Speaking of which... - Bentleigh Greens 2 South Melbourne 2

Well, we matched it with them for about 20 minutes, and then we didn't, and we copped two goals and we looked done like a dinner, And then we somehow dug our way of that, not without a bit of luck, and almost snatched it.

Some of those banners are not very NCIP friendly. A good thing that it was
'erase racism' round. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

Nick Epifano is a hell of a frustrating player. In the first half he was nowhere near it really, and was directly involved in the first goal we conceded, after he dithered in midfield and lost the ball, from which Bentleigh countered and scored while we had numbers committed forward. What was worse was that the danger from such half-heartedness was already apparent, after Milos Lujic had earlier stopped dead waiting for a referee's whistle that never came, sending Bentleigh on their way.

To be fair to Epifano he was not playing in his more suited wide positions, and neither did I think he that had the capacity to pull himself out of his lacklustre performance - and to be even fairer, he was hardly alone in the slack arse stakes in the first half. The whole side picked up their work rate, and the performance improved considerably, and Epifano was a huge part of that, so credit where it's due.

Less credit to David Stirton who hasn't quite lived up to my expectations yet. I've been defending him over the past few weeks despite his sluggish form from the attacks of my favourite hill and terrace loud mouth, but last night Stirton had a shocker. Subbed at half time - as part of an atypical Chris Taylor early double sub roll of the dice - his replacement Andy Brennan if nothing else provided the kind of grunt work that Stirton would not. Whether Stirton gets a reprieve for next week is anyone's guess.

Lujic is beginning to annoy a section of the supporters - this writer included - with his tendency to now play for fouls and not play to the whistle. The aforementioned incident was a perfect example, and even the penalty that we got was in that realm. Looking at the replay, he does get clipped, but the possibility that he was milking it has now entered my mindset and it's going to be hard for me to shrug off. Of course for others this is less of an issue, and they may even applaud Lujic for winning the foul, because there was contact and he made the most of it to the benefit of the team. And what of last year's game, where we were denied a much more obvious penalty? Swings and roundabouts.

Epifano's equaliser - which was well worked, though I think Alistair Bray could have done better if he'd just stood his ground - set up a show stopper of finale, where the Greens were denied a goal late on for reasons I'm not aware of, Tyson Holmes didn't score against us, and Lujic seemed to pull up with cramp just as the ball sat up for him to snatch the winner in the last seconds of the game. Both teams can play better, but I think we have more improvement left in us than Bentleigh, and more than the point we got out of the game, that's what makes me happiest - despite being very unhappy with our performance for large chunks of the game.

Next week
Heidelberg away.

Could we have had Eagar earlier?
Overhead a story yesterday that prior to joining us last year, Michael Eagar had previously trialled with us in 2013, only to be rejected.

Wavelength: 495–570 nm
My, wasn't the Kingston Heath surface looking particularly verdant last night? Maybe because someone - either the local council or the home team themselves - had it painted green! It seems as if South's team manager Frank Piccione has had a horror time trying to get the green paint off the white uniforms. Brad Norton has claimed that even after three showers, he still looks like the Grinch! More seriously, why was there paint on the field? What was the paint on the field? And who's going to reimburse us in the event that the paint has left permanent stains on the uniforms? Speaking of things green and not being what they claim to be...

Truly, the most overrated of foodstuffs in the league
Ten dollars doesn't get you very far in the south-east. Oh, in parts of the west it can get you both a meat filled roll and a soft drink, but out there in the middle of nowhere, you're left with no change from a tenner after you purchase your meat and bread product. But that's OK, as it's part of the experience of travelling to overhyped football tourist spots like FoxSports Souvlaki Stadium. What's less than acceptable is being charged ten bucks for what is essentially a bread pocket half filled with lettuce so devoid of flavour that it felt not like I was eating discarded grass clippings, but instead munching on leftover parts of the synthetic turf they used for the second pitch. Speaking of which...

Segment rescinded due to ongoing investigation
Because sometimes you gotta sure make of a few details before going off half-cocked.

Lead singer: No there's no substitute for you.
Backing singer: No substitute, no substitute!
While it escaped my attention during our last league game away to Werribee, last night while looking at the team sheets on Twitter it became very clear that we did not have a substitute keeper listed. My mind immediately went back to the 2000 Scottish FA Cup final, where Aberdeen played Rangers, a task made much harder for Aberdeen due to the fact that they had no substitute keeper. Well what do you know, their keeper Jim Leighton went off injured and they had to use one of their outfield players in goal. It didn't turn out so well.

Now when Roganovic went down heavily in the six yard box yesterday, it looked like we were in big, self-inflicted trouble. Now I had overheard that under these quite plainly unacceptable circumstances, Kristian Konstantinidis would be the outfield player to take up the gloves. But of course he's out injured. So what was going to be Plan Z exactly? Poor organisation by the club on all fronts on this matter, thought its comforting to know that we've reverted to our habit of signing 101 midfielders. Luckily Roganovic managed to get up and continue. But speaking of Gonzo...

Kristian Konstantinidis out for season?
It looks like Gonzo's out for the entire season now, or at least a huge chunk of it. Since much of our plan for this year seemed to hinge on Michael Eagar playing a central defensive role, what would be the back up plan if that couldn't be arranged because Eagar needed to played in defence? Perhaps new recruit Dane Milovanovic could fill in that role - but is he even fit? Murmurings around the ground suggest that he is not.

Dockerty Cup opponent
We've been drawn against the plucky cup outfit North Sunshine Eagles. North Sunshine have a habit of punching above their weight in the cup, most recently eliminating Sunshine George Cross on penalties after their game finished 6-6 after extra time - including coming back from 6-4 down with nine men.

Hey Martin Foley, where's the social club? (via smfcboard)
"He said the wheels were in motion, but there was no motion. He's a very bad man"

Around the grounds
Three times is a trend
This week was the first game of the league season for the state leagues, and I ventured out to the Paisley Park derby. Neither of these two sides had apparently shown much during the pre-season. Altona East were lucky to avoid relegation last year, thanks to Moreland City accepting promotion to NPL. 2015 hadn't started much better, being bundled out of the Dockerty Cup by lowly Riversdale. For their part, Altona Magic had reportedly recruited heavily with a view to getting into the NPL, only for that door to be shut by the FFV for this year. Magic, too, had been bundled out of the cup by Berwick. The game started in typical derby fashion, with a lot of strong tackling, but eventually Magic went on to take control of the match. That they ended winning this game because of pretty much scoring the same goal three times doesn't reflect well on Altona East. Each time the ball was lofted into the area, each time confusion reigned in the East defence, with the keeper and defenders at sixes and sevens. OK, so the second of the third goals was an own goal, but that was the only outlier. East did pull it back to 2-1 early in the second half, but never really threatened again after that. Echoing last year's 'Robin Egg Blue' fiasco, Ian Syson decided that the colour of Magic's away strip was 'banana yellow' (as in the skin, not the flesh), whereas I argued it was the colour of an egg rich custard. It was that kind of day.

Oh, and my hair has apparently changed colour again. I blame the sun.

Final thought
There was some, er, 'arousal' in among the crowd there last night. Perhaps it's best to leave it at that.

2015 Asian Cup adventure - Day 3 - Kill the Buddha

Prologue
I woke up in a foul mood yesterday, which may go some way towards explaining the following post.

Going out for a patented Sideshow Bob 'vigorous constitutional' only made things worse
After finding myself actually enjoying last Sunday's Iran vs Bahrain match, and thus looking forward to the rest of the tournament (at least those parts that I could attend), I decided to look up just for the sake of it who'd be hosting the next tournament in 2019. It turns out that hasn't been decided yet, but one of the bidders happens to be Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia: a nation that does not allow unaccompanied women to do pretty much anything (and of course bans them from attending football matches); a nation that does not allow expressions of any faith other than Islam, and a nation that censors all of its media to the nth degree. And yet how much more advanced are we? Let's use this as an opportunity to blow something minor completely out of proportion. During Tuesday's win by the Socceroos - which I quit watching after we went 3-0 up, because the streams I tried watching the game on became unusable - Tom Juric scored the team's fourth goal, and proceeded to lift his shirt to reveal a message in Croatian/Split dialect/Shtokavian/Serbo-Croatian/Vukovian, which said 'Mama, Tata, Braco' (Mother/Mum, Father/Dad, Brother/Bro - as a believer in the importance of the reader as symbiotic participant in the writing process, I'm letting you take your pick on the formality of the message).

Apparently a minority (or a statistically significant number, depending on who you believe) of people on Facebook and Twitter had a whinge about this - specifically on the fact that the message was not in English - and thus discussion of this filled my Twitter timeline, leading to me making a dick of myself by singling out one person in isolation for semi-confected outrage when it was utterly unfair of me to do so. That person is merely an agent of the problem, not its cause and really, I would have been much wiser parlaying my hard won wisdom into the alternative discussion about ice cream, and how cool was it when you tried to reach for ice creams at the bottom of the fridge at your local milk bar, because they would definitely be the coldest and by definition the best.

The issue remains however, that those who support the National Club Identity Policy (here we go again, boooooooooorrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing) provide a sense of legitimacy to those people in Australian soccer (and by extension Australian society) who use that policy to further their assimilationist ends. Pointing out the fact that messages on shirts other than those things allowed to be put on playing jerseys (whatever that means under our current nightmarish regime) aren't allowed anyway (and liable to be punished by a yellow card and/or disqualification from Australian competitions) is beside the point; neither are offside goals allowed, yet the Socceroos' third goal clearly benefited from a cock up from the officials on that front, and it still counted. Unless you're the editor of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper, what has been seen cannot be unseen.

The creator of this images wishes to remain anonymous.
I guess I owe them a frap or beverage of their choosing.

Now while 'the few, the proud, the geeky' among us may have the power of furious and righteous indignity on our side, the great mass of the Australian soccer public could not give a fat rat's clacker. Our 'cause', such as it is, is doomed, due to the combination of both a jackbooted bureaucracy acting on behalf of Dear Leader (and a big 'hi' to all my North Korean readers, yes we do have our own 'Dear Leader' who will soon be replaced by his son) and vast consumerist indifference (and here's a question to consider - is apathy better or worse than indifference? Yes, it could very well be a trick question, but Buddhism needs new koans, so here I am offering something for them at least to mull over).

Ideologues are comparatively easy to deal with, if not in the actual reasoning part, then at least the part where you know where they stand. They put forward their beliefs, you put forward yours, and the age old dance of liberal vs conservative gets played out once more. With those whose main goal is a perverse search for a relaxed and comfortable middle ground, for whom the ends justify the means as long as they're not personally adversely affected, there's little you can do. This makes those comments that more or less state 'well, I think people have voted with their feet, and thus this regime must be doing something right' downright infuriating. I can't think of a way in which one would begin to approach this problem, one which is at the heart of Lowy's 'success'.

In a neat coincidence, one of the right wing people
I'm friends with on Facebook put this up on his timeline
yesterday. Being unashamed (proud?) of my physical
inferiority I find myself disagreeing with the notion
put forward in this picture, but as a vivid portrayal of
Mishima's ideology, it looks pretty sweet.

So now that it's clear that our movement is indeed doomed - and if you think it isn't that's great (really, that's not sarcasm), you won't get much value out of the rest of this section, so you can leave now, because this would otherwise be a waste of your time - what do 'I/we/me/us' do? Now Yukio Mishima may have been a right-wing crackpot alongside being a brilliant writer, but at least he believed in something, even if what he believed in was a fanciful version of the past while fully (probably?) understanding that the values he purportedly wanted Japan to re-adopt were never truly realised anyway, and never could be realised. But who among us would re-create Mishima's end - and I stress here for those familiar with Mishima's end, that this analogy is purely metaphorical, and not just because I don't have a kaishakunin - and at least be able to go out in a dignified (albeit in Mishima's and also Seneca's case, very messy), blaze of glory?

The famous Buddhist koan - at least within the East, not necessarily here in the West where we tend to obsess about the sounds of trees falling and one hand clapping - asks us that if we see the Buddha on the road, to kill him, and that goes for Nansen's kitten as well I presume. What then must we as 'bitters' destroy in order to get out of our cycle of romanticism, self-righteousness and self-pity, all while those whom have contributed to our relative destitution continue as they please? Can I even go to my local manoush joint any more, now that they're putting up posters for Salafist speakers? Do any of us have the stomach to transform this movement of five or six people on the internet to become something transcendent and therefore meaningful beyond our little circle? Can our beloved anger become useful, or is our fury, however justified by the circumstances, a hindrance? Is this sense of irrevocable apartness that I feel from the great mass of soccer's support in country a terminal condition? Am I destined to become another one of 'those people', the kind whose support of the national team - which I hitherto held if not as sacred, then at least as separate from the poisonous atmosphere of the current political situation - is reduced either to apathy or bilious hatred?

Saudi Arabia vs North Korea
Approaching the Bubbledome on Wednesday evening I was filled with intense moral quandaries, because both of these nations are evil, and therefore one could not possibly support either of them; and yet there would be people supporting them. Now in the case of the much maligned (sometimes fairly, sometimes not) Iran, this problem could conceivably be ameliorated via the perspective of ethnicity and the affection the diaspora has for the homeland, without necessarily having the tacit approval of any of the policies of said nation state.

For Saudi Arabia and North Korea, this is complicated by all sorts of things. In Saudi Arabia's case, because it's not even a real country as we know it today, just the parts of the Arabian Peninsula ruled by the Saudi family since the 1930s. There were quite a lot of Saudi fans at the game yesterday, but not many women as far as I could tell. Still, the Saudi fans managed to hand out quite a few flags to a lot of people who would probably be revolted with the way that country is run. For the North Koreans, run by an equally hideous regime, there were as far I could tell (or reasonably expect), no actual North Korean fans from North Korea in the stadium. Instead their supporters end at the northern end of the ground was taken up by various members of the Melbourne Victory's active groups.

A good clue towards establishing that they weren't real North Koreans, even from my spot in the good seats, is that the chants (all in English, and all largely taking the piss, eg. North Korea is best Korea, or some such), is that they kept referring to North Korea, which the real North Korea would never do, since they (like the South) consider themselves the real Korea. Speaking of real Koreans, that is people from the Korean Peninsula, there were apparently some in the crowd, I'm guessing sitting well away from the 'North Koreans'.

Told the South Koreans have had their reunification flags confiscated by security. They're here to support North Korea. #PRKvKSA #AC2015
— Joe Gorman (@JoeGorman_89) January 14, 2015

There were also apparently people wearing Kim Jong-Un masks in the northern end, and when security went in to confiscate them, they were jeered by those North Korean sympathisers, who didn't seem to appreciate the gesture made by stadium management towards creating a genuine North Korean experience.

Security moving into the north end for some reason. You'd think the N. Korea supporting hipsters would appreciate the irony #PRKvKSA #ac2015
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) January 14, 2015

Closer to home in Aisle 4, Row D, we were more concerned with not getting crushed to death by the ceremonial flags hanging off the rafters.

Flag lowering ceremony. #PRKvKSA #AC2015 pic.twitter.com/ZnCmL9N2P7
— Les Street (@official_lesdog) January 14, 2015

As the patrons in the relevant area were moved across into the neighbouring bays without too much fuss, one had to wonder though: what was the cause of the problem? While the half filled stadium (attendance at a touch under 13k) allowed patrons to be moved to adjacent bays, what would have happened had the stadium been filled up, say, for a Socceroos match? And who's going to be held responsible for this debacle?

I think @nutmeg_2015 needs to kick a few arses over this flag debacle #PRKvKSA #AC2015
— Mark Boric (@MarkBoric) January 14, 2015

Of course, because no one was killed or injured, there was also a lighter side to the flag situation.

The flags falling down disruption was North Korea's Peter Hore moment #PRKvKSA
— Mark Boric (@MarkBoric) January 14, 2015

Can you believe that lighthearted comment spiralled out of control into a Bitter vs New Dawn argument? Of course you can, it's the internet.

Now friends, there was also a match being played, and it was pretty damn fun and frustrating to watch in equal measure, as both teams pinged the ball back and forth as quickly as possible. The North Koreans looked the more likely to score in the beginning and they did, but surprisingly perhaps the Saudis didn't collapse in a heap, and actually ran over the top of their totalitarian counterparts, while looking quite stylish at the same, though their finishing could do with some work.

The most bizarre thing about the North Koreans though, apart from their coach apparently being on a direct line to Pyongyang, was the overly physical approach they brought to the contest. They copped a yellow card within the first couple of minutes for a pretty savage tackle, and after a few more bad tackles interspersed throughout the game, they finished it off with a brilliant shirtfront which somehow managed to avoid receiving any sort of card. Of course, if you did that in the AFL these days you'd get suspended.

Epilogue mode stolen from Gillian Rubenstein's Beyond the Labyrinth
If you rolled six or under:

Not that it matters anymore, but where is the social club? Since the only acceptable way to socialise in Australia is with booze, and goodness knows no one can possibly have fun without it, it'd be nice if we had some place of our own to have 'fun'.

If you threw over six:
A week or two before Christmas, someone at Victoria University did a bit of a ring around to all the relevant people (except me, and possibly others who I am not aware of) looking for ways to contribute to finding connections to the Asian Cup so Victoria University's academics could be at the forefront of writing on the tournament, thus reinforcing our reputation as the 'sports university'.

After being included (eventually) via being CCed into an email, I did get a phone call asking me what my expertise was exactly, and how would that fit into what the project was about. Well I tried to put forward what my angle is, difficult as it was considering I don't really conduct interviews, and nor does my research have an utterly direct and completely obvious connection to the Asian Cup, and neither did this person really explain what it was that they wanted, but could I at least email him some examples of my work for him to see.

I did so, and never heard back from him. After looking back at this post, it was probably for the best.

Social club artefact Wednesday - Middle Park 'field of dreams' flag

2014 is not only ten years since we nearly went kaput, but it's also twenty years tomorrow since we played our last game at Middle Park. The acquisition of Middle Park is a huge part of our history, and it's the reason why from the start - or at least the merger of Hellas and South Melbourne United in early 1960, which perhaps should be the real founding date for the club - we've been known in English as South Melbourne FC/Hellas/Lakers/Pirates, and not probably something like Melbourne Hellas ala Melbourne Croatia.

That Middle Park is still sorely missed, and that Bob Jane Stadium/Lakeside never had the same feel, is almost a given. As an aside, it's disappointing, though not surprising, that the loss of soccer's suburban grounds was never given as much focus as those from footy, when the equivalent blood, sweat and tears were invested into the soccer venues, and that their demise as top tier venues was, aside from being linked with ethnic, non-conformist soccer clubs, also due to the same forces of economic rationalism and ground rationalisation.

Anyway, the video below is an absolutely priceless bit of footage for all sorts of reasons, including but not limited to:

• The souvlakia grilling on the barbecue.
• The most badass women's team ever assembled, with superb motley hairstyles and a keeper with sunnies. They're also wearing this rare jersey.
• The ad hoc parade of champions
• The Bristol Rovers style jerseys which harks back to 1966 when we wore a similar jersey.
• The run through banner which the players will tear through unlike the weak AFL players of today who need a door to go through a banner. Soft.
• Highlights of the actual game, including Gus Tsolakis acting like a bit of a knob after his goal. When he was playing for the Bergers, my uncle (then a diehard fan, later, meh) called him a monkey. When Gus was playing for us, he was dynamite. True story.
• The post game scenes overlaid with cheesy music. Really cheesy music. 
• There's a flag at 5:28 that I would kill to get a hold of.
• A montage of photos including several run through banners and shots of the Middle Park outer.

The flag below was obviously designed and made especially for the occasion, The design looks a bit stiff, very dated even by 1994 and is, well, just plain ugly. Usually I'd find that charming but for some reason I've never been able to warm to this design. Still, it's a part of our history and any anecdotes about the design or the day are most welcome.

Social club artefact Wednesday - Phillips NSL flag

Like its Soccer Australia counterpart which we presented a few weeks (months?) ago, this would have been flown during NSL match days. Unlike that flag though, this one assuredly dates back to the late 1970s, which makes it all the more remarkable that it has actually managed to survive our various 'dissolution of the monasteries' phases. I can't emphasise enough how thrilled I was when I found this in some back room box or other.

The Dutch electronic giant Philips was of course the NSL's inaugural major sponsor, and the highlights show which was on Channel 10 at the time was suitably called Philips Top Soccer. In his mostly excellent autobiography By The Balls, Les Murray, who was both a commentator and host for the show, details the show's brief history (including how he went from László Ürge to Les Murray because of it). It's well worth picking up a copy of that book.

Of course, once Philips Top Soccer got canned and the NSL disappeared off the airways until SBS picked it up (fun fact - SBS' first game was the infamous 1980 NSL 'grand final' which Heidelberg tries to claim counts as a national title - it wasn't), Philips weren't getting the brand promotion they were paying for, and decided to end their association with the NSL.

Social Club Artefact Wednesdays - Soccer Australia flag

This was going to be the first 'object of interest', before I reneged and went instead for the 1966 West Adelaide pennant. This flag, with the classic Soccer Australia logo, was possibly flown over the grandstand or on one of the flagpoles at the lake end of Bob Jane Stadium during NSL matches, or perhaps during the few representative matches Australian sides played at Lakeside.

True story. I once saw an old lurid green Soccer Australia tracksuit jacket at Laverton Market. I did not buy it. I regret that decision every time I think about this flag. Same deal with a black Melbourne Zebras t-shirt which I could have had for $2. What was I thinking?

On a side note, dear Hestia, goddess of the 'hearth, architecture, and the right ordering of domesticity', when we do build our new social club, please make it the first order of business that we get some better carpet.

Notes from the 2009 Grand Final

I was convinced by the opportunity to catch up with a few South fans - as well as my media pass granting me free entry - to turn up to this yesterday. Dandenong Thunder had streaked the league, four or so games clear by the end, but that counts for nothing when you have finals. Their opponents wee Altona Magic, defending champs, third grand final in four seasons - never having finished first on the table though in any of those years.

There was plenty to see and a few surprises as well. Altona Magic's main cash cow Melissa Fischer-Massa came out of hiding - she's been scarcely seen at a VPL venue since allegations of the abysmal financial state of her nursing homes came to light. The Albanian contingent seemed in reasonably strong presence, air horns and all. The Magic's fans had some presence, but mostly elderly and as usual a small group of young people for whom this is probably their first Magic game of the season.

As per usual, the PA system at Lakeside was a mess - the national anthem was half done before anyone realised it was on. Now, I'm not a huge fan of national flags and anthems, ut I don't believe there was any disrespect meant by people not singing or standing to attention - and besides, isn't that what's so great about a country like Australia? That we don't have to have guns at our heads making us pay our respects? It used to be like that I reckon, but perhaps my memory is faulty. The next surprise was the start of the 'Vou-vou-voulgari' and 'Tsi-tsi-tsigani' chants from the Albanians directed towards the Magic fans. A Heidelberg fan next to me attempted to note the irony of it all.

The game itself was lacking in any sort of cohesive quality. There was at best, an implied edge, that there was something bigger than three points on the line, but the game never really lifted in tempo or quality throughout its torturous 120 minutes plus several stoppages for injuries. The Thunder took the lead in the 2nd half, a saved shot ricocheting into the path of Thunder's captain who headed home. Altona leveled from the penalty spot, after a long range shot hit the arm of a defender. The young Magic fans bring out their ethnic flags, and the police and security move in, eventually. Reports soon spread that a guy had collapsed in the stands. The medics worked hard to revive him - and they do - but ultimately it is to no avail; he doesn't pull through. Three ambulances turned up in total. For some it put the game in perspective - it is just a game after all. But the game went on.

The penalty shootout saw the Thunder fans move behind the goal, and that's when the flare show started, and the FFV brought out the receipt book. If a flare lit is worth a $1k fine, then that's $7k at least that Dandenong will have to find from somewhere. At least a couple of flares were thrown back into the grassy area behind the scoreboard, which started a small grass fire. South board member George Koukoulas added Fireman Sam to his list of roles played at the club by putting out the fire with a fire extinguisher from inside the social club. The fire brigade turned up eventually, but they didn't have much to do. Bottles were also thrown from the grandstand onto the field.

After the game, the Thunder contingent left peacefully - leaving pretty much no one on hand to witness the Magic raising their fifth Victorian championship cup. A couple of us inspected the damage after the show, taking photos for the benefit of the FFV who'll have to pay up for it. Quite a few grandstand seats damaged in the sections the vocal Thunder fans were in, as well as some damage behind the goals where they'd moved for the penalty shootout. It's not the final game at Lakeside as we know it, but we're getting there.