Deflated - Port Melbourne 4 South Melbourne 0

No Michael Eagar, who would be out for two weeks with a knee injury received against Bulleen on the Monday night. No Brad Norton, who pulled up sore from the Bulleen game. Tim Mala out of action, too, not sure why. An underdone Kristian Konstantinidis in at right back, uitlity Liam McCormack at left back, and Carl Piergianni at centre back. Then we got kicked out of the far side of the ground by security man Arthur Akritidis, and things only went further downhill from there.

(And yes, as a media pass holder I could have stayed there, but that's not the point is it? Why are patrons barred from what is the best viewing spot at this ground? It's not like they don't have security there. It's not like other clubs stop people from going next to and behind the benches. )

Forgive me if I don't pontificate in my usual way about tactics - being behind the goals we were nominally attacking in both halves was not ideal for either where the interesting things happened, let alone my sub-par vision staring into the darkness.

The first goal we conceded, it seemed like no one bothered to mark anyone either on the wings for the crosses, or for the man sitting by himself in the six yard box. Then there was the chance they had where they somehow headed the ball down into the turf and over the bar.

What did we offer in return in the first half? A lot of possession, but zero penetration. Crosses which missed Milos Lujic, and because of the way we play, no one else was there to make a difference. Oh, and we called for handball a million times, hoping for the ref would bail us out.

Second half, and we let Andreas Govas do the thing that Andreas Govas does better than anyone in the league, namely launch a bomb from distance. Why or how he was allowed to have that much room is anyone's guess.

The rest of the game has become a blur. They scored twice more and hit the crossbar, while we switched things around personnel wise for little improvement. Trying to walk the ball in is a problem, no support for Lujic is a problem, bad crossing is a problem - and yet none of these are new problems.

Getting done over by a team half made up of South discards and rejects - Alan Kearney, James Karvelis, Francesco Stella, Andreas Govas - was the cream of the humiliation cake. Getting done over 4-0 by a team that had reputedly not even had a shot on target the week before was the cherry on top of the cream of the humiliation cake.

Just one slightly fortunate point from our opening two games, against opponents predicted to be nowhere near finals contention. Not much of worth to hold onto from this game in particular. It'd be easy to get hysterical, but as it was the whole experience was so deflating that there was nothing worthwhile getting angry about. Also, it's only round two, so you know, things might get better.

Or they might get worse, and wouldn't we all look foolish for getting carried away now instead of then?

Next game
Avondale Heights at Somers Street on Saturday night.

Dear Sir and/or Madam (I am not a crackpot)
I am disappointed - nay, disgusted - with the decision by persons at FFV to no longer produce an online NPL and NPL 2 video highlights package.

The original move to create such a highlights package and make it accessible via youtube was to me one of the smarter things the FFV's media department had done in recent memory. Each week, most of the previous round's action, usually watchable, was condensed into a ten minute or so package crammed with goals and incident from beginning to end.

But now it seems that approach was far too convenient for the audience. Now Savvas and Dave and I and all the other dateless wonders who pay attention to this miserable competition will have to trawl through the internet each week, looking for each NPL club's highlights individually, except for the A-League youth teams' games, because I don't see their participation in the NPL as valid.

Others meanwhile are angry that South is no longer screening its SMFC TV programme on the pay television community channel Aurora. Frankly, I reckon that decision is long overdue. If you wanted to put something on in the more obscure part of the media, that's where it was.

When SMFC TV was on Channel 31, which is accessible by nearly everyone with a television, it made perfect sense. Now I understand why the show was moved - Channel 31's digital licence was set to expire (and is hanging on for grim life). In addition to that, South had not only invested a fair chunk of money but also much ideological currency into the idea that this venture was an important part of the club's (modern) public face.

But what kind of public face can you have when you pick the most obscure corner of television on which to promote your product? Yes the internet is a bottomless chasm of information sources and competing ideas, but its inefficiencies in this case are so superior to Aurora.

Despite the pay TV industry itself having successfully manufactured the idea in the wider public sphere that everyone has pay television, the reality is that Australia's subscription television uptake is only about 30% of households.

And while I'm (perpetually) annoyed at the way FFV and South have used the stats from FFV's Facebook live stream against Bulleen, one can still note that those kinds of ventures have a greater chance of reaching existing and new audiences than most of the alternatives.

I'm more aghast that the club has stopped providing full length editions of South Radio, now breaking it up into bite size segments. This move totally misses the point of what made South Radio listenable - rather than the overly slick production values of the rest of our media efforts, the podcast had a looser, more personable feel.

I'm not saying it was great, but part of its charm - perhaps even the main thing I liked - was that the long-form version of South Radio was everything they don't teach people at media school.

Which, if I'm being honest, is seeing things through my moderately lo-fi aesthetic lens. But that's part of this blog's charm, too, no?

Frozen Tears news!
I don't know when, but apparently Jon Powers of Frozen Tears has remastered Frozen Tears' 'South Melbourne' song. Wasn't it fine the four different ways it was?

Aping Robert Christgau, badly

Around the grounds
Stop me if you've heard this one before
Went out to the John Farnham Retirement Tour This Is It Stadium on Saturday afternoon in the hopes of seeing bad soccer, something worse than what I'd seen the night before. Mission accomplished. Before that though I had three blokes at the gate stare at my media pass like a dog being shown a card trick, as Bill Hicks would say. Got there early enough for a hamburger before the 3:15 kickoff, but for reasons which will never be known this game didn't kickoff until 3:29 - it's a good thing that NPL 2 West isn't a real comp like the NPL proper, or else someone might care and do something about it. Nothing of any note happened for the first half hour. In fact so much nothing happened that one started reevaluating all one's life decisions even more intensely then usual. Then Georgies managed to get behind the Werribee defense, cutback, bundled in for 1-0. A second goal for Georgies right on half time was neater, but also worse - a free kick on the edge of the box played short, cutback, tap in, 2-0. The second half was marginally more interesting, not that the visitors did anything to make it so. They pulled one back from their first proper chance in the 92nd minute, but that's all they could do.

Final thought
Thank goodness this game didn't reach a million views or clicks or subliminal retinal imprints.

Some news from recentish times

AGM on tomorrow
Just a reminder that the 2014 (not a typo) AGM will be held tomorrow at Lakeside, in the Presidents Room, 7:00PM. Lot of interesting discussion to be had, and what's more, since the surgeon and I agreed to hold off on laser surgery for a couple of months or so, even I might be able to make an appearance.

SMFC TV one step closer to being a gated community
As some of you have already noted, SMFC TV has moved to the Aurora Channel on Foxtel. While Channel 31's free to air future seems to be doomed, it's still disappointing to me that we couldn't see out the rest of Channel 31's tenure on free to air television. Aurora is basically pay television's community station, and while those who have Foxtel will be able to automatically record each episode, those of us without pay television (either because of cost, not enough interest in their programming, or because Fox own those chemical plants in Syria) will have to make do the with the internet and youtube product.

We're going to Adelaide!
Well, not me, I have other already established commitments. But the team is. They'll be playing West Adelaide Hellas on Friday 6th February, 6:15PM, at Adelaide Shores Football Centre in West Beach, as the first match of an double header, I think South Australia's version of the super cup. Then on Sunday we'll be playing Adelaide Blue Eagles at 2:00PM, at the Marden Sports Complex. Safe travels to all those making the trip over there, and hopefully someone can send in some colourful reports.

Community Shield
We've also been fixtured to play in the inaugural FFV Community Shield game, against last year's Dockerty Cup winner Melbourne Knights. The game will be at Knights Stadium on Friday February 13th.

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!
Some wonderfully sensationalist anti-sockah writing in the Hun recently. Basically, Little Athletics had the venue booked well in advance for their annual carnival, but the decision of the State Sports Centres Trust to resurface the grass on the arena and thus put out the Little Athletics people has not gone unnoticed by our citizen journalist, who's managed to rustle up a bunch of surly looking youngsters staring down the barrel of the camera with their arms folded at the injustice of it all.

Now I certainly feel for these kids, because they've obviously been put out by this decision, but the tone of the article which seeks to either directly or indirectly blame it on soccer (and therefore us) is so stupid it's mind boggling; unless of course, the article wasn't written by someone with an anti-soccer agenda. Did South get asked for comment? It doesn't seem like it. So no mention of the club's long tenure at the ground, no mention of the damage caused by the shotput, hammer and javelin on the turf during our winter season, and of course no mention of the fact that we have to share with athletics while Collingwood and Eddie McGuire get whatever they want.

The return of Sir Peter, of the Order of the Knights of the Raised Middle Finger
We're apparently considering re-signing Peter Gavalas out of his premature retirement as our first choice keeper. It seemed to be out of him and Nikola Roganovic, and Slippery Pete's may well have done enough to get Taylor's approval. This decision has caused some consternation not only for Gavalas' on field capabilities - is he a great keeper for this level, who managed to be keeper of the year in 2013, or is he actually a bum on the verge of another costly blunder? - but there's also his demonstrated lack of respect for the supporters and the club. Now of course this has set in train discussions about whether one should trust an experienced and championship winning coach to make the right kind of personnel decisions, or demanding the board intervene and overrule the decision. This could be a fun season.

Technical director signed
One step closer to meeting the NPL criteria by hiring a standalone technical director, one Sean Gale.

Some in-season fixtures changed
Among the changes

• The away game against North Geelong has been moved back a couple of hours.
• The games against Bentleigh Greens have been switched. We'll now be travelling to Kingston Heath first, and hosting them second.
• The home game against the Knights, originally scheduled for the Greek Orthodox Good Friday, has been moved to the Saturday afternoon of that week.
• The Pascoe Vale away game has been moved to Saturday evening.
• Minor kickoff time changes to other home games.

The word is that there could be more changes, with the club looking to move some games to Sundays at 5pm. The club claims that during their online survey, Friday night games were the preferred timeslot of respondents, with Sunday evenings also being in demand. For my part, I'm in the Sunday afternoon camp, but it'll be interesting to see what happens, and whether the pro-Friday night crowd are proven right with improved attendances.

Then: 2008 seems so long ago. I wasn't even using
a clipboard as a makeshift mouse pad back then.

And now: In 2015, I have a lot of books packed away
due to a pending move to Sunshine, but books
somehow keep proliferating on my work space.

Deathbed
Disappointing news here, folks. My Benq laptop is nearly dead: it was bought by my littlest brother for some ridiculous over the top price nearly ten years ago, probably Centrecom in Sunshine; discarded by him within about 18 months; used by me for much plainer duties than his planned extravagant multimedia pursuits; converted from a dreadful Vista machine into first an Ubuntu, then a steadfast and reliable Linux Mint unit; and now finally, after many years of long service to the causes of education, Hattrick and especially South of the Border, it's time for it to retire to the great recharge outlet in the sky. Unfortunately, like all good players, it's had a noticeable slowdown in recent times; it's not as sharp as it used to be;, it finds itself dawdling where it used to sprint; and even its once sure touch has begun to desert it. And let's not forget the lack of an 'escape' key, after I dropped a book on it and broke it. While of course I've used other computers to write up items for the blog - various machines at Victoria University's St Albans, Footscray Park, Flinders Street and maybe even Queens Street campuses for example - the vast majority of this blog's outpourings of overbearing grief and negativity have been done on this machine. There was a trip to Hobart back in 2011, as well as non-South related trips to Canberra in 2013 and Sydney last year. So fare thee well, Benq Joybook A52. At least you got to go out on a high, with a championship under your belt. A pity that even though you lasted so long, you never managed to see South get back into the top flight. Here's hoping your successor can achieve even half your longevity and service. In the mean time, dear readers, please bear with me as I try to get used to the smaller keys on my new machine (named Charlene. Why? It just is, OK?),

Could have done worse - Heidelberg United 0 South Melbourne 3

The first match of the season is always a strange one. For starters, you see a whole bunch of people you haven't seen in months, and wouldn't see outside of the club. It's like a high school reunion, until you have to do it all again the week after.

The second thing I noticed were the efforts Heidelberg had gone to in order to make Olympic Village look half presentable. New scoreboard, a ton of sponsor boards, much needed paint job on their grandstand and a beautiful surface. So, credit to Heidelberg and the effort they've put in, and credit to the punters for turning up in numbers - over 3000 apparently, which was ten times the crowd this fixture got back in late 2012. Imagine if it'd been held on a more suitable day.

But they may have considered at some point perhaps building a slightly better team, even with long term planning taken into consideration. Going forward they were OK without being spectacular, but defensively they were a mess. Griffin McMaster, so often a thorn in our side had a nightmare start to 2014, with his attempts at punching the ball clear failing to do anything other than create chaos in his own penalty box.

The start of a 'new' era drew a half decent crowd to
Olympic Village. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Eventually after one of these scrambled passages of play, which seemed to go on forever, Matthew Theodore latched onto the loose ball and put it in the back of the net. And remember that beautiful surface I mentioned earlier? Well, when a one on one contest saw a deflection take a wicked and yet entirely appropriate spin towards Milos Lujic, it left McMaster stranded off his line as he watched Lujic's chip sail over his head for 2-0. Had the surface been at its more regulation crap standard, that ball would have bounced any other way but the way that it did.

With big men Jamie Reed and Lujic up front, our game plan was largely based around getting the ball to them as quickly as possible, which meant long balls and plenty of them. But complaining about a Chris Taylor coached team playing too much long ball is like complaining about the sun rising in the east, Kiwis and their fascination with L&P, or FFV not giving me a media pass. These are mere facts of life.

Besides, we actually also defended fairly well, pressing Heidelberg in their own half, and forcing them to turn the ball over in dangerous positions. That meant we also often dived in with a touch too much eagerness, giving away a few too many fouls and collecting a few too many yellow cards - but again, it had echoes of Chris Taylor's treble winning Dandenong Thunder team. Let's not be mistaken - there were also moments of neat passing football - but the main point was to get into positions where we could cross the ball to our two talented forwards so they can do what they're paid to do. To that end, Nick Epifano seemed re-energised after his lacklustre finish to 2013 - here's hoping he can maintain that kind of intensity.

Lujic should have buried the game just before halftime, but at 2-0 and controlling the game, things were looking up, and it was a long way from my hands going numb with nervousness at the start of the game. Conceivably, only complacency or a Daniel Vasilevski free kick could pull it back for the Bergers. His one chance in dangerous free kick territory went wide, and while we eased off the gas in the second half - which was as dull as the first half was exciting - we were never threatened, with Jason Saldaris' positioning nullifying their efforts fairly easily.

A pleasing sight to open the season. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Towards the end of the game, Jamie Reed, who was third in line as a cross came in from the left, somehow ended up nodding a simple chance home. Three dire defending efforts from the home team gave us the goals, but on the balance of play we should have won comfortably anyway. How this performance will be viewed will only be seen in hindsight, because without any doubt there are many tougher opponents waiting around the corner.

But at this point in the season, and in a derby game no less, you take the three points, have a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up.

Celebrities of all kinds (highbrow, middlebrow, lowbrow)
Turns out the father of one of the hosts of SMFCTV grew up with Alan Duff, the writer of Once Were Warriors. That was just one of many talking points as we discussed teaching methods at tertiary institutions.

Also caught up with Philthy Phil (a rare soccer attendee, being much more of a footy fan), a friend and colleague of myself and Ian Syson (who was not there for some reason). Phil was also my first tutor at Vic Uni back in 2007 - it's fair to say that if it wasn't for him, I probably would have failed uni for a second time. Among other things, we discussed the forfeiture of working class identity via education as presented in Australian literature, with an emphasis on Tsiolkas' Barracuda and Ashton's The Danger Game.

But the most bizarre incident was something my buddy Gains overhead while waiting in line for a souv (and what an unnecessarily long wait that was), with two boys talking about how they listen to the SouthRadio podcast, and how that 'Griffin (aka Steve from Broady) guy was the funniest'. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a created a monster. A deal with Harry M. Miller can't be far away.

'He's George Katsakis, and he wears what he wants'
Thanks to the Heidelberg coach's fashion sense, that bloody chant about his cardigan has been stuck in my head.

Next week
League action takes a break after just one round, with a likely very tricky tie away to Sunshine George Cross in round four of the Dockerty Cup. Date, time, location to be confirmed.

Public transport
Well, we missed the 5:41 bus, so ended up taking the old 251 straight to Northland shopping centre. Pleasantly surprised with its drop off point, which is closer to the back of that complex, meaning you didn't have to negotiate your way through all the stores.

A pity that it doesn't run past 9:00 though, so we ended up going with our regular Smartbus option. Took all of two hours for me to get home.

NPL Victoria games on radio
FFV will be broadcasting one live NPL match per week via web radio, on Friday nights. I'd like Friday to Monday coverage (they could even drop down to NPL1 games). but it's a start. The address to go to is livecast.com.au. Apparently there's also an app you can download, as well as being able to tune via the TuneIn app.

Among others, Mark Boric reckons it's not a bad production. I had a listen to the Knights - Northcote game while I was at Port Melbourne, and my thoughts were it could probably could use one less special comments person. I like Teo Pellizzeri's style, but the around the grounds could be a little more interactive - something along the lines of the early 1990s AFL radio broadcasts, where they would call different people at each of the grounds.

SMFCTV
Still on Channel 31, but now on Tuesdays at 7:00PM.

Steve From Broady's Canteen Review
Sad to say that Steve is not going to be providing his canteen reviews for the blog this season. They'll now be available exclusively on the South Radio podcast, which you can access via the official site.

New website
Looks like the official South site got a long overdue facelift. Same site address of course. Looks a bit bloggier (don't judge it by South of the Border's aesthetics, or lack thereof), but in a good, modern way.

Speaking of which...
Remember that letter from Hugh Delahunty I put up last week? The club has issued a media statement in response on the official site, which reads as follows.

Media Statement

March 13, 2014 

South Melbourne FC wishes to inform its members, supporters and sponsors of a letter from the Minister for Sport and Recreation published on the South of the Border website.

As the Minister maintains in his letter, all parties are working to finalise the lease. The letter sets out the government's position which it has also put to us. We advised as much at the AGM when we informed our members we had not signed the lease as it did not contain a term of 40 years on which the club continued to insist as it says this was an agreed term of the MoU. The club negotiated the MoU with the previous government and is looking to finalise the lease as soon as possible based on its agreement with the government when it signed the MoU.

The club obviously does not wish to enter into ongoing public discussions about a matter which is currently being addressed by the parties and their lawyers and will provide further information to all members shortly.

For all media enquiries, please contact SMFC Chairman Nick Galatas on 9645 9797.

She said she was young, and needed the money!

Pimping for Melbourne Heart is one thing; this is quite another. To be honest I could be angrier, but George Donikian wasn't even at the derby, preferring to be at some film premiere instead.


Around the grounds
Headed out to Port vs Dandy last night. Port weren't brilliant, but probably deserved to find themselves 2-0 up after half an hour. Then out of nowhere Thunder somehow pulled two goals back in the space of about five minutes. The second half was more meh. They tell me that ex-South player Anthony Giannopoulos cleared one off the line at the other end. Right in front of my group, he was felled in the penalty area late in the match - it looked like a pretty clear penalty, but the ref who wasn't far away from the action waved play on. It finished all square. Both teams looked better than I'd probably have given them credit for, but neither will be challenging for the title. Chicken souvlaki was bland.


Final Thought
Thank goodness there's some actual competitive soccer to watch again. After all the crap, people seem to keen to just get out to the games. Here's hoping that momentum can be maintained throughout 2014, even if it is just a coat of paint over the same structure.

SMFC TV to cover A-League bid shenanigans tonight

Cripes, normally I forget to tune into the channel 31 show, but it might be worth checking it out tonight. Apparently board members Tom Kalas and Andrew Mesorouni will be on the show to discuss the Melbourne Heart takeover shenanigans. I'm sure those of our supporters who love to stir the pot on the FourFourTwo forums will be keeping an eye on this for more trolling material. You know who you are.

What happened while we were on break...

Tyson Holmes officially signed. Here's a brief interview.



In a great example of South Melbourne FC Digital Media Team™ tomfoolery, the signing of Carl Recchia was announced with a video interview on youtube - only for it to be changed to 'private'. Then opened up again when they felt the time was 'just right'.

Even though, it's not open, I'm not going to bother linking to that video. Instead I'll do the churlish thing and describe it. It's a very brief chat with Carl, interspersed with highlights of Carl's previous South stint - this will be his third? - combined with the requisite fawning over the new facilities and goodtobebackisms. Just don't expect any illumination as to why Carl left in the first place.

There was also an AGM date announced - Sunday 27th January. About time, though some are grumpy because it's over the Australia Day long weekend.

I lost my patience at some new dawners. First time for everything.

The best book I read over the break was Miles Vertigan's 'Life Kills'. The story of plane hijacking told from the point of view of the terrorist, two bimbo stewards and a couple of macho pilots. A hyper-passive nihilist death march to the justified end of western civilisation. It's also funny.

Lastly, a mystery has also been apparently solved - the mysterious jersey which no one could identify was probably a women's team jersey. Check out 1:45 of this video.

Highlights from first two rounds of 2012

Roudn 1 vs Moreland



Round 2 vs Oakleigh

Defensive midfielder Dimitri Tsiaras signs on for 2012

Lakeside opening video

Gus Tsolakis on his return to South

Trifiros onboard - a few lols in here

Luke Byles signs with South

As one observant fan noted, pay attention to the Melbourne Victory shorts he's wearing during the training footage. Also with Joe Keenan and Kyle Joryeff already on board, the addition of Byles harkens back to an earlier, 1970s and 80s British influenced South Melbourne, albeit one that is now more English than that period dominated by Scots.

Bradley Norton signs for 2012

Trent Rixon officially signed up

Highlights from victory over Hume City

Highlights from 1-0 win over Oakleigh

Highlights from win over Springvale White Eagles

This time a win. Hooray.

But just because we won, doesn't mean that Eddie Krncevic gets to do the press conference at the end. Can you even call it a press conference when's there's only one person asking the questions? Should I be making more use of my media pass to gain access to these things and making a nuisance of myself?

Pay attention also to when Jesse Krncevic gets cleaned up by the opposition goalkeeper. The commentator makes the assertion that the keeper was lucky not be sent off, which I would have to disagree with, based mostly on an anecdote shared back in the day by former South assistant and goalkeeping coach Phil Peladrinos, aka Pirate Phil.

On that occasion, Pirate Phil was talking about his career as a youth keeper back in the day at Panathinaikos. The first choice keeper in the seniors was a tall bloke, who also tried to coach and instruct the others keepers. Which was all well and good, but as Phil noted, there are different rules for short and tall keepers.

So the second choice keeper, who was apparently closer to Pirate Phil's height, told him words to the effect of, 'look, what he's (the senior keeper) telling you is good, but you're short like me. So what you've got to do is when the striker goes up to challenge for a header, when you punch the ball you should stick out your knees and your elbows, make sure the striker thinks twice next time about challenging for a ball against you'.

In some respects it's not the most sporting advice, and it might anger those who think goalkeepers get too much protection these days - you know you used to be allowed to barge the keeper into his own while he had possession? - but equally there'll be those who will claim that the keeper had every right to go for the ball in the manner that he did, and that it's a man's game after all.

Highlights from scoreless draw with Thunder

Highlights from Mirabella Cup mauling of Yarraville Glory

Highlights from 2011 Ataturk Appreciation/Anzac Day Cup

Highlights from match against St Albans