South in the Suburbs quite good; South Melbourne wins game, also good

Ok, so I didn't have to work today, so I was able to go and spend all my money buying memberships and shit in Oakleigh. I got me my usual South Gold membership (with voting rights and and keyrings and shit), and I also paid for a jersey and for my spot at the jersey presentation night. Wow. I'm awesome. That was $345 dollars straight to the South kitty; it could've ended up in a worse place to be honest.

On my shirt I've asked if we can get numbers, and they said they'll get back to me on that. It's all a bit of a blur now, but for some reason if it were to happen I'd be getting Shane Nunes' number 2. I didn't ask about names, but if they were available as well, one would have to go the whole hog. Either that or break Shane's heart, but do the right and pay due homage to the great James Spanos. Anyway, quite a few South peeps turned out for the occasion, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Below: Everyone else will be posting photos of the entire team in a nice shot and smiling and shit. I'm going to be different and give you a photo of them getting ready for that shot.



So it was then on Kingston Heath, where the search for Spanos continued in vain. The consoloation prize was seeing a pretty decent South line up clean up Panserraikos (formerly South Springvale Serres, who we played last year), but seriously, the souvlaki was pretty ordinary, dry as fuck turkish bread, no cacique, and they didn't even put salt on the cucumbers in the salad. For fuck's sake.

Below: Fernando and friends celebrate scoring a penalty against their fearsome opposition.

I'm sorry I don't have a picture of the quite nice 'Large Yoyo' I had from Nikos Quality Cakes, nor of the Nestle peach flavoured iced tea. Good luck to Jim and Raf on their wedding tomorrow.

Pedestrian and awful - Hellenic Cup group games

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

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

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

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