There were many times this year where I thought the blog was not up to scratch, but that may very well be just your typical self-absorbed writer's self-loathing cry for attention and validation.
And when I look back on the year that was, there were still some good pieces in there, two of which - the Victory brawl post, and the A-League expansion bid musings post - managed to get into this blog's all time top ten list in terms of hits.
Anyway we're nine years in - and I do include South of the Border's audience in this - and I have no intention of stopping. Next year promises to be an interesting one for the club on many levels, as well as for me personally, but we'll cross those bridges when we come to them.
For now, thanks to the following people:
Foti for helping organise and circulate the petition calling for an EGM early this year. Strange how the AGM managed to be announced within five minutes of the end of that round 1 game.
The Agitator, for providing many South Melbourne match programmes, both from home and away fixtures. Also Mark Boric, Gav, Chris Egan and JJ75. for sharing parts of their own collections. I will try harder to catch up on the massive backlog of stuff that I have borrowed from people.
Joe Gorman for prompting me to go through a trawl of the blog's archives, and for recognising the value of the kinds of stuff I'm looking at for my thesis.
Kon for sending in his memories of a now former house, which prompted some good discussion on Garvey's Baby Blues.
Savvas Tzionis for his piece on what's going on in New South Wales.
Vin Maskell for putting up a version of my last day at Chaplin Reserve piece on his Scoreboard Pressure site.
Shoot Farken for publishing my review of Nuts! (nothing to do with soccer, but a film worth seeing if you can.)
Supermercado for providing the 'People's Champ' moniker.
Mark Bosnich for actually following through with his promise to meet with myself and Pave Jusup. Sorry for the folks at home, but as it was a private conversation, details will not be posted here.
Football Today for retweeting the odd post.
Anyone else who contributed artefacts.
Anyone I stole photos from.
Everyone who voted for Lucas Neill.
Everyone who left comments.
Everyone who shared this stuff on Twitter.
Everyone who gave me and Gains a lift somewhere, including Shouty Mike.
Matthew Klugman, Ian Syson, and Gains.
And Peter Kokotis, if you are out there somewhere, can you please finally send me a copy of that photo of Yarra Park Aias? Thanks.
P.S.
The things you find when you google yourself.
Showing posts with label Supermercado. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Supermercado. Show all posts
Monday, 26 December 2016
Wednesday, 18 June 2014
'What could possibly go wrong?' Artefact Wednesday - South vs Preston 2005 security plans
Earlier this year, fellow blogger Supermercado tweeted this image. It's the crowd management plan for the 2005 South Melbourne vs Preston Lions match at Lakeside.
Now I don't want to judge, as I wasn't involved with the security arrangements (can you imagine such a thing!), and I wasn't even at the game. But my mail suggests that not all those who were involved with planning for that day were in agreement with the final plan. Apparently some people in the planning committee were even of the belief that Preston fans didn't care about this match, and wouldn't come in numbers.
Anyway, the net result of the game was another episode of SOCCER SHAME, as well as Network Ten Adelaide newsreader and then South president (now apostate) George Donikian getting hammered by Media Watch. Oh, and massive fines, good behaviour bonds, locked out games for several years and the shedding of thousands of fans almost overnight. At least the folks on smfcboard got the 'what else we can do' meme out of it.
Now I don't want to judge, as I wasn't involved with the security arrangements (can you imagine such a thing!), and I wasn't even at the game. But my mail suggests that not all those who were involved with planning for that day were in agreement with the final plan. Apparently some people in the planning committee were even of the belief that Preston fans didn't care about this match, and wouldn't come in numbers.
Anyway, the net result of the game was another episode of SOCCER SHAME, as well as Network Ten Adelaide newsreader and then South president (now apostate) George Donikian getting hammered by Media Watch. Oh, and massive fines, good behaviour bonds, locked out games for several years and the shedding of thousands of fans almost overnight. At least the folks on smfcboard got the 'what else we can do' meme out of it.
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
In defence of 'old soccer'
This post was originally published on The Supermercado Project by Supermercado/Adam 1.0.
The truly unique thing about Australian soccer fans is that they’re one of the few groups to despise the history of their own sport. Yes that's 'soccer', which is what people called it before the word was outlawed as part of the drastic re-imagining of the game in this country a decade ago.
Nobody seemed to care what the game was called then (and there were far more offensive terms for it than 'soccer' let me tell you), and in most places around the world they still don't, but it seems these days that the only time you’ll hear the ‘s’ word is if somebody’s giving what’s fashionably become known amongst fans and detractors alike as ‘old soccer’ a kicking. Throw in a few references to ethnic warfare and a body count higher than the Crimean War and you’re cleared to use it, but only in a negative context unless you want the crowd to boo you.
In the blind rush to reclaim the game from 'the ethnics' the virtual outlawing of the word was taken to with glee by the same people who have gone on to ransack their entire 'terrace culture' lock, stock and barrel from Europe. The violent hatred of nearly everything that came before 'year zero' has confined not only several generations of teams, fans and players, but also a perfectly reasonable term for the sport to an historical red card. But why?
When people lament the evil that is ‘old soccer’ I know exactly where they’re coming from. They’re talking about Footscray JUST and Sydney Croatia ‘fans’ butchering each other in a car park in 1987 for reasons best known only to themselves and their grandparents, or the night Australian ‘fans’ arranged themselves in the shape of a swastika as the Socceroos played Israel in a 1989 World Cup qualifier.
What these people represented was not ‘old soccer’ but pure, white hot racism and hated. To hold them up as representative of soccer from the 1950’s until Nick Mrdja won the last National Soccer League Grand Final for Perth Glory (‘broadbased’) against Parramatta Power (‘no fans of any ethnicity’) is the laziest stereotype in Australian sport, but one which has achieved pandemic levels in the last few years.
History is obviously written by the winners, which is why the treatment of Nicky Winmar by the crowd at Victoria Park is now spoken about as a horrible chapter in our racist history but what supporters of long dead soccer clubs did in the 1980's is still relevant today. That Australian society has come a long way on all fronts in the last 20 years is undeniable, and the racism and generally horrible behaviour of the past is treated as it is from the past - unless it happened in the stands of a National Soccer League match.
It's simple enough to lay the boots into sides which have already been nearly wiped from the face of the earth, but the truth is that by the time the NSL was (quite rightly) put to sleep the ‘ethnics’ were in the minority and very much on the run. The 2000-2001 season had just six of 16 teams backed primarily by one group, and the political parties masquerading as football clubs had been long removed the national scene and either relegated to state leagues or obliterated entirely.
The problem was that none of these 'Aussie' teams was any good, and consequently without anything more than token television coverage nobody went to watch them. Even Carlton, held up briefly as the next big thing in Australian football after making a Grand Final in their first season, failed eight games into the year. One of their final matches was delayed because nobody remembered to bring goal nets along.
Carlton had briefly been the saviour of 'broadbased' football in Melbourne. In that first season when they'd played in the Grand Final against South Melbourne the two teams had even been afforded the honour of a pre-match parade down Swanston Street. That no more than a handful of people turned up is hardly the point, but let the record show that in one bright shining moment for 'old soccer' that Paul Trimboli got to sit in a slow moving vintage car, waving at bemused people who were simply trying to catch the tram from outside Melbourne Central.
It was also probably the only Grand Final where the winning goal was celebrated by somebody tearing off their team shirt to reveal Macho Man Randy Savage merchandise, but that was as good as it got for the NSL in Melbourne after that. Channel 7 even managed to run a positive story about the match instead of concentrating on the, ahem, boisterous (AKA bin throwing) celebrations by fans afterwards.
The NSL had always been Australia's premier competition for those who enjoyed a rotating cast of clubs. Even once relegation and promotion from state leagues had been abolished sides would still crop up and fold at the drop of a hat. Who could forget Collingwood's partnership with Heidelberg that started the season with big crowds at Victoria Park and ended with the team playing in front of empty stands at the same venue?
Though they already had the numbers by the turn of the century, the 'locals' further solidified their control of the competition in its last few years despite clubs representing 'Australia' dropping like flies. Carlton were the first to go, and the Eastern Pride (nee Morwell Falcons) also failed to complete the 2000-01 season. The Canberra Cosmos at least managed to struggle through the year before being euthanised. Preposterously the league managed to get through two whole seasons (2001/02 and 2002/03) seasons with exactly the same sides participating, but the long term prospects for the competition were almost nil.
A last ditch attempt at introducing some buzz around the competition in its second last year by introducing a finals series where six teams would play a ten round home and away competition as well as a Grand Final came to nothing as: a) about two weeks in 75 per cent of the matches were dead rubbers and b) the only TV coverage they could get was on some obscure Optus channel which showed Homeart ads whenever there wasn't a game on. The league didn't even bother playing one game between Northern Spirit and Newcastle. That 38,000 turned up to see Perth Glory win the title said more for the long-term prospects of the club themselves rather than the league they were in.
So I'm not here to try and pretend that this was a sensibly run and professional competition with mass public appeal in all markets across the country, because as keen as I am on revisionist history that would be a terrific lie. But what is most certainly was not by this point was an ethnic war zone where ancient scores from across Europe were settled in the stands by chain-wielding teenagers on a weekly basis.
By the time the league folded in 2004 the balance had swung conclusively towards the ‘locals’ with a majority of eight from 13, and the last time fans had disgraced themselves on racial lines had been three years earlier. Somehow though, in the rush to take ownership of football out of ‘ethnic’ hands, we were suddenly pitched into an alternative universe where every match had been Pratten Park 1985 no matter who was involved.
In my experience that was anything but the case, and at the risk of being banned from attending any major football event in this country for the next decade I come in defence of the much maligned NSL and the brand of ‘old soccer’ that it has come to represent.
I’d grown up on highlights of the English game every Monday night in the days when you were grateful just to see your team in a five minute highlights package. Every once in a while you might stumble across local highlights on SBS, but to me the references to South Melbourne Hellas on Acropolis Now may as well have been about a team playing on the moon.
It wasn’t until I’d grown up and suffered the heartbreak of seeing my side relegated from the Premier League (and worse) that I took a chance on the local game and fell in love. For three brief seasons I was an NSL aficionado, and it was magnificent.
Was it meant to be confronting that South Melbourne fans called their side Hellas? After five minutes of the first game so did I. That's who they were. Not that it was compulsory; you didn’t have to swear allegiance to the Greek flag before being allowed in. In fact, to prove how ‘Aussie’ they were the NSL made you stand for the national anthem before kick-off. Even the A-League isn't insane enough to try that.
In all this time the only ethnic rivalry I ever saw was a half-hearted Hellenic power struggle between South Melbourne and Sydney Olympic, and even then that was practically identical to the rivalry which exists now between Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC with the added bonus of better sounding offensive chants in a foreign language. Who knows what they meant, but we joined in anyway because it was fun and that's what you do when you follow a team - you adapt to their culture. New Victory fans join in the chants which have become popular over the years, we did the ones in Greek which said something horrific about the opposition fan's mothers.
The argument is obviously that it's better if a side's culture isn't 'ethnically' based and everyone can join in but that was the point of bringing in at least one 'open' side for people who were into that sort of thing. Australian football might have ended up in a totally different place if the authorities had created proper 'broadbased' clubs like the Victory and Sydney FC instead of shacking up with footy sides and instantly turning off anybody who wasn't already a Carlton or Parramatta fan. Still, at least it wasn't (as some would have you believe) Croats vs Serbs, Israelis vs Palestinians or Hutus vs Tutsis by that point.
The league itself was always going to end with a whimper rather than a bang, but having walked in just as the party was ending I found myself right at home at Bob Jane Stadium. In that last season of a rapidly dying competition the idea that a brand new league would turn away a side who had drawn crowds of more than 10,000 without a dash of television coverage seemed bizarre. It was hard to believe that the people trying to lift the game off the bottom of the ocean would turn away the club who'd have made the perfect foil to the Victory in the battle for Melbourne.
They did and it still hurts today. While nobody can argue Victory’s success (despite the belated introduction of the pretty much moribund Melbourne Heart), it hardly seemed fair that New South Wales got one club in each of Gosford, Newcastle and Sydney while there was no room the team who had represented Australia on the world stage four years earlier. All of a sudden they were relegated to playing Altona Magic instead of Perth Glory.
To be fair clubs like South hadn't done themselves any favours over the years, so desperate for anybody to pay their money at the gate that they'd let pretty much anyone in no matter how impure their intentions were. I remember standing in the Bob Jane Stadium clubhouse talking to the head of security for the club about a fan who had been banned 'for life' for some reason or another, when said outlaw fan scanned his membership at the door and walked into the ground within touching distance of the guard. He continued to go unchallenged for the rest of the season and still watches the club now.
I have no doubt that many of the isolated incidents which have now become football folklore could have been stopped if the clubs had any interest in enforcing bans or if they had access to the same sort of security and surveillance which clubs do in modern stadiums, but who knows if it would have helped when the stereotype had been well and truly embedded in Australia's psyche whether it was true or not. Play my patented NSL Superquiz and humour the next person who tells you how horrible the ethnic riots were 'back then' only to then ask them to name their top five racially based conflagrations. If they can get past Despotovski vs the Melbourne Knights you may as well declare them a winner.
How foolish it seems now to have stood under, and I think held it up at one point, a "No South, No APL" banner at the club's last NSL match against Adelaide United at Hindmarsh Stadium. Not only because the FFA made the message irrelevant by changing the name of the competition, but also the fact that we thought that we were so indispensable that the competition couldn't possibly succeed without us. The truth was that the club needed the competition more than the competition needed the club, and South nearly went out of business almost immediately after they were excluded.
Perhaps they'd have had more chance if they’d bought the licence for a team in Auckland. After all, the New Zealand Knights were admitted as the successor of a club which had attracted 950 people to its last NSL match. I suppose nobody can accuse a team with no fans of having been responsible for any crowd trouble.
Over the years I've thought about the process that severed my brief but thrilling connection with Australian top flight soccer many times. Usually it's while I'm half-heartedly watching the A-League and going for Wellington Phoenix in an equally half-hearted fashion just because in my mind they don't represent the same people who gave us the boot. In these moments of reflection I like to think that the fact that a perfectly viable but ethnically based team was excluded was more to do with the FFA wanting to clear the decks for 'their clubs' than anything else, but the blanket expulsion of any side which had more than a tenuous connection to 'old soccer' has given rise to the greatest urban myth in Australian sports.
You can see it in any story hinting at football’s past. When it was revealed that South Melbourne was trying to buy Melbourne Heart the same themes cropped up in articles and comments alike. Mentioning the “bad old days” and “old soccer” was almost compulsory, and the insinuation was clear: the return of a side which drew much of its support from the Greek community would herald a “return to ethnic violence”.
Who exactly would this violence be between? Did I miss a brief, bloody conflict between Greece and New Zealand which would cause games against the Phoenix to end with the stadium blanketed in tear gas? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and the insinuation that violence is bred purely by ethnicity is hardly compatible with A-League fans being king hit in the stands or attacking police.
You wonder why Melbourne Victory fans who seem as keen as mustard for a proper local rival with more than a handful of fans can't see that instead of holding the ethnics at bay and acting like they solely own the game in this city they should be welcoming a proper rival. These are the same people who have adopted all sorts of macho bullshit 'ultra' stuff from Europe but who simultaneously perpetuate all the myths about the past while complaining about the treatment they receive from police and the media. Perhaps most of what they know about the 'evil' of the past was similarly beaten up by the press?
The NSL’s reputation gets worse every year, but how can fans behave as if the isolated violent acts in their 'new' league are somehow less offensive because there’s no ethnic background to them? A few thrown coins are dismissed as nothing much, but the behaviour of fans in the mid 90’s is still held as hard evidence against entire clubs today. Again, who are 'we' going to fight with now? Sydney FC, West Sydney Wanderers or Melbourne Victory? There doesn't seem to be any shortage of potential clashes, but if a fight happens at the soccer and it doesn't involve ethnic rivalry did it really happen?
When did it become so fashionable to put an ethnic twist on sporting violence? Imagine if 25-year-old Cameron George Frearson of Gymea had known in the mid 90’s that one day everything terrible which happened before 2004 would be blamed on nationalism. He’d have come up with a far better excuse for letting off a flare at a World Cup qualifier than "Because it creates a good visual effect when a goal is scored".
As I stood in the pouring rain watching South get thrashed 5-0 by a pub team a few weeks ago I finally came to terms with the fact that there’s no way they’ll ever be allowed back in the national competition in any meaningful fashion. Even if Heart were willing to sell, the FFA would be scared to death of a backlash from its stakeholders and would at best allow them to be called South Melbourne Heart, Melbourne United or something equally generic.
Their league, their rules I suppose, but nearly a decade on from NSL’s death it’s time that we stopped racially profiling clubs and accept that the popular stereotypes were for the large part just that? That unfortunately soccer seems to attract a proportion of dickheads no matter where you watch it, and that the first priority should be to find these people and kick them out permanently. If clubs wither and die because they've got a higher proportion of arsehole fans than others then bad luck to them.
That the 'ethnic panic' is complete bullshit is hard to argue, but the point then becomes whether South could even do better than heart. Lacking a proper geographical reason for anybody to follow a second Melbourne club was there any point in bringing one in to start with? Probably not. Would the handful of supporters who would come back from Victory contribute to a decent following? I seriously doubt it, but if the 11,000 who turned up to see South's first match back in the Victorian Premier League (tellingly the total plummeted to just over 4000 the next week) showed half an interest in seeing the club play top level football again it would be a good start.
If you were a Heart fan wouldn't you have wanted this to happen? Sure you might have to buy a new shirt and perhaps not follow a team with the pansiest nickname in sport, but your 5000 fans plus our 5000 is a start. We'll build from there, abusing Victory fans all the way. You bring the A-League spot, we'll bring the legitimate dislike for their club. You could go on as you are now, but your club's just going to go broke and you'll be left with no other options but to either skulk back to Victory and try to ignore the embarrassingly forced rivalry of the last couple of years or to give up altogether and wait for the next fool to come along asking to be parted from his money by launching a 'broadbased' Melbourne club.
That there was perhaps 1500 South fans at that Victorian Premier League preliminary final a couple of weeks ago would seem to indicate that there's no coming back for the FIFA Oceania Club of the Century. I can certainly understand that viewpoint, but there's a big difference between playing on the largest stage in the country (where we belong) and against Northcote at at a park in Port Melbourne.
Admittedly I'm not exactly doing my bit for the club these days, it was the first game I'd bothered to go to all season myself. What's the point in following your team through a mickey mouse competition every week throughout winter? I'd done it for a few years and enjoyed myself but the chronic mismanagement of the league (not to mention the rampant corruption) is enough to grind you down eventually. There's still life in the club, just no reason at the moment for it to be revived.
All the while as we're looking on with jealously the A-League continues to grow. Plenty of us sneered at the idea of it taking off, but it seems to be doing just that. I'm still not sure investing your money in a team is any more sensible than buying an NBL side or giving your credit card number to a Nigerian prince but the crowds in most venues are well above what might have been expected a few years ago, and other than a couple of hastily created expansion teams (as well as the Knights who were practically dead before they'd even began) most clubs appear to at least be keeping their head above water. The FFA are even happy to bail out major market clubs who fall over and help them back on their feet.
Yet while all this is happening a generation of fans sits on the sidelines waiting for a chance at redemption, looking at A-League fans waving banners that read 'against modern football' and falling about laughing at the idea that they know anything about hardship. It's fun to play the victim, and we're still doing it almost 10 years later, but the idea of once again having a team to spend my summer following is enough to make me pay more attention to the A-League now than I have in the last few years.
If we're going to be kept out please at least let it be for the right reasons, that we don't have the appropriate financial backing and have shed most of our fan base, not because of some antiquated racial notions of what European people are likely to do at a soccer game.
The truly unique thing about Australian soccer fans is that they’re one of the few groups to despise the history of their own sport. Yes that's 'soccer', which is what people called it before the word was outlawed as part of the drastic re-imagining of the game in this country a decade ago.
Nobody seemed to care what the game was called then (and there were far more offensive terms for it than 'soccer' let me tell you), and in most places around the world they still don't, but it seems these days that the only time you’ll hear the ‘s’ word is if somebody’s giving what’s fashionably become known amongst fans and detractors alike as ‘old soccer’ a kicking. Throw in a few references to ethnic warfare and a body count higher than the Crimean War and you’re cleared to use it, but only in a negative context unless you want the crowd to boo you.
In the blind rush to reclaim the game from 'the ethnics' the virtual outlawing of the word was taken to with glee by the same people who have gone on to ransack their entire 'terrace culture' lock, stock and barrel from Europe. The violent hatred of nearly everything that came before 'year zero' has confined not only several generations of teams, fans and players, but also a perfectly reasonable term for the sport to an historical red card. But why?
When people lament the evil that is ‘old soccer’ I know exactly where they’re coming from. They’re talking about Footscray JUST and Sydney Croatia ‘fans’ butchering each other in a car park in 1987 for reasons best known only to themselves and their grandparents, or the night Australian ‘fans’ arranged themselves in the shape of a swastika as the Socceroos played Israel in a 1989 World Cup qualifier.
What these people represented was not ‘old soccer’ but pure, white hot racism and hated. To hold them up as representative of soccer from the 1950’s until Nick Mrdja won the last National Soccer League Grand Final for Perth Glory (‘broadbased’) against Parramatta Power (‘no fans of any ethnicity’) is the laziest stereotype in Australian sport, but one which has achieved pandemic levels in the last few years.
History is obviously written by the winners, which is why the treatment of Nicky Winmar by the crowd at Victoria Park is now spoken about as a horrible chapter in our racist history but what supporters of long dead soccer clubs did in the 1980's is still relevant today. That Australian society has come a long way on all fronts in the last 20 years is undeniable, and the racism and generally horrible behaviour of the past is treated as it is from the past - unless it happened in the stands of a National Soccer League match.
It's simple enough to lay the boots into sides which have already been nearly wiped from the face of the earth, but the truth is that by the time the NSL was (quite rightly) put to sleep the ‘ethnics’ were in the minority and very much on the run. The 2000-2001 season had just six of 16 teams backed primarily by one group, and the political parties masquerading as football clubs had been long removed the national scene and either relegated to state leagues or obliterated entirely.
The problem was that none of these 'Aussie' teams was any good, and consequently without anything more than token television coverage nobody went to watch them. Even Carlton, held up briefly as the next big thing in Australian football after making a Grand Final in their first season, failed eight games into the year. One of their final matches was delayed because nobody remembered to bring goal nets along.
Carlton had briefly been the saviour of 'broadbased' football in Melbourne. In that first season when they'd played in the Grand Final against South Melbourne the two teams had even been afforded the honour of a pre-match parade down Swanston Street. That no more than a handful of people turned up is hardly the point, but let the record show that in one bright shining moment for 'old soccer' that Paul Trimboli got to sit in a slow moving vintage car, waving at bemused people who were simply trying to catch the tram from outside Melbourne Central.
It was also probably the only Grand Final where the winning goal was celebrated by somebody tearing off their team shirt to reveal Macho Man Randy Savage merchandise, but that was as good as it got for the NSL in Melbourne after that. Channel 7 even managed to run a positive story about the match instead of concentrating on the, ahem, boisterous (AKA bin throwing) celebrations by fans afterwards.
The NSL had always been Australia's premier competition for those who enjoyed a rotating cast of clubs. Even once relegation and promotion from state leagues had been abolished sides would still crop up and fold at the drop of a hat. Who could forget Collingwood's partnership with Heidelberg that started the season with big crowds at Victoria Park and ended with the team playing in front of empty stands at the same venue?
Though they already had the numbers by the turn of the century, the 'locals' further solidified their control of the competition in its last few years despite clubs representing 'Australia' dropping like flies. Carlton were the first to go, and the Eastern Pride (nee Morwell Falcons) also failed to complete the 2000-01 season. The Canberra Cosmos at least managed to struggle through the year before being euthanised. Preposterously the league managed to get through two whole seasons (2001/02 and 2002/03) seasons with exactly the same sides participating, but the long term prospects for the competition were almost nil.
A last ditch attempt at introducing some buzz around the competition in its second last year by introducing a finals series where six teams would play a ten round home and away competition as well as a Grand Final came to nothing as: a) about two weeks in 75 per cent of the matches were dead rubbers and b) the only TV coverage they could get was on some obscure Optus channel which showed Homeart ads whenever there wasn't a game on. The league didn't even bother playing one game between Northern Spirit and Newcastle. That 38,000 turned up to see Perth Glory win the title said more for the long-term prospects of the club themselves rather than the league they were in.
So I'm not here to try and pretend that this was a sensibly run and professional competition with mass public appeal in all markets across the country, because as keen as I am on revisionist history that would be a terrific lie. But what is most certainly was not by this point was an ethnic war zone where ancient scores from across Europe were settled in the stands by chain-wielding teenagers on a weekly basis.
By the time the league folded in 2004 the balance had swung conclusively towards the ‘locals’ with a majority of eight from 13, and the last time fans had disgraced themselves on racial lines had been three years earlier. Somehow though, in the rush to take ownership of football out of ‘ethnic’ hands, we were suddenly pitched into an alternative universe where every match had been Pratten Park 1985 no matter who was involved.
In my experience that was anything but the case, and at the risk of being banned from attending any major football event in this country for the next decade I come in defence of the much maligned NSL and the brand of ‘old soccer’ that it has come to represent.
I’d grown up on highlights of the English game every Monday night in the days when you were grateful just to see your team in a five minute highlights package. Every once in a while you might stumble across local highlights on SBS, but to me the references to South Melbourne Hellas on Acropolis Now may as well have been about a team playing on the moon.
It wasn’t until I’d grown up and suffered the heartbreak of seeing my side relegated from the Premier League (and worse) that I took a chance on the local game and fell in love. For three brief seasons I was an NSL aficionado, and it was magnificent.
Was it meant to be confronting that South Melbourne fans called their side Hellas? After five minutes of the first game so did I. That's who they were. Not that it was compulsory; you didn’t have to swear allegiance to the Greek flag before being allowed in. In fact, to prove how ‘Aussie’ they were the NSL made you stand for the national anthem before kick-off. Even the A-League isn't insane enough to try that.
In all this time the only ethnic rivalry I ever saw was a half-hearted Hellenic power struggle between South Melbourne and Sydney Olympic, and even then that was practically identical to the rivalry which exists now between Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC with the added bonus of better sounding offensive chants in a foreign language. Who knows what they meant, but we joined in anyway because it was fun and that's what you do when you follow a team - you adapt to their culture. New Victory fans join in the chants which have become popular over the years, we did the ones in Greek which said something horrific about the opposition fan's mothers.
The argument is obviously that it's better if a side's culture isn't 'ethnically' based and everyone can join in but that was the point of bringing in at least one 'open' side for people who were into that sort of thing. Australian football might have ended up in a totally different place if the authorities had created proper 'broadbased' clubs like the Victory and Sydney FC instead of shacking up with footy sides and instantly turning off anybody who wasn't already a Carlton or Parramatta fan. Still, at least it wasn't (as some would have you believe) Croats vs Serbs, Israelis vs Palestinians or Hutus vs Tutsis by that point.
The league itself was always going to end with a whimper rather than a bang, but having walked in just as the party was ending I found myself right at home at Bob Jane Stadium. In that last season of a rapidly dying competition the idea that a brand new league would turn away a side who had drawn crowds of more than 10,000 without a dash of television coverage seemed bizarre. It was hard to believe that the people trying to lift the game off the bottom of the ocean would turn away the club who'd have made the perfect foil to the Victory in the battle for Melbourne.
They did and it still hurts today. While nobody can argue Victory’s success (despite the belated introduction of the pretty much moribund Melbourne Heart), it hardly seemed fair that New South Wales got one club in each of Gosford, Newcastle and Sydney while there was no room the team who had represented Australia on the world stage four years earlier. All of a sudden they were relegated to playing Altona Magic instead of Perth Glory.
To be fair clubs like South hadn't done themselves any favours over the years, so desperate for anybody to pay their money at the gate that they'd let pretty much anyone in no matter how impure their intentions were. I remember standing in the Bob Jane Stadium clubhouse talking to the head of security for the club about a fan who had been banned 'for life' for some reason or another, when said outlaw fan scanned his membership at the door and walked into the ground within touching distance of the guard. He continued to go unchallenged for the rest of the season and still watches the club now.
I have no doubt that many of the isolated incidents which have now become football folklore could have been stopped if the clubs had any interest in enforcing bans or if they had access to the same sort of security and surveillance which clubs do in modern stadiums, but who knows if it would have helped when the stereotype had been well and truly embedded in Australia's psyche whether it was true or not. Play my patented NSL Superquiz and humour the next person who tells you how horrible the ethnic riots were 'back then' only to then ask them to name their top five racially based conflagrations. If they can get past Despotovski vs the Melbourne Knights you may as well declare them a winner.
How foolish it seems now to have stood under, and I think held it up at one point, a "No South, No APL" banner at the club's last NSL match against Adelaide United at Hindmarsh Stadium. Not only because the FFA made the message irrelevant by changing the name of the competition, but also the fact that we thought that we were so indispensable that the competition couldn't possibly succeed without us. The truth was that the club needed the competition more than the competition needed the club, and South nearly went out of business almost immediately after they were excluded.
Perhaps they'd have had more chance if they’d bought the licence for a team in Auckland. After all, the New Zealand Knights were admitted as the successor of a club which had attracted 950 people to its last NSL match. I suppose nobody can accuse a team with no fans of having been responsible for any crowd trouble.
Over the years I've thought about the process that severed my brief but thrilling connection with Australian top flight soccer many times. Usually it's while I'm half-heartedly watching the A-League and going for Wellington Phoenix in an equally half-hearted fashion just because in my mind they don't represent the same people who gave us the boot. In these moments of reflection I like to think that the fact that a perfectly viable but ethnically based team was excluded was more to do with the FFA wanting to clear the decks for 'their clubs' than anything else, but the blanket expulsion of any side which had more than a tenuous connection to 'old soccer' has given rise to the greatest urban myth in Australian sports.
You can see it in any story hinting at football’s past. When it was revealed that South Melbourne was trying to buy Melbourne Heart the same themes cropped up in articles and comments alike. Mentioning the “bad old days” and “old soccer” was almost compulsory, and the insinuation was clear: the return of a side which drew much of its support from the Greek community would herald a “return to ethnic violence”.
Who exactly would this violence be between? Did I miss a brief, bloody conflict between Greece and New Zealand which would cause games against the Phoenix to end with the stadium blanketed in tear gas? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and the insinuation that violence is bred purely by ethnicity is hardly compatible with A-League fans being king hit in the stands or attacking police.
You wonder why Melbourne Victory fans who seem as keen as mustard for a proper local rival with more than a handful of fans can't see that instead of holding the ethnics at bay and acting like they solely own the game in this city they should be welcoming a proper rival. These are the same people who have adopted all sorts of macho bullshit 'ultra' stuff from Europe but who simultaneously perpetuate all the myths about the past while complaining about the treatment they receive from police and the media. Perhaps most of what they know about the 'evil' of the past was similarly beaten up by the press?
The NSL’s reputation gets worse every year, but how can fans behave as if the isolated violent acts in their 'new' league are somehow less offensive because there’s no ethnic background to them? A few thrown coins are dismissed as nothing much, but the behaviour of fans in the mid 90’s is still held as hard evidence against entire clubs today. Again, who are 'we' going to fight with now? Sydney FC, West Sydney Wanderers or Melbourne Victory? There doesn't seem to be any shortage of potential clashes, but if a fight happens at the soccer and it doesn't involve ethnic rivalry did it really happen?
When did it become so fashionable to put an ethnic twist on sporting violence? Imagine if 25-year-old Cameron George Frearson of Gymea had known in the mid 90’s that one day everything terrible which happened before 2004 would be blamed on nationalism. He’d have come up with a far better excuse for letting off a flare at a World Cup qualifier than "Because it creates a good visual effect when a goal is scored".
As I stood in the pouring rain watching South get thrashed 5-0 by a pub team a few weeks ago I finally came to terms with the fact that there’s no way they’ll ever be allowed back in the national competition in any meaningful fashion. Even if Heart were willing to sell, the FFA would be scared to death of a backlash from its stakeholders and would at best allow them to be called South Melbourne Heart, Melbourne United or something equally generic.
Their league, their rules I suppose, but nearly a decade on from NSL’s death it’s time that we stopped racially profiling clubs and accept that the popular stereotypes were for the large part just that? That unfortunately soccer seems to attract a proportion of dickheads no matter where you watch it, and that the first priority should be to find these people and kick them out permanently. If clubs wither and die because they've got a higher proportion of arsehole fans than others then bad luck to them.
That the 'ethnic panic' is complete bullshit is hard to argue, but the point then becomes whether South could even do better than heart. Lacking a proper geographical reason for anybody to follow a second Melbourne club was there any point in bringing one in to start with? Probably not. Would the handful of supporters who would come back from Victory contribute to a decent following? I seriously doubt it, but if the 11,000 who turned up to see South's first match back in the Victorian Premier League (tellingly the total plummeted to just over 4000 the next week) showed half an interest in seeing the club play top level football again it would be a good start.
If you were a Heart fan wouldn't you have wanted this to happen? Sure you might have to buy a new shirt and perhaps not follow a team with the pansiest nickname in sport, but your 5000 fans plus our 5000 is a start. We'll build from there, abusing Victory fans all the way. You bring the A-League spot, we'll bring the legitimate dislike for their club. You could go on as you are now, but your club's just going to go broke and you'll be left with no other options but to either skulk back to Victory and try to ignore the embarrassingly forced rivalry of the last couple of years or to give up altogether and wait for the next fool to come along asking to be parted from his money by launching a 'broadbased' Melbourne club.
That there was perhaps 1500 South fans at that Victorian Premier League preliminary final a couple of weeks ago would seem to indicate that there's no coming back for the FIFA Oceania Club of the Century. I can certainly understand that viewpoint, but there's a big difference between playing on the largest stage in the country (where we belong) and against Northcote at at a park in Port Melbourne.
Admittedly I'm not exactly doing my bit for the club these days, it was the first game I'd bothered to go to all season myself. What's the point in following your team through a mickey mouse competition every week throughout winter? I'd done it for a few years and enjoyed myself but the chronic mismanagement of the league (not to mention the rampant corruption) is enough to grind you down eventually. There's still life in the club, just no reason at the moment for it to be revived.
All the while as we're looking on with jealously the A-League continues to grow. Plenty of us sneered at the idea of it taking off, but it seems to be doing just that. I'm still not sure investing your money in a team is any more sensible than buying an NBL side or giving your credit card number to a Nigerian prince but the crowds in most venues are well above what might have been expected a few years ago, and other than a couple of hastily created expansion teams (as well as the Knights who were practically dead before they'd even began) most clubs appear to at least be keeping their head above water. The FFA are even happy to bail out major market clubs who fall over and help them back on their feet.
Yet while all this is happening a generation of fans sits on the sidelines waiting for a chance at redemption, looking at A-League fans waving banners that read 'against modern football' and falling about laughing at the idea that they know anything about hardship. It's fun to play the victim, and we're still doing it almost 10 years later, but the idea of once again having a team to spend my summer following is enough to make me pay more attention to the A-League now than I have in the last few years.
If we're going to be kept out please at least let it be for the right reasons, that we don't have the appropriate financial backing and have shed most of our fan base, not because of some antiquated racial notions of what European people are likely to do at a soccer game.
Friday, 5 October 2012
Happy New A-League Season!
In a way, there are actually two posts in this entry, but I think there's a connection there if you only just believe in it.
After another poor season coupled with the ongoing destruction of the misguided belief of our imminent return to the top flight, more supporters who would have once said 'South wherever, forever', are trying to find an ideological out. All of a sudden 'for life' seems to be an incredibly long time.
Many years ago I had a copy of On Death and Dying by Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross on the chest of drawers next to my bed. I couldn't get into the 'technical' parts of the book, but I would often read the case studies before going to sleep.
For those of my readership who are familiar with that text, well, I'm sure you can now appreciate what a happy go lucky individual I actually am - for that part of my audience who aren't familiar with the book, it's likely they would be aware of the central idea of the book, that of the 'five stages of grief', also known as the Kübler-Ross Model.
The five stages of dying according to this model are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Putting aside for a moment whether this is scientifically or even culturally true, we could have a bit of fun by looking at the model in a South context. Doing so could make it could look something like this:
We're getting to the stage where most supporters are finally moving into stage four, and it's not pretty. You could get all indignant at these people, tell them to harden the fuck up - but who am I to hold someone hostage at Lakeside? If people can no longer cope with supporting us at this level and in this incarnation, they have every right to leave.
And it's not something unique to this club. Have a read of the excellent Maroon and Blue by Adam Muyt, on the social history of the Fitzroy Football Club, and you'll see the same diversity of reactions to a 'dying' club.
Are these ponderings an over reaction to the usual off-season blues? I don't think so. It's more than a matter of poor results. It's the way many of our remaining supporters are seemingly unable to see a future for South that is in any way comparable to our glory days.
And I'm not sure there's anything even remotely on the horizon that could change that perception. A return of the social club may slow down the moroseness, for a bit. The NCR, or its more ambitious siblings the 'summer league' and 'Australian Premier League/Second Division' if they get up (FUCKING LOL), might spark something which will defy history.
Wait and see, I suppose.
Every now and again I've been uploading old South related posts from Supermercado's surviving blogs. It's more some sort of feeble attempt at posterity rather than anything stalker related, and I will be looking for other historic materials from other people to upload. Whatever helps me sleep at night I suppose.
I've been publishing them as backdated posts - that is, using Blogger's ability to post things as actual historical posts, I've put them up under the date they were originally published. Meaning that if a post was originally published on 27th October 1995, that's where you'll find it in my old archives. Considering this blog only started in 2007, there's some interesting and not so interesting stuff that has been uploaded here before that time. It creates a different sort of narrative, working not just forwards, but also backwards.
Anyway, I loved the following passage from this post, just ignore the wild predictions. I mean, who could have honestly thought that the A-League would have lasted this long?
Click on the Supermercado tag to find more South related blog posts from the days when blogging was hip and I was a depressed malcontent who responded to being booted out of Melbourne University, back to back Collingwood grand final losses, and South being banished from the national league, by spending six months in my pajamas watching Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake and Passions.
And finally, just for the record, I would have gone to the 'derby', but Revenge of the Nerds is going to be on tonight, and how often do you get to see a movie of that calibre on network TV?
That, and I'll be recovering from stage two of a root canal procedure.
After another poor season coupled with the ongoing destruction of the misguided belief of our imminent return to the top flight, more supporters who would have once said 'South wherever, forever', are trying to find an ideological out. All of a sudden 'for life' seems to be an incredibly long time.
Many years ago I had a copy of On Death and Dying by Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross on the chest of drawers next to my bed. I couldn't get into the 'technical' parts of the book, but I would often read the case studies before going to sleep.
For those of my readership who are familiar with that text, well, I'm sure you can now appreciate what a happy go lucky individual I actually am - for that part of my audience who aren't familiar with the book, it's likely they would be aware of the central idea of the book, that of the 'five stages of grief', also known as the Kübler-Ross Model.
The five stages of dying according to this model are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Putting aside for a moment whether this is scientifically or even culturally true, we could have a bit of fun by looking at the model in a South context. Doing so could make it could look something like this:
- Denial - This isn't happening. There's no way they can have a national league without South Melbourne in it, who will support it? How can you have a league with no history?
- Anger - I can't believe they are actually doing this without us! Fucking Jew Lowy and racist FFA Anglos! You will fail, three years tops! We should complain to FIFA!
- Bargaining - Let's make our own league, or play in Singapore or New Zealand. Maybe if we change our name, or take over a failing A-League licence, or go into a partnership...
- Depression - Woe is me, there's no future for us, why should we bother? Everyone has deserted us, there's no hope, etc
- Acceptance - Whatever happens, happens. Let's enjoy the time we have left together.
We're getting to the stage where most supporters are finally moving into stage four, and it's not pretty. You could get all indignant at these people, tell them to harden the fuck up - but who am I to hold someone hostage at Lakeside? If people can no longer cope with supporting us at this level and in this incarnation, they have every right to leave.
And it's not something unique to this club. Have a read of the excellent Maroon and Blue by Adam Muyt, on the social history of the Fitzroy Football Club, and you'll see the same diversity of reactions to a 'dying' club.
Are these ponderings an over reaction to the usual off-season blues? I don't think so. It's more than a matter of poor results. It's the way many of our remaining supporters are seemingly unable to see a future for South that is in any way comparable to our glory days.
And I'm not sure there's anything even remotely on the horizon that could change that perception. A return of the social club may slow down the moroseness, for a bit. The NCR, or its more ambitious siblings the 'summer league' and 'Australian Premier League/Second Division' if they get up (FUCKING LOL), might spark something which will defy history.
Wait and see, I suppose.
Every now and again I've been uploading old South related posts from Supermercado's surviving blogs. It's more some sort of feeble attempt at posterity rather than anything stalker related, and I will be looking for other historic materials from other people to upload. Whatever helps me sleep at night I suppose.
I've been publishing them as backdated posts - that is, using Blogger's ability to post things as actual historical posts, I've put them up under the date they were originally published. Meaning that if a post was originally published on 27th October 1995, that's where you'll find it in my old archives. Considering this blog only started in 2007, there's some interesting and not so interesting stuff that has been uploaded here before that time. It creates a different sort of narrative, working not just forwards, but also backwards.
Anyway, I loved the following passage from this post, just ignore the wild predictions. I mean, who could have honestly thought that the A-League would have lasted this long?
Well there’s a hole in my heart
As deep as a well
For another summer with no NSL
We can’t get in the A-League
So we’ll do the next best thing
Go on the net and WHINGE! WHINGE! WHINGE!
Click on the Supermercado tag to find more South related blog posts from the days when blogging was hip and I was a depressed malcontent who responded to being booted out of Melbourne University, back to back Collingwood grand final losses, and South being banished from the national league, by spending six months in my pajamas watching Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake and Passions.
And finally, just for the record, I would have gone to the 'derby', but Revenge of the Nerds is going to be on tonight, and how often do you get to see a movie of that calibre on network TV?
That, and I'll be recovering from stage two of a root canal procedure.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Farken Pumped, Farken
I might as well type this while listening to Doves' Some Cities - the only album of theirs I like - and before the adrenalin flows out of my system. It's a huge week coming up, but more on that during the other 7 days of what's ahead.
I've been feeling pretty crappy and unsure about my honours thesis, to the point where I've been incredibly slack about my reading - but I've got down to some database wrangling and found some choice cuts and trends. And while I'll have to rethink my angle, at least there's something a little firmer to grab onto.
And it got me thinking about some other projects that have fallen by the wayside. My most recent Ozfootball work is a distant memory. And the fanzine never even got started. And the South Melbourne Hellas online historical compendium got a bit of a run then died before it could even be launched. Even my wikipedia work has pretty much stalled.
And part of the problem is the technical difficuly of putting that stuff together - especially from a novice point of view, especially online. You can gain and lose enthusiasm along the way, but if you're not au fait with the tools from the get go, you'll always be on the backfoot. Especially someone like me, ever so tentative and unsure about every little thing.
And I figured, why can't OzFootball be turned into a wiki? Well, because it would take a hell of a lot of work, and I'm not sure people are interested in converting the data on there to a new, easier to use format. But starting from scratch, it should be possible to revive the Hellas Historical Site myself and a couple of others had a semi-decent stab at.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Of course, we can't hope to do something as awesome and as detailed as that. But we could certainly do something similar. And the fact that the semi-inspiration of this blog, Supermercado, is the major contributor, shows that it couldn't be that hard. Ok, an unwarranted dig, but even if it's me and one other person, I'm determined to make this happen. There's so much of a story to tell.
I've been feeling pretty crappy and unsure about my honours thesis, to the point where I've been incredibly slack about my reading - but I've got down to some database wrangling and found some choice cuts and trends. And while I'll have to rethink my angle, at least there's something a little firmer to grab onto.
And it got me thinking about some other projects that have fallen by the wayside. My most recent Ozfootball work is a distant memory. And the fanzine never even got started. And the South Melbourne Hellas online historical compendium got a bit of a run then died before it could even be launched. Even my wikipedia work has pretty much stalled.
And part of the problem is the technical difficuly of putting that stuff together - especially from a novice point of view, especially online. You can gain and lose enthusiasm along the way, but if you're not au fait with the tools from the get go, you'll always be on the backfoot. Especially someone like me, ever so tentative and unsure about every little thing.
And I figured, why can't OzFootball be turned into a wiki? Well, because it would take a hell of a lot of work, and I'm not sure people are interested in converting the data on there to a new, easier to use format. But starting from scratch, it should be possible to revive the Hellas Historical Site myself and a couple of others had a semi-decent stab at.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Of course, we can't hope to do something as awesome and as detailed as that. But we could certainly do something similar. And the fact that the semi-inspiration of this blog, Supermercado, is the major contributor, shows that it couldn't be that hard. Ok, an unwarranted dig, but even if it's me and one other person, I'm determined to make this happen. There's so much of a story to tell.
Thursday, 4 September 2008
As per Supermercado's request
The following audio clip shows what anyone who is not part of the new football cabal is up against. It's from a couple of years back at least, but as certain people have found out this past week, not much has changed in that time.
How about that stunned silence?
How about that stunned silence?
Friday, 27 January 2006
Bah
This post was first published in the Park Life blog by Supermercado/Adam 1.0.
Frankly I can't be fucked.
If you want this URL let me know and it's yours.
Frankly I can't be fucked.
If you want this URL let me know and it's yours.
Thursday, 19 January 2006
Footballing With The Stars
This post was originally published on the Park Life blog by Supermercado/Adam 1.0.
Sure, it's Glenn Manton as a Goalkeeper part two - but tell me you didn't yelp when you flipped over the Herald-Sun and saw the back page with a massive picture of a South home jersey?
And wouldn't Rocket Batteries be dancing around in celebration at their investment paying off for the first time?
STROKE victim Angelo Lekkas is threatening to sue his former club Hawthorn for more than $1 million while contemplating an audacious career switch to soccer.
Lekkas, 29, has been training with Victorian Premier League club South Melbourne for the past two weeks and has not missed a session.
While Lekkas and South are suggesting his appearances at the Albert Park ground are "just for fitness", it is believed club is hopeful he can succeed.
The 180-game AFL on-baller played soccer as a junior and has not looked out of place at training.
Meanwhile, Lekkas is embroiled in a bitter battle for compensation for his career-ending stroke, sustained in a practice match in Western Australia in 2005.
Lekkas said last year his neurosurge on had warned risk of another stroke had increased.
Originally Lekkas was believed to be seeking about $150,000 compensation, with the Hawks offering only 10 per cent of that.
But negotiations soured after a meeting with Hawthorn officials last week.
Lekkas' manager, Jacques Khouri, said yesterday the officials asked Lekkas to sign a waiver, absolving the club and its doctors from any blame if a he accepted the payout.
But when Lekkas refused, Khouri said he was told he was no longer welcome at the club.
"Initially they promised Ange he would be welcome there, either way, whether he pursued a claim or not," Khouri said.
"The boy's got 30 per cent damage to his brain and will be on medication for the rest of his life, and any further head injuries could cause death."
Khouri said he had been approached by a legal firm to take on the case for free and it was looking at the exact nature of Lekkas' injuries.
When asked if Lekkas could seek damages of $1 million, Khouri said the claim could exceed that figure.
"Brain injuries can be life threatening and the brain doesn't recover," Khouri said.
"It's an absolute insult to be told he is no longer wanted around the club.
"What if it was Shane Crawford who suffered a similar injury or the chief executive (Ian Robson)? How would they deal with it then?"
Robson said last night he was not prepared to respond to specific claims made by Khouri, given that the matter could be subject to litigation.
"What I will say is that we have always shown an on-going commitment and interest in Angelo's welfare," Robson said.
"Given that the journey with Angelo is almost 12 months since he suffered the stroke, I believe the club has been respectful of its obligations to his welfare at all times."
Robson said Lekkas was encouraged in his recovery, firstly with Box Hill in the VFL, and then in the AFL.
"He was placed on the list in 2006 and a contract offer was made to him, but he chose to retire," Robson said.
"We then offered him part-time employment while he assessed what he wanted to do next in his life."
Khouri also stressed that Hawthorn would receive a summons for compensation within the next three weeks if any further offer was not forthcoming.
Khouri also wasn't prepared to confirm Lekkas' South Melbourne association as any more serious than keeping fit.
"A lot of his mates play soccer and he has been doing a bit of jogging with them," Khouri said. "I don't think he has any intention of taking up the game."
Lekkas is a friend of a South director and South coach John Anastasiadis was happy to include him in the senior squad's pre-season training program when Lekkas indicated he was looking at ways to stay in condition.
Pre-season training is more about fitness than ball skills and match practice and that has presented Lekkas with an easier way to blend into the surrounds.
He would be unlikely to walk straight into the first team if he decided to register with the club but his touch on the ball is reasonable and he is a natural athlete who would not find it hard to adapt if he stuck with the task.
South has reserve and junior teams which would be a more reasonable vehicle if Lekkas was just looking for fitness.
It's believed South hopes Lekkas succeeds at the club he followed as a junior before turning to Australian rules.
Lekkas' long-standing association with South Melbourne included a substantial donation when the club was trying to buy its way out of administration two years ago.
Nice to get a mention in the press but don't expect him to line up at the Village in Round One and smash home the winner against Heidelberg. The bit about how blows to the head could kill him is hardly compatible with a sport that consists largely of knocking a heavy object around with your head. But, let's milk that publicity while we can.
Sure, it's Glenn Manton as a Goalkeeper part two - but tell me you didn't yelp when you flipped over the Herald-Sun and saw the back page with a massive picture of a South home jersey?
And wouldn't Rocket Batteries be dancing around in celebration at their investment paying off for the first time?
Lekkas, 29, has been training with Victorian Premier League club South Melbourne for the past two weeks and has not missed a session.
While Lekkas and South are suggesting his appearances at the Albert Park ground are "just for fitness", it is believed club is hopeful he can succeed.
The 180-game AFL on-baller played soccer as a junior and has not looked out of place at training.
Meanwhile, Lekkas is embroiled in a bitter battle for compensation for his career-ending stroke, sustained in a practice match in Western Australia in 2005.
Lekkas said last year his neurosurge on had warned risk of another stroke had increased.
Originally Lekkas was believed to be seeking about $150,000 compensation, with the Hawks offering only 10 per cent of that.
But negotiations soured after a meeting with Hawthorn officials last week.
Lekkas' manager, Jacques Khouri, said yesterday the officials asked Lekkas to sign a waiver, absolving the club and its doctors from any blame if a he accepted the payout.
But when Lekkas refused, Khouri said he was told he was no longer welcome at the club.
"Initially they promised Ange he would be welcome there, either way, whether he pursued a claim or not," Khouri said.
"The boy's got 30 per cent damage to his brain and will be on medication for the rest of his life, and any further head injuries could cause death."
Khouri said he had been approached by a legal firm to take on the case for free and it was looking at the exact nature of Lekkas' injuries.
When asked if Lekkas could seek damages of $1 million, Khouri said the claim could exceed that figure.
"Brain injuries can be life threatening and the brain doesn't recover," Khouri said.
"It's an absolute insult to be told he is no longer wanted around the club.
"What if it was Shane Crawford who suffered a similar injury or the chief executive (Ian Robson)? How would they deal with it then?"
Robson said last night he was not prepared to respond to specific claims made by Khouri, given that the matter could be subject to litigation.
"What I will say is that we have always shown an on-going commitment and interest in Angelo's welfare," Robson said.
"Given that the journey with Angelo is almost 12 months since he suffered the stroke, I believe the club has been respectful of its obligations to his welfare at all times."
Robson said Lekkas was encouraged in his recovery, firstly with Box Hill in the VFL, and then in the AFL.
"He was placed on the list in 2006 and a contract offer was made to him, but he chose to retire," Robson said.
"We then offered him part-time employment while he assessed what he wanted to do next in his life."
Khouri also stressed that Hawthorn would receive a summons for compensation within the next three weeks if any further offer was not forthcoming.
Khouri also wasn't prepared to confirm Lekkas' South Melbourne association as any more serious than keeping fit.
"A lot of his mates play soccer and he has been doing a bit of jogging with them," Khouri said. "I don't think he has any intention of taking up the game."
Lekkas is a friend of a South director and South coach John Anastasiadis was happy to include him in the senior squad's pre-season training program when Lekkas indicated he was looking at ways to stay in condition.
Pre-season training is more about fitness than ball skills and match practice and that has presented Lekkas with an easier way to blend into the surrounds.
He would be unlikely to walk straight into the first team if he decided to register with the club but his touch on the ball is reasonable and he is a natural athlete who would not find it hard to adapt if he stuck with the task.
South has reserve and junior teams which would be a more reasonable vehicle if Lekkas was just looking for fitness.
It's believed South hopes Lekkas succeeds at the club he followed as a junior before turning to Australian rules.
Lekkas' long-standing association with South Melbourne included a substantial donation when the club was trying to buy its way out of administration two years ago.
Nice to get a mention in the press but don't expect him to line up at the Village in Round One and smash home the winner against Heidelberg. The bit about how blows to the head could kill him is hardly compatible with a sport that consists largely of knocking a heavy object around with your head. But, let's milk that publicity while we can.
Sunday, 8 January 2006
Pre-Season Madness
This post was originally published on the Park Life blog by Supermercado/Adam 1.0.
Note: This site does not go in for match analysis and rating. In fact we don't know what the fuck is going on half the time. Until somebody else writes a match report that we can beg to print it'll be half arsed observation and farce all around.
The South pre-season world tour continued at Oakleigh's Jack Edwards Reserve on Sunday in front of a relatively large crowd. Bigger than what we got in the last round of 2005 at home to Bentleigh anyway. SMFC took the lead in the first half through new signing Kevin Nelson and were unlucky to go into half-time at one apiece after a scramble in the sandpit goalmouth at the city end of the alternative pitch resulted in the ball being kicked out of Dean Anastasiadis' hands and into the goal.
The makeshift defence, consisting of a triallist from the Ivory Coast (!) on the right and a guy who was a 100% dead ringer for Thomas Gravesen on the right held up well in the 2nd half under almost constant pressure, and only cracked in the 90+ minute when former NSL player Esala Masi scored the winner for the Cannons and sent a group of watching Fijians into rapture. One in particular completely lost the plot. Standing up on a chair and yelling like they'd just won the World Cup. Maybe somebody told him it was the A-League and he was enjoying football but not as he knew it?
Next stop - Springvale White Eagles in the Crazy John's Cup @ BJS next Sunday.
Note: This site does not go in for match analysis and rating. In fact we don't know what the fuck is going on half the time. Until somebody else writes a match report that we can beg to print it'll be half arsed observation and farce all around.
The South pre-season world tour continued at Oakleigh's Jack Edwards Reserve on Sunday in front of a relatively large crowd. Bigger than what we got in the last round of 2005 at home to Bentleigh anyway. SMFC took the lead in the first half through new signing Kevin Nelson and were unlucky to go into half-time at one apiece after a scramble in the sandpit goalmouth at the city end of the alternative pitch resulted in the ball being kicked out of Dean Anastasiadis' hands and into the goal.
The makeshift defence, consisting of a triallist from the Ivory Coast (!) on the right and a guy who was a 100% dead ringer for Thomas Gravesen on the right held up well in the 2nd half under almost constant pressure, and only cracked in the 90+ minute when former NSL player Esala Masi scored the winner for the Cannons and sent a group of watching Fijians into rapture. One in particular completely lost the plot. Standing up on a chair and yelling like they'd just won the World Cup. Maybe somebody told him it was the A-League and he was enjoying football but not as he knew it?
Next stop - Springvale White Eagles in the Crazy John's Cup @ BJS next Sunday.
A disappointing debut. Must try harder 3/10
This post was originally published on the Park Life blog by Supermercado/Adam 1.0.
Welcome to Park Life. Inconsistently posted news, rumor, undue speculation and outright slander about events surrounding the four time Australian national champion South Melbourne Football Club. That's football in the world game sense of course. If you've come looking for wild Sydney Swans post-Premiership celebrations you'll go home empty handed. Face facts, they ditched you and moved north. We've flogged the name now. Cop it.
What we've missed posting in the last couple of years,
* South Melbourne plays in the NSL.
* The NSL is abolished.
* A new league is created.
* The new league declares that each city will have only team.
* Everyone realises that we're no chance of making it.
* The VPL refuses to admit South and the Melbourne Knights for the 2004 season because the Whittlesea Stallions would have been forced to reprint thousands of fridge magnets with fixtures on them.
* With no money coming in South go into administration and come ludicrously close to going out of business. Extinction is only avoided due to big donations and creditors accepting insultingly low payouts on what they were owed. Thanks for that.
* The Whittlesea Stallions were relegated and forced to merge with Fawkner to avoid dying in the arse. They were then invited to stick their fridge magnets fair up their arse.
* South finally admitted to the 2005 Victorian Premier League, along with the Knights.
* 13000+ show up to the first game of the new season against Heidelberg and everyone wonders why we didn't do this years ago
* 5000 show up to the next game and we realised why
* The world came to Bob Jane to punch on against Preston. Result = we lost, people knocked down a fence and the next two days were spent with frenzied media reports about the evil nature of football in this country.
* By the last home and away game of the season there were 600 people there.
* South were defeated by Heidelberg in the preliminary final.
* Australia qualified for the World Cup and suddenly football wasn't evil anymore and everyone loved the World Game.
* Another season rolled around and left us right at this spot.
This page has been created as a way of dissecting all the important things covered on the SMFCboard forum but without having to go through two hundred "OMG! ROFL! LOL!" posts to get to it. Thanks to Adam 2.0 for our logo. I think the picture of Albert Park looks a bit like a giant cock and balls but he assures me that's it's stylistically off the charts and worthy of any number of design awards so I'm sticking by it.
Stay tuned. There's at least a couple of months of this to be had before I lose it and give up. If you want to contribute to Park Life please contact me via the forum (username: Supermercado) and you'll be firing off lengthy slanderous diatribes against Neos Kosmos journalists before you know it.
Welcome to Park Life. Inconsistently posted news, rumor, undue speculation and outright slander about events surrounding the four time Australian national champion South Melbourne Football Club. That's football in the world game sense of course. If you've come looking for wild Sydney Swans post-Premiership celebrations you'll go home empty handed. Face facts, they ditched you and moved north. We've flogged the name now. Cop it.
What we've missed posting in the last couple of years,
* South Melbourne plays in the NSL.
* The NSL is abolished.
* A new league is created.
* The new league declares that each city will have only team.
* Everyone realises that we're no chance of making it.
* The VPL refuses to admit South and the Melbourne Knights for the 2004 season because the Whittlesea Stallions would have been forced to reprint thousands of fridge magnets with fixtures on them.
* With no money coming in South go into administration and come ludicrously close to going out of business. Extinction is only avoided due to big donations and creditors accepting insultingly low payouts on what they were owed. Thanks for that.
* The Whittlesea Stallions were relegated and forced to merge with Fawkner to avoid dying in the arse. They were then invited to stick their fridge magnets fair up their arse.
* South finally admitted to the 2005 Victorian Premier League, along with the Knights.
* 13000+ show up to the first game of the new season against Heidelberg and everyone wonders why we didn't do this years ago
* 5000 show up to the next game and we realised why
* The world came to Bob Jane to punch on against Preston. Result = we lost, people knocked down a fence and the next two days were spent with frenzied media reports about the evil nature of football in this country.
* By the last home and away game of the season there were 600 people there.
* South were defeated by Heidelberg in the preliminary final.
* Australia qualified for the World Cup and suddenly football wasn't evil anymore and everyone loved the World Game.
* Another season rolled around and left us right at this spot.
This page has been created as a way of dissecting all the important things covered on the SMFCboard forum but without having to go through two hundred "OMG! ROFL! LOL!" posts to get to it. Thanks to Adam 2.0 for our logo. I think the picture of Albert Park looks a bit like a giant cock and balls but he assures me that's it's stylistically off the charts and worthy of any number of design awards so I'm sticking by it.
Stay tuned. There's at least a couple of months of this to be had before I lose it and give up. If you want to contribute to Park Life please contact me via the forum (username: Supermercado) and you'll be firing off lengthy slanderous diatribes against Neos Kosmos journalists before you know it.
Saturday, 3 December 2005
Victoria Bitter
This post was originally published on The Supermercado Project by Supermercado/Adam1.0
Sports fans will recall that despite being a massive soccer football fan for the last fifteen years, and having been sledged as a “wog” more than once for it, I’ve got no love for the new Australian national competition. For the last year we’ve had the same debate again and again - why South Melbourne should have been in it, why they shouldn’t have been etc.. Now on the verge of the new Victorian Premier League season, and our attractive clashes against world class sides like Richmond and Sunshine George Cross, the arguments have come up again. I’d like to say I’m over it, but sadly that would be a complete lie.
I think we’d be slightly less paranoid about it if the New Zealand and Central Coast teams weren’t in it. Everyone knows the NSL was a farce, and even if we don’t say it openly most of us will admit that the major markets needed a “broadbased” team to get people interested. The problem is that there’s only five major markets in Australia - and you can’t have a competition that’s just Melbourne vs Sydney vs Perth vs Adelaide vs Brisbane every week. So they forced a few experimental sides in there and are being rewarded with pathetic crowds for those teams. Relatively speaking the “big five” are doing well in crowd numbers (despite drops in Adelaide and Perth they’re still thrashing most of the NSL averages) but what are they going to do for the other three? Hang in and hope that some miracle is going to occur and suddenly all of New Zealand are going to start following their team? Their last gate was 1500. And what else can you do in a city like Newcastle? Either these people are going to go for it or they’re not. And at the moment they’re seriously lukewarm about the process. They pulled off 10k for a top of the table clash last night, but their crowd has been hovering around 5k all season.
The Brisbane Strikers of the NSL weren’t even close to an ‘ethnic’ team, and by the last days of the competition they found themselves with a thousand fans and rapidly losing money. All that says to me is that there was nothing you could do for the game in this country without decent coverage and media attention. Replace the Strikers with “Queensland Roar” this year and suddenly they’ve got 15000 fans from nowhere. Maybe South/Knights/Sydney Olympic/Marconi etc.. wouldn’t have grown to be the huge powerhouse clubs of a properly marketed and run competition but we sure as fuck would have contributed to it’s overall strength.
Personally I think that by pissing off Parramatta, Northern Spirit, Auckland, Brisbane, Wollongong and one of Marconi/Olympic/Syd U and introducing Victory, Sydney FC and Qld Roar it would have created a perfect balance. 3 teams in Sydney, 3 in Melbourne, one in the next three biggest markets and a relatively well established country side for a ten team competition. The people with a hard-on for “mainstream” teams get their wish, and the established “ethnic” clubs survive to play in a league where there’s no danger of any of the violence that everyone is so scared of.
But instead we get to watch a team from Gosford (current population, lest we forget, of 154,654) run around a stadium owned by a board member of the FFA in front of a couple of thousand people and are somehow expected to stand up and applaud this new leap forward? Fuck that for a joke. It’s painful to see it. To paraphrase the Timmy O’Toole charity song from the Simpsons
Well there’s a hole in my heart
As deep as a well
For another summer with no NSL
We can’t get in the A-League
So we’ll do the next best thing
Go on the net and WHINGE! WHINGE! WHINGE!
Still.. I’d rather stand with 750 people watching a club that I love than 10000 in front of a heartless corporate machine chanting “[team name] CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!” for 90 minute
Sports fans will recall that despite being a massive soccer football fan for the last fifteen years, and having been sledged as a “wog” more than once for it, I’ve got no love for the new Australian national competition. For the last year we’ve had the same debate again and again - why South Melbourne should have been in it, why they shouldn’t have been etc.. Now on the verge of the new Victorian Premier League season, and our attractive clashes against world class sides like Richmond and Sunshine George Cross, the arguments have come up again. I’d like to say I’m over it, but sadly that would be a complete lie.
I think we’d be slightly less paranoid about it if the New Zealand and Central Coast teams weren’t in it. Everyone knows the NSL was a farce, and even if we don’t say it openly most of us will admit that the major markets needed a “broadbased” team to get people interested. The problem is that there’s only five major markets in Australia - and you can’t have a competition that’s just Melbourne vs Sydney vs Perth vs Adelaide vs Brisbane every week. So they forced a few experimental sides in there and are being rewarded with pathetic crowds for those teams. Relatively speaking the “big five” are doing well in crowd numbers (despite drops in Adelaide and Perth they’re still thrashing most of the NSL averages) but what are they going to do for the other three? Hang in and hope that some miracle is going to occur and suddenly all of New Zealand are going to start following their team? Their last gate was 1500. And what else can you do in a city like Newcastle? Either these people are going to go for it or they’re not. And at the moment they’re seriously lukewarm about the process. They pulled off 10k for a top of the table clash last night, but their crowd has been hovering around 5k all season.
The Brisbane Strikers of the NSL weren’t even close to an ‘ethnic’ team, and by the last days of the competition they found themselves with a thousand fans and rapidly losing money. All that says to me is that there was nothing you could do for the game in this country without decent coverage and media attention. Replace the Strikers with “Queensland Roar” this year and suddenly they’ve got 15000 fans from nowhere. Maybe South/Knights/Sydney Olympic/Marconi etc.. wouldn’t have grown to be the huge powerhouse clubs of a properly marketed and run competition but we sure as fuck would have contributed to it’s overall strength.
Personally I think that by pissing off Parramatta, Northern Spirit, Auckland, Brisbane, Wollongong and one of Marconi/Olympic/Syd U and introducing Victory, Sydney FC and Qld Roar it would have created a perfect balance. 3 teams in Sydney, 3 in Melbourne, one in the next three biggest markets and a relatively well established country side for a ten team competition. The people with a hard-on for “mainstream” teams get their wish, and the established “ethnic” clubs survive to play in a league where there’s no danger of any of the violence that everyone is so scared of.
But instead we get to watch a team from Gosford (current population, lest we forget, of 154,654) run around a stadium owned by a board member of the FFA in front of a couple of thousand people and are somehow expected to stand up and applaud this new leap forward? Fuck that for a joke. It’s painful to see it. To paraphrase the Timmy O’Toole charity song from the Simpsons
Well there’s a hole in my heart
As deep as a well
For another summer with no NSL
We can’t get in the A-League
So we’ll do the next best thing
Go on the net and WHINGE! WHINGE! WHINGE!
Still.. I’d rather stand with 750 people watching a club that I love than 10000 in front of a heartless corporate machine chanting “[team name] CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!” for 90 minute
Sunday, 30 January 2005
Loving you is easy ‘cos you’re beautiful
This post was originally published on The Supermercado Project by Supermercado/Adam 1.0
Ten months ago I stood in Adelaide’s Hindmarsh Stadium and saw a penalty hit the net that should, for all intents and purposes, have been the death of the South Melbourne Football (nee ‘Soccer’) Club. With no prospects of playing in the pumped up, corporate fantasy world of the new Australian national league the years of financial mismanagement and general apathy that surrounded the place collapsed in on top of the club and they ran very, VERY close to going out of business forever. It wasn’t until September/October last year that we knew for absolute certain that the club had been saved. The world’s greatest chairman was appointed and the task of rebuilding started. And today we saw the first step to regaining the glories of the past.
We stashed the official Reg Reagan “Bring Back The Biff” Holden whetever-the-fuck-it-is in my work carpark, unzipped my jacket so the t-shirt that was last worn on that fateful day in Adelaide was visible to all and set off for the now traditional Cricketers Club Hotel. Upon arrival it was clear that a star-studded cavalcade of the who’s who of South fans were in attendance. Just like old days. Almost enough to bring a tear to the eye. But not close enough. I was wearing the official Boutsianis Balaclava in dedication to our former midfielder, and armed robbery getaway driver, who turned his back on our club for roughly the 5th time and joined Heidelberg instead. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to shed a tear in such a fearsome disguise.
I did, however, see this redundant sign on the way,
The poor bastards only changed it from “Ericson Cup matchdays” a year ago, presumably after somebody had rolled them in a challenge, and now the NSL gets killed as well. I predict they won’t know what to do. I also predict a riot when somebody gets booked for parking there during a Victorian Premier League game.
The pub action was awesome. It reminded me of why before every AFL season I start to think South are barging their way to the front of my sporting priorities. I’ve never met one person ever at a Melbourne game, I just don’t give a fuck. But here I was outside a pub with 30 people who I only knew because of South. That’s ace. The balaclava came off lest the people run that pub think I’m trying to knock-off their takings, Boutsianis style, but made a reappearance when the Heidelberg team bus got stuck in traffic right in front of us. What can you do? I danced around a bit. From on bus it was probably reminiscent of the dwarf doing a jig around Stonehenge in This Is Spinal Tap.
Eventually we got to the ground. South won the reserves/U21’s 2-1 in an encouraging sign. Even though I came in with ten minutes left and missed the winning goal. As the minutes before the game ticked on it because clear that there was a fucking huge crowd there. I mean huge. For Australian domestic soccer huge anyway.The official tally was 12000ish. Absolutely remarkable for a state league game. I don’t give a fuck if it’s an all-Greek derby, or if it’s the first game of a new season it was an amazing crowd anyway. It’s fair to say that I thought I’d never see anything like it at Bob Jane again. Especially in the days of June/July 2004 where the old trophies and memorabilia were being loaded into storage lest we fold and they get ransacked. Let’s hope that at least half of this crowd bother to come back for South vs St. Albans next week.
The game itself? If you’d offered me 0-0 pre-game I would have not only taken it but humped your leg at the same time - our pre-season form was so bad that even against a side promoted from the State League I was terrified of a first up loss. Looking back now, having just seen the game end 0-0 I want the three points. I feel robbed. The most experienced outfield player in our entire side, NZ international, Vaughan Coveny missed two sitters and we were all over the Bergers from the word go. Only for a few brief minutes did the opposition threaten to break the game open with a goal. Our elderly goalkeeper, and brother of coach, pulled out a couple of cracker saves that I honestly didn’t think he had left in him to deny them their best chances. I’m encouraged. Very encouraged.
Still shocked at the crowd. If that doesn’t get some positive press I will fucking go ape. Of course there’s more chance of the Herald Sun and Peter “F’ing” Desira taking a picture of the two of us in black balaclavas and writing a front page rant about 12000 right-wing Combat 18 fanatics hijacking the game in this country. And if they did that.. Insert random threats here. Of course there was a picture taken of us by one of the Greek newspaper photographers. It was only after he’d snapped off a couple of pix that I realised my t-shirt was in full view during the shots. If they just print those without even thinking - and god knows why they would because if you didn’t get the Boutsianis-related comedy aspect of it you’d think we were total lunatix or actual Neo Nazi’s - and I open Neos Kosmos to see a shot of myself in a black ski-mask with the word CUNT prominently displayed it will officially be the greatest day of my life. I’ll have it framed and put it on my wall.
Click here to see the power and force of the fence run when Boutsianis was taking a corner right in front of us. I was too nervous at 0-0 to join in sadly. And the steering wheel I planned on bringing didn’t eventuate so there was really no point when so many young and enthusiastic practioners of the art.
So,
South Melbourne 0
Heidelberg Utd 0
Not the best 0-0 draw I’ve ever seen (vs Perth, Australia Day 2004. Another huge crowd) but certainly the most emotional. I was so tense during that second half I could barely stand up, I fear that if we’d scored I may have just broken down on the spot.
I realised something the other day as I looked through my diary. Given that the ancient gods of scheduling have come together to ensure that work/South/Melbourne AFL don’t clash more than a few times during the next few months it means that I’m going to be at one sporting event or another one pretty much every weekend day I’ve got off until September. And then I go to England in October to watch more soccer. I think it’s fair to say that next cricket season I won’t even turn the TV on. I will start to understand why people hate sports.
Top night. Football is back. I still don’t get that sick feeling in my stomach for the whole game that I do when watching Melbourne play but the post-match tension is still there. I won’t sleep all night now.
If this game isn’t given massive coverage in the papers tomorrow then I’m going to ballistic. Fuck the A-League. South forever! Get all your asses down to Bob Jane next Sunday night against St. Albans.
Ten months ago I stood in Adelaide’s Hindmarsh Stadium and saw a penalty hit the net that should, for all intents and purposes, have been the death of the South Melbourne Football (nee ‘Soccer’) Club. With no prospects of playing in the pumped up, corporate fantasy world of the new Australian national league the years of financial mismanagement and general apathy that surrounded the place collapsed in on top of the club and they ran very, VERY close to going out of business forever. It wasn’t until September/October last year that we knew for absolute certain that the club had been saved. The world’s greatest chairman was appointed and the task of rebuilding started. And today we saw the first step to regaining the glories of the past.
We stashed the official Reg Reagan “Bring Back The Biff” Holden whetever-the-fuck-it-is in my work carpark, unzipped my jacket so the t-shirt that was last worn on that fateful day in Adelaide was visible to all and set off for the now traditional Cricketers Club Hotel. Upon arrival it was clear that a star-studded cavalcade of the who’s who of South fans were in attendance. Just like old days. Almost enough to bring a tear to the eye. But not close enough. I was wearing the official Boutsianis Balaclava in dedication to our former midfielder, and armed robbery getaway driver, who turned his back on our club for roughly the 5th time and joined Heidelberg instead. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to shed a tear in such a fearsome disguise.
I did, however, see this redundant sign on the way,
The pub action was awesome. It reminded me of why before every AFL season I start to think South are barging their way to the front of my sporting priorities. I’ve never met one person ever at a Melbourne game, I just don’t give a fuck. But here I was outside a pub with 30 people who I only knew because of South. That’s ace. The balaclava came off lest the people run that pub think I’m trying to knock-off their takings, Boutsianis style, but made a reappearance when the Heidelberg team bus got stuck in traffic right in front of us. What can you do? I danced around a bit. From on bus it was probably reminiscent of the dwarf doing a jig around Stonehenge in This Is Spinal Tap.
Eventually we got to the ground. South won the reserves/U21’s 2-1 in an encouraging sign. Even though I came in with ten minutes left and missed the winning goal. As the minutes before the game ticked on it because clear that there was a fucking huge crowd there. I mean huge. For Australian domestic soccer huge anyway.The official tally was 12000ish. Absolutely remarkable for a state league game. I don’t give a fuck if it’s an all-Greek derby, or if it’s the first game of a new season it was an amazing crowd anyway. It’s fair to say that I thought I’d never see anything like it at Bob Jane again. Especially in the days of June/July 2004 where the old trophies and memorabilia were being loaded into storage lest we fold and they get ransacked. Let’s hope that at least half of this crowd bother to come back for South vs St. Albans next week.
The game itself? If you’d offered me 0-0 pre-game I would have not only taken it but humped your leg at the same time - our pre-season form was so bad that even against a side promoted from the State League I was terrified of a first up loss. Looking back now, having just seen the game end 0-0 I want the three points. I feel robbed. The most experienced outfield player in our entire side, NZ international, Vaughan Coveny missed two sitters and we were all over the Bergers from the word go. Only for a few brief minutes did the opposition threaten to break the game open with a goal. Our elderly goalkeeper, and brother of coach, pulled out a couple of cracker saves that I honestly didn’t think he had left in him to deny them their best chances. I’m encouraged. Very encouraged.
Still shocked at the crowd. If that doesn’t get some positive press I will fucking go ape. Of course there’s more chance of the Herald Sun and Peter “F’ing” Desira taking a picture of the two of us in black balaclavas and writing a front page rant about 12000 right-wing Combat 18 fanatics hijacking the game in this country. And if they did that.. Insert random threats here. Of course there was a picture taken of us by one of the Greek newspaper photographers. It was only after he’d snapped off a couple of pix that I realised my t-shirt was in full view during the shots. If they just print those without even thinking - and god knows why they would because if you didn’t get the Boutsianis-related comedy aspect of it you’d think we were total lunatix or actual Neo Nazi’s - and I open Neos Kosmos to see a shot of myself in a black ski-mask with the word CUNT prominently displayed it will officially be the greatest day of my life. I’ll have it framed and put it on my wall.
Click here to see the power and force of the fence run when Boutsianis was taking a corner right in front of us. I was too nervous at 0-0 to join in sadly. And the steering wheel I planned on bringing didn’t eventuate so there was really no point when so many young and enthusiastic practioners of the art.
So,
South Melbourne 0
Heidelberg Utd 0
Not the best 0-0 draw I’ve ever seen (vs Perth, Australia Day 2004. Another huge crowd) but certainly the most emotional. I was so tense during that second half I could barely stand up, I fear that if we’d scored I may have just broken down on the spot.
I realised something the other day as I looked through my diary. Given that the ancient gods of scheduling have come together to ensure that work/South/Melbourne AFL don’t clash more than a few times during the next few months it means that I’m going to be at one sporting event or another one pretty much every weekend day I’ve got off until September. And then I go to England in October to watch more soccer. I think it’s fair to say that next cricket season I won’t even turn the TV on. I will start to understand why people hate sports.
Top night. Football is back. I still don’t get that sick feeling in my stomach for the whole game that I do when watching Melbourne play but the post-match tension is still there. I won’t sleep all night now.
If this game isn’t given massive coverage in the papers tomorrow then I’m going to ballistic. Fuck the A-League. South forever! Get all your asses down to Bob Jane next Sunday night against St. Albans.
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