November 2022 digest

Hall of Fame news
At a function held just prior to the recent Matildas vs Sweden match, Ange Postecoglou and Ted Smith were inducted into the Football Australia Hall of Fame last month. You already know all the things that Ange has done, but what about Ted? Ted played a couple of matches for the Socceroos (before they were even called the Socceroos) in the Melbourne Olympics, while he was at Moreland. Ted later joined Hellas and won a title or two with us, then joined Hakoah. He was an assistant coach during the early NSL years, including coaching one match while regular manager Dave Maclaren was ill (a 4-0 win over JUST). Mostly though, Ted's accolade is due to his tireless work in establishing the Hall of Fame, and especially his efforts in organising events and such for past Socceroo players, including getting former players their national team caps.

But also

Neither Ange (overseas) nor Ted (ill on the day) were present to receive their awards, but fellow Hall of Fame inductee Walter Pless was. While I'm generally cynical about the merits of Halls of Fame, it was great to see Walter receive official acknowledgment for his over four decades worth of work covering Tasmanian soccer for a variety of news publications, as well as his own blog. Reporter, photographer, historian, and mentor, Pless' nomination was greeted with jubilation by both Tasmanian soccer fraternity, as well as the anorak Australian soccer history brigade which pushed for Pless' nomination.

The anorak Australian soccer history collective celebrating a legend of the local game.
From left to right: George Cotsanis, Mark Boric, Paul Mavroudis,
 Greg Stock,  Walter Pless, Ian Syson, Greg Werner, Tony Persoglia.

Pre-season training
Get ready for the social media collage of players sweating, running, lifting, etc. Not sure when the friendlies at home will start that we can't open to the public, nor the friendlies in the middle of nowhere.

Fixturing news
The ridgy-didge fixture apparently comes out today! If it does, I'll make sure to report on that some time before the 2023 season starts.

Speaking of which

Remember how we said that we'd be out of Lakeside for a couple of months around the Women's World Cup? Don't be surprised if we play a couple of our home games during that time at McIvor Reserve in South Kingsville. The home ground of Yarraville Glory, our senior women have played there before, and now that we have formalised (whatever that means) our sister-club (also whatever that means) our relationship with Yarraville, it looks like it would make sense to play a couple of lower key games there. 

See you, too, in 2023

Lirim Elmazi, Jake Marshall, Javier Diaz Lopez, Alun Webb - more or less everyone who wasn't let go last go last month, is going to be back on 2023. 

Extra people

Filling out some of the spaces of those let go are Dandenong Thunder attacking midfielder Ali Sulemani; Jack Painter-Andrews from Bentleigh, a full-back; Bentleigh midfielder DannyKim; and striker Ajak Riak, also from Bentleigh Greens. All of these were noted on the forum before being announced by the club, so the official announcement was not very surprising.

Somewhat out of the blue was the signing of young winger Kosta Emmanuel from Eastern Lions. So, one biggish name, some good players with (we hope) upside, and a couple of players we're gambling on being bolters. I'm keeping expectations muted, as per usual.

AGM

No date yet. 

Second division
Expressions of interest in 2023. Winter season to start in 2024. If you believe that, which you're entitled to do. You're also entitled not to believe it, but how boring is that?

At least it's in South Melbourne, I guess
It's a fickle world. Until last night, he was the greatest Australian manager of them all. Still, at least he was good enough for long enough to get a mural. The mural, by artist Shaun Dev, doesn't depict any local connection of Ange's to South, but that's my gripe with the Ferenc Puskas statue as well, so maybe it's a me problem. I believe the mural is located somewhere on Coventry Street, if you want to check it out before it gets defaced, or painted or with something else.

Amir Abdi

The article doesn't mention us, but The Guardian nevertheless had a decent piece on South Melbourne blind footballer Amir Abdi. All told, it's a pretty interesting story.

Hellenic Cup coming back?

At least three ex-South players (Peter Skapetis, Anthony Giannopoulos, Kosta Strotomitros) were involved with Greece's win in the All Nations Cup at Knox. In the Neos Kosmos article discussing that win in the final over South Sudan, there was also mention made of bringing back a Hellenic Cup tournament as early as next year, run under the auspices of the Greek Community of Melbourne rather than the former Hellenic Cup organising committee.

Drama Queens - South Melbourne 2 Altona Magic 0

The scene was set for an all-time classic snooze-fest. Two teams winding down into the close of the season, nothing to aim for either up or down. It was raining, and no-one had bothered to put up the sponsor boards, which would have annoyed the sponsors if we had any that weren't board members. And the crowd was muted in interest, given the whole thing had a bit of a pre-season feeling, albeit with a bit less passion.

During this game (or after it) you may have seen an overly dramatic tweet describing the utter destitution of Clarendon Corner on Sunday afternoon:

@PaulMavroudis The sole person in Row H today #FightTillTheEnd #HooliganBlood #SMFCvAMFC pic.twitter.com/5BC8Mtv70j

— Foti Stavrakis (@FotiStavrakis) August 18, 2019

Let me assure everyone that it was not all quite like that. There were other Clarendon Corner people within the general vicinity of that photo - they were just sitting a few rows further back, in the dry areas covered by the roof.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

When it stopped raining, a few people gradually moved down towards the famous Row H, which for those not in the know, is the row claimed by those of us in Clarendon Corner who do not wish to associate with the nonce brigade which tends to gather in the rows immediately in front of Row H.

And while it's not like no-one turned up, the low turnout overall, and especially in the areas quasi-traditionally inhabited (since 2012) by Clarendon Corner, created the perfect opportunity for me to enact a performance of despondent human misery.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

But don't be concerned for me - it wasn't raining that hard, when it was raining. And don't be sad for those that were there and treated this game like the dead rubber it most surely was - there was nothing to play for, and nothing to get particularly excited about, even though the game did produce a number of chances for both teams. And don't even blame those that didn't turn up, because people do have other and/or better things to do; and besides which, didn't I tell people not to come to games if it no longer made them happy, and especially if attending games actually made them seriously unhappy?

Performative, self-preservationist, and self-conscious proto-martyr creating misery works for me, but it's not for everyone. And it's not like there's still not plenty of other naturally miserable looking people at South if you're into that kind of thing.

Some of the players didn't even bother turning up. Peter Skapetis was not present, as he's apparently in Greece. Who knows how long he'd had that planned, but it's a good thing we're not in a relegation scrap.

Having said that, some of our injured players did make appearances in and around the ground. Luke Adams was on the South bench, not on the team sheet, but still present to offer support. Brad Norton was apparently seen trying to calm down the very upset Pep Marafioti in the tunnel outside the change rooms. And injured keeper Josh Dorron was seen tucking into a burger in the grandstand, helping put some coin back into the club and advertising the food on offer in the social club.

And can I just say, the quality of the burgers has been steadily improving week by week, even if last week's patty was almost too big to comfortably fit within the bun provided. Now let's have a round of applause for the players that did turn up, and in general put in a solid shift.

Sadly there was also a moment of too much pride and passion, which has likely seen the end of one player's time at South. Having created several good opportunities early in the game and not taken them, the team won a penalty, its second of those in two games. Hey, when it rains, it pours. Credit to Perry "the Pez Dispenser" Lambropoulos for winning the spot kick with some nifty play; I have been one of the people who was less than enthused about his being signed at all, and after that unimpressed with what he offered in the first half of the season; but I am willing to admit that I was perhaps hasty to judge his capabilities, as in general he has been one of our better players in the second half of the season (even getting forward on occasion), and I would not be completely averse to him being at the club next season.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

Now back to the penalty. One would have assumed that some people's probably nonsense generic superstitious bias against left footers taking penalties aside, having the person who scored our only penalty for the season just a couple of weeks ago take this one as well would just be (and I am loathe to use this term) common sense. Pep Marafioti however, for who knows what reason, did not see it that way, and attempted to take the ball off acting-skipper Marcus Schroen, which almost saw the two come to blows right there in front of everyone.

(and when I say "everyone" here, I mean the small crowd in attendance, as well as the audience watching either from home or from some decrepit gambling den in the Caucasus, Indochina, or Arabian Peninsula.)

They tell me that team morale is good, despite everything that has gone on this year, and certainly light years ahead of last year's mess. And yet only Nick Krousoratis bothered or had the good sense to intervene and try and defuse the situation between his teammates which was threatening to get even further out of hand. He's had a rough season has Nick, but that's the kind of level-headed person I'd want on my team. And for whatever it's worth, I still think he's a very talented player who could still do a lot of damage for our club (rather than against, like some others have done) next season.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

As for why Pep thought he ought to have taken the penalty, I do not know. Someone on a thankfully very dusty and forgotten corner of the internet suggested that there was an extant arrangement - possibly originating from preseason - to alternate penalty takers. If this is the case, that is the dumbest thing I've heard for quite some time, especially when for almost the entire season we'd earned just one penalty before last Sunday's. Now since Pep was nowhere near the league golden-boot running, and considering that Marcus had scored the only other penalty we'd earned this season, and considering that Marcus was wearing the captain's armband, I don't know what Pep was trying to achieve.

Marcus probably could have handled the situation better, but I suppose he was caught off-guard not having a taser or can of pepper spray on hand to incapacitate the man trying to accost him. Maybe he was just as shocked and surprised at the rest of us at the playground antics taking place out on the hallowed turf of Lakeside Stadium. Or maybe this is an argument to go to the practice of netball or basketball, and have whoever was fouled in the penalty area take the penalty?

(at some point around here while typing up this post, whose segments were not compiled in order anyway, I got up to go to a local bakery to get some lunch)

The worst thing that could have happened after all that was for Schroen to miss the penalty, so thankfully he did manage to score the goal and put us up 1-0. I shudder to think what would have happened had he missed or had his shot saved.

As awful as that part of Sunday's spectacle was, I suppose it did at least offer the live-stream commentary team something to talk about in this dead rubber, though I'm slightly miffed now that I wasn't on special commentary for the day, the number of my guest commentary appearances having stalled at "two". Slightly more problematic was the task of the South Melbourne highlights editor, who had to try and edit out as much as possible of the nonsense between Schroen and Marafioti, an impossible task to complete to 100% levels of erasure of important moments of South Melbourne history.

It may have been unprofessional to do it the way I'm about to suggest, but I feel like my video editor friend missed an opportunity to augment the experience with the addition of an obvious yet also classic Simpsons gag.

Anyway, as expected Pep was not out on the field for the second half (replaced by Billy Konstantinidis), and I fancy that's the last time we've seen him in a South shirt. It's a pity that it's ended up this way - for all his character and playing foibles, he was one of our better players this year (though some cruel persons might say that was a problem in itself). But two brothers gone in the one season, what are the odds? And both of them ex-South juniors, which will make the board's aim of a title with 60% of our squad being South juniors a bit of a harder task.

Photo: Luke Radziminski.

The game continued being a free-flowing affair, with both sides squandering chances. Magic - who have apparently just had a major backer of theirs announce his resignation from the presidency, though who knows how it will affect them next year - had a goal ruled out for offside. Eventually Konstantinidis tapped home a late goal to finish this game off as a contest.

Next week
Heidelberg at home on Sunday afternoon. This will be the final game of the season for the men's team, and I don't think it could come any sooner. Unfortunately, the game also doubles up as an important fixture for what I'm still calling the minor premiership, which Heidelberg are in best place to secure.

After largely going unnoticed in 2019, apparently the club is going to make the final game a bit of a showcase of sorts for the club's 60th anniversary celebrations, so there's that to look forward to I suppose.

Cripes, it'll be the last time some of us will see each other for months! And it'll be the last time we see some or many of these players in a South shirt. I'm getting all misty-eyed. If only we knew who we were planning to turf now, we could have the Streisand backed montage ready to go.

Women stumbling in quest for finals
I was going to go to the senior women's game against Box Hill at Lakeside last Saturday, but got roped into another game instead - see the "around the grounds" section for that story. Anyway, the women lost 3-1 to Box Hill, and made things more difficult for themselves in terms of trying to secure the final spot in the finals. Again, not that any of the three teams (ourselves, the Bergers, or Box Hill) vying for fourth are likely to do any damage in the finals - especially as they'll have to play Calder first up - but it would be nice to at least make it. So the loss against Box Hill was a pretty important one, but not quite the season-ending game it could've been

That probably came yesterday, with the side playing out a 1-1 draw vs the NTC at Knox. I didn't get out there, of course, but I manage to watch the game (or at least most of it) on the stream. It was not one of our better performances, something I could tell from the stream despite it being filmed at ground level, having no commentary or graphics, and with the placement of portable goals all around the perimeter giving poor depth perception having me even bigger problems than usual trying to figure out what was going on.

Skip Fulton graciously let us know that at half time we were 1-0 up, thanks to a Nat Martineau goal, scored before confusion about the stream - which was originally tagged as Southern vs Heidelberg - was cleared up. I did see our late-season replacement keeper save a penalty during the first half, adding to her short-term reputation as being something more than a short-term fix.

The second half was just as confusing to me as the first (not least in part because I was switching back and forth between the stream and another project), because I thought we'd scored a goal from a Leia Varley free kick but then a comment online asked why it was disallowed. When NTC scored, I wasn't sure then if it was an equaliser or just a goal clawed back, and the initial social media response from the club at the conclusion of the game was that we'd won the game 2-1.

That was later corrected (with an apology) to 1-1, with Varley's goal being disallowed at it came from an indirect free kick; a result which sees us sit a point behind Heidelberg, who have a game in hand against Southern United. We play the Bergers in the last round, and the Bergers also have a game against Box Hill whee they could drop points, but at this stage it appears that even if we beat Bayside this Saturday afternoon at Lakeside and the Bergers in the last round at home, it's the Bergers with the best shot of making finals. It's been that kind of year.

More videos uploaded
I've uploaded a couple more hour long compilations of South Melbourne highlights from circa 1988-1992. These come from Banger's collection, and you can check them out on my channel here, along with other South videos. I've tagged/timestamped the individual games in the description sections, but there's often little snippets of other stuff which I haven't bothered to tag - consider them bonus material.

Puskas film update
A few months ago, some readers showed some concern about whether this film was actually still being made. I did not have a definitive answer then. I can say now that 'yes', the film is still in production. Work related and other commitments slowed down the process, but it is still going. I don't have much directly to do with the film's production, but I will do what I can to keep the ball rolling. I'd give you an estimated time of completion, but it's really up to the guys making the film to get the film to a stage where it can be finished and shown to the public.

Around the grounds
Please make this season end
Trundled out to Quarries Park or whatever it's called for Clifton Hill vs Yarraville. You want a game that meant nothing? Here it was. Two teams so bad they deserved to be relegated, but thanks to a mass restructure of the league system coming soon, they've been left to spin their wheels for most of the season, like so many clubs in a similar position. It's half the reason I've barely been to an Altona East game this year. Maybe because it meant nothing, there was hardly anybody there. I was there to watch a friend's son make his senior starting debut as goalkeeper for Clifton Hill. He did OK, but his team still lost 2-1.

Operation Italian White Whale
I've started the idiotic process of trying to update the infamous Victorian Italian club merger chart. It will take a very long time, will probably kill me, and end up being heinously incorrect if I ever do finish it. That being said, if you or someone you know actually knows the dates of Italian club mergers hitherto unrepresented in the current flowchart, please get in contact with me.

I've already had several good leads and prompts, with Anstey Roma's 1970 merger with Triestina, the Cobram split and re-merger, and the Mildura split in 1979/80.

Final thought
Το καλό πράγμα αργή να γίνει as my old man likes to say.

P.S.

Forgive the lateness of my reply.

A rare treat - South Melbourne 3 Heidelberg United 0

The Setting
Every now and again, when a good crowd turns up for what might be considered by a neutral as a meaningful affair of a South match, I like to note in these pages that the occasion 'felt like a real game'. Of course, for South fans, every game is important and meaningful, no?

It feels a bit alien, impersonal and lacks a spectacular city backdrop but as a replacement venue not bad.
Go South! pic.twitter.com/xsn9ZK1tYF

— John Patitsas (@johnpatitsas) June 11, 2017

And let's not forget no social club either!

So, because Brazil wanted to use Lakeside exclusively for training preparations, we found ourselves at the Bubbledome. No complaints from me as a one off, and I think most South fans, whether regular Bubbledome visitors or first timers, enjoyed the novelty of the experience. Those first ten minutes especially felt surreal, some strange mishmash of past and future that shouldn't have been, but was. Then the game eventually did its bit to overcome the uncanniness of the setting, and attention was then mostly on the players.

I don't like to predict crowds or count them, but I was expecting no more than 1,200 or so. The public holiday long weekend, the relatively lake kickoff, the lack of media attention, and all the usual banes of this state league existence. Some of that would be offset by the novelty value, the odd neutral making the trip in, the fact that it was South vs Heidelberg in a near top of the table clash, but those expecting miracles of several thousand to turn up were to my mind misguided.

The fact that close to 2,500 (officially 2,365) turned up was a good result. It was not earth shattering, but neither was it embarrassing. The club had promoted the game through its social media channels, the FFV did their bit, and the Berger fans came out in good numbers. One fan noted afterwards that a crowd like that at Lakeside would have been electric - and I won't argue with that - but it was hardly a disaster. It helped that, so far as I could tell, South itself did not put a number out into the public sphere that would be considered as a pass mark. Sure, it's true that you miss all of the shots you don't take, but by avoiding setting a definitive target, the crowd number did not become the be all and end all of the day.

Catch her if you can: Melina Ayres celebrates as South's WNPL side
keep pace with the ladder leaders after beating Alamein 3-1.
Photo: Mark Avellino.

I was surprised that rather than just opening the entirety of the western stand and leaving the rest of the ground closed off to the general public, that the folks in charge went for a bit more of a customer focused approach, opening the lower deck on the western side, but also each of the goal ends. South of the Border and associates got to the ground well before kick-off for the men's game, and had little issue with quickly getting our tickets and getting in. I'm not sure if lines closer to start time were more problematic. Security outside the ground was a bit intense for an NPL match, being standard major events stadium practice of bag searches and empty pocket metal scans, but inside the ground everything seemed fairly casual.

(the food and drink prices I'm told were ridiculous; it makes you appreciate the relative pleasures of local grounds, and for me at least, what we have with our social club)

As you'd expect there was no segregation of fans, though there was a certain amount of natural selection; South fans tending to take up areas of the southern side of the available space, including the behind the goals, while the Bergers took up northern areas. Security inside the venue seemed non-intrusive, the only interference in our area being to tell people to not stand on seats, which seems like a reasonable enough request. I don't understand why people stand on seats anyway when they don't need to do so in order to see the game. Clarendon Corner's minimal banner and confetti display received no hassle. Clarendon Corner's numbers were fine, and the chanting more frequent and committed than usual. The most memorable chant? Off the top of my head, 'shit ground, no fans'. Oh, and anything primary school level in order to outdo some Berger juniors on the wing.

Then there were the seagulls. The seagulls are infamous, of course, and Lakeside is not immune to their appearance - we are not so far from the ocean, after all. But the seagull problem at Bubbledome is something else. The kookaburra noise intermittently played over the speakers to disperse them was also almost as irritating as the seagulls to some. I was later told that the same sound is also played at the MCG, but I can't say I've ever heard it, maybe because I was too busy abusing Travis Cloke at the time. Anyway, I can't say with any authority whether the sound affects worked,

The stadium music was too loud, and its musical selections - with the exception of a bit of Pulp's 'Commin People' - not much better than Lakeside's offerings. The benches from the 2015 Asian Cup didn't make an appearance, and thus we had the famous Bunnings chairs instead. The scoreboard was in full operation, simulcasting the live stream. Most importantly, the grass and line markings all seemed up to scratch, which was a relief after the Wallabies had played on the field the day before.

The Match Itself
As we were making our way to the ground from the pub on Swan Street, I noted to one of the fans along for the walk that I no longer felt confident about any South game. So different to the NSL days in that regard, and so out of synch with the fact that in the Chris Taylor era we've been able to amass several long undefeated streaks. And as much as I hate to say it, the novelty of having an open doors match at Bubbledome also left one wondering about the contrived social media reaction would be if we lost this game. But that's just me being unnecessarily sensitive, as per usual.

For all Heidelberg's complaints about having to field a sort of makeshift defense - which seemed to me to centre mostly around Steven Pace being out injured - it's not like we didn't have our own issue. Milos Lujic had injured a hamstring during the week, or so they said, so I wasn't expecting him to be out there yesterday, but there he was, metaphorically on one leg, Seeing him out there didn't fill me with confidence - it was certainly a gamble, but I guess the powers that be felt that the situation warranted the risk. I had felt, and still feel, that we've been very fortunate to not have Milos miss many games, and that while what do no doubt works most of the time, it would be interesting - from a strictly scientific point of view, of course - to see how the team would play without him. I'd expect that properly set up, it would be probably be less clinical, but it would also be much more flexible and unpredictable.

But that's getting ahead of ourselves a bit. Our defense also had a notable absence, in that Tim Mala was missing because of the red card he got in our game two weeks ago against Port. So what was the plan going to be for this time around without a known right back? Would Taylor play defensive mid Luke Pavlou there for a third time, having copped eight goals in the two games he was slotted in there? Thankfully not! Matthew Foschini was put there, and he played rather well. The big threat for Heidelberg around the final third is of course Kenny Athiu. It's not just his size, but also his mobility which causes opposition defenses problems. And in the first fifteen minutes or so, we were on the back foot, scrambling around a bit. But after that, we seemed to control the game. As one unfairly maligned supporter noted, apart from playing in his natural position, Foschini was also able to play those passes down the line better than Mala usually does.

Nick Epifano's shot on its way for 3-0. Photo: Mark Avellino 

Our wide play - our best feature when we play well under Taylor - was at its best last night. On the other hand, the Bergers would get to wide areas, or into the corners, and get stuck; snookered if you will. Our counter-attacks, so often a weak point of ours, have become a bit more a reliable outlet for us. Going two goals up before half-time - a slightly fortunate goal for Nick Epifano, and well taken one on one by Lujic - made things much easier to sort out for the second half. Lujic was subbed for Leigh Minopoulos, and while we played a bit more conservatively in the second half - we always controlled the nature of the game. As an aside, it will be interesting to see how Lujic's hamstring issue is managed over this next little bit - provided that he didn't aggravate the matter in his 45 minute stint yesterday.

We should have added to our lead well before the Peoples' Champ tapped in Jesse Daley's pass with about ten or so to play, but that's to nitpick unnecessarily. Our desperation for the contest across the board was excellent. Our organisation was usually pretty good. Even at our most vulnerable Nikola Roganovic only had to make sparing saves, the most spectacular of which was when the game was well over. If I was to pick out something which annoyed me, it was our continuing tendency this season to collect yellow cards from unnecessarily aggressive fouls or assorted inessential nonsense. Yellow cards get collected out of custom anyway, and the more games you play the more you'll get. Coming up to a crowded bit of the schedule though, it will be a problem when we have to shuffle things around more so than you would like. But that's where the much vaunted depth comes into play.

Unfamiliar venue, familiar routine: Nikola Roganovic, as he usually does
 after a game, celebrating with South Melbourne fans. Photo: Mark Avellino. 

The ladder as it stands is a complicated situation, what with the teams at the top, including ourselves, having various numbers of games in hand, sometimes against each other. The important thing is that we've kept in touch with the ladder leaders, especially Heidelberg, who could've skipped away with a win yesterday. We also extend what is an absurdly long unbeaten run. It's a long way from the dire start to the season.

In conclusion
A good win, and most people seemed to enjoy the event. It was also nice to be able to share the experience with everyone else, as opposed to what happened last year.

Next game
Sunday at Lakeside against St Albans.

Coming and goings
Liam McCormick has departed the club, joining Dandenong City. Meanwhile, we've signed young midfielder Bardhi Hysolli from Bulleen. I have no idea who he is, which doesn't mean he's no good. We've also gone for a Spanish forward, David Barca Moreno, from Getafe B. I feel like I've seen this move played before, but I can't put my finger on it. His international clearance reportedly came through this week, but not his local clearance, There is talk that Andy Kecojevic has gone overseas, but nothing official at the time of print.

Intergalactic Space Hussy department
For Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, caught two-timing us with the Dandenong A-League bid.

https://t.co/jS6qT25qfi https://t.co/faKUqc0nwX

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) June 2, 2017

Around the grounds
Half arsed
Among even the most sartorially oblivious of men can be found a certain niche for fashion trends - the soccer jersey. And thus I spent part of a Friday night at Somers Street observing a conversation about colours, shades, cuts and fabric; about makers, years, taste, and at times an unapologetic preference for unpopular styles. As for the game itself, it was rubbish. Knights are barely keeping their head above water, being at the start of a very long rebuild. Bentleigh meanwhile went about their business completely half-arsed. While else would they play Andy Brennan when he is clearly battling with injury? The game seemed set to take its expected course, when Bentleigh took the lead in the first half via Lambros Honos. Knights were bound to get one chance which they would need to make the most of - and Tom Cahill blasted his penalty into the back of the net. Then Bentleigh had a player sent off, and you wondered how Knights would manage to stuff this one up. The answer? By conceding a woefully soft goal with the last kick of the game, And I never got to find out for sure if Knights ever had an Umbro kit in their history.

The proverbial, dare I say, quintessential six-point game
Westgate, the home team, were on three points. Altona East, the away side, were of four. South of the Border's correspondent, having not had lunch, was hungry. Westgate scored, early in the second half, and won the game. Altona East had their chance, saw it saved, and lost the game. I had a cevapi, was satisfied, and walked home for dinner after the match. Where everyone involved lost: when someone decided to have this game kickoff after 6:00PM. It was cold when the game began, and it was bloody cold when the game ended. Dead set, this bloke rocked up to watch the game early in the second half wearing shorts and thongs and I was *this close* to getting his mates to stage an intervention. As you can see, it was not the most thrilling of affairs.

Making hay while the sun shines
Approaching the gates, I pull out my media pass. One bloke at the gate is OK with it, another guy demands a more rigorous examination. That's no surprise - who from the media would bother to cover this game? So after I explain that I'm a freelancer, I eventually go through. The old blokes in front of the social club - some of whom I know from other grounds - are comparing their ages. I buy a souv - and you know it's a big game when they have a separate booth for buying tickets away from the food outlet - and wander through the social club. The picture frames tell the story. Of humble origins, in photo and in print. Of volunteers who built the social club building in the late 1980s. Of being proud of playing South, and beating us. Western Suburbs had a brief bit of limelight in 2007 and 2008, when they reached the lofty heights of the Victorian Premier League. They got a new grandstand and media box out of the stint, and good luck to them for that. Nowadays things are a bit more grim, down in State League 1. Myself, it's moment like these, sitting in the stand during the tail end of the reserves, wondering how I got here. Yarraville had the better of the first half, and should have capitalised on their chances. They didn't, and during the second half, five or so minutes of napping undid the visitors. The first goal was a chip over the keeper from angle; the second goal a lofted ball from a midfield free kick which sailed over the Yarraville keeper, and which almost no one expected let alone saw. Yarraville only managed to wake up late, and score in the dying seconds.

Final thought
The staff at the Richmond Club Hotel really should have given me a pen so I could get the out of date map on one of the walls up to speed.

Comeback (ahem) Kings - South Melbourne 2 Port Melbourne 1

Jesse Daley's shot flies past Port's keeper for the equaliser.
Photo: Rob Cruse.

If you're in the mood for jokes, copious Simpsons references, and the usual sorts of hilarity, this week's post will likely disappoint. Wednesday took a lot out of everyone, including myself, and it's going to take a little while to recuperate. That's why this week most of the good gags are stolen or woefully out of date.

But as for Sunday, what a pleasant late afternoon's work it was. There was a chill in the air even as the sun shone, there was a rainbow, there was a little bit of rain, and we worked our way to another win and third place on the ladder. It was great having to once again only half care about what was taking place on the field. No hype, and no glory even in victory, just like most other weeks.

If there was one lesson to be learned from our embarrassing 4-0 loss to Port earlier this season, it was 'don't let them shoot'. So of course we let them shoot, and got lucky - one shot rattled the crossbar if I remember correctly, though I could well be remembering another game - except for the one time where we weren't lucky. Did Andreas Govas' shot bounce over Nikola Roganovic's arm?

Either way, we fell behind, but did we even care? As one of the lads in the stand noted, after Wednesday, what was left for us to do? It was kind of like one of those thrill seeking adrenaline junkies that's pushed the envelope so far that it's impossible for them to get excited about anything. Nevertheless, the team worked its way into the game, working the wide positions well, which is when we're at our best under this current iteration. On a narrower ground, with an opponent more apt at closing down the passing lanes, we'd be a lot less convincing.

I'm not saying we were great, because we were not. Everyone expected that we'd be flat, and we were, except for the unsung hero of Wednesday, Jesse Daley, who was in manic form. He was everywhere, and it was through him that we got the equaliser, when he blasted his shot past the Port keeper. By this stage we had gained control of the match, and apart from some slack marking in the middle park, there should not have been to many issues with overcoming the visitors.

The second half saw Daley - who was in an especially mouthy mood - put in a number of good crosses, with one eventually being met by the head of Milos Lujic. There was a period of five or so minutes where we struggled to get the ball out of defensive third, but apart from that, Port posed little threat. Even with an assortment of Stellas coming onto the field, Port's biggest chance lay with us being stupid. Cue Tim Mala badly misreading a passage of play, and getting sent off for his troubles, as he committed a foul as the result of needing to furiously track back. At least the resulting free kick missed, and we got the chocolates..

The only downside was having to ponder the consequences of winning in this way, with yellow cards mounting up and real or imagined reinforcements still some time away.

*record scratch*
*freeze frame*
Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation, etc

Next game
I don't know. It's supposed to be Avondale at home on Sunday afternoon, but there's all sorts of wild rumours going around about postponed matches, Brazil using Lakeside, and Dockerty Cup scheduling, that who knows what's going on. Check the official sources for any changes, but maybe wait just a bit for the Roberto Carlos circus to leave town first. If South of the Border hears anything, we'll let you know.

It can only end well
A bloke who can't coach, hired for a team that doesn't exist, for a competition that's not desperate for either. But of course if you talk like this, 'they' get upset and start murmuring things in the bowels of Lakeside, believing that you can't hear them. Guys, even if I don't type it, I'm thinking it. And even if I can't hear you say it, I can imagine it.

I mean, I've started joining in wrestling gags, and I don't even watch wrestling for crying out loud.

Chants
An unusually productive day yesterday, motivated mostly by the tenacious work of Jesse Daley and Luke 'The Luckiest Man in Show Business' Adams coming back from Bali without a tan,

• 'Bill Paps is on fire, the truth is terrified'
• 'I wish that I scored Jesse's goal / where can I score a goal like that?'
• 'Jesse talk it up, talk it up, Jesse talk it up'
• 'Where's your tan at?'

A big opportunity was missed when we failed to tie Adams' midweek absence to Schapelle Corby's return to Australia.

Comings and goings
Fahid Ben Khalfallah (still no idea who he is) ended up signing with Brisbane Roar. What a pity.

Letter to the editor (including how to contact South of the Border)
Following on from Wednesday's win against Dandenong City, South of the Border received some welcome feedback and commentary, including a timely and appreciated reminder about choosing certain words more carefully.

[Although I was a bit taken aback by one regular reader who saw only an attempt to be a curmudgeon - which was certainly the not the point]

One of the more interesting bits of correspondence came through the comments section (though I did not publish it for reasons which shall reveal themselves), which reads as follows:

Greetings Mr Paul, wow I've just discovered your blog and love it. I read in some very early posts you sometimes ask fans to contribute articles. I would like to contribute this below if you think it is appropriate regarding Hellas’s A-League bid. Sorry for posting in this wrong area – I just didn't know how to contribute this article.

Well, of course I'm always delighted when new readers discover South of the Border, especially when it's South fans doing the discovering. And I'm even happier when they want to contribute something a bit more substantial than a comment - not that there's anything wrong with contributing solely through the comments.

As for the best way to go about contacting me, email is my preferred option - blackmissionary@hotmail.com is my address. If you want to more immediately get my attention, and you have a Twitter account, then you can find me @paulmavroudis.

Here is our new friend's submission, on the matter of the rhetorical conduct of South Melbourne's A-League bid. Keep in mind that this was sent before yesterday's shenanigans.

Bill Paps was off in the world of make believe again today.

SMFC A-League bid strategy – wrong approach
I write this piece with a heavy heart. I have been a South Melbourne Hellas supporter since I was a young child – probably like most South fans. I have experienced agony, frustration, sadness and plenty of lost sleep whenever I think about our omission from the top flight of football in Australia. I wouldn't say I am a great fan of the A-League or its structure – but I am mature enough to recognize the NSL needed to replaced. I just always thought that South would be at the forefront of soccer in Melbourne and indeed the highest competition available in Australia. I like most have waited patiently knowing that some day our time will come. Melbourne is a big city growing by 100,000 people per year and it’s inevitable that at some point a third Melbourne A-League club would be looked at. That is indisputable; at some point expansion will happen again in Melbourne. This has always provided me a glimmer of hope even in the dark times when I felt sick at the prospect we will be stuck in the wilderness forever.

I absolutely do want to acknowledge that the board of SMFC have done a terrific job re-building the club which let us never forget was on the brink of oblivion circa 2004. The stadium deal, the refurbishments, the social club are massive achievements. These are no small feats, they have secured our future. So why the heavy heart and frustration and countless nights lying awake in the middle of the night? It is because I unequivocally and firmly believe that we are squandering the best chance we will ever have to position ourselves to get back into the top flight. This shouldn't be the case but we actually are shooting ourselves in the foot and on various fronts becoming a laughing stock. Here is why:

We need to stop our arrogant approach, we need to stop the rhetoric that it is our ‘Alvaro Recoba’ divine right to be in the top flight. I would like to know from the board who thought it was a good idea to have Bill Papastergiadis head our bid and be a spokesman? Wrong choice. In all his public appearances and interviews the ridiculous comments regarding over inflated crowd figures, the whole Real Madrid ‘link’ which is misconstrued garbage and the let’s not get started on the ‘Roberto Carlos’ angle. This is all GUFF – this actually harms the credibility of our bid. I cannot overstate this.

Bill is obviously an intelligent person, great lawyer etc., but he should not be representing our hopes and aspirations. That he is the President of the Greek Community of Melbourne and the spokesman for our club does nothing whatsoever to demonstrate to the masses that we are looking for broad based appeal bid, it rather just reinforces prejudices that unfortunately the majority of people hold.

Other bids speak of how they will engage the community. Someone please, correct me if I am wrong but I have not heard from anyone associated with the bid team or the board how we will be a broad based bid – how we will attract new fans. Other bids talk about alliances with local communities, teams or football associations. But for us it’s been left to assume that the ‘thousands’ of poulimenoi will come back to follow us. Wrong, wrong, wrong! If this is our great hope – we are gone.

The other angle I wish to tackle is our relationship with the FFA and indeed what the A-League is and represents. Key people from our club and some supporters continually diss the FFA and the A-League. Geez! Where is our diplomacy? Does anyone think this approach will actually bring a groundswell of support to our bid? Do we actually think it is a great idea to have Tom Kalas being pivotal in forming and becoming a spokesman for the AAFC? Agitating change, sniping comments against the FFA but then at the same time asking to be considered for an A-League license? Again – no diplomacy at all. Where is our humility?

I will end here with a comparison to other A-League hopefuls. This quote from Robert Cavallucci of FC Brisbane City A-League aspirant is a pearler and sums up perfectly all that is wrong with our bid team strategy:

If you've got a commercial argument, if you've got a football argument for what you’re doing, stop doing it by antagonising and picking a fight with FFA. Through positive presentation of who you are, demonstrate to the football community, the A-League clubs, the governing body, why you deserve to be there.

Bang! Spot on! Let’s repeat this and shout it from the rooftops to our bid team, Mr President Leo Athanasakis, some board members and some of our social media fans. Please say after me: “stop doing it by antagonising and picking a fight with FFA”. And again: “stop doing it by antagonising and picking a fight with FFA”. Through positive presentation of who you are, demonstrate to the football community, the A-League clubs, the governing body, why you deserve to be there.

In concluding, I would please urge our board and the bid team to reconsider our approach. This might be our last shot for a very long time. Do what is right, be humble, focus on what we bring to the table and demonstrate how we can attract new fans. Make it a football bid – not just a selfish we deserve to be there SMFC centric bid.

Regards, T. Arvanitis, Murrumbeena, VIC

Around the grounds
$7 for a souv means $3 for the raffle
Standing in a particular position at McIvor Reserve on Saturday afternoon, it looked like there were twice as many people at Yarraville vs Altona East than there actually were. But enough about metrics. Both teams have had their difficulties in 2017, but there's struggling and then there's struggling, if you catch my drift. The team that was struggling less scored within the first few minutes, scored a penalty at the end, and were rarely troubled by Altona East in between those events. I don't remember Tommi Tommich, who was in goal for Yarraville, having to make much more than a solitary save.

Final thought
Very saddened to hear of the passing of former Heidelberg player and president Jim Mangopoulos. Back in the 1990s in his guise as a lawyer, he represented my folks in a civil case when so many others refused - and got them a result of sorts. It was an incredibly stressful time for us - his support was and remains appreciated by my family. Sincerest condolences to his friends and family, and to all at Heidelberg Alexander.

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.

Are you not entertained? Well, now that you mention it... - South Melbourne 2 Melbourne Knights 1

One South fan decided to come up with their own
hospital treatment plan. Who said watching
South Melbourne was bad for your health?

OK, look. It wasn't great, I think we can all agree with that. The effort was there for the most part, even from some of those who we love to single out when they don't put in. You know who I'm talking about. Yeah, that guy, but not only that guy, but especially that guy.

Anyway, apart from some stupid tackles - and congratulations to Knights' Damien Miskulin for getting himself sent off against us for the second time this season - this didn't have much of a 'derby' feel. Everyone at South seems too jaded to care, while Knights were out of the running for finals, and have a much more important game (to them at least) coming up on Wednesday.

There was even cross-cultural happenings between a couple of MCF who wandered over to Clarendon Corner for a very friendly chat - and there is absolutely no euphemism, allegory, metaphor or other reality distorting literary double meaning on there.

We had the better of the contest as you'd expect. Our first goal seemed, to me at least, more or less inevitable, even if Milos Lujic had missed a sitter just before it. Things were going along much as you'd expect - though the bizarre indifference of the entire South team to an injured Manolo was there for everyone to notice - and then the Knights went down to ten men.

Of course that's the cue for someone to press the self-destruct button, and we copped a goal within minutes. From a free kick on the edge of the box no less - and not even a particularly well taken one - which if we had such an opportunity ourselves we would butcher, but it's no use crying over it especially when the only continuing contributor to South of the Border at this time also supports a team with Travis Cloke in it. The world is full of disappointments.

Then we ran around like headless chooks for a bit, like we were trying trying to find our bearings like we'd just going on the tea cup ride a dozen times. Eventually we either kind of remembered that Knights weren't really trying, or the team reacted to the building hostility of the crowd, or someone pressed ctrl-alt-del, and shut down Windows Explorer in the Task Manager and got everything going again. The second goal however still seemed unlikely, until someone - Marcus Schroen, in this case - did something unlikely, that being putting in a decent cross, with Matthew Millar on hand to nod it home.

We still tried to throw the game away in what little time was left, but wouldn't you know it, we didn't. A win's a win and those of us without black holes for hearts will enjoy it, even if one has to go back all the way to round 13 for the last time we picked up a win against a fellow top six side. At the end of the game as we were walking out, one of the uniformed police officers at the game - I assumed initially that they were they there as an overhang from the old boy Socceroos vs Copperoos curtain raiser - was on the phone, or radio or Krusty brand walky-talky, saying 'no flares, and no incidents'. Everyone happy then, or close enough to what can reasonably expect.

An artist's conception of two Chris Taylor hating South fans attempting to
 have a possible 2016 South Melbourne grand final victory end up in a forfeit.

We're gonna lose!
Now some people - not me, mind you - seem to be very close to crossing that line where they want us to lose, because they may deem that such a happening will hasten the end of Chris Taylor's tenure as South manager, and perhaps take down a whole bunch of people with him. Hey, it's their call, and what with South of the Border being too scared to oppress people for having contrary opinions the way we should be oppressing them, we're not going to be too judgmental. It's been a long week. Hell, it's been a long season. Which would make it all the more hilarious if somehow pull off a Portugal and storm stumble accidentally pull off a grand final win despite performances of abject mediocrity. And there will be few gladder about such a win than yours truly, not out of any sense of jaded hipster misanthropy, but because it'll mean another notch on the South title belt. That it would be done via second or third or fourth place would just make it that much sweeter. Any saltiness - is that how the kids say it these days, saltiness? - would be a bonus.

Having said that, everyone knows we're going to tank in the finals, so there's no point getting our hopes up. There, covered all the bases.

Next game

Pascoe Vale away on Friday night.

Marketing idea no. 8733b
So in the early part of the season, we get what, one or two marketable warm weather home games where people turn up like it's Orthodox Easter in Melbourne - that is, their one obligatory appearance at church, or in South's case, to pick up their memberships. But after that comes the grand prix, and we get locked out of Lakeside for several weeks, and whatever whatever momentum we may have had. So how do create a sense of momentum again? I'm thinking we lobby for two home games at the start of April after the grand prix, and market our matches as being part of the Comedy Festival. It'll be avant garde (read, improvisational), interactive (get to feel like you're at a soccer match) and totally meta what with the match being the play within the play so to speak. And let's not undersell the comedy value of a South match day experience.

The answer to one of my questions
I asked, and got no answer, but then I asked again - or maybe overheard a conversation - and found out all I needed to know. Remember how I was banging on about the mystery of the split paths leading out of the players race? Well, it was apparently done because the area of the pitch where the players came onto the field had gotten very muddy or something, and they didn't want the players treading all over that. Makes sense, even if it's a bit anti-climactic.

Around the grounds
If you get one up his butt, it's a million points
Headed to the Δόξα Yarraville vs East Altona ΠΑΟΚ match on Saturday afternoon. Tried to work out what was wrong with South in 2016 with some of the locals. Reminisced, too, about the first time I used a media pass - or was it just a standard FFV pass? - to get into Paisley Park. Copped some indirect grief from one of the blokes manning the gate about people coming in with freebies. Freebies! Do they not know how hard it is to make such dire contests read like a Homeric epic? There were no moments of 'Mighty Sonny Kul, midfielder relentless' or 'Whoever Yarraville's number 7 was, ingenious creator of destruction'. Hmm, maybe I should give up applying Homer to soccer and leave that Fay Zwicky? This was a terrible game of soccer, lacking skill, entertainment, aggression or any of the other qualities that make soccer worthwhile for spectators. It made one feel utterly apologetic for suggesting to one's friends that attendance at this match, part of the relegation scramble, would be a worthwhile experience. The two teams couldn't even manage to hit the Rolls Royce parked adjacent to the field - didn't they get the memo from FFV that the team that knocked off the hood ornament would get a immunity from relegation?

Time for FFV to get serious on insidious scam
I don't care if they're rigged - in fact I just about expect it - but if clubs are going to sell raffle tickets for bottles of scotch and such, then the very least they can do is announce the winning ticket over a public address system, or get someone with a white-board to walk around the terraces announcing the winning number. Time to start docking points for non-compliance with this royal decree I reckon. Before any South people come hunting after me, I'm talking about pleb suburban Greek clubs here, not Hellas, OK? OK.

Scanning news, of a sort
Nothing new to share, but they tell me Victoria University's new ultra deluxe scanning machine is almost here... looking forward to scanning some stuff that deserves better treatment than what my old Canon 3-in-1 can provide.

Hooped socks

Got gifted a pair of BLK blue and white hooped socks by a reader of South of the Border and fellow South fan at the game, and let me say, that they are a quality product. Cheers!

Final thought
In 50 years time this match will be known as the place where the South Melbourne Hellas and Melbourne Croatia merger talks started taking place. Good grief, you think you've seen everything.

Highlights from Mirabella Cup mauling of Yarraville Glory

South opens Mirabella Cup account with easy win - South Melbourne 14 Yarraville 0

Nicky Jacobs adds to the torrent of goals. Photo: Gains

Possibly several records broken today - most notably, it might have been South's largest ever win in a competitive fixture. It was 4-0 at halftime, with a bundle of squandered chances for South. In the second half, Yarraville gave up the ghost entirely. The match was played at very leisurely pace - I was informed by someone more knowledgeable on the matter that Yarraville had a nearly full strength squad out on the park today. For our part, it was a mixture of some senior heads and some youngsters that got a run. Jacobs, Russell, Sardelic, Treloar, Simmons, Deroune (the so called Moroccan keeper, who I haven't seen seriously tested yet) and Vandermay got a bit of a run, as did Gianni De Nittis. It was a mess of a day really. Even when Yarraville managed to get an all too rare chance, they managed to squander it by going round in circles. Next game should be more difficult, assuming that Port Melbourne do the business against South Yarra.

South Melbourne vs Yarraville on Easter Tuesday, in the Mirabella Cup

South Melbourne finally enters the Mirabella Cup in round four, where we will play Yarraville Glory, or Doxa for all you old school types. The match will be held at our temporary home ground of John Cain Memorial Reserve, and will be on April 26th, with kickoff at 3pm,.

Yarraville progressed through the opening three rounds by knocking off Yarra Jets 6-0, Collingwood City 3-2, and Old Melburnians 2-0. All of these opponents have been from division ranked lower than Yarraville's state league 3 position, but as with all prospective opponents, should not be taken lightly.

The official South site has indicated that this fixture is not free for members. Costs are $5 adults, $2 concession. Chance to bring out the old media pass.

Round 19, 2007 – Yarraville 0 Altona East 2

Pretty average game. The surface at Yarraville is absolutely shocking, and the quick burst of rain just after the ressies game (1-0 to East) didn't help matters. East started slightly better, but generally their through balls were too long and Yarraville's keeper wasn't scared to come off his line to collect. Best chance for East was more an accident than anything. The keeper punched the ball away but not very far, was headed over him back towards goal, and with the defender on the line waiting for it, bounced high enough to hit the top of the crossbar. Yarraville asserted themselves better as the half wore on and had one shot cleared off the line, but neither side was particularly inspiring.

Early in the 2nd half East had one cleared off the line which really should have been put away, Gaffa sent one skyward from about 6 yards out after excellent work by Juri on the byline, and with Yarraville looking pretty average, it looked like it was going to be a scoreless affair. But on 75 minutes East took the lead, Juri finding himself with plenty of time outside the area, hitting a wonderful dipping shot which the keeper had no chance of saving, 1-0. Three minutes later, Gaffa found himself with a huge amount of space and only the keeper to beat, and after making it harder for himself having to dodge a couple of defenders as well, he put it away, 2-0. Yarraville tried a little more after that, but couldn't get even a consolation goal.

East were hampered by the awful state of the pitch, but generally lacked intensity as well. Yarraville fought hard, but didn't have the cattle on the park to do the job. Perry Mur was reffing, and he got into a bit of a verbal stoush with some Yarraville fans, chastising them for their lack of originality.

Round 9, 2007 – taking a detour – Williamstown 5 Yarraville 0

First time venturing out to JT Gray reserve. A bit spartan but welcoming nonetheless, though the ground wasn't in great nick, and the ball was bound to bobble around. Willy heading to the social club end in the first half.

Four minutes in, cross to the back post squandered by Willy. About 11 minutes in, Willy player on the right strolls between two defenders, beats a third, shoots and scores, 1-0. Yarraville have a good header from a cross saved on about 15 minutes, and a shot from moderate range saved in the 17th, but Willy grab their 2nd on about 23 minutes. Ball/cross/corner can't remember from the left, goalmouth scramble, shot, goal, 2-0. Yarraville tried and occasionally put something good together, but 2-0 it was at the break.

2nd half, at about 53 minutes, long ball dealt with poorly by the Yarraville defence, 3-0. Not long after, a corner from the right headed in at the near post, 4-0. At about the 75th (?), free kick over the keeper's head, 5-0. Willy wasted numerous golden/unmissable chances and could have well doubled their tally by the end, but sent most of them over the bar. Yarraville for their part got worse as the game went, but still had some ok chances, a couple of shots/crosses across the face which could fallen well for them but didn't.

Willy are slowish, but reasonably skilful and very efficient. Yarraville are energetic, sort of, but generally barely competent. The Yarraville coach is a nutcase, resembling a 1970s VFL coach, from back in the days when yelling and belittling players was considered the height of technical thinking. Many on the sidelines wondering why Nick Tsaltas is still getting a game. Surely the boys who recruited him would have seen him play last year?

Round 8, 2007 – Altona East 0 Yarraville 0

Entertaining game, shame it was goalless, but I'm starting to expect East not to score goals so not as disappointed as i perhaps should be. First half was quite willing, and a good even contest. Both sides looked to attack, Yarraville looked to tee up shots from the edge of the box, and that yielded perhaps their best genuine chance of the first half, a shot gone wide. They also scored a goal called back for offside, and a had a couple of dipping freekicks go just over the crossbar. East tended to piss fart around with it outside the area, but also set up some good chances, and perhaps deserved better from some of the corners they got, one which flashed across the face of goal.

Second half, East got on top, controlling the midfield, and limiting Yarraville mostly to counter attacks. East's pace on occasions was fantastic, plenty of good runs, and some good chances too, but no goal. Best chance was a spilled/saved shot by the Yarraville keeper which really should've been blasted home but was alas only half-chipped back into his arms.

Decent crowd which was good to see, tore my pants coming back over the fence after having a kick on the ground at half time, my fellow Hellas following mate was pleased at recognising Ryan Dinse playing for Doxa. Overall, while there were certainly scrappy elements of the game, the standard was quite pleasing, and some of the individual skill shown by the PAOK players in particular was very good. Should have got the win though, story of our season perhaps.