Zero Sugar - Werribee City 0 South Melbourne 6

Freddie Sey bundles in his first goal for South,
 putting South up 2-0. Photo: Luke Radziminksi.

This was the pre-season game you have when you're not having a pre-season game. It was at a ground that most South fans would never have heard of. You didn't have to pay to get in. It was against a lower league opponent. It was hot, with frequent drinks breaks. And we fielded what was a half-strength team, and still got the job done.

There's really not much more to say than that. What could have been a banana skin game turned out to be anything but. Werribee's senior squad seems to be very young, and while we fielded a couple of kids of our own, there was more than enough experience on the field for us to overcome whatever inexperience our youth team players would have carried into the game.

Backup goalkeeper James Burgess made his debut for South, with Pierce Clark being on the bench. Freddie Sey got his first start as a South player and his first goal. South junior Sasha Murphy made his debut, while fellow junior Yianni Panakos came off the bench and scored a penalty. Marcus Schroen got his first start of the season, and played just over a half. Brad Norton came back into the starting lineup. Gerrie Sylaidos was left out of the squad entirely, as was Ben Djiba, while Harry Sawyer and Henry Hore started on the bench; Hore would come on in the second half and score. Jake Marshall came in for Marco Jankovic, and Daniel Clark also came back into the starting eleven.

The most impressive player on the day was Zac Bates, who scored a couple of goals and set up at least one more. Overall, it was not the kind of lineup you're likely to see again this year. Within five minutes it got on to the front foot with a Norton goal, and without exerting itself too much, then went on to score goals at regular enough intervals to be emphatic without showing off - except for Bates' second goal, which was a bit showing off. 

What could have been a tricky week ends up with three wins, and some reasonably good rotation of the senior squad. Not one of the three opponents we faced over that eight day stretch offered up the kind of challenge that I expected. Magic, despite their spending and player pedigree, and despite taking the lead, were overwhelmed by a team that had only scored three goals in the opening four weeks. Thunder tried hard, and defended well enough, but were mostly kept in the game for as long as they were by some profligate finishing. And Werribee, despite the advantages of a few days extra rest, were out of the hunt within twenty minutes.

All of which means there'll still be doubters over how good this team actually is; and fair enough, too, because it's still early on in the season and there's much to learn. That, and we've also served up some real slop in the first six weeks of the year despite the good results. But as usual, it's worth remembering that things could have turned out much worse. Heidelberg apparently rested a bunch of first teamers, and got done by Nunawading. The sputtering Altona Magic are out, after losing to Ballarat City. But the shock of the round was Altona North coming from behind to beat St Albans - no idea what kind of lineup Dinamo fielded, but that's still a terrific result for a state 3 club.

Looking ahead to the next round of the cup and possible opponents, the draw has opened up more than I thought it would have. As well as the aforementioned NPL trio, Dandy Thunder are also out, having lost to Green Gully. At the time of print, Bentleigh, Dandy City, and Port Melbourne had all yet to play their lower league opponents.

All of which means we'll probably get drawn against Knights again.

Next game

Back to league action, away at Green Gully on Friday night.

Final thought

Some weird cats out there yesterday watching the game from the non-shaded parts of Grange Reserve. Hope they had their sunscreen on.

Scrapbook artefact Wednesday - SM Hellas vs Newcastle BHP, 1993

After initially being a cautiously keen user of the Australian Football Before the A-League page, I'd boycotted it for a few years. Partly because I'm not a Facebook fan; partly because the page was becoming increasingly repetitive and was of poor quality from an artefact and discursive perspective; and partly because the moderators of the site did nothing to curb possibly libellous personal abuse levelled at myself and another user.

But the past is the past. Though some of the discussion on there is still vintage garbage TWGF level in terms of its pitting the past against the present, the quality of the artefacts seems to have improved somewhat, as the page's user base has increased in size. Some people are even posting full programs instead of just newspaper cut-outs!

In amid the usual and the surprising, you occasionally stumble across interesting items like this:

Click to enlarge the image. Credit: Mark Taylor.

It comes from a series of scrapbook notes taken by one of the page's members, Mark Taylor, who has been sharing them on the group's page. The game was South vs Newcastle in February 1993, the home game after the Clash of the Titans. In its own way it's a kinder gentler version of something like this,

Anyway, thanks to the relevant Facebook page, I've also been able to add even more content to South of the Border's match program archive, including the program from the opening of St George Stadium - at present our oldest NSL program on the site, and our second oldest overall. We've also got away to Marconi in 1979, and hopefully soon Marconi away 1980 and 1981.

Tassie All-Stars stun the mighty South Melbourne Hellas in 1981 (via Walter Pless)

Photo of a pennant from the game between the Tassie All-Stars and South Melbourne
 Hellas, sent to Walter Pless by former Tasmanian player Craig Pitt. According to Pitt -
who played  against South for Tasmania in the early 1990s - the likely reason he has this
 pennant is that  he was a ballboy during the 1981 meeting between South and Tasmania.

During the coronavirus downtime, I've been mucking around with a collaborative project set up by Tony Persoglia to create and compile a database for interstate competition and tour matches, which will ultimately be uploaded to OzFootball. It's the kind of information which already exists in a piecemeal format on OzFootball - and in different, hard-to-find print almanacs - but which really needs a comprehensive clean-up so that we have a reliable one-stop shop for this kind of information. Here's a sample page of how this information will be presented once the collective effort is fully unleashed.

Meanwhile, unlike South of the Border, which has been slack with any sort of updating,
Tasmanian soccer journalist and historian Walter Pless has been spending the COVID-19 break putting up a series of fascinating posts on his blog on the olden days of Tasmanian soccer. Our lockdown interests met at the point where I needed info on a Tasmanian rep match from 1965 against an Auckland select in New Zealand.

While digging around for relevant info to help me out, Walter came across some South Melbourne Hellas archival materials, and kindly passed them along - and also managed to write about the Tasmanian state team beating our own South Melbourne Hellas in 1981. Here's the article originally posted by Walter on his blog - which he's kindly allowed me to reproduce on South of the Border. Naturally it's very much from the Tasmanian point of view. I'll have something more contemporary on the blog in the upcoming week.

Walter Pless' article in Soccer Action from October 21, 1981, covering Tasmania's win over South Melbourne.
The article above this one has then Hellas midfielder John Stevenson claiming that "it's Hellas' title in 1982".

Tasmanian coach Steve Darby really put his name, and that of Tasmanian football, on the map when he coached a Tasmanian All-Stars side to a 2-0 win over the highly-rated South Melbourne Hellas at South Hobart on 11 October 1981 before a crowd of 1,500.

South Melbourne Hellas had just finished second in the National Soccer League and their side included Alun Evans.

Evans began his career with Wolverhampton Wanderers and I had seen him play for Wolves in the United States against Stoke City in 1967.

Tasmanian coach Steve Darby. Photo: Walter Pless.

He joined Bill Shankly’s Liverpool in 1968 as a 19-year-old and played for The Reds for four seasons before losing his place to new signing Kevin Keegan.

Evans was the star of the South Melbourne side that came to Hobart but although he went close to scoring several times, the Tasmanian defenders kept him goalless.

Tasmania’s coach, Steve Darby, also had an impressive CV. He had been assistant national coach of Bahrain before coming to Tasmania to coach Devonport.

Darby also played for University and coached New Town Eagles, as well as the State team.

Darby went on to be the State Director of Coaching before leaving Tasmania and becoming a successful men’s and women’s coach in Australia and South-East Asia.

He coached the Matildas and the Vietnam women’s team, and was also assistant coach of the Thailand men’s national side.

The Tasmania All-Stars side was impressive and included former Middlesbrough First Division player Peter Brine in defence.

Photo: Peter Brine (rear at left) back in Hobart in 2018 to
 catch up with Craig Jones (front left), Nick Di Martino
 (rear right) and Denis Payne. Photo: Walter Pless.

The Tasmanian team was: Phil Kannegiesser - Alan Burton, Peter Brine, Darby Conlan, Chris Hey - Steve Kannegiesser, Eric Young, Willy Peters - Bruce Ward, Mark Oakes (Nick Cook 60), Ian Parker.

The South Melbourne Hellas line-up was: Laumets - Boon, Lutton, Xanthopoulos, Traficante - Stevenson, Shirra, Nicolaides, Campbell - Evans, Buljevic.

The Tasmanian side included other imports such as Eric Young (ex-Manchester United), Bruce Ward (one of the most lethal strikers ever to have played in Tasmania),Ian Parker (brilliant left-winger from the UK), Alan Burton (also from the UK) and Nicky Cook (was with Hull City).

The home-grown talent was impressive, too, with Chris Hey, Phil and Steve Kannegiesser, Darby Conlan, Willy Peters and Mark Oakes all playing from the start.

Eric Young (left) and Ian Parker catch up in Hobart in 2008.
 Photo: Walter Pless.

South Melbourne’s coach was former Greek international John Margaritis, who coached Olympia in Tasmania in the 1960s.

The referee was Tasmania’s Norm Johnston, a top-class official who had come to the State from Western Australia. He was here only a few years before returning interstate.

Goals by Ian Parker in the 11th minute and Bruce Ward in the 79th minute did the job for the home team.

I’d love to see the video of the game. It was filmed from the back of a ute parked on the grass at the side of the pitch near the present scoreboard. I know because David Martin and I were the commentators. David, Reg Tolputt and I used to host a half-hour football show on local radio station 7HT on Saturday mornings. Reg was one of the founders of new club Salvos (Salvation Army) and he was also the manager of one of Steve Darby's Tasmanian sides.

My match report in "Soccer Action" [see above] didn't appear until 10 days later because Steve Darby and I had been attending the semi-finals and final of the Under-20s World Cup in Sydney [won by West Germany 4-0 against Qatar].

Jump! Jump! Jump! artefact Wednesday

Ah, 2007. It was a season which held so much promise. We were fresh off a championship, two years after almost going broke. We had what looked like a good squad, and a good first up crowd against the Bergers at home in an exciting game, followed by a thrilling win against Richmond, which I missed because I was at an Elbow concert. Another win against the Essendon Royals, and things looked promising. And then they didn't. Dean Anastasiadis went down with a season ending knee injury in round 4, and we soon found out that for the most part we were adept downhill skiers, but not much more than that, and the season ended with us missing the finals by three points, amid suspicion from some fans that'd we kinda tanked some games - specifically the 3-0 loss at Western Suburbs - because we had cash-flow problems.

But one could easily point to the uneven draw as a causal factor - though the league had 16 teams, there were only 26 rounds - and the fact that we only played that season's wooden spooner Springvale White Eagles just once. We could point to the mess of the goalkeeping situation once Deano went down. And you could of course point to many calamitous poor results, including the 2-0 home loss to Sunshine George Cross the week before that humiliation at Ralph Reserve. But all that is irrelevant compared to the forfeit forced upon us by Football Federation Victoria, for a home match against Melbourne Knights. But first some background.

2007 was a crazy year on the terraces, hills, concourses, and the streets of Melbourne. There were was the Cros vs the Serbs (and Greek onlookers) at the Australian Open tennis. There was a stolen Melbourne Victory banner which found its way to Clarendon Corner in round 1, and which made a reappearance at our game at Richmond. There were also more ethnic related incidents at the Water Polo World Championships. A combination of these things saw FFV and/or Victoria Police - it's not quite clear to me even now who was exerting the greater pressure - to demand unrealistically expensive security measures. South refused to pay the asking price, and FFV preemptively - that is, days out from the game - awarded a 3-0 forfeit to Knights.

The next week we were scheduled to play against Fawkner at CB Smith Reserve. This is the old CB Smith, with the tin shed along the western wing, and most importantly, an open view from outside the southern end, where there was only a high chain-link fence to visually obstruct spectators. It was a perfect venue to conduct what we called at the time a protest against FFV, which naturally proved futile, and only really served to hurt Fawkner on one of their bigger paydays for the year. The Agitator brought a slab of Heineken, and the game was an awful 0-0 draw - though we could've sneaked a winner late. The most interesting thing, unplanned amid the scarcely planned nature of the whole enterprise, was at the end of the game when the Clarendon Corner stalwart known as "Box" climbed up the very high and probably very rusty fence to chants of "Box! Box! Box!", and then when at the top, "Jump! Jump' Jump!". Thankfully he had a little more sense than that, and climbed back down.

I can't remember where I found this photo, so if it belongs to you let me know. But this was 13 years ago, and my haven't we come a long way since then.

Wrong about everything - South Melbourne 3 Bentleigh Greens 2

I can't quite figure it out, but perhaps we've just got to accept that most of us are going to be wrong about this team and most of these players on a weekly basis, and maybe even on a minute-by-minute basis.

Certainly this season is taking its emotional toll on some of our supporters, in ways quite different from 2018. Where in 2018 one (retrospectively) spent the entire season after round 3 gearing up for a relegation battle, halfway through this season we've been through the highs of two wins in the first three games, an erratic stretch of form which saw the loss of a senior coach, still more erratic form which saw us flirt with the bottom three thanks to dropping points to most of our relegation battling compadres, and yet over the past three weeks have knocked over three of the best credentialed teams in the league.

Now to be fair, some of our supporters are more susceptible to violent mood swings than others. But this season has had a knack of overturning the expectations of even the most astute commentators. Every player is wrong, every tactic is wrong, every signing is wrong, every board maneuver in regards to coaching, player management, and selection is wrong, until things just fall into place and it works. That's not to imply imminent ascendancy for this team, because the next two weeks against bottom half teams could see us drop back into old habits and poor results. But if you're hoping for grinding 1-0 wins for the rest of the year and a seventh place finish, this might not be the season for you. You should instead settle down in front of the heater and watch videos of (stereotypical) Chris Taylor coached South sides.

Though it would be nice to keep a clean sheet, something we've only done twice in the league all season.

Losing Brad Norton to injury early on (and here's hoping it's not a serious one, even though Brad had no hesitation in subbing himself off immediately) wouldn't have helped our cause, especially since he was replaced by the Much Maligned Perry Lambropoulos on the left. Having lost his spot at right full-back to Ben Djiba, Perry is basically in the squad now as cover. One person's misfortune (Luke Adams) plus another's (Brad Norton) meant where one might otherwise play Kristian Konstantinidis on the left, Perry gets a go instead.

Perry's inclusion did stymie our ability to make progress on the left, as Lambropoulos is mich less of an attacking threat than Norton or any of the rest of our full-back options. This meant Pep Marafioti had to work a lot harder on the left in the first half, and he wasn't having a great game before that of Norton's going off anyway.

Having shown some positive signs and an ability to match it with Bentleigh in the first 20 minutes or so, we were overwhelmed bu a superior side for the rest of the half. The Greens were getting numbers forward, and their opening the scoring looked inevitable, except for Nikola Roganovic pulling out some superb saves. Unfortunately another routine defensive blunder from Kristian Konstantinidis cost us a goal.

It was his third goal-costing mistake in four matches, and each of the mistakes was easily avoidable. Against the Magic he could've easily hoofed the ball upfield instead of trying to dribble his way on his own byline; against Heidelberg, he gave away a needless and reckless penalty; and here against Bentleigh, as a cross was cleared by our defenders to the edge of the box and the rest of the defensive line moved up the field, KK decided to sit on the goal-line, keeping the Bentleigh attacker onside when the ball was sent into the box again.

And yet somehow we've managed to not lose any of those games. Go figure.

At least someone's happy - for now. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

We equalised early enough in the second half from a goal so simple in its execution you wonder why teams don't try it more often. The flu-stricken Gerrie Sylaidos got free on the right edge of the box, shot low and hard across at the Bentleigh keeper, and the resultant spill sat up beautifully for Pep Marafioti to belt home from close range.

Now I'm a Negative Nancy at the best of times, so while the crowd lifted from that unexpected goal, I said to the younger lads behind me (and they can vouch for this), "enjoy the five minutes while it lasts". Well, I was wrong about that, because we held on to the 1-1 scoreline for just three minutes, as Matt Thurtell raced through on goal unimpeded and slammed his shot into the back of the net.

Oh well, being level was fun while it lasted. And how nice would it have been if Marafioti or "he of the hamstrings which are always about to snap" Zac Bates could've slotted one of their chances soon after we had equalised. Anyway, at 2-1 down it's not like it was over, but I felt like we always had more goals to concede and not necessarily any way to match that. Well, I was wrong about that too, as Marafioti - who was playing on the right on the second half - decided to take a speculative low shot from the edge of the box, which took a deflection before settling in the back of the net.

All of a sudden it was 2-2, one felt that anything could happen, even if the most likely scenario was still us losing the game somehow. Before the game I would've been happy with a point, and at 2-2 with about twenty minutes to play, I would still have been happy with that point.

When Jake Marshall (2019's most improved South Melbourne player by a long way) got subbed off, I have to say I was a bit confused and concerned. But looking at the replay - especially of Bentleigh's second goal - and thinking it about it a bit more dispassionately, I think I understand the logic of it; even though Marshall wasn't having a poor game per se, Matt Thurtell was burning past him with pure speed too often.

But then we got the winner thanks to a corner and Kostas Stratomitros being in the right place at the right time. Say what you will about Marcus Schroen's corner taking this season - and it has often been dire - it has also occasionally been good, and when it has we have looked very dangerous from these situations.

Here's the thing - and I may have mentioned it in a previous post about Bentleigh, or I may not have, I can't recall and I'm not going to back and look for it - as good as they are in an attacking sense, they are more suspect defensively this season. Now let's put that in perspective: most NPL defences once you start putting pressure on them look suspect. But Bentleigh have looked particularly vulnerable to me, and the fact that we actually had a go made things happen.

It's a tautology of sorts, I know, but there's no use dying wondering. The corner we scored from? It came because Nick Krousoratis put in a crap ball into the box and the Bentleigh defender freaked out and booted it out behind his own goal line. That's the standard of pretty much every team in this comp once they sense there's any danger, no matter how remote.

Did we ride our luck? Did we look shaky when Bentleigh threw everything at us in the last few minutes? Well yes, of course. Did we get three points? Well actually, yes, we did. I expected at most three points from these past three league games (and really, probably only one) but here we are now with what some might call form or momentum.

We've returned to equilibrium, now can we maintain that?
It was a handy win in other ways as well, because with regards to the relegation battle, the round's other results were a bit of a mixed bag. Oakleigh and Port both won on the road, while Dandy Thunder, Pascoe Vale and Kingston all lost. Probably the most surprising result was Dandy City picking up a point at Avondale, in what may be a chilling sign of things to come.

Still, some of our bottom-half rivals might be looking at the table and wondering - as many of us are - how the hell did we manage to beat three teams on the trot that were sitting in the top six at the time.

That nice run of form has some people already looking up to a possible finals run - after all, we're just three points adrift from the sixth-placed and stuttering Melbourne Knights.

I remain more focused on getting enough points to avoid the drop or a relegation playoff. Though one person is intent on moving the goalposts about what would constitute a points total that would see us safe, I'm keener to stick with the 30 point mark as the initial aim here. At the moment we're three wins and a draw adrift of that target, and if we can't manage at least that in our remaining games, then we deserve to go down.

Next game
Dandenong City away on Friday night. Dandy City have splashed out during the mid-season transfer window, signing Carl Valeri, Adrian Leijer, and Brendon Santalab. Some of you may remember the last two playing for various clubs during the late NSL era, though I'm not sure what they've been doing in the last 15 or so years, as they kinda seemed to fall off the face of the earth.

If you're one of those weirdos who love getting to the grounds by public transport, this might be one to avoid, unless you have a plan for getting back out to civilisation somehow.

The club should demand its $50 back
We made a substitution during the second half, in which the fourth official put up the number 12 on his fancy board as both the player coming off and coming on. These blokes have basically four jobs, all of them very simple.

1. Put up the correct numbers of the subs on their fancy boards.
2. Put up the correct number of minimum amount of injury time minutes to be played.
3. Occasionally tell coaches to get back in their technical areas.
4. Pray like hell that they don't have to actually get called up to do the ref's or the lino's jobs.

That's money well spent across a season, dollars which would could just as easily be spent being put into the pocket of hard working professional NPL players who entertain thousands of people (most of them overseas gamblers, admittedly) on a weekly basis. These fourth officials need to lift their game.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

Bucket of sand
Does anybody remember the last time a flare was lit at Lakeside Stadium? No, that's not a call for you to rip one and break the drought. It's just that someone noticed the flare buckets on standby during Sunday's game, and people were wondering when was the last time they were even needed.

The best that anyone could seem to recall, people affiliated with Pascoe Vale ripped one during the 2015 semi-final they lost against us. There was a flare confiscated and/or found during that Melbourne Victory game in 2016, but I think that's about as close as we've gotten since 2015. I can't remember the last time one of our fans ripped one.

Mumble grumble (social club kitchen)
Much dissatisfaction expressed on the forum this week about the food service in the social club. Mostly based around how slow it is. Now I usually eat in the social club well before the game, so I've dodged most of in the "just before kickoff and during the game" issues with getting food quickly from our social club.

What I will say is that the social club did look understaffed on Sunday, for reasons I'm not aware of. That certainly added to the problems experienced by several of our supporters looking to get food and drink on Sunday. There was one register open, and one guy responsible for taking order, making coffees, and getting people's drinks. That's not usually been the case the season, but you can see how that caused a lot of problems.

There have been three operators of the social club since the social club reopened, and while the quality and the range of food have varied between operators, the problems remain largely the same. Slow service and an ability to decide whether the social club space is going for speedy match day service (if it is even capable of doing this under its current setup) or bistro style cooked-on-request service.

I'm not in hospitality and never have been, but it seems that there are at least some basic solutions which would alleviate some of the current problems. The first would be to open up the canteen on the side of the grandstand (if it's not open already), and let people know that it is open (seeing as how most people enter the venue via the social club), taking some of the heat off the social club kitchen.

(and isn't getting access to that canteen and outside pouring rights on match days part of what we gave up some of our monthly income for?)

Second would be to get a coffee cart working outside of the social club. We're a winter competition, and some people are understandably going to want a warming beverage. Coffee takes longer and more effort to make than pouring a beer or soft drink. Why would you make it harder to access for punters to access and harder for staff to provide this service?

Third - and this is not my suggestion, but rather a popular one from the forum - just provide food that is easy to prepare, cook, and serve on a speed and scale befitting a soccer match instead of a sit-down restaurant. These people (by which I mean all these people who have attempted to operate the social club) have been experienced hospitality people in one form or another. It boggles the mind how this issue still hasn't been sorted out.

Mid-season transfer period news
Though some people on Sunday said there would be a Peter Skapetis related announcement on Monday, as of Tuesday afternoon there was no Peter Skapetis related news other than to say that there was strong word that he was no longer at Dandenong Thunder, which is the very definition of being neither here nor there.

Then on Tuesday evening, the announcement was finally made that the Skapetis signing had come to pass. Skapetis is a former South junior, who claimed with what felt like something with believability that scoring against us earlier in the season for Dandenong Thunder felt very wrong. He's signed until the end of 2020, but the more immediate question is who is going to make way for him? I'm guessing it's going to be Zac Bates' hamstrings, because you wouldn't drop your leading scorer in Pep Marafioti, would you?

There has also been simmering rumour chat that Canadian defensive midfielder Ethan Gage is on his way out of Lakeside, but as of Wednesday morning, he's still with us as far as I'm aware. Having said that, Gage's not being used in either the midweek cup match nor the Bentleigh game says to me that unless he's injured, there's something wrong here. We'll see what comes of it.

The transfer window reportedly closes on June 4th, so there's still time for lots of stuff to happen, or not happen.

On the couch

Momentary abstraction/Eventual clarity
It's the most curious thing - my zeal for watching other games from this league has returned just as South has managed to win a few games. I wonder what the connection might be? I'm sure I'll figure it out one day. Anyway, for whatever reason I was compelled on Monday night to watch Kingston vs Port Melbourne. I was hoping for a Kingston win, or at worst a draw between the two teams. We didn't get that. Sure, Kingston took the lead, but they coughed it up to, well, a team that deserved to win it on the balance of play. To go back to an earlier point in this post - being entertaining is fun, but perhaps not so much when you're on the bottom of the ladder. At some point you've got to control the tempo of a match, disrupt the momentum of your opponent, and grind out results rather than lose honourably.

Cue, meet rack... wait...
That aforementioned return of a zest for life? Yeah, I ended up at Knights Stadium yesterday because of it. A bit cold and some regret on that front, but I emerged emotionally unscathed, and actually also a bit entertained as well. There was an announcement that a white Toyota was blocking something or other and needed to be moved, and I had a momentary flash of panic that it was my Toyota... thankfully the licence plate number was different, and later on we found that the car was also an Aurion and not a 1989 Camry, which was eventually moved once the announcement was made again, this time in both English and Croatian.

As for the match, either way this turned out would've been funny, but seeing the cash-splashing Avondale bow out after putting the cue in the rack with a 1-0 lead and about half an hour to play, on the assumption (not entirely unreasonable, but still) that Knights would not pose a serious threat going forward, was pretty funny. This was a game whose excellence built up slowly, revealing itself only in the final minutes. A slow start from both team playing between arcs. Then Avondale having a goal cleared off the line by what Twitter says was a clear handball. Then missing a one on one. Then finally taking the lead early in the second half and deservedly so. Five or so more minutes of trying to put the game away seemed to be enough for the visitors, and that turned out to be their downfall. Knights had been ceded the initiative, they managed to get an equaliser, and we were off to extra time. Then Knights took the lead, and Avondale had to figure out how to get their way back into the game. And it wasn't like Knights were going to be hospitable in that - the ball at one stage went over the fence on the Quarry Hill side, and no one, not even the ball boys, made any effort to retrieve the ball necessitating the Avondale player on that side jumping the fence.

Funny thing was the gate was next to him 😂

— Andrew Golub (@andrewg_90) May 28, 2019

It was a stunt made riskier by the fact that it had started bucketing down in extra time. The chances also flowed from both sides after that, with Knights keeper Cakarun making one final, reaching save to preserve their lead, and Avondale sending a header from the resulting corner over the bar. So Knights progress against the odds, while Avondale bow out to chants of "cigane" coming from the Mark Viduka Stand.

Final thought
Googled myself on Google Scholar this week, and found that Andy Harper had cited my now six-year-old journal article in his own recently released journal article. I mean, it was only part of his literature review, but it's something I suppose.

Pantomime - Heidelberg United 1 South Melbourne 3

This game simultaneously had a bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing, and if you missed it for whatever reason, you missed one of the more off-tap local soccer experiences of recent times.

I will say this from the get-go - it was an ordeal getting to the ground. Not public transport wise, but everything aside from that. Insane roadworks on Glengala Road, fine, these things happen, and a massive detour to get to Sunshine station required. But it was also an ordeal getting into the ground. After having promoted the fact that the southern gates would be open from 4:30pm, this detail was changed about an hour before kickoff in the main game to 'yeah, nah', for reasons which will forever remain a mystery.

But at least I managed to make it to the ground - the designated officials for the under 20s game reportedly failed to show up at all, and thus that game was never even started. Probably a common sense outcome under the circumstances, but South of the Border's go to guy for Football Victoria bylaws says that the game should still have gone ahead, with the home team providing match officials in lieu of the missing referees.

Anyway, arriving at the aforementioned southern gate, I saw that the Bentleigh peanut man was also locked outside. There was a security person on the inside, but even after I noted that I had a media pass (and thus wouldn't need to make a financial transaction to enter), I was informed that he couldn't let me in via that gate as he didn't have a key. Thus was necessitated a massive walk around the back of Olympic Village to get into the ground, upon whose entry the previously mentioned mystery was probably solved - there were fuck-all people at the ground, and thus no need to spend money on extra security and gate attendants for a fixture of minimal appeal.

Now I've seen good crowds at the Village in games between these two sides, and I've seen poor ones, but pound-for-pound this was one of the worst attendances I've seen for a derby here. I think back to the last round of 2012, where the Bergers were already relegated and we were out of the running for finals, and this was much closer to that than anyone would have liked. I suppose the low turnout of ours fans was understandable - we've been erratically pus for good chunks of the season, and what's more, there's no hope left in the club to drag in the slightly less rusted on. Indeed, the South contingent on the outer side before the game that it seemed so small that even the one overly keen security guard assigned to that area was probably overkill

They were driving a car of some sort.

But for the Bergers and their fans? They're the reigning champs and are still a top three side so far this season, and their support also seemed poor. One Berger who did turn up did so in a (I assume) rented convertible sports-car of some sort (someone said it was a Porsche, but I don't know cars, OK?), dressed in his wedding suit and bringing along his new bride along for the ride. The car was parked on the goat running track on the western side of the ground where the South fans tend to congregate, where the bride and groom eventually had a wedding photo taken with the current Bergers squad. Why he decided to come onto the western instead of eastern side of the ground is curious, but one can assume that he wanted to aggravate the South fans on the hill with chants directed their way.

Of course he copped abuse from some of our fans, which kick-started the latent pantomime feeling supposedly inherent in derby games. Rumour has it that the groom was actually Heidelberg Laser Dude himself, but I can't confirm that myself. One wonders what the bride made of it all, especially as she (and here's putting my Australian soccer racial profiling hat on) looked to be of south-east Asian origins, and thus not likely to be familiar with the white hot passion engendered by this once great rivalry.

While the bride and groom were off to the side, there was also a minute's silence for the late David Cervinski, and some bloke in the crowd took up the role of cantor; my Greek Orthodox church attendance being as poor as it's ever been, I can't say if it was a prayer was for the dead or a celebratory one for the bride and groom - let's assume it was the latter.

Finally the game got underway, and look - I was distracted by wild conversation for a good chunk of it. As usual in 2019, see Luke's blog for an actual match report. But I did see Zac Bates dink the ball over the Bergers keeper for 1-0, Marcus Schroen bumble the ball into the roof of the net, and I certainly saw Gerrie Sylaidos' shot for 3-0 - hell, I was halfway down the hill as soon as Gerrie took the shot.

3-0 up at halftime, only an all-time and yet entirely plausible implosion would see us cough up the lead. The Bergers showed a bit more initiative and had a shot hit the crossbar early on in the second half, but in general we were doing enough to maintain the lead and they weren't doing enough to make a comeback. Reuben Way getting sent off for a second yellow - a dodgy handball call, but stuff him, I say - should have made things harder for the home team, but then came the classic Kristian Kontantinidis Klanger. With his Berger opponent turning away from goal and being no obvious threat, KK decides to clatter right into him for an obvious penalty.

Kosta Stratomitros prepares to be stretchered off the field
after being violently tackled. Photo: Luke Radziminski. 

Thankfully, though the home team scored the penalty, they never really came too close to another one. When Lewis Hall tried to smash through Kosta Statromitros' through the latter's shin, Hall was shown his marching orders, and that was pretty much that for the game; except for Heidelberg assistant coach Jeff Olver getting red carded for smashing a chair on the sidelines I assume.

It would've been nice however if the Heidelberg marshals didn't delay getting the stretcher out to Stratomitros, but at least our man has apparently avoided major injury and shouldn't miss any time.

With Heidelberg down to effectively eight players thanks to the two reds and an injury, we wavered between running over the top of them and just playing calm, risk-free possession football. The last ten minutes (including the seven minutes of injury time) was a bit better, as the risk of the Bergers getting back into the game was over, but our finishing was dire, leaving some to lament the missed opportunity to boost our goal difference.

At the end of the game, one hoped for the southern gates to be opened up to allow the meagre crowd to leave from there, and head back to their cars in Northland's car park. No dice. At least I avoided getting mugged on the dark path alongside Darebin Creek; less fortunate was having to deal with Heidelberg Harismidis on the bus until I got to Preston station. That's the great public transport peanut gallery for ya.

Next game
Back to Lakeside, and back to cup action on Wednesday night against Langwarrin. Langwarrin are a capable NPL2 side, with quite a few veteran NPL players, so I'm expecting a pretty tough game.

Partly borrowed midpoint summary

Half way through the season. @smfc currently sitting in 8th position. Interestingly, we've taken more points from the teams above us (1-7) 3W 1D 3L than below (9-14) 2W 1D 3L. That's good... but should be a lot better. Still, positive signs. Keep fighting lads.

— ēļřāffő (@dvrf1878) May 18, 2019

Thanks, Dave. Not that one wants to throw away the six points gained over the past two weeks (and the comparatively more competent performances that came with them), but if we'd managed to take at least some points off Kingston, Oakleigh, and Pascoe Vale, it wouldn't be just points gained for us, but also points taken off fellow relegation battling opponents.

Anyway, if the magic number is 30 points to guarantee survival*, we're two points ahead of where we need to be, with a stack of home games to come which should make things easier.** More importantly, we're three points ahead of Pascoe Vale and Port Melbourne, four points ahead of Dandenong Thunder, and five ahead of 12th placed Oakleigh who lie in the playoff spot, who despite their ongoing struggle to get results are apparently improving their general play and are now closer to 'unlucky' rather than merely 'crap'. So, you know, no time to rest on our laurels and such.

*Not a guarantee.

** It probably won't.

Fare thee well. Bon voyage. Toodle-oo.
Goalkeeper Alastair Bray is no longer at the club; his current whereabouts and/or ultimate destination remain unknown at this point in time, and no, I'm not going to stalk him on Instagram. Bray's irrepressible talent for getting injured limited his appearances for the club to a miserly two games - round 1 of last year, where he was crippled by a reckless Bulleen player; and round whatever it was when we played Pascoe Vale away this year, where an underdone Bray made that dreadful error which set us back 1-0 early in that game. A pity that it couldn't have turned out differently. Had he not been injured in that Bulleen game, Sasa Kolman might still be coaching us. Hmm.

All of which means we're probably on the lookout for a backup goalkeeper, because realistically Amir Jashari isn't going to be a good enough prospect for that role. Which, if we're being honest, should be communicated to the lad quite clearly so that he can move on to another club, even if lower down the league system, so that he can start playing regular senior football.

As for who will or should become the backup keeper, some of 'they' are saying that we've signed 'Josh' from Doveton. I have no idea if this is true or not. Neither do I want to disparage 'Josh's' abilities based on the one game I've seen him play, in which I saw him ably close down attacks on relatively tight angles. But if it is true, all I can think is that the club has made the recruiting choice in large part due to the fact that it was the one time that members of the football committee had actually ventured out of their comfort zones and watched a game involving an unfamiliar opponent.

Such cynicism! Such unbecoming cynicism even! But if you thin that's bad, you should hear the terrace chat about who we're looking to bring back in! Utterly unprintable, and scarcely believable, but imagine the possibilities!

Final thought
Hmm, football seems enjoyable again these last two weeks. Not sure why.

Beanie weather - Doveton 0 South Melbourne 1

Another perfunctory report.

After a long, hard day's work making sure people put their votes in the correct ballot box, I walked home from work, picked up my car, drove to Nick's place to pick him up, and together we made the long trip out to Dandenong. Thankfully everything went very smoothly, no delays on the trains, and smooth connections between different transport modes. Were it ever thus.

Another day, another bit of proof of how much pompom
 beanies resonate with (checks non-existent commerce
 textbook),  the consumer  demographic known as
 "ordinary people".  Photo: Luke Radziminski 

Got to the game in time for something approximating dinner, a rubbery sponge of a bread roll filled with marinated chicken not worth the $10 price tag in terms of its serving size. Beggars can't be choosers though. More gladly, even while we all complained, it was the first proper cold day of soccer for the year. Not just a bit a chilly, not just "I regret not bringing a coat", but actually biting cold, wet socks, reconsidering life decisions weather.

One expected Doveton to hack and slash, but perhaps not quite so early. Maybe they thought they were just being vigorous? Certainly the referees generally seemed to think so, applying a lighter touch than I would've liked. It was good (and surprising )to see Gerrie Sylaidos back on the park, because he makes a modest world of difference. Even if he tends to float in and out of games (which may be as much to do with his inexperience as it is to do with team structures), he's one of the few players who (cliché alert) seems likely to make things happen for us.

Also, opposition players seem genuinely in awe and/or afraid of him, as Australian players tend to be of any player than can dribble the ball.

The team otherwise wasn't quite at full-strength, but who even knows what that is and whether that even makes a difference. We managed to create some good chances, but mostly on tight angles which were easy enough to clean up by the Doveton defence. Doveton would seemingly make some promising forays of their own at the other end of the ground, but who's to say how close they really got when you're watching the game from 110 metres away.

At halftime several South fans congregated around a mid-sized sedan and drank moderately upmarket hot chocolate poured out of a thermos into Styrofoam cups. I apologise to the environment after the fact for not expecting the possibility of away days hot chocolate to become a reality, and forgetting all of my novelty mugs (Star Trek, Brian Griffin, South Melbourne Hellas) at home. Apart from warming the body and soul, it did remind me of the behaviour of Green Gully's elderly fans back in 2009, which is a bit sad; but the theme of South supporters aging alongside their near pension-age club is at the heart of what this blog has documented.

The second half was more of the same, us doing more of the attacking, but not being able to really create the killer chance. Enter Billy Konstantinidis and his one-man mission to relocate the club to George Andrew Reserve because "he scores at this ground". Having Billy start on the bench seemed risky considering our paucity of scoring this year, but at least this time the strategy paid off. Mind you, it helps the situation when a) Kosta Stratomitros was given a quarter-acre block from which to send his cross in, b) Konstantinidis was left without a marker for who knows what reason, and c) Billy knows how to head the ball well proper.

Some sympathy for the Doveton goalkeeper "Josh". He'd done his bit up until that point, closing off angles, coming off his line, and generally cleaning up our half-dangerous moments with confidence. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for us, Billy's header was too good for even the greatest of goalkeepers. Thus the singing of one of the (even by the lyricist's own admission) worst chants ever heard at a South game.

🎶 You tried your best Josh, you did. You tried your best Josh, you did. You tried your best Josh, you did. Oh, Josh you tried your best! 🎶 #FFACUP

— ēļřāffő (@dvrf1878) May 8, 2019

Foreboding mood turned into indiscriminately optimistic joy, and more stupid chants such as:

We're coming for you,
We're coming for you,
Darwin Olympic,
We're coming for you!

And the even worse:

What else you gonna do,
On a Wednesday night?
Darwin away!
Darwin away!
Darwin away!

Of course all of this mirth was premature in the sense that there were still 20 minutes to go, the opposition had already managed to create some chances, and they were playing against team that somehow managed to collide into and dispossess each other, something I've otherwise only ever seen in a State League 5 game, where a mate happened to be coaching the pound-for-pound worst team I've ever seen.

One possible VAR moment aside, Fate's cruel hand seemed to descend at the worst possible moment in the worst possible way. Promising right-back Ben Djiba, who had performed mostly admirably during the game, inadvertently had his arm hit by an awkwardly bouncing ball. Thankfully, Nikola Roganovic guessed the right direction and made the crucial save from the spot kick. Thereafter not even "Josh" going up for a corner could make up for that missed opportunity for the Doves, who conceded a foul on Roganovic before the corner was even taken.

Winning the game was nice, but it doesn't solve our immediate on-field problems, all of which exist in the league, and in which we haven't won a game for many weeks. Indeed, the previous game we'd won before this one was the previous cup game against Essendon Royals. Key players are out of form and who's even sure whether they're on an upward or downward trend. Ditto for certain players who have been around for a very long time.

I assumed we would get done on the night. Not because we are bad (which we mostly are) or because Doveton are good (which, as it turns out, they aren't really, or at least not as much as I expected of an undefeated team), but because that's just the way things seem to be going for us this year. And yet therein lies the possibility that we yet very well somehow fall over backwards into an FFA Cup round of 32 spot with one of our worst ever teams.

FFA Cup draw news
However, all those dreams of national cup glory will have to be set aside for the time being. We've been drawn as the home side against NPL 2 side Langwarrin. Even at Lakeside, I doubt that anyone thinks we're better than a 50/50 chance.

Next game
Altona Magic at Paisley Park on Saturday evening. In other words, today. Rug up.

Final thought
Thanks to Johnny again for another lift back to civilisation from Dandenong.

It could always be worse (and some people seem to wish that it was) - South Melbourne 1 Essendon Royals 0

Zac Bates shows of his balletic prowess. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

It really was a no-win situation. Given our erratic performances so far this year, our unsettled match-day squads, our coaching change, and our inability to score with any regularity, there are few if any South fans who are optimistic about our chances of progressing to the national stage of this tournament.

However that didn't mean that people were necessarily keen on losing this game; at least not until the last 15 minutes or so, knowing that actually progressing through to the next round could summon a worse fate, in the form of a more severe mauling against a more capable opponent.

Or even worse, distracting us from what looks like being another season battling to avoid relegation.

If we found a way to lose this game, the loss would've been rightly called a disgrace. If we'd won it comfortably, it would've been written off as achieving the bare minimum against a lowly opponent, again rightly so. In its own way, it was reassuring that the team managed to find a third, worse option than either of the preceding two: scraping through on a goal courtesy of a long-ball, and a header by one of our defenders placed into the path of another of our defenders, who slotted home like he was an actual striker, and all of that helped by the Royals defenders deciding they didn't need to track back.

So what kind of result would have placated our fans on Friday? Against a state league 1 opponent at the bottom of their division - and with no 'name' players, with the exception of Melbourne Knights also-ran striker Chris Talajic - probably nothing short of 4 or 5-0 win. Well, that didn't happen, and thus we are miserable.

This miserable state was enhanced not just the failure to second, third, and fourth goals, but also by the performances of some players. Giordano Marafioti got a start, looked dangerous at times (as he should against a state league 1 team if he's serious about this whole NPL business), but failed to take advantage of two very good chances in the first half; one from point-blank range, and another where he was one-on-one with the keeper. At under 20s level, missing those is less of a crime, because playing for South under 20s means you're going to get a heap of those chances; in the seniors, not so much.

Brother Pep was brought back in from the cold after two weeks away from the senior squad - due mostly, if one believes to the rumours, to a poor attitude on the training track - and failed to deliver. His lack of a right-foot was highlighted again, and even as one of his few prominent defenders, I can't help but think this is as good as we're going to get from Pep. He's been tried on the left, the right, and up front, and for the most part nothing has worked, and only some of that can be put down to playing in unsettled formations and unfamiliar positions.

Worst of all, after being benched around the hour mark, Pep proceeded to spit the dummy and march down the players race instead of taking his place back on the bench. So, that's probably someone we can chalk down as exiting the club come mid-May when the mid-season transfer window opens.

But who to put in his place? Well, we could do worse than Zac Bates, who showed a bit when he came on to the field (yes, it was only against a bottom of state league 1 club), but his speed was terrific at least, and he didn't look emotionally cooked after an early season spent injured and on the bench. Ben Djiba also continued to look good at right-back, as well as continue to provide the perplexing spectacle of an actual South Melbourne youth team player starting in the side (and not returning to the club to do so after several years away elsewhere) and looking competent.

More perplexing, and hopefully no serious ramifications come from this, was Kristian Konstaninidis being benched after an hour. One would've thought that KK could use all the game he could get, but he was subbed off to the confusion (and some disgust) of a few people, not least KK himself. Someone in forum land is saying that the substitution occurred because of a lost-in-translation moment between player and coach, and hopefully because we did win the game, that the misunderstanding is smoothed over, because we need a left-back desperately in lieu Brad Norton's absence with injury.

For all the angst about the performance, the Royals rarely threatened our goal. There was a goalmouth spill which was eventually cleared, and a sharp header straight at Roganovic. Then the Royals threw everyone forward towards the end, as you would expect. We hit the woodwork two or three times and missed some very gettable chances, which made things more difficult for us, as it has for most of this season. There was even a moment where it looked like we might get an unlikely penalty, when a Royals defender assumed a ball had gone out and thus rushed to hand it to his keeper (who was the Royals' reserve keeper, who had a solid game), only for there being the possibility that the ball had not actually gone out. Soon enough the officials decided that no player could have possibly been that stupid, and normal service resumed.

Anyway, because we could not find a second goal, we spent the last five minutes cowering in the corner. Not that there's anything wrong with that - it's what you should do when you're in front, and trying to secure the win - but it was unedifying within the context of having to do that against a side ranked two divisions below us.

The hyperbolic reaction to the win would be to say that the squad is at best a mid-tier state league 1 side, but that's why you don't rush home and post straight away. For those of us who haven't quite yet obliterated the quaint desire to see their team win games no matter how aesthetically coarse the method, the win was appreciated, even if the performance still left a lot of questions left to be answered.

As always, it could've been worse! Other NPL clubs lost or barely scraped through against similarly or even less credentialed teams than the Royals. Of course no one cares about those other NPL teams and their near or actual failures, because they are not carrying South Melbourne cultural baggage. It's the price we pay for continuing to support Australia's has-been soccer club.

Hat report
There were new, limited edition hats and caps available at the merch stand, for those who care about such things. Some of them were trucker hats. Not being a trucker, it didn't seem right for me to buy one. Plus I already have my pompom beanie anyway, and who cares if the temperature is pushing 30 degrees in the middle of April.

It was good to see Nikola Roganovic come out with a hat in the second half - not only is that sun-smart, but it also helps avoid situations like this. More confounding was Gerrie Sylaidos' choice of head-wear. By now we are all familiar with the fact that he wears a sort of light beanie during games, usually a white one. But what was the deal with the navy/dark variation used in Friday? It was very warm out there, and we all know that dark colours absorb light and/or heat much more than light colours do.

Music report
Well, after complaining that last week's stadium music, once again we had some variation of the Queer as Folk soundtrack. And then at half-time, we had some variation of a Triple M All-Time Greatest BBQ/Driving/Drinking songs compilation. Is that an improvement? Yes, I suppose so. If you're wondering where exactly I hope my complaints about the stadium music selections end up, it's with the soundtrack to SimCity 3000 being played over the public address system in all of its light-jazz, proto-vaporwave glory.

Next game
Dandenong Thunder away next Saturday night. Since the match falls on Orthodox Easter Saturday.

Final thought
I was out and about on Saturday morning trying to fix the gaping existential hole in my life by purchasing some music on compact disc (it didn't work), and after discussing the merits of El Perro Del Mar's self-titled album (it's ace in its depressive interpretation of '60s girl groups) and the Manic Street Preachers and Richey Edwards' disappearance, the store's proprietor noticed my South Melbourne hat. Well, that led to a discussion about second divisions and such, and also about Western United, which said shopkeeper said he would support because he lived in the area - until such point as I made the pithy comment that he'd have to be driving to Geelong and Ballarat until Western United built their ground, if indeed it ever got built. Hardly the most thrilling story, I know.

33% - Melbourne Knights 0 South Melbourne 1

There are members of the South Melbourne family who view '30' as the magic number this year. It's the magic number because, barring some bizarre turn of events where teams at the bottom end of the table collect an inordinate amount of points, even greater than last season - 30 points will be enough to see you survive. We're now a third of the way there, having endured a coaching change, erratic form, an unfortunate suspension, and an absence of home games, with two thirds of the season to go.

Er, not quite. Photo: Luke Radziminski

For some reason all during the week there was this sense of anticipation about this game. Granted it was mostly coming from Knights fans, who were promoting the bejesus out of the game (as is their right), and getting ready to bask in the glory of victory, but still, it all felt a bit confected to me. That's probably due to us sucking and them not sucking, and expecting to get beaten, even though I personally haven't thought that highly of Knights' performances this season despite their better than expected results.

There was also plenty of inane banter in the lead-up, which I had nothing to do with because I carry myself with the utmost internet decorum , but you people... boy, you just can't resist. How dare you even remotely question the Knights' poster campaign? Aren't you scared that the singing man on the Knight Train radio show or one of his acolytes is going to come after you and teach you Greek words?

Anyway, the (apparent) great tragedy about this rivalry - apart from these two once mighty clubs being stuck in the state leagues - is that for the last 25 odd years there have been few moments when both clubs have been at the top of their leagues at the same time. There have been blips - like the 2013 semi-final - but even that was dependent on us making an outrageous run in the second-half of the season and benefiting from the Southern Stars fiasco to even make the finals.

So after several years of us being quite good, and Knights being garbage, this year it is the Knights who have been good and South who has been middling. A large crowd was in attendance, but the atmosphere was muted. There was some some chanting from Knights fans, but they were close to inaudible in the second half. The flatness of the crowd was matched by a flatness to the game as well. Knights had the better of it, especially towards the end of the first half - and only heroics by Nikola Roganovic (in league game 100 for us), and a clearance off the line keeping it level.

The second half from us was better and Knights seemed to lose the ability to do some of their more intricate passing. At any rate, their falling behind played into the hands of a team that will prefer sitting back and hitting on the counter until such time as we get a proper striker and attacking midfield set-up.

This game was decided by a goal to us, and a very fine and enjoyable and comical goal it was too. A crappy turnover in midfield, four passes, and Brad Norton with the finish after a gut-busting 80 metre run. It was Brad Norton's first goal for the club in two seasons, and just our sixth goal this season.

Putting all that to one side for the moment, I love everything about this goal. Its straightforwardness is of course a major appeal. The Knights fan yelling out 'chase!' even though Norton is already flying past the defender. Leigh Minopoulos leaning over to his left looking around a corner to make sure the ball goes in. The fact that Norton actually scores, of course. The laughter you can hear on the video is also a treat. All that, and the way it fulfils every Knights fans' fantasy, that they lose so many games to us that they have dominated.

Won't someone please think of the gamblers

To be fair, they did have the better chances in this game, but it's not like we weren't threatening in our own way. Had we been able to hit a proper through pass in the first half, we may have created even more chances than we did. The bigger problem from our end is that even with three nominally defensive midfielders, there were stretches of the game where we struggled to gain possession. There were the standard moments of indecisiveness in defence, and too many times where we went back to the keeper, but for the most part we defended well enough; which is not the same thing as great, but a step forward nevertheless..

The three points aside, the most pleasing aspect of the game for mine was the polished and mostly poised game of Ben Djiba, who started at right-back instead of Perry Lambropoulos. Apart from a solid defensive performance, Djiba also managed to get up the field and provide an attacking option. Djiba came off injured in the second half - hopefully he's OK - and Knights immediately attacked his replacement Lambropoulos; but Perry held his own well enough, which was also a good sign. Just because one prefers one player to start over another, it doesn't mean you want the less appealing player to struggle when he's on the field.

Other results fell our way, too - Kingston lost, and Oakleigh and Dandy City drew. We won't be able to rely on their collective ineptitude to survive, and we won't be able to rely on anyone else keeping us up in this season but ourselves

Next game
Hume City at home - at Lakeside! - on Sunday. The curtain raiser will be the senior women taking on Heidelberg at 1:30.

At the footy
One thing the NPL live streams have come in handy for is for when you're at the MCG on a Friday, or Saturday or Sunday, and you need something to fill in some time while you're waiting for a game to start and try in vain to block out the noise of the stadium music and announcements and kisscams and dancecams. Caught twenty odd minutes of Altona Magic vs Bentleigh, and apart from Sami Nour scoring with a nice volley, this was a hard game to watch because every few minutes someone went down like they were shot.

On the couch
There being no curtain raiser on Friday night, one had to wait around for an hour at Knights Stadium doing not very much except wait for other people to show up, and then wonder about the squad choices made by Esteban Quintas. As is their way these days, Knights have standalone senior matches for their Friday night home games, with the under 20s punted to Sunday afternoons. It makes sense I suppose. Come Sunday, I could've gone to Somers Street again to watch the under 20s game, but I didn't want to. I preferred to stay home and watch it on a live stream, partly for the absurdity of watching an NPL under 20s game on a live stream. Who could possibly be interested in this? Don't answer that.

Our boys dominated the early proceedings, in part thanks to a strong breeze, and Manny Aguek could've had a hat-trick within the opening 15 minutes, but he didn't. The game deteriorated to the point where it was hard to keep attention. Knights seemed to steady the ship in the second and had a bit more of the play, but a player of theirs that had apparently gotten injured was laying out the back of the southern goal, and eventually an ambulance turned up which delayed the game for about 15 minutes. Hopefully the kid is OK.

In recent seasons these kinds of situations have seen games abandoned, but this one resumed at about 77 minutes or so. A miscalculation by the Knights keeper coming off his line made things easier for Gio Marafioti to score what would be the only goal of the game. Usual practice for under 20s/reserves games is for there to be no injury time, but here the game went to about the 102 minute mark.

Manchester United at Olympic Park in 1967.
Photo from Weinstein family collection

Home movies!
Great work by George Cotsanis of the My World Is Round Facebook page and of course The Pioneers show on FNR. Last year he bought some reels of film off eBay, and got them digitised. The footage includes a half-hour long film of Manchester United touring Australia in 1967, with games - in colour! - against Victoria and New South Wales - as well as some junior soccer. Mark Boric provides a run-down and some background information on his blog about that film.

As part of this haul, George Cotsanis has also managed to unearth footage of Torpedo Moscow vs Victoria from 1965. Mark Boric also has some background on this game on his blog. Lastly, there's a brief film of the touring Roma side watching Richmond and St Kilda at the MCG. I think I've seen that footage or footage like it before; certainly I've read about the Roma players at that game, probably in the VFL Record.

Please, please, please share these videos with your friends, especially among your Man United friends and family.

Final thought
One may ask what's the point of trying to create a buzz about a game and a club, and deploying tons of volunteers all over the place, and trying to build a family-friendly environment and putting up #eraseNCIP and pro-rel banners, if a minority of goons is still intent on trying to intimidate and attack opposition fans by stealing scarves. One may say it's a minority, but it seems to happen more regularly than it should, and it makes you wonder if some people at Knights actually condone that kind of behaviour. I suppose we should be glad that this time at least, the goon's mates (and fiance?) convinced him to back off.

Portent of doom - South Melbourne 1 Green Gully 1

Patience is wearing thin. The initial goodwill on offer is diminishing. Memories of the good (or at least better) performances from earlier in the season are receding into the distance.

Everything feels increasingly toxic. Photo: Luke Radziminksi.

Which is not to say that yesterday was a complete disaster on the field. We didn't lose the game. The performance was good in moments, and erratic in others. There were long stretches of the game, especially in the first half, where we dominated play, but our defensive frailties came to the fore again, and basically the first chance that Gully had, they scored from.  Most disappointingly, the goal we conceded came straight up the middle, where I assume we're meant to have two defensive midfielders to provide cover for our central defenders.

At least we got the goal back very quickly, which calmed down the nerves of the supporters for a few minutes. Krousouratis, who had an energetic but ultimately unfulfilling performance, at least tested out ex-South keeper Jerrad Tyson on this occasions to the extent that he parried the ball to Gerrie Sylaidos, whose patience with the shot seemed to stop time itself. Thank goodness he scored.

There was no Kristian Konstantinidis, who having apparently recovered from the flu (assuming that was the cause of his absence last week), was out this week because he was recovering from an ingrown toenail. One wonders what affliction - real or imagined - will keep him out of next week's game.

(I'm reminded here somewhat tangentially of one of our favourite defunct segments, Renco Van Eeken Fruit Watch, where readers of South of the Border were encouraged to keep an eye out for whatever piece of fruit the injured striker was eating during the 2013 season. But I digress.)

There was no Billy Konstantinidis, who looks like he'll have to wear a five game suspension, unless of course the club finds success at an appeal or tribunal hearing on the matter. But assuming the penalty won't be lessened, that's one game down and four to go, including the cup game later this month.

The wind and rain and cold has finally arrived. Hello winter football.
Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Pep Marafioti, who I have advocated as the most appealing stop gap option for striker, worked hard, was often starved of timely and/or appropriate supply, made some poor runs, and had two chances on goal from which he should have scored at least one. I'm thinking particularly here of the chance in the first half, where was probably offside (uncalled) and had plenty of time to choose a side instead of waiting to be shut down by his opponent.

(The moment in the second half where a few people have thrown him under the bus for not passing to Gerrie on the right wing seem a bit harsh; Pep looked like he was closed down very quickly on that side by his Gully opponent, and only a just over-hit touch on his way to the byline from the same sequence of play prevented a chance being created in the six yard box.)

Other players put up some good moments, and some equally awful ones. The communication at the back is messy at best. Perry Lambropoulos had probably his best game for us at right back, and even offered something going forward for the first time this season (modest as that was), but at his worst almost looked like he tripped over the ball. Hesitation on that side of the field was very concerning. The left hand side seemed to hold up reasonably well by comparison

I continue to struggle in understanding the team setup and the substitution decisions. What's most concerning is that I can't help but wonder if the players think the same way, too. It's quite possible Tangalakis has lost the playing group, or at least veteran elements of it. At Kingston, KK was apparently shouting at him about defensive issues; at Pascoe Vale, Schroen was unhappy about Gerrie being benched; and yesterday Minopoulos shrugged his shoulders and shook his head when Gerrie was subbed off. You have one proven game-breaker, the kind of player a lot of other clubs would love to have on their books, and yet the level of trust or estimation that Tanga has for Gerrie seems far below what many pundits and even more South supporters have.

We're not in the relegation zone, but we're in a relegation battle.

Talk about Tanga's future at the club
Lot of talk going around that he's been sacked, but I'm waiting for the club to make the announcement, and not just because it's still April 1st.

Next game 
Melbourne Knights away on Friday night.

Keep in mind that this match kicks off at 7:45PM, and that there is no curtain raiser.

On the couch
Saturday provided many options, one of which was to go to the senior women's game against Box Hill United at Wembley Park. Checked the PTV site, bus replacements from Camberwell to Ringwood. No thanks. Chucked it on the old YouTube instead, and saw something I hadn't seem from our women's team this season - a team that was switched on from the start. Raced away to a 2-0 start, and the coughed up a goal to be only 2-1 up. The final margin was eventually 4-2 our way, the same as the week before, but this was the best we'd looked in a while. Not a patch on what we were doing last year, and you have to wonder how far we are behind Calder, but it's a long season, and as long we can get to the finals - which we should be able to do pretty easily - we should be able to do something.

Around the grounds
Upscale
Having decided not to go out to Box Hill South, I went out to Ardeer instead for Westgate vs Altona East. So many regrets, not so much for the game which went predictably the way of Westgate (3-0). Westgate have this habit of playing games at 6pm on Saturday nights, which always end up being freezing. Never mind the lights, which are poor, I've been to plenty of games in the cold, but Westgate's home night games are uniformly unpleasant when it comes to the climate. I'd always wondered what the appeal of playing the games at that time was, and all I can think of is that they're trying to get as close to a Balkan mountain village idea of cold. Speaking of the Balkans, some mob called Balkan Grill has taken over the Westgate canteen, and I had to do a double take when I saw someone cooking who was wearing a chef's style white coat; seeing a cevapi roll at $10 and every other option at least $3 more than was a bit of a concern. This is the club that prides itself in being mean street working class - they even call their ground 'The Ghetto', stupid name as that may be. Has the gentrification of Sunshine accelerated that quickly?

Final thought
At least we kept our non-Northcote undefeated run at John Cain Memorial Park going. Small mercies.