Blocked by Mike artefact Wednesday - 1960s Ladies membership card

This is a post I had tucked away for a long time, which I just kept pushing back for some reason.

I came across this item back on this date in November 2018. It was posted on Twitter by my erstwhile nemesis SMFCMike, (and if you don't have a nemesis, are you really living?) though of course because I was blocked by Mike at the time, I didn't actually see it until Ian Syson tagged me in to a discussion Mike had started on Twitter about this matter, though of course I couldn't see what the original post was all about.

To see the post, I had to do that stupid thing back then where you would just jump onto Twitter by logging out of your account, thereby bypassing the block. And what did I get to see for my troubles? Well, I got to see a rather nice historical artefact, a South Melbourne Hellas Ladies Membership from, I assume, some time after 1966 and probably before 1972, though I'm guessing this is from the late 1960s.

We don't know how much a ladies' membership cost, but check out the stamp: "Hellas Soccer Club Melb, Vic." - which shares a quality of nomenclature with an old pennant of the time, as noted in this post,

Little bits of news from the first week of January 2022

Preparing for another season that, at best, might only partly be

The fixtures are out, but still we wait for news of memberships. Maybe next week or the week after. And as for the scheduling of the 2021 AGM, that's still largely a mystery to me. But I'm not panicking, because I've been assured that everything is above board, and that all the necessary things will happen in good time. There's a pandemic on, just in case you haven't heard.

Meanwhile the senior men's team - or at least some of that team, because it's hard to tell from the social media output exactly how many made the trip up - are in Shepparton for their now customary week long trip. The club's social media output - mostly vox pops with select players - is emphasising camaraderie, fitness, and even new tactical approaches. 

My expectations for many things South Melbourne Hellas are so laid back, they're horizontal; still, new tactical approaches, eh? I can't say I'm not mildly intrigued, while also anticipating disappointment. Can you believe the new season is just over a month or so away?

Still here

While you shouldn't trust anything you read on the internet, just because, it has been fun this week looking at a small subsection of the Indonesian football social media scene, and their speculating on who historic club PSM Makassar will be signing as a new forward option.

The speculating led to suggestions that PSM were looking at one Harrison Sawyer - our Harrison Sawyer - as a possible signing. Now I had to put all the relevant tweets and websites through the not altogether trustworthy filter of Google Translate, and it was a wild wide for the ten or so minutes it took to get through the commentary.

I can't vouch for the credibility of any of the sources, but it seemed to be a toss-up between Sawyer and A-League journeyman Golgol Mebrahtu. Debate centred around who PSM fans would prefer, about Sawyer's age, why another white guy, and most curiously, doubts about Sawyer because he played a second tier, semi-professional level with no promotion to the top league. 

Maybe someone should work on fixing at least that last item, but I digress.

Anyway, for those keeping track, the club signed Sawyer to a two-year contract at the tail end of 2021, which doesn't necessarily mean big transfer bikkies if he was to be signed by PSM. Are Indonesian clubs even accustomed to paying transfer fees, or are they a bit like us? 

At any rate, someone edited Golgol's Wikipedia page to add the "citation required" detail of him being signed by PSM. Meanwhile, Sawyer was verifiably in Shepparton at Camp Moray Agnew as recently as yesterday. Whether Sawyer did indeed follow PSM on Instagram - as mentioned in of the Indonesian reports or tweets - is something only someone who bothers with Instagram can know for sure. That's not me by the way.

 

Collector Graeme McGinty found this runners up
medal from the 1970 Dockerty Cup in the UK,
suggesting that one of South's British players returned
home, and either he or his family discarded
 his personal football collection at some point.

Piece by piece, bit by bit, one scrounged detail at a time

The next item is of little concern to anyone but the most obsessive, but the match details for the 1970 Dockerty Cup final have finally been completed. Previously both starting eleven's had a player missing, and as it turned out, one of Juventus' subs was also unknown. The missing Juve players were Keith Lackey and Alistair Sandison, while the missing player for Hellas was David High. 

1970 was a bit of a bust for South. Sure, we won the Ampol Cup, but coach Lou Brocic was gone by round 1 (despite a win), and the team muddled its way through the league campaign for a mediocre finish of fifth, four games behind champions Juventus. A league leading nine draws from 22 games probably didn't help.

The one remaining chance for silverware was the Dockerty Cup, which to that point we had not won. Reaching the final thanks to narrow wins over Polonia and Hakoah, and a 7-1 win over Alexander, here was the chance to salvage something from the year. Instead we put in what a very thorough Neos Kosmos match report described as a soulless performance. So it goes.

It was thanks to that article that we found the missing players, which just goes to show, that even sources that amateur researchers have likely gone over multiple times, can still yield useful details.

Speaking of which

One name missing from the South lineup in that final was Ulysses Kokkinos, who passed away seemingly suddenly on Monday. Kokkinos leaves behind a complicated footballing and personal legacy, which South of the Border may or may not muse on at some point, perhaps after the round 1 memorial planned by the club. I wouldn't hold your breath though.

Anyway, back to 1970. South were scratching around for form, but Kokkinos was in good touch, at least for the first half of the season - and then his name just disappears from the team lists and scorers sheets. What happened? Well, it looks like a serious leg injury suffered during South's fifth round Cup fixture against Polonia kept Kokkinos out for what seems like the rest of the season. 

Apparently Kokkinos wasn't the only star player to come out of the relevant cup weekend with a serious injury, with George Cross' Lou Kastner and Juve's Sandy Irvine also suffering heavy knocks. Kastner and Irvine ended up playing out the season, while Kokkinos unfortunately missed out. As with much to do with Kokkinos, it's another case of what have been had he been around more during the peak of his powers; but that's a story for another time. 

Time capsule ticket artefact Friday

Back in 2016 we won our tenth state league title. I wrote about the experience here, but one thing I had forgotten to add to that piece was a scan of my ticket for that day - which is fitting, because I shouldn't have even needed a ticket in the first place. But I had forgotten my FFV media pass at home, and thus was seemingly compelled to head early to the ground to purchase a ticket like a member of the hoi polloi. Fortunately, while some of us were drinking at the Limerick Arms, huge South fan Tony Samaras rocked up, and courtesy of his connection to St Albans Dinamo - who were playing in the NPL2 grand final curtain raiser - was able to hand out complimentary tickets to people who needed them. People like me, as it turned out.

Expert Opinion: Three seconds of fame (previously unpublished)

A little gift to close out the year.

In February 2016, Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers fans acted like twats at a game at Docklands, ripping out seats, and letting off flares and fire crackers and such. I was interviewed on the matter for ABC TV in my guise as a soccer academic, by their reporter Ben Lisson. Being my first television interview, I found the experience by turns exciting, nerve wracking, alienating, and bizarre. 

I wrote up a piece about the experience, but because it took me a little longer to finish than I otherwise would have liked, I didn't send it to my usual outlet of Shoot Farken, instead sending it to an irregularly produced magazine called Thin White Line; partly because I wanted something in print (even though they didn't have an ISBN), but also because I wanted to share the love around.

For whatever reason, the edition that the piece was meant to be published in never materialised. So here I am publishing it for the first time almost five years after I appeared on television. I don't think it's one of my better pieces by a long shot, but that's not the point,

Expert Opinion 
During an away game in Melbourne early in 2016, members of the Red and Black Bloc, the active supporter group for A-League franchise the Western Sydney Wanderers, lit a barrage of flares, as well as launched detonators which in the context of recent world events sounded not unlike the bombs let off in and around European football stadiums. Cue the expected reactions and outrage from all corners, including but not limited to: tabloid media hysteria; the pettiness of inter-codal rivalries; the self-flagellation of soccer fans; the rejection of any responsibility by members of active support groups; the obligatory conspiracy theories that ‘outsiders’ had caused the incident; and the eventual imposition of a fine and suspended point deduction penalty on the Wanderers themselves.

Now normally in these situations, I couldn't care less. Being what is described in Australian soccer parlance as a ‘bitter’ – that is, someone who displays near abject antipathy to the changes wrought to the game after government reviews and the return to the local soccer scene of billionaire Frank Lowy in 2004, which included the establishment of the franchise based A-League, which excludes clubs such as the one I follow from participating – I was content to just sit back and watch the carnage unfold.

On the following Friday morning though, the day before another potentially volatile fixture – depending on your definition of volatile of course - I received a phone call from a private phone number. It was sports reporter Ben Lisson, of ABC TV news, who said he’d been passed along my details from Dr. Ian Syson, a local soccer academic and my doctoral thesis supervisor. ‘Would I mind having a bit of a chat about the flare situation?’ he asked.

‘Not at all’, I must have said, or words to that effect, as we chatted for a few minutes about the flares and the media reaction to the incident. And so after going over some of the key issues, then came the invitation to speak on camera about these matters. ‘When?’, I asked. ‘Tomorrow’, said Lisson. ‘We’ll also be following a family with children that support Melbourne Victory to see what they think’.

So, with plans made for Lisson and his crew to visit my house in Melbourne’s western suburbs, I was already wondering what I’d got myself into. What did I know about flares? I’d never lit a flare. Apart from proximity to certain former notorious Australian soccer hooligans, I had no hooligan, ultra, or active supporter street cred worth speaking of. And while I am an Australian soccer historian and cultural observer, my main academic specialty is soccer as it appears in Australian literature. What’s more, while I don’t like flares, it’s not necessarily on the grounds of law and order, which seems to be one of the main objections to their use in Australian soccer; no, my dislike for flares is more to do with aesthetics.

Yes, there is the awful smell, and the smoke which stings eyes, nose and throat – and on a windy day, the obscuring of the playing field. But as one friend noted on the matter, they also come across as an attempt at a ‘cheap pop’, to borrow a phrase from professional wrestling. And rather than being a demonstration of a spontaneous emotional release, the premeditated launching of a flare after a goal has been scored comes across as creatively moribund almost from the get-go; rather than losing oneself in the jubilant post-goal moment, the person lighting the flare has taken the time out to perform pre-prepared material; rather than becoming one with the exultant crowd, they set themselves both apart from and outside of it.

Nevertheless, I assumed that that line of inquiry would not be at the top of Lisson’s list of questions. So instead I spent the day wondering about the mechanics of the whole thing. Where in my house would they film? Would I have to do a walking to the camera shot, or better still, pretend to be doing serious academic work on my computer or rifling through the contents of a bookshelf? What should I wear? Who should I tell? How would I be introduced to the world? And as a ‘bitter’ with a moderate online reputation, would whatever I have to say be inevitably consumed along partisan lines?

While still pondering these questions, that evening I found myself with a few hundred other souls at the Kingston Heath Soccer Complex, deep in Melbourne’s middle class south-eastern suburban nightmare, watching my club South Melbourne field no recognisable strikers in a 3-0 Community Shield loss to Bentleigh Greens. The smoke of the lamb gyros billowing across the field from the pavilion – and a short break when the ground’s sprinklers came on - was about as close as such as a game could come to being disrupted.

Despite the wonders of the internet age being able to turn anyone into a self-published viral star, there is still something to be said about being interviewed by the traditional broadcast media. And thus while I had decided to be very low-key about the whole thing, I did relent and tell a smattering of my fellow South fans about my impending interview to be broadcast on state-wide television, perhaps even national television – the common reaction being incredulity and confusion about why I’d be chosen to talk about such an issue. Still, one had to be cautious – the interview could have been cancelled, or I could have been interviewed and the entire segment discarded. Probably best not to get too much into a self-promotional state of mind then.

The next day, as the appointed time for the interview drew closer, I started to run through all the things I’d like to say. That despite claims to the contrary from some Australian soccer fans, there is actually a long-standing culture of lighting flares at Australian soccer matches. That active supporters by and large actually like flares, and can’t come out and claim otherwise when the Facebook accounts of active supporters are littered with photographs of flare shows from both local and overseas soccer matches. That flares are impossible to ban, and that all you can hope to achieve is a sort of containment, which would include the use of social ostracism. That whatever measures you attempt to take, there’ll always be one or two people who will disregard the social norms and do what they please, but the most important thing is that the third, fourth and fifth person don’t join in.

Furthermore, that there is the continuing issue of Australia and soccer having an uneasy relationship with each other, the latter often being tarred with the brush of novelty, foreignness and violence, just three items from a long list of historical criticisms of the sport. That the unsolicited advice regarding soccer’s internal cultural discussions from people with a vested interest in other sports is beyond worthless. That instead of listening to those hostile commentators, Australian soccer needs to acknowledge, understand and address the problem on its own terms and for its own sake, with no regard for the opinions of those who despise the game.

Perhaps I could put forward the idea that Australia still has a problem with multiculturalism, interpreting the word to mean the policy of gentle rather than forced assimilation into an imagined middle, instead of a pluralist model allowing many cultures to exist parallel to each other, with no privileged culture at the centre. That what mainstream Australia sees when they see the kind of active support typical to soccer, is interpreted as both a freak-show and as a vague cultural threat, challenging the notions put forward by other Australian sports that the only way to behave in an Australian sporting crowd is to sit down, shut up, and clap politely; and as an extension of that, active support as it manifests itself in Australia is also perhaps too Continental in style, even too Catholic for a nation with a more than residual Protestant fear of reckless displays of self-expression.

Ten minutes or so after receiving a text message from Lisson telling me he’s on his way, a familiar face from network TV strolled through my front gate, with his cameraman in tow. I was slightly unnerved by the fact that Lisson was wearing shorts and thongs (flip-flops for the international reader), but quickly surmised that since his job is mostly to be filmed from the waist up, that it really didn't matter what he wore below the belt.

While the cameraman went about setting up his equipment, Lisson asked me what I specialised in, and seemed disappointed that my officially designated speciality was in literature; my attempts to add my long-standing interest and credentials in Australian soccer history and culture came across as a lame attempt to prove to him that I was worth having made the journey out to Sunshine West. Having decided to film in my front garden, I was instructed to focus on Lisson and not at the camera.

During the interview, I became aware almost from the start that I was not providing the sought for answers, let alone providing them in the preferred format. Instead of clear, direct and definitive statements, the interview saw me play out all the usual academic tropes – that of the kinds of mumbled complexities which would make sense in a long form discussion, lecture theatre, or published academic paper. I thought that the most erudite thing that I’d said was that there was nothing new to see here, and that the situation as it was playing itself out had only served to repeat the standard tropes of the debate. In its own way a cynical reaction to the affair, but perhaps the most obvious one that too often gets ignored when this issue comes up.

After a few minutes the interview is over, and once the framing shots are done Lisson thanks me for my time, telling me that the segment will be on tomorrow evening. On the evening the segment was due to be played, the two televisions in my household were strategically set to everything but the 7PM ABC News bulletin. My parents, who had rightfully commandeered one of the televisions, were watching probably illegally streamed Greek channels. My brothers and I, on the other television, set about watching the rather mediocre repeat Futurama episode where Bender ends up on an island full of obsolete robots.

At some point during the evening’s syndicated viewing, I received a text message from Pamela, a friend and colleague from university who had seen the segment. There were also a couple of tweets from those who had been implored by others to look out for it, but it seemed that by and large my debut television appearance had gone unnoticed. Mustering my courage the day after the segment went to air, I decided to watch it on the ABC’s online catch up service, enduring the vox pops with the Victory supporting families, waiting for my moment of fame, and finally, there I was: ‘Paul Mavroudis: soccer academic’, complete with ruddy face, blotchy skin, and mumbling something – re-imagined as ‘an aporia in the intercodal discursive relativities’ by one online wit - which seemed to have little connection to the rest of the story.

And that was it - my supposed intellectual expertise and days’ worth of angst reduced to a three-second sound-bite. The truth of course, is that I could have backed out at any time, but chose not to out of the vain sense that I would have something important to say, and something which would be noticed and appreciated by the wider public. In that sense, my actions bore at least some similarity to the person who chooses to light a flare at an Australian soccer match; a chance for self-promotion, and a contribution to an unceasing and largely unchanging discussion about flares and Australian soccer. And thus the discursive tropes around flares and Australian soccer were repeated once more, with me fulfilling my obligation as abstract indirectly involved talking head.

Ange Postecoglou training kit jersey

There's a social media account that's been posting their collection of South Melbourne Hellas jerseys o social media - notably on Twitter (here) and on Facebook groups like Australian Football Memorabilia.

(Just as an aside, and I know I've mentioned this on one of the episodes of the history podcast, but whoever decided to change the name of the game in Australia from "soccer" to "football" has made the work of Australian soccer historians and researchers infinitely more difficult).

Most of the jersey uploader's jerseys seem to be of a comparatively recent vintage - think mid-1990s onwards - and that'd be no surprise, as they're by far the easiest ones to get. I mean, good luck prising a Marathon Foods era jersey out of someone's cold, dead hands. 

And as for a Montague Smash Repairs jersey (supposedly the thinking man's South Melbourne Hellas top) or anything before that, forget about it. That stuff is gone, and probably the only people who have those things have them locked in a vault, or have no clue of their value or importance of such an item, even as it's right in front of their face as I'm saying this, waggling back and forth, perhaps being help up by a loved one.

Nevertheless there are some rare gems in our collector friend's collection, such as this training kit, and this General Diagnostic Laboratories kit before the company's botched pap smear tests saw the firm re-brand as GDL, and the kits changed accordingly. At any rate, the whole affair has prompted me to dig out this photo of what I assume is Ange Postecoglou's training kit jersey from the late 1990s, which I found when I was cleaning out the old social club many, many years ago now. Strange what survives and what doesn't.

Scrapbook artefact Wednesday - SM Hellas vs Newcastle BHP, 1993

After initially being a cautiously keen user of the Australian Football Before the A-League page, I'd boycotted it for a few years. Partly because I'm not a Facebook fan; partly because the page was becoming increasingly repetitive and was of poor quality from an artefact and discursive perspective; and partly because the moderators of the site did nothing to curb possibly libellous personal abuse levelled at myself and another user.

But the past is the past. Though some of the discussion on there is still vintage garbage TWGF level in terms of its pitting the past against the present, the quality of the artefacts seems to have improved somewhat, as the page's user base has increased in size. Some people are even posting full programs instead of just newspaper cut-outs!

In amid the usual and the surprising, you occasionally stumble across interesting items like this:

Click to enlarge the image. Credit: Mark Taylor.

It comes from a series of scrapbook notes taken by one of the page's members, Mark Taylor, who has been sharing them on the group's page. The game was South vs Newcastle in February 1993, the home game after the Clash of the Titans. In its own way it's a kinder gentler version of something like this,

Anyway, thanks to the relevant Facebook page, I've also been able to add even more content to South of the Border's match program archive, including the program from the opening of St George Stadium - at present our oldest NSL program on the site, and our second oldest overall. We've also got away to Marconi in 1979, and hopefully soon Marconi away 1980 and 1981.

Tassie All-Stars stun the mighty South Melbourne Hellas in 1981 (via Walter Pless)

Photo of a pennant from the game between the Tassie All-Stars and South Melbourne
 Hellas, sent to Walter Pless by former Tasmanian player Craig Pitt. According to Pitt -
who played  against South for Tasmania in the early 1990s - the likely reason he has this
 pennant is that  he was a ballboy during the 1981 meeting between South and Tasmania.

During the coronavirus downtime, I've been mucking around with a collaborative project set up by Tony Persoglia to create and compile a database for interstate competition and tour matches, which will ultimately be uploaded to OzFootball. It's the kind of information which already exists in a piecemeal format on OzFootball - and in different, hard-to-find print almanacs - but which really needs a comprehensive clean-up so that we have a reliable one-stop shop for this kind of information. Here's a sample page of how this information will be presented once the collective effort is fully unleashed.

Meanwhile, unlike South of the Border, which has been slack with any sort of updating,
Tasmanian soccer journalist and historian Walter Pless has been spending the COVID-19 break putting up a series of fascinating posts on his blog on the olden days of Tasmanian soccer. Our lockdown interests met at the point where I needed info on a Tasmanian rep match from 1965 against an Auckland select in New Zealand.

While digging around for relevant info to help me out, Walter came across some South Melbourne Hellas archival materials, and kindly passed them along - and also managed to write about the Tasmanian state team beating our own South Melbourne Hellas in 1981. Here's the article originally posted by Walter on his blog - which he's kindly allowed me to reproduce on South of the Border. Naturally it's very much from the Tasmanian point of view. I'll have something more contemporary on the blog in the upcoming week.

Walter Pless' article in Soccer Action from October 21, 1981, covering Tasmania's win over South Melbourne.
The article above this one has then Hellas midfielder John Stevenson claiming that "it's Hellas' title in 1982".

Tasmanian coach Steve Darby really put his name, and that of Tasmanian football, on the map when he coached a Tasmanian All-Stars side to a 2-0 win over the highly-rated South Melbourne Hellas at South Hobart on 11 October 1981 before a crowd of 1,500.

South Melbourne Hellas had just finished second in the National Soccer League and their side included Alun Evans.

Evans began his career with Wolverhampton Wanderers and I had seen him play for Wolves in the United States against Stoke City in 1967.

Tasmanian coach Steve Darby. Photo: Walter Pless.

He joined Bill Shankly’s Liverpool in 1968 as a 19-year-old and played for The Reds for four seasons before losing his place to new signing Kevin Keegan.

Evans was the star of the South Melbourne side that came to Hobart but although he went close to scoring several times, the Tasmanian defenders kept him goalless.

Tasmania’s coach, Steve Darby, also had an impressive CV. He had been assistant national coach of Bahrain before coming to Tasmania to coach Devonport.

Darby also played for University and coached New Town Eagles, as well as the State team.

Darby went on to be the State Director of Coaching before leaving Tasmania and becoming a successful men’s and women’s coach in Australia and South-East Asia.

He coached the Matildas and the Vietnam women’s team, and was also assistant coach of the Thailand men’s national side.

The Tasmania All-Stars side was impressive and included former Middlesbrough First Division player Peter Brine in defence.

Photo: Peter Brine (rear at left) back in Hobart in 2018 to
 catch up with Craig Jones (front left), Nick Di Martino
 (rear right) and Denis Payne. Photo: Walter Pless.

The Tasmanian team was: Phil Kannegiesser - Alan Burton, Peter Brine, Darby Conlan, Chris Hey - Steve Kannegiesser, Eric Young, Willy Peters - Bruce Ward, Mark Oakes (Nick Cook 60), Ian Parker.

The South Melbourne Hellas line-up was: Laumets - Boon, Lutton, Xanthopoulos, Traficante - Stevenson, Shirra, Nicolaides, Campbell - Evans, Buljevic.

The Tasmanian side included other imports such as Eric Young (ex-Manchester United), Bruce Ward (one of the most lethal strikers ever to have played in Tasmania),Ian Parker (brilliant left-winger from the UK), Alan Burton (also from the UK) and Nicky Cook (was with Hull City).

The home-grown talent was impressive, too, with Chris Hey, Phil and Steve Kannegiesser, Darby Conlan, Willy Peters and Mark Oakes all playing from the start.

Eric Young (left) and Ian Parker catch up in Hobart in 2008.
 Photo: Walter Pless.

South Melbourne’s coach was former Greek international John Margaritis, who coached Olympia in Tasmania in the 1960s.

The referee was Tasmania’s Norm Johnston, a top-class official who had come to the State from Western Australia. He was here only a few years before returning interstate.

Goals by Ian Parker in the 11th minute and Bruce Ward in the 79th minute did the job for the home team.

I’d love to see the video of the game. It was filmed from the back of a ute parked on the grass at the side of the pitch near the present scoreboard. I know because David Martin and I were the commentators. David, Reg Tolputt and I used to host a half-hour football show on local radio station 7HT on Saturday mornings. Reg was one of the founders of new club Salvos (Salvation Army) and he was also the manager of one of Steve Darby's Tasmanian sides.

My match report in "Soccer Action" [see above] didn't appear until 10 days later because Steve Darby and I had been attending the semi-finals and final of the Under-20s World Cup in Sydney [won by West Germany 4-0 against Qatar].

#itstime artefact Wednesday - #SMFC4ALEAGUE t-shirt

Time has stopped. Time no longer exists. There is no A-League. There is no South Melbourne Hellas. There is no soccer. We exist in the collective individualised state of attempting to engage with the twin voids of chronology and meaning. All we have left is the remembrance of time, and the events which occurred back when things still used to occur. I bought this t-shirt late last year at the Savers outlet in Footscray, for the princely sum of $3.49. I don't remember what the club was charging for these shirts. Not being convinced of the merits of the South Melbourne bid, or the legitimacy of the A-League bid process as a whole - and because I am preternaturally too cool for school - I didn't buy a shirt from the club when I had the chance. We could wonder which of our fans had bought one of these shirts and then lost all hope and abandoned the club after our most recent A-League bid failed. More likely, the shirt belonged to a former casual employee, volunteer, or sundry associate of the club, who would have no reason for keeping this shirt. For those of us still here, it's not an item that's going to end up in the poolroom, but there wasn't much choice for me when I saw it on the racks.

All Greek To Me artefact Wednesday - 3XY Radio Hellas' Oceania Club Championships final broadcast

This week's artefact pays tribute to two anniversaries, although I was more aware of one than the other when I started writing this piece.

It seems kinda sad that - so far - the club's 60th anniversary has gone by without too much fanfare, but that the back-to-back championships and the Oceania triumph have also slipped by. Maybe there's something in the works to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the club's peak, but we'll see I suppose.

2019 marks twenty years since South won the Oceania Club Championships, although this post also missed the boat by a good month. Closer to the mark - in fact, being celebrated right now - is 3XY Radio Hellas' 25th anniversary, the Greek-Australian radio station which has been both friend and foe to the club, depending on who (and when) you ask.

On September 26th, 1999, after a gruelling run in which the team played four games in about eight days, South Melbourne Hellas was crowned the inaugural club champions of Oceania; an honour which saw the club win the right to represent the Oceania confederation at the first World Club Championships in Brazil the following January.

South had qualified for the tournament by virtue of winning the 1999 National Soccer League grand final against minor premier Sydney United. The fact that the minor premier didn't qualify for this tournament probably sticks in United's craw to this day, but doing these things via grand final winner is the Australian way. Still, an administrative bungle by Soccer Australia could - in theory at least - have seen United go to Fiji in South's place, as seen in this August 1999 article by Michael Cockerill in the Sydney Morning Herald.

South must win the Oceania club title before confirming their passage to Brazil, but that seems a formality, despite an amazing administrative blunder by Soccer Australia. 

A fax bearing the signature of NSL general manager Stefan Kamasz and sent to the Oceania Football Confederation in Auckland on July 27 nominated minor premiers Sydney United as Australia's representatives, instead. Kamasz is in Greece on holiday and unavailable for comment.

Anyway, the Oceania Club Championships were played in Fiji, in tumultuous weather, difficult pitch conditions and occasionally, as in the final, in front of large, boisterous, crowds. The tournament also seems to have been marred by an overly physical style from some of the Pacific Island teams, the occurrence of which took its toll in particular on the team that South Melbourne would have expected to play in the final, New Zealand's Central United. United were so beaten up by the schedule, that not only did they lose their semi-final, but the third place playoff was called off because of their injury toll.

So South went on to play Nadi of Fiji in the final at Prince Charles Park, in front of 10.000 locals

The South Melbourne squad on the day was:

Milan Udvaracz, Steve Iosifidis, Fausto De Amicis, Robert Liparoti, Con Blatsis, David Clarkson (George Goutzioulis 67'), Steve Panopoulos, Vaughan Coveny, Paul Trimboli, Michael Curcija (Jim Tsekinis 55'), Goran Lozanovski (Anthony Magnacca 46').

(One of the heroes of the previous two grand final wins, John Anastasiadis, missed the final because of injury.)

There were apparently only about 70 South fans present for the final. The rest of us probably had to make do with either waiting for reports to be published in the print media, or if they were too impatient for that, listen to the 3XY Radio Hellas broadcast of the game. I was never a big fan of listening to the 3XY broadcasts of our NSL matches. I mean, if you didn't have a choice in the matter, you tuned in regardless, but the signal quality was often crap, and as for the quality of the commentary... let's just say that it could be ages before the commentators would update the score.

But at least I understood enough of the Greek that was the predominant language of these broadcasts! It must've been much worse for fans of ours with a sketchier or non-existent knowledge of the Greek language. During the NSL, there were sporadic updates provided in a heavily accented English, but this was years before livescore apps. And what else could you do, if you weren't at the game or didn't have subscription television? I suppose if you were ahead of the technological curve at the time, you could've used a mobile to call a mate a the game. But that was probably not an option for this game, what with it being in Fiji and all.

Anyway, when I was cleaning out the old social club back in the day, one item I took with me rather than allow to be packed into storage was an audio cassette with the label:

OCEANIA CUP FINAL 

Sunday 26 September 1999 

PRINCE CHARLES PARK, FIJI 

NADI (FIJI) 1

STH MELB (AUST) 5

I don't know who the person was who recorded the broadcast, nor what the circumstances were, nor if they're even still South fans. You'd like to think they're still with us, but the past 20 odd years have done a number on the club and a lot of its supporters,

Back in the day I was dabbling with transferring some JJJ Live at the Wireless tapes (The Strokes, Something For Kate, Pollyanna) onto my computer, ending up with huge WAV files and not much knowledge about what to do with the material after that. And that's kinda what happened with this tape, albeit a few years later. A couple of chunky WAV files, converted into appalling quality MP3 files, and then no real idea about how to get them to the stage where they could be uploaded to the internet, especially in an era when YouTube still restricted you to very short videos of a maximum duration of ten minutes.

That, and for the longest time I couldn't really bother listening for long enough to figure out which side had which half of the game, and what the hell was actually going on. So, a mea culpa on my part for exaggerated slackness. But here we are, finally, with this little artefact now available for all to enjoy.

The recording begins about four or five minutes into the game. The chief commentator is Kostas Paterakis, a long time contributor to both 3XY and its sports content, who while commentating on the game, also liaises with "Aleko" back in the Melbourne studio.

Apart from calling the game, Paterakis also makes observations about the weather (heavy rains the previous two days); the state of the pitch (muddy and soft, but at least no longer the rock hard version of earlier in the tournament); the nature of the local crowd (a party atmosphere, ala Brazilian football); the attempts by someone to steal the match ball as a souvenir during an early part of the second half; an observation that Fiji is first a rugby nation, and then a soccer one; and that the Fijians are a very devout Christian people, with many of the crowd leaving the game early to attend evening church services..

The audio quality isn't the best, but is mostly clear enough to understand what's going on.
The recording on the tape is also incomplete. Apart from missing the first few minutes, signal problems mean that the first two minutes of the second half are missing, and of course there's also a small amount of time missed when the tape is flipped over to "Side B".

There's a very brief English language summary midway through the second half, but the overwhelming majority of the game is broadcast in Greek. At the end of the game, Paterakis corrects an early mistake he made, where he credited Steve Iosifidis with a goal that belonged to Fausto De Amicis. It would've been Iosifidis' first goal for the club - I'm not sure Steve actually ended up scoring any goals for South.

Post-match there's a summary of the game and its meaning; speeches and the trophy presentation in the background; a brief chat with Steve Iosifidis; relaying the congratulations of then Victorian state Liberal MP (and later WA state Liberal) Peter Katsambanis;  a chat with "Eleni" and her husband "Vasili" - Eleni had assisted Paterakis during the week; and a chat with some random from Greece named "Dimitri" before the tape ends.

So, while not nearly as good as video footage, for those with the language skills and patience to listen to its lo-fi entirety, it's a worthy artefact in its own right.

40th anniversary of bottoming out artefact

At the end of the 1979 National Soccer League season, South Melbourne Hellas experienced the ignominy of finishing in last place for the first time in its history. The club had not adjusted well upon entering the national competition in 1977; it recovered briefly in 1978, and then tanked hard in 1979 - finishing one and a half games behind Sydney Olympic at the foot of the table. In truth, it should have been two clear games, but South had earned a bonus point for winning a match by four goals, which was the style at the time. By rights this should have seen us relegated, but the powers that be had decided that they needed to cull some of the Sydney teams, and thus Sydney Olympic was sent down to the state leagues, probably very much to their chagrin - it would be the only season they would spend outside the NSL during its existence. What influence South Melbourne Hellas president and NSL chairman Sam Papasavas had on that process I haven't bothered to look up, and it's not like I haven't had the time - I wrote this piece in 2017. For its part, South recovered well in 1980, finishing in the upper reaches of the league, and was usually near the top of the table, eventually culminating in its first national title in 1984. Mark Boric put up this photo when he was scanning and uploading Soccer Action back in the day, around the time the new Lakeside social club was opened, and he asked if we still had the wooden spoon. If it did exist, I didn't see it when I had been packing away items in the social club. One suspects it went missing a lot earlier than that.

Fanatic of the Week no. 6 - James Belias

Last time I posted one of these back in 2017, I said that it was the last one that I'd found on the Wayback Machine that was still in working order... but I was wrong! I've found another one, and bless, it's from someone who still goes to games!

NAME:
James Belias

AGE:
21

SUBURB:
Buxton (home of the ‘Buxton Burger’). Actually, I live in South Clayton.

INTERESTS: 
Becoming the world’s greatest DJ and being the music editor of Lots Wife, the Monash Uni newspaper.

FAVOURITE SOCCER CLUBS:
Racing Genk, Torquay United, AEK Athens, Hamburg and Oubasi Goldfields and Border Security. But South Melbourne are the number one priority and interest.

ARE YOU A MEMBER?
Yep.

WHAT AGE DID YOU EXPERIENCE YOUR FIRST MATCH? 
No idea, but I think I was going to the soccer before I could walk and my first words were probably a chant of some sort. Seriously, dad used to take myself and my two brothers to Middle Park as a weekly outing. Fanatasicm grew steadily…

FAVOURITE SOUTH MELBOURNE MEMORY? 
I remember going to the Grand Final in 90/91 and going bananas as a little kid, and repeating the process against Carlton in 97/98 and Sydney United in 98/99. Surely that is the pinnacle of supporting a club? Another great memory is seeing Paul Trimboli and Micky P at Chadstone Shopping Centre

Also, the World Club Championships was incredible too. Wish I went, but I went nuts at the TV. I’ll never forget the Vasco supporters before kick off against South. Amazing scenes.

MOST MEMORABLE GAME WATCHED? 
When we played Perth Glory at Lakeside on a Wednesday night. I forget which season, but it was a battle for top spot and we scored 2 goals in a couple of minutes to take the lead and finally win 2-1. A great night, and Jimoin the comedian was there going nuts for South!!

Another favourite game was against Marconi at Middle Park years ago. No idea which season, but Tsolakis scored a penalty and Awaratife added a corker seconds later to seal an impossible victory. (The Clash of the Titans – Season 1992/93).

BEST SOUTH MELBOURNE PLAYER EVER? 
I can only speak of who I have seen actually play and all I need to say is that there’s only one Paul Trimboli.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT SOUTH MELBOURNE? 
There are too many things to list, but I like the way South caters for soccer fans in Melbourne and competes, I believe, quite well for the very competitive Melbourne sporting dollar. I think there are some great supporters doing great things for the club too.

WHAT DO YOU DISLIKE ABOUT SOUTH MELBOURNE? 
I get annoyed at the way certain parties at South (both internal and external) cling to the Greek heritage of South. Sure the club has an ethnic history, and we should never forget that, but still referring to the team as ‘Hellas’, which means Greece, has been played for too long.

I also dislike the seats opposite the grandstand. They encroach upon the remaining standing area too quickly for my liking. I hate sitting and watching the football.

WOULD YOU EVER SUPPORT ANOTHER NSL TEAM? 
I won’t dignify that with a response.

WHY? 
Coz South Melbourne are the pride of Victoria and the most famous Australian sporting club in the world! GO SOUTH!!!


THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME JAMES. 

"it came out of the closet" - artefact Wednesday - junior Marathon Foods top

Many years ago, but not quite as many as I initially thought - just a tick over four years ago, so roughly some time in 2014 - Ned Negus, the son of broadcaster and former soccer administrator George, was giving away a whole bunch of jerseys he'd found at an old holiday house.

He made that announcement on Twitter, and I jumped in as quickly as I could hoping there would be something to do with South Melbourne. Now usually I'm quite late on these things whenever they become available, and someone has already snaffled up the good stuff - but on this occasion I was lucky - there was a South shirt amid Ned's collection.

The seeming catch was did I want to wear it or just own it, because the shirt was a small size - extra small in fact. Well, I didn't mind either way, and after sending Ned the due postage - he didn't ask for any payment above that - the shirt arrived at what was then Casa South of the Border, along with a kids size Newcastle Breakers jersey of a similar vintage to the South jersey. 

For some reason I don't have a photo of that Breakers top, but no matter - I sent it away recently to Todd Giles, the amateur historian collecting Newcastle soccer history, who has been kind enough to share Newcastle vs South Melbourne related match programs with South of the Border, and thus also with this blog's audience. All part of an attempt at preserving soccer history, and keeping local soccer history local - well, at least more local than is often the case.

Where have the years gone? artefact Wednesday

Seasons change, time passes by, as the weeks become the months, become the years...

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset... and the cat's in the cradle with a silver spoon...

Thanks to the blog, I can account for a good deal of where I've been for the last eleven years, but before that it all becomes a bit of a blur.

Now imagine if you had to do that for 30, 40, or even 50 years? Is there anyone still at South Melbourne who's been around for all sixty years of the club's existence? Someone who got off the boat when they were 15 or 20 years old perhaps?

Anyway, yes, that is a discoloured 50th anniversary key ring, and yes that is also a 3RRR key ring, though I listen to PBS much more these days.

But as we wait and see what new anniversary paraphernalia gets put out by the club this year, others out there of course have access to older anniversary mementos, which they've shared online.

My 40 year anniversary @smfc key ring has seen better days, but like my club we continue to survive over the many years despite the adversity we face. #60yearsnowbutalwaysandforeverSMFC pic.twitter.com/VLpkA5iGjE

— Est1959 (@Est1959) January 26, 2019

John Vas asks the obvious question

Where have the years gone?? pic.twitter.com/GNV4hVsRgX

— John vas (@Johnvas11) January 27, 2019

Well, John, a good deal of those years have gone on supporting a team through thick and thin, in stadium and paddock, for better or worse...can you imagine if this club lasts another ten years? I shudder to think of the possibility. 

South Melbourne Soccer Club Stadium permit artefact Wednesday

This post is more to keep up radio contact than anything, a sort of New Horizons green light to let everyone know we're still alive during this mostly dormant stage.

This is a planning permit (click the image to enlarge) for improvements to the South Melbourne Soccer Club Stadium, by which I assume was meant Middle Park, as signed in December 1993.

There'd been plans of sorts around the early 1990s about improving Middle Park, and it looked like finally, after decades of fighting against councils, planners and especially the locals, South would finally get on to the task of improving what was a dilapidated ground.

Of course Jeff Kennett brought the Formula 1 Grand Prix to Melbourne from Adelaide soon after this, and things were never quite the same again. So it goes.

Les Murray on Laszlo Urge, and non-linear academic discovery

This is something I started last year but never got around to finishing. Seeing as how Les Murray the soccer pundit passed away this week, and seeing as how South has a week off, it's about time I fished it from the depths of my drafts folder, finished it off, and got it out of the way. I liked what was going on in this a lot more back then than I do now. A more useful version will hopefully end up buried in my thesis' literature review in due time.

This is the story of both the sometimes tedious and arcane nature of academic research, but it's also a story about the meeting of two parts of Australian culture that have little do with one another. If, as the popular notion seems to suggest, that sport and the arts in Australia are inherently irreconcilable pursuits, whose meetings are at best rare and awkward, then perhaps nothing quite encapsulates that cultural schism quite like the existence of Australia's two Les Murrays.

For perhaps most of Australia, even that which is not particularly enamoured with soccer, Les Murray remains the better known of the two Les Murrays. As the face and voice of Australian soccer, and by extension also the face and voice of SBS and a certain strain of the Australian multicultural experience, Murray's fame exists outside of the narrow trench of Australian soccer; this is best typified by the Australian public's familiarity with that strange, untraceable accent, which famously prompted TISM to ask 'What Nationality is Les Murray?' - a song which would not have worked quite so well had people had no idea who Les Murray the soccer pundit was.

Then there is the 'other' Les Murray, often lauded as Australia's greatest living poet and among the finest living poets writing in the English language, but whose work most Australian have probably only come into contact with by accident and most recently twenty years ago (unless they teach poetry in schools; do they still do that?) as the co-author of John Howard's preamble to the Australian Constitution which was attached to the republic referendum. For a minority of Australians, those who might be classed as too educated for their own good to care too much about sport and popular culture, as the poetry editor for the right wing literary and cultural magazine Quadrant, Les Murray the poet is a figurehead of one of the two sides waging perpetual cultural wars against each other.

So how is it that these two Les Murrays would have anything to do with each other? Many years ago while I was still an undergraduate, I seem to recall - though this could just be me inventing a myth of my own - that some now indistinguishable person told me, probably somewhere in the imaginatively named Building 8 at Victoria University's St Albans campus, that Les Murray the poet had written a poem about Les Murray the soccer pundit. Not knowing where to start looking for it, and not having much help from either the person who must (or may?) have mentioned it, the notion of trying to find the poem died quickly. This was before I had even decided that my honours thesis let alone doctoral thesis work would focus on soccer and its relationship to Australian literature; before, too, my ending up teaching some of Les Murray the poet's works in the Australian Literature unit that we teach to second and third year students at Victoria University.

After laying dormant for so many years, the re-ermergence of this apocryphal poem owes as much to the accidental happenings one experiences when travels Melbourne in the style of a flâneur, as it does to the inner suburbs of Melbourne still having enough bricks and mortar bookshops so that the act of finding one is less a freak accident than a statistical probability.

After meeting with my mate Chris Egan in the city, and conducting another piece of historical detective work at ACMI, we decided to head towards Lygon Street for lunch. Taking the tram up there from Federation Square, we - probably mostly me - had stopped paying attention to where we should have gotten off, went several stops further up Lygon Street than we had intended, and then kept walking in the opposite direction to where we were supposed to be going. By a happy meeting of statistical probabilities, we ended up outside Red Wheelbarrow Books, a small independent bookshop. While we could have turned around and just caught the next tram back, there in the front window were an assortment of books by the anarchist poet Pi O, so of course I decided to enter the store.

After discussing Pi O with the store's proprietor and being offered a returned/secondhand copy of one of Pi O's Selected Works for $15 (as opposed to $35 for a new copy), we somehow moved on to discussing my current doctoral work on Australian soccer and literature; the chance to discuss one's thesis work with interested parties who happen to be people other than one's supervisors being an opportunity few PhD students can afford to miss. The catalyst for this was I suppose my making a remark on Pi O's lack of interest in sport, especially soccer, despite his extensive work covering (whether incidentally or not) the lives and language of migrant Europeans during the 1970s and 80s.

Indeed, one couldn't help but note the sole poem where Pi O does discuss soccer, a piece called 'Soccor', which still barely manages to discuss the topic of soccer at all. From there the proprietor of the bookshop managed to make a couple of suggestions about other literary Australian soccer texts, including Peter Goldsworthy's Keep it Simple, Stupid, which I was already well aware of, but he then recalled that Les Murray the poet had written a poem about Les Murray the soccer pundit.That he could recall no further details of its content, title, year etc was now far less of an issue than it would have been in the past. For nearly a decade on, I was now armed with the resources of the AustLit database and duly went off to search for the database entry on Les Murray the soccer pundit, and works which were about him.

Alas, there were no poems listed as being about Les Murray the soccer pundit. What to do? After noting my disappointment on Twitter that the existence of this poem may have merely been an urban myth - a poem by one Les Murray on the other Les Murray, surely it was too good to be true - someone working diligently and anonymously behind the scenes at AustLit came to the rescue.

@PaulMavroudis @eenfish Found it! 'The Sports Machine (for Lazlo Urge of SBS TV)'.https://t.co/HziNAHlW0d

— AustLit (@AustLit) May 15, 2016

As it turned out, according to people at AustLit the poem had never been published either in a literary journal nor in a collection of work by Murray, but rather in one of the supplements of the Weekend Australian in October 1991. So, after a detour to a university bake sale, it was off to the State Library of Victoria to search through the microfilm, sifting through generic right-wing commentary and classified jobs for professionals, until there it was - in all of its if not quite unfortunate mediocrity, then its being something quite different to what I'd expected.

One didn't expect one of Murray the poet's more stunning efforts, but even so, I could not help but be underwhelmed by the poem's style as well as its content. To begin with, even a quick overview reveals that the poem is not about Les Murray the soccer pundit at all, but merely dedicated to him - and even then, not to Les Murray the soccer pundit, but to Laszlo Ürge, the identity the soccer pundit had left behind at the start of his television career.

Without knowing of the existence of any possible prior interactions between the two Murrays, the motivation for Murray the poet writing this poem and dedicating it to Murray the soccer pundit is hard to fathom. At the end of the poem, Murray the poet affirms that 'I'm Les Murray', but it is hard to read between the lines of whether this signing off is meant to be playful and linked to the opening gambit in the dedication itself, or whether it is instead some sort of pointed attempt at reclaiming the rights to the Les Murray name - and if so, what would be the nature of that resentment?

The poem then seeks to describe, in the semi-abstract, various sports played by Australians - among them rugby union and league, Australian Rules, soccer and basketball - but with a kind of dismissive attitude. These sports seem to Murray to be fueled by an anger and relentless trudging and sense of aimless, furious activity; worse still are those who aren't participants, but who live vicariously through the athletes making those exertions. In that sense the poem's tone is entirely consistent with Murray's oeuvre so far as I'm familiar with it - an innate distrust of modernity, and also of the speed and lack of space for thought and contemplation that is attached to that notion of modernity.

It is strange then that as an Australian bush nationalist of sorts, that one of Murray's preferred sports at the specific time of this poem's publication is not cricket, especially as it may manifest itself in those idyllic John Harms-ian forms played in the Australian bush, but instead what he calls American cricket - in other words, baseball. This is strange in the context of Murray's politics because as Michael Manley has noted, whatever elements of idleness, rest, anticipation and craft are shared by cricket and baseball, cricket in its purest essence is an agrarian and time-less game, while baseball was moulded very early on into becoming an essential part of the ordered and regimented cycle of life in the modern industrial north of the USA.

Strange also are Murray's interpretations of those sports, especially the various football codes enjoyed by Australians. Here Murray plays the accidental historian, placing the rugby codes first in order of genealogy but re-interpreting in a sense the origin myths of union and league, and therefore rugby as a whole itself; while one can perhaps sense Murray vaguely alluding to the class split which saw league split off from union, at no point does Murray place rugby union's origins in the English public school system, nor allude to the inherent link between industrialisation and the professionalism of rugby league. Instead we have 'poachers in blue', who one supposes may be members of the upper classes or the military, playing for a time at least either with or alongside - it's not clear to me which Murray deigns to mean - 'farmers in brown'.

The depiction of Australian Rules in this poem is typical of the generic response someone from the northern states may make of the game - the comical appearance of the players in their sleeveless shirts and tight shorts jumping on top of each other, and the near incomprehensibility of the large crowds who are there to watch them. Murray's familiar dislike of crowds and fear of their encroachment on his personal space gets doubled down in the depiction of soccer - the implied barbarity of the kicking of heads among caged foreigners, with little definition of who is being separated from whom. Aside from this however, Murray the poet offers little more on soccer than this scene of stylised allegorical violence and the crowds of foreigners who watch the game - an unusual step to take when dedicating a poem to a soccer man.

For the rest, basketball gets short shrift, as does tennis and the grunting efforts of its players. But the point seems to be that those watching either in person or drowsily watching on a TV screen, combined with the furious exertions of the players, are suffering form a kind of madness. For Murray, for whom crowds are a form of madness in their own right, the sporting machine is not a benign illness. It's almost as if Murray sees modern professional sport - such as it was in 1991, and goodness knows it's only gotten worse - as a corruption of both work and play. the idea being that play should be left alone, untainted by commercial interests, for when play is turned into work, work too loses its own nobility. Modern sport and professional athletes begin to less resemble people participating in a vocation or ritual attuned to the rhythms of nature, becoming instead automatons.

Notable Greeks of Melbourne artefact Wednesday

Well, lest one think that because  we spoke earlier in the week about one South Melbourne Hellas president that we have some sort of perverse agenda against our current nightmarish regime, here is a short piece which spreads the love to a despotic and nightmarish regime of an earlier, more innocent time.

Some time last year I think it was, while sitting on the outside tables at the Limerick Arms because we didn't have a social club at the time, that frequent artefact provider to South of the Border known as The Agitator lent us this book called The Greeks of Melbourne (published 1996) that he'd found in an op shop somewhere. Maybe it was even the Sacred Heart Mission shop just down the road from the pub. Clarendon Street's good like that.

The book is by someone named Dominique Francois De Stoop (who according to their own bio on the back had a very colourful career) which is not a very Greek name no matter how you try and spin it, and is unusual on that front for the fact that it's not a Greek writing this book because it's usually our deal to spin crap about how great we are.

Rather than going back and identifying every Greek that has ever done anything in Melbourne, the book msotly seems focused on contemporary Greek identities from all walks of life, and my goodness there are a lot of obscure people in there who happened to hit the jackpot by timing their burst of mediocre prominence to co-exist with the compilation of this book. Which is not to cast aspersions on any single one of those lucky souls, because soon enough the same will happen to this South of the Border correspondent in an upcoming book, and we'll all be the poorer for the experience and entertainment this fleeting bit of non-fame will provide.

Yes it's a terrible scan, but wait until you see the next one.

So anyway, The Greeks of Melbourne would surely have something about Hellenism's contribution to sport in Melbourne during this time. And because it would have that contribution to sport, surely soccer would be in there. And because soccer would be in there, surely there would be something about South Melbourne Hellas, but what exactly?

Well as it turns out, yes there is a section on sporting Greeks, and yes there is something about soccer, and yes there is something about South Melbourne Hellas. But for whatever reason this is limited to a brief biographical sketch of the club's then president, George Vasilopoulos.

For the record, here are the other names included in the sport section. Carlton footballer Ang Christou; his team mate Anthony Koutoufides; tennis player; Mark Philippoussis; super marathon runner Yiannis Kouros; taekwondo champion Lydia Zykkas; and er, Arthur Euriniadis, CEO of Collingwood Warriors. That not one Greek soccer player is included is perhaps interesting - maybe there were none good enough, or considered high profile enough - and instead we get two administrators to represent local Greek soccer.

The relevant biographical segment begins by noting that Vasilopoulos was the manager of a local bank branch, which is an extraordinarily dull thing to note except when you recall that so many slurs directed at the management of ethnic soccer clubs from those who mocked our capabilities focused on the 'fact' that our clubs were run by fish 'n chip shop owners, milk bar proprietors, and greengrocers. First, as if there is anything wrong with those kinds of people running a club at any level; second, in our case it just wasn't true. Surely the more important thing would be that the people running the joint were not out of their depth, and not their origins? Besides which, soccer in Victoria and probably across the country is so much more dependent on the health and wellbeing of the construction industry than anything else.

You want to read this? Click on it in order make it bigger.

The section on Vasilopoulos continues to trundle along aimlessly, providing a prosaic recap of George's life before finally getting to his involvement at South Melbourne Hellas, and then after just one paragraph, quickly returns to talking about George's life independent of South Melbourne Hellas.

Oh, but what commentary on our club in that brief space allocated to it. Vasilopoulos claims that the club had 3,500 paying members and expected to have 10,000 members by the year 2000. I am amazed by these assertions on so many levels. There is of course the 3,500 claim, because popular legend has it that our record was 2,700 at some point in the early 2000s. Then you have the ambition to reach 10,000, which just seems out of this world.

But take note also of the expectation that the club's new facilities would be a key factor in attracting new members, and what may otherwise come across as merely an obscure oddball comment suddenly has a kind of relevance to our present situation. After all, has not Bill Papastergiadis of our A-League bid team made similar comments about our club currently having 6,500 members? Does the club not hope that the people who will come to use our futsal court will in time come to our games, and in turn become South supporters? Sometimes it seems as if time is neither a straight line nor a circle, but rather just us sitting on the same spot forever. I'm sure some notable physicist has proven that to be the case anyway.

Pumpkin Seed Eater Origins artefact Wednesday

Way back in the mists of time, the NSL was still dead, but the A-League had not yet officially begun. In those days, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, as well as trepidation - and anticipation - of what the A-League would bring.

Many people had chosen sides, while a lot of other people hedged their bets. In amid the clamouring, there were many op-eds. and roving reporters, and prognostications. Would it work? Would the tribes be united? 

In Melbourne, this situation was probably more heated than anywhere else; one can speculate in their own time why that might have been.

Forums (remember them?) old and new were filled with passionate arguments and open hostility. Many were willing to offend, and many more were willing to be offended.

Come to think of it, that seems a lot like the present, too.

One of the most contentious (relatively speaking) comments made during that time was often attributed to then Melbourne Victory majority (or was he outright? Doesn't matter.) owner Geoff Lord.

He was accused of calling the old soccer guard 'pumpkin seed eaters'. 

Of course, later on the phrase 'pumpkin seed eaters' would be taken up by a podcast of the same name, one which others enjoyed more than myself. 

Then, as the arguments for and against got stale, and as 'three years tops' became many more, the phrase slipped out of the Australian soccer lexicon. 

But what was the context for that statement? How did people come to hear of this utterance? That seemed to get lost in the wash somewhat.

The answer lies, at least partly, in this week's artefact. In the Wednesday July 13th 2005 edition of Goal Weekly (remember print journalism, kiddies?), in Eddie Krncevic's 'Krncevic's Korner' segment - why did I think it was Krncevic's Krunchlines? - where Eddie opines on said incident.

Right off the bat, Krncevic makes it clear he didn't hear the comments made himself, nor does he name the person involved. And while Krncevic is concerned at the offence caused, he doesn't see it as a deal-breaker by any stretch of the imagination, only more of a misstep that should not be repeated if Victory and the A-League were to succeed in Melbourne.

Of course, as with many of these kinds of 'outrages', though they were heartfelt by many of those who were listening at the time, the fact of the matter was that most weren't - just as today most Australian soccer followers or participants have no idea of the debates being had on Twitter and the remaining forums and blogs.

Besides which, as was noted by a member of the Victory forum at the time, even one of the blokes who sold pumpkin seeds at Lakeside ended up outside Victory games anyway.

Class bit of glass artefact Wednesday

Anyone that knows me well enough knows that I have a certain - admittedly mostly ironic - fondness for Greek-Australian kitsch. And this glass is pure Greek-Australian kitsch.

Strangely though, I'm enjoying this artefact on a completely non-ironic level. Aside from the tacky (and mandatory) gold-plating around the rim, I really think this is a rather tasteful and high quality piece of South Melbourne Hellas memorabilia.

I had this image sent to me from South of the Border reader Evan, who got them from a friend. Are these glasses 'official'? What year are they from? I haven't the foggiest idea. If I were to hazard some guesses I would say, 'maybe' and 'late 1970s to 1980s'. I wish I had my own.

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.