Off-Season Digressions - Boxing Day Test Match

After the pleasant surprise that was our baseball adventure, and still needing things to do during off-season, I decided to take up the opportunity and recommendation to finally make my debut at a test cricket match. You may recall that my live in the flesh cricket experiences are quite limited - the most notable example being the descent into Dante's cricketing hell that was this entry from February 2013.

I had been told that test cricket was different, and that I should go at least once to make a fair comparison. Then again, I keep getting told to go to A-League matches in order to make valid sociological statements based on 'actual experience' rather than whatever it is people think I'm relying on, but as I've said many times before, I've been there and done that, so I don't really see what the point is.

The first problem seems to be this. It's an event with a possible length of five days, so which day do you choose to go to? The first day, with all the sheeple who are there as much due to social convention as for the contest itself? Day two or three where the contest may or may not be still in the balance? Day four where one team has gained the ascendancy and is striving for the kill? Day five where, depending on the previous four days, the result may be decided in the first hour or peter out in a draw?

So therefore, do you go to one day, or every day? If you only go to one day, you miss out on most of the contest, which just seems like a bizarre thing to do. If you go to several days, the cost - unless you're an MCC member who brings their own lunch - ramps up considerably. At $24 for a concession ticket and $40 for an adult for the cheapest seats, and who knows how much food and drink you'll buy over the course of the seven hour day, a full suite of test match cricket attendance is a very expensive endeavour to undertake

Day 1
Stayed home. Watched some bits on TV, listened to a bit on the radio. Doesn't seem like I missed much.

Day 2

Day 2, looking from the Great Southern Stand across to the
Ponsford and Members stands. Photo: Paul Mavroudis

The plan had been for me and Gains (a first time cricket attendee) to meet Steve from Broady and his cousin Johnny in the Southern Stand. Turned out it was all allocated seating however, and besides that Steve was in the Ponsford anyway.

The first thing I noticed was that Bay 13 people were over at the bottom deck of the Punt Road End, thus we had an OK view of their antics, and the ability to see patrons gradually being tossed, some more forcibly than others. Unlike my trip in February, it was a lot harder to see what was going on exactly.

What it means also is that the crowd around us was also a lot more civilised, which is an entirely different thing from being sanitised. They watched the game, were generally appreciative of what was another very boring and slow day of test cricket. As slow as Chris Rogers was, at least he scored some runs. I'm not quite sure what George Bailey was seeking to accomplish with his approach.

George Bailey should be made to pay the 8k fine for spectators trespassing onto the arena.
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) December 27, 2013

That post really should have got a few more re-tweets.

After tea we went over to meet Steve in the Ponsford, who'd informed me that he hadn't has his bag checked as he came in, among catching me up with all sorts of other gossip, include the Victory-Wanderers brawl in the city. At least now having a smart phone and a plan to go with it (thank you scholarship) meant I could keep up with events on Twitter. Eventually the day petered out into an Australian batting collapse and the decision being made to come back again the next day. I'm not sure how much Gains was enamoured by the experience. I think I liked the baseball more.

Day 3
A nightmare public transport run into town due to massive signal failures on the Werribee line was alleviated by my old man giving me a lift into the city. At Flinders Street Station while waiting for Steve to get out of Boost Juice, I met Julian, one of my PhD coursework unit classmates, and so we discussed our respective works.

Eventually we got to the ground late, and missed Brad Haddin notch up his fifty, thought at least we were able to watch it via some kid in the line, who had it streaming on his phone.

Day 3, looking from the Ponsford stand across to the
Olympic and Southern stands. Photo: Paul Mavroudis

Inside the ground we ended up at the top of the Ponsford again. This time it was England's turn to put in a tedious batting effort. That tedium also included a spineless burst were they lost four wickets for not very much. Early in the day, there was a 'justice for the 96' banner in the sparsely populated top deck of Southern Stand which was next to the new scoreboards, unfortunately too far away to take a proper photo of. The police and security quickly stepped in to get it taken down, though from our admittedly distant vantage point, it didn't look like it was a willing acquiescence from the English patrons.

By the way, those new, larger scoreboards are indeed fantastic and wonderful. However, there is a caveat. Their size now means that the protective framing around them, as well as the railings from the Southern Stand, mean that from certain viewing spots, they are obscured by very large pieces of metal. Not a problem sitting where we were on days 3 and 4, but on day 2 while sitting in the top deck of the Southern Stand (in what would normally be a good viewing position) it was obvious that someone hadn't really thought it through.

Day 4 - A lot of waiting, and an early finish.
Unlike the previous day, we managed to get to MCG early, and into the line outside the Ponsford stand ticket booth by 10:05. Finally got our tickets at 10:45. Forty minutes. The lines were absurd, but were made much worse by the dithering of so many patrons who would rather spend an eternity selecting where they would like to sit, rather than just being happy enough to take the first option and actually getting inside and watching the damn game.

When me and Steve finally got to the front of our line, I was prepared with exact money, proof of concession, my order and was ready to get out of there as quickly as possible. But no, the ticket seller had to keep asking me what I wanted - did I want to be in the sun, did I want to be in an aisle seat. Like I gave a stuff about an aisle seat! Tedious transaction dealt with, and already 25 minutes of play missed, at least we had the small time saving grace of Steve once again managing to get in without a bag check.

Once in the ground, we all had to deal with the fact that England's captain Alistair Cook seemed to have no understanding of the concept of the third man fielding position. And thus Chris Rogers - who earlier in the test had made a torturous innings of 60 odd - was able to cut deliveries repeatedly to that boundary. Since I don't have as much invested from an emotional standpoint in the fortunes of Australia's cricket team, and had a more old fashioned desire to see a good contest, I was disappointed by this elementary lack of competency. But that's sport for you.

Lunch time saw more lines. More lines! My goodness. For some reason whoever runs the MCG felt that they didn't need to open almost any food outlets on the top deck despite the very healthy crowd. After seeing that the only food outlet on the top of the Ponsford stand had a line a mile long, it was decided that we would walk around to the more sparsely populated Southern Stand to see if anything was open there. It was not. It was appalling organisation and all to save a couple of bucks on wages.

After standing in line at the only open canteen booth on the wrong side of the MCC gate tracks, it was obvious that of the two main options - chicken schnitzel roll or pork bun (not the steamed Asian dish, but rather a pork patty in a roll) it was obvious that everyone was waiting to get a schnitzel roll. Being far too hungry to give a damn about waiting for the chicken option, I decided to take the a pork bun off the shelf (the boxes being identical except for a handy little sticker saying 'pork bun' on them) and be done with it.

Of course, back at my seat upon opening the package, it was of course a chicken schnitzel roll, which is what I wanted in the first place, though of course not what I had expected. I had had the reverse happen to me at the footy once, so I suppose this was a kind of karma. Bad luck though for all the people who forked out $10(!) for either option and ended up with something they didn't like.

The match, which I had expected to possibly go into a fifth day due to the very slow run rate of almost the entirety of the previous three days didn't even manage to get to tea, with the main thrill being Shane Watson again not managing to reach his hundred, albeit this time because there weren't enough runs left for him to be able to do so. Quite why we stayed for the speeches and man of the match awards I'm not sure.

Day 5
Stayed home and watched the NFL on TV. Too bad the first two games were largely inconsequential and lousy (should at least have had the Bears-Packers game), but at there was no avoiding the Cowboys-Eagles game.

The Barmy Army
Sure their team has sucked these past couple of months, which has possibly thinned out their numbers and consequently their enthusiasm over the course of the tour, but I still don't see what the fuss is all about. Throughout most of the three days I spent at the game, they were pretty much a non-entity, providing not much more atmosphere than other parts of the ground. The end of day 2 I think it was they managed a very long period of chanting, as the cool breeze came through and their side was in the ascendancy. But one gets the feeling that a lot of the hype about them is due to the novelty to mainstream Australian audiences of a group like that even bothering to sing. Seems like pretty standard European football behaviour for me. Still, they did better than the Mexican waves and 'you are a wanker' fare of the relocated Bay 13. It is what it is.

Verdict
Do you like cricket? If you only want to to turn up to one day, it doesn't really matter. If you want to go to more than one day, surely there's better things you can be doing.

Test match cricket - despite the six hours of 'value' you get - is a very expensive hobby if you want to go to more than one day, unless you have an MCC membership, in which case cost doesn't really come into it. And if you have an MCC membership and you don't go, you're probably one of those people who I despise who have an MCC membership primarily or only for AFL matches - why not just get an AFL or club membership then?

You're probably better off just inviting your mates over to your place with a slab or two, maybe have a barbecue, set up the TV somewhere suitable. How much of the game will you actually watch? I suppose it depends on how many drinks you have, how many toilet breaks, how many any number of variables, including if you're there more for the social aspect than the game. If you don't have a slightly elevated seat over the bowlers arm or behind the keeper and first slip, how much can you perceive the ball swinging or spinning?

Admittedly this problem is magnified for me due to my atrocious eyesight, being  barely able to make out the ball at all from the pace bowlers, and therefore depending more on the reactions of the batsmen - that auditory quality I mentioned.

After having my cynicism undermined by the baseball experience, I had it rekindled by this one, not so much that I would never go again, but now with a whole arsenal of reasons at hand as to why one wouldn't.

Off-Season Digressions - Melbourne Aces vs Sydney Blue Sox/Baseball

Proudly brought to you by Penola Catholic College - where 1 part Catholic education meets 99 parts Broadmeadows stupidity.

How boring is the off-season? Yes there's a lot of politics and transfer rumours and uncertainty. And yes, we managed to get out to one meaningless pre-season game featuring the 21s and Selangor. But until things started gradually ramping up when everyone gets back from their holidays in January, there really isn't very much to do. So we decided, for whatever reason, to go to the baseball. Steve from Broady managed to get some free tickets (I don't think they're really that expensive anyway) from one of his contacts at Penola, and me and Gains joined him.

Part of my reasoning for going to the baseball (apart from my usual gimmick sport summer experience) was that as a western suburbs lad, I've driven past the Melbourne Ballpark in Laverton so many times, and never gone in, never seen what it looks like from the inside. It's always seemed to be just a white elephant sitting in the middle of nowhere next to the train line, an unusual landmark visible on your left as you take the shortcut to Merton Street from Kororoit Creek Road, or a little less convenient if the underpass is flooded and you're forced to use the freeway.

The view from along the third base line. The two scoreboards
can be seen in the distance. Photo: Paul Mavroudis

Parking sets me back $5, which is a bit pricey but who's complaining when you get free entry? The venue itself is functional without being anything fancy. The seating - which is limited to the areas behind the plate, and along most of the first and third baselines - is all elevated, with the exception of those areas at the bottom for the corporates. The elevation and hence the sight-lines and viewing angles are quite good, but the protective nets can be annoying, especially as they can make viewing the small electronic scoreboard difficult.

Looking across towards Melbourne Ballpark's 'premium' seating.
Photo: Paul Mavroudis.

Disappointingly, and for reasons which I can't figure out, the roof only extends to those seats behind the plate, those classed as premium seats. The seats themselves seem to be your standard MCG/Great Southern Stand variety, which as has been pointed out by one of our Twitter friends, were the same as used for the old BJS, Knights Stadium, Heidelberg, Preston, etc. So, if you do for some reason end up heading out to a game at Laverton, and aren't willing to stump the extra few dollars for a premium seat, bring your sunscreen, hat and an umbrella, in preparation for whatever Melbourne's weather throws up.

The game
Of course, rocking up to an Australian Baseball league fixture one is well aware that you will not be seeing the creme de la creme of baseball talent. But as an Australian soccer fan who largely ignores what happens above outside our shores, that doesn't really phase me. The teams seem to be made up of some locals (obviously), as well Americans and Japanese dropped down from the major (maybe even minor) leagues for some extra game/development time during the off-season.

Baseball is a weird game in an Australian context. It's been here for a long time, and the Claxton Shield has been played for 100 years in one form or another. While never a really popular spectator sport as far as I can tell, it did have a niche carved out for itself as a participant sport, especially for cricketers in their off-season, with Bill Lawry in particular extolling the virtues of cricketers taking up baseball in their off-season. There was also of course the old Australian Baseball League which went broke in the mid 1990s or whenever it was. These days the ABL seems to be largely funded by Major League Baseball, who presumably benefit from having a low pressure development league in their off-season, as well as being able to tap into the Australian baseball talent pool, which has provided its fair share of exports down the years.

Like cricket, if you're not on the correct angle, it can be difficult to discern the movement of the pitches. Eventually and rather quickly, once you start getting a feel for it you can be pretty sure about whether a pitch was a ball or a strike, but you won't necessarily be able to tell how the ball is moving through the air. However, perhaps this is at least partly due to my very poor eyesight. Like ice hockey and cricket, there is an auditory quality to the game that is present at a live fixture in ways that would be absent on TV. In cricket's case, it's the crack of willow on leather; in ice hockey, the skates on the ice, and the crashing of players into the glass walls; in baseball, it's the smack of the ball into the catcher's glove.

Some of the outfield play left a bit to be desired. the Aces' left-fielder in particular had a bit of a shocker, but according to one of the more knowledgeable fans there, that wasn't his regular position. There didn't appear to be much depth in the pitching stocks for either side, but especially the visitors. A small roster and being the final game of a four game series probably didn't help, as the Aces' managed a late rally with three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead going into the eighth, eventually winning 4-3.

There were of course American accents, and an American flavour to many of the day's proceedings, from the announcements, to the food (see below), to the presentation style. Normally I'd find that kind of thing really off-putting, but the fringe nature of the experience - like they were Christian missionaries in the remotest parts of Darkest Africa - made it seem less gimmicky than the equivalent Melbourne ice hockey experience (albeit I've only had the national team experience there, not the Ice or Mustangs just yet), and I've also never been to a local basteball game to make a valid comparison there either.

The fact that the crowd was very small - I'd say no more than 300 outside of the corporate areas - also gave it a quaint sort of vibe. With an already limited appeal for all sorts of reasons (standard, location, lack of media, cultural obscurity, unfavourable comparisons to cricket), it must also be hard competing directly against the local suburban competitions which run at the same time.

Women In Sport Day
No other sport does pointless fan gimmickry quite like baseball. Of course, in Major League Baseball there's 160 odd games each team has to play, so a crowded schedule means having to find all sorts of ways to get people in off the street, especially if your team ain't doing too well.  At the Aces for example, there's a tradie's day, AFL day, bring your dog to the game day, etc. Two weeks prior to our visit, the Saturday doubleheader was apparently the multicultural/diversity day, during which I believe there was going to be ethnic dancing - how I miss ethnic dancing at Australian sporting contests. Those were the days.

Anyway, the main slant of trying to promote women in sport was the attempt to raise some funds to get the women's softball team to Japan for the world championships or some such endeavour. To that end, they tried auctioning off some Aces' jerseys and signed bats - none of which did very well. There was also money donated when one of the softball girls did the worm from in front of the pitcher's mound to home plate. It kinda made me feel ill seeing female athletes have to beg like that. There was also a tug of war and some kind of bowling pin hitting activity. All pretty low rent, but kinda charming in its own sincere way.

This is where Steve from Broady's food report was supposed to go
Since he had the most food of all of us that day - and used trips to the canteen as an excuse to not watch a game he was obviously not enjoying - I had delegated the task of reviewing the food at Melbourne Ballpark to Steve. Unfortunately, he has failed to come through on this front, so it's up to me to give you the rundown.

The range of food at the venue is pretty ordinary. It's the usual dim sims, hot dogs, chips arrangement, at slightly less extortionist than normal stadium prices. The main difference to your run of the mill stadium food was the fact that, thanks to a recent sponsorship deal with Hormel Foods, for an extra $1 you had the option of adding some Stagg Chili to your chips or hot dog. I decided to pass on that front. Perhaps the most worthwhile item, even at a slightly exorbitant $8 considering the serving size, were the nachos, which were actually pretty good.

Former South fan watch
We managed to spot the ex-SMFC fan known as Strauchnie sitting in the premium seats. Small world and all that.

Would I do it again?
I wouldn't say no. I'll say this - I enjoyed it a lot more than my experience of one day cricket. I can see how drinking would help enhance the experience of watching the game, especially if you were going to watch a double header, but it's hardly necessary. It was a genuinely relaxed day out, with very low expectations, and I actually kinda had fun.

I have the theory that some games are better experienced live in the flesh, some better on TV, and some even work best on radio (especially cricket). For me, baseball is dead boring to watch on TV, would probably work in the background on radio ala cricket, but is a perfectly adequate game watched live - provided you have a decent seat and a couple of mates to talk crap with for three hours.

Bourgeois Anthropology - Middle Class Handwringing Edition

It's funny, you live in the universe, but you never do these things until someone comes to visit
Still waiting for South action, and thus I made my debut appearances at the water polo and international cricket in the one weekend. My old Perth Glory supporting mate Chris Egan was in town last week. So that meant taking a chance that the world hadn't succumbed to nuclear apocalypse since the end of the last VPL season, and actually going outside and doing things. I managed to live to tell the tale - but only just. So think of this entry as a variation of last year's tennis escapade.

Water Polo at Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre
The UWA Torpedoes (men's and women's teams) were in town to take on the Victoria Tigers. I'm not quite sure what person thought that a tiger would be the best mascot for an aquatic sports team. The Tigers won both matches, the men's game a little more comfortably then the women's, but neither match was a blowout.

Anyway, it's quite a nice little set up they have going there at MSAC. Shot clocks, sponsor boards, scoreboard. I could have done without the continuous commentary though. I wouldn't have minded elaboration on scorers and ejections, but the rest seemed superfluous. They had a match program, and in retrospect I should have picked one up. Gold coin donation seemed fair. The team and player intros included bizarre clapping ceremony.

As for the sport of water polo itself, I'm sure it's a hell of a lot of fun to play for the participants, but like my opinion of field hockey, I reckon it's just another inferior version of soccer. There's a very limited range of scoring methods, and limited ways of moving the ball. Still, the fast breaks and bounced shots were exciting to watch, the constant minor fouls not so much.

Perhaps it would have been more exciting with some flares and ethnic tension. But then again, wouldn't everything?

I also learned that former Fremantle Dockers coach Gerard Neesham - and his water polo background - is the progenitor of flooding in Australian rules football. There's something for Steven Alomes to follow up on.

Paisley Park Prattle
Trundled over to see Altona East's seniors and ressies in their first friendlies for the season. Ressie lost to Melbourne University 9-0, so some work to do there. The seniors won 2 or 3 nil, I wasn't paying that much attention. Found out how Andrew Nabbout got the call up to Melbourne Victory ahead of several other possible. No disrespect to Nabbout, but it appears there's serious issues with talent identification in Australian soccer.

Prior To Yesterday
My only experiences of watching cricket live in the flesh - apart from seeing the odd ball bowled while my train was stopped was at South Kensington station on a summer Saturday - was at some regional junior representative match, and one day's play of Carlton's fourths against Footscray fourths at Tony Dodemaide Oval. So even though I know rules, histories, players and all the other hoopla, this experience was new to me.

Embracing Your Inner Billboard
Mike Hussey cardboard sheets sponsored by a bank. A tea break on field dance session sponsored by a brewer. Faux watermelon hats sponsored by a telecommunications company. And best of all, said telco handing out free clip on radios which were able to access either the ABC's and Channel Nine's commentary. Which was hilarious considering that outside the ground another variation of said radio was being sold at $20 a pop.

Future NFL Hall of Famers
Commiserations to New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who almost made it to the end of the match without getting kicked out. After having thrown an American football three times from the bottom of M10 - including one which smashed into the signage on the second deck - he wandered back to his seat as if nothing had happened. A little bit later on, it looked like he'd been escorted out, only to return a few minutes later.

As blokes were being thrown out left, right and centre, our group was wondering how the hell Brady was still in the venue. Later on during the evening, he moved around to the bottom of section M8 or M9 and threw the ball again, after posing with the ball for about half a minute. Eventually, his luck ran out, somewhat amazingly after he had taken off his jersey and tried to go incognito. It took until 10:15 for the Old Bill to finally get rid of him for good - perhaps they were waiting for Brady's mate Brian Urlacher to get out of the picture.

Fat Kid Messenger Services
One of the two off-field highlights was the use of a fat kid for the purposes of picking up chicks. Some blokes from the front row sent this kid to pass on a message to an attractive woman about 20 rows back. Kid became an instant legend.

Footy's Almost Back!
The roll call of footy jumpers I saw.

• 1x St Kilda
• 1x Footscray
• 1x Collingwood, heading back towards Flinders Street before the match.
• 1x Geelong, with matching shorts.
• 1x Essendon - as soon as he appeared in M11, the 'Essendon are drug cheats' chant started.
• 1x Sydney, dressed as Warwick Capper, including shorts which left nothing to the imagination.

Kostume Kapers
For some reason the marketing gurus at Cricket Australia thought it would be a good idea to encourage people to dress up in costumes, because goodness knows it's not the like actual game matters in any way. There were some good efforts, but where I was sitting, it seemed like an extra reason to get drunk for most of those people. Some of the more notable efforts in our vicinity included:

• Warwick Capper - see above.
• Spiderman - when not drinking, he spent a good portion of the match performing an incredibly annoying dance, trying ever so hard to get on camera. He succeeded.
• A wizard, but not Gandalf or Harry Potter related.
• About 5-6 blokes dressed in Jamaican bobsled outfits ala the film Cool Runnings, but sadly without anyone in the role of John Candy.
• Some bloke wearing a pretty crap wedding dress.
• Wonder Woman - perhaps unusually (considering the usual demographic of nerd dress up shenanigans), she was actually a woman.
• Bananas in Pyjamas
• The bloke in an obviously very hot and sweaty panda suit, on whose face one could read a ton of regret about wearing that suit on such a warm day.

Sneaky Sound System
Still going, still crap.

Pitch Invasions
Just the one individual. Tried to take on security, did not get far.

Strippers!

One bloke stripped down to nothing. He got turfed out. Later on, one bloke thought he'd be a bit of smartarse, and started having a go at two of the female coppers as they were going back up the stairs, by beginning a slow and sleazy striptease routine. Unfortunately for him, the most veteran police offer on duty came up from behind and grabbed his arms as he was about to lose his jacket - and the beauty of it was that everyone saw it coming but him. Even I had to laugh at that.

Western Australians
Along with Chris, I was with several other Perth Glory fans at this match. I hope no one mistook me for a Western Australian while they went off their nut every time a Western Australian player did anything. They were quite excited by Adam Voges' maiden international century. I liked Johnson Charles' equivalent effort a little better, but at that stage not many people were watching.

The Actual Match
In the sections we were in, the on field contest seemed incidental. You read newspaper reports about the bad behaviour, but it's worth getting a look at it first hand. As a newbie from a soccer background, several things struck me as significant.

I never realised how boring this game is.

Firstly, the way the rowdy patrons actually put some effort into getting thrown out was fascinating, like they were actually aiming for that result. They drink a lot and drink quickly (one group enjoyed smashing the empty plastic cups against each other's faces). The attempt to curtail the drinking culture by not opening the bars (or food) outlets on the bottom of the lower deck did not work at all. One bloke near me (whose mates had already been thrown out) threw an empty Pringles cylinder, and then followed it up with an empty Coke bottle. He tried to feign ignorance but it was no use, and he didn't put up much of a fight when he got spotted and asked to leave. I wonder if he and others like him will get charged the $563 on the spot fine for throwing items.

The second thing was how little fight most people - including bystanders - put up in trying to avoid being evicted. If that happened in a soccer crowd, I can easily imagine other people quickly becoming involved out of a sense of camaraderie. Here, while not dobbing in their fellow supporters, most seemed perfectly willing to let them be evicted. Indeed the well known chant 'you're going home in the back of a divvy van' seemed to undermine the notion that someone tried to put forward yesterday, that the performance of disobedience was an indicator of Australians' natural distrust and dislike of authority.

Thirdly, the different reactions of the police and security. The police seemed to laugh a lot of the incidents off. The security seemed to take more of an interest in trying to control matters, though that may have been because they tended to be targeted more by the antics of the fans. As the night wore on, so did the frequency of people getting booted out, with scarcely a ten minute period going by without one or more people being escorted out.

I can see why certain people want to get rid of this format of the game. Eight hours of meaningless play, low crowds, attracting mostly people who see it as an opportunity to get tanked. But it was good to get to a game. Unfortunately, cricket is a game in the wrong era. It's not suited to a culture that lacks patience and has no time for it anyway. Attempts to convince its constituents otherwise, by speeding up the game and taking every semblance of nuance out of it, just seem pathetic to me. They might as well convert to baseball.

Lex Marinos reading Neos Kosmos

I'm allegedly busy with trying to complete my honours thesis, which is due next Friday. In the meantime, this blog will hopefully be very quiet. Here's something to tide you over for a little bit longer. So allegedly busy I didn't even bother editing out all the stuff like the browser tabs.

The Pig is in the Poke

Seems as if I'm now on the FFV's history committee. I'm pretending that I'm not sure how that happened.

The Continuing Adventures of Jim Marinis

It should be noted that this has naught to do with SM Hellas, so if you don't care about the AFL, you can look away now.

Yes, it's true, away from South Melbourne Hellas, I do take a more than passing interest in the Collingwood Football Club. Feel free to send all hate mail via the comments section.

Been wondering what our old friend Marinis has been up to of late? Me neither until this:

Collingwood furious as manager shops Alan Toovey around via email 

All I can say to Jim is, take that overrated poor man's Rupert Betheras and fuck off.

Hopefully something more South related in the next post.

More off-season digressions - women's ice hockey

Yes, it finally happened. While trundling aimlessly around Laverton Market last Saturday, waiting for my watch to have its battery changed, I got the call from my mate Trev, the very same Trev immortalised in my petty and sullen revenge fantasy The Chattering Classes (available in Offset no. 10). 'Paul, I've got a spare ticket to the Ice Hockey, do you want to come?'.

Of course I said yes. I didn't know then that it was women's ice hockey, and that it would take forever to find the stadium, which is mostly my fault. But me being a deadset 90s guy, who doesn't mind watching women's sport for the actual contest itself as opposed to more carnal reasons, it wasn't that much of an ordeal. After all, I'd been planning on checking out the IIHF World Championship Division II series that is going to be in Melbourne next year for the sheer novelty, so why not see a local match?

The first thing you notice upon walking into the arena is that it's not as cold as you might think, but a light jacket is recommended. The arena has seating on only one side, with only a very small smattering of seats located on the opposite side of the 'stand' next to the sin bin. Because the rink was also home to a Christmas holiday show of some sort, the glass on the side with all the seats was mostly removed, which meant that we weren't allowed to sit on that side at all. Insurance and public liability and all that.

So we went up to bar area where there was some seating. Some nice, comfy chairs, but several problems. One, the beer and drinks were expensive. Two, you couldn't hear pretty much anything from behind the glass - it took us awhile to realise they were playing the national anthem. And lastly, you couldn't even see the entire rink - the near side, including the goals, was only visible if you stood up. Which was kinda not really the point with the aforementioned comfy chairs being there.

So we decided to move down to the area next rinkside with the few seats that we were allowed to use - we decided to stand anyways. The game made more sense there. For starters, you could see and follow the puck. You could also hear things like the players yelling, the clash of sticks and the thud into the walls of players competing for possession. Some sports are flexible in that they can be both good in the flesh and good on tv or radio. Ice hockey does not seem to be one of those sports.

The game itself was between the Melbourne Ice and the Sydney Sirens. You could tell that there was more enthusiasm than skill on show, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but it did remind one of watching women's soccer at a certain level - that the depth of talent is not as deep as anyone would like and therefore some of the slightly more advanced moves - such as connecting with a pass across the face of goal for a well timed first time shot.

There was enough argle bargle I guess, though there's always room for more. The visitors scored first, and then the home side leveled. Both of these goals were messy, resulting from shots saved by the goaltender but spilling out just enough to be scrambled in. The Ice's winning goal was better, a more genuine fluid movement and nice finish. Unlike in sports on a larger field, it was harder to tell who was dominating the match and where the momentum lay, as it was much easier to get into positions close to the other team's goal even if clear cut chances weren't forthcoming.

So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything

Some things we/I learned/had reiterated last night at the Manics' gig at the Forum. You can guess/decide for yourself which of these falls into what category.

• There are actually a lot of guitar solos in the Manics' repertoire.
• The fact that Sean Moore couldn't play his trumpet solo during Ocean Spray(apparently due to a coldsore) did not take away from James Dean Bradfield's substituted guitar solo.
• Manics fans have been waiting a long, long time, and it showed. In a good way though.
• If you're a Manics fan who doesn't know every single lyric, you're probably in the minority (like me), but it doesn't matter one bit. Just shout out during the choruses.
• Nicky Wire's lyrics have become ever more ludicrous, but within a certain context, it does not matter.
• Being a pasty Welshman who wears a leopard print skirt, eyeliner, captain's hat straight of the Love Boat and has feather boas wrapped around your mike stand probably gives you more right than anyone to have a go at the dress sense of a Sydney audience.
• The way the floor at the Forum shifts and shudders when a band and an audience are jumping around in unison is a great feeling.
• That was one of the best, most friendliest but engaged and active vibes I've experienced at a gig. Why can't they all be so dickhead free?

Finally the answer to where we'll be relocating

Back in the day when me and Hunter S. Thompson were out in the Nevada badlands, on too much of whatever it was we'd taken - he wrote a book about it which you may have heard of, A Bear called Paddington - and we saw this neglected outpost of the world's second best sport, 43 man squamish. The rest of the trip was a bit of blur to be honest, and it's hard to tell what was factual and what was more factual. We always meant to go back and tidy it up, but since we didn't know how we got there in the first place, we let the moment pass.

 

Anyway, it was somewhat a surprise to then learn that improvements had been made to the ground in the past 40 odd years - and now that dustbowl boutique stadium is a virtual tropical biodome paradise. And with people freaking out about still not being told where we're going to play during our relocation away from Lakeside, it is my pleasure to announce that this stadium will be brought over here to Melbourne, ala the Famous Spiegeltent, and shipped from place to place to let people from all over Melbourne marvel at its sheer tremindosity. Who's footin' the bill you may ask? Well, the Victorian Government is of course. And the best bit is, only we get to use it. Marvelous, outstanding, crap. Normally I'm not for this kind of government spending wastage - esopecially when they could be funding more stuff like experimental theatre shows at public swimming pools. But you know what? Fuck it. This is the bare minimum we deserve. Because we are South Melbourne, the greatest club in the known universe, and everyone else can just shove if it they don't like it.

Bouzouki Hero

Might as well start off the year with something less serious. Here is the famous Bouzouki Hero commercial.

Melbourne Knights dig hole to 1987. Or something.

Preface

I'm bored. I don't like Christmas, the FFV didn't manage to get the 2010 VPL fixtures out before they went on their well deserved 18 month break, and I'm getting over some sort of short lived but kinda punchy flu thing. People also aren't sending me their Offset reports so I can make a pretty folder for next year's group, so it will likely appear that I am writing more nonsense than usual.


The Main Part

It's not often that it happens, but every now and again we at South of the Border like to take a look at what's happening at place that aren't South Melbourne. Because you know, we love to whinge about the board, the team, about losing our Greekness, and that most cardinal of sins, selling out to THE (Zionist) MAN, that sometimes we forget how good we have it compared to others.

We could talk about Preston sinking to State League 1, but there for the grace of Dawkins go I and all that. We could talk about Heidelberg's endless shenanigans, but that would necessitate a whole other blog - try out their HUFC-TV, if it's still working, for how not to do a vodcast. Or we could we like the remnants of the once mighty Brunswick Juventus, broken into a million pieces and scattered across this great brown land, one team with the trophies, one team with the grounds, one team with the colours, and several other clubs blended, decanted and spat out along the way. Or George Cross, who owned their own ground, seemingly never made an improvement to it in the 25 or so years they were there, sold it 15 times, boast that at least they had their own venue, but don't seem from an outsider's point of view to know where they're going, what they're doing, and are more akin to being the mule with the spinning wheel.

But instead we'll talk about the attempted regeneration of what was once a mighty foe, who like us was dumped from the top flight or humbly chose to withdraw from those aspirations, depending on whose version of events you go by. The glory days of the Melbourne Knights - or Melbourne Croatia as they were once known - are long gone, especially from the heady on field days of the mid 1990s, where their machine, by a probable combination of good management and fortune took all before it, before its best and brightest left to light up the world's football stage.

After a decade's worth of decline on the park and off it, as the local Croatian community, with a newly independent homeland secured and the relative flood of immigration drawing to a mere trickle - pretty much like every other European community - local crane entrepreneur and alleged underworld identity Matt Tomas took over with a plan. The plan was to take the Knights forward, into the boldness of tomorrow. There were tangible differences and speculative fairytale stuff that's harder to pin the compass of truth on. The more or less truth. More money was splashed around, and results, at least initially, seemed to improve. They got to a grand final, which they lost in the 120th minute. They got massive sponsors on board, including online gaming behemoth Mansion88 - who also sponsor the Tottenham Hotspur - and they even repainted the Mark Viduka Stand - hell, they even got Mansion88 as the ground's naming rights sponsor.

Off the field, the stories flew into FourFourTwo Australia's inbox thick and fast. They were going to move to Melton. They would be part of the 2nd Melbourne A-league licence bid. They'd become a feeder to Adelaide United, after Tomas and friends would take it over. Stuff like that. Stuff that seemingly never happened. And to do all that, the club would have to be de-Croatianised. A club which, even in the heady mainstreaming days of the NSL, barely made a tokenistic effort to open up - and it was their absolute right not do to so - was heading head first into the future. And the majority of its support base, those that were left anyway, were not impressed. Every club must have a reason for being. The reason doesn't always stay the same, but there must be something to underpin why anyone would bother to turn up and do what needs to be done to keep such an operation in motion. The reasons that Tomas and his board provided - a board that included former South board member Jim Marinis - didn't seem to wash with the majority of the diehards.

And so, at their recent AGM, Tomas and friends seemingly left, and the vacuum was filled by other people, with a new agenda. Well, perhaps not so much a new agenda, but rather a very old one. To go back to the past, and to do it unapologetically. An old logo, with the grb's checkerboard pattern replacing David Hill's mandated diamond scheme. A membership campaign highlighting the importance and centrality of the club to Australian Croatian identity, and the importance of Croatian identity to the club. A Croatian club for Croatians - pretty much everyone won't be excluded as a matter of practice, but the emphasis has been turned inward - while most of the old school wog clubs of any note have dithered on which direction to take - the vague promises of the future or the direction the Knights have chosen. Will it work? I have my doubts. It all seems too much like St George Budapest circa 1975, but with even less optimism and less opportunity to make something great out of it. It all seems rather reactionary than anything resembling a genuine plan.

What does this have to do with South? Well apart from them stealing entire passages from our own membership campaigns - see the 'Member get member section' of their 2010 membership brochure - it provides a chance for the two different reactions to the post-NSL landscape to be somewhat compared. Of course, the clubs come from different angles, have always had different reasons for being, and substantially different cultures - but it'll be interesting to see if either plan works. South's 'Need more Greeks' contingent is largely defeated, but as the events of the recent 2009 finals loss to Hume showed, sadly not entirely gone (Shane Nunes was racially abused by a couple of our so called fans, as well as hearing the catch cry of needing more Greeks who'd play with passion for the shirt, allegedly).

And it also shows two clubs who, in spite of the FFV's utter neglect in promoting or reforming the VPL, are at least taking matters into their own hands. It's not always entirely someone else's fault when things go wrong. Sometimes it can even be no one's fault at all. But at least taking a stance, following one direction, wherever it may lead, is a sign that these two clubs at least are seeking to take control of their own destiny. It's easier for some than others, of course. Cash, cultures, locations, history and demographic compatibility with the urgency of now, plus the question of how long committees with grand dreams can be held together. We'll see in time where it all ends up. And here I was thinking there wouldn't be anything to write about for the next couple of weeks.

Could it be that one small voice, doesn't count in the room?

So sang Michael Stipe nearly 30 years ago, with a poignant yearning, or something. Anyway, before I lose my train of thought, this has nothing to do with South Melbourne Hellas, the game of futebol, or anything else that would interest 99.9% of my readership.

A couple of weeks ago I was on my way home from an outing with my youngest brother. Waiting at the bus shelter, I get this call from an unrecognisable number. Straining to hear over the Mason Street traffic, I eventually agree to attend a session where I would be a part of a student panel being surveyed about our experiences at Victoria University. I've been recommended by one of the higher ups. I get the email detailing the when and where the next day, and my elation is slightly dampened, because apparently it'll be one 45 minute session. But there's be lunch. Neat.

So the day finally comes, when I can unload all my praise and loathing. But no. The couple of Arts students that have bothered to turn up are lumped in with the Education students. Again. I say again, because this is what happens a lot in my course - education students are required to take some electives, and a lot of them end up in literature and writing classes. And the problems with that are multidimensional. Education students are required to take weeks off to perform their placements at schools - so either everyone who stays behind keeps going, disadvantaging those doing their placements, or we collectively miss weeks every time they go, meaning we lose a ton of momentum, as well as force a 12 week semester's worth of work into 10 weeks. Not good for anybody. Couple that with the fact that a fair proportion of the education students have little passion or interest for what they're learning and are only there because they have to be, and it gets even messier.

So, the point being, once again, the needs of education and arts students are lumped together. So while there were similar threads running through the discussion - about staff, facilities, course structures - overall, it just didn't fit. And it only went for a half hour. There was not a single comment made by the students in that room that I felt was a waste of time. But it had barely scratched the surface of what could have been covered - certainly some of the other students when speaking later thought I could have gone for a couple of hours at a bare minimum. So no, not a complete waste of time, but this is why time-share accommodation sucks. Just a little taste, but never the whole pie.

I really like Victoria University. Academically, its emphasis on class contact and partipation suits me very well. But at the St Albans campus, socially it's a desert. There's no union presence. There's no common lunch hour to even begin thinking about orgainsing a club or society. There's no pub. The food's shit. And they're going to stuff another few hundred or thousand people there when they shut down Melton and Sunbury. The sessionals, who are sometimes teaching courses they've created themselves, have one small common computer lab. I could've gone on and on. And I felt I was robbed of that chance today. Or maybe it's the fact that they, the questioning panel of academics and university admin, know exactly what's wrong, and it was more of a perfunctory exercise. That's harsh to say, but half an hour, being grouped together with the students of a different stream - why?

And another thing

Fuck you Blogger and your fucking 200 character limit in the labels section.

Someone beat me to it

Thank to SouthPole for finding this - South of the Border blog.

If you're really bored tonight

Completely irrelevant to all bar perhaps one reader - who'll be there anyway - the Victoria University student compiled annual creative arts journal Offset - of which I was the managing editor- is launching its ninth edition tonight at Readings in Carlton. 6:30pm start, $19.95 for a book and DVD, drinks and nibbles provided. I'll be making a quick speech, so if you're impressed by the words on here, you may want to come and hear me out loud. Or something.

Cheap photocopies held together by staples

The other day I was looking through someone's book on the history of English match day programmes - Match Day: Official Football Programmes by Bob Stanley (of St Etienne and NME fame). I love that old retro, colour drained look, much as I love the look of old Pelicans/Penguins from the era.

Anyway, it got me thinking again about doing a South fanzine. It'd come out every home game - quite optimistic I know, but why not aim high? Hell why not aim even higher and go for every home and away game? Ok, maybe too high. And it'd have all sorts of regular and irregular segments, whatever we could come up with.

The 'we' is inevitably the problem though - it could just be me doing all the work, but it would become a drain - and I would rather have multiple voices and multiple talents. I am a pluralist after all. Whatever stupid gripe, drawing, anecdote, penchant, whatever - which of course, once again, was the point of this thing sort of, but this is also news and reportage and smfcboard exasperation safehouse.

In keeping with the retro feel there'd be a classic three column layout, colour cover, black and white for the rest, naff sponsors (we'd make them up if we had to) maybe some cartoons - in short, all the things I wanted this thing to be. Produce a maximum of 50 copies, photocopy most of it, staple it together, charge something minimal, ask for donations or nothing at all. It all depends on the printing costs of course.

As for a title? Names are the easy bit. Already knocked out a few with our friend Southpole. The title of course would be in italics, and preferably be not completely in joke related, and have room for an exclamation mark in there.

• CMON HELLAS! FORZA! HELLAS!
  
• 25 Albert Road Drive
• Singing by the Lake
  
• Sack The Board!
  
• Late Merchandise!
• Sack The Fans!
• Bill's Punjab Express!
• Greeksta and the Cloneasaurus
• Heaps Good!
• Leaving early to watch Big Brother

Of course there were a few other unmentionable ones. For the record I liked Late Merchandise!, Sack The Board! and Bill's Punjab Express! the most. If - and it's a big if, of course - I was to get this going, it'd need a fair bit of prep work. Like this in the beginning, it'd need a backlog of articles and segments ready to go. And the support of my peers. And a willingness to stick it to the man. We'll see I guess.

The collision of a wish with an unyielding reality

There are certain times when it is useful to return to the musings of people who have been through this before and had a decent think about it. Alain De Botton's look at Seneca is quite useful, pop-philosophy though it might be.

Seneca was a philosopher of the Roman Empire. He noticed that at the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality. We attain wisdom by learning not to aggravate the world’s obstinacy through spasms of rage, self-pity, anxiety, bitterness, self-righteousness and paranoia.

What makes us angry are dangerously optimistic notions about what the world and other people are like. How badly we react to frustration is critically determined by what we think of as normal. We will cease to be so angry once we cease to be so hopeful.

Reality comprises two cruelly confusing characteristics. We are invited to assume that tomorrow will be much like today. Yet there is a possibility that we will meet an appalling event after which nothing will ever be the same again.

When one suffers disaster, one is unable to fit the event into a scheme of justice. One alternates between a feeling that one may after all have been bad, and the feeling that one has fallen victim to a failure in the administration of justice. The belief that the world is fundamentally just is implied in the very complaint that there has been an injustice. It is based on a picture of a moral universe where external circumstances reflected internal qualities.

Frustration, anger, shock, and the sense of injustice are caused by an incorrect paradigm of the world. Wisdom lies in correct discerning where we are free to mould reality according to our wishes, and where must accept the unalterable with tranquility. Reason allows us to determine when our wishes are in irrevocable conflict with reality, and then bids us to submit ourselves willingly, rather than angrily or bitterly, to necessities. We may be powerless to alter certain events, but we remain free to choose our attitude towards them. It is in our spontaneous acceptance of necessity that we find our distinctive freedom. Seneca recommended this formula:

[The wise] will start each day with the thought…

Fortune gives us nothing which we can really own. Nothing, whether public or private, is stable; the destinies of men, no less than those of cities are in a whirl. Whatever structure has been reared by a long sequence of years, at the cost of great toil and through the great kindness of the gods, is scattered and dispersed in a single day.

No, he who has said “a day” has granted too long a postponement to swift isfortune; an hour, an instant of time, suffices for the overthrow of empires. How often have cities in Asia, how often in Achaia, been laid low by a single shock of earthquake? How many towns in Syria, how many in Macedonia, have been swallowed up? How often has this kind of devastation laid Cyprus in ruins?

We live in the middle of things which have been destined to die. Mortal have you been born, to mortals have you given birth. Reckon on everything, expect everything.

South of the Border heading north this Sunday

All the way up to Mildura, home of both 2003 AFL Mark of the Year winner Chris Tarrant and South of The Border reader and occasional countributor Mildura Vasili. Ok, to be more precise, me and Ian Syson are actually heading to Irymple, located about six kilometers south of Mildura, which apparently has two fish n' chip shops, to do some research work on soccer in the region, with particular interest in the beginnings of the game there and how many of those players trundled off to war and got themselves killed and set the game back who knows how much - probably a fair bit.

Why it was so quiet on here the past week or so

I was in Jan Juc for a couple of days on my Offset project. I also got sick with whatever's going around now that isn't swine flu. And there wasn't much news anyway. Thanks to Mildura Vasili who notice. :smileyfase:

Someone quite mean once suggested to me...

...that I needed a life outside South. Now that person obviously hadn't paid attention to my bookshelf picture that's crammed with books and papers and stuff, almost all of which has naught to do with South, and doesn't include all the other books and shit lying around my house. Ok, so maybe I should get a life outside South and books. But what about my music? There are a fair few CDs in the rack behind me, and a fair few mp3s and stuff on the laptop, and even more CDs in my swiveling CD rack. Ok, so maybe I need to get a life outside South, my books, my music, my occasional trips to the cinema with my bro, barracking for Collingwood - which is quite hard when one is at South every weekend - and hanging out with all these people you don't know because they don't come to South. Maybe I should get a life outside all those things mentioned above, and quit playing board games too and avoid going to the Melbourne International Animation Festival. Just to please you, see?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, there's over 600 posts on here. Most are to do with South, of course. Some aren't. There's a bit of a hint in those posts, if one cares to read between the lines, that no matter how infatuated I may seem with South, there is more to my life than that... and the fact that other stuff gets short shrift here is no accident, because this is a South blog after all, and I reckon I'd get even less people hitting their bookmarks if it was a Paul Mavroudis blog. If however, one wants to listen and learn about some of what I do in my weekday life, tune into 102.7 RRR at about 12:15pm today, because I may may be making an in studio appearance on the wonderful Aural Text program to plug Offset 2009 and try and get a few more submissions for it. Here's hoping I both get on air, and that it turns out a lot better than my Nearpost gig, which when all is said and done, sadly didn't turn out that great. And I still haven't got my copy of the entire interview.