No respect, and no regard neither - South Melbourne 0 St Albans 3

That's right, Google Maps app, What
 happened on Monday night between
 7:23 and 9:31 is a mystery.

Just a short piece this week.

Well, last Monday was just outright disrespect. Disrespect to South Melbourne Hellas fans. Disrespect to the St Albans Dinamo team. Six or seven changes to the starting eleven coming off a week's rest, just because we have a game on the Friday coming up. Are they so worried about fitness levels by round four? What happens when the cup rounds start? Maybe we'll tank them like we did the Avondale cup match a few seasons ago.

Anyway, the depth on show was shallow. Tactics, all over the place. Javi Lopez went down for real this time, I think. You can call me Nostra-blogger-damus, but it was a simple game of mathematics - it couldn't always be playing possum. At least the flood lights seemed a bit better this week, so we could better see the carnage. Even the security dude wouldn't do us a favour and turf us out as a gesture of mercy. Oh well, at least when we win the title this year, we can look back at this game and laugh. 

Next game
Preston away. For ticket details, visit Preston's socials. There's also going to be shuttle buses and such. Again, check Preston's Facebook page for all relevant details.

- Dad, how can South Melbourne 
afford to play in all these leagues?
- It's simple economics son. I don't
 understand it, but God, I love it.
- 

South Melbourne Hellas, coming to A-League a league near you!
So I'd heard of this OFC Pro-League business last year, but didn't give it much thought then. Didn't need to, really. That's in Oceania, we're in Asia, and we're building towards the National Second Division which has imaginatively been named the Australian Championship. Then news articles came out saying that four Australian clubs had shown an interest in joining the OFC Pro-League. Now, I know what you're thinking folks: yes, South Melbourne has no shame, but surely even South Melbourne would not put its name down for this. Yeah, right. Bang, there's South Melbourne as the most prominent of the four Australian clubs looking to get into this thing. Maybe we want to be a barnstorming team? Maybe we missed the frogs invading the field in Fiji like back in 1999? Maybe we like the vibe of being a decrepit old man desperately trying to get into a nightclub; any nightclub will do. I don't know. I suppose the board will tell us all about it at the next AGM, scheduled for whenever.

More match programs added
I bought a few items towards the end of last year, and I've finally got around to uploading them. They're all from away games, which is a touch disappointing. I know that people have stuff that I'm missing, and I am still on the lookout for more programs. Anyway, here's what I've added most recently:

• 1984, round 3, away to Canberra City (the original fixture that was called off due to inclement weather, not the replay)
• 1985, round 22, away to West Adelaide
• 1988, round 17, away to Marconi
• 1989/90, round 8 away to Marconi
• 1989/90, round 16 away to Adelaide City
• 1990/91, round 25, away to Marconi
• 1991/92, round 22, away to Brisbane United
• 1995/96, round 32, away to Brisbane Strikers
• 2000/01, round 21, away to Brisbane Strikers 
  

Find them all in the usual place. For a much neater list (also with links), as well as notes establishing what programs we have, what programs we don't, and what programs may or may not exist. go to this link.

DIY zine scene hits Lakeside
While leaving the grandstand after the final whistle on Monday night, someone stuck a little zine thing in my hand. Blue and White Views, of which you can see the cover of the first issue to the right, isn't quite yet a revelatory or inflammatory piece of work. Who knows if it can become that, or even if it desires to, not that it has to. Frankly, and this is not being cruel, in case anyone misreads my tone, the most interesting thing to me from this so far - apart from its circa 1987 Hellas match program colour scheme - is its utter mystery. Who's producing this? Why are there no contact details? How can I (or you!) submit something to this project? It's all very myserious. Will it last longer than the genuinely incendiary Maverick from 1997? All they need to do is release one more issue.

Around the grounds
Actually, why am I here?
For the second time in five years (and for the second time in two weeks, but let's not get bogged down in details about why I went to Paisley Park the previous week), I was at an Altona East game. This time it was for a Dockerty Cup (you're welcome) fixture between Altona East and Hampton East Brighton, aka a team with a number of name changes over the past decade or so, and recently about five consecutive promotions under its belt. Mario Barcia was out there for Altona East. You may remember him from such moments as the worst thirty seconds of football you've ever seen, capped off by some nonsense goal from halfway. Nothing quite as interesting (or deplorable) happened in this match, which finished 2-1 to the visiting side. 

Final thought
- Sarge, let's make a break for it while the guards are partying with Jane Fonda.
- Nope. Too dangerous. We're all gonna sit tight and reminisce about candy bars.

Half-arsed - South Melbourne 4 St Albans 0

There's not enough data to make it a thoroughly resilient trend, but let's go with it anyway. When we play St Albans during one of their often fleeting Victorian top tier stints, it usually goes like this: the first game, usually away, usually early in the season, is a bit of a grind, but we get the job done. They're still enthusiastic, have earned a few points, and maybe put in enough credible performances that people think they won't suck as much as they're prone to doing. Then we turn up, get our win, and it starts going south for them (no pun intended). By the time they rock up to Lakeside for the return fixture, they're disheartened, weakened by defections, and either in or just above the relegation zone. Then it all comes down to whether we give enough of a toss to go full on and completely humiliate them.

Well, humiliation it was for the first half on Tuesday. Performance wise, it was nothing remarkable. It wasn't built around super build up play, neat passing, flashes of individual brilliance. It was just a case of a team with some talent grinding an opponent with a talent deficit into the dirt. There wasn't much pretty about it. The penalty shot for the opening goal was struck a solid arm trying to save it, and still went in. Two of the goals were bundled over the goal line after scrambles in the six-yard box. Only Jake Painter-Andrew's shot into the roof of the net was worthy of highlight reels, though I suppose there's also people who get a kick out of unicorn goals like Lirim Elmazi scoring from a short corner.

So 4-0 up the break, and even the ground announcer makes the call that South has won the game 4-0. Too bad there was a whole second half still to play, as seems to be the custom nowadays. And what a pointless second half it was, as we failed to add to the scoreboard. Still, good to get some run into a few fringe players, including youth team player Cooper Halfpenny, and wing recruit Kosta Emmanuel, who has spent most of the year injured. But overall, the whole vibe, especially in the second 45, was of a glorified pre-season friendly.

Finals secured for 2023
The win against St Albans means that the senior men have managed to secure a finals berth with eight games to spare. The highest points tally that seventh placed Dandenong Thunder can achieve is 47 - which could only happen if they won every remaining game of theirs. Since we've already reached a tally of 49 points, all that's left to decide is where within the top six we'll finish.

Barring any changes due to external administrative cock-ups, we are also pretty close to securing a home final of some sort. Port Melbourne, the team currently in fifth place, would need six wins, a draw, and a calamitous collapse from us just to reach our current tally. 

As for securing a spot in the top two and the near negligible benefits that brings, it's a still little bit early to get into that. Better trying to do those sums after our next match.

Next game
Oakleigh on Sunday, July 2nd, at our latest home away from home, McIvor Reserve. 

For those who have not had the pleasure of visiting this venue, prepare to be underwhelmed. There should be ample parking for the expected crowds for this game, as well as the match the following week against Hume. Public transport options for this ground are inconvenient at the best of times, and will be worse considering the school holiday scheduled shutdowns of all train lines heading west from the city. Luckily this is one of those venues that's within my driving range.

There is some shelter, but very little seating. The social club/pavilion, where all the shelter is, faces east. If you want to stand on the opposite side of the ground, where the benches are, bring your sunnies and a hat, because you will be staring directly into the sun. Away from the pavilion, there is very little elevation. For those watching the games at home, well, here's hoping that someone bothers to hire a cherry picker, because otherwise you, too, will be watching the game from a sideline view, possibly directly into the sun, as was the case with the match that our senior women played there earlier this year.

As for the food... look, I'm willing to be surprised, but from my experience the souv at Yarraville is pretty ordinary.

Is there a curtain raiser?
No. But also yes.

So there's nothing before the senior men's match at 3:00PM, but the under 21s are playing after the seniors, kicking off at 6:30PM. Reminds of what Weird Al Yankovic noted when his band toured with the Monkees, "We didn't open for them; they closed for us."

As was rumoured
Danny Kim, the wrong player for the wrong club at the wrong time, has transferred to Green Gully.

South women through to semis of the cup
As messy as the league season has been in terms of trying to find any sort of consistency or clear front-runner, we also have the cup which, not quite as nuts. Three of the semi-finalists are fairly obvious. First placed Bulleen, third placed South, fifth placed Calder; but there's also mid-table Victorian Premier League side Casey Comets, and that's probably who you'd want to get drawn against in the next round if you were one of the other remaining teams. To get to this round, South had to overcome fellow NPLW side Preston, who after a promising start to the season, seemed to have slipped a bit. I watched this from the couch, and again, these South girls make hard work of winning. They pulled their finger out in the nick of time to get out of jail this time, like they did against FV Emerging in the league the game before this one, but it's frustrating to watch.

A better division 2, eventually coming for you
What does this even mean? So we got the news of the progression from the 32 odd expressions of interest getting cut down to 26 well over a month ago (bonus floodlight content in there for those who want to revisit it), and it's only now that the remaining bids actually getting the paperwork for making their bids? This is even shoddier than the organisation within Vic Uni's research department, which allowed me to skate through with extensions I probably shouldn't have gotten.

Anyway, final bids are due sometime in early August, and successful bids - and whatever the format will be that we'll be proceeding with - will be announced around Octoberish, maybe. And then the whole thing will be starting in March 2024, if you believe that. 

Around the grounds
For old time's sake
Last Saturday, for probably the first time since the chaos unleashed by the pandemic, I managed to get to a non-South match. I blame the pandemic a little bit for this, but I also blame changing home responsibilities, and I especially blame that season where South and seemingly most other NPL teams changed their schedules to be playing mostly on Saturdays. But also, even I managed to get suckered into streaming games instead of attending them. Well, now that South's back to not playing games on Saturdays, and every other planet aligned, I managed to stroll down to Ralph Reserve for Western Suburbs vs Altona East, a near-enough to top of the table clash. Remembering old days, an with only large notes in my wallet, I had my mum break a fifty for me. Turned out there was no gate charge. Turns out also that Suburbs are accepting card payments in the canteen. The souv was OK; not great, not awful. Perfectly acceptable, really. Served quickly, too. Seemed like an easy enough process, which one specific club could possibly learn from. Quite a large crowd, actually, maybe about 200 people, about two or even three times what I expected, and what I'd experienced before at this ground and between these two teams. Crowd included the brother of an ex-South and current Altona East player, who seemed somewhat incredulous that I hadn't realised he'd been in Greece the past four years. My answer could only be, how am I supposed to keep track of everyone that's stopped attending South games over the past 18 years? Anyway, the wind made the game itself a grind to watch. Playing with its benefit in the first half, Suburbs went into the break 2-0 up, scored a goal against the wind to make it 3-0, and then coasted home to win 3-1.

Final thought
Everyone's looking a bit jaundiced, but apparently that's just a trick of lights.

I can't see through metal, Kent! St Albans 0 South Melbourne 1

I've been burnt by this increasingly frequent phenomenon before, but never quite like this. 

With all home duties sorted, I decided to head to Churchill Reserve early, get one of those sweet parking spots out the front, and catch a bit of the reserves match. Sure enough I got my nice parking spot right behind the "no standing" sign, but something was off... where were the gate attendants? Oh well, I walked through the unmanned gate, saw no action on the main pitch, and just assumed the ressies were playing on the second field.

I walked over to the second field, saw no familiar faces of the kind who also like to get to games early to watch a bit of the curtain raiser. Certainly there was a game on, and one team was identifiable as St Albans, but the other team was clearly not South Melbourne, but was instead one of the four (at least) Italian black and white horsey teams. And the kids looked just a touch too young to be under 21s. Well, that sucked. Still, what was one to do, drive off home and come back later? Better to stick around and watch what one social media interlocutor opined were the future of the state leagues; he didn't specify which state league exactly.

And I did get to see some entertaining stuff. Like a contested drop-ball! That was a pretty sweet moment, two young players attacking the ball firmly, but fairly. Even more entertaining was the visiting team (maybe) beating the offside trap, sending their man through on goal, only for him to trip over the ball, and scuff any attempt at a shot... but then also get fouled from behind in the box, earning his side a penalty, and the home team a red card. Up stepped a young man for the penalty, skying the ball over the crossbar like he was going for a two-point rugby conversion.

But then people I knew started trickling in eventually, and I'm not the biggest fan of junior football anyway, so off to the social club, and the finally the main game.

Let's be honest: we were never going to lose this game. I would even go as far to say that we were always going to win it. This is the exact time of year where St Albans start falling apart. Dinamo initially manages to surpass everyone's low expectations of them, their main ground looks good, the sun shines, and then... splat. No matter how well they start a Victorian top-flight season, the field soon turns to crap, and a good South or a rickety South turns up, and it doesn't seem to matter; this is the point where it all goes turns to dust for St Albans.

Apparently our lineup was a confusing mess. I didn't really care to check or pay too much attention to it. The first half was not good, but at least it went by quickly. The second half was better, and I just wish that we had scored at least one more goal, at least to make it a more sure thing. Dinamo flashed a few moments across the face of goal late, but they were never going to score, they were not going to get a single point out of this match. 

Really, all this messing about trying to find alternative accommodation during the grand prix and Women's World Cup, when we should just play at Churchill Reserve full time. The worse the ground is, the better we are on it. We should become co-tenants and dig up the main field a bit more. Max Mikkola did some nice things (throwing the ball straight at Dinamo's giant keeper not being one of them though), but what wins you games at this ground is pressing up against defenders with inadequate ball control. 

And this ground is so small, that even our penchant for sitting back still has us right up against the opposition in their own half. Even Marcus Schroen, not known for being a tackling machine midfielder, was able to dispossess an opponent, and begin the sequence of play for what was eventually the winning goal.

Also, it helps (sorta) if the opposition decides to handicap itself by getting what was apparently a pretty stupid red card during the first half for the fourth week in a row, much to the chagrin of overseas gamblers on social media. I say apparently for this week's incident, because where I was positioned, there was these giant metal benches in the way, and scaffolding, and light towers, and more benches, so I didn't see it live. I saw it on the video later, and my goodness, what a shit tackle and I don't know how the player can argue against it.

As for any more illuminating comments, the view from the outer side is so rubbish, and I somehow ended up in a discussion about fans invading the field for AFL players kicking their hundredth, and how old the crowd was for Megadeth at Knotfest, and all sorts of other malarkey, that I don't have much to offer. I'm just glad that Max's goal was at our end of the field right in front of us, not obscured by the detritus of generational piecemeal stadium construction.

Next game
Away at Oakleigh. That's this Saturday, if you're planning to go. No one's forcing you to attend. Rather conveniently, it's also on Saturday if you want to watch the game on NPL TV. 

New segment - is there a curtain raiser this week?
Yes. The under 21s play at 5:00pm

On the streams
I'm weak, I'm spineless, I'm a man of temptation... but what tempts me?
For whatever reason, I didn't end up watching anything last weekend. I've substituted having the footy on in the background instead of NPL TV, and it's good. But then midweek, and I'm reading people discussing some Australia Cup game with two teams I wouldn't cross the street to watch unless I was guaranteed they would lose, and even then... but also discussion about certain young Greeks - thankfully not affiliated with us, because which young Greek is even associated with us these days that isn't one of our ressies? - trying to stir up shenanigans, and my curiosity gets the better of me, albeit I leave it as late as I can before tuning in, about 15 minutes to go. And all I see, with the volume set to low, is a Chris Taylor side doing what it does best, grinding out a result when it has a lead. All of a bit of an anti-climax, which is good, right? 

Final thought
Behold the chilling re-enactment of an unnamed Sydney club trying to get its NSD application in on the last day.

Another day, another win - South Melbourne 4 St Albans 0

Another week, another terrible crowd. One could blame the cold, the timeslot, the lack of outside beers, the uninspiring opponent, the general lack of hope, waiting for the NSD, covid, live-streams, camping, long weekend getaways, birthday parties, not being invited to the player auction night, the kids, traffic snarls, political strife at home and abroad. But I promise you, the second all those things go away, people will turn up to watch South again. 

I would have got to the ground fifteen minutes earlier than the already absurd time I got to the ground, were it not for two blokes punching on in the first arriving (and quite crowded) route 12 tram at the corner of Collins and Spencer. Well, it was more like one tall bloke punching on with a much smaller bloke, with the tall bloke being held back by a small Asian woman, and the small bloke eventually getting off the tram and having his meager possessions tossed out onto the tram platform.

Suffice to say, I was happy enough to let that tram go and wait for the next one even if it was another 15 minutes or so away. What good would turning up earlier have done anyway? I'd already had lunch, and the assumption that there would be anyone I knew in the social club to have a quiet drink with turned out to be way off base. Everyone's got something better to do. At least there was time for one member of staff behind the bar to learn about the existence of the "scotch and dry". 

In such miserable circumstances, it only made sense to pick the wonkiest table in the room upon which to sip my drink, while watching the live stream on my phone of the women's team losing to FV Emerging in the arena outside. I have my reasons for not heading outside; and I was watching the game on my phone, because none of the television screens in the social club were on, probably because the only person who seems to know how to operate them was also not in attendance on Saturday.

Eventually enough familiar people turned up that it was worth moving to a non-wonky table, and then the game was on and one had to step outside into - it must be said - the not really all that cold weather, notwithstanding Max Mikkola wearing gloves, which South of the Border will forgive for obvious reasons. Once more, as with the past few weeks, we were forced from our regular Clarendon Corner bay, into the middle of the stand. Apparently that area that's closed off to patrons is still undergoing painting works, though people are now suspecting that it's just another cost cutting measure. While we were still able to set up camp in Row H, it nevertheless feels like being a migrant in a new country trying to replicate your existence 

Some matches zip by, while others seem to hang around. This was one of the latter. When we opened the scoring at what point past the twenty minute mark that it was, I was shocked that it we weren't so much closer to half time. Credit to Max Mikkola for that opening goal, making the most of his initially crappy free kick attempt to volley home a belter that I was oohing over almost as soon as it left his boot. Credit also to Marcus Schroen for letting someone else take a free kick. It's called delegating, and every leader should become accustomed to doing it.

Max's next goal, soon afterwards, was much more straightforward, except for a bit in the lead-up which ended up seeing Nikola Jurkovic get sent off. We assumed at the time it was some sort of dissent, but replays suggest that Jurkovic tried to elbow one of our players in the head while aiming to try and block our player from running downfield. Classic Jurkovic move, and that pretty much sealed the game. One more goal from a Max long throw, and another from a Max cross, and that was more than enough to settle this one. 

Incidentally, the best bit about the fourth goal, which was achieved by a lovely angled header by Schroen, is showing exactly what Marcus is best - forward play, as a sort of pseudo-second striker, something like his performance in the 2016 grand final. 

That's something for the top brass to think about, while I muse on other things, like an injured Josh Wallen deliberately getting a yellow card, so that inevitably missing the upcoming Hume isn't a complete waste.  One person did put up the suggestion that instead of potentially scoring a fifth goal, it would have been preferable to concede a goal, because that would at least eliminate the cost of a clean sheet bonus. 

Once again Mikkola was benched early, this time about an hour in. Once more he was very upset at that, and I can see why: most players want to play as much as they can; most players having the kind of night he was having want to keep that run going; and if you're being looked at for potential A-League recruitment, you want to keep showing off your wares. But I can (this time) why he was subbed off by the coach. The game was done, so there was no point in having him out there potentially getting injured; the game was done, meaning it was a chance to give some of our younger players a run; and Max also already had a yellow card (which will apparently see him miss the next match anyway), so there the risks outweighed the benefits of him being out there much longer.

Be happy with the comfortable win, and on to the remaining games in the home and away calendar.

The race to avoid relegation, the race to the finals, and the race to top spot

Saturday's win saw us reach the 40 point mark, well clear of the 30 point mark people have been throwing around only half-jokingly in terms of avoiding relegation. Relegation talk is all a bit moot now, seeing as how the two teams currently in the relegation zone are unlikely to get 30 points between them. In any case, with just 9 games and 27 more points up for grabs, second last-placed Dandenong City - currently on 10 points - can at absolute best only reach a tally of 37 points, a game behind our current tally. So, congratulations to us for avoiding relegation officially, barring some extra-curricular rule breaking nonsense. 

So attention now turns to the race for the finals, where we still have to play the teams currently in second, third, fourth, and fifth. We're currently 14 points clear of seventh placed Heidelberg (whom we already played twice, and thus cannot take points directly off us), so it would take a monumental stuff-up from here to fail to make the finals. I'm not saying it's not possible, only that it's really rather unlikely, seeing as how we also have to play each of the bottom three once more. But stranger things have happened I suppose.

The race for top spot however, is still very much wide-open, though you'd prefer to be in our position than anyone else's. Oakleigh's loss against the Bergers yesterday gives us back some breathing space - four points to be precise - which might come in handy come the end of the home and away season. Granted, first place offers almost no material advantage for finals, but it should (I hope) the opportunity to play in the NPL national playoffs.

Next game

Hume away on Saturday night. Assuming he even plays, will the 17-year-old Hume goalkeeper have turned 18 by now? Will there even be enough South fans in attendance to heckle any Hume goalkeeper? Even if there are enough South fans in attendance, will they be too precious to stand out in the cold, preferring instead to stay indoors, and eating kebabs while watching GWS vs Footscray?

Final thought

I still cannot comprehend how the social club can't just sell you a burger without a serving of chips, or a chicken sandwich without a serving of chips, or a lamb sandwich without a serving of chips; and yet hey also cannot find a way to serve plated meals which would naturally come with a serving of chips.

Solid Sunday Entertainment - St Albans 1 South Melbourne 4

Churchill Reserve being probably the second closest NPL venue to my house, I decided to get there super early on Sunday. I even drove there, because that would only take about 15 minutes, whereas the equivalent public transport trip would take close to an hour, which does not seem ideal for a seven kilometre trip. Plus if you get there early enough, there's a nice parking spot in the shade on Fox Street. Then again, if the price of petrol keeps going up, I might as well walk to games like this.

I got to the ground in time for the under 21s, and parking myself in between the two benches, I must say that I was left asking myself a lot of questions. First, whose bright idea was it to have our away kit look like a Carlton SC away kit? Frankly, it was a little sickening, and having to see that for the rest of the year isn't going to be easy.

But more questions, this time related to junior development. Now granted that on any given topic, there's always someone who knows less than you do, I'm still somewhere near the bottom of the knowledge pyramid when it comes to junior or youth soccer. But there's always a chance to learn more, even if that attempt at gaining knowledge is limited to a couple of games a year.

Do we place enough emphasis on the difference between being robotic and being automatic? I ask this, because I have come across complaints about youth players under various methods (often attributed to this or that "curriculum"), and the tendency to create robotic players who are unable to adapt to unfamiliar or especially to dynamic situations. 

And the micromanagement of the players by the coaches! I understand that they are youth players, and that they need instruction, but at what point should players in this age group (under 21s, so say about 16-18 year olds) no longer need to be constantly told where to stand, where to run, and what pass to make? At what point do not only the individual players themselves take charge of their own positioning and decision making, but also certain players adopt leadership roles to help implement whatever game plan the coach has them playing under?

I won't make much if any comment on things like the quality of first touches, or when's the right time to play back to the keeper, or decision making as it relates to playing on a small ground that has more ups and downs than a vinyl oval from the Test Match board game that's been gathering dust in a cupboard for the past 25 years. 

One thing I do know, though, is that it's never a wise idea for match officials to get involved with banter with the hoi polloi standing behind the fence. I mean, you can usually answer a rudimentary question about something that just happened without too much harm, and maybe at a more social level the whole experience is a bit more relaxed. But that young man running the line would have done better to not take the bait of arguing with a mouthy St Albans fan (and self-declared NPL player), because nothing good will come of it.

An attempt at a well-thought out post on the senior match held last Sunday is pointless if you were standing on the outer side of Churchill Reserve. That ground has to have some of the worst sight-lines in Victorian soccer, with only the social club wing affording anything approaching near unimpeded views. And of course I didn't stand on that side of the ground, but instead on the Fox Street wing, where my view was blocked by fencing, media scaffolding, poles, metal benches, and lots of people. Imagine a finals match played there, with say, double the crowd of Sunday's match?

But let me first digress a little further. If you did not attend because you are slack, not only did you miss on another great victory for Hellas, but you also missed out on one of the worst attempts at mowing a lawn you've ever seen. While our view of the game was poor, South of the Border had a first class seat to watch a shambles of an attempt at mowing a nature strip. Not sure why the bloke living across the street decided that kickoff was the right time to start mowing a lawn, but each to their own I suppose.

Initially I thought the rumble in the background was the generator being used to keep the batteries running on the camera for the live stream, but a quick look behind us saw our man in his hat, hi-viz, and gloves wielding his machine like he was trying to stab the grass. Now I'm no lawn mowing expert, but I'm pretty sure the general idea is to just mow one lane of grass, and then go back the other way slightly to the left (or right) of whatever line you just mowed?

This bloke looked like he was a devil of a time, though he did get one bit right, when he tossed a small branch onto his neighbour's nature strip. We've all done that, because you know it will come back to your side eventually, and there's nothing malicious in the act. It's the kind of entertainment you wouldn't get in a national second division loaded with proper grounds.

The senior match seemed to go the way most of our games have gone so far this season. Fair start, messy middle, reasonable finish. That whole messy middle bit is an ongoing concern, especially when we come up against better teams. Again, there were signs of panic and an inability to wrest the initiative when under sustained pressure. The small ground however meant that in this case, flailing long balls to Harry Sawyer were automatically more dangerous than they would be on a larger ground.

Improved set piece taking - and decision making - has been a boon so far this season, and so it proved again on Sunday, with corners and such helping bail us out when we needed it most. Credit to Pat Langlois and his surely unsustainable run of headed goals. Credit also to Max Mikkola, Jai Ingham, and sub for this week Alun Webb for at least showing that we'll be a consistent counter attacking threat this season. In 2021, we scored just 19 goals in 18 leagues matches. We're already up to 12 from 4 games in 2022. 

Once we get Sawyer not trying to jump too high to connect with crosses he could really just walk to, we might be even stronger. Sometimes I'm not sure that he realises how tall he actually is.

The real hardcore cynics out there, in an attempt to outdo themselves, are still stuck in a 2018-2021 mindset, counting down the points needed to reach 30 in order to claim safety from relegation. Half-joke it may be, but I think this season's personnel make relegation extremely unlikely. If this team doesn't make finals, it'd be an astonishing failure. 

There are defensive issues, issues with tactics, issues with giving up initiative for long periods of time, and of course the possibility that we haven't exactly come up against the strongest opponents as of yet. But for the most part the 2022 team has not been a side cobbling together undeserved points, but rather one that has deserved, clearly, to win at least three of its four games so far. It might not yet be time to believe that good things will inevitably happen, but it might soon be time to start things that bad things inevitably will.

Next game

Hume City at home on Friday night. This is an ordinary match, for an ordinary three points. How dull.

In case you were wondering

That's four from four from our eight twenty-twenty-one six pointers for twenty-twenty-two. 

Here at South of the Border we're going to track this novelty as it relates to us, though good luck to anyone trying to keep tabs on how the entirety of the bespoke solution is going. Our revised 2021 points tally is now 37 points, well clear of the hypothetical relegation placings; and with Port Melbourne being docked 18 points for 2021, we're also in with a real shot at a hypothetical finals place.

For the record, we have four more bespoke six point matches to go:

• Round 9, at home against Oakleigh
• Round 13, at home against Avondale
• Round 15, away to Eastern Lions
• Round 25, at home against Dandenong City

Australia Cup news

The Australia Cup fourth round draw was conducted last week, and we were drawn against away to Avondale. Oh well, we had a good run. Just for the record, Victoria has been granted five spots in this year's national stage of the cup. Because there was no national NPL championship last season - of which the winner would receive a place in the Australia Cup as a reward - Victoria was granted that extra spot because the state's superior performances in FFA Cup tournaments past.

NPL TV app updates 

The other week on the steps outside the social club, a fellow Hellatzi noted that the Cluch app on his Android phone wasn't working - furthermore, it was asking for an update which didn't seem to exist in the Google Play Store. Whatever the issue seemed to be, it had not yet caught up to my ancient Nokia - but South of the Border eventually reached that point on Saturday while trying to catch up with some of the overnight goals. 

An uninstall/reinstall maneuver only managed to turn my phone's Cluch app into the soccer-less, and largely pointless version of the app that's been available on Google Home devices. Not ideal. A search for NPL TV in the Play Store did unearth an NPL TV specific app however; so if you came across the same problem of your Cluch app carking it, it seems like we are being migrated across to a new app.

Now, it does seem like that there are incremental improvements being made to the product, like the ability to go back and forth in ten second increments, as well as rewind in some games, but I haven't really had the chance to check it out fully. I'm not even sure if they've added the ability to pause matches. Still, what we wait for most is a smart TV app so we're no longer casting from PCs.

But I'm told it's still a much better product than whatever Paramount+ is offering for its A-League coverage, so apparently I shouldn't complain so much.

Final thought

Oh boy, those Dinamo kids behind the goal with those firecrackers. Someone could blown a finger off, or an ear drum out, or... well, since no security or marshals cared on the day, I probably shouldn't either.

Friendly tonight against St Albans

On Sunday arvo I heard what were then unconfirmed rumours about South's senior men playing a friendly away at Churchill Reserve against St Albans; those rumours appear to be true.

Home duties mean I won't be there, a fact which is deeply upsetting to me. But if you yourself are keen to see who knows what kind of exhibition of football by who knows what melange of lineups, kickoff is 7:40PM.

News to tide you over during the lockdown

Weekend's matches cancelled

I'm sure you're all already on top of this. This Sunday's senior men's match against St Albans has been postponed, due to the current lockdown. Tomorrow's highly anticipated match between South's senior women and Bulleen has also been postponed.

Close contact

The senior women ran into a little trouble on Wednesday prior to their scheduled cup match against Casey Comets, when it was found that a player in the match "had been identified as a secondary close contact through an exposure site". By agreement of the two teams, the match did not go ahead.

New fixture date no. 1

During the week the date and venue for our Dockerty Cup semi-final tie against Hume was set. The date is this coming Wednesday, July 21st, and the kickoff time 7:30PM. Unfortunately, the neutral venue chosen was Kingston Heath Soccer Complex. I was 50/50 on whether it was going to be worth the bother. Now with the lockdown extending until Tuesday, one has to think that this fixture may also be altered. For the time being though, let's assume that it will go ahead.

New fixture date no. 2

Our FFA Cup round of 32 fixture against Melbourne City has been given the match date of August 29th. Unusually, this is a Sunday and not a weeknight, in line with the powers that be seeking to try and branch out from the usual midweek timeslots. Even more unusually, the August 29th date already had a fixture set for it - our round 26 match away against Bentleigh. You may recall that round 26 is the final match of the home and away season, when all fixtures are meant to kick off simultaneously. I'm sure that all involved will figure it out.

Vale John Anderson

Three time state championship winner John Anderson passed away during the week. The Scots midfielder won championships with South in 1964, 1965, and 1966. He also represented Victoria and Australia; the latter included being part of Australia's first World Cup qualifying campaign. Tony Persoglia has written a good summary of Anderson's background and accomplishments on the Football Victoria site.

Vale Chris Christopher

Former long-serving committee member Chris Christopher also passed away during the week. Christopher was president of the club in 1987, but he will likely be best remembered for making a large loan to the club in 2004 which, along with a contribution from the late Tony Toumbourou, helped stave off the club's death from the Australian Taxation Office. 

Vale Michael Christodoulou

Not directly South related, but this week also saw the passing of Michael Christodoulou, aka the Bentleigh peanut man. A fixture at Victorian soccer grounds for decades - at NSL, state league, and A-League - Christodoulou was always good for a chat, and was one of its more well known characters. His death probably brings to an end the era of the local soccer nut-sellers; the others have also passed on or retired, and I can't see anyone emerging to take their place.

National Youth League videos unearthed

Here's an absolute treat. Thanks to George Cotsanis (My World Is Round), who acted as the pivot for getting these two videos from former South Melbourne youth team players Tim Schleiger and Mike Lilikakis.

These homemade videos are from South's 1991/92 National Youth League finals campaign. The club had won the title in 1990/91, and reached the final in 1991/92, losing to a start-studded Sydney Croatia team.

The first video contains almost the entirety of the Southern Division preliminary final against Heidelberg at Olympic Park, and closes with some changeroom hijinks and tomfoolery; several of the players became if not quite National Soccer League household names, then certainly Victorian Premier League mainstays. It also includes quick moments with the training and support staff.

The second video is a more manageable 20 minutes or so. This is a bit different from the first tape, in that it is a compilation of South's three finals matches. It includes the above mentioned preliminary final against Heidelberg; the Southern Division grand final against Preston; and the national grand final against Sydney Croatia. This video, narrated by goalkeeper Mike Lilikakis, also includes trophy presentations.

These are remarkable videos for a variety of reasons. First, for the sheer scarcity of footage from the NYL as a whole. Second, for the videos' time capsule quality - the Olympic Park that is no more; the players that would and would not become household names; the cameos by Eddie Thomson and Ferenc Puskas; the Sade background music, and the banter by the players. Third, the reiteration that such  archival material still exists, and that we must cherish it each time we come across it.

Hit "like" and "subscribe"

So, some of you may have been seeing the videos I've been uploading to my YouTube channel, which is mostly classic South gear. Well, I hadn't quite exhausted the tranche given to me a few months ago, but I'd done just about all the 1980s stuff... that is until I got given another collection of digitised VHS tapes couple of weeks back. So sure, there's bound to be a lot of crossover between the first set and this one, but this second set also seems to have some 1988 match footage that the previous set doesn't have, and which I have certainly not seen before. This new set also includes little set pieces as well - interviews, gimmicks, and the like - which will be interesting to dig out, because that's not the kind of thing that usually gets uploaded to YouTube. I've also started a little project (which will take time to complete, if I actually do complete it) which will aim to track every South match that's available online, classing them as either "short", "extended", or "full" - but that's for the future.

And you may ask yourself: Well... how did I get here? South Melbourne 2 St Albans 0

This game was so easy that it just might make you re-evaluate everything you think you know about soccer. Or perhaps not. 

Just before our game started we were equal on points with Avondale, with the same goal difference, but second overall on the ladder because we'd scored fewer goals. Immediately after kickoff we were top of the league, at least according to the live ladder ("we're top of the league / we're top of the league / check the live ladder / we're top of the league"), and after 90 minutes of play, we were top of the league outright for real, still.

How did this happen? Arguments about the general mediocrity and/or evenness of this league will only take you so far in finding the answer, because even being in an even league, why is it us that's on top? I suppose it helps that we haven't yet played Avondale, Knights, or Bentleigh, but even so... why us? What have we done that's been so remarkable to see us in this position?

We are a hard working team, but surely we're not only the one of those. We appear to be defensively sound in a way that's certainly surprised me, even taking into account Esteban Quintas' penchant for having his team sit back. But we throw up all manner of starting eleven combinations, not all of which (or even most) our very knowledgeable fans would consider our best and likely most effective starting lineup.

But even taking into account that St Albans racked up quite a few corners, they generally sucked. Sure, they had that one shot cleared off the line when they were already 2-0 down, but that was pretty much their contribution to the day. The two goals we scored, while pleasing to us, on further re-watching reveal a pitifully slow response time from the visiting side. Jake Marshall being unmarked at the near post, as the ball was headed back across goal from the far post from a corner? I'll cut them some slack for that one.

But the second goal? It was hardly searing play from us. Neat movement and passing, but nothing obviously devastating. And Gerrie Sylaidos' gently lofted cross to Harry Sawyer? That was pure futsal/indoor/beach soccer shenanigans. Someone in the crowd asked when was the last time we scored from two headers in a game, it being the kind of question which is being asked nowadays because we are unexpectedly not terrible (maybe even "good"). As usual, the answer seems to be not as far back in the distant past as people like to instinctively think, but rather early last year.

My main concern now, in the event that we don't have a mid-season stumble, is that this season will be our own version of The Producers; in that we have gone to the trouble of selecting players and a coach that we thought would not succeed, but which instead will be so successful that it'll send us broke.

The following segment is not a part of Hume's social media antics complaining about the state of refereeing

Aside from the goals and generally non-objectionable play from us, there was one perplexing moment when Harry Sawyer was fouled, and the referee gave what we assumed was a penalty, what with Sawyer having fallen about two metres inside the box. But no, the foul was directed to be taken more or less just outside the penalty area. One can only assume that the referee thought that whatever infringement he thought he was adjudicating had begun outside the box, in which case it is remarkable that Sawyer (even with his height) only managed to come to ground so far inside the box that everyone just assumed that it was a penalty. 

But seeing as how we're all older and more tired, and top of the league and whatnot, no one seemed particularly fussed about the whole matter. It was a very mature response from our fans to the fairly confusing sequence of events, which just goes to show that the club is dead or some such. Where was the outrage? Where was the abuse? Where was me remembering to ask referees assessor Chris Bambridge after the game what that whole thing was all about?

Next game

Friday night away at Dandenong City. No idea how I'm supposed to get out there. Good chance of just watching this on the stream instead. A stranger reader of this blog has kindly offered me and a friend a lift to the ground. So, just in case said reader turns out to be an axe-murderer or some such, let me just say it has been a pleasure writing this blog, and that I've enjoyed hanging out with my South friends on the hills and terraces of Victorian soccer.

FFA Cup news

While nothing has been announced "officially", it appears as if our cup tie against Melbourne Knights has been scheduled for Tuesday May 4th, at 7:30PM, That would put it just three days after our Orthodox Easter Saturday league match against Hume, and three days before we play the Knights again in the league. Get ready for some serious squad rotation is all I'm going to say.

Pulling their finger out (when I'm not looking)

Before I even got to Lakeside - more specifically, while I was on the train on the way to the ground - I was streaming the opening half of the women's team match against their most likely title rival Calder United. We were up 1-0 by the time I tuned in, and I had to skim back to see the, as it turned out, quite lovely goal. We then proceeded to spend much of the rest of the first half being very slack with trying to win back possession, and playing many lazy, corner cutting long balls into space, instead of trying to carry the ball further up field. Infuriating play from a team you know can do better, and even more aggravating when they conceded the goal they should have conceded. South were lucky it was not more than one goal at half-time.

Now, to the second half... I was at the club by this stage, but the televisions in the social club were not broadcasting the women's game (that was only happening on the pro-shop's screen), and by the time that was rectified, our women were up 3-1 or something like that, and apparently kicking arse, eventually winning 3-2. Well, I'm glad for the fact that they picked up their game in the second half, even if I didn't get to see the magic happen until afterward on replay. 

They'll say you'll miss it when it's gone, but what if you won't?

The St Albans game was first of our seven scheduled Saturday home fixtures, and boy didn't it go down like a lead balloon in terms of attendance and fan engagement. There'll be a millions of excuses, ranging from the obvious and valid, to the abysmal and made-up. The bottom-line though is that the attendance figure, whatever it is officially, was poor, and the attempt to try for a Hume City style reverse fixture order in terms of putting on the 21s game second didn't work either, though it may have saved us a few bucks on hiring security and such.

To be fair, Saturday at 5:00PM is an unusual time, falling in between the final whistle of most state league fixtures and the usual Saturday evening NPL Victoria kickoff time of circa 7:00. And we may find that once we get to the point in the season where we actually play our own scheduled 7:00 Saturday night fixtures, that the crowds will sort themselves out, making the adjustment to something than our traditional Sunday afternoon/evening games. ate

One shudders to think how it all might have looked had we not been undefeated and top of the league. Certainly winning a game comfortably to main that maintain that undefeated run and top of the league status did nothing to keep people behind in the social club afterward. Everyone has their reasons for not sticking around of course, but it is a problem for the club if they don't.

I know what's waiting for me at our next home game.

The service was good, however...

One particular absent friend of ours was much better at food reviews than I am; his reviews had more heart for a start, and he had an off-the-cuff genius for these things that people like me can only dream of. But for the sake of documenting the experience in something approaching its totality, we plod on regardless. I had my first taste of the food in the social club on Saturday night, and all I'll say is don't pick the chicken schnitzel burger; go for the regular beef burger or the lamb sandwich equivalent, for which I have heard things ranging from "very good" to "it's fine". It's not that the schnitzel burger is inedible - it is very much edible, I ate it, and have suffered no deleterious side effects from doing so; but the "fun" beetroot coloured bun, above average salady bits, and the chipotle mayo can't completely disguise the fact that the chicken element of said chicken schnitzel burger is not up to scratch, what with it being a variation of every truck stop/school canteen/giant heart-shaped frozen crumbed schnitzel sitting in your local bakery's bain marie that, at best, you know and tolerate. I look forward to trying to some of the other items on the menu, and writing things about them.

Merch murmurs

I am hearing a pompom beanie with a new design is in the offing. Also, the Gunners t-shirt is on its way.

Final thought 

This is just a reminder that I owe the club the cost of the SM Hellas cap that I tried to buy after the pro-shop register was shutdown for the night, but which I was allowed to keep for the time being because people apparently trust me enough to follow through with payment eventually. 

Excitement for season 2021 is somewhere around here, I'm sure, but I seem to have misplaced it, no it's not lost, I just don't know where it is

At last, after several months of the pandemic lockdown crushing local sport; then several more months of not much action anywhere, which may have been part of the lockdown, I don't know, because the back-end of 2020 went by in a big couch potato blur; followed then by a good couple of months of actual pre-season action, which included several games at Lakeside behind closed doors, a game in regional Victoria, a handful of games reputedly in metropolitan Melbourne but which may as well have been in regional Victoria, and another otherwise accessible to me game called off for the recent lockdown; after all that, I finally got to a South game.

And then, as per my custom during pre-season, I proceeded to pay as little attention as possible to the game being played in front of me, reminiscing instead about junk food and the kickboxer Dennis Alexio.

And that's fine. Those of us who attend pre-season games have our own motivations for doing so. Some enjoy the proximity to South; some enjoy attempting to play the optimistic or pessimistic prognosticator; some people are there to scout the opposition. I'm there to socialise and overhear conversations that I can leverage for content for this blog.

Having said all of that, what did I learn from the experience? In terms of the on-field stuff, almost nothing. The team that South fielded today had a large number of youth team players, likely bench options, and a handful of people who will start games, and some who may have started in the recent past but who are not guaranteed to do so in 2021. 

Our backup goalkeeper option James Burgess should be a step up from the back-up options we've had in the past few years, but in terms of everyone else that played today, I did not see anything to make me think that they would be the key to an improved overall performance from the senior men's team. Having said that, my pre-season ratings of South players and performances on a scale of 1 to 10 - where 1 is bad, and 10 is good - tend to be begin at -5, and move very little from there.

St Albans (no idea of the relative strength of their lineup) were the better team - in a game that I want to say was messy, but was it really? When's the last time I actually watched a match to remember what a good or bad one looked like? - and probably should've ended up scoring one or two more than the one goal they did. My estimation of what St Albans should have scored is based on them creating about six or seven really good chances, with a competent forward line scoring from between one-in-three or one- in-four of that quality of opportunity.

Maybe 1.5-2.5 goals would've about right.

As for South, we had one loopy long range shot which the opposition keeper tipped over, and a moderate flurry within the last five minutes. The rest was, as alluded to elsewhere, very meh. Nothing to get worked up about either way, yet. Soon enough though, we can all claim the club is dead.

Next game - possible venue change, check your local guides

This week's first game of the season is against Heidelberg. This is a game that is scheduled to be played at Olympic Village on Sunday. However, the ongoing renovation of Olympic Village is not complete, and there is strong talk that the game will not be played at that ground.

(there is even some discussion, based on what exactly I don't know, that the Olympic Village stand itself has actually been condemned, but that's neither here nor there for the purposes of whatever happens this week, assuming that rumour even has any basis in fact)

Just where exactly the game will be played - assuming that the game goes ahead at all, and is not instead postponed - is something that is yet to be determined.

Reversing the fixture so that we host it at Lakeside is not an option, as the Victorian Track and Field Championships are being held at Lakeside from Friday until Sunday. My understanding from hearing chat today at Churchill Reserve is that John Cain Memorial Park is also not ready to host games just yet. I suppose Heidelberg could ring around the rest of the NPL's Greek teams and find out if Port or Kingston Heath or Jack Edwards are available.

For the time being, I would say keep an ear out for whatever change may happen for this game, because things could change at quite short notice

Everything has been going on for too long, but let's keep going anyway

The other week South Melbourne's Facebook page put up a "Happy Valentijn's Day" gimmick post, making allusion to Dutchman Jasper Valentijn who played with us during the 2007 pre-season and Hellenic Cup. In order for that post to happen, the club's social media person needed a photo of Jasper, and they thought that I might have a photo of him. Well, I didn't, though I know one existed, and not the one where he's naked in a locker room with teammates from one of his clubs in Europe, but an actual photo of Jasper in a South top.

I could not for the life of me find a photo on the net, until I remembered something I heard on a segment of an Australian soccer history podcast - yes, a podcast that I co-host, and the relevant segment of which I led the discussion of. Thus I went scurrying through the Wayback Machine, and managed to find a photo of Jasper Valentijn during his brief time at South, and thus the post went up to general indifference. Not every attempt at engaging social media users is going to be a homerun, and that's fine.

Of course, the most dedicated of South of the Border's readership will recall that this blog already did the Valentijn's Day gimmick eleven years earlier (and did it with slightly more narrative effort), which is not to accuse anyone of being derivative; only to acknowledge that (with the appropriate amount of horror that I have wasted my life) that I have been posting on this blog for a very long time. Kudos to those readers who were there at the beginning and stuck around, and kudos to those who came later and foolishly decided to start reading this nonsense from the beginning, when it was legitimately awful.

Oh, and when there so much of that awfulness.

Anyway, I found the relevant photo on this archived page, and instantly aged about ten years. Fourteen years ago. There wasn't even a South of the Border then. It's ten years since we signed Trent Waterson for a second time, and seeing Frank Drakopoulos trying to punch-on with half of Cobram Victory when he was playing for Clifton Hill in a Dockerty Cup match. Nine years since Dino Djulbic made his Socceroos debut. About seven and a half years since Fernando played his last game for us. About six years since I saw Andy Bourakis playing at Western Suburbs, and six years since we played against Tansel Baser's Whittlesea United in the backblocks of Thomastown. Approaching five years since we won anything. Fourteen years since the first - but not the last - attempt by South to get a spot in the A-League.

One can opine endlessly about what has and has not changed over the past decade and a half, but it's best to do that only intermittently, otherwise you forget that you're also living in the here and now; regardless of how much supporting an antique club like South under the current circumstances sees you be treated like a museum piece yourself. Every club is to some degree or other a personification of its supporters, and vice-versa, but damn it if supporting South for the past decade and a half hasn't made the club indistinguishable from each other in the same way that after a certain amount of time a dog owner begins to resemble his pooch.

On a personal front, last year was going to bring some changes anyway, and then the pandemic happened; and as with every major crisis that arrives, NOTHING WAS EVER THE SAME AGAIN and yet somehow also managed to stay pretty much the same. It is not out of the realms of possibility that we will have yet more lockdowns, delays, and rescheduled matches, alongside the restrictions that will be a part of our soccer lives for at least the immediate future

The blog certainly lost its edge and enthusiasm over the past couple of years, only some of that due to 2020's lack of things to write about. I got tired, and while I like to think I can bounce back and recapture some of the enthusiasm and quality of the blog's peak, why promise something that I might not be able to commit to?

In the NSL days, I was distant from South in a lot of ways, with the most important of them out of my control. I tried to make up for that in the post-NSL era, and have largely succeeded, perhaps going too far the other way. Is it any wonder I've got to the stage where I've felt there's no water left in the well to draw upon? Supporting South is exhausting work, and doing it the way I do it - trying to find ways to write about occasional and restricted glory mixed in with interminable periods of mediocrity - just makes things worse.

And yet here I am, still going for probably not very sound reasons such as a misguided and misplaced sense of loyalty, or contributing to the historical record, maybe even the kind of the pathetic hubristic guilt that comes from wanting to leave behind something of one's existence for future generations which will have bigger things to worry about than what some geek thought of overpaid park footballers (whom he was helping to overpay, in his own marginal way). Which is another way of saying that I can't wait for the season to start.

And if you're wondering what Jasper Valentijn is up to these days, I think he's the manager of a padel club in Groningen.

 If Ian Syson can buy one, so can you

A reminder that memberships for season 2021 are available, including now via the official website! If you were a paid up member in 2020, you also have the option of renewing for the cheaper rate of $50.

Annual General Meetings on Wednesday

Also a reminder that the 2020 South Melbourne Hellas and South Melbourne FC AGMS are on this Wednesday evening at 7:00 and 8:00 respectively, in the social club. 

South Melbourne Facebook pages taken down, and then restored

I'm sure that readers have been aware of the Facebook vs Australia situation, and the ways in which Facebook's blocking of Australian news pages has taken out a lot eof non-news pages as well. One of the victims of Facebook's brinkmanship with the Australian government (and the traditional media outlets that the government is acting on behalf of), was the South Melbourne FC Facebook page. 

And then it was back-up, eventually, and we could learn all about which player's birthday it was again.

While it's easy to scoff at the temporary loss (especially by those who are banned from posting comments on there), the sad truth is that for many people out there, Facebook is the internet. For someone like me who despises Facebook for all sorts of reasons, and uses it only to keep in nominal touch with otherwise estranged relations, and for Australian soccer history guff, I could care less about Facebook's reckless implementation of banning news sites or the .

I mean, I still actually pay a subscription to a major daily newspaper, as well subscribe to other community broadcasters. I'm still a member of online forums (remember them?), and not just soccer ones! But the reality is that for many other people, if it's not Facebook, it may as well not exist. Not only are most community based organisations of a certain size not going to bother with updating a website (f they can even find someone to do it, or if the person who had the password hasn't pissed off from the club) - but a lot of people these days just don't visit websites that aren't information portals of some kind, as opposed to being an original source of information.

Which, to sum up, is a situation that sucks, because I really hate Facebook, but we're all trapped in it to some degree, even those of us who want nothing to do with it.

Public transport guide updates

Since every team due to compete in NPL Victoria in 2021 is the same as in 2020, I've not bothered to go back and update the blog's public transport guide. I assume pretty much everything has stayed the same, except for maybe some increased services in some areas.

A word on this week's game away to the Bergers though, assuming it goes ahead - if you're coming from the Sunbury line, there will be train replacement bus services, so plan your journey accordingly.

Accredited, once again

For season 2021, your main correspondent on South of the Border has once been granted media accreditation by Football Victoria. So, take that opposition NPL clubs, I'm getting in for free again. Who knows how my schedule will work out in terms of being able to get non-South games this year, but I'll do my best to get "around the grounds" where I can, even if it's the least loved segment of any given week's report.

Write for South of the Border

As usual, I'm always looking for guest contributors to South of the Border, for both regular and occasional segments. Especially keen for someone to do match reports for South's NPL women's games, but whatever South related topic or slant you have in mind, just send me a pitch and I'll consider it.

If You Know Your History has returned for 2021

The Australian soccer history radio show and podcast I host with Ian Syson on FNR has returned for 2021. It's going to air at the moment on Thursdays at 6:00pm, via Facebook, Twitter and Twitch, and available later as a podcast via a number of sources. I've been a bit slack with updating the show's blog page, but that's partly because my cheap earphones had started to cark it, and lockdown had made it difficult to get a new pair at short notice. And then it turned out that one of my brothers had two spare pairs, and now my only excuse for not updating the blog is laziness.

Friendly tomorrow against St Albans

 At Churchill Reserve in St Albans, kickoff 1:00PM. Final warm-up match before the season starts.

Gerrie! Gerrie! Gerrie! - South Melbourne 1 Dandenong City 0

Someone not familiar with soccer might think it strange how one goal can make all the difference between throwing the club into the emotional abyss or writing off a match with the cliché "not a great performance, but it was good to grind out a win and on to the next game".

Such people may also find it strange how creating three or four clearcut chances and failing to take any of them means less when someone scores off a half chance, slotting a ball through traffic from the edge of the box.

Before that, most of what we had was increasing frustration and the fear that we would cop a goal on the counter. Dandy City came to Lakeside with a plan, and that plan was to sit back and try and hit us on the break.

It was in stark contrast to last week's game against Bentleigh, where the Greens sought to take the game on, and we were able to attack promisingly on the counter in the spaces left behind by the Greens' aggression. In contrast, last Friday we were thrust into the role of the more active team, and the evidence was that we still have some work to do on that front.

On the one hand, I suppose we should be flattered that an opponent thought enough of our potential to try and curtail our attacking threat in this way. On the other hand, you wonder if other teams will also employ this tactic, hoping - possibly correctly - that we aren't as effective when we're asked to dictate play with the ball.

Most of what we were able to produce in the first half came through the work of Gerrie Sylaidos, who in lieu of adequate connections in midfield, worked cross-field passes to the right-hand side where Nick Krousouratis was operating. This combination - although not the precise tactic - led to our best chance of the game, with a Sylaidos pass opening up the City defence for Krousouratis' shot which somehow hit the post and come straight back out. I thought it had gone in, and so did a good chunk of the home crowd, but it was not so.

When added to makeshift centre-forward George Howard's shot straight at the opposition goalkeeper (who was not Chris Maynard, as some in the crowd believed) early in the game, there was palpable frustration in the crowd, mixed with wanting to show patience with the young squad. The red card to City's James Kelly for an off-the-ball attack on Dean Bereveskos only served to solidify the tactical trajectory of the game.

Outside Gate 2 at Lakeside Stadium/ Photo: Luke Radziminski

And as the game wore on, it seemed to be heading for one of two outcomes; a tepid 0-0 draw, or a loss to us courtesy of a goal pinched by the visitors. They sent in some dangerous balls across the box, but their only real chance came from a Dean Piemonte strike from the edge of the area - the kind of sucker-punch that Piemonte specialises in, not least against us - which sailed high and wide.

Otherwise our defence held up reasonably well, and much praise has been sent in the direction of Luke Adams and Jake Marshall, who did enough good work to see that Nikola Roganovic didn't have to make a save all night. But further up the field things were less cohesive, and the end result perhaps meant that what looked like a team afraid or unsure of how to take the game on against a conservative opponent, can be construed as - for now - a team playing patiently and to instruction.

For example, I'm not sure what George Howard's natural position is, but it ain't centre-forward. Pep Marafioti struggled against Steven Topalovic out wide, but I would have preferred Pep at centre-forward rather than Howard, because at least Pep has a striker's instincts, as shown by his flick-on attempt on from a low Sylaidos cross - an attempt which would have broken the deadlock if not for a superb reflex save by Kennedy in the Dandy City goal.

We did eventually get the lead thanks to Sylaidos' shimmy and toe-poke from the edge of the box through a maze of bodies, and it was not an undeserved lead. The rest was about holding on, and seeing a glimpse of what prize recruit Billy Konstantinidis can do. Though helped by the fact that the now trailing Dandy City had to come out and get a goal, Konstantinidis' mere presence was that of an old-fashioned footy full-forward, someone who immediately straightens up a side and gives it a sense of directional clarity.

We played better the week before, and came away with nothing but a small replenishment of the pride and belief we threw away last year. We played not so well on Friday night, but came away with three points and the knowledge that we can win when playing less than thrilling or inspired football. Now what would you rather have?

Next game
Port Melbourne away on Saturday night, beginning our customary stretch of early season away matches. It's another one of hose theoretical must-win matches. Port are currently on one point from two games, haven't scored yet this season, and yet are also probably not quite as bad as that form-line suggests.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Saturday is set to be a scorcher - 38 degrees - so hopefully it gets a bit cooler by kickoff time. Pity for the under 20s though. Remember to be sun smart this week.

Observations on match day operations
There was no minute's silence for the passing of Brian Edgley last week. Granted, Edgley was only our coach for about two thirds of the 1976 season - and his legacy at other clubs like Mooroolbark, Preston, and Balgownie Rangers was much more substantial - but it seems remiss not to have at least paid some tribute to him.

The game started ten minutes late for who knows what reason, which is not a great thing when Friday night games already start so late. I suppose it worked in favour of the habitually late.

Food service in the social club was slow. Since we have seen it happen with every operator of the social club's kitchen since the social club re-opened in 2017, one must assume that the kitchen is ill-designed for match day operations as opposed to normal bistro operations. Here's hoping that it's just teething issues with the new operator, and that when the glut of home games arrives later in the year that these issues are ameliorated to a degree.

I can understand waiting for things like burgers and steak sandwiches, but having to wait for things like dim sims and potato cakes, which should in theory easily sit ready in a bain marie, is a worry.
The menu has been simplified for match days, and most things seem to be of reasonable value. The burger I had was not nearly as good as the one I had at the members' night a few weeks ago, but one reader wanted me to note for the record that his steak sandwich was excellent.

Away from the kitchen, there was new and old merch available, and the promise has been made of a variety of heritage themed merchandise becoming available during the year. People seemed to like the commemorative postcards which voting rights members received, though I almost can't bear to look at them because of the rampant superfluous apostrophes. One member who did like the postcards was moderately disappointed that the cards were double-sided, as that meant that he couldn't frame any of them without needing to get another set of cards.

There did still seem to be some problems with people not being on the database despite having paid for their memberships. On the plus side, the bloke who complimented the quality of the steak sandwich also wanted me to note that the sturdy reusable sealed plastic bags were a nice touch.

No cheesecake
It wasn't in the membership brochure, but I'm still shattered.

Pines' under 12s runners-up pennant from 1966, from the South Yarra
Junior Soccer Federation. Photo: Paul Mavroudis.  

Women
The South Melbourne women kicked off their 2019 campaign last week against Southern United at Monterey Reserve. Normally I wouldn't dare head out that far for anything other than a South senior men's game, but the senior women play away from Lakeside in the early part of the season for as long as the men do, and every time they play at Keilor - the only away NPLW venue close to me - there's always some damn clash with the men's team or some other event.

Besides, long public transport trips allow me to clear my head, and get into a faux-Zen state of mind, pondering koans like:

"where is the amenity in delivering all-day ten minute train frequencies if adjacent bus routes only operate at hourly intervals?"

Southern United are a struggling outfit who were reputedly close to folding last year, but they've sorted themselves out enough for another go in 2019. Their existence and struggles do seem to suggest that the late Tony Dunkerley's dream of composite representative franchise teams from the south-eastern suburbs and Mornington Peninsula are not as straightforward as he would have liked.

Having smashed them 14-0 last season, it was no surprise that we ran out 11-0 winners here, even without several W-League players in the team, and notable absentees such as Tiff Eliadis who has retired. Southern struggled to even get the ball up the field; the only chance they had for the game was when a South defender hit a stray back pass to the keeper. So, no stress on this occasion, just a relaxed day out in Frankston North.

Families
Thanks to the Marafioti brothers, last week we got into a discussion in the comments section about player-family connections at South, and we came up with the following.

Brothers

• Anastasiadis (John and Dean)
• Goutzioulis (Ange and George)
• Tavsancioglou (Rama and Adem)
• Trifiro (Jason and Glen)
• Marafioti (Pep and Gio)

Father-son

• Tsolakis (Manny and Peter)
• Salapasidis (Savvas and Kosta)
• Maclaren (Bruce and Fraser)

Cousins

• Fraser Maclaren - Alastair Bray
• Steve Tasios - Steve Panopoulos

But there must be more. So hit us up in the comments section for the obvious (and not so obvious) ones we've missed.

Match programs
We put out the call for more South Melbourne Hellas match programs, and Luke Patitsas (of the Sour Grapes blog, a South blog with someone who pays attention to the games) answered the call.

Thanks to Luke's efforts, we've been able to add one program from 1985 (Brunswick away); five home programs from 1987; a home program from 1989; two from 1989-90; one from 1990-91, a really great George Cross program; one from the opening day of the 1991-92 season; and two from home games (rounds 18 +20) from 2005.

For these and every other program we've managed to source, check out our match programs section. And if you have something that South of the Border is missing - and I know that some of you do - please get in touch with me.

FFA Summit Series
FFA is doing a roadshow gathering people in cities across Australia to talk about the issues the game faces. They're in Melbourne on Thursday May 2nd, a training night, but if you'd like to go anyway, head to this link and register your interest.

Personally I think this is a really dumb idea, but that's never stopped any of you before
So this week FV announced it had entered into some sort of arrangement with some sort of group to broadcast - live - every NPL men's match, every NPL under 20s match, every NPL women's match, and a minimum of two NPL 2 games a week.

Now having seen this kind of thing happen before, albeit on a much smaller scale - I'm thinking of circa the 2010 or 2011 seasons when some Harvey Silver related company filmed one live game a week - I was not in favour of this at all. I'm happy for highlights packages to be produced, and I'm happy for the odd radio game and full-blown live stream for important games - but this is too much.

And surely the aim should be to get people to go to games? But then I remembered that whatever you do, no one's going to turn to up to any game after whenever someone decides summer's ended, so sure, why not stream every single game? And as Matthew Galea has noted, it will at least provide some sort of quantifiable data on the interest in NPL competitions for proponents (and opponents) of the second division and promotion-relegation debate to manipulate to their liking.

The NPL Victoria games are available on YouTube and Facebook, and the consensus seems to be that the video quality is better on the YouTube streams. The graphics are basic but mostly clean, and they're updated regularly with stats and promos for various Football Victoria events. There's no replays - yet - which means if you stop paying attention you have to scroll back on the video to see a goal again. They seem to occasionally have commentators, and occasionally not.

By the way, if you're interested in doing commentary, analysis, etc for this, hit up Teo Pellizzeri with an expression of interest.

I'm recruiting volunteers to broadcast games. Play by play commentators, analysis and experts (including current and ex players)

Send your EOI and demos if applicable to me: teo.pellizzeri@footballvictoria.com.au#DPRV #NPLVIC #WomenInFootball #NPLWVIC https://t.co/dIWDu1TGn7

— Teo Pellizzeri (@teopellizzeri) February 22, 2019

I'd put my name down but I don't know the players and I can't see good and I don't even know anything about soccer; and while that's part of this blog's charm, it probably wouldn't translate to something requiring a certain degree of competence. But you people, you know what's going on, you can see better than I, and you just might want to give amateur broadcasting a stab.

Personally, I'd rather be at a game, with the true fans, knee deep in mud, beer and blood. But that's not for everybody.

On the couch
Oh, what the heck; you only live once. Give me a white wine spritzer, spritzer, spritzer...
So I was coming home on the train from Frankston late Saturday afternoon, and while the waiting times on the Franga line might be lower these days - thank you Sky Rail - the actual train trip itself through suburbs where you wouldn't want to live and suburbs where you couldn't afford to live is just as long as it ever was. How to pass the time? Well, it just so happens that Football Victoria signed up some ridiculous deal to broadcast close to a bazillion of its NPL games probably mostly to indigent gamblers, and it's just my luck that there's one on right at the time I'm travelling. It's Manningham United Blues against Springvale White Eagles, from the Veneto Club for some reason. Manningham is up 1-0, there's half an hour left and no commentary. Springvale find a way to overturn the deficit and win the game, and thus begins my bender.

Even early in the season, the Somers Street pitch isn't in great shape.

Something done in and around watching Gerrie's goal about twenty to thirty times on YouTube
Knowing the score beforehand, but being impatient for someone to upload the condensed highlights, I settled in on the couch on Sunday morning to watch the replay of Knights vs Magic in its entirety, in whatever gap my brothers left open in between another Titan Quest campaign. And I have to say, I was a little disappointed. Granted, that may just be me - not someone who watches full-length soccer matches on television except during the World Cup, nor as someone who ever watches replays these days of matches where they already know the outcome. But this was a 4-3 game, with an implied shifting of momentum, a red card, and reputed great atmosphere. But it felt kind of... flat? Credit to Knights I suppose for not being so honking in the first two weeks of this season as they've been for the past few years, but I'm not quite sure how they scored four times; I do understand how they didn't cop six or seven, what with Magic being wasteful in a way they won't be whenever it is they're due to play us. You'd like to think these kinds of things even themselves out in the end, but they don't.

Scene missing
Sunday afternoon, too hot to go outside, so I park myself in an armchair with my dad taking the couch, and him belittling the quality of the players in the St Albans vs Moreland game, comparing it unfavourably to the players in his village team playing back in early 1960s Greece, back when villages like his still had children and young men. But that's my old man in a nutshell; like many people of his vintage who have fallen off the local soccer bandwagon, they live with misty eyed memories of Ulysses Kokkinos and his ψαράκι headers or Gary Cole cracking shots with enough power to kill someone. Me, I have to be subservient to my probably ill-considered and often downright inconvenient principles and take what I can get in this day and age, and not some fast-receding memory of a corrupt idyll of yesteryear. This is another not great game. St Albans have a halftime lead they probably don't deserve. The second half is ordinary if not quite dire - I cut the teams some slack because of the heat - and it is actually improved by the stream cutting out for a good ten minutes or so. The stream returns and the game is going nowhere, until everything gets turned on its head when Moreland score two goals in as many minutes. St Albans manage to level things up by the end, but since my old man has long since left to do something else, did it really matter that the two teams saved up the excitement until the end?

Final thought
They must only come out after midnight. Two weeks in a row at Sunshine station at about 12:30 in the morning, a random starts talking to me about South. This time, not very contemporary discussion, just a bloke who saw my beanie and went "South Melbourne Hellas, that's going way back, Trimmers" etc, etc.