The Dockerty Cup as unloved middle child - South Melbourne 0 Bentleigh Greens 2

It needn't have ended up like this, but the way things were set in motion, what happened last night was the most likely outcome. That no one seems too bothered by the result seems to me on one level to be problematic - after all, don't we at South Melbourne go in to win everything? - but at the same time, this being the year of unstoppable good feeling at Lakeside, most people seem happy to go with the flow.

That, and the Dockerty Cup doesn't seem to be the hill that anyone wants to die on. In that sense, the Dockerty Cup is the forlorn middle child grasping for attention against mature and serious big brother League Ambition, and spoiled and petulant little brother FFA Bandwagon Cup.

The match was against Bentleigh, the team that presently more than any other causes us unending grief. The match was at Jack Edwards Reserve, a venue at which we have only won once in the last few seasons, and even that was more due to a chaotic late flurry in a rubbish game than dare I say it, skill or planning. The match was also in the middle of June instead of at the pointy end of the season, the latter of which we are far more predisposed to doing well in, as long as you ignore our 14 or 15 match unbeaten streak, and a potted history of disastrous results during several recent pointy ends

There was also once again no Milos Lujic, and also no Nick Epifano, so I think you could quite clearly see where our priorities were set - namely, getting in and out of this affair primarily without injury or suspension. And if things should just happen to pan out a particular way, end up having Lakeside host the final as the neutral venue of choice, where we may make some decent coin at the bar and kitchen. All in all, a case of win-win being not so much different from lose-win.

David Barca Moreno was put up front, by himself, and it did not work. This was mostly due to the fact that, apart from the first twenty or so minutes, we played the ball to him as if he was Milos Lujic; that is, long balls that he was asked to chase and compete for against centre backs. Now Moreno may be a gifted player or he may be a plodder, but I don't think he is that particular kind of forward; rather, I think he is one of those types that prefers the ball to feet, and for the most part we didn't do that.

But that opening twenty minutes! My word, didn't we look almost-sorta-competent-but-not-really during that time! Well, yes; yes, we did. As much or opponents were taking the ball up one end with a certain amount of confidence, so were we. In what was an open game marred by petty officiating - which we copped the brunt of of, though on reflection most of that fairly - both sides sought to outdo each other for bad crosses and midfield turnovers.

They didn't make us force a save during the first half that I can remember, while we had some OK chances, but this game soon went where so many recent contests against the Greens have gone - we forfeited any pretense at controlling the midfield, and eventually let Bentleigh have the match played on their terms. Our wide play, or the narrower confines of Jack Edwards Reserve, was limp at best. Neither Leigh Minopoulos, the returning Jesse Daley, nor Marcus Schroen had any meaningful impact on the contest.

Matthew Millar trudged up and down the field, but ineffectually. Maybe the bright sparks in the crowd are on to something when they say that he struggles at this ground, but I want more evidence first; two times only being a coincidence and not a trend as is three times. Luke Pavlou was industrious (ugh, bad word for 'tried hard but didn't do good') but also got lost a lot of times.

Further back, Brad Norton slipped and fell and looked shakier than I've noticed for a while. Matthew Foschini tended to have the measure of his direct opponent at right back, and even made some promising runs forward, but was let down by his crossing - which to be fair, was pretty much the sa,e deal as any other South player that attempted a cross last night.

The best on ground for us was Michael Eagar, who continues to play like a man reborn in 2017. Stefan Zinni was brought on probably a bit late for my liking, but once on had negligible impact on the contest. I'd also like to note that, while it's not like we weren't competing, we did look perhaps a little reticent in going full-blooded into the contest, maybe even a bit tired.

Once we fell behind in the second half, as we deserved to do, I guess the writing was more on the wall than ever. Did we improve once we conceded? Not really. Did anyone get particularly upset when Tyson Holmes doubled Bentleigh's lead thanks in no small part to Tom Rogic (video blocked to due FIFA chucking a tanty)-esque outrageous piece of good fortune? Not that I could tell. The team lifted a little bit, played with a bit more urgency, but not much more skill, and thus we bowed out of the Dockerty Cup running.

I am the bag of sand that puts out the party flame
I really would have liked to have won this game, seeing as how I fought for the return of the Dockerty Cup name and trophy, and to a lesser extent because I like it when South wins things. But everyone else around me, and even those on the forum, seemed not so fussed.

On the terrace last night then, perhaps because of the fatigue of winning too much or because of a general apathy towards this tournament, the atmosphere in Clarendon was at its most convivial, witty and oddball. Chants started off strong, before withering off into nonsense noises; more deconstructionist sound art project than chant, like the time we did staccato renditions of the 'vamos a la playa' chant back in 2008.

After hoping that the whole Matthew 'Apples' Millar thing (Millar being close enough in pronunciation to the Greek for 'apples') would die a sad and lonely death, last night we reached peak 'Apples' season when two inflatable red apples made an appearance. Goodness knows what Millar himself makes of this; provided he pays any sort of attention to this nonsense. Suffice to say, I did not join in the 'apples' chant, nor did I playfully bounce the inflatable apples around.

For some reason - maybe because he had a particular moment of bad play early on, or perhaps because as a collective we've gone through hating every other Bentleigh player these past few seasons - Nick Glavan came in for some attention this time. Either way, the erratic booing and cheering of Glavan - referred to only as 'Number 19' because I don't think most people knew he was - became an essential feature of the first half as he trod up and down the wing in front of Clarendon Corner.

Had it been up to me, some mention would have been made of Glavan's traitorous move from Knights to Bentleigh being part of the reason the former are in the dire straits they are, but that would have killed the entire whimsical notion of him being some random that people had decided to focus their attention on. That, and it was kind of sad when it did look like Glavan's Greens teammates were deliberately not passing the ball to him. For his part Glavan took the unusual attention directed toward him in his stride.

The crowds at state league soccer, as they were for much of the NSL, are of a such nature that fans and players can find themselves building a rapport even over the course of just 45 minutes. Since in our case this often ends badly, I'm just glad that for once we managed to get out of both Jack Edwards Reserve and a match against Bentleigh without any unpleasant scenes.

I still rather we'd won though.

Next game
Oakleigh at home on Sunday. Very short turnaround. Mid-season slump time?

Fixture updates
We have a rescheduled date for our postponed round 16 home against Avondale. It's been scheduled for Wednesday August 2nd.

This is the last time I'll mention this, for the next few months at least 
Some or many of you may be aware of SBS having sold off their a good deal of their world cup rights to Optus, in exchange for one game a week of EPL rights. This has upset some people, me included, but I've not made a big deal about it under I lost my cool on Twitter the other day.

This decision means that rather than showing the whole tournament, SBS will only shows 25 matches live (others on delay), while Optus gets 39 exclusive matches. For SBS, that will be one live per day (their pick), four round of 16 matches, two quarter-finals, both semi-finals, and the final. For free-to-air views, everything else will probably be on delay.

Because SBS has decided it would rather have access to Bournemouth vs Palace, what was the best free-to-air coverage of the World Cup in the world is now gone. For folks of a younger vintage, who have grown up accustomed to watching sports on subscription television, this won't seem like bad a deal. For those of us who grew up with this service as a given, the compromise seems nonsensical.

While it was the best free-to-air coverage of the tournament in the world, Australians still had to work for it in order to watch. Along with the mainstream media's ignorance of the tournament's magnitude, the ridiculous late night and early morning sessions, always in the middle of winter, made the tournament accessibility an inherent issue.

But that's where SBS stepped in, the self-appointed broadcast media guardians of soccer in Australia. They brought us the tournament in its entirety, and gave it the respect it deserved - give or take Craig Foster's inability to comport himself professionally during Socceroo matches. But no more, because SBS prefers to live off the drip feed benefits of Anglophile and Eurosnob magic beans. SBS once boasted about its soccer coverage, of which the World Cup was the the undoubted jewel in the crown.

I have had one Twitterer say that I should just pay for the Optus package. After all, I must have a 'home phone, mobile phone or broadband'. Well, yes, I have all three of those products with one company or another, and I can easily afford whatever Optus would charge. But that's not the point. The point is we are being asked to pay for what we already had, all while getting in the form of a weekly EPL game, something that very few of us actually want.

Not everyone has the proper internet connection quality to watch legal or illegal streams. Not everyone has the budget to splurge on pay television. And considering that we as Australian taxpayers (even those who contribute mostly through  paying GST because you don't make enough money to pay income taxes) have already paid for this, it is the height of robber-baron capitalism that we are asked to pay again for what we have already paid for.

And no, I will not pay for access, and no, I will not use the services of people who have. That's my pledge of pettiness to you, the reader.

I get that unlike our other erstwhile public broadcaster, SBS has particular commercial imperatives that they must satisfy. But it also has public broadcaster imperatives that it also needs to serve. Seeing as how they've reduced all their prime time viewing into English language programming, banished most of the foreign films in favour of mainstream American alternative cinema, and only play Miyazaki anime - in English dub - instead of the cooler stuff they used to dabble in, this move should come as no surprise.

[The most telling evidence of SBS selling out? Playing This is Spinal Tap instead of Get Ready to be Boyzvoiced]

That doesn't mean I'm happy about it, and it doesn't even make sense to me from a commercial aspects. Why sell out your world cup rights now, at the height of soccer's popularity in Australia? Because of Qatar and then 48 teams, this will be the last World Cup many people will likely care about so much, and now we get to see less of it because of EPL magic beans.

And no, watching games on delay is not cool. This isn't 1993, when those of us a certain vintage were happy and dumb enough to 'look away now' if we didn't want to know the score in order to pretend we were 'in the moment'.

So that's my final word on this matter from now up until the tournament starts and everyone else catches on about how SBS has dudded Australian soccer fans.

As an addendum to this post, some of the few who read my 2014 World Cup Heavy Sleeper work have wondered what will this mean for that feature's possible return next year. The truth is, I don't know. Part of what made the Heavy Sleeper work (in my opinion) was its amazing access to every game, provided I could wake up, which is obviously lessened now. Another aspect was its spontaneity, and I'm not sure I can replicate that.

But most importantly, the Heavy Sleeper was able to succeed as an immense piece of Great Art (whatever that is) because the tournament was great, and I was able to tap into joy for once - and for close to a whole month no less - instead of the unceasing negativity and moroseness that is South of the Border. Do people really want to read an angry and ceaselessly negative World Cup variant of what I do here? Do I even want to write that?

The answer to those questions is 'I don't know'. I was happy enough to let that glorious experiment remain as is, and I may still do so. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Final thought

If @smfc had a Virtua Striker machine in the social club, they could fund an A-League team just on what I'd put in the machine.

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) June 22, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FourFourTwo Oz's effort wasn't much better.

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

SBS' World Game website sinks to new lows.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Social Club Artefact Wednesday - a post-social club reminiscence

Oh lord, another in a series of sooky 'wasn't the past better than what exists now' posts. Tomorrow marks four years since we left what was Bob Jane Stadium, before it became Lakeside Stadium again. It also marks four years of having no social club (no, Beachcomber doesn't count), which our helpful timer has been illustrating for some time now, much to the dual amusement and annoyance of everyone at the club, including myself.

Ah, it was a poker night, not a casino night.
 Image courtesy of George Kouroumalis.

But even though that's the 'official' duration of having no social club, the fact is that the social club was used after that for at least one club function. Later that year, probably around August or September (or was it even the next year? surely not) there was some sort of casino night hosted by the club. I didn't attend that night (and by all reports it was a fun night out), but I did help set up the tables and such the night before.

Although works had started earlier that year on bulldozing the terraces, work on the social club hadn't really got far. The casino night therefor was meant to be the pre-redeveloped social club's final official usage. I think I got roped into helping out by virtue of the fact that I was at Port Melbourne watching a game, and one of my companions got a phonecall from one of the movers and shakers, and all of a sudden we were off to Lakeside.

Anyway, the job done we chucked the TV above the bar on to watch the footy, some pedestrian affair that I think Hawthorn was winning in a canter, so I said to one of the blokes 'change it to SBS'. Now Friday nights of course at the time being SBS' soft-porn night, and after giving me a quizzical look he changed the channel, and there was Diary of a Nymphomaniac, with its inventive use of a glass coke bottle on a lithe female body.

See, the last the four years without a social club haven't been completely terrible! As for the timer, if we never end up getting a social club, let it stay there like the Mark of Cain.

Where the hell did that come from?

South Melbourne Mariners? Central Coast Lakers?  South East Central Coast Melbourne Magic Spectres?

Before we get stuck into this, here's the offending article from the World Game site, followed by commentary from several related sources.

A majority of the Central Coast Mariners board has agreed to sell the club to a Melbourne-based consortium, consisting of three South Melbourne directors, for $4 million. 

The World Game understands the deal was agreed on Wednesday, with a 10 percent deposit due on Thursday. 

It was reported in The Australian that a member of the Mariners board flew to Melbourne on Wednesday to meet with an interested party, while a Russia-based investor is still keen to pump $15 million into the club and its valuable land assets. 

It is believed key Mariners investors, chairman Peter Turnbull, Lyall Gorman and Mike Charlesworth, who own a combined 64 percent stake in the club, had been stalling with a view to wooing the Russian group. 

The new arrangement would see the Mariners relocate up to four of their home matches - those perceived to draw the lowest gate - to Melbourne. 

The news is set to come as a relief to the embattled playing group, which has been embroiled in a dispute with the club over unpaid wages. The existing Mariners board met with representatives of Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) on Thursday afternoon in an attempt to resolve the matter. 

Football Federation Australia (FFA) is yet to ratify the agreement but is believed to be satisfied with the nature of the deal. 

Mariners coach Graham Arnold praised the attitude of his players in a torrid week of speculation that culminated in reports they were prepared to take strike action if their wage demands were not met. 

“It’s been a tough week for the players,” Arnold said. “But they are a great bunch of boys and the leadership group has done a great job of keeping them all together.”
“Today is the first day that I have seen them because I gave them a few days off, but morale is high.” 

“Before training the Peter Turnbull and Mike Charlesworth had a chat to them over loudspeaker on the phone to inform them what’s going on and I think that’s relaxed a lot of the players.” 

“On the football side of it the players have a job to do. I have a job to do as coach and we’ve just got to get on with things. We’ve got a big game against Adelaide this weekend and we’ll make sure we’re ready for it.” 

Arnold said he has confidence in the club’s capacity to rectify its ownership and financial issues. 

“There has to be a resolution and I am pretty sure that it will be sorted out quite quickly,” he said. 

“There’s no hiding the fact Peter Turnbull has publicly asked before for new investment in the ownership. It’s probably come to the stage now where something has to happen.”

Ray Gatt, chief soccer writer from the Sydney Morning Herald

Can tell you with absolute assurance that the SBS story is totally wrong
— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) March 21, 2013

So to start off with, he's claimed Mike Charlesworth will take over the Mariners, but then goes on to say:

@deanrosario lol.I've been wrong many times and will happen again! If I am now then so be it.at least I've been at forefront of this story
— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) March 21, 2013

Professional Footballers Association
They've also released a statement on the matter.

PFA MEDIA RELEASE

Sydney: Thursday 21 March 2013

The playing group of the Central Coast Mariners has instructed the PFA to express, in the strongest possible terms, their frustration and disappointment surrounding the negotiations of change of ownership at the club. 

Despite been assured on a number of occasions that payment of their salaries would be imminent, these promises have failed to materialise placing the players under enormous financial pressure and hardship. In some cases the players have been unable to pay for their families groceries.

The players have acted in good faith however there is a limit to their goodwill. The players have agreed not to take any industrial action at this time but the PFA does not rule out this possibility in the coming weeks.

President Simon Colosimo said “Once again this matter shows the precarious nature of being a professional footballer in Australia and ironically comes at a time when the PFA is seeking to negotiate greater contract security with FFA as part of our new CBA”.

Chairman John Poulakakis said “The players have suffered enough. Once again they are being forced to subsidize poor governance and management of the game. The players’ basic entitlements have been trampled on. Whatever is creating this delay must be addressed immediately. It’s time for certainty and the FFA and the club’s Directors to do the right thing by the players and the fans.”

Central Coast's official point of view

We can state that moving matches from Gosford to Melbourne is not in our plans. #aleague
— CentralCoastMariners (@CCMariners) March 21, 2013

And then you have Ray Gatt again 

Mariners deal done. Papers to be signed off tomorrow. Mike Charlesworth now controlling owner. Club in good hands 

— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) March 21, 2013

What we're going to take a guess at
That a South takeover or relocation was to be used or is going to be used, or has been used as a way of forcing a resolution to the longstanding issues with regards the ownership of Central Coast Mariners. Somebody somewhere at FFA headquarters got fed up with 'the Russians are coming' rumours, and this is how this situation has been resolved.

The best part of all of this
That so many people were caught out this, I suppose rather like our entry into the Singapore Cup a few years back, albeit here on a much funnier scale.

My ultimate position, for future reference
The only acceptable solution for any theoretical South Melbourne A-League bid, is

• a member run and owned club
• called South Melbourne
• playing in blue and white
• with all games in Melbourne
• with approval granted for entry by the members

Bring anything less than that to the table, and you can forget having my vote. No Pirates, no Lakers, no mergers, half-arsed takeovers

Whatever the end result of this is
That was the most fun I've had over a three hour period for a long time. Aussie soccer delivers the goods again, and long may it continue to do so.

Schadenfreude? What schadenfreude?

Normally, we here at South of the Border steer clear of A-League issues unless they have something vaguely to do with South. Not this time though. Following on from the mess that is the Gold Coast United situation, expectations were high for Clive Palmer's appearance on SBS' World Game program - yeah it still exists.

And it did not disappoint! This was material well in the tradition of Australian soccer comedy - no matter what your new dawn or bitter stripes may be, this stuff deserves a Logie. Look out for:

• As politically incorrect as it may be, simply how huge Palmer is. Luckily I was watching this on my little Hitachi, and not on my widescreen Sharp.
• The 'Come Play' world cup bid scarf. Facetiously outstanding.
• The accusations of rampant corruption directed at player agents.
• No mention of Miron Bleiberg at all.
• Deflecting all attention away from his own failures.
• The A4 sheet of paper he keeps looking at. Kinda like a certain person at South Melbourne AGMs.
• His 68-0 remark.
• His allegation that he was asked to dump the Gold Coast and become involved with a Western Sydney franchise
• His attacking of the overpaid bureaucrats and foreign lackey coaches.
• The chutzpah (to use a term Frank Lowy would appreciate) in calling FFA CEO Ben Buckley a 'non-football' person.
• The way he just would not stop talking, and the deer in headlights approach of the SBS team.
• Inferring that there is mass dissent among other A-League owners.
• His idea that somehow denying Fox Sports live access (by blacking out games within a city hosting a game) will mean a larger television rights deal.
• The implication that other media bidders have been blocked by the FFA from showing an interest.
• In general tearing apart Fox Sports.
• Inferring that the FFA's treatment of North Queensland Fury owner Don Mathieson lead to him being run of town and to his divorce!

Seriously, do check it out, it's worth it. It's what public broadcasting and Australian soccer are supposed to be all about.

Sivasspor 1 Buyuksehir 2

Yes, this bloke played for us this year. Also, does anyone still watch SBS's The World Game?

Budget Cuts Go Overboard

Finally the SBS segment goes to air. And finally I can acquiesce to the disillusionment that was building up inside me. Now I know we're stuck in a Global Financial Crisis™, but is 90 seconds all we could get? And what's this about six state championships? Hello, we've actually won, like, eight of them. Unless we sold a couple of them off to pay off some debts. If that's the case, can the bigwigs let me know which ones were sacrificed, so I can take them off the wikipedia page? Ta.

Looks like I made the right decision...

to stick with The Shield instead of flicking over to watch The World Game, because they ended up not plating our segment. What a laugh, and I love how it's brought out the conspiracy theorists as to why it didn't go to air. Next thing you know they'll want to put Janet Albrechtsen on the board at SBS to make sure that there isn't more anti-South bias - especially when they still put to air a short piece about the Anastasiadis brothers.

South on World Game show tonight

There's going to be a feature on South on SBS's The World Game show tonight, 9:30 pm on SBS2. Can someone record it for me? Unfortunately I have to keep up with the wacky adventures of Vic Mackie on The Shield.

The trees have eyes

I was sitting hunched over my laptop, typing away with righteous fury -  at times it appears as if there is no other way to conduct my internet business - waiting for a particular call. When the phone did ring, earlier than I had anticipated, it was from someone I did not expect. The caller's identity is not important. Their information? Three unknown men and Leo Athanasakis hanging outside the front office at Lakeside, chatting... two of the unknowns jumped into a car with SBS markings on it. What could it mean? Something good, I'm sure of - though how long until we see the end result of such things, I don't know. As for the original call I was expecting, well it never came. But fret not dear reader, that issue too, seemingly found itself on the way to being sorted by the early hours of the morning.

Me and Brendan Schwab have a bit of a chat

Brendan Schwab, before he was top of the heap at the Professional Footballer's Association, was a briefly CEO of South Melbourne. Tonight, he was on the SBS tv program 'Insight', which has a live chat component after the show. I skipped the show (partly because I was watching the Colbert Report, and rescuing Hartlepool from a 2-0 deficit against Lincoln City to finish 2-2), but I did join the live chat. All but one of my questions got through (it's a fairly poorly moderated operation), and I wasn't surprised about the one that didn't get through because it referred to a semi-apocryphal story about Brendan's time at South and his relationship with former president George Vasilopoulos.

I didn't bother asking about so called injustices inflicted on the ex-NSL clubs, because there were plenty of other emotive posts that got through, and I sure as hell didn't reckon they would get answered - there were a couple of other blokes as well doing the love chat thing - you can read the chat transcript here. It's fairly interesting, mostly in what gets answered and what doesn't - some searing questions on the legal status of certain player agents seemed to be ones that Brendan would have liked to avoid. One of my questions got answered - I also borrowed one from a mate of mine without his knowledge, to see what would come out of it - nothing as it turned out. Here's the record of my correspondence.


[Comment From Paul]
How is it that clubs can get away with charging $400+ for junior soccer, and equivalent auskick only costs about $65?

[Comment From Paul]
When will an independent A-league commission be established?

[Brendan Schwab]
Paul - the A-League independent commission is not on the table at the moment. It was an important recommendation in the Crawford Report. However, the current FFA Board runs both FFA and the national league. It is unclear if FFA intends to fully implement the Crawford Report but, at this late stage, probably unlikely.

[Comment From Paul]
Last season, the Football Federation Victoria raised over $400,000 in fines and penalties - it is appropriate that a state federation is reliant on these fines to keep in the black?


[Comment From Paul]
Why is the FFA still raking in the player levy which was set up to bail out the old Soccer Australia?



[Comment From Chips]
Excellent question, Paul. Still there and rising. Disgraceful.

Let's see what's in the news today (flips page)

Canada stalls on trade pact. Ok, here's the 'real' news. Brought to you by me, a 'real' person.

Item! Some grumblebum has convinced Jesse Fink to write of how said grumblebum's painstaking anorak research has been ignored by the FFA. Cue people with no interest whatsoever in the actual details of the research itself using it to score smug political points.

Item! Patrick Kisnorbo's Leeds United has knocked off Manchester United in the FA Cup 3rd Round. Cue the disappearance of smfcboard's Manchester United demographic until someone remembered that one of our own plays for Leeds. Based on this one good performance, he's now being talked up for a certain ticket to South Africa.

Item! Will SBS show the VPL? Unchecked forum guff is suggesting that SBS is considering showing games from the NSWPL and VPL for some reason I can't quite figure out. Cue look out A-League scum mounia FFA this that and other and B-League guff in the wake of this story.

Item! Summer sucks.

Paul Williams is dead

From the SBS wesbite (includes news clip).

SBS football commentator Paul Williams - lauded for winning SBS network a Logie for his coverage of a World Cup qualifying match - was found dead in his home at the weekend.

His body was found in his Sydney apartment.

Paul had suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and severe depression since 2002 when the illness forced him to withdraw from regular work.

Fans remembered him as 'extremely knowledge' and dedicated to the game.

A fine journalist in his own right, Williams was an outstanding football commentator and he will long be remembered for his impeccable commentary, with the late Johnny Warren, on the historic Australia v Iran World Cup qualifier at the MCG in 1997, for which SBS won its first Logie.

After joining SBS for the 1993 World Youth Cup, he became the network's chief football commentator in 1996 commentating on the NSL, Socceroos games and events like Euro 96 and the 1998 World Cup in France In recent years, Williams anchored his own weekly radio show, Football Fever, on Sydney’s 2KY.


For whatever it's worth, I really liked Paul Williams' commentary style. While initially I found him irritating in his trying to imitate a British style, over the years he let go of that and found his own voice and style of presentation, and I and many others always found it odd in regards to what happened to him - especially from a Victorian perspective. Well, now we know I guess. Enjoy some of his and our finest work in this clip.

No matter what I do, bitterness seeps through

Warning: The following post may be interpreted by some as bitter and elitist.


So I went to the Australia - Japan match last night. Not under duress mind you. But it was a strange experience. But let's start from the top.

I had a fair few choices as to who to go with... but first in and best dressed was an Internet associate of mine from Perth via Adelaide... or is that Adelaide via Perth... nevermind. I'd delayed in purchasing a ticket for some reason, maybe to see if others wanted to join us, but they didn't. So Great Southern Stand about five rows back in what would normally be the Punt Road End forward pocket about 30 to 40 metres out. Tickets at $42 a pop.

But first things first. I arrange to meet with Chris at Federation Square, where he'll be with some of the Austadiums crew. They're friendly enough, even if the first call is 'no club colours' (lacking any Socceroo gear, I was wearing me South scarf and beanie) and one member asked to try to on my glasses (you wouldn't ask a paraplegic if you could try out his wheelchair... then again I don't know you, so you might - but I think you get my point regardless).

More than the flakes of ash landing on me from their cigarettes, what I found most interesting about this encounter was the lack of football talk that wasn't A-League related. It's winter, it's the A-League off season, so what else entered the discussion? Local soccer? Not one bit. The group, with members from five states, discussed mostly WAFL, SANFL, VAFA etc... and the myriad inter city politics of the Green and Gold Army.

I did get grilled though by one chap about why a club would choose to take up the role of outsiders by focusing just on one ethnic community. How to answer a question like that asked with the earnestness of the converted? I said they were treated like outsiders from the start so why wouldn't they choose to head down that path? And if this is a genuinely pluralist society, why should there be barriers on the existence of a diverse range of clubs, including those who choose to cater for a very small segment of the population? Historically these clubs have a shelf life of about 40-60 years - why not let it be on their own head if they fail due to the restrictive nature of their clientele? Mind you, he didn't seem to recognise the fact that ethnic clubs were obliged to change their names in the mid 1990s... and at various time before that too, but that's another story.

Some of us headed down towards the new Swan Street Stadium under construction. There's happy snaps of the sporting precinct, and jokes made at the expense of the legends of Australian tennis, who have bronze busts which often don't look very much like those who they're supposed to resemble - except for John Newcombe, but you could just make a bronze bit of his moustache and everybody would know who it is anyway. The stadium itself is an interesting work in progress. There's glimpses of what it might end up looking like that aren't an 'artist's impression', but I guess no matter how cliched it sounds, we'll only really know what it'll look like when it's done. A stadium unlike anything built in Australia thus far I'm guessing, not necessarily a bad thing.

We then end up at the Corner Hotel, where the Green and Gold Army have decided to decamp for pre-match drinks and stuff. It's not a hostile environment, but there's something alienating about the experience - there's boasting about trip made to countless overseas Socceroos matches and as based on mere extra sensory perception as this is - and I don't like that at all - the stench of newness. There is nothing old about these fans, it's all new and it all seems to have come out of nowhere. But that's impossible, they must have come from somewhere - but where? There's hints in the day's discussions and perhaps on the countless Internet forum debates about this but the university student in me is starting to kick in, and I want something empirical, not emotional and based on personal experience and observations.

There's an SBS camera crew floating around with Mike Tomalaris interviewing people - I ponder for a moment whether I should get up and try and get on tv with my South stuff, but I'm no media whore, and besides, would they have even included me? Opportunity lost perhaps but we'll never know, because I'm dragged back to discussion on South and the A-League and B-Leagues. What's in store in the future for South? I don't know, because soccer keeps changing in this country, but hopefully with the stadium redevelopment we can be in a great position to take on any challenge, a reasonable enough answer. A brief rundown of the history the V, B, Eastern Seaboard leagues and their viability, and what scuttled them for my Canberran inquisitor.

And then the question that everyone's been waiting for - why don't you support the A-League? I run through my list of justifications, about atmosphere, and culture and whatever else my feeble mind can dredge up - but the best answer is of course that it's not my club. I have a club. It's South Melbourne. It's been my club since I was about eight years old. It's not entirely because I'm Greek - because by rights I should have been a Heidelberg fan like my old man - but it's the club, it's my club. I did give the new thing a go - but it wasn't mine, it was someone else's, for those who didn't have something. I had something, I have something, why the need to take on something else? South Melbourne is sufficient to my needs, more than sufficient in fact. My initial curiosity notwithstanding, the fact that I already had a club was merely reinforced with my season long experiment. Did I get through to my opposite number, a former Northern Spirit fan for whom the politics of ethnicity and football are worked into seemingly neat little packages, and thus supporting Sydney FC is a logical conclusion? I don't know, but I think there's some sort of breakthrough, a small opening in the time-space continuum that separates us.

Chris and I then head out for something eat. We walk up Swan Street and decide on the Mexicali Rose. I like the vibe of the place, but the food is a little pricey for what they're putting forth, especially portion wise. My pollo con avocado is quite nice, except someone's over grilled the chicken so that it's tough as hell. Overall not a terrible experience, and we can't just eat pub and cafe food all the time, can we now?

We make the trek towards the ground, and we arrive well before kickoff. After just getting though the gate I get this text message from a mate 'Lol at all th cocks w footy gear on'. Our seats are good. Real good considering how late I bought them. And we get four or five Greeks in the row behind us, who happen to have a sense of humour as well as some sense of history - a discussion they have about the lack of Greek Australian players lets me rip out a reference to Eric Hristodoulou which garners some recognition, an occurrence far removed from everything else that day.

The game itself is by no means spectacular. Australia's first half is simply dreadful, and we're getting killed down our left hand side. Not that Japan is playing scintillating stuff, but they deserve their lead regardless. The 2nd half is a vast improvement from the Socceroos, but the old Verbeekisms are still in plentiful supply... little width, slow movement of the ball, hit and hope skied balls to Kennedy. The Green and Gold Army barely raise a whimper throughout most of the game - sure you could hear them, but it was hardly stirring stuff. The Japanese support was evident, but also not particularly amazing. The flares amuse some but not me. There's some members of the Fanatics to my right, but for once they are not the most offensive people in the stadium. That award goes the knobs on our left who grow weary of the game quite early on and start persisting with attempts at getting a Mexican Wave going. Timmy Cahill does what he does best and gets Australia out of another hole, though to be fair Australia's 2nd half was better than Japan's 2nd. The 70,000 string crowd seems mostly content, but I worry about taking that style and form to the World Cup. I train and taxi it home, try to keep my eyes open to watch the Spain vs Iraq match but I give in. Maybe that's what they want us to do.

Needed more shots of Victorian soccer

SBS TV bit on the tip top relationship between the FFA and the state Federations. According to FFV Prez Tony Dunkerley anyway. 

Con Boutsianis talks about taking free kicks

Con Boutsianis was on SBS last Sunday, on the Lakeside Stadium it self, talking about various free kick techniques, with a touch of the proto-scientific to make even more interesting. Features some great freekicks and freekick takers from around the world, including one of his own gems, and South's 50th annivesary gets a mention as well.  Watch here.

Wasn't just me who thought it was a piece of crap

SBS Shoot Down Southern Cross Bid

Plastic (Football) Surgery But Not As You Know It

For those who haven't seen it yet, here is the video in question. (video no longer available)

After watching the piece, I felt so disconnected from my experience of the National Soccer League, that I had to check my body for scars. Not finding any - except for those inflicted by my cat Scratchy - I was wondering how even SBS could fall so head over heels in love with the portrayal of the game. Not that I had been expecting favourable treatment from the Sydney Broadcasting Service. But what kind of weird hatchet job was this? And how nicely timed was it that it was played while Les Murray was on his way home from the studio? No, that's a conspiracy theory line of thought. The question is did Les even see it? Les who is supposed to be working for us/Sexy FC? And if he did see it, what prevented him from saying, "Hey, that's a bit fucked up you know? The NSL wasn't that bad, and besides, why can't we show both sides of the issue a little more fairly?" Or if he didn't see it, what kind of clout has this guy got at SBS anymore? And is it worth even keeping him on the payroll of the Sexy FC team?

Anyway, it starts off with what appears to be the Pratten Park riot - in Sydney and nothing to do with South. Then goes to footage of flares and such at The 2005 South-Preston argle bargle. Which wasn't in the NSL. And even includes the Bonnyrigg vs Sydney United violence - which is not even NSL or South Melbourne related. And of course completely ignores the multiple incidents of violence at A-League games. And as one observant fan put it, why did they go with only the riots? Some great players scored some great goals in front of great crowds, and yet we get the same footage repeated ad nauseum. It's one thing to have this done by a commercial network, but SBS is supposed to be more culturally sensitive to the negative portrayal of ethnic communities and that of football as well.

But the most bizarre thing of all was the appearance of some Victory supporter called Jordan Caridi. Introduced as a 'Victorian football fan' - whose claim to fame appears to be that he's been following the game for ten years, once posted on a 'sack Merrick' petition site and that he was once owed $156 by Telstra. Apart from his comments which are essentially a rehash of the newbreed/O'Neill spin we've been hearing since day one of year zero, how did he get the gig out of the hundreds of thousands of football fans in the state? Because it just so happens that I too am a football fan. And I've been following the game since about 1992/93. And if you want my credentials, just ask and ye shall receive. But should I be asked to put forward an opinion on behalf of every football fan in the state?

To be fair though, the posing of Jim Mellas as a Southern Cross FC official/spokesperson and not at all as one of South Melbourne's vice presidents is at best disingenuous, and at worst, and this was I'm leaning more towards now, blatantly dishonest. And the tightrope walking being done to embrace South supporters on the one hand and deny South's existence on the other - and I mean this in the existential sense of trying to deny its very character and identity - is getting quite ludicrous. What is it that not only we as South fans - whether we choose to physically support the new franchise or not - as well as the general not Victoryfied, still open minded and undecided demographic are being asked to support? The longer the PR battle goes on without the substance to back it up that everyone craves, the stupider everyone, including South Melbourne, will look. Did these people learn nothing from the 'Press Release Follies' episode of our A-League bid?

So, to sum up. Mostly out of context footage, one biased virtual nobody speaking on behalf of everybody, one doppelganger of a South boardmember and one once renowned and respected football journalist with hands in two pies and unable to eat any of them to his liking. It's a wonder why anyone is taking any of this seriously whatsoever. And that's the problem right there in a nutshell.

Two Great Scottish Names Join Southern Cross Bid Team

Scroll down to the bottom

Meanwhile, Schwab's predecessor at Melbourne, Paul McNamee, has been appointed interim CEO of the Southern Cross FC consortium, which is bidding for the second Melbourne franchise in the A-League.

The group, which plans to base the club at the newly refurbished State Athletics Centre at Albert Park if it is successful, but play matches alongside Melbourne Victory at the new stadium at Olympic Park, has also engaged SBS broadcaster and soccer identity Les Murray as "football ambassador".

Meanwhile, the crew at Southern Cross, who have an address and phone number now by the way, are starting to come out of their turtle shells and make some noise. But what kind of noise does the hiring of Les Murray and Paul McNamee make? Les Murray does not command the respect he once did - indeed, he and SBS, in their simultaneous peddling of an anti-A-League and 'NSL, what was that?' party line over the last few years, have just about alienated most football supporters in some way or another. One local football philosopher made the comment that either he's been doing everything right, or charting the only course possible. Personally, I reckon Les didn't know what to do. SBS was no longer the centre of attention, their core 'wogball' audience was no longer being represented, and Foxtel had what the newbreeds wanted, and perhaps more importantly, how they wanted it. Spotlessly clean, and relentlessly upbeat.

And for all the praise that Murray gets from traditionalists, one can't but help remembering SBS's pro-Sydney, anti-everywhere else but especially Melbourne agenda. With Johnny Warren already being beatified by the newbreeds - and it not mattering one iota that the enormous complexity of the man has gone missing in the process - is Murray looking for something similar? To feel loved, or at least respected, as he once was? Because even SBS's centrepiece football show, The World Game, is on at a time when most people are going to or from VPL games, or are watching A-League contests either in person or on the idiot box. What is it exactly that the Southern Cross bid team think he will bring as an 'ambassador'?

As for Paul McNamee's involvement, while that has its more obvious and dare I say, more tangible benefits, in terms of his contacts and networks built over a large period of time, his experience in his other sports administration endeavours don't give me the same sense of peace of mind that others have seemed to have pounced on. For starters, while he did do a good job in managing the Australian Open - particularly in getting the big name players to come down here - it has to be said his job was helped by a resurgance in Australia's tennis playing stocks, which has disappeared now. Not forgetting that the Open is under the increasing threat of being shipped to the more lucrative Asian market, though what anyone would be able to do about that is debatable. And then he had a stint at the other Australian Open - the golf one - well, that was bound to end badly, with even most golfers figuring out that it's deadly broing game to watch, either in person or on tv. His Melbourne stint, all four months of it ended up with him doing not much at all, what with Jim Stynes always seeking to replace whoever was in there. Still, he's been around the block a few times, he must know something; and goodness, football knowledge is hardly an essential quality of the new regime, otherwise would Murray's standing as a icon/commentator/guardian be as low as its ever been?

So is this me just trying to talk down the whole operation? After all, why are we - oops, Freudian slip there - I mean why are Southern Cross resorting to such tactics, especially the heightened public relations campaign, while the other mob, which allegedly includes former South president Greg 'Chaos' Kaias, keeping their cards so close to their chests? As usual, what do they know that Southern Cross don't? Time will be the great judge on all that they do, and time is a harsh and lousy judge most of the time, kinda like those ancient Athenian war veterans who were required to be on juries so they could get their injured veterans money and who mostly fell asleep during the trial of Socrates.