to Australia's, but there is I think something intriguing about that assertion, and something that could very well be applicable to those who see soccer as providing a more cosmopolitan sporting option than the insular and boorish (bogan?) Aussie Rules and rugby league cultures.]

In other words, soccer is now a middle class game. The participant is only useful so long as they can be leveraged for more and more money. It's not about fun any more, or belonging to a club, or even being able to take up one sport during the winter and another during the summer. Each soccer loving individual in this country has had a monetary value placed upon their head, whether they are a player, parent, volunteer, fan, media person or even - and while undoubtedly a sign of the times, also a bit frightening - someone mostly interested in soccer video games. And like the cult-ish Evangelical mega-churches the 'we are football' branding and rhetoric reeks of these days, it's bring your credit card with you when you come to worship.

Of course if your bank balance is smaller, or if your involvement in the game generates minimal value for the upper tiers - or heaven forbid, doesn't agree with every part of this Great Leap Forward - you can go and get stuffed. This is disturbing to me because in my line of work I'm required (and want) to see the best in people and their potential. FFA does the opposite. The concept of people getting into and enjoying soccer as an end in itself has been thrown under the bus.

As increasingly seems to be the case these days, I'm reminded of a comment Melbourne Heart CEO Scott Munn made at an academic conference a few years back, about the relative pointlessness of school visits by his organisation.

As an aside, one of the more curious things that was said by Munn, was that one off attempts at trying to convert people to your cause like school clinics were almost doomed to fail (he used some clever analogy about pissing on your own leg - I can't remember how it went, but it was quite funny). 

This was a point expanded upon at last year's Whole of Football Plan meeting in Melbourne, when the failure to leverage soccer's existing base for the A-League was something which FFA wanted corrected (fair enough), but was a point nevertheless which showed how different the priorities of those at the top and those at the bottom were.

The FFA... seemed to think that things like school visits and absurdly inflated participation numbers - which included intangibles like kids playing street soccer - were all about converting kids into being A-League fans. The difference with those of the community club sector was the community club representatives were showing annoyance at the lack of school visits not because of the missed opportunity of getting kids to follow the A-League, but to get them involved with the game of soccer as opposed to other sports.

Some people think soccer is first and foremost a great game to be involved in. Others think the most important thing is not how much you enjoy the experience, but how much they can fleece you for. I guess this is why I'm not in marketing.

Gallows humour

SMFCBLUES07 wrote:

I'll do the honours here Press release: smfc wish to announce since there is no future in football we have abandoned ship and will refocus our efforts in strip clubs not social room

The one with a forced literary allusion
In Toni Morrison's novel Beloved,  the slaves learn that 'definitions belong to the definers, not the defined'. The FFA has spent the past ten years applying that lesson. Soccer is, among other things, wogs, violence, incompetence and marginality. Football is other things: good things, Australian things, mainstream things. Most importantly, FFA has learned from the disparagement that soccer received from other codes over the decades, and vowed that it would never succumb to the same fate - not only this, but they have striven to take it to the next level, by appropriating the language of the oppressor and using it as a successful example of wedge politics.

Terms like new dawn and bitter, mainstream and ethnic, new football and old soccer  - they all create division, and almost everyone has bought into them, this writer included. From our side of the fence, there have been those like the long gone Pumpkin Seed Eaters who have attempted creating other names, such as foundation clubs; journalists, when they weren't completely on the bandwagon, traditional clubs; FFV and FFA when they tried to find the most patronising PC term possible, community clubs. The net effect of all these definitions though was to point towards two directions - the past and the future.

Regardless of whether one got sucked into using the terms created by those with the power, or those without it - even my facetious and petty 'I am soccer' catchphrase in response to 'we are football' - the debate has been had on the powerful's terms. It's too late now to to start using different language in the hope that it will somehow turn everything around, but it's not too late to define ourselves outside of the parameters that have set. How we would do that, and what would be appropriate terms to use is an etymological process I'd be interested in seeing developed.

Official
The club released its own response, and it's another in a recent line of measured posts.

MEDIA RELEASE – THE POSSIBLE END OF ASPIRATIONAL FOOTBALL
May 6, 2015 

South Melbourne FC welcomes Football Federation Australia opening up the dialogue about Australia’s football future with the ‘Whole of Football Plan’ released on 5 May 2015. 

However, the current FFA Plan spells the possible end for aspirational football in this country. 

The proposed Plan currently provides no obvious club pathway that allows any club that aspires to develop and improve their process, systems and connection with their communities – or more importantly succeeds on the field – to be promoted as occurs throughout the football world. 

We are also disappointed that the FFA does not detail plans for further development of a second tier of Australian football, to facilitate the intended expansion of the Hyundai A-League and ultimately the implementation of a viable promotion and relegation system. 

Promotion and relegation would assist the improvement of the quality of our top division and provide a breeding ground for players, coaches, officials and aspiring clubs. 

More generally, a key component of all successful ‘plans’ is ‘implementation detail.’ We are keen to review that detail when it gets released. 

The FFA has certainly made great in-roads for our code’s development (for example football broadcasting and the launching of the Westfield FFA Cup), however we are mindful that strategic errors have also been made in the past. 

As a key stakeholder of football in Australia, we will be contacting the FFA to understand and obtain greater detail about their planning processes and to ensure the long term viability and growth of our club. 

Leo Athanasakis, SMFC President
Tom Kalas, SMFC Director

Whatever I may think of the club's approach over these past few years, I'm not going to go out and fault it. They tried to play nice, they tried to be conciliatory, they tried to be collegiate. Melbourne Knights tried to be difficult, tried to dig their heels in, tried to make a scene. No issue with that either. The fact is if they don't want you, they don't want you, and no amount of niceness or hostility is going to change things. Still, it'd be nice if some people, outside of those who are with us now, could have made a bit more of a fuss, if only for show.

Abandoned

This photo is the one the club chose to use to illustrate its press release. I made a comment on the club's Facebook page that it was slightly mischievous. It's a pointed reminder of what we once were, and where we are now. More importantly, it's a reminder that those who could, at the very least, speak up for us - not in an outrageous way, but in a way that they believe that we are still relevant - have chosen not to do so.

That the photo contains two of our most beloved members adds to the sting. And where's former president George Donikian? Spruiking the A-League semi-final with George Calombaris. Where is the Greek community?  At the A-League or the footy, or making fun of us on our Facebook page, telling us we're doomed, that we should give up because they have, and that there's a newer, shinier toy to play with. To be marginalised by the authorities is one thing, but to be marginalised by your own, that's the biggest insult. Making fun of us because we don't get the crowds we used to, as if the people pointing that out aren't part of that problem. And where will Enosi 59 be this week?

Boy, I really didn't see that one coming/Defeatist
Now the part of the announcement that most South fans (plus assorted remnants of old soccer and their associated new dawn sympathisers) picked up on was the FFA finally putting to rest promotion and relegation to the A-League. I am of course on the record as stating that I don't believe promotion is suitable for Australian soccer, and I still hold to that position. But no matter how harebrained I think that idea is, there is something I admire in it, and which seems to have been lost in the wash - and that is that at some level a belief in promotion and relegation is actually an endorsement in FFA, the last ten years and in the future of Australian soccer. It puts forward the belief that there is a viable future soccer in Australia, not just for the 'mainstream' but also the 'traditional'. It's a belief that's not about the old antagonisms, but about sharing a space.

If that's an example of the circumstances of the past ten years creating a sort of forced humility, then so be it. The problem with FFA's approach of incrementally increasing the number of teams in the top flight is that there is still no detail about what plan they'll use. Their own history on the matter is full of contradictions: last October Frank Lowy says that promotion and relegation will happen soon; now they rule it out; David Gallop says they'll fish where the fish are from now on, but now adds that any region with a population of 500,000 will be looked at, despite the problems of Central Coast and North Queensland; they briefly mention in the Whole f Football document that applications for an A-League licence from an NPL team would be possible, but offer no details, no pathway, no method.

Absurd (sans Simpsons reference)
So how do we get back to the top? If the A-League teams monopolise the majority of youth development, if no matter how well you do on and off the park you're effectively locked out, where's the incentive to excel by the processes of reform and self-improvement and by trying to follow the rules such as they exist in the NPL? To merely achieve the honour of being the longest lasting of the ethnic club museum pieces? When I asked on Twitter, rhetorically of course, for someone, anyone, to at least show us the hoops that we need to jump through to make the grade, Mark Bosnich offered to explain it to myself along with the others involved in the relevant discussion, in person next time he comes to Melbourne.

@jgrb @PaveJusup @pavlaki1969 simple,u guys r in Melbourne yes? When I'm down next time let me take u 2 lunch and listen 2 ur fears.xmb

— Mark Bosnich (@TheRealBozza) May 5, 2015

While I appreciate the gesture, and would happily take part in such a meeting, I'm curious as to what Bosnich thinks it will achieve. Does he have some special insight or inside knowledge that's not available to the rest of the soccer public?

Absurd (with Simpsons reference)

What I imagine Mark Bosnich will feel like if he ever follows through with his promise to meet with the bitters.

Personal
This isn't just a story about old soccer fans, or South fans in particular. This is a story that has deep resonance to me as an individual. Now I've never run a club, but I have the utmost respect for those people that do put their hand up to do it these days - even when I disagree with them, and even when they fail. No one is closer to the coal face than they are in terms of seeing the problems and institutional injustices every day, and no one understands them better.

But having written this blog for seven and a half years, and having been involved in the online arguments for long before that, I feel I have a unique relationship to this problem. Getting reconnected with South Melbourne in 2006, and having my writing on the forums praised and encouraged (especially by Ian Syson) has lead to a number of peculiar outcomes.

Firstly, for better and for worse I have become the chief voice of South Melbourne fans outside of what the club controls and what some fans on certain forums put out. My self-declared desire to be the reasonable one, to play a straight bat so to speak, has won me some admirers; but the overall effect has been that the necessity and rigour of trying to fine tune the arguments combined with the increasing and ongoing marginalisation of South means that I have found myself backed into an ideological corner.

I'm not alone in that corner, but that's not really the point. There have been plenty of times when I've been jubilant or outraged, cautiously optimistic or maudlin, inspired or defeatist - these are the general swings and roundabouts of being involved with the game at any level. The point here is that because of South Melbourne I have ended up with the career of sorts that I have now, and the option to be broader and more engaged with Australian soccer such as it exists these days.

Every few months I end up having a discussion with Ian Syson where he worries about my own increasing marginalisation in the soccer writing world, a world where he thinks I can contribute intelligent and cogent arguments to a wider reading audience than I do now. And yet every time we have this conversation, I find some myself being more adamant that I can't make myself be the kind of writer that Syson (and others) would want me to be; and instead of embracing those possibilities of taking an interest in and writing for a broader audience, with each passing year I find my focus getting narrower, and my outlook become one that can allow fewer compromises and extensions of faith and trust.

While a measure of this attitude is inevitably down to my being an introvert, a large part of it is because by associating myself so strongly with South Melbourne, I have been made smaller and more insular by the circumstances of our decline, and my reaction towards those whom I hold responsible. Thus as South has been marginalised culturally, so have I, and I can imagine that at times this is a feeling that many South fans have felt over the last ten years or so.

And while I'm a doom and gloom merchant by trade, the fact is that I don't like partaking in defeatism for the sake of defeatism. A former friend, from back in the days when I was involved with left-wing student politics at Melbourne University, who had me pegged as a hopeless pessimist, later told me that she'd been mistaken; that rather than being an outright pessimist, I was a foolhardy optimist, who when my expectations weren't met, descended into cynicism and irony as a coping mechanism. Amateur psychology it may have been, but the fact that she took the time to think about it resonated with me as much as the content of the message itself.

I resolved then to lower my expectations, to be more cautious. But no matter how much you try to do that, we as human beings inevitably see and come to understand these things through our own prism. In that way, South fans see this plan as hostile to our interests. Outside of us, an acquiescent and largely apathetic soccer public just goes along with it. All the pride, the incapacitating anger, the depression that we experience is at best for those outside of our sphere seen as a regrettable and ultimately forgettable novelty.

Having by and large conformed to the new regime, outsiders do not understand the pressure that exists to conform to or engage with this regime - and that by not doing so it means that you become smaller, narrower, and seen as selfish almost by default, when all you as a dedicated South fan see is your loyalty to the cause. I know this, because having been briefly on the other side of this schism, I've learned the arguments from both sides.

We have collectively been made smaller by the experience. There are people who have lost their passion for the game entirely, while others have given up the ghost on the national team. On the latter point, despite my diminished passion for the Socceroos, I never thought that I'd get to the point where I felt my relationship to the national team would have felt like it had been poisoned by South's predicament, but that's where I am now. It takes a certain level of intestinal fortitude to resist, which at times becomes too much to bear - when seen from the outside, it seems as if all sense of perspective is lost

There were many times when I was writing this post where I had to stop because I was so angry and despondent. That we care that much should be seen as a strength, not a weakness; but how do we convince not only others but ourselves, too, of that fact?

Pragmatic fatalism
So what do we do now? The same thing we always do. Support the club, try our best to make it bigger and better despite all the obstacles that we face. In that way we not only honour the work being put in now, but the history of the club as a whole.

Social club artefact Wednesday - Team of the Century team sheet

I found a small bunch of these during my social club clean out a few years back. Not being there on the team of the century night, I assume these were made available on all the tables. Of course, the team of the century concept has always been something that's baffled me slightly, not only because it was clearly influenced by both the AFL's centenary celebrations as well as the millenarianism that was in vogue at the time, but also because the club was barely 41 years old and well short of the century mark. Of course as with all such endeavours there was also controversy regarding the selections. George Donikian noted at the time (in an interview with the Four Diegos I believe; wherever the link to that transcript was, it's now gone) that Ulysses Kokkinos was left out due to character issues. But perhaps the most interesting decision was to have Michael Petkovic in as first choice goalkeeper, ahead of the very popular Peter Laumets. While Petkovic did have the runs on the board with two national championships, his tenure at South up until that time had been comparatively brief; then again, Oscar Crino's South stint was much shorter. Petkovic is also the only person in the team of the century to have begun his South career in the 1990s - his 1996 starting date coming in seven years after the other most recent inductees. More disturbing perhaps in hindsight, is that due to the circumstances we find ourselves in, there will probably never be another player that could be included in any future or revised team of the century affair.

Supporter artefact Wednesday - signed Paul Trimboli frame

One of our readers, Arthur - who sent us this great photo - sent us another photo a few weeks ago, which we haven't been able to show off until now because of both more topical entries, as well as our continuing cup run which we are all happy with I'm sure.

Arthur's brother Nick apparently bought signed, framed and still mulleted Paul Trimboli photo many years ago from a store called 'Superstars and Legends' in Highpoint (which apparently still exists, just not there). Now, that takes me back, not for the existence of that particular store, but just to that pre-eBay era of when sports memorabilia and novelty bloke stuff stores like What's New seemed to have a presence in every suburban shopping centre (and which also apparently still exists, albeit in places I'm unlikely to ever come into contact with).

Trimmers haircut aside, it's also always confuzzled me as to why 'South' becomes 'Sth', in situations when there's obviously room to fit the entire word in. Anyway, thanks to Arthur again for sending us material to share - if you'd like to do the same, please, don't hesitate to contact me. More cup action next week, so the artefacts take another break, which is irritating because I have some really good stuff to show.

Did I mention the rain enough times? Ballarat Red Devils 1 South Melbourne 2

The temporary stand felt temporary, the grass on the field was in magnificent condition, and our under 20s had lost the curtain raiser 3-1 without managing to score a goal of their own making. So everything necessary was in place for Ballarat's first home game of the season and the first official fixture at their new Morshead Park venue.

Good luck trying to get a coherent match report out of me this week. I ended up behind the goals in both halves, so that meant our view for most of the game wasn't crash hot. And then it rained, and there were umbrellas, and I had lent my umbrella to some other South bloke because he didn't have squat and I was then forced to hide under Gains' golf umbrella, and forget it. All you need to know was that it got very, very wet, very, very quickly, and pretty much didn't stop for the rest of the afternoon.

Michael Eagar controls the ball, before putting it back into
the six yard box... Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

While it wasn't raining during the opening 20-odd minutes, we managed to score twice, putting in much the same sort of style of play that we did the last time we played these guys. Milos Lujic managed to score an easy one after good play to release him into space; and Jamie Reed scrambled the ball over the line, after Michael Eagar controlled the ball at the back post from a corner and put the ball back into the six yard box.

...where Jamie Reed waits to pounce on the scraps, making
the score 2-0 to South. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Reed also hit the crossbar with a dipping shot - they were using the Brazuca balls that will be used for the World Cup this year, which swerved a lot despite the slippery conditions - and Lujic had an empty net chance ruled out for offside, which I have no idea whether it was or not, but no one seemed too flustered by the decision. There was a very good diving save from Ballarat keeper Aaron Romein to deny an effort that was heading into the bottom corner.

Things turned towards the end of the first half when we coughed up a free kick on the edge of the area - it didn't seem like a free kick to many of us at the time - and Dane Milovanovic hit a great shot into the opposite top corner. I reckon Jason Saldaris got a hand on to it, but regardless there was little he could do to keep it out. To be fair, we had taken our foot off the throat by that point anyway, which was disappointing because it's happened so many times this season in the middle of matches.

The start of the second half saw us reclaim the ascendancy, though without the clear cut chances that we had created in the first half. Ballarat then took over, without creating pretty much any clear cut chances that I can recall, aside from some crosses that went flashing across goal. Of more concern was the way we were - or rather weren't - adjusting to the conditions. Instead of trying to play simply, we tried to play a fancy short pass gimmick sort of game, which didn't help our cause most of the time. Reed and Tyson Holmes both picked up injuries, which will start to test our depth if serious.

Even when the sun came out, it just kept on raining.
Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

We managed to hold on though, having played 30 odd minutes of very good football, and 60 odd minutes of less than stellar stuff. So, seven from seven and four points clear of second placed Oakleigh, who are firing on all cylinders at the moment. While we may have broken our 1960 record for best start to a season, we can't rest on our laurels even for a second, because the chasing pack is not far away - though Bentleigh's loss at Green Gully was a welcome event.

The spirit of Ballarat is the spirit of Australia
Gimme shelter
We're not quite one to talk, what with us still not having a social club, but what kind of official opening has the ground half-finished? The outer hills were roped off, possibly because they recently had new grass seedlings sown into them. The temporary stand, while adequate in terms of seating function, offered absolutely no protection from the rain, and especially for the film and stat contingent of our media team.

Limited shelter at Morshead Park, so the @smfc stats man has to improvise. #NPLVIC pic.twitter.com/y4rTkXKHNy
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) May 3, 2014

The FFV seemed to have set up a marquee of some sort, which I suppose people could have gatecrashed but at the cost of the view, and the main pavilion wasn't complete, so no one could use that either. I'm sure once it's actually finished it'll be a good facility (though I'm not sure how the shelter situation will be sorted), but it was disappointing that it wasn't finished.

Local tastes
Having heard rumours that Ballarat once provided, but had then stopped offering chips and gravy as part of their canteen offerings, my expectations were low. And so it came to pass, as the menu was indeed quite limited and pedestrian: pies, chips, hot dogs, dim sims etc. Not a souvlaki or a cevapi roll in sight. I went for the hot dog, which didn't kill me - take note Green Gully. The pre-match musical offering was also a little different - rather than our awful house music selections, they went more for the old school bogan theme - Guns 'n' Roses, AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd etc.

Indigenous literature of Ballarat
They had a match programme ($3) which was quite acceptable, especially with their statistical offerings, including crowds. According to said match programme, on their away trips the biggest crowd Ballarat faced - aside from our 1300 odd - was at Green Gully, with about 470 people. Green Gully may have no fans, but on this measure they seem to have had more of them than Northcote, Heidelberg, Pascoe Vale and Goulburn Valley. The match programme also had a major typo in the coach's and president's messages, with 'Morshead' becoming 'Morehead' - which is incredibly juvenile for anyone to point out, but also an insult to our veterans.

Won't someone please think of the children?
The poor Ballarat ball kids. I'm not against their presence out there, but at least give them some sort of wet weather gear to protect them from the elements.

Rules change in the Reaches
Seeing as the VPL was such a Melbourne competition, the adjustment to the NPL has brought with it one unpleasant development - home town refereeing. Maybe this is, as in the words of the Ballarat faithful, a lot of sooking, but it appears as if the handball rule hasn't made it out there just yet. Or maybe they were actually refs from Melbourne and didn't think the rules were breached on those occasions, under the particular circumstances that refs will tell you handball has to occur for it to be called as such. Apparently cradling the ball in both hands in the penalty box doesn't count.

Add to this Aaron Romein getting away with hitting 9/10 of his goalkicks while the ball was still moving. I think he got called out for it by the ref once. After another dreadful call with the requisite whinging by South fans, one of the Ballarat smartalecs yelled out 'stop your sooking', to which one of our own wits replied, 'well at least we get to home to Melbourne after this', which was perhaps a little harsh but seemed a fitting response at the time.

And then there's this, which doesn't fit into anything in particular
This was tweeted by FFV correspondent (and reader of the blog) Steven Chang

First place we come across in Ballarat: this Maoist cafe. #NPLVIC #BRDvSM pic.twitter.com/TrNx278dIp
— Steven Chang (@Gixibyte) May 3, 2014

Next week
First up we're away Berwick City in the Dockerty Cup on Wednesday, then back home for our biggest test of the season thus far against Bentleigh Greens. While we should not take Berwick lightly, it will be a chance for some of the players currently on the outer - Tsiaras, Mullett, Minopoulos, Maynard, Boaheme etc - to get a bit of a run. The second match should be our toughest test to date. Bentleigh are coming off their first loss of the season, and will be looking to make up the gap between themselves and ourselves as quickly as possible.

Public transport thoughts
Let's get the hate mail out of the way early on.

@PaulMavroudis Just fucken drive, you're too keen on Public Transport ffs
— Pave Jusup (@PaveJusup) May 3, 2014

Anyway, VLine is great. Comfy seats, properly heated trains, numerous sheep sightings, and a severe lack of metropolitan rail network type arseclowns. A solid 90 minute trip from Spencer Street, where I got to meet some bloke (a former train conductor apparently) who told me he had a book collection in the realms of 60,000 items, as well as having once associated with the persons in Frank Hardy's circle. Also, we agreed that the VFL was complicit in destroying the VFA.

Getting to the ground from Ballarat Station was a different matter. Forgoing the cab option - even though it was like, right there outside the station - we decided to walk around looking for the number 13 bus. Well, eventually we found it, but we had missed it. Instead, we took up the offer of the bloke driving the number 14 bus to drop us off near Morshead Park, even though there wasn't an actual legitimate bus stop there. That's old fashioned country hospitality right there.

From there, it was a relatively short walk  around the greyhound track to the ground. I can't say much for the trip back into the Ballarat city centre - huge thanks to Con, who gave us a lift back - but I can't imagine it would have been that much more to find a bus ot get us back, although the rain would have things less pleasant.

From the station we headed out to Sturt Street for a feed, stopping at the quite good in terms of food and value for money Aroma of India restaurant, and when we got back to the station, the severely delayed train arrived a few minutes after we got there, which was rather convenient.

So all in all my thoughts are that if you want to take public transport out there for a game:

• allow extra time than you would then if you were driving, which is the same as with most public transport really.
• plan ahead - make sure you know how the hell you're going to get to and from the ground once you get to Ballarat.
• add an incentive like staying back a bit longer for some dinner, or get there earlier for lunch, because frankly the Ballarat canteen's offerings are pretty average.

The train trip home at night through the countryside is more akin to hurtling through the infinite void - perhaps as close to being on the Federation Starship Enterprise as I'm likely to get - with only the occasional signal light to break up the darkness until you get closer to Melbourne.

Lastly, Ballarat Station's vending machines are fantastic, and I'm kinda regretting not splurging a little. Chocolate prices from about 10 years ago, and chicken Twisties alongside the usual cheese flavoured ones. Now that's something you don't see every day.

More letters, more often
Remember the letter writing campaign with regards to the lease and social club issue I tried to get kickstarted a little while back? Well, as many of you will recall, I did get a response to that letter from the Minister for Sport and Recreation, Hugh Delahunty, and as it turns out, so did some other people, who apparently received near identical responses.

And while that was encouraging from the point of view of other South fans doing their bit, that encouragement was tempered by the lack of a response to the letter I sent to the shadow minister John Eren. So partly because Martin Foley, the member for Albert Park, seemed well intentioned but otherwise uninformed about the situation, and partly because the promised update from the club has yet to materialise (maybe nothing new to report? A worry in itself), I'm trying again. This time I've included a copy of the Delahunty letter, and asked Eren what his party's position is on the matter. Hopefully this time I get a response, and if I do, I will be putting it up here as per Delahunty's response.

All of this was prior to the breakout of a 'debate' on smfcboard about what we should do, which although it elicited some good points on both sides of the matter, also degenerated into name calling and personal attacks. The middle road path seemed to be the one most supported, in that in general few were seeking the violent overthrow of a nightmarish regime, but on the other hand they did want more information on what exactly was going on.

South of the Border Media Watch
ABC News Breakfast's, FourFourTwo's, SBS's and FFA's crime against (NSL) humanity
While sitting on the couch last Tuesday morning around 7:25, I was watching ABC News Breakfast as is my habit. Fill-in sports presenter Sharelle McMahon read out the news that Thomas Broich had won the Johnny Warren Medal. My response to that was going to be a huge 'meh', until McMahon said that Broich was the first player to win two Johnny Warren Medals.

I thought that maybe I'd heard wrong, so I waited until the 7:50ish sports bulletin to see if she would repeat the mistake, but there was no sports bulletin. So I then waited for the 8:25 bulletin, and sure enough the mistake was made again. So I did what any anorak with a smartphone would do: I made a tweet on the matter.

.@ABCNews24 Broich not first player to win 2 Johnny Warren medals - Viduka, Trimboli and Chipperfield all won 2 in the NSL.
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 28, 2014

FourFourTwo Oz's effort wasn't much better.

And to demonstrate the pitfalls of being an internet smartalec, I left out Damian Mori, probably because of the intense partisan hatred I was suffering at the time - and besides, who the fuck is Damian Mori, apart from the all-time leading Socceroos goalscorer for many years and one of the greatest domestic Australian soccer players of all time. And who are those other bums anyway? A Wollongong bus driver, a guy who chose to be an accountant rather than try his luck overseas, and some half Cro, half Ukrainian bloke from Keilor.

SBS' World Game website sinks to new lows.

And then we played the waiting game. The 8:50 sports update arrived and 'first player to win two Johnny Warren medals' became 'only player to win two Johnny Warren Medals'. FourFourTwo was a little more cautious in its approach - it stated that Broich was the first A-League player to win the award twice - but further down in its article on all the award winners, it mentions only the A-League winners of the award.


Most disappointing was SBS' effort on their World Game site - I mean, if there was one media organisation that should know better, it should be SBS, but that's how low they've sunk these days. But then again, how much can one expect of the ABC's typically substandard soccer reporting, or the New Dawn leaning FourFourTwo, or even the 'what agenda should be push this week?' SBS when the governing body can't even get their details right. Pay attention to the sentence in bold underneath the photo of Broich.

The cynics might say that this is just another example of the whitewashing of  Australian soccer history, but since we're all friends again thanks to the FFA Cup, let's just put it down to someone - maybe the work experience kid, who wouldn't know what an NSL was even if it lit 25 flares and started a riot in their living room - who could do better next time.

So another lesson in futility, which did nonetheless allow me to take an accidental trip down memory lane, as I recalled that I created the original version of the Johnny Warren Medal page on Wikipedia back in October 2006. How good was it? It didn't even include references, just information that I took verbatim from OzFootball.

Special mention to the Herald Sun's David Davutovic, who broke the mould and went the opposite way, by listing all the NSL 'player of the year' winners back to 1977, even those who won the award before the Johnny Warren Medal officially came into existence.

On a more serious note
Still on the Johnny Warren Medal. If the late Johnny Warren has indeed been beatified by many involved with Australian soccer - and I think a strong argument could be made that this is exactly what has happened - then surely his position as patron saint of Australian soccer should belong to all Australian soccer fans, and not just those who happen to be in power or are enjoying some ascendancy at this moment.

And if that is the case, then the very least anyone could ask for as part of this beatification process is that the medal which bears Warren's name have its full history acknowledged, not to make me or other bitters happy, but because those players who won this award during the NSL era were as worthy of it as those who have followed them in the A-League era.

Final thought
Thanks to the players - I assume urged by captain by Michael Eagar - for coming over and thanking the traveling South fans behind the northern goal after the game. Unlike some others, I don't tend to demand such behaviour, and certainly not every week, but it was an appropriate impromptu moment, which made the day just that little bit more worthwhile.

The results of very novice hoarding

Bit of a slow time of year, isn't it? Not much going on for this blog to report on. So let's go back in time a bit, and relive some highs, lows and mundane parts of South history.

While doing some cleaning, I came across some old copies of Neos Kosmos English Weekly from 2001 and 2002. I don't know why I was collecting them, and I'd forgotten I'd even had them.

By contrast, I remembered that I had a half dozen copies of the AFL's Football Record. Goodness knows why. Biggest waste of money, but those were the days before you could get them all online.


You can rest assured that I'm no hoarder - it was just some stuff that had gone from drawer to shoe box to slightly less worn shoe box and so forth for about a decade or so. Then again, I have to share this place with four other people and their crap, so proper hoarding is not so much of an option.

There was other stuff, too, such as:

• Reform of Soccer Australia, which of course we all thought would never happen.
• Ian Knop and the state federations trying to justify the player levy increase to bail out Soccer Australia.
• Something about Ned Zelic wanting to play for Australia again.
• Soccer Australia frantically trying to get the National Soccer League finals onto television.

But none of that had any specific mentions of South. There were only four articles in that lot to do with South at all, and for the most part it's routine stuff. Thanks to my bro for scanning, cropping etc.

The first article is about one time South VPL player Evan Karavitis, when he was just a fresh faced youngster at the Victorian Institute of Sport, looking to make it big in the world of soccer. He got called up for one of the national underage teams, along with a bunch of other hopefuls including then South junior Stefan Piorkowski. Kristian Sarkies is there as well. Some bloke called Postecoglou was in charge of things. According to some basic research, the bloke couldn't coach his way out of box of corn flakes.

The second article is from when we 'miraculously' stormed into the finals of the 2001/02 season after being just awful for about half of it. Much harder these days to have these kind of occurrences when more than half the teams in our national competition qualify for the finals.

The third article is about Paul Trimboli looking to stay at South. Also has some bits about Steve Blair getting involved with the administrative side of the club.

The final article in this collection is about South's first home game of the 2002/03 season, and the difficulties Zeljko Susa had in getting a clearance from his club in Croatia, even though they no longer wanted him.

12 Days of NSL Talkback - Zeljko 4

Zeljko thinks that Culina isn't as good Postecoglou

Late Pumpkins

A bit late, but whatever. You can download it from here. The most notable thing for mine is the reference to a passionate Marxist appraisal of the merits - or otherwise - of the monocultural A-League over the pluralist National Soccer League, by a Queensland academic named Kieran James. I'll have more to say on that in a few weeks. If you're on the Pumpkin Seed Eaters mailing list, you've probably already had it come through your inbox. If not, email me and I'll send you copy.

And the rest? Sounds from the World Football Gala, outdated reviews (my fault), a Singapore Cup preview, Aussies Abroad and the usual angry rhetoric. It's abrasive, sure, but someone's got to provide the Mr Hyde angle to the Dr Jekyll stuff, I suppose.

What does South Melbourne Mean To You? Gala Ball Edition

South of the Border tried to get its head on this, but was not able too. Pity. Too many names to list in the labels section.

smfcTV special feature - Paul Trimboli, Michael Valkanis, Steve Panopoulos

ZOMG! South Melbourne in the press! Not riot related!

Well, maybe not the press exactly, but certyainly at least on the screen. Not sure where they bgot the highest ever goalscorer information from though. Trimmers has nearly 30 more goals. But hey, it's a start.

Vaughan Coveny returns to South Melbourne

February 10, 2009 12:00am

VAUGHAN Coveny, South Melbourne's highest ever goalscorer, has returned to the State League club after four seasons in the A-League.

New Zealand international Coveny spent nine years at the club in both the NSL and State League. 

He scored 88 goals in his 247 matches before moving on to A-League clubs Newcastle Jets and Wellington Phoenix. 

Coveny was a member of the South Melbourne team at the FIFA World Club Championships in Brazil in 2000.

Which one was the bigger game?

For those who haven't seen it already... as well as something to keep the blog going while I'm seriously busy and unable to do substantial updates, nor even troll the forums too much because of crappy internet at home.

Ex-South People *Heart* Melbourne Heart

So former prez Greg 'don't swear please' Kaias is on the backpage of Neos Kosmos, officially as part of the Heart consortium. After churning through Heidelberg, Collingwood Warriors and ourselves, is this the kind of person that we should be looking at for the future health of soccer in this country? I suppose if you've still got Remo Nagarotto out there, the Constantines, Catalano who's ditched the Royals and Victory, and Lowy who's old team dropped out one round into the 1987 season after they'd done a review culling half the teams, well I guess everyone's welcome. Well almost everybody. Even Trimmers is onboard, apparently praising them yesterday on SEN, though not having heard it myself, I'm wary of going on the advice of biased, lying, shit-stirring (poorly) knobjockeys and folks who had screaming kids in the car while it was on, no offence to anyone. Well, now they've got to sell it to the world, and not the just the FFA (though as they've not been given the licence yet, they still have to do that), so we'll get to be knowing them more and more as time passes. Maybe they'll find a way to use us too? Hmm.

ZOMG! South Melbourne Futsalroo action!

While searching for information on the Futsalroos for Ozfootball - by the way, check out the new improved interface, update your links if you have to - I found this infornation from the 1989 Futsal World Cup. Look how many South players aree involved! Ok, they weren't all South players at the time, some were there, some had gone,

Australia's 1989 Futsal World Cup squad. Were they even called the Futsalroos then? And is that SBS commentator Tim White as coach? Though it's a bit of a longshot, does anybody out there have article, photos, or anything of the our boys in action in this tournament?

1 Jeffrey OLVERE
2 Alan DAVIDSONE
3 Steven JACKSONE
4 Robert HOOKERE
5 Oscar CRINOE
6 Paul TRIMBOLIE
7 Robert DUNNE
8 Jason POLAKE
9 Warren SPINKE
10 Kenneth MURPHYE
11 Zarko ODZAKOVE
12 Ernest TAPAIE

Coach: WHITE Tim (AUS)

Billy Nats Is Hellas Mad!

A few weeks back I received a message out of the blue from one Billy Natsioulas, asking if he could contribute to South of the Border. Of course I jumped at the opportunity, and within a couple of days, Nats had got the following piece to me. I kept it on the backburner for awhile, seeking to release it during the week we played the Knights, an appropriate choice I thought. Anyway, if like Nats you would like to send in a piece talking about your love affair with South, or a great game or favourite player, by all means send it this way. Hopefully the floodgates open and we get a whole heaps submissions from players and fans alike. But now over to Nats, and his story.

Hellas Mad
This isn’t some half arsed suck up job and by no means is it my autobiography. I just have a lot of time to think things through and understand whatever happened to my so called soccer ‘career’. While I was doing this I got an understanding where this love for the game began. My dad and brothers were 'Hellas Mad'. This piece is to analyse what made me Hellas Mad, a football lover and a South Melbourne player.

Every home game, my brother, my cousin and I would hop into the back of my dad’s old Corolla and make what seemed like a long journey to Middle Park. We always got there early and parked around 10 minutes away to make sure we got parking that was easy to get out of. I would tie on my Hellas headband thinking that I was so cool. I have three vivid memories of growing up as a Hellas supporter.

The Past
Firstly, the 1991 Grand Final – My dad and I had left a family christening early to watch the final 15 minutes of the game. My dad drove like a lunatic to get to Olympic Park on time and we ran up the stairs, only to realise we were watching the game from the Croatia fans' side of the ground. Nevertheless, we watched and we hoped for an equaliser. My dad thought it was over and in typical wog style we conceded defeat and left early to beat the traffic. As we got into the car we heard the roar, game must have been finished. It wasn’t until we got home that we realised that the roar was for a South equaliser and we miraculously won the championship on penalties. Even watching the replay we couldn’t understand how we won that shootout.

Secondly, a friendly around 1992 between the great Hellas and the suburban Oakleigh at their old ground at Caloola Reserve, allowed me the chance to meet my heroes. Mehmet Durakovic, sporting a plastered broken arm took me under his wing and introduced me to each player. I got all their autographs and was over the moon, but as soon as I got out of that room my older brother stole the autograph book and claimed it as his own… PRICK!

The final memory comes from March 1994, 11,000 people packed into Middle Park to see Hellas vs Croatia. Wadey missed a penalty in the 94th minute that would've given South the game. On the way out we were met by the Croatian fans who started rolling big stones at us from the top of the hill. My dad took us through the trees and snuck us under the fence to safety before finding his way through the crowd and meeting us on the other side.

My career and the present
Who would've thought that after 16 years of supporting South that I would play for their dire enemies, the Knights. Well, that’s where I ended up. Credit to them, they gave me every opportunity and treated me brilliantly. Funny thing was the best game I played for them we got thumped 5-0 against South and a 35 year old Paul Trimboli scored two and tore future Socceroos Roddy Vargas and Adrian Leijer to shreds.

I had made a good name for myself at the Knights but when the NSL died and South came knocking it was just too easy for me to say of course I’ll sign. However, along with the initial signature there aren’t many highlights. Training with a retired Trimmers was great and even though he could barely move he still took the piss out of us. The first game against Heidelberg was great, the Championship in 2006 was brilliant but that’s where it all ends for me. Whether its a curse put on me by some old Croatian lady or simply bad luck my time at South reads as follows: 2005 – Glandular Fever (season); 2006 – Torn Hamstring and Lacerated Thigh (season); 2007 – Torn groin, concussion and head split open; 2008 – ACL knee reconstruction (season).

Not forgetting for a second all the mental issues which come with that kind of run of poor luck, which challenged my ability to get motivated week in week out, which probably doesn’t need to be put into details because everyone knows. I was spent and ready to give it up and many told me to do the same.

So why do I want to come back? I see the same desire in the eyes of my little brother and my students towards South that I had as a kid. I see their love for this club, I see others that have come before me with that same love. No other club has the team spirit that we have because we are honoured to put that top on every week. No other players can walk into clubrooms with the luxuries we have and look up at the names that have come before us. No other club has people like Trimmers and Jimmy Armstrong still around the place because even though they are legends of this game, they themselves know that this club is more special than any individual.

Until I am told I am no longer wanted at South I will keep coming back every year. Even when my body can no longer take it, I will be there supporting Hellas. Like my career, the club has had its dark days and setbacks. But it still has meaning for so many people, even though some try to deny it. Every time I look at my teammates I see that love. Every time I look at my brothers, my old man, my friends and my girlfriend I see that love. Hell, even when I speak to the old Greek bus driver Jimmy at my school, who’s been supporting this club since 1970 I see that love. South Melbourne is not a football club, it is a culture. I no longer play for my football ‘career’. I simply play for that shirt. I know that when I am gone, there will be plenty more to take my place and I will be there to support them… Long Live Hellas!

Paul Trimboli Puma Card

Anyone seen this before? Know what set it comes from? This is from an Ebay auction (still in progress at time of print). I've seen (online) the always available on Ebay Futera set, and the rarer Scanlens sets from days of yore, but strangely perhaps nothing from this one.

Trapped around the heards

Players changing numbers? Allegedly, Gianni De Nittis and Nathan Caldwell have swapped numbers. Pointless exercise or a signal of intent by the coach? Is the curse of the number 9, famously worn by Trimmers for so many years, finally going to be over?

Players sweating at training? Apparently it's all the rage these days down at Lakeside. Make of that what you will.

Angry beavers? An undisclosed amount of --- ----- have apparently told the --- to stick their new ------ ------ up their arse unless their ---------- are ---, and the ------- seem to be we won't help you unless we ---- --- -----. Or something like that. See what happens when silly people tell you what essentially anyone could have guessed anyway, and I assume was no secret in the first place?

And where the fuck is South going to find the money for all these players they're wanting to sign? And will some people just grow the fuck up? Hopefully something more substantial tomorrow. No guarantees though.

Trimboli To Stay At South - Neos Kosmos English Weekly