Glad to be back - South Melbourne 3 Heidelberg United 1

After everything that has happened over the past two years, it was just nice to be back, again. Coming in on the train, I had that sick feeling in the guts which means that I still care; that's a good thing, as I have been reassured by others, because if I didn't care, then the whole thing would be work, and not mangled joy. It was opening day, it was derby day, it was South Melbourne Hellas day.

I am now 16 years into my second South Melbourne Hellas life, the one where I have been able to be the kind of supporter that I was not able to be during the NSL years. In this second Hellas life, I have spent those 16 years largely among the same faces. Some people have left, some new people have come in, and others come in and out. But the core of the group I became attached to - based mostly around the people active on the defunct smfcboard.com, and its still extant replacement smfcfans.com - are still there.

Many of them are now married, with kids who they are bringing to games. Some of them had kids so long ago, that the kids are now the age I was when I started coming back to South. Everyone's a little older, a little tireder, a little more jaded, but also a bit more relaxed. The club's been to hell and not quite back on multiple occasions, the football remains quasi-watchable at the best of times, and the persistent promise of a brighter tomorrow is a running joke that's so old and well-worn that no one even bothers to complain about it anymore; at least not that much. And why should we? Cynicism at the idea that things might get better for us is as much a part of the club as the supporters who have to listen to the promises, as well as the people who have to try and make a better tomorrow happen.

At the bottom of the stairs outside the office entrance, I realised I didn't even have the QR code for Lakeside saved as a favourite in my Services Victoria app. Then picking up my membership, and while wearing a jersey from a few years ago now, I am told by a volunteer that it's time to update to a new jersey. My response to that is that I don't wear Kappa, so that could take awhile. The food was much the same, except for the food trucks outside which included an ice-cream truck, which along with the warm weather made it seem like an NSL revival.

Having only attended one pre-season game in the lead-up to the season opener - not that there were that many games to choose from - I had no idea about form, tactics, or expectations. All I wanted is for the team to try and score goals, which would be something to hang on to after last year's dire setup. It's easy to say you've defended well when you have six or seven players sitting so deep that you have no midfield. But that's not meant to be the South way, and it comes across as even sillier when people are falling over themselves to claim Ange Postecoglou and the pretty attacking football his teams play.

Look, I get that we're a world away from the personnel and training environments that could come close to emulating what Ange is doing, but there's also this: attacking football is more fun, for fans and for players. Conceding the initiative almost from the get-go, and preferring to try and absorb pressure from deep in your own half, is bloody draining. OK, so what was served up on Thursday wasn't necessarily pretty. in part because both teams were still underdone, especially the Bergers.

But my goodness it was exciting to watch us take the game on. Was it ball playing finesse work? No. Was is it an approach which could reliably produce more than a couple of chances a game? Yes. With the exception of a couple of teams which try and play a short passing game, NPL Victoria is still very much a turnover and counter-attack based affair. That's fine. I don't mind. As long as we consistently win the ball from midfield and not so deep that the opponent's goal looks like a mirage on the horizon, good things are more likely to happen.

Instead of bombing it to Harrison Sawyer with no support and no hope, we might this year be able to play both to and away from Sawyer. Andy Brennan put in a couple of decent corners. Max Mikkola can throw the ball a long way. Players being given the licence and setup to have a go means creating more chances, and more chance of luck going your way. Who knows how it will look when we fall behind, or playing against more capable and fitter teams. Who knows where Lirim Elmazi and Josh Wallen will fit into the team. 

But the most important thing was that the first half was enjoyable. We cruised home in the second half to the point where people could later focus on arguing about how large or small the crowd was, and how many people the Tardis space in the corporate areas can fit. We could focus on gimmick chants for winning "six points", and trying to get kids to lead certain chants.

Next game

Away to Bentleigh on Friday night.

2021 AGM date set

A date has been set - finally - for the dual 2021 annual general meetings. On Sunday March 6th at 11:00AM, the South Melbourne Hellas AGM will take place, followed by the South Melbourne FC AGM at 12:00. Both AGMs will of course be in the social club.

What happens if the season is cancelled again

Unfortunately buried deep within Joey Lynch's season preview on the Football Victoria site - I would have have preferred that it be posted in massive letters at the start of the piece - lies the answer to what happens if the season is cancelled again.

However, in the event that COVID does its unwelcome thing and the season is forced to be cancelled for the third-straight year, the premiership and promotion and relegation will all be determined via ladder position on the condition that at least 50% of the league’s fixtures have been played. If all teams have played the same amount of games it’s a pretty easy determination, but in the event that there is an uneven spread then a points per game basis will be used, followed by average goal difference per game, and then average goals for per game. 

So there you go, the protocol that should have existed a year ago and which could have saved us a lot of bother and the need for bespoke solutions, but didn't. 

Show me the money

This bit of news is a little bit out of date now, in that it's from February 1st, but it's worth noting nonetheless. Channel 10 reported back then that Ross Pelligra and the Pelligra Group had made an offer of around $20 million to purchase Adelaide United. 

You may know the Pelligra name from some of the sponsor boards around Lakeside, or the brand's prominent position on the scoreboard during matches. You may even remember the Pelligra name from our most recent A-League bid, even if you'd rather not remember that we made a bid, preferring instead to pretend that you were always in favour of pro-rel and a second division. Me, I always preferred the (hypothetical) drawbridge model; that is, getting in, pulling up the gate, and filling in the moat with crocodiles. But I digress.

Anyway, for that most recent bid of ours, Ross Pelligra and his property development concern were set to be the major financial backers for the entity representing South Melbourne Hellas in the A-League. So, that's one question answered three years down the line - yes, the money was actually there for a South aligned bid. The second question was a bit more current: would the Pelligra purchase of Adelaide United, and the Pelligra Group's wider Adelaide sporting interests, see a diminishing of its sponsorship of South Melbourne? At the moment, that does not appear the case. 

Maybe people can support both the A-League and a former NSL club? Shocking if true. Also kind of icky.

Australia Cup Mk II

No one at South needs to worry about this for a few weeks yet, but just in case you haven't caught up on this little bit of oldish news, the FFA Cup has been renamed to the Australia Cup. This change was likely deemed necessary when Football Federation Australia decided it no longer wanted to be a Federation, and instead wanted to... I don't actually know where I'm going with this, except to say that an unnecessary name change in one department has led to led to a stupid name change in another.

A handful of people reading this are probably aware that there was already once an Australia Cup for soccer, which ran from 1962-1968. It ran on a sort of Champions League format, in that qualification seemed to be offered not only to champions of the various state federations, but also state cup winners, and teams that finished in the upper echelons of the bigger state leagues. The original Australia Cup was ended due to the high cost of travel, and diminishing fan interest in the tournament - which was probably a reflection of the wider cooling off of interest in local soccer as the effects of the ethnic boom started to peter out.

The FFA Cup trophy was modeled on the Australia Cup trophy, which was named the Henry Seamonds Memorial Trophy in 1963, after the then recent passing of the Australian soccer administrator. You may recall that this trophy was found in a skip outside the Hakoah club in Sydney. After a refurbishment, the original trophy now resides with Caroline Springs George Cross, the 1964 winners of the Cup.Modeling the FFA Cup trophy on the Australia Cup trophy was a clever and respectful nod to the past, without claiming direct continuity. 

This name change though comes across as neither clever nor respectful, just slack. They could've named it after Alex Pongrass. They could've named it after Frank Lowy. They could've even named it after the skip they found the old trophy in.

The PR statements around the name change claim that there was consultation with people, and that everyone seemed to be happy with the name change. Well, they didn't consult me, or the other layabouts involved with Australian soccer history. Frankly, it's just an attempt to hitch a ride on the coattails of a defunct competition that was won by several now dead clubs no one cares about, played under a different format. Instead of doing something new or thoughtful, they did something cheap and lazy, which will muddle statistical compilation and historical narrative as people inevtiable conflate the two competitions. And they'll call it respecting history.

Around the streams

The future of NPL streaming is here, and it's called npl.tv, accessed via the "Cluch" app. Horrible name, who knows where the "t" ended up. Anyway, Cluch seems to be a streaming platform which focuses on a lot of minor sports, as well as second and third tier competitions of otherwise major sports. Four state federations have jumped on board with NPL TV, Football Victoria being one of them.

The service - which you need to register for - is available via a phone app, and also via desktop through the NPL TV website. At the moment it's a free service, and I haven't seen any indication yet of if or when that might change to a paid service. You do have to wonder though at what point someone will actually try and make some money from this. 

The opening weekend hasn't been all smooth sailing for the new service, with reports of crashes, games not even starting, and people struggling to sign up. Having not watched any of the games on a television via Chromecast or some such, I can't vouch for whether the video quality is better (significantly or otherwise) than the YouTube or Facebook streams. I don't know squat about smart TVs and such, so I can't elaborate on how those things will work, except that Apple TV and Android TV applications are in the works

I have a pretty dated Nokia smartphone, with a small screen and not much of a memory cache, but I was surprised at how well the app worked for the most part. There was some minor, occasional buffering, but otherwise I didn't seem to run into some of the problems others were reporting. I was not exactly thrilled however that the phone app seems to redirect to a browser function rather than merely running the stream through the app itself.

The desktop variant is much the same, but here's where I ran into some problems - namely that some streams didn't even seem to be working, as in the case of Avondale vs Bentleigh, including the quite unhelpful message "this video file cannot be played: error code 232011". At least there was a backup YouTube stream for all of this week's games, which I found myself defaulting to in preference to the app and desktop options. In time, once the new app overcomes its teething problems, it is likely that this service will see the end of the Facebook and YouTube streams we have become accustomed to using for the past few season. The Facebook streams are already gone, and the YouTube streams seem to exist mostly as a backup. 

This is a pity, though I do understand the reasoning behind it. No point in making a big song and dance about a new streaming platform, and then having a competing service running against it. Part of NPL TV's reason for existing will be to gather more accurate demographic data about who is watching Australian second tier soccer, likely minus much of the European and Asian gambling fraternity which piggybacked off the more easily accessible Facebook and YouTube streams. It's the kind of data that might prove useful for trying to figure out how to make a possible national second division broadcasting arrangement work.

The NPL TV desktop and app options have a couple of nice features, the best of which is a list of videos of important moments within each game such as goals, shots on goal, corners won, and cards dished out. Of these, the "corners won" feature is clearly the most pointless, but it's nice not to have fling back and forth on a whole match timeline looking for footage of goals. 

Switching to that highlights menu, and especially switching between games, is a pain in the arse. Others have also bemoaned the inability to start watching a game from any given point in time, being forced to watch the game from that moment you log in. After giving both the app and desktop version a run, and despite being pleased with some of the NPL TV add-ons, I still find the YouTube stream easier to use, just because it's so much easier to switch between different simultaneous streams. With so many overlapping matches, I'll likely be sticking to the YouTube option until its no longer available.

Scaffolding news

Viewers may have also noticed that many of the camera angles on the opening round's streams were closer to ground level than is usually the case. I noticed this at first on the stream of the Port Melbourne vs St Albans game yesterday, though I should have also noted that it was the case at some other games I watched, like Dandenong City vs Melbourne Knights.

This is because the kinds of temporary scaffolding many clubs use for camera and commentary positions are no longer covered by Football Victoria's public liability insurance. It's a change in policy which seems to follow in the wake of the tragic death last year of a Queensland man, who was crushed by collapsing media scaffolding while watching his son play.

The only way to change the status of such temporary scaffolding is to convert the relevant temporary structures into permanent ones; or to follow a three step process whereby the third party provider/installer of a temporary structure (which may include a local council) provides a certificate of currency, as well as significant liability insurance of its own.

It makes you wonder about the day in 2014 when South fans put together a temporary gantry out at Werribee. Goodness knows who would have been liable if anything happened to Tim the cameraman on that day.

Final thought

A shame about the minute's silence for Ulysses Kokkinos. Hell of a time for the PA system to go awry. So it goes.

Members forum this Thursday

A members forum has been announced for August 15th (this Thursday) in the social club, with a starting time of 7:00PM.

Unfortunately, due to my Thursday evening radio commitments, I won't be able to attend this meeting. If someone wants to volunteer to act as the people's scribe in my place so we can post something up on South of the Border after the fact, that would be really good. Otherwise I'm going tio have to cobble together stuff from internet babblings.

I'm posting the contest of President Nick Maikousis' email below, because not every member seems to receive emails.

Monday August 12th, 2019 

Dear Members, 

As we near the end of the 2019 NPL Victoria season, I want to take this opportunity to update you on some key issues at our club. Subsequently, I will be holding a members-only forum in our social club on Thursday 15th August starting at 7pm. We will be scheduling regular quarterly member forums so that we can better communicate with our members. 

SMFC is a proud and decorated club in Australian football, with four National League titles, ten State League titles and numerous other honours throughout the last 60 years. However, the hard work has only just begun as we begin setting ourselves up for the next phase in the Australian football landscape. 

As part of this, it is the vision of the board and our fan base to aim at restoring our reputation as a major football club in Australia and broader Asia. By doing so, we will always aim to be playing at the highest levels of the game in this country. As such, we believe that we are currently undertaking important steps to make this happen. 

The club has performed exceptionally in the digital space over a long time by growing our online channels and fan base through mediums such as social media. However, we must build on this and aim at increasing our supporter and member base to ensure that every game SMFC participates in can be seen as a fixture of interest. 

We are also well aware that on-field performances at both senior and junior level need to improve. With this in mind, the Football Department is making positive steps towards this objective. Non-performance is simply not part of the SMFC DNA and is something that we cannot accept. 

The board’s 2019 immediate focus was predominantly to generate additional revenue to assist with reducing club debt and to complete a comprehensive board restructure, which includes implementing a robust marketing and football department. With additional resources and an increase in our volunteer numbers, we envisage that our social club debt will be fully settled by the end of next year. We strongly believe that all these changes and plans will enable us to move forward at lightning speed. 

The 2020/2021 season will bring new challenges, encompassing changes to our game with a new NPL structure and the introduction of a new National League. We are committed to embracing these huge changes to our game and are planning to work closely with the AAFC, Football Victoria and Football Federation Australia to ensure that we are able to hit the ground running in these competitions. 

Finally, I wish to thank you, the South family, for your continued support in what has been a tough year. We have always been proud of being a members-based club and we will remain as such moving into this new era. The Board and Directors of this club are here to represent the membership and we assure you that we will continue to reflect the views outlined by our members. 

An overview of what work has been done at the club can be found below. I look forward to seeing you all at the membership forum on Thursday and during our remaining two matches of the season.

Senior Men 

Despite our inconsistent and at times frustrating performances during the 2019 season, we must take some positive moments away that could see vast improvements on the pitch for the 2020 season. 

We are well aware that our senior team’s performance affects various parts of the business, including support in the stands, membership and the support of our corporate partners. As such, the performance of our senior team has historically been critical at our club and nothing has changed, not even in this era. 

The club has appointed Andre Meyer to the role of Technical Director for next season. With the recent restructure and clear focus on resourcing the football department, we believe we will be ready to make an impact from the opening round in 2020. 

It is also our aim to strengthen our young squad by actively targeting senior and experienced players to compliment the youth coming through our ranks. 

Football Development and Restructured Youth Program
As announced late last year, Michael Valkanis took on the role of Football Ambassador. New Technical Director Andre Meyer will join Michael in driving our football development program in 2020. 

One main focus is to build a strong and welcoming club culture across all our youth teams, whilst at the same time concentrating on the development of individuals as footballers. We have also added additional resources to our MiniRoos and Junior programs, including new community sides in line with the recent Football Victoria changes. 

With added personnel, increases in volunteers and a new direction, we believe these changes will further assist our growth in this area. 

The Baby Blues Program
Some thirty years ago under Brian Garvey, the club had a vision to develop its own youth players and have them experience success at senior level wearing the famous blue and white. We have begun implementing this very strategy this season and will continue doing so in 2020. 

As such, it is our five-year vision to win a senior team championship with at least 60% home-grown players. In the past 18 months, ten players have been promoted from our Under 20s to play senior NPL football for our club. This includes the likes of Will Orford, Manny Aguek, Ben Djiba, Giuseppe and Giordano Marafioti, Zac Bates and George Gerondaras, whilst victorious Under 20s captain Giorgi Zarbos and goalkeepers Amir Jashari and Angelo Rigogiannis have been unused substitutes. 

Senior Women
2019 has seen several changes within our senior women’s team. With numerous championship winning players either moving overseas or relocating interstate for opportunities in the Australian team setup, it left coach Mick Gallo and his staff with a relatively new and very young squad from the early stages of this season. It has resulted in a great opportunity to give many Under 19s youth players an opportunity to test themselves at senior level, as well as the squad to gain experience in a tough NPLW Victoria competition. 

With just a few rounds remaining of the NPLW Victoria regular season, our senior women are still very much in contention for yet another finals appearance and we encourage as many of our supporters to attend their matches to support them in their quest for another championship. 

Corporate Growth
Commerical & General has been the club’s Major Partner in 2019 as well as strategic supporters and a part of the Australian football fabric for over two decades. They are considered to be one of Australia’s leading property development and investment management organisations, boasting major projects across the country. We recently confirmed that Commercial & General has extended its relationship with the club as Major Partner for the next two seasons. 

We are also excited to welcome Pelligra as a Principal Partner for the next two seasons, following Ross Pelligra’s full support during our A-League bid last year. 

It is the aim of the Board and Commercial Operations to grow our corporate base in 2020, including a focus on a return on investment in being associated with SMFC’s strong brand. Our focus on growing and servicing our corporate base is integral in the growth of the club, so we urge all our members and supporters to support the organisations that support our club. 

Finally, we are working towards building long-term passive income streams.
60th Year Club Anniversary 

We proudly celebrate our 60th year anniversary this year. As we all know, in 1959 the Hellenic and Yarra Park clubs merged to form Hellas Soccer Club and a further merger with South Melbourne United formed South Melbourne Hellas. Since then, our club has gone from strength to strength and evolved into the modern-day South Melbourne Football Club. 

Over six decades, we have been at forefront of Australian football and have experienced some incredible and glorious moments. Another consistency throughout our 60 years has been the involvement of volunteers and committed individuals that have driven the passion of our club. Along with the high expectations of our large and passionate fanbase, the existence of volunteers has been a key to our long-term success. 

As a sign of respect and gratitude to all that have helped the club since 1959, we will be recognising and celebrating our anniversary in numerous ways. We have already introduced a heritage anniversary logo created and implemented across club marketing, digital mediums and selected merchandise. We thank our media team for all their hard work in creating this for us. 

We will celebrate our 60th anniversary milestone at numerous events, including at our final game of the NPL Victoria season on Sunday 25 August against Heidelberg United at Lakeside Stadium (kick-off at 3pm). We have invited former players, coaches and officials to join us that day as we farewell the 2019 season and begin looking forward towards 2020. I would love to see as many people from all six decades of our club attend Lakeside Stadium in what promises to be a memorable occasion. 

Back to Back NSL Grand Final Reunion
We will also be recognising the 20-year anniversary of our amazing back-to-back National League Championship teams. 

We will be hosting a special reunion event later in the year at Lakeside Stadium, where we will welcome all players, coaches, staff and key volunteers that were involved in that special achievement. Details are currently being finalised and will be released closer to the day. 

Board Restructure and Update
There has been significant change at board level, with Ross Pelligra, Dennis Durant and Erik Zimmerman joining the board in the past month. They join Peter Kokotis and Tass Roufos, who both joined the board at the last Annual General Meeting, as fresh faces in the new structure. 

Each one of the new additions have joined to strengthen specific areas of our club, including our Commercial and Strategy Sub-Committees. 

We have also taken the strategic initiative to form an Executive Leadership Team for the Youth Development Program and welcome those new members and volunteers to the SMFC family.

National Second Division “The Championship”
In the past twelve months, we undertook a great deal of work regarding the strategic development and business planning as part of the A-League bid. Whilst the result didn’t go our way, the planning undertaken in that particular phase has strengthened the club off the pitch and has positioned us well for the implementation of the Championship.
We have also continued to work hard behind the scenes to ensure that we are ready to participate in this newly formed league. Whilst we were the only operating football club to reach the final stages of the recent A-League expansion process, we are in no way assuming that a place in the Championship will be handed to us. 

Subsequently, we will continue to be involved with the formulation and structure of the Championship via our unequivocal support of the AAFC. For those unaware, the AAFC is playing a hugely critical role with numerous federations and other key stakeholders to make this concept work for Australian Football. We would like to congratulate our former long-standing Chairman Nick Galatas in his recent appointment as new AAFC Chairman. 

Recently, I attended an open meeting with FFA Chairman Chris Nikou, who was fully supportive of a more conventional football system which included the introduction of the Championship. 

NCIP Changes
Like many other clubs, we are of the view that this has been a significant step forward for Australian Football and support the broader views of the football community regarding this change. 

All clubs will be provided with a simple set of guidelines moving forward with the removal of the NCIP, but it remains critical that no other community is offended, insulted or discriminated. 

Personally, I envisage little change in terms of the operations of our club position and branding. 

From a club perspective, most understand our long and rich heritage and they certainly understand the strong ties between South Melbourne and the huge Greek Community throughout the nation. 

The reality is that that it has been three decades since we have actively used the Hellas brand in our daily operations and at this stage we are not looking to make any sudden changes to the club’s identity. However, we must also remember that we’re a members-based club and the views of the membership will be heard and ultimately determine our destiny.

Yours in football, 

Nicholas Maikousis
President

So very tired

As the A-League expansion licence process enters what I hope is - one way or another - its actual true ending point on Wednesday, we've been made to endure one last media flurry from the bid team. Where probably many of us are exhausted by the whole business, Bill Papastergiadis, South board member and SMFC for A-League bid chief, has been sprinting to the end of the process.

Last week began with an attempt to claim the 'south-east' as our natural territory, what I hope is more of a cheap PR move than a genuine belief that we actually have any popularity in those suburbs outside of extant and/or latent Hellas fans. Then came the 'revelation' that we have the support of what was it, a touch under 50 Melbourne clubs? Then a bit where Ange Postecoglou does his filial duty. 

And there was the big one, at least for those of us wondering who was going to pay for all of this should the bid be successful, with property developer Ross Pelligra revealed as the money-man that would add the necessary liquidity to make it all happen. What Pelligra's ultimate motivations are, and why he would spend a millions on a facility that's owned by the government, I haven't the foggiest.

In the meantime, those of us with slightly longer memories will wonder whatever happened to major sponsor Luvarc and/or Luisa Chen, who seemed attached to the bid in early publicity, but which have since disappeared.

And some will say, and have said, why haven't we heard of any of these initiatives before now? If one assumes that these late stage media interventions will make a difference, I suppose it could be said that keeping our powder dry might be worthwhile. For those unconvinced by that possibility, I guess we'll wait to see the outcome of all these efforts, and remain unconvinced one way or another.

Outside of us, the bid process has maintained high grade levels of farce, which need little elaboration - bids without stadiums, waiting for government handouts; bids without stadiums, vowing to build their own, along with one assumes government handouts to build supporting infrastructure; bids with stadiums, waiting for government handouts to make them better. And that's just in Melbourne!

Across several if not most of the remaining bids, there is no obvious signs that the public these bids will rely upon are in any way interested in what they have to offer. Now there are threats by some that if they don't get in now, they will never try again. You have a league under new management that knows it must expand or stagnate further, while also contending that expansion must not infringe upon the supporter bases of existing franchises, while only one of the remaining bidders exists outside the current licence holders.

And outside of what actually matters in the decision making process, burner accounts battle across social media. But if we hold on a for a couple more days, we'll finally be at peace...