Showing posts with label Tyson Holmes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tyson Holmes. Show all posts

Friday, 31 October 2014

October 2014 digest of everything (OK, some things)

This post is a bit of a grab all of a range of different concerns floating around, as well some news, in the middle of trying to avoid having a nervous breakdown, which is not an official term according to wikipedia. Also, don't listen to Bohren and Der Club of Gore if you're in that mood. Great record that one though.

Kids these days
With junior trials for next year now under way, just how many people are unhappy with the South junior system? Is it many or just a few? Are the things they're unhappy with South specific, NPL specific, or a combination of both? One thing is for certain, there are unhappy people out there - how the South board manage this issue will be interesting, especially after the failed Brazilian experiment of last year, and the fact that the junior system has, to this outsider at least, been the subject of continuous manipulation and upheaval. In addition to all that, the continuing failure to see any talent make its way through from the juniors to the seniors on a permanent basis - and not in a roundabout five years down the track kind of manner - would be a concern to everyone.

(woman or effeminate man or physical cripple or small child or palsied pensioner opens jar after the BIG MAN fails to open it, but he still tries to claim that he 'loosened it up') (or here comes the hero of the day and of course it's South Melbourne) (we're in the tent [is that a sex thing?] and so here comes South Melbourne in the A-League in 2017) 
What's our official position, if any, on FFA's National Club Identity Policy? Is it something that's even on our radar, or are we happy to just go with the flow? Flow it is then. Enough was said by both sides of the argument following a now infamous guest post, to not need to go over it again. I was speaking to a highly thought of Australian soccer writer, which narrows it down to about five people, four if you don't count me, and this person agreed with me that why don't South and Knights work together to achieve their goals? If Melbourne Knights want to the be the street fighting with western suburbs street cred coming out of their ears Problem Child, the loose cannon of the Ethnic Soccer Club Party of Australia if you will; and if South want to be the wheelers and dealers in the suits, the Albert Park Accountants and Masters of Realpolitik, with The Prince in one hand (a prince must want to have a reputation for compassion rather than for cruelty) and the Art of War in the other (On intractable terrain, Do not encamp: On crossroad terrain, join forces with allies: On Dire terrain, do not linger: On enclosed terrain, make strategic plans: On death terrain, do battle), who clean up the mess by looking down right reasonable by comparison, why can't they work together? 'All friendship is desirable in itself, though it starts from the need of help' said Epicurus, but then I would cite him, wouldn't I?

Speaking of which - Victory and Heart in the NPL in 2015?
So, Heart and Victory have enlisted the help of big brother FFA, effectively sending an ultimatum to FFV and the NPL clubs, let our youth teams in or else your FFA Cup spots could be under threat. I'm sure South Melbourne will come to the rescue, right after Melbourne Knights soften it up for everyone. It's called teamwork.

As important as whether Heart and Victory make it into the NPL or not, something will eventually have to give in terms of the massive number of teams now in the two Victorian NPL divisions. While the largeness of the league is in part a consequence of the compromise solution worked out between the dissenting clubs, FFV and FFA during the NPL establishment crisis, we already have the situation of 14 teams in each league, plus newcomers Nunawading, Murray United, and possibly Eastern Lions from. One news report suggests that Bendigo are re-considering their participation next year, and I've also heard talk that Murray United may also struggle to make it to the starting line - though their recent hiring of staff seems to suggest that their participation next year is more likely then not at this stage. But what happens at the end of the three year licence period? Will everyone be allowed to stay? And if not, can you imagine the furore from those that miss out?

There are two things a viking never does...
That  Phil Moss, eh? Puts out a stupid line, and then apologises. Not for what was said - that Sydney Olympic didn't sign him back in the NSL days because he wasn't born in Greece - only for the offence it caused. Sydney Olympic huffed and puffed a little bit, but in the end had to sit there and take Moss' apology like the little bitches that they are - and if that sounds like meanness for cruelty's sake, it's because I know that we'd almost certainly do the same. As for the two things a viking never does? It's a Hagar the Horrible joke.

Making a house a home.
Are our lights up to scratch? Some people keep talking about hosting an FFA Cup match as being of more importance than actually winning the state title, but could we even host a match under lights and on TV? There's been talk every now and again during our new Lakeside era that the lights aren't up to FoxSports broadcast standards. Sure there's plenty of room on the light towers to install more lights, and they may only need one more row each to get there, but are there any plans on actually making this happen? It'd be fairly embarrassing to win hosting rights for an FFA Cup match, and then not be able to host it at Lakeside. For that matter, what's the latest with the social club? Has construction started yet? Will we ever get signage on the ground to let people know we're there? Will I ever get rid of this albatross of a counter? And when's the AGM?

Women
Are we any closer to to reconciling - if that's even the right word - with the women's team? While female players don't make up half the numbers of the male participant rate in the sport, it's still a massive blackspot in our attempt to be the broadbased and compelling club we love to portray ourselves as being, let alone one that could be considered as progressive. Still, this was interesting.
'Our' women? When did that happen? Interestingly, after Alan Davidson resigned or got the sack of the eve of the finals, his ultimately successful replacement was one Matthew Maslak, who had been sacked as coach of under 20s earlier this year.

Law and Order SVU episode blurb that could cover 90% of its episodes
The detectives investigate a series of sexual assaults, but come to realise that the prime suspect may not be the person they originally thought was responsible.

Comings and goings
Meanwhile on the South playing front, defender Shaun Kelly - who was also our leading scorer in 2012 - has parted ways with the club. Kelly, who missed the whole of the 2014 season with a lisfranc injury, has signed with Port Melbourne. At least he seems to have left on good terms, which is nice to know, as he always seemed to handle himself professionally, and it must have been difficult for him to sit out the entire championship season after hanging about during some very tumultuous times. Fellow Englishman Jamie Reed left this slightly cryptic message on Twitter
So is he coming back? I don't know. Tyson Holmes has left to go to Bentleigh Greens, apparently for a better chance of more game time, while Shaun Timmins has gone to Hume and Dimi Tsiaras has retired.

Staying put are Milos Lujic, Iqi Jawadi, Michael Eagar, James Musa, Brad Norton, Tim Mala, Nick Epifano, Stephen Hatzikostas, Leigh Minopoulos and Andy Kecojevic.

But did they actually get the terminology right? Aka, a souvlaki is not the same as a gyro, but OK we get what you're trying to say while being a patronising cunt
Some of those who watched the FFA Cup quarter final between Bentleigh and Γιουβέντους Αδελαΐδας - though not me, since I've been boycotting the tournament for various obscure and probably not very defensible reasons, but who are you to question my motives? Have I ever questioned yours? - noticed that the commentary kept hammering the souvlaki angle. Dedicated readers will however remember that Michael Lynch and I covered this earlier and better.

Frank Lowy mentioned that promotion and relegation in and to and from the A-League is imminent and everyone wet their pants or hunkered down in their bomb shelter
Me, I threw a tryhard nonconformist bomb of my own, but I mostly only got a few retweets.
Life after South Melbourne, if there is a such a thing; I still have my doubts
Congratulations to former South defender Jake Vandermey, who took out Hobart Olympia's best and fairest award. Vandermey also finished third in the state wide best and fairest count, behind South Hobart's Brayden Mann and Andy Brennan.

I'm playing all this week, tell all your friends
Now this I was not expecting.

Football Today, some sort of accumulating internet news service for Australian soccer - I'm sure there's a more appropriately tech-savvy phrase for it, but that's the one I'm going with - recently made South of the Border its featured blog.
I'm pretty chuffed with that, for reasons which I can't necessarily figure out. I mean, how did it even happen? I know how my blog got on the 'best blogs' list in the first place: I sent FootballToday an email asking them to put it on their registry, and they did it (I think it may have even been Bonita Mersiades who was responsible, so there's me momentarily running internet shoulders with an Australian soccer heavy hitter).

I don't subscribe to their Twitter feed, nor do I visit their site, because I'm not interested in the vast quantity of the articles that come through their feed. Sure it's not playing the game of internet 'I'll scratch your back and you'll scratch mine' that's a feature of the blogopshere and Twitterspheres, but I don't have a problem with that, my preference being for this blog to meander through time and space as it pleases, and not to the whims of aggregators. Nevertheless, I'm happy to have been noticed.

Maybe everything will change by tonight...
... and then this post will look stupid. 
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Saturday, 2 August 2014

It was cold last night - Pascoe Vale 0 South Melbourne 3

Photo: Cindy Nitsos.
It was cold last night - cold like being told by a former contributor that he hasn't read the blog since round 3. The Hosken Reserve pitch was wet, too, but there was plenty of grass on it at least, and no under 20s curtain raiser meant that we could spend more time eating the wonderful wood-fired pizzas (and the olives off Pavlaki's pizza because he apparently can't stand olives) and in my case a chinotto, too, which made the experience go up a notch from last year's already classy dining experience.

It was cold last night - cold like being the self proclaimed star of the show, but being benched by the coach for being a dickhead. Nick Epifano was reputedly dropped for disciplinary reasons, while Jamie Reed and Shaun Timmins, possibly due to injury concerns, also dropped out of the first eleven. Tim Mala was back in after serving his one match suspension, while Leigh Minopoulos also came into the starting eleven following a vacation related absence. Matthew Theodore rounded out the starting lineup. For their part, Pascoe Vale had five former South players in their starting lineup - Stefaan Sardelic, Carl Recchia, Marco Santilli, Joseph Youssef and James Stefanou. It was another one of those bizarre reunions that happen in the VPL/NPL, because that's how many players we've churned through over the past decade.

It was cold last night - and almost incessantly rainy, too, so much so that I spent the first half using my umbrella not only for my own protection, but also as impromptu shelter for South's official photographer Cindy Nitsos. It was the least I could do considering how many of her photos I've used this season. In the second half, the umbrellas behind the goal South was attacking formed an impromptu terrace roof, albeit probably blocking the view of the people standing in the only covered area available at the ground. At least we weren't playing in Ballarat.

Leigh Minopoulos slips the ball past Pascoe Vale 'keeper
Stefaan Sardelic to open the scoring. Photo: Cindy Nitsos. 
It was cold last night - so cold that at one point in the match Brad Norton asked me to fetch a ball that had gone over the perimeter fence, because he couldn't feel his hands. Hey, at least I got two separate people praising my sterling effort of jogging five metres to my right. The players from both sides struggled in the conditions, but schoolboy errors didn't help either. Theodore's lack of movement towards a ball passed to him while we were in attack with plenty of numbers committed forward saw Pascoe Vale fly up the other end, and we were lucky not to fall behind. Leigh Minopoulos opened the scoring after receiving a through ball from Iqi Jawadi, picking his spot relatively early to give us the upper hand.

It was cold last night - so cold, that when Clarendon Corner's spit roast 'Ellas, ole!' chant failed to gain any traction, my response from the corner flag to the call from the other side of the goals was greeted with 'that doesn't count'. The weather was so bad, that when someone mentioned that only the brave had turned up, only the true supporters, I sabotaged the moment by saying only the stupid had turned up.

Former South keeper Stefaan Sardelic kicks out at
 Tyson Holmes. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.
It was cold last night - cold like a soccer scoreboard which doesn't reflect the ebb and flow of a game, only the trouncing that eventuated. Pascoe Vale were more than competitive in this game up until early in the second half, when Sardelic had collected the ball but also decided to apparently lash out at Tyson Holmes. I was right there next to the goals, but I'm going to go with being unsighted and only half paying attention, because when a keeper collects the ball isn't it the natural inclination of the spectator to switch off for a few seconds? Lujic took the penalty, slamming it down the middle. The substitute keeper got a hand to it, but there was no way that he was going to keep it out. Probably only Peter Zois playing an absolute blinder as he did in this game could have stopped it (and here's the video version, with legendary commentating and awful background music).

Sardelic gets sent off for kicking Holmes. Photo: Cindy Nitsos
It was cold last night - but not so cold that at 3-0 up, Lujic's death stare at not receiving a pinpoint cross from Minopoulos didn't drop the temperature even further. At 2-0 up Lujic had provided a neat cross for Minopoulos to score his second, but Leigh could not quite return the favour. Me, I blame Milos for not running to the right spot, as Leigh had done for his goal. At 3-0 up and now cruising, Jawadi managed to get himself a second yellow card and a sending off in a fracas of sorts near the benches. Whatever the cause of said argle bargle, it means Iqi will miss the next match. But by my calculations, they were also his fourth and fifth yellow cards for the season - so does that mean he'll miss an extra game on top of that? Someone said today that there is a provision for this which could see the two yellows converted to a red card, leaving Iqi on three yellows as before, and missing the one week. But it all depends on the ref's report and it's best for the club to investigate this thoroughly lest we do something stupid like play a suspended player.

It was cold last night - so cold that that car alarm which went off in the local neighborhood rang out for ten minutes towards the end of the game, and yet no one, not the car's owner, not a cranky neighbour, nor even a local street punk bothered to come out of their homes to silence it, either by either legitimate or dubious means. Missing the train back from Merlynston station by a minute, and hiding inside the bare passenger cubicle they call a shelter for 30 minutes didn't help alleviate the chill, my hands losing all colour, the glory of the win and being one step closer to a championship warming me up, at best, on a theoretical level.

Next game
Bentleigh away on Wednesday. At the time of writing, we were ten points ahead of Oakleigh with six games to play, though Oakleigh had not yet played their round 21 match away against Northcote.

New project - Victorian and Australian soccer library
I have no idea what the hell I'm doing with this, and how popular it may or may not be. But for the moment my frustration at the hoarding tendencies of some Australian soccer collectors, combined with the difficulty in sourcing much material readily for the non-academic Australian soccer fan, as well as finally being taught how to use my scanner without needing to go through Photoshop or associated programs (white space editing be damned), has prompted me to get started on this 'thing' which I've called a library for want of a better term.

At the moment it is of course a pretty sparse cupboard, but with your help I hope to be able to expand the collection. So far, I have some Victorian Soccer Federation yearbooks, a couple of annual reports and some miscellaneous items, but I'm hoping to add some club histories as well. My pseudo-anarchist leanings mean that my intention is for people to download and share the materials as widely as possible.

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, or so they say
For an explanation of what's going on here, refer to my 'final thought' from a couple of weeks ago. I really don't know what to make of this, especially since it's not in blog format yet. A classic case of the unheimlich if ever I saw one.

Around the grounds
Two mysteries solved
I had been coerced into agreeing to go to Hoppers Crossing vs Bell Park, but the coercer eventually coerced himself into doing some work (or something), so I was gloriously (or terrifyingly if you're into Sartre) free to choose my own entertainment. And thus I ended up at Altona East once again, who were taking on Westgate.

When last we caught up with Altona East, their coach had resigned after leading the team into the relegation zone. Despite not playing a game last week, a points deduction to Altona Magic for some indiscretion or other saw East' next door neighbour take their place in second last. Still, that was small relief when Westgate raced to a 2-0 lead early in this game, with the home team struggling to get anything going at all. But then thanks to a Westgate a keeper error - he dropped the ball - and a deflection from a speculative effort, East went into halftime level at 2-2. A backheeled goal made it 3-2 to East, and that's how it's ended up.

Now, as to the mysteries. While flicking through the 1985 Victorian Soccer Federation yearbook, I saw that East Altona were described as wearing yellow shirts, green shorts and yellow socks. How could this be? How could the club known as PAOK not be wearing black and white? Well, as it turns out, when the club started in 1979 - ostensibly as a junior club, playing out of Altona North Primary School - the folks who kicked things off didn't really have a very strong idea of what they wanted the club to be. PAOK was eventually adopted as a formal name, but it was a fairly informal name for a long time. The colours were chosen based on the fact that, 'Well, what colours should we choose?' 'Well we're in Australia, let's choose the Australian colours' and that's how it came to be.

Apparently the green and gold colour scheme lasted up until about 1985. Certainly by the late 1980s, East Altona is a black and white team. But what happened to Altona East in 1988? Apparently they bought out a mob called St Kilda, and played the second half of the 1988 season under that name. St Kilda (a post Hellas-Hakoah merger offshoot of St Kilda-Hakoah people?) disappears in 1989 before re-emerging briefly afterwards. So, a couple of questions answered and good win to PAOK to boot.

Also learned some info about the relationship between Yarraville Doxa (Glory), the demise of Melbourne Hungaria, and Hawksburn, which is probably best left to another occasion.

 - with thanks to Fred Dimitriou for the historical information.

Final thought
Even though I didn't get to meet him, a big thank you to Pascoe Vale president Lou Tona for his hospitality, it's very much appreciated.
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Sunday, 6 January 2013

What happened while we were on break...

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



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

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

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

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

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

Lastly, a mystery has also been apparently solved - the mysterious jersey which no one could identify was probably a women's team jersey. Check out 1:45 of this video.
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Friday, 30 November 2012

Queenslander Tyson Holmes joins South for 2013

Have we ever had a Tyson play for South before? The story below is from the Sunshine Coast Daily.

Fire dynamo moves on  by Steve Zemek

New signing Tyson Holmes playing for
Sunshine Coast Fire in the QSL Photo: Warren Lynam.
FOOTBALL: Tyson Holmes has always been a fish slightly too big for the Queensland State League pond.

A founding member and former captain of the Sunshine Coast Fire, he has been an integral part of a side that has dominated the competition for the past five years.

It would be an embellishment to say he has been the lone driving force behind the club's success, but the Fire's rivals will be glad to see the 25-year-old's back.

For years it has been a catchcry of his coaches and teammates: "Tyson should be playing in the A-League."

The attacking midfielder has been on the cusp before, trialling or training with several national clubs, including Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and the defunct Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury.

While his signing with Victorian Premier League side South Melbourne FC does not guarantee him a saloon passage into the top flight, it will move him from the periphery into the direct line of sight of many A-League clubs.

He stops short of saying his move is motivated by a desire to play in the A-League, but does acknowledge the Victorian competition is considered the strongest state league in the country and that he has a desire to prove himself.

"The Victorian Premier League is probably the strongest state league in Australia," he said yesterday.

"A lot of the players are coming through to the A-League from the Victorian Premier League. All the A-League sides keep an eye on the competition.

"It's a massive opportunity. I'm going to get down there and try to prove myself and get out of my comfort zone away from Queensland."

Holmes fielded offers from several Victorian clubs but signed with South Melbourne after being impressed with its set-up and professionalism.

The club is considered one of the most prestigious in Australia, winning four National Soccer League championships in the 1980s and '90s.

Holmes said it was a difficult decision to leave the Fire but he felt the time was right after the side's fourth grand final win in front of a home crowd against Whitsunday last month.

"Playing with the boys has been fantastic - they're a bunch of my best mates," he said.

"With (retiring forward) Shaun (Blackman) and a few others probably going away, the grand final at the end of the year, it just felt right - it felt like it was time to move on.

"It's amazing what we've achieved. It's been an extraordinary time, but it's time to move forward."

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