Sunk by ghost of Hellas past - South Melbourne 1 North Eastern MetroStars 2

The club sandwich at the Limerick Arms is a joke. Scott Tunbridge scored the winner against us ten years down the line from his South stint. And the corneal scarring on my good as gone left eye got inflamed again. All in all, a top day at the soccer.

I'd like to think it wasn't hubris or over confidence on the part of those South fans discussing the costs of heading to Sydney to play Bonnyrigg White Eagles - whom North Eastern MetroStars will meet in the final - more so the need to be prepared in the event of South beating MetroStars and being required to make plans at very short notice, made more complicated and expensive by the fact of the NRL grand final this week. All this while a bee tried to get into the remnants of my gin and tonic, and while Steve From Broady poured himself a beer from the communal jug and made it frothier than an Eaton Mall frap.

For what it was worth, I thought we'd justly be favourites for this game, but victory was hardly an assured thing. Going into a gale force wind and copping an own goal in the first ten minutes or so, not a good start. Barely looking like we'd bothered to turn up, it looked like this was going to get nasty, as the visitors played a skillful and pacy sort of game, while our skill level deserted us. It didn't help that the wind changed direction at halftime, but that'd be short changing the visiting team with the name straight out of Lawn Bowls Rendell's and Old Man Dunkerley's Victorian Champions League Summer Soccer Football competition.

(By the way, how good was it sucking up to Martin Foley again? We'd ditched him for the Liberal Party candidate for his seat once we got the job done with the Lakeside lease arrangement, and then we had some sort of special ceremony for Foley to show that we still loved him, baby. That other woman meant nothing to us. Girl, I do not even remember her name. Pamela or something. It is irrelevant for our purposes.)

That we somehow held on long enough without conceding another goal, and actually managed to work our way into the game whereby our equaliser was unapologetically deserved, was a pleasing development. In typical retrospective sports report fashion though, Jamie Reed's missed penalty doomed the side to lose. Never mind James Musa's effort against the crossbar in the second half which still could have given us the lead - Reed's miss was the clincher.

And if that's being unfair to Reed, in singling him out for blame when there were 92 other minutes of stuff to be done, and considering he'd put in the great cross for Milos Lujic's equaliser, then that's the whole point isn't it, of the aforementioned typically lazy hindsight afflicted match report. Pick a scapegoat, and run with it for all it's worth. A good match reporter, even one that can't really see, would for professional reasons take the time to write a nuanced, relatively objective report.

But I'm not getting paid for this, and I suspect that like the players themselves, the long season - 32 league, cup and playoff games, not to mention the long pre-season - has caught up with all of us. We clapped the players off, disappointed as we all were to witness that kind of end to an otherwise successful season - but with no social club yet to hunker down in, sticking around on the concourse in front of our grandstand, even if there was the women's game to follow, seemed kind of pointless, especially since now my left eye was playing up again.

Four or so hours after I entered the Eye and Ear Hospital's emergency department - and I'm not complaining here about the wait, because there were clearly others with a higher level of priority than me needing care - and having been told that I probably wouldn't be given the anaesthetic drop into my eyeball, because 'we can't keep doing that', which probably had some sound, 'let's not get this guy addicted to steroids' medical reasoning behind it, I stood waiting while the doctors talked about having an absinthe party, and then sat down in the optometrist's chair as we went through what one nurse has previously called the 'fat file' of my left eye's history - retinal detachment, cataract, light sensitivity, ulcer, the herpes simplex virus causing blisters to explode on the surface of the eye with attendant corneal scarring.

The doctor and I agreed that while it was an option which would probably need to be undertaken at some point, removing the eye would be a fairly drastic step, especially as it could cause an auto-immune response in the other eye. So keep taking the ointment and these drops, and come back on Friday. In the end, I was glad to be able to get some sleep. Then I woke up on Monday, watched some NFL, played Grand Theft Auto IV, went and bought a power supply for my brother's computer, and did some reading. That no one seemed to miss me during this delay in getting this post out hurt my fragile ego somewhat. Worse is the horror of having the facade of my affected disaffection swept away so easily.

What now?
I don't know, you tell me. Some pre-season kick and chase, not much on the line kind of affair, some time next year, or very late this year. Who knows? Maybe we'll find a way to get the Lakeside ticketing system running properly. We'll start hearing rumours about players coming and going - it's already started, if you know where to look. There'll also be the gala ball on October 31st. Not sure if I'm going to that yet, though I suppose it would be nice if I went to Merrimu Receptions for something other than my funeral. That's a little inside joke there, by the way, understood by me, SMFC TV cameraman Tim Dovas, and maybe Cuddles.

As for the blog...
The usual deal. We'll (I'll) be slowing down. At some point in the next two weeks, I'll hand out some awards. I'll put out the odd book review, try and find some historical artefacts to put up, and thank everyone that needs to be thanked at the end of the year. There'll also be an AGM, and hopefully news of the social club beginning to take shape - and even though it may create the most hits for this site, I'm hoping for a minimal amount of controversy.

Something I thought about while reading a Stewart Lee book recently
Ever had a great idea for a written piece, but you were worried that no-one would publish it? No? How about a slightly above average idea, but had no where to even pitch it? Well, that's the situation I'm in at the moment, whereby I have this idea for a piece - and not just an idea in and of itself, but a means in which to potentially rescue a great but reputedly borderline mean and unpublishable piece, and add to the myriad discussion on all things Australian soccer identities in the post-Lowy, post-multicultural era. And I've found that epithets like 'best Australian soccer writer', 'most underrated', 'funniest', 'most obscure', hell even 'fifth or seventh best Australian soccer writer', or 'one of its worst' - some semi-real, some of which I may have made up about myself - mean close to nothing. What's the point of this hard earned imaginary and/or imagined street cred, when there's no one to turn to get this 'idea' into print (and it needs to be print for aesthetic reasons, if nothing else). So kids, the lessons are. Don't shoot from the hip. Neuter your sense of individuality. Don't upset old people. Play the game.

After much debate, we eventually decided that
the shade of blue of Upfield's playing kit was
most similar to 'Robin Egg Blue'.

Around the grounds
Robin Egg Blue
Ian Syson made the offer of giving me a lift out to neutral Truganina to watch the champions of State League 4 West, Hoppers Crossing, and their North division counterpart Upfield, play off in a post-season finals series. After finding myself in a state of confusion on the importance of this game, I was eventually convinced that both sides had already won promotion regardless of this result, and that this was just part of the process of determining who was the best of the State League 4 sides - so, in short, the stakes were pride. The first half saw Hoppers start off with a bit more polish and vigour, but once Upfield settled down they looked good, putting together some quick passing play. One of those plays, along with a bit of patented individual brilliance saw them open the scoring. Too bad for them they kept giving away fouls, and thus they copped a goal from a set piece. The second half was all Hoppers, as they stormed to a 4-1 win, which could have been more if not for the intervention of the woodwork. Arndell Park, the current home ground of the Truganina Hornets, is not a bad ground, though the addition of an extra lighting pole in between the benches on the outer side would not have gone astray. It wasn't too windy last night, but I can imagine there'd be days where it'd be horrible to watch games there,

Final thought
Things could have gone worse this year.

It's not how, but how many, right? Port Melbourne 2 South Melbourne 3

That first 20 odd minutes, it looked like we would rip them apart. And that last 15 minutes, kinda the same. The in between part though is where we almost came unstuck, and that's something we're going to have work on, because there will be opponents this season who will not be as defensively suspect as Port have been so far this season, who will manage to contain us and who we can't allow to make the most of limited opportunities when we decide to step off the gas for 20 minutes in the middle of the game, thinking we have control.

There were, I think, some surprises with regards to selection, with Norton and Tsiaras picked ahead of Mullett and Musa. Minopoulos was back on the bench with Lujic starting. Anyway, those first 20 odd minutes, we looked shit hot, shots coming in, blocked, hit the post etc. We eventually scored when Brad Norton's low cross from the left was bundled in for an own goal. And then we kinda lost our way a little, as Port started working their way into the game.

Chris Taylor's serious face. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

And then we copped the goal we probably, maybe, kinda deserved to cop. Now, from my angle (a lousy one), eyesight (usual lousiness), and attention span (always lousy, not helped this time by having my mate Chris Egan over from Perth, as we were talking about all sorts of things that had little to do with the game), it looked like a pretty cheap goal to conceded. Those who did see it more clearly than me put the blame on Nick Epifano for a piss poor effort in trying to get the ball clear after a Port corner.

Chris Taylor's angry face. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Anyway, 1-1 at halftime sucked, but worse was to come. All of a sudden Port were controlling the midfield, and their defence were all over what had become quite pitiful South attempts at going forward. Soon enough they had the lead, with former South winger Kamal Ibrahim - who has a looked a lot better in these first few weeks than anything he managed to produce at South, which says something perhaps for a player maturing, though of course there's also another 20 odd games to go, so who knows how he'll end up - finishing a dazzling team move, full of speed and quick movement of the ball.

Chirs Taylor's happy face. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

It was at around about that moment (or perhaps the half arsed attempts at wresting back the initiative immediately after that) that
I thought we were fucked, 'scuse my French.
Thankfully, the entrance of Leigh Minopoulos managed to change the momentum of the game again, as we started pressuring Port again and getting into dangerous positions. Minopoulos took a shot which took a massive deflection and sailed over the keeper's outstretched arm and underneath the crossbar into the back of the net. If nothing else, it was a just reward for having a go.

Chris Taylor's 'soup or salad?' face. Photo: Cindy Nitsos

All of a sudden we were all over Port, as they seemed to tire and become dare I say it a bit nervous as well. We blew a few more chances because we just wouldn't take that damn first time shot, but Minopoulos eventually completed his super-sub routine when he cut in well and placed the shot out of the Port keeper's reach. We managed to hold on, and the rest as they say, is history. Of course there's only so many fightbacks a team can make during the last 15 minutes in a season, but three points is three points is three points.  Having said all of that though, credit to both teams for putting on a good show, lots of attacking flair, worlds away from the Bergers-South long ball fest.

Next week
Gully away. Surely we couldn't win two in a row at that ground?

Nick Jacobs retires
I was very disappointed to hear confirmation of the retirement of young forward/winger Nick Jacobs, due to ongoing issues with injury. A week after scoring the winner in this memorable match against Southern Stars, a broken leg while playing for his school has seemingly never quite healed. All the best to the young man for whatever his future holds.

Footy! Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Footy, footy, footy, footy, footy, footy, footy, footy, footy, footy etc
Back in the day at the local soccer, it used to be common for a couple of blokes standing on the fence with their radios, maybe an earphone, but just as likely a plain old transistor radio, to be relaying the footy scores to everyone else. These days of course everyone has phones with the requisite app (which crashes on my phone), so fewer people make the effort or have the need to listen to the game on the radio.

Still, some choose to do so, and I'm not going to criticise those who listen to a footy match while the soccer is being played in front of them, and maybe exhibit an over-exuberant celebration of a hard fought win - not least of all because I've done it plenty of times myself. Nor will I admonish FFV radio match commentator Teo Pellizzeri for making a tweet variant of that behaviour. But it just goes to show I think how people are able to blend their love of both sports into the one experience. Away from the sometimes boorish code war rhetoric, most people just get on with doing what's in their hearts. It's perhaps a very Melbourne soccer thing to do, having no idea if rugby league loving soccer fans do the same north of the border.

South Radio and TV
After a very patchy first episode, episode number two for 2014 of South Radio was actually quite good, and not just because South of the Border got a mention for its hard hitting investigative report into the crazy antics of George Cross goalkeeper Robert Santili. It looks like they're going to have weekly player interviews as well, starting off with Tyson Holmes last week. The TV show's new segment 'Minute with Mala' seems to be a promising new direction also.

Around the grounds
Part 1 - Sweet VFA
On Saturday arvo I somehow ended up at Coburg's City Oval ground for the clash between the newly standalone Coburg Lions and Port Melbourne. By somehow, I mean Chris Egan wanted to go there instead of Vic Park or the Morris Street Oval. First time for me seeing this ground outside of an ABC TV broadcast. I was aware of the concrete terracing, not so much of the odd grandstand (dating back to 1925 - should have taken a photo) with two thirds of its capacity closed off to the public.

The crowd was around 600 I reckon, and about 3/4 of them I guess would have been Port fans. Memberships were being sold at the astonishingly low rate of $55 for an adult (normal entry is $10 for an adult, so we're talking half price for the season).

Inside the clubs rooms there were separate trophy cabinets for the footy and cricket sides, as well as a lot of bluster about being standalone and being off for it, but whether it actually leads to a revival of the club's fortune's on and off the field remains to be seen. For the sake of history you'd like to be wrong, but I can't see Coburg surviving for long, even if all those sponsors stick around.

Funnily enough the electronic clock next to the footy scoreboard - there's a separate one for cricket I think - wasn't working, even though it was sponsored by the Electrical Trades Union. Anyway, the game itself was pretty ugly, but at least it was close until halftime, before Port realised they weren't completely awful and kicked away in the last quarter to win by 12 or so goals.

Part 2 - (State League One North-West) Struggle Street
Sunday arvo was spent at Ralph Reserve, home of Western Suburbs, as they played host to Altona East in the opening round of state league action. The league structure for this division looks a lot like last year's State League 2 North-west (which on the whole, was generally rubbish), but with the addition of the formerly state league 1 Western Suburbs and Altona Magic.

With the exception of ex-South, ex-George Cross and most recently, ex-Altona East midfielder Andy Bourakis, Suburbs had a very young team. East was better off in that department, but man did they make hard work of this game. There were few chances for either side, but eventually a calamitous error in their own box saw Suburbs gift East a goal in the first half.

The second half was more of the same really. East hit the crossbar from close range, and I feel weren't seriously tested going the other way. In the end, one goal was enough in what is expected to be an otherwise tough season for East. The souv was excellent, chips on it without asking, and a bit of fresh parsley in the salad as well, which was a nice touch.

Amount of times that I was mistaken for a North Melbourne fan on Friday because of my scarf.
1.5 (it's complicated). Season tally, 3.5.

The size of Steve from Broady's stats and video posse
At least three people. This is disturbing in the sense that what started off as a gimmick at the Altona East reserves in 2012 in exchange for a passing grade and free souvlakia, has now become a faction at the club in its own right. In a couple of years time he'll have a large enough group to actually run a rival ticket in the elections. Hey, if he manages to get us a social club...

The approximate moment I wrote off our 2014 league season.
Probably around 68 minutes into this game. Leigh Minopoulos managed to win me back for the time being. Fickle much?

Whoopsadoodle department
You may recall that last week we noted that Oakleigh was one of the more notable casualties of the Dockerty Cup fourth round, losing to fellow NPL side Werribee City. Well, it turns out that Oakleigh didn't realise until after the game that the Dockerty Cup doubled up as qualification for the FFA Cup.

Cannons coach Miron Bleiberg fronted up SEN 1116 to make the revelation, claiming he (and I assume by extension, the Oakleigh committee) thought they were two separate competitions with no relation to each other. I'd sympathise with their predicament, except that:

• How could they not know? It's been all over the media. Oh, they probably only read Neos Kosmos.
• Since it wasn't a midweek game, and they were playing an NPL opponent, why not put in a full strength team anyway? You know, because winning the Dockerty Cup might be a goal worth achieving in and of itself?
• It's Oakleigh, so fuck 'em.

Final thought
Here is the crux of the matter, and I come back to the case of learned theology. For whose sake is it that the proof is sought? Faith does not need it; indeed, it must even regard the proof as its enemy. But when faith begins to feel embarrassed and ashamed like a young woman for whom her love is no longer sufficient, but secretly feels ashamed of her lover and must therefore have it established that there is something remarkable about him - when faith thus begins to lose its passion, when faith begins to cease to be faith, then a proof becomes necessary so as to command respect from the side of unbelief...

Soren Kierkegaard, Faith and Subjectivity

A little better - Hume City 0 South Melbourne 1

How do you go about describing that kind of game? Perfect conditions, but a scrappy affair. A draw might have been a fairer result, but we're not about to hand two of those points back.

Someone said that if we'd played like we did last night, against Southern Stars last week, we would have beaten them 3-0. I wouldn't go that far. There were still problems, still indirectness (which is not an endorsement of Steve from Broady's 'get it in the mixer' catchcry), but there was less of it, and maybe that made the difference last night.

It was Steve O'Dor with the winning goal, quite late, maybe deflected, with at best the barest hint of jogo bonito, tiki taka or total football, but it was 99% just getting the ball up the field quickly and putting it into a dangerous area. You have to walk before you can run.

The VPL is a grinding league, and we rode our luck a little, but got the job done.

Cameramen
Big shout to regular SMFCTV cameraman Tim Dovas, who broke his leg last week, and hasn't been able to perform his duties - hope the ekmek deliveries come thick and fast. Also a big shoutout to Paul Zarogiannis, the workhouse behind SMFCTV, who's back on camera duties, and must've come close to freezing last night.

Chants
I have no idea what kicked off this line of chanting.

'Are you Preston in disguise'

'Fuck off Preston'

'State League 2'

Cold
Indeed it was, but not as bad other times. Still one more trip there this season, in the middle of winter against the Zebras.

Drumsticks (the lack thereof)
Empty plastic coca-cola bottles had to make do.

Fighting to the end
No heads dropping, got the points.

Green Gully
Richmond vs Green Gully was the other Friday night match - we bring this up only because Green Gully came from behind for the third time in six matches, this time scoring twice in three minutes to overcome Alemannia. Very frustrating.

Handballs
Apparently there were a few.

Jealousy
Someone was annoyed with my getting four special event goals last week against Money Monkey on Hattrick, after the bad luck he suffers week in, week out - culminating in his bowing out

Next Week
Next Sunday, at home to a desperate Knights. How desperate depends on their result against Heidelberg tomorrow.

Parking
As were driving into Epping, the Kiss of Death made a salient point - is it right that clubs out there should be charged for parking, when there's nowhere esle to park? It didn't matter for us though, as we drove right through, as the security guys were too busy chatting with other people.

Relief
It was palpable.

Substitute
I think Gus Tsolakis is well and truly in the Johnny A' school of making subs - that is, don't make any to change the game until the 75th minute. Kyle Joryeff looked very frustrated. The fans were frustrated. The game was going nowhere, and nowhere fast - why not try and take the initiative, and take the game by the scruff of the neck? Or at least give some of the bench players a run - it must've been freezing for them, too.

Under 21s
Finished 3-3, coming down from 3-1 - though it helps when your opposition go a man down, as well as lose their only keeper to injury, requiring an outfield player to take up the gloves.

Zenith
A lot of people are probably going to look like clowns on the footage. When you win, it doesn't matter so much. Maybe some people will realise what this club means to us.