A year and a bit down the track, Marinis gets his man

A curious addition to the Melbourne Knights squad last week... one Neil Young (WA State Rep) whom some of you might remember from this adventure. One wonders of course what might have been, on so many fronts... below are a couple of bits about the keeper we almost had.


YOUNG TORN ABOUT MOVING TO MELBOURNE

State goalkeeper Neil Young has embarked on a brave new phase in his career by joining Victorian Premier League club Melbourne Knights. The long-serving Sorrento stopper jetted out of town on Tuesday evening and is likely to make his debut for the Knights in Sunday's game with Richmond. "It's a bigger stage in Melbourne and you never know what may come of it," commented Young on moving east. "I've only ever played for Sorrento so I'm looking forward to experiencing another club and improving myself as a player ... and to get a trial with an A-League club would also be nice."

The Knights, currently tenth in the twelve-team VPL, made initial contact with Young earlier this year. "They've been in touch since the roughly the beginning of our season and made me a pretty good offer," said Young. "It wasn't the easiest decision I've ever made as I'm leaving my wife and two young boys behind. And when I told (Sorrento coach) Steve Neville I was a blubbering mess - so was he I might add - then telling the boys before the game on Saturday again brought tears to my eyes. I've been at the club fourteen seasons and have a lot of mates there who I'd also call family."

And it's that camaraderie that Young says he'll miss most about not being a Sorrento player. "There's some great banter in the change rooms, Thommo, Todd, Macca, Ordy, Nuggs, Banksy, Monty and even Kilkelly are good team mates but are also my best friends and it will be hard not to miss them," said the 29-year old 'keeper. "Sorrento is a family. Tom Bartlett and Derek Harnwell are great men and have looked after me like one of their own sons. And Nevs is a quality coach and a mate, he's always there for his players."

Young kept goal during the most successful period in Sorrento's history and has many fond memories from his time at the club. "Winning the Premier League title three times, once as captain, rate as the highlight along with being named the 2006 Goalkeeper of the Year, it's great to get personal awards too," said Young, who on four occasions wore State team colours. "It's a great honour to be selected in the State squad, and to hold the number one shirt for the games I played is something I'll always cherish."


Off some WA club forum

His command of his area is also a tremendous credit to him, an on song Neil Young will win you games. Also very aware of his tendency to 'self destruct', If he was a painter he would have probably cut off both of his ears by now! At this point he probably needs a new challenge and possesses the talent to rise to it.

Something to lift the spirits a little

I was going to post the next instalment of my 2008 membership review, but couldn't be arsed taking the photos, uploading them and all that, and I also thought that after yesterday's Pumpkin Seed Eaters annoyance, coupled with South being bottom of the ladder after two games as the only pointless team, that it'd be nice to post something positive.



The footage (essentially 3 scenes replayed for about a 1:28) is of Reardo Luka playing his first match of any kind since his horrific injury last season (for background, see this entry). Once again thanks go to Adrian Luka for the footage, which is of the South under 21s taking on the South under 18s in a pre-season hit out.

Hellenic Cup 2008 Finals round up

Now I wasn't there, so don't shoot me if I've got any of this wrong.

Two junior sides and the women's team had finals yesterday. Our u13s won 9-0 against Oakleigh, while our u14s side lost to the same opposition 3-2. According to slightly more than semi-reliable 2nd hand information, our women's side apparently played quite well and kept up with last season's WVPL champion Heidelberg, improving significantly on the previous 7-0 loss to draw the final 0-0 and push the game to penalties where they alas lost 7-6 in the shootout. Nevertheless, there appears to be much hope for our ladies this year, and perhaps now something better than merely survival can and should be aimed for.

Tomorrow a wrap up of the wildly enjoyable Family Day, which is partly dependent on my receiving a couple of photos to help illustrate a couple of points.

Please stop, that hurts

Quick post until my next undergraduate level 'serious' piece. The Futsalroos drew with Argentina 3-3 in their last group game (Nando scored again), before being hammered 7-0 by Brazil in the semi finals. Also getting caned 7-0 was the SMFC women's team by Heidelberg. Still, they've qualified for the final on Saturday, against Heidelberg once more. A couple of our junior teams have also reached their respective finals, so good luck to our under 13s, 14s and women's teams. A slightly tweaked version of my Tony Ising getting the arse piece is up on Das Libero, but not on the main articles page for some reason. Probably because it sucked, but who cares about Ising anyway? He's last week's news. Next piece will be likely be after the Socceroos-Qatar match, should be a ripper win, lose or draw.

Fernando kicking ass at KL 5s

Scored goals in all three Australian victories so far. Highlights below from the first game against Indonesia.

South Melbourne 0 Bentleigh Greens 1 - Hellenic Cup

Knocked out last night, with not quite a full squad, but disappointing nevertheless. Didn't catch this game, but this result was always on the cards based on Bentleigh's form, combined with not having a full squad. Expect more friendlies to come up now.

Pedestrian and awful - Hellenic Cup group games

This is basically a wrap up of the two remaining group games played over this weekend.

Saturday's match was against South Springvale Aris, a state league 2 outfit. Mix of regulars and ressies. Got there late, so missed Caldwell's opener. Caldwell also got the 2nd, and was denied a hat-trick by a spectacular save from a free kick by the opposition keeper. In general, South barely raised a sweat and rarely looked inspiring, but having said that, Aris never even got close. Ricky Diaco missed the game with a groin injury but should be right for the start of the season. Your correspondent had a terse conversation with Rockem Sockem Poutakidis about the whereabouts of Perth goalkeeping recruit Neill Young. Rumour is that he hasn't signed, unhappy about having to play second fiddle to Johnny A's brother Dean. "No comment" was the response, in my opinion more or less an admission that it was true. He stuck to his guns and I stuck to mine. I reckon I won that argument on a points decision, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, what with an experienced and seemingly quite capable keeper being let go for reasons other than talent.

Sunday's game was against amateur side South Springvale Serres. With the exceptions of Natsioulas and Tosic in goal, no one else could be considered even close to a senior player. Still, the performance was very disconcerting. A bunch of young, fit and allegedly talented guys struggled to put together almost any decent moves. Luckily, Serres almost never threatened to score, but still, Hellas needed a dubious penalty to make sure of the result. There were some bad tackles in this game, the one that will stick the mind the most is that of a South player lucky to stay on the field after committing an atrocious and plainly deliberate two footed studs up tackle. Johnny A's absence was also noticed by some supporters, and not with pleasure either.

South now goes on to meet Bentleigh Greens on Thursday evening, with the winner of that going through to the semi final on Sunday.

Fernando to play for Futsalroos

Fernando 'Nando' De Moraes has been selected to play for the Futsalroos in some Kuala Lumpur (France) tournament.

South fans are already familiar with his fancy footwork on the big field, including his wonderful trickery which set up Gianni De Nittis winning goal in the 2006 VPL grand final. Bravo Nando, and good luck to the entire team. And don't come back injured Nando, or there'll be hell to pay.

Reports on the weekends Hellenic Cup games (and other adventures) on Monday.

Nothing to do with Ising getting the arse

* Gully game set for Saturday morning - canceled or postponed.
* Hellenic Cup games - still very much on.
* Family Day announced for the 10th February - should be fun.
* Jersey Presentation night on 15th February, $60 - I'll probably end up going, about time I turned up to one of these things.

Oh and in only slightly relevant news

* Some Victory fans chuck a sook because Tony Ising gets the arse from Melbourne Victory, while others are glad to see him gone – in a somewhat inverted reaction, some South fans dance on his metaphorical grave, while others are a little more philosophical, and some do both.

Poor Tony. Or not. The man's dream started in the Carlton SC outer back in the bad old NSL days (saying 'old' together with 'NSL' is still mandatory; 'bad' is optional, used with venom by the new footballing breed, while 'old soccerites' make use of it with sarcasm or irony). He even posted it on a webpage which he later had torn down. He apparently tried to ram his idea through the South board at one stage; either that or they weren't very perceptive or progressive.

Anyway, in this writer's opinion, there are essentially two factions operating at A-League level. One is represented by your Ising types, who in numerous interviews prior to the A-League's beginning, made more references, at least in my opinion, to uniting existing soccer supporters, and creating some sort of new footballing culture. The other types were your Geoff Lords, who let's be honest, are in it for the money. And if Ising thought he was going to be able to buck the general sporting trends in this country, well good on him, but I reckon he was wrong, even if hindsight works a treat.

Because it works like this. Say you're a rock band with a heavy leftist political slant, calling itself for all intents and purposes, The Machine Rages On. Now if you happen to stay small time, your ability to make a difference is compromised by the fact that you're preaching to the converted, and frankly, the converted are fairly few and far between and already doing their bit. Of course, should you have a surprise breakthrough song, perhaps with some anti-police/authority motif, you may find yourself with quite a few more fans, word spreads, radio's playing your song everywhere, and heaps of people love you. But people are more in tune with the heaviness and the barely restrained anger of your song rather than with the politics. Some of your original fans criticise you for selling out, while others feel uneasy with you being the in thing with a lot of people who are merely on the bandwagon. Your message of social upheaval and change gets lost in the pop-cultural milieu. And all of a sudden the idea you had of starting a political rock band to make a difference stares you back in the face. Yes you did make a difference, but what sort? In the end and despite all your best intentions, rather than making the difference you wanted, you only made a difference in so far as you furthered the capitalist ambitions of someone who saw your idea and happened to see it differently, and was able to make money off you and those whom you sought to help or call to action, who frankly couldn't have cared less to begin with. And the world keeps on turning in more or less the same fashion before you and your lofty dreams arrived on the scene. And it's not as if you did anything wrong per se; after all, you yourself maintained your integrity for the most part. But once your idea wasn't just yours anymore, but also that of some guy who saw a chance to make some dosh and as well as it getting attached to some guy semi-consciously nodding along in his car, your control of that idea is gone, and you ain't getting it back.

There was a time in this country, and I was born into the tail end of it, where most of the people at sporting clubs really gave a toss about their team's fortunes. They were at the home games almost every week, most got to as many away games as they could, their emotional barometer was heavily affected by a win or a loss. This crossed sporting codes and all strata of society. Their club was something they believed in, it was their imagined and at the same time very real community, at a time when sport and entertainment industry in the same sentence would have been incompatible. But the times changed, the old community clubs were eventually destroyed from without by those who couldn't appreciate what was already there, and often from within when the money ran out, and revolutionary steps were taken to bring in more people, more money, and in turn more success, whatever the consequences.

And the price paid in the end, in this writer's opinion, was far too great. The AFL destroyed itself, in its quest to dictate what culture should exist, by choosing the corporate and fairweather over the philanthropists and diehards. In soccer's case, the diehards were essentially most of those who were left at NSL level, whether ethnic club or broadbased. The money wasn't there, people across the board generally felt that changes needed to be made, but pretty soon it was obvious that the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, and we were going to have a fresh new start, for people who believed that stuff's possible. And so about 50 years of accumulated culture, the good, the bad and the bizarre was discarded, and not even consigned to a history book. Everything had to be new, even the primordial creation myths had to be reinvented. But I digress.

There are people who cling on to some notion of the A-League being for the 'real' football fans, people who went to the NSL, people who couldn't make an association with existing clubs or the NSL, yadayadayada. And maybe it was a little like that in the beginning. But pretty soon it was taken over by people who needed something to do over the summer, those sucked in by the far too serious and self-referential 'atmosphere' and those who wanted to be in the 'in crowd', and who saw soccer as giving them some sort of cosmopolitan flavour in a country torn between cringeworthy parochialism and a need to be loved by everyone overseas.

But all this could just be the bitter nostalgic rant of a disenfranchised NSL supporter. And for all anyone knows, Tony might be happy with how the club and league ended up. But on the same token, it is worth wondering why Tony did get the sack, who gave him the sack, and the potential reasons for this. Because for all the bullshit propaganda of a new era, Tony was one of the many remnants of that past mythical age, and therefore his departure does mean something, even if it doesn't exactly correspond with the general thrust of this piece.

Reardo Luka on his to way a full recovery

Found another South related blog, seems to have been started recently, and is still alive. The most interesting news is that Reardo Luka's recovery from a horrible injury last season is nearing completion. Luka broke his leg in last year's Hellenic Cup in a collision with the opposition keeper. The following borrowed from the above site, contains the low down on his current state.

After a long period of time out of the game, due to breaking his leg while playing soccer, Reardo LUKA is back to training with South Melbourne FC.

Facing many difficulties to recover, which were directly related to the bad job that was on his leg done by one of Melbourne’s hospitals, Reardo is very happy to return to his beloved game.

Starting light sessions yesterday January 8, he aims to be back on the field by the end of March 2008 and give his best to regain the top goal scorer position, which he lead for 2 years in a row with SMFC Youth Team.

Sincerely, Reardo thanks all supporters who helped him pass this hard time and at the same time is determined to reach his ‘shattered dream.’

South of the Border wishes Reardo all the best with his recovery and with the hope that he gets back on the field and regains his scoring touch.

Original still the best - South Melbourne 1 Port Melbourne 0

South vs Port. One came from the other, and yet the parent has ever outshined its bastard son. One just about did as much and went as far as an Australian team could, the other failed, in its own lesser domain, to take the oppotunities it was granted. Today's meeting once upon a time may have contained some spice, but these days both sides are far from their glory days.

With Port now two divisions below South and fielding a young team, there could only be one winner. South threatened throughout most of the match, and in particular a stylish first half, to absolutely destroy Port . Caldwell got the only goal in the first half, while poor crossing and the usual walk the ball in stylings of South kept Port in the game, and to their credit, they improved sufficiently to trouble South on a couple of occasions, but luck not being on their side they didn't manage to get the equaliser. The game was entertaining enough, but defensively there are still concerns.



Poor picture I know, taken with a crappy camera while the train shook violently, but somehow despite that Crateman managed to get in the photo.

Apparently this was a friendly - South Melbourne 3 Melbourne Knights 1

Perhaps it's because a fair few of them live around Sunshine, or perhaps it's because they've got real high hopes for the upcoming season, but there were plenty of Knights fans at Chaplin Reserve. The MCF even had their 'MCF' and 'Against Modern Football' (whatever that means; a more accurate description would perhaps be 'against post-modern football') banners out. On the flip side the South contingent was very small. A couple of board members, some support staff, an out of action for this game (courtesy of a keeper collision in the Heidelberg friendly) Hamlet Armenian, the odd fan and one grand slam tennis line caller who turned up at half time. Of course attendance by South fans is rarely anything approaching awesome at these things, but this was pretty poor. Maybe they were at the tennis, or still on the forum banging on about Leo. Goodness knows the forum's rarely that lively when there's an actual soccer match to talk about, which is a little bit of a cause for concern.

Anyway, the game itself lacked any real fluency, on a level but rock hard ground. For South, Poutakidis, Diaco and Fernando played the first half, Natsioulas did not play. New South recruit MacDonald scored about 10 or so minutes in from a corner. Knights leveled after the break with Deano in goal. Perhaps a little against the run of play South scored twice late to take the game, with Caldwell providing a good low pass for the third for De Nittis to put away. A number of players from both sides received knocks. Fernando hurt his left knee, but should be fine. New keeper Neil Young collided with Ramazan, the former getting a cut inside his mouth as a result. Danny Miller somehow got a broken rib which made it difficult for him to breathe.

I'm concerned that De Nittis is still being persisted with in a midfield role, instead of his usual place up front. Goran Zoric is a real gem, but will his small stature work for or against us? A pleasing aspect was the hard tackling put in by some players, a very good omen. Not the most brilliant work from either side, but there were enough signs that both will be up there probably fighting for a top four spot. Most noticeable on things to work on for both sides was the back half. South's new look defense is still taking time to gel, but should have enough games in between now and Round 1 to sort most of them out, as well as working on linking up with the midfield. For the Knights, their defense seems a little slow, and a little vulnerable on the counter attack, so quicker sides, like South, may well be some of their more difficult opponents this year.

So now on to Saturday (tomorrow) where a decent squad will take on Port Melbourne at the Hellenic Cup, so that should be worth going to see. On the way home while sitting on a bench at Sunshine station, some nut driving by in a car I presume threw an egg which missed me by about a metre, hitting the rock on which the stolen plaque which contained the names of the victims of the Sunshine train disaster used to be. And also in between Spotswood and Newport stations there is a crateman on one of the buildings (west side). If it's still there by tomorrow might try and get a photo.

2008 Hellenic Cup

That's right, everyone's favourite pre-season tournament the Hellenic Cup is upon us once more. We won this last year of course, so we've got a crown to defend. This year the competition is being played out at Kingston Heath and The Grange, with finals at Olympic Village. How they ended up choosing two south-eastern grounds is something I haven't quite figured out yet. Of course it doesn't really suit north-western clubs (and people like me from the west), but the south-eastern oligarchy that runs these things probably doesn't give a stuff.

For the record, in the group stage South is in the south-east section (at Kingston City's The Grange) with the following games and times. Your correspondent foresees a chance of appearing at the first two games, work permitting, with a preference for the 'derby' against Port.

Saturday 19th January vs Port Melbourne (4:00)
Saturday 26th January vs South Springvale Aris (5:30)
Sunday 27th January vs Serres South Springvale (4:00)

Top team goes through to the sudden death rounds. I wouldn't count on South progressing through for certain, even though the group features two state league 2 sides 2 months out from their season starting, as well as an amateur team, playing weakened sides due to play simultaneous games with more senior players elsewhere means there's always a chance of screwing up.

After sitting out last year's tournament, our women's side is in this year playing out at Bentleigh Greens, here are their games, and there's a few junior sides in there as well. Should be a lot of fun all round, hopefully the men's side can go back to back and the women can at least make it to the final.

South Melbourne 2 Heidelberg 1

Game out at Keysborough last night, yesterday, whatever. Pice here. Didn't go of course. I went bowling instead, my first time, apart from four gutter balls to start off my career generally picked up after that, and really enjoyed myself. Good thing there's a centre just up the road from my place.

South Melbourne 0 Richmond 5 2008 preseason friendly

A bit of a belting last night. Apparently we hit the woodwork four times, and Deano's back to his best.