Another sunny day - Eastern Lions 0 South Melbourne 3

Turning up to Gardiners Creek Reserve for the first time since I went to watch Eastern Lions vs Mornington eleven years ago (also a Football Chaos match!), I was expecting not quite the worst, but rather, who knows what. It'd been a hell of a week. It'd been a hell of an eight weeks. Reports from both sides of the ledger last Saturday was that Eastern Lions had three or four of their better players out. Goodness knows why. When we were drawn against each other, they were winless. After a coaching change, they'd picked up a couple of wins. For us, there was no Nahuel Bonada nor Max Mikkola, apparently due to injuries, though I did spot the latter among the onlookers.

You don't often see the club's official Facebook
 account reply directly to our supporters.

Also among the onlookers was Oakleigh Cannons general manager and occasional unlicenced doctor, Aki Ionnas. There was also one George Katsakis, which given the rumours going around about him being a possible candidate for our vacant senior men's coaching job, got tongues wagging. Nevertheless, Occam's Razor suggests that his primary reason for being there was in his capacity as Bentleigh Greens coach, as the Greens were due to play the winner of Saturday's match after having beaten George Cross 3-2 earlier in the week. The secondary reason would have been that Katsakis gets to a lot of games anyway, albeit probably not so many outside the Greek community club scene.

Still, people like to talk, and there's much to talk about. For what it's worth, all that I was able to glean from the more vaguely reputable people I spoke to was that no decision had been made at the time; and, as it turns out, no decision has been made publicly by the time I posted this blog up. I'd also heard from someone else that Goran Lozanovski had been asked to indicate his interest, but he had declined. Harder to verify that in any way, but it's probably legit. 

As for the match itself, there really isn't much that can be said. We did not look utterly transformed, in the sense that we had rediscovered some old mojo. We were, nevertheless, the better team throughout the game, and at least looked up for the battle from the start. George Mells, Esteban Quintas' chief whipping boy this season, got a start and made his mark. An early goal settled whatever nerves there might have been, for me for no other reason than it looked like a normal goal - a turnover, a couple of nice passes, and a finish from the six yard box. Hardly revelatory stuff, unless you've been South Melbourne in 2025, where even by our set piece dependant standards of the past few seasons, we'd barely scored any goals from alternative outlets this year. 

Then the second goal, a square ball across the backline to no one, not centre back nor goalkeeper, and Rob Harding bagged his second after the goalkeeper's initial save of an earlier shot. Lions had put some balls into our box, but there was nothing particularly threatening about most of them. The second half was messier. harder to watch all round. An Andy Brennan shot hit the crossbar, came down, was cleared away and was then called a goal by the linesman. I'm not sure said linesman was in the best position to make that call, and neither the Eastern Lions bench, who were in even worse position, let alone the South fans behind that goal, seemed convinced that it had crossed the line. So it goes. Subs were made, and I assume we came through largely unscathed injury wise. Pleasant day out, but nothing to get too excited about, even if the ball was on the ground a lot more than we've become accustomed to.

Next game
Away to Green Gully on Friday night. It's going to be wet, Leigh and Tyson are still going to be coaching, and there's going to be fifteen million other games on at the same time. I just hope that Gully still do match programs.

How the other half live / If you know your history
While we're on the subject. I don't normally take much of an interest in matters A-League, but I do occasionally take a perverse interest in some of the off-field stuff that goes on there when it intrudes on my social media feeds. Recently there's been some stuff about Football Australia and Melbourne Victory banning certain individuals from the Melbourne Victory's North Terrace supporter group, which of course elicited another infamous supporter group press release missive. So far, no normal.

But while rubbernecking through the responses to a recent missive on the subject on the NT's Facebook page, I did come across this curious response

After initial situation of getting my hackles all ruffled had fizzled out, the comments struck me as missing the point. Northern Terrace, the biggest organised supporter group in Australian soccer history, being compared to the remnants (with the recent exception of Preston) of suburban soccer supporter groups on life support, is just wild. And Thunder and its fans not being punished? Thunder was mauled by Football Federation Victoria following the 2012 grand final which included the infamous rocket flare.

But more to the point - when was the last time a flare was actually lit at a South game by South fans? Not that I've been keeping a tally of such things on a spreadsheet anywhere (I only recently made a spreadsheet to keep tabs on my work from days and expenses for tax purposes), but the last flare lit by someone who was nominally a South fan that I can remember would have been ten years ago, when we played Heidelberg at Lakeside. That night also included an attempt by persons affiliated with the flare lighters (or possibly even just the same person) attempting to steal a Heidelberg banner. The result of those shenanigans? That person, and perhaps a few others, were banned by South Melbourne, A year later, the main person banned from that 2015 game turned up at Lakeside supporting Victory's NPL team against us, and being subsequently banned by Football Victoria for his part in the violence perpetrated by that group of Victory fans that attacked South supporters. On December 17th, 2022, said fan became Bucket Man. 

I suppose the main point of the condensed history above here is that, well, actually, South Melbourne has banned people for pyro and related shenanigans. Does banning people from attending your games stop them from doing stupid shit? There's never any guarantees on that. But can a club, by enforcement of said bans, at least make it so that when those people are moved on, they are at least no longer your problem? Definitely, at least to some degree. Naturally it's much easier to do this at a club which has not many fans to begin with than it is for one with over ten thousand most weeks. But if you're going to turn this into an old soccer/new football comparison (yawn), we should at least get the details right.

But again, to be clear - people like this have been a problem in Australian soccer for decades. They've been at turns banned and appeased, castigated and then used in promotional campaigns. They can spring up  anywhere, any time (good chance someone will pop up at South vs Preston that we don't and will never see again after that), and it's usually a matter of one of two outcomes - either they quickly get bored quickly of whatever club or scene they've attached themselves to, or they hang around long enough to eventually force someone's hand because one of them has cross some critical line of the law or good taste. Then it's up to not just governing bodies, or the clubs to deal with the issue, but also the fans nearest to them. It really has to be all three, and from the latter, that means a wholesale form of social ostracism. Unfortunately, history suggests that last aspect is the hardest to achieve, because there's usually enough of a rump within the relevant supporter base which tolerates or sympathises enough with the transgressive supporters, that the combined efforts of everyone else to get rid of these people just can't take hold.

Final thought
Being driven home from the game last week, and I've got my glasses off and just doomscrolling on my phone, when my driver, who has stopped at the lights at some intersection just outside the southern part of the CBD says "what the fuck", and I look up and there's some chick in hot pants on the pedestrian crossing juggling three balls. It takes all kinds, I guess.

The Old Adage - Melbourne Knights 3 South Melbourne 2

It's not how, it's how many. Truer words have never been spoken. OK, maybe they have, I'm not conducting an audit here. And now that I think about it, sometimes the how is as important than the how many, perhaps even more important. No, as important.

Anyway, three set piece goals, nearly identical to each other for the appalling decision making which lead to the cheap fouls gifting the opposition the chance to swing in dangerous balls, the appalling goalkeeping which saw Keegan Coulter get nowhere near two of the balls he came out for, and the appalling marking in a team with three or four centre-backs on the field at any given time. At the other end of the ground you had the farcical situation of attacking players being unwilling to shoot, or unable to put in a proper cross, or be in the right spot to receive a pass or latch on to a loose ball. It's like a variation of the Dr. Katz joke about the three most dangerous parts of flying, where our three biggest problems at the moment are attacking, defending, and everything else.

Having said all of that, I thought we actually played pretty well. Truth be told, Knights were rubbish after halftime, and ran out of gas well before full time, but still we dominated general play, looked good on both sides of the field, controlled the ball in the middle, and created many dangerous situations. It's probably the best we've played over a whole for several weeks. It didn't get us any points though, and that's all that matters at the moment, because as the arch-miserablists have been keen to remind everybody, we've pretty much played only the easy teams so far, and have all the leading sides to come.

Actually, and this isn't just contrariness on my part - or at least I hope it isn't - but the more I thought about the loss on Friday night over the weekend, the more optimistic I got about what's to come. As far as I could tell, we didn't pick up any new injuries, and with Andy Brennan due back this week, we at least have one more genuine starting eleven option. Marcus Schroen, even though far from my favourite player, is back in training. The return of Jake Marshall to the field means that we have more flexibility in how we line up defensively. And perhaps most importantly, after our troubles finishing games with any energy, we managed to run out the game with a decent head of steam.

But then I saw Brad Norton's post-match interview, and I felt like crap all over again. I know it was straight after the game when we all felt like crap, and while he said all the right words, the agony and despair of the situation was there for all to see. It's not the kind of thing that will be cured by a nice cup of tea and a biscuit, only by wins.

If I sound like I have nothing new to add it's because there's nothing really new to say at the moment. You try and find the motivation to come out and type up gibberish to a diminishing audience about a diminishing team (on and off field) without realising that maybe there's something more worthwhile to do with your time. Oh look, I missed three episodes of Batman on to watch us cough up a lead. OK, time to write some stuff, but there's double episodes of season one Law & order SVU on free to air. What about now? No, the lawn bowls is on the telly.

The past six or seven weeks have been like waking up from a wonderful dream. OK, so winning NPL titles and riding the crest of a ridiculous FFA Cup run is a pretty lame dream to have, but it's still better than this descent into awfulness. I mean, from a South perspective, who was even at the game on Friday? Heathens and pagans, that's who. The devoutly religious and the culturally religious were at Orthodox Good Friday services, others probably went to the footy, leaving some very strange people to cheer on the Hellas in its hour of need. I'm not judging, it's just the way it is.

So there we are, maybe ten to fifteen of us behind the goal, twenty at a pinch, trying to lift the team even though in our heart of hearts we don't think we've got a chance in hell of overhauling the 3-1 deficit. We're watching the game from the worst spectator vantage points deliberately out of spite, or to be on camera. So why are we there? Sense of duty? To what, the team, the club, the players, each other? Sport does this strange thing where you end up befriending or at least hanging around a whole bunch of people you'd otherwise have nothing to do with, and who would vice versa have nothing to do with people like me.

But general despair at being crap in an irrelevant league is one thing, but having to endure some of the other nonsense which you'd thought by now should have gone away, is quite another. No one is surprised when Knights fans bring out the "I'd rather be an Abo than a Greek" chant. It makes its appearance at just about every so-called derby game between us, and will in all likelihood be brought out again in every future contest between us. It's offensive on several fronts, but it's also sad to hear it in terms of its time capsule quality; like, have we not arrived yet in 2018, and are still actually in 1988? Is there a time-portal at the gates of the Somers Street car park?

There are three groups who could put an end to that chant but which probably won't. They are Knights fans themselves, the Knights committee, and FFV. If the first two choose not to, then you would think that FFV would, if not for any moral or governance dimensions associated with the racist chant, then at least from a public perception point of view. After all, the chants were made right next to the broadcast tower, from which FFV were conducting a live radio broadcast of the game. Or maybe FFV don't care because neither myself nor Mark Boric were at home to listen to the game online, and there was therefore no one actually listening to the live stream, in which case it's carry on as you were and as you always have for those Knights fans; and a reiteration from me to South fans to avoid similar behaviour if not because it's the right thing to do, then because you just know for sure FFV will take a different view on the matter.

But that's "just words", and as a very helpful random anti-political correctness police officer on Twitter informed me and some others, we shouldn't be policing other people's language, in a discussion which ended up discussing the non-existent anywhere in the world abstraction of freedom of speech. It wasn't even an interesting attempt to police our attempts to police other people; the least our out-of-the-blue friend could've done is put on the persona of Libertarian Cop for our amusement.

Of greater concern however were incidents of intimidation directed towards some of our fans after the end of the game. OK, Somers Street has never had the reputation of being the most family friendly sporting venue in Australian soccer, and if we're being honest Knights fans have often revelled in that reputation. But there are limits, no? Stealing scarves from opposition fans? Really? Gloat about the win and how awful we are as much as you like. No one's expecting gracious winners, and goodness knows South fans are hardly gracious losers, but we're living in a society for crying out loud.

Oh, and there was also this

Just got barked at by a dude wearing a macedonian flag outside knights stadium whilst calling me a fucking dog. #nplvic

— Davey Raff (@dvrf1878) April 6, 2018

which is some straight out of NSL 1995 shit, that strange period where some Preston fans would tag along to Knights games against Greek teams for the sake of causing trouble, because their team was relegated and they wouldn't get to the play the Bergers or us on a regular basis until "insert the year each of those clubs got relegated to whatever division Preston was dwelling in". If your hardcore manifesto is being the Chester to MCF's Spike in order to push around scarfers, are you even doing this ultras thing right?

Next game
A home game at last! Bentleigh Greens on Sunday afternoon. The curtain raiser will be the men's under 20s game.

The first home game of the season is when nearly everyone pays for and picks up their memberships. I can't say with any certainty that it will be an orderly and well run experience. If it's not, please don't take it out on the volunteers. Ditto for the paid and volunteer staff whatever the situation is in the social club with food service.

I don't know what kind of merchandise will be available on the day. I'm only interested in getting a pompom beanie, but will not cry into my corn flakes the next morning if they don't have any. You have my permission though to cry into your breakfast cereal of choice if you are displeased with the range of merchandise on offer.

Variation on a theme
The club, in the form of our NPLW or WNPL side (I don't really know which acronym is the right one, but I assume it's the former) was back at Lakeside for a match for the first time during the season proper in 2018. The NPLW team's form has been erratic: some wins, some losses, lots of goals for and against, and a tendency to only get going once they fall behind. The lineups have tended towards the young side, as they tend to do in that part of the season closest to the end of the W-League season, but the starting eleven against Geelong Galaxy was as far as I can tell our strongest for the season. Galaxy, last year's losing grand finalist, had also been in less than stellar form. So even if this match was hardly a slam dunk for us, surely we'd be favourites to win? Not so.

After a tepid start from both sides, things started going bad when we copped the opening goal of the game from a set piece. I mean, what is even the point of living? To be fair, after copping the goal the team woke up, as I was promised they would, and they equalised, but the goal to get ahead never came and eventually giving Geelong chances on a silver platter cost us. Young gun Sofia Sakalis was brought on with about twenty minutes to go to try and salvage the game, but things just got worse for us. Needing to chase the game, we found ourselves opened up the back and instead of making inroads we copped a third and fourth goal, to give Geelong a deserved win.

On the topic of Sakalis, she's very good with the ball at her feet - though some of those who watch her more than I do say she could try and pass it a bit earlier - but wow, those offsides on Saturday. In my many years of watching soccer, I've seen players caught offside repeatedly in games, I've seen players whose speciality is being off instead of on, and I've seen players, usually strikers, too lazy to work back onside; but I've never seen anything quite like Sakalis' wilful offsides on Saturday, where she would keep running forward ahead of the ball instead of trying to work off the shoulder of a defender or at least be behind the ball waiting for a cut back.

It reminded of Greek school soccer matches on asphalt where the offside did not exist, or like a small child running forward with joyous abandon. And then you remember that Sofia is actually only 15 years old, knee-high to a grass hopper. I mean, she was born after I graduated high school. How many times have I failed and what exactly have I achieved in those 15 odd years to be criticising to a teenager playing soccer? The one possibly meaningful thing I could hope to achieve in this lifetime  hangs in interminable balance as I await the results of my thesis. The last time I played soccer was on the old Lakeside in the shit kicker curtain raiser to the Clarendon Corner vs OM21 where I was gassed out after five minutes

Really, it was no criticism at all; just an observation of a soccer novelty, a muffled and anguished scream from someone who lives vicariously through athletes in order to make up for everything else that's gone wrong in my life. People like me are not fit to tie the laces of those playing any sport even semi-competently.

More unpleasant news
Someone said to me the other day that our attempt to outsource the operation of the fustal court hasn't gone well, with the private operator walking away from management of the court. Here's hoping that one of the other purported offers leads to something.

Final thought
Got some text message from someone saying they were having "blog withdrawals", but probably because I recently bought a new phone - and you know how transferring your numbers from your old phone to your new phone is the one thing technological advances haven't been able to properly solve - well, I had no idea who it was that was writing to me. Of course I could've just asked them, but then I wouldn't have been able to get out this paragraph.

Original Bingate artefact Wednesday

Apart from the main goal of (re)presenting) and presevring these materials, the words in this post is mostly me trying to fill out a page with text when the entries themselves - including the teacher's comment of 'nasty stuff Peter!' - speak for themselves.


Back in 2009, I put up this post which focused on how once upon a time (circa 2001), South Melbourne Hellas was still relevant enough that references to it in local Greek school course materials seemed entirely natural.

But of course, independent of any curriculum mandate, South Melbourne Hellas fans had been using South as part of their schoolwork for many years before that, and in my case also much later.

Some time ago a bloke posted these diary entries he'd written in primary school onto a Facebook group; I think it was the 'Bring Back the NSL' page. If true, this would be both ironic and hilarious because these images provide several strong arguments on why the NSL should not be brought back - unless you're into this kind of thing of course. Some people are.

I never got around to posting those here on South of the Border at the time, despite obtaining the permission of Peter Kougi to do so. So here they are, and a belated thanks to Peter for sharing them in the first place, and for allowing us to share them here as well. It's safe to say that these diary entries, especially the one with the bin, have already earned a significant amount of notoriety of their own volition.

We'll never know why I delayed putting these up, but the whole 'bingate' affair from this year's trip to Kingston reminded a lot of people of these images, so it seems fitting that we at South of the Border have eventually got around to uploading them, I am also reminded of Billy Natsioulas' story post from the blog's earliest days, which included reference to the 1993/94 Hellas-Croatia riot incident.

Life During Wartime - Oakleigh Cannons 1 South Melbourne 0

It was a week that started off badly, and ended much, much worse. In between those things, there was a soccer match of a moderately pleasing quality, at least in the first half.

The whole of the ball? Impossible to tell. Oakleigh goalkeeper John Honos
 manages to scoop out Liam McCormack's effort on goal, to the satisfaction
of the official - which is the end, is all that matters. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Oakleigh came into the game with players the calibre of Goran Zoric, Dimi Hatzimouratis and Shayan Alinejad sitting on the bench. It also looked like Adrian Chiapetta and Steve Pantelidis had played in the 20s game beforehand. Meanwhile for South, there was no Brad Norton (injury), no Nick Epifano (still suspended), no Kristian Konstantinidis (suspended for six months), and no Leigh Minopoulos (work commitments). Added to that was Marcus Schroen coming back from injury, and not looking exactly right, and things looked grim from the outset.

And yet we almost pinched the lead, after an error by John Honos in goal for Oakleigh saw Liam McCormack's (necessarily rushed) shot from range hit the crossbar. From a distance it looked like it was going miles wide or over, only to fall at the last second - but not by enough. McCormack also had the misfortune of having his header near the goal line scooped off the line - or from behind the line - by Honos, denying him a goal and South the lead. It was rather reminiscent of McCormack's late effort against Avondale earlier this season, where he was denied dramatically by Chris Oldfield.

They were our best chances for the game. Not that we didn't get into dangerous areas - especially in the first half - but that killer cross or final ball let us down - which is as much a sign of poor confidence as it is skill. For their part, even though they hadn't won a league game up to that point, Oakleigh's confidence was very high, and they had shots rattle off the bar from range as well as shots cleared off the line. Overall, Nikola Roganovic had the more serious interventions to make of the two goalkeepers.

The South Melbourne women continued on their winning ways, defeating
Southern United 3-1 out at Langwarrin. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

While several people have commented that the standard was poor, especially by us, I thought the first half was the most skillful and entertaining half of soccer I'd seen all season. It was open, end to end stuff, with daring play. We relied more on the counter, and looked good until the final ball, and sometimes the one before that - the absence of Norton and Minopoulos on the left being keenly felt.

The second half from our point of view was not as good. What were in the first half long balls sent into space and promising numerical situations, subsided into long balls because of no idea what else to do. Or so it seemed. And then Oakleigh's goal came, from Dean Piemonte in the most frustrating manner possible. Well known for his long range thunderbolts, Piemonte was lining up for such a shot, and with South hearts in mouths, a South defender rushed up to block. Unfortunately, because that defender slid down to make his tackle, Piemonte deftly evaded the challenge and chipped the ball over Roganovic and under the crossbar. It was an outrageous effort, and demonstrative of the difference between one team with four points and another team with four points up to that point.

Our chance to get back in the contest went badly wrong towards the end of the game, when a blocked long range shot inadvertently sent Oakleigh's Nate Foster into space, and threatening to go one on one with Roganovic. Luke Pavlou, playing in the left back role, did well to keep up with Foster, but got tangled up with the star striker, receiving a red card for his efforts. It seemed a very harsh decision on first glance, as if Foster had initiated the contact. The replays have not convinced me of Pavlou's guilt, and that at best it was an unfortunate tangle of legs that was no one's fault.

While giving up chances on the counter in our quest to go forward and try and snare an equaliser, it's not like we didn't have the Oakleigh defense scrambling, pressing right until the end. Last year something may have come off - this year, there's no way it would. It wasn't helped by sloppy attempts at play by substitutes Andy Kecojevic and Gavin De Niese - the latter's late attempt at goal was poor in both execution and decision making, being a very long way out and taken while being completely off balance.

In the current situation, with losses mounting up - especially considering our difficulty to put goals on the board - even well fought losses are little consolation. Suspensions and injuries haven't helped, but if that was all that was wrong with the team, you'd just ride out a difficult period and move on. Some have suggested that playing so many games away has hurt, and while it probably hasn't helped, most of those grounds have been in good nick as befits the early part of the season. I'm wanting to believe that there's a way out of this mess, and that it will come soon - but each week that passes, whether we put in the hard yards or not, sees us fall short, with the exceptions of the St Albans and Eastern Lions games.

My frustration is gradually becoming disconsolation.

The lowest common denominator
After the game, there was the usual hyper-negative banter being made by a small minority that the team 'should take their shirts off' and that they 'hadn't even tried'. Whatever one's thoughts on the usefulness of such commentary, on Friday night it was daft in its own right because the team had clearly busted a gut. It was half a team out there, with Schroen on one leg, down to ten men, fighting until the end. I get that people have different points of view on a game, but I can't for the life of me see how one could come to the conclusion that the team didn't put in a huge effort on Friday night.

Unfortunately, the situation moved on from mere banter to a brawl among our own fans. Despite being in the vicinity, I couldn't tell how it escalated so quickly and after that, who was doing what to whom. There has been discussion about what kicked things off properly and who did what in other places - but I am not going to speculate on that. All I will say on the matter is that apart from being disgusted and distraught watching the scene unfold, I give credit to those involved who tried to deescalate the situation, and those who tried to restrain those who were intent on violence.

Because of the seriousness of some of the allegations, I will not be allowing any comments on this post, nor any further comments on this issue in any other comment section of any post. This is especially so because most people choose to post here anonymously, and I have no way of verifying who is who. If you did witness the events and wish to make your view of it known, the best thing for you to do is contact the club directly and provide a statement.

Next game
After being drawn at home in the FFA Cup against Monbulk Rangers, some of our supporters were looking forward to both a relatively easy passage to the next round, and the chance to see a home game with the newly finished social club as an added attraction.

Then the club decided to reverse the fixture, which will be now hosted by Monbulk on Tuesday at their recently redeveloped ground. That did not go down well with South fans, including the self-appointed nomarch of the South Melbourne Hellas Public Transport Faction.

But once one calmed down one could, even if only begrudgingly, see why the club had done this. My guesses are:

1. Avoid mucking up carefully laid social club launch plans. 
2. Get the game out of the way.
3. Get the Peoples Champ's five game spitting suspension over quicker.
4. Have one day where the team don't have to look for a training venue.
5. Goodwill gesture to lower league club.

It's not an ideal situation for our supporters, but if this is the worst thing that happens this year, we'll be counting ourselves lucky.

This week's annoyances - wobbly kickoff times
The Oakleigh game started twenty minutes late. I do not know why it started twenty minutes late. What is the point of having a scheduled kickoff time if it is going to be wantonly disregarded? This is of course especially bad for people like me who depend on public transport to get to most matches, and for whom a delay of such magnitude can lead to cascading delays in getting home. it's also not the first time this has happened this year, with me personally experiencing significant delays at five games already this season. Twice at South games (Heidelberg and Oakleigh), twice at Chaplin Reserve, and once yesterday at Castley Reserve. I don't understand what's made this most basic of requirements an issue all of a sudden in 2017.

This week's annoyances - the passive offside rule

Just get rid of it completely and go back to the hard and fast offside rule. This newest interpretation of passive offside is a nightmare for everyone involved.

The dialectics of terrace banter

Former South championship player Iqi Jawadi was playing for Oakleigh, which created debate among some as to whether he should be booed or not, including whether he was worth it. The situation was resolved by people booing him and then shouting 'worthy!', which seemed to be the best solution.

'Bumgate' - Konstantinidis banned for six months

Kristian Konstantinidis has been banned for six months for sticking his finger up a St Albans player's arse. That means his season is effectively over. I don't know if the length of the punishment is warranted - how do you even make a judgment on something like this? - but comparing it to a bad tackle or a fight or any one of the many other things that may happen during a match doesn't help clarify things.

Apart from losing one of our most important players due to a completely unnecessary act - one which I think most would struggle to justify - I have been disappointed by another aspect of the fallout, and that has been the targeting by some of our fans of Dion Fountas, the photographer who captured the moment. The justifications for targeting Fountas have been bizarre. A match photographer takes a photo of something that happens during a match, a match being played in front of hundreds of people - and somehow he's been targeted under some nonsense idea of censorship, and even been threatened with being banned from Lakeside.

Mind you, many of those same people targeting him now were happy to make use of Fountas' photos from the Victory game last year, praising him for taking and uploading his photos. Those same fans were happy to send videos to the commercial networks of the Victory hooligans. The same thing has happened in regards to radio broadcasts of games. When MFootball narrated the Victory incident, and made it abundantly clear to the audience that it was Victory fans at fault, our fans were stoked. But if the shoe is on the other foot, will some of us take umbrage of coverage of our own bouts of misbehaviour? Is it the act that is the problem, or merely the perpetrator? If it's the latter, it becomes hard to legitimately take the moral high ground on anything afterwards - you've effectively made it an issue of self-interest or self-preservation.

Aside from all of that, the idea that it was a brain fade by Konstantinidis doesn't seem right to me - this doesn't seem to be the kind of thing you do on a whim. If it was, he was horribly unlucky to be caught in the act in the only time he had ever attempted the maneuver. Of course, when the story was published by some major media outlets, the comments went through the roof. Probably not the kind of metrics the club was looking for though.

Social club news
Put it in your diary: 2017 SMFC Jersey Night, April 7th, 7:00PM. Venue...

THE SOUTH MELBOURNE HELLAS SOCIAL CLUB.

Contact the club directly if you wish to go. If you can't make it or choose not to, there'll be a family day the day after.

Around the grounds
An orange ticket for the man with the orange hair.
Westgate's pavilion is being torn down and replaced with a new one, so in 2017 they're playing their home games at Castley Reserve, which probably hasn't senior soccer for a very long time. Nevertheless, it's good for me, because it's within two minutes walking distance of my place. Yaraville took a 3-0 lead into the break, and looked to be cruising past a borderline inept Westgate. The second half saw Yarraville take its sweet time finishing the game, waiting until Westgate had pulled two goals back before making sure of it with a 4-2 win. I didn't win the raffle.

Final thought
This was one of those weeks where I regret having part of my self-esteem attached to the fortunes of this club.

Trouble Every Day - South Melbourne 1 Melbourne Victory Youth 0

Nick Epifano puts his body on the line. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Like the midweek game against Altona Magic, this was one of those games where we had little to gain other than the win. In the cup game, it was because we were playing a team two divisions below us; yesterday, because we were playing a youth squad of an A-League franchise, one that after a good start to the season has started trailing off and begun flirting with the relegation zone.

Aside from being top of the table playing against a side holding few expectations, there was also the spectre of it being a South Melbourne vs Melbourne Victory game. So even if the opposition we were facing was at best a proxy form of a 'rival' we've never played and may well never play in a meaningful match (except perhaps in an FFA Cup match), there was a sort of 'edge' to this game for reasons beyond the three points on offer.

That we came racing out of the blocks like a bunch of Andy Brennans was both pleasing and worrying, because one knew what one of the consequences of that would be. So while I'm sure we were all glad to see the necessary intensity on display, the fade out in the last 15 minutes or so saw us crawl instead of dash to the finish line, giving Victory's talented youngsters more opportunities towards the end of the game to snare an equaliser.

Milos Lujic makes a somewhat ambitious appeal for a penalty, as he
tumbles over Victory's keeper Spinella. Photo: Dion Fountas.

In a very free flowing game - the officials seemed to prefer to see play continue, letting play run where other referees may have stopped play - we played a high line, and generally played it well enough to catch the visitors offside on countless occasions, including one occasion which otherwise would have resulted in a goal.

But the real story of the game was the huge amount of missed chances by us. We hit the woodwork probably three or four times, had shots fly agonizingly wide or high, and saw ourselves occasionally second guessing ourselves. I'm going to put it down to the implied (or is that inferred?) pressure of the occasion. Symptomatic of that wasteful play in the final third was the People's Champ, who otherwise had a good game, but whose shooting was dire.

After getting injured during the pre-match warm up against Altona Magic midweek, Kristian Konstantinidis was absent again yesterday, with Tim Mala playing at right back, and having one of his best games for a long time. Otherwise the team was more or less back to its usual early season look sans Iqi Jawadi, with Marcus Schroen and Matthew Millar both starting, and Leigh Minopoulos coming off the bench. Jawadi wasn't missed in this game as much as he has been in others, as the youth of our opponents saw even the diminutive Mathew Theodore provide an effective hustling and bustling performance, with our superior strength being a major factor in the outcome and our dominance of general play.

Nick Epifano and Tim Mala square up to a Victory player towards
the end of the game. Photo: Dion Fountas

Despite a couple of moments towards the end of the match where Victory were able to line up shots from the edge of the box, South defended well at the end, albeit having visibly tired. After having five consecutive matches where an opposition player was red carded, it looked like we'd fail to make it to six until one of our boys - I think it was Minopoulos - was hacked down on the wing in front of the South bench. Somehow the offending Victory player only saw yellow, but that incident saw it become the turn of the players to get involved in a melee.

So after all that transpired yesterday, for the players and coaching staff at least there was the relief that we'd got the win and maintained our position of outright top spot for another week. For nearly everyone else, the result unfortunately withdrew into the background due to the rest of the evening's events.

Trumpet Troubles
Before we even got to the stage where the game was marred by the actions of the visiting Victory hooligans, Clarendon Corner had its own issues to deal with, with the trumpet (along with other instruments) apparently being banned for the match as part of an arrangement between South Melbourne, the State Sports Centres Trust, Melbourne Victory and the Northern Terrace. Silly organisers though forgot to tell the people closest to the trumpet - that being Clarendon Corner and its current trumpet player - that this was the case. So after about half an hour, and after the trumpet had already been played several times, we were informed that we were not allowed to play the trumpet as part of an agreement none of us had been privy to. This understandably upset the mood in Clarendon Corner, with some continuing to chant but others losing heart.

As far as I'm concerned though, the fact that the trumpet came up as part of security negotiations is little short of a betrayal of the history and culture of South Melbourne Hellas, and that would be the case even if we were consulted on the matter. The famous trumpet call has been a part of South Melbourne Hellas since Lefteri brought it with him from Greece in the late 1970s. Now that Lefteri is no longer at games, it has been played by Bruno for some years now, with another fan known as Stathi performing a vocalised version when Bruno is absent. It is the sound of our success. It is a link to Middle Park and to our storied past. It is arguably the most iconic tune and chant combination in Australian soccer, at club or national team level; so much so that when a Heart fan on their forum attempted to argue the case for using it as their own chant, he was quickly shut down by his fellow supporters. It is an indispensable and irreplaceable part of who we are. The actions of our board on this matter are not just a betrayal of those who stand in Clarendon Corner, but a betrayal of everything South Melbourne Hellas stands for. To their credit, the board seems to have admitted that they've cocked up in this matter big time - here's hoping that the trumpet never comes into question ever again at our home ground.

Soon enough however, the playing of a trumpet would become but a footnote to the genuinely criminal behaviour that was to follow.

Two Melbourne Victory hooligans a long way from the area of the
stadium designated for them on Sunday. Photo: Dion Fountas.

Where there's a will...
In the lead up to the game, there was a lot of talk around the place about how big the crowd would be. Some clearly went over the top and stated that we'd get 5,000, ignoring the fact that it was a Victory youth team and not their senior team; that it was a long weekend, with people possibly going away; that there were junior matches on; and that there was even an AFL match on between two Victorian sides which would overlap with our game (and which attracted an attendance of just under 60,000). There was also the fact that, apart from putting up notices on the security arrangements for this game, South had seemingly refused to promote the clash as in any way being a notable affair. At the other end of the scale, there were those who thought that the crowd would be fairly small, and in the end they were the ones proven right, with a crowd of probably just under a thousand, with about 750 in our stand and 250 in the other stand.

The segregation issue split the opinions of supporters on both sides, with those against it worrying about image, whether it was even worth it and in some cases thinking that no great amount of Victory supporters would attend, based on the small numbers which have attended NPL games involving Victory in 2016. This turned out to be half true. The overall Victory support was small, but they had enough active supporters to fill up the small bay closest to Gate 1, easily outnumbering the active support in Clarendon Corner, as one would expect. For most of the game up until the violence occurred, the two sides chanted without much incident (apart from the trumpet fiasco) or even focus on each other, except Victory at one stage chanting 'fuck South Melbourne'.

In the early part of the second half, several Victory fans in casual gear emerged in front of Clarendon Corner, attempting to steal one of more of the banners hanging on the fence on the stairwell. There was a theory that they had perhaps found a way to enter through the service gate in between the Hellas stand and the 1926 stand, but a more plausible theory seems to be that they exited the ground from their end at halftime, and then used pass-outs to re-enter the stadium via Gate 2. If this is the case, then there was clearly a failure by all those responsible for organising the event to set up different coloured pass-outs for the different parts of the ground. The other, most plausible possibility, is that the people responsible for kicking off the whole scenario had been in our stand incognito from kickoff.

The Victory supporters who attempted to steal the banner were engaged in battle by South fans from Clarendon Corner and other parts of our stand, with the South fans holding their own, thankfully receiving minimal injury - and as someone who abhors violence, avoids violence and has no talent for violence, this is not an attempt to seek some sort of vicarious glory; it's more a relief that none of our mates got seriously hurt. Apart from fists, Victory's supporters also threw cleaning products,

@GiannakisPaul Yeah the animals ran over to try and steal a banner... threw chemicals at our fans from a cleaners cart. @gomvfc is a joke.

— Cindy N (@cindyn) April 24, 2016

one of which, apparently a bottle of bleach, hit a small child. There were also several South fans taking photos and video footage, one of whom was spat at by a Victory supporter. Hopefully all those fans pass along their footage to the club (reports are that this is already happening).

The Victory supporters failed to take possession of the banner or banners they had attempted to steal. Security was incredibly slow to react to the brawl, adding further to the calls of some South supporters for South Melbourne to employ a security firm other than Blue Thunder. Later, after Blue Thunder boss Kosta walked past Clarendon Corner, he was jeered as both an outpouring of frustration with Blue Thunder stretching back some years now, as well as Blue Thunder's failure to properly and promptly deal with yesterday's brawl. While even competent and plentiful security can have problems with handling incidents like these if the scale of a riot becomes too large, so much of what passes for security at NPL venues is little more than security theatre - wholly appropriate with the crowds (and kinds of crowds) most clubs get, but lacking in effectiveness when something serious actually happens, or needs to be prevented.

As the fight continued, with Victory fans crossing over the concrete arc behind the western goal end to help their mates, emptying the bay they had occupied, the game paused for perhaps a minute, but then continued. The question then for me is how was the game not abandoned? Back in 2010 at the last game at the old Lakeside, when South fans invaded the field after Carl Recchia's late equaliser and interfered with Heidelberg's players, the referee on that day rightly abandoned the game. So again I ask, why not here, when the circumstances were far worse? Considering the fact that Victory fans were interfering with the normal operation of a game by kicking balls, dislodging and launching a corner flag (not new behaviour for them in the NPL), and that the ball boys had to scurry away, the fact that the game continued is astonishing to me.

Eventually the Victory fans responsible for the brawl and pitch invasion either left or were ordered to leave by security. A helicopter circled overhead for a bit, and police eventually arrived after everything had died down.

We welcome @VictoriaPolice including the #polair chopper to Lakeside.. Things settled down now. pic.twitter.com/mt8f6ZEaBy

— NPL Vic Football (@NPLVic_Football) April 24, 2016

People were asked to spread the word that South fans would be kept behind after the game for ten minutes in an effort to avoid any other incidents after the game. Reports emerged after the game that the Victory hooligans had started vandalising cars in the car park that had South stickers on them. I don't know if this is true, nor how widespread it was if this did happen, but the car of one of South's photographers was reported as being among those vandalised.

We were fortunate enough to at least be able to let off some steam thanks to Milos Lujic's goal, which acted as a release valve for some of the tension

What's the punishment?
The calls for punishment have been coming on strong, even from among other Victory fans. The question is though what is the most appropriate punishment for those involved? For the individuals involved it seems clear cut - bannings all round. But will this include the South fans who were part of the brawl? Even if the court of public opinion is almost entirely on our side on this matter, that may not count for much at an FFV tribunal hearing. And if those involved from Victory's side of the matter include persons who have already been placed on FFA's ban list, then what good will another banning do? Is this where the effects of Lakeside's status of being included under the Major Events Act kicks in? Related to that, one wonders what FFV will make of the security arrangements at Lakeside and our responsibility for that. Again, the court of public opinion is one thing, FFV justice another.

Docking points from Victory's NPL youth side, whether fair or not, would be in line with punishments dealt to community run clubs at this level, as has been the case in recent times for Heidelberg, Sunshine George Cross and North Sunshine Eagles. And yet the Victory supporters who kicked off the violence yesterday probably couldn't give a toss about the fate of Victory Youth's 2016 NPL season. So does punishing those players actually make any difference? Does even a monetary penalty make a difference to such a profitable entity like Melbourne Victory? Is the appropriate course of action to actually target the senior team in the A-League? Not that NPL point deductions and fines are inappropriate in this instance, but a punishment for the senior team (which may have a suspended point sentence hanging over its head) may be the thing to push the public opinion of ordinary Victory supporters and Victory's hierarchy to finally disassociate themselves from these groups. It is perhaps wishful thinking.

Next round Victory's NPL squad are due to host Melbourne Knights at Epping Stadium. Again, without wishing to glory in or revel in such things, MCF - Knights' active support - have a far more fearsome reputation than Clarendon Corner. Epping Stadium, too, is far less capable of adequately hosting a match with these kinds of security concerns, both within the venue but also in its car park. One wonders if it will even be open to the public.

The failures before these failures
This is not the first violent or anti-social incident that this group of Victory fans has been involved in, especially when you broaden the scope to beyond these particular individuals to the overall history of this and related Melbourne Victory groups. There have been incidents at friendly games that Victory has been involved in at state league grounds. There have been incidents at National Youth League games. There have been incidents on the streets, and there have been at least three prior pitch invasions and/or corner flag thefts during Melbourne Victory NPL matches over the past year and a half.

A local, suburban club would not have been able to get away with these actions and would have faced sanctions directed at the club. Whatever has been done to prevent this kind of behaviour by this minority of Victory fans - and there would be plenty across the soccer fraternity that would say that not nearly enough has been done - it clearly has not done the trick. So, it's time for the governing bodies to stop pussy footing around with these groups. Acknowledge that there is a problem, that the problem can't be negotiated with - because negotiations for these types are a justification of their status - and deal with the problem once and for all.

It is a problem that has blighted Australian soccer for so long, but one which has only grown as the numbers of supporters have grown at the top level of soccer in this country. But because the sport is now mainstream, too many people have fallen into the trap of finding excuses for this kind of sordid behaviour, 'Oh, at least it's not ethnic anymore'. So what? So it was only the veneer of ethnicity that was the problem, and not the violence and anti-social behaviour? 'They're also AFL fans'. That may be so, but would they pull off such stunts at an AFL game? No, they act out in our game, making it our problem. 'They're not real football fans'. Well, they think they're football fans, they go to football matches - you may not like it, but they are part of football's supporter spectrum. 'Boys will be boys/you'd kill the atmosphere without them'. This is the lamest excuse of all, because it is here that we get people coming in to defend these hooligans who should know better. We've spoken about this many times before, but Mike Cockerill's apologetics are as good as example as any.

Perhaps the most incredible thing to come out of the incident, and maybe the match as a whole, is that no flares were lit - let alone tossed into the crowd - though people were packing them.

@smfcmike @gomvfc fan that tried throwing a punch in my direction can contact me to collect his flare, he dropped it pic.twitter.com/oVdG92ZnGR

— Tony Margaritis (@sthmel) April 24, 2016

But what does it all mean?
The mere fact that Victory has a team playing at the NPL level creates a level of confusion about who and why someone would go out of their way to support this team, apart from friends and family of the players. Victory was set up in an era of 'one city, one team', meaning that by default and whether one consented or not, Victory was attempting to represent you as a Victorian soccer fan. Then Heart/City came along and muddied the waters somewhat, but the model was, at least on the surface of things, set up like this - two teams set up to appeal firstly to already existing soccer followers and participants in Melbourne. While there is and will be scope for attracting the more generalist sports fan, most of the A-League's support probably comes from people who are already keen soccer fans

An extreme and understandable reaction from many South supporters - including me yesterday, while the adrenaline was working its magic - is that if you wanted proof that simultaneously being both a South fan and a Victory fan was incompatible (at least in terms of those who had been South first), than you needed to look no further than the attitude of the Victory hooligans, both in their attempts to steal the banners and cause general mayhem, as well as the anti-South chants - and for those of a Greek background, add to that the allegations that there were racist comments directed to South Melbourne from some of Victory's supporters.

And yet, just like it wasn't fair to tar all supporters of ethnic clubs for the bad behaviour of a minority of supporters, so it also isn't fair to blame the majority of A-League fans for the bad behaviour of a minority of their fans. For those A-League fans who still bring up the ethnic violence after eleven years, those people are not even worth bothering with - they made up their minds long ago, and nothing will change. I think most A-League fans, many of whom also support state league clubs, are fully aware now if they weren't before that the 'ethnic violence' line is bullshit. Apart from a few more fringe and combustible elements online, most of the discussion about South, ethnic clubs and the A-League I think has come a long way. And let's not forget, for many South fans the dream (however unrealistic) is to get into the A-League and play against teams like Victory and Adelaide United and whoever else and be in situations where our supporters mingle and sit together throughout a stadium without issues.

There is also the question of the so called 'ethics' of being a casual fan. At least in terms of my understanding, it does not include attacking scarfers or people wearing colours - which includes almost all of Clarendon Corner. Beyond that though, why would they even bother? Apart from its own press releases, and occasional flashes of aspiration which have fizzled out as quickly as they started, South Melbourne has not been relevant to top-flight Australian soccer for over a decade. The supporter numbers are small, our future prospects for getting out of this league vague at best. Neither does Clarendon Corner have any serious reputation as some sort of brawling and scrapping machine. And yet these Victory hooligans thought it was worth their effort to try, despite the fact that many Victory supporters were or are still South Melbourne fans. Does it mean that the South name and a couple of small banners still mean something? And if so, what?

Melbourne Victory fans crossing over from the northern
stand towards the southern stand. Photo: Dion Fountas.

Various other comments and reactions
MFootball covered the game yesterday, and have provided an audio extract of their view of the brawl and Lujic's goal as the events unfolded. The 'Cold War' comment is also an interesting way of looking at the 'rivalry' between two clubs who have scarcely come close to playing each other.

Goal Australia is also reporting that FFV will be conducting an investigation.

If you want to read a simple and direct version of what happened, then I think it will be hard to go past SoccerLogic's post from this thread on FourFourTwo.

I was at the match and want to be clear. 

There were about 250 people watching on the Victory side. Families, general and active fans. There was a large number of active fans who clearly came just to look for trouble and they did. At half time their bay emptied and about 10 minutes into the second half they pulled off what was obviously a pre-planned move. Using passouts about 5-10 dickheads entered the south side and a little into the second half walked towards the South Active fans. The guys jumped the gun and went to nick the South banner, a South fan jumped into grab it back and then the Victory fans who snuck in jumped him. This was during play IN THE STADIUM. Victory active fans ran across the athletics track, some jumped the fence and started throwing punches, others ran to the side and threw anything they could find - bottles and cleaning supplies. 

There were kids as young as 5 in the South Active area and families the next bay over. After the match cars with South stickers were vandalised and the stadium was locked down for 10 minutes after the match while police searched the areas to secure the car park. 

The chanting between the two clubs was typical of a derby match. Every single week South's fans chant to 'score a fucking goal'. This is absolutely. entirely the fault of violent dickheads who claim to support Victory and the under staffed, under prepared security who let these thugs into the wrong stand without first asking to see a membership. 

These dickheads are going to cost the club a points deduction, a hefty fine and possibly see the team relegated - not to mention the prospect of locking out the remainder of Victory matches. It's not bad enough that the team's playing against men, they need to put up with these so called 'fans' to stay up in the NPL.

Ian Syson gave me a ring while I was being given a lift back to Sunshine station. This meant that we had to pause the Prince greatest hits compilation that we had playing on the radio, but Syson makes up for his unintentional gaffe with this tweet,

Yes. Loved the way they sprinted from the opposite grandstand . . . Oh you don't mean that https://t.co/SAsbiqOhER

— Ian Syson (@IanSyson) April 24, 2016

There was also some dark humour,

@pavlaki1969 @PaulMavroudis @Ari_Charilaou @smfcmike @Boycey1105 Shocking, usually ethnic cleansing not cleansing ethnics by New Football

— Mark Boric (@MarkBoric) April 24, 2016

the absurd,

@PaveJusup this is why Sydney should stop playing football against the outer colonies and have its own pro league.

— Shaun Mooney (@ShaunMooney11) April 24, 2016

and South trending for the wrong reasons,

#smvmv is now trending in #Melbourne https://t.co/X4NwPDkXs9

— Trendsmap Melbourne (@TrendsMelbourne) April 24, 2016

and an appearance on Channel 9 news which placed all the blame on the North Terrace, including video footage (shot in portrait instead of landscape). Twitter reactions, Dion Fountas' photos and MFootball's radio commentary. The segment also featured a short statement by Melbourne Victory, but nothing by South Melbourne (one has since been released - see comments section). Somewhat inexplicably, the segment showed no footage of the 2005 Preston game and its violent scenes. The report was, by the standards of reporting on soccer violence in Australia by commercial television networks, fairly reasonable, although the concerns of those people - both South fans and non-South fans - that there was little to be gained for South by having this footage and report come out at all has some merit to it.

Unfortunately, there was also the SMFCMike led ranting, which probably did more harm than good no matter how good it felt to vent one's spleen. So it goes. I understand the desire to stick the boot in and express a level of schadenfraude, but the way some people have gone about it is counter productive. Despite that, I get the motivation behind the way people have come out attacking the dominant narrative, even those who aren't South fans but who still understand the feeling. You deal with decades worth of being stigmatised as being troublemakers, of holding the game back - and all of a sudden here is the proof right there in front of you that Australian soccer violence is not an ethnic issue, but a violence issue - that ethnicity is just a smokescreen, and not a very a good one. Of course you'd feel like you'd want to go in with both barrels.

On the Victory forum, the overwhelming response seems to be against the Victory hooligans, being as appalled as anyone else at the behaviour. There have been a small amount of apologists, but they are in the extreme minority, including those who'd prefer that Channel 9 didn't get hold of the footage; but hiding the problem, pretending it doesn't exist or claiming that the incident was not as serious as people have made out will help no one who wants to solve this ongoing problem. For their part the North Terrace has spent a good deal of yesterday and today deleting comments off its Facebook page; its Twitter page has also not been active.

There was a rumour going around that SSCT representatives were so angered by the events that they'd refuse Victory any future access to Lakeside Stadium for their youth and maybe even women's games. If that rumour is true, than I hope that they follow through on that promise.

Blue and white, it's in your blood
Although I think the scenes were distressing for all those who witnessed them - and especially those who found themselves in the closest proximity to the violence - for some the most disheartening aspect was seeing at least one young ex-South fan, one whose blood was thought to course royal blue and white, among the group which crossed over from the northern side. These are strange times we're living in.

Next match
Avondale Heights on Friday night, in the first of two consecutive trips to Somers Street. One wonders how many South fans will be there, seeing as many will be at Orthodox Good Friday services. In these situations, I thank God I'm an atheist.

Match programmes
Thanks to The Agitator, we've added a whole bunch of South Melbourne home match programmes from season 1997-1998, nearly completing that season. There's also some Carlton fanzines and a Northern Spirit fanzine in the library, for those interested in those kinds of things.

Around the grounds
Sitting in the royal booth
Of all the possible football options on Friday night, I decided against Pascoe Vale vs Bentleigh because of its distance; against Port Melbourne vs Avondale out of some indistinct spite; and ended up choosing Melbourne Knights vs Oakleigh for not much more reason other than it was the closest of the three games and there was an intangible something to be said for the fact that this match would be the less important of the consecutive matches these two teams would be playing - with an FFA Cup match due this week at Oakleigh. I managed to persuade one of the parking lot attendants to let this 'reputable member of the media' (close to actual words) to waive the $3 parking fee - she's surely getting the sack - and proceeded to spend that savings bonanza on a can of Coke.  Goodbye parking fees, hello diabetes. Parking myself in the stand behind the Knights bench, I soon found myself surrounded by half of Knights' starting eleven, either injured or suspended. The game then followed a very predictable path, as Oakleigh dominated the first half leading 3-0 at the break, despite the Gus Tsolakis mantra of moving the ball forward slower than necessary. Almost nothing of note happened in the second half until Knights pulled one back.

Final thought
Apologies to all those who have waited patiently for this post. I'm not sure I have done the issue justice, but hopefully by making reference to some other sources, you'll have got some value out of it.

Dimness - Altona Magic 0 South Melbourne 3

Disclaimer
I was playing the part of one of South's designated supporter marshals during this fixture.

Prologue

Find a calm lake and wait for the twilight in silence! There, existence will visit you with all its magnificence! The existence of the Existence can best be felt in the presence of dimness and in the absence of crowds and noises!

 - Mehmet Murat Ildan

First Intermediate Period
Things started off dim at Paisley Park last night,

Very, very dark here at Paisley Park. #amvsm #FFACup pic.twitter.com/76ZDLkSsjS

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 20, 2016

then proceeded to get darker,

Now even darker! #amvsm #FFACup pic.twitter.com/CmcBB4ENIl

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 20, 2016

and all this before the game had even kicked off - a kick off which was delayed a few minutes because of the lights needing to be turned back on and get up to the maximum lux setting, or something like that. As I remarked to a one time contributor to the blog, it was a bit early for Δεύτε λάβετε φως for the mostly at least nominally Orthodox Christians in attendance.

Finally underway... but mostly Magic, not so much us.
Even with the lights on though, things would just continue to head down a murky path for the rest of the evening. For example, Kristian Konstantinidis was named in the starting line up,

Here's our squad for tonight's @FFACup game against @AltonaMagic pic.twitter.com/AtajrkfWJR

— South Melbourne FC (@smfc) April 20, 2016

but didn't seem to be on the field, replaced by Luke Adams. It seems that 'KK' may have injured himself during the warm-up, but we'll need official confirmation on that. Otherwise the lineup was reasonably strong - still mostly made up of players who had recently won championships and were part of the side that was top of the Victorian leagues - but one wondered whether the changes would both unsettle a side that had finally seemed to get in sync last Sunday against Oakleigh after several wonky weeks, but also would it be of sufficient quality to withstand the efforts of a very capable Altona Magic outfit.

The answers to those questions seemed to be 'yes', and 'not really', as South not only failed to mount any meaningful attacks during the first half, but were lucky not to be down by a couple of goals at half time. Magic, who were particularly keen on exploiting our right hand side, were undone by Nikola Roganovic on the hand and their own profligate finishing on the other. The only obvious solution for us seemed to be to make some changes and bring on some more of our A-Listers, but instead we persisted with the same lineup after the break, hoping they would come good.

And somewhat surprisingly, that's actually what happened. Chris Irwin, part of that problematic right hand side in the first half, came out a changed player, tormenting the Magic defence. It was he who burst through the lines to find himself one on one with the keeper, only to be fouled in the box and have his shot trickle wide. Confusion reigned for a minute or so, as clearly referee Lucien Laverdure had given a card to the Magic defender responsible for the foul, but had not given a signal for the penalty - had he paid the advantage instead? As it turned out, Laverdue did award the penalty, and then the lights went out again.

Second Intermediate Period
The crowd was pretty good for a Wednesday night, with most reasonable estimates ranging from 800-1000. Alongside Magic's usual supporters and their juniors, there was quite a healthy number of South fans, as well as a group of Preston fans - the 'Preston Makedonia' chants seemed to give that one away - though at least one person on the forums contended that Magic have their own active supporter crew, which makes a kind of sense insofar as that chanting group was standing behind a banner containing an Altona Magic logo.

Lively start dour finish at 1/2 time @smfc need to step up @AltonaMagic need 2 finish coach Taylor not happy #FFACup pic.twitter.com/T47C4REvHW

— Adam Russell (@adrussella3) April 20, 2016

Whoever they were and however they identified themselves, one hoped against history that they were there for the spectacle and the possibility of an upset and humiliation of a rival, and nothing more than that. Unfortunately one coward from that group couldn't help himself, coming up behind a cluster of South fans and throwing a lit flare into said cluster, hitting a young woman. She received medical attention - and I assume she is OK, but again, have no confirmation of that - and one felt that things were about to kick off. How could they not, considering the proximity of those Preston/active Altona fans to the travelling South contingent?

Somehow, despite the combination of the obvious anger of the South fans, the close proximity of the supporters to each other, the darkness and the empty spaces behind the hill, as well as the security force which seemed less than well prepared for such an incident, things didn't escalate beyond words. At least some of the credit for that has to go to those South fans who managed to keep their more aggrieved mates in check, as well as the Altona Magic marshals, who were unequivocal so far as I could tell in getting the relevant 'home' support group to move away from the South fans (even if not quite far enough for some tastes), as well as telling others to just go home.

There were reports that the flare thrower was identified, but as with many of the specifics of the incident, I have seen no official confirmation of that. A police car did arrive, but what exactly they ended up doing, I don't know. With regards to the collective identity of the group that the flare thrower came from, it was interesting in that Magic themselves put the following up on Twitter,

Sorry Altona Fans will never do that.
There are NOT Our Fans https://t.co/KYtU2uUNQX

— Altona Magic S.C (@AltonaMagic) April 20, 2016

as well as

I dont think so.........Preston chants during the match Altona dont chant. Nice try.
Disgraceful https://t.co/Ofa68GAb5V

— Altona Magic S.C (@AltonaMagic) April 20, 2016

It will be very interesting to see what comes out of this. One hopes of course that the flare thrower was identified, and will have the full force of the law come down upon them. It will be interesting to see also what punishment Magic will receive and how FFV will handle this. One interesting thing which occurred during the game in the online sphere - a sphere I did not have access to because of my marshalling duties - was the categorisation of the scenes as 'chaos at Paisley Park'. I think that tends to gild the lily somewhat - while there was much confusion due to both whether the game would get called off, as well as the aftermath of the flare incident, chaos did not break out as far as I'm concerned, even if the potential for it to do so was certainly there.

The game itself emerges out of stasis
The game resumed, with Marcus Schroen putting away the penalty in less than convincing fashion - but the important thing is that he did put it away, and now the game could be played on our terms. Magic had to push forward, and had a penalty shout called a dive, but when Milos Lujic bundled home a goal mouth scramble from a corner, we were pretty much there. When Magic's Bozinovski was sent off after receiving a second yellow card - Magic had received a free kick, and Schroen a yellow card himself for unnecessary shirtfront-esque attempt at protecting the ball, with Bozinovski than grabbing and throwing Schroen to the ground - our progress to the next round was official. Lujic's injury time tap in made the score look a lot more flattering it should have been.

In the end, because of both the way the team had performed in the first half, as well as the flare incident during the lights out period, one came out of this match as a South fan with relief at having progressed as well as not been part of a much larger and more violent incident. It was our first win at Paisley Park in since we beat Moorabbin in the Dockerty Cup in 1996, and our first win against Altona Magic at this venue since the 1993 Dockerty Cup, a record which sounds pretty until you remember that our only extended run of games there was from 2005-2010. One could have hoped for a more dull affair, but it's nice to also get that monkey off our backs.

Next game
Melbourne Victory youth team at Lakeside on Sunday. This game will be subject to changed security and seating conditions.

SMFC members and supporters will be required to enter Lakeside Stadium through the traditional Gate 2 entry point and base themselves in the traditional SMFC grandstand as normal. This includes all SMFC players (all ages) and parents, as well as FFV and FFA accredited pass holders. 

Melbourne Victory (NPL) supporters will enter through the Gate 1 entry point and be based in the opposite grandstand. 

All patrons are reminded that any anti-social behaviour contravening the Football Federation Victoria (FFV) and South Melbourne FC Code of Conduct will not be tolerated. There are several CCTV security cameras operating in and around Lakeside Stadium that will be used to identify anyone engaging in anti-social behaviour. 

With a large crowd expected, SMFC is working closely with Melbourne Victory, FFV, Blue Thunder Security, the State Sports Centre Trust and Victoria Police to ensure a great afternoon for everyone at Lakeside Stadium on Sunday afternoon. 

Sunday’s main match kicks off at 5pm, with our Under 20s match commencing at 2.30pm. SMFC will also be honouring the memory of the ANZACS in a short ceremony prior to the main game commencing.

Around the grounds
Science of the Cup
Of the three FFA Cup options available on Tuesday night, I decided to take a punt, or perhaps just chose the closest option to my place and headed to Somers Street for Avondale Heights vs South Springvale Aris. Things did not begin well:

Ground announcer absolutely butchering the Greek names in the @southspringvale line up. #afcvss #FFACup

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 19, 2016

But to the ground announcer's credit, he was at least an equal opportunity butcher.

Not doing much better with the @AvondaleHSC84 team list. Time for FFA to step in and #NCIP the names of players #FFACup #afcvss

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 19, 2016

But then Avondale proceeded to throw away any sympathy by doing this:

Creed for intro music makes things worse.

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 19, 2016

Now South Springvale had a reputation of getting above their station in this competition in recent years, so one hoped perhaps that lightning could strike yet again. This was not to be the case, as they were outclassed from the start. Yes, some Aris players had some nice close control, but when it came time to actually control possession, the best they could usually do was three or four passes before bombing it long to an isolated forward. Avondale were getting frustrated with their inability to open the scoring, but eventually broke through seconds before half time and as far as I was concerned, they may as well as have ended the game there. The goals piled on in the second half, but to their credit Aris kept pushing on and managed to get one goal back from the penalty spot, but one goal is fewer than five, and we ain't using no golf handicap system here. Overall, I felt a bit annoyed that I'd bothered to get dressed for this.

Final thought

As one of the South Melbourne players just said..."let's switch on like the lights" #FFACup #MagicOfTheCup

— Les Street (@official_lesdog) April 20, 2016

Disappointed, embarrassed - South Melbourne 1 Heidelberg United 2

Normally I'd spend the day after a game like that just getting on with the job of writing this blog, but fuck it if I just could not be bothered with soccer at all yesterday. So I went and watched the Collingwood magoos take on Sandringham yesterday instead.

Throwing away the game like that in the way that we did was a travesty. Not just because it was against Heidelberg, but because undermanned as we were, we managed to look far better than we had in several weeks. Lujic looked like a threat again, Hatzikostas and Jawadi looked good in the middle, even if our back line was a mess. And even though some of our players had absolute nightmares of games - Lakic will surely never play that badly again - there was enough improvement in attack to say that we may just have turned a corner. Oh, Leigh Minopoulos, how did you miss that sitter when you came on? Oh Andy Kecojevic, why couldn't either of your two wonderful freekicks have snuck into the inside of the post instead of ricocheting off it and out? Where was the game sense in the last five minutes? I mean sure, go for the win, but don't throw away the point you've worked so hard to earn!

Then again, considering the shenanigans that happened off the field, I don't know how much I would have enjoyed the win anyway. The behaviour of some of our fans was nothing short of disgraceful. The flares were just the start of it. Despite the pleas from older heads in the week leading up to this contest not to light them in the ground, the calls went unheeded from at least one person.

I should be clear on my position on flares. Firstly, I don't like them from an aesthetic point of view - they smell, they sting my eyes and throat, and I think they look childish and pathetic in comparison to excellent chanting and the colour brought by many and diverse flags and banners. Secondly, the legality of releasing flares is less of an issue to me than the fact that because they're banned at soccer games in Australia, each one lit by one of our fans costs the club money. Now whether you like the board or not is immaterial to this discussion - I'm thinking here of the efforts of the volunteers and staff who bust a gut trying to get a team on the park each week and putting on a professional and well organised show. Thirdly, if you're gonna be a dick and light a flare, at least have the balls to hold it up instead of scurrying away. As for the tosser who threw the flare over the fence, thank goodness you didn't hit the running track. Frankly, if you're so into flares that they take precedence over the enjoyment of the match itself and the efforts of the people working hard to keep the club going, you'd be better off going to watch the gas flares at the casino.

'Lisa, maybe if I'm part of that mob, 
I can help steer it in wise directions.'

Of course there was also the typical sarcastic dropkick reaction of 'oh no, flares, how scary and wrong' - but it's not about the flares, it's about what they represent - a disregard for the club and your fellow supporters. But if only flares were the main problem from Friday night, we could all possibly put it down to some sort of immaturity, and that over time the kids would learn as the older Clarendon Corner heads had to learn.

Unfortunately the flares had to play second fiddle to some younger supporters stealing a banner from the Heidelberg active contingent. On a certain level, I can tolerate accidental stupidity, but planned stupidity - and the banner stealing certainly did seem like a planned affair - that's much less forgivable. This of course kicked off a sequence of events which saw Berger fans rush over to get the banner back and/or remonstrate, and then saw some push and shove after the match. Whatever anyone thinks of the South - Bergers rivalry, it is not a violent or angry one. Being both Greek-founded and supported clubs, many of us know and have known friends an relatives from both sides of the ledger. In the days when people went to more than one game a weekend, South fans would go with their Berger mates to their games, and they would reciprocate.

As for the Berger fans who apparently tried to storm the corporate areas after the ground announcer's 'eggs on toast' jibe, get over yourselves. It's not like he called you Bulgarians or something equally stupid.

Without wishing to absolve the guilty parties in any way, nor appearing to join the 'boys will be boys' crowd, security's efforts on the night were poor. The separation of the two sets of fans at the end of the game, the lack of an obvious presence around Clarendon Corner after some members of Enosi 59 had already lit flares before the match on Clarendon Street - surely Blue Thunder have been around these leagues and clubs long enough to have got even the basics right, but alas that was not the case.

Lest this tirade be taken as a slur against every person in Enosi 59 or their hangers on or supporters, it's not. There are good guys in the group, who've added to the atmosphere at games, and I've been more than happy to have a chat with those guys. Someone who should know better made the allegation recently that I am anti-active and pro picnic support. My response then, as it is now, is that I'm not against active support - I'm against dickheads whether they're chanting types or sitting down and enjoying the game on their own terms types. I'm still of the opinion that being a dickhead is not a genetic condition, and if that is the case, being a dickhead must therefore be a personal decision - and I've yet to meet someone who likes a dickhead.

The problems that pale in comparison to the other issues but which are still worth a mention

There's been an older guy turning up recently to the bay that Clarendon Corner uses who's been using a tabla drum. Some a re for it, some are against it, but I don't mind, it adds to the atmosphere and the guy can actually play. On Friday night though for some reason upon entering the ground, I noticed that he was singing along to a karaoke version of 'Livin La Vida Loca'. He also had Lefteri's trumpet tune hooked up to his sound system on wheels. to which many of the longer standing Clarendon Corner people objected, on the grounds (justifiably I think) of artificiality. Whether or not current trumpet player Bruno is at a game and/or willing to play the trumpet (and on this occasion he was), putting the sound effect on like that while well intentioned is just one step closer to taking away the fan made aspect of supporter groups, and that as such Stathi's vocalised version of the trumpet tune has more heart and character than a pre-recorded tune ever could. The situation seemed to resolve itself.

Crowd
700-800

Crisis at the canteen
Our crowd counter was disappointed that the canteen was no longer willing to serve the Fantastic brand cup noodle, because 'it would take too long to boil the water'.

Celebrity watch
George Calombaris was in attendance.

Next game
Tuesday night at home against a Green Gully side fresh from thumping Bentleigh Greens 4-0 - Bentleigh's first league defeat of the season.

FFA Cup news
We've been drawn against Queensland side Palm Beach, with the match to be played on the Gold Coast. The game will be at Robina Stadium, to be played on Wednesday 29th July at 7:30PM.

Being South Melbourne, the most important club in Australia, our game will be one of those broadcast by Fox Sports. I assume this means that we won't be having our own highlights up on youtube or on the SMFC TV show on Aurora. For those unable to be there in person, I assume some fans will gather at a pub somewhere to watch the game, and I'll let you all know where that will be should that happen. That's what happens when you don't have a social club.

There's also this:

South are marking their return to the big time by wearing their heritage strip of white with a red V, the colours of South Melbourne United, one of the three teams that merged more than 50 years ago to form the current club

Juniper Hill's home uniform.. Julius
Stoker is the club's games record
holder with 314 league and cup
appearances. The design was created
to my spec by 'paquebot', owner of
AS Uijeongbu 07, five time Korean
champions/

which as always has proved divisive on historical, cultural and aesthetic grounds. My stance on the matter is pretty clear, and dare I say it, progressive, rather than conservative (which I've nothing against) or reactionary (you know who you are). I'm not in favour of dislodging the blue and white of the home strip, but I reckon that the heritage strip should be made the permanent away strip. But then again, I am one of those people who likes the aesthetics of the heritage jersey, shorts and hooped socks combo, as well having what I see as a historical wrong being rectified.

The concerns however that it's being used a gimmick have some validity. Here's hoping that it's not just a one off event, and further more that the red vee is tasteful (as per the image adjacent) and not like some of the really huge South Melbourne United ones or heaven forbid, St George-Illawarra Dragons.

Actually, on reflection I may just be a rampant ideologue on this matter myself - after all, I did get a more a talented person than myself to customise my Hatriick team's home uniform to resemble the South Melbourne Hellas heritage strip. On that front, if it were at all possible, I'd also love to see the use of the 1966 Bristol Rovers style jersey, which is also a pearler. Then again, I once argued for QPR style hoops, if the right kind of sponsor could be found to augment the jersey.

Nick Epifano cuts Dundee United trial short

Unfortunately due to family reasons I've had to return back to Australia . Thanks @dundeeunitedfc for the experience- until next time 👍

— Nick Epifano (@Nickepa07) July 2, 2015

Also apparently done his hamstring, not sure of the severity. He was apparently in attendance at the game on Friday.

Speaking of South Melbourne United
While using Trove's newspaper database while doing some research on a project I'm working on, I came across an article from 1936 which talked about that club's very early days, and their application to use the Port Melbourne Football Ground - by which I assume they mean the venue commonly known as the North Port Oval. This is intriguing to me not just for its South Melbourne connections - and why did South Melbourne United form separately from the South Melbourne club that was already in existence? - , but also because of the fact that Port Melbourne as a district was, to my knowledge at least, virtually unknown as a soccer playing area. South Melbourne, Albert Park, Middle Park, St Kilda, South Yarra and Prahran all had lasting and consistent representation either as clubs or venue locations, but Port Melbourne is conspicuous by its absence in the records.

Upon further investigation, it appears that Royal Caledonians had a made an attempt two years earlier to get access to North Port, so it wasn't a new phenomenon. At a meeting to discuss South Melbourne United's application, one councillor said if it went ahead it would be 'the end of the Port Melbourne Football Club', an extraordinary claim to make considering that South Melbourne United had not even fielded a senior team yet. The councillor who stood against South Melbourne United's application was one JP Crichton, a long serving members of the municipality, many times mayor, and on at least on one occasion president of the Port Melbourne Football Club. Self-interest and self-preservation perhaps? Port Melbourne had finished two games clear at the bottom of the VFA ladder in 1936, but surely they couldn't have been that scared of soccer, being part of an Australian Rules club that already had such a storied history? I haven't yet been able ti find any further details of what happened to United's application, but it is an interesting story for both ground usage buffs and South Melbourne soccer history buffs - had United settled down in Port Melbourne, the events which lead to our club's founding some 24 years later would have been quite different.

Final thought
Don't go too hard on them on the blog he said. I gave him my best attempt at an affected death stare, but maybe he had a point.