Ten more South rumours I'm starting just for the hell of it

Many years ago I came up with ten South rumours just for the hell of it. Apart from the usual suspects, few read them. In that spirit then I present ten more South rumours just for the hell of it.

1. A single post on smfcboard can slay an entire A-League licence bid in one fell swoop.
2. A South Melbourne Hellas A-League team would not cannibalise support from other Melbourne A-League teams.
3. South Melbourne Hellas needs more Greeks.
4. The Cros can no longer access smfcboard.
5. My enemies list is not made up of people who choose to merely 'like' instead of re-tweeting my posts on Twitter.
6. I did not recently re-discover a photo I took of a whiteboard upon which the South Melbourne Hellas board was doing rough sums, during the period we were looking to take over Central Coast Mariners. 
7. The South Melbourne Hellas social club will be ready in 2017.
8. A Twix from a Victoria University vending machine is a totally healthy and legitimate breakfast option.
9. I am SMFCMike.
10. Blogging about South Melbourne Hellas provides me with a lucrative income, as well as access to fringe benefits such as invites to exclusive yacht parties, with like, um, super-models and stuff. 

Farce shambles - Green Gully 0 South Melbourne 2

Never, ever a dull day for South at Gully, but even I wasn't expecting today's shenanigans. But before the usual shoddy rundown of the game, well done to Green Gully for once again offering SMFCTV no help whatsoever to find a suitable place to film, a disgrace in itself in terms of hospitality, but even more woeful when they're not even sending their own film footage to FFV for the weekly highlights video. Clowns.

Gully have been a bit all over the shop this season, while we ourselves hadn't put in anything close to resembling a cohesive 90 minute performance; yet we were still undefeated and picking up points against some good teams under difficult circumstances. Leigh Minopoulos, who got a start at the expense of Andy Brennan, scored during the first half only to have it called back for offside. My immediate gut instinct, admittedly from viewing the incident from the halfway line, was that it was offside, though others closer in line insisted it was a legitimate goal. Minopoulos had another chance though to open the scoring, but mucked up the opportunity spectacularly - either shooting or better still, passing it to his right to the unmarked Milos Lujic would have sufficed - instead his inaction saw the chance squandered and Leigh copping a barrage of abuse for the effort. What was that it that Mr Miyagi told Daniel-san about being decisive?



Speaking of South fans abusing players, I didn't hear anybody abuse Nick Epifano at the point in time when he decided to abuse the South supporters. Now whether he said 'Greek cunts' or 'spastic cunts' or 'spastic Greek cunts' is irrelevant. But more on this later. And as something completely unrelated to this (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), the call of the day outside of the farcical post-match scenes was one of our fans offering to buy Roddy Vargas' Socceroo jersey for ten bucks.

It was a very even game, with Gully also finding themselves in good positions to score, but more often than not failing to make the most of their opportunities throughout the game. This was either due to woeful finishing, overuse of the ball, or when required, the heroics of Nikola Roganovic - and before I forget, yes there was a substitute keeper on the bench yesterday!

Remember also when I was a little mystified by Chris Taylor's comments following the Community Shield win over Melbourne Knights about us playing too direct? I mean, isn't that the supposed hallmark of the Chris Taylor game plan? Well yesterday highlighted to me what he was going on about. As with with several games this season, there have been too many moments where we have coughed the ball up cheaply in completely unnecessary situations - situations which weren't down to opposition pressure, but merely poor decision making. I'm no opponent of the long ball, but when it becomes the default option even in circumstances where it's not warranted, and all you do is end up giving the ball back to the opposition under no pressure, with the opposition closer to the middle of the ground... it just sucks man, you know?

Andy Brennan dispossesses Green Gully goalkeeper Kieran Gonzalez.
Photo: Kevin Juggins.

Was Lujic's first goal offside? Again my instinct was yes, but the officials thought otherwise, and we took the lead late on and put ourselves in the best position to win this arm wrestle of a game. Dane Milovanovic's ball to Lujic was perfect, and it was great to see Dane get a start and stiffen up the spine of the the whole structure. His distribution was also very good. I'm a big Andy Brennan fan, and while I know he's got a lot to learn yet about playing in this competition - especially in learning how to pace himself - off the bench thus far this season he has been an asset. Even if not every cross goes where it should, his attitude and willingness to fight for the ball means that defenders always have to be alert, and are more prone to making a mistake from implied pressure as well as actual pressure. Brennan's dispossessing of Green Gully goalkeeper Kieran Gonzalez, which he followed up with a lay-off to Lujic who snuck it into the net, was fabulous stuff.

Quite why Tim Mala received a red card after all of that is probably only known to those who were on the field. The inference being made is that Mala abused Gonzalez for screwing up, and after Gonzalez made an issue of it the referee decided to send Mala off, a heinous overreaction akin to when Jesse Krncevic was sent off a few years back against Heidelberg. Chances are that the red card won't be overturned, and who knows how many games Mala will miss because of it. Then the game finished and another tumultuous game at Green Gully Reserve had come to end,

And then...

the farcical scenes began, or should I say probably continued on from a few weeks ago. During half time of the Bentleigh game, one of our supporters had posted a comment critical of Nick Epifano's performance during that first half (see the screenshot on the right) on the South Melbourne Facebook page. Epifano responded in a hostile manner, and tagged in Iqi Jawadi to the discussion. I only became aware of this because of anonymous person who mentioned the incident in the comments section of that post. Upon trying to find evidence of the discussion, I came up mostly empty, as apparently comments with swearing automatically don't get published on the South Facebook page. If that's true, what this means is that the person who saw the post was either an insider, or was otherwise Facebook friends with Epifano and thus able to see the comment regardless of its content. Since I don't befriend any of our players on Facebook, and follow almost none of them on Twitter - a deliberate policy of mine - I can't say for certain how the comment was seen.

Regardless, all of that is beside the point. Epifano bit back in a very offensive manner to what was fairly tame commentary, and while the club tried to keep it quiet, it did leak via the relative blog comment onto smfcboard.com where it was confirmed by Con Shomos that indeed the incident had happened. From there, I asked the club via Twitter if Epifano would be punished, to which board member Tony Margaritis replied that the matter had been dealt with, without elaborating on what the exact punishment would be. Fair enough, give the bloke a bake behind closed doors, let the internal processes try to sort the situation out,

Now I'm always reticent to try and say things like 'all supporters think this' or 'most supporters consider that'. The risks and pitfalls are too obvious. But I think I can safely say that for most of our supporters, in their minds abuse directed at our players is not personal - though I can certainly see how it would be taken personally - but almost entirely an expression of their frustration at a given passage of play, or match or even season. In that sense, it's no different to supporters from almost any sporting club around the world.

Nick Epifano heads clear during the game. Photo: Kevin Juggins.

There's also a legitimate stream of thought out there that you should never abuse any player on your team. It's not one that I subscribe to for all sorts of reasons, but it's an opinion that a lot of people hold, and I'm not going to begrudge them that. The fact of the matter though is that yesterday Epifano didn't react to abuse, but to encouragement! While I didn't hear his comments, I can categorically state that those of us on the fence near where the outburst occurred did not abuse him, but only sought to encourage him to make a follow up effort while the Gully defender was in a relatively tight spot and potentially susceptible to making an error if put under more pressure - in other words, comments directed to every one of our players. Some fans even noted on the forums yesterday that even after Epifano's outburst, that the supporters by and large kept on trying to encourage him during the second half.

South fans don't have the best reputation for abuse of their own team, but the fact that Epifano seemed to get upset at that and not abuse is kind of disturbing to me. Does he have other issues that he's dealing with? I'm struggling to figure out what his problem is. I'm also hardly the eternal optimist when it comes to pretty much anything South related, but even at the end of the match I felt that the situation could have been rescued (even if only partially or temporarily) if only he'd come over with the rest of the team and thanked the fans for turning our, and in turn receiving thanks for the team's efforts - a display of mutual respect despite whatever tantrums were had in the heat of the moment. Instead this happened.

Picture says a thousand words. @smfc @PaulMavroudis @LAthanasakis @sthmel pic.twitter.com/NiO5q2rVpd
— KissOfDeathFootball (@KODFootball) April 4, 2015

Instead of swallowing his pride somewhat and trying to defuse the situation, his actions only served to make what was a hard fought win in a game that could have gone either, all about himself.

Then, as those of us along the fence were about to begin our exit out of the ground before having to deal with the traditional bottleneck situation in the Green Gully car park, attention turned to supporters further up on the hill getting into a blue with Nick Epifano's mum and assorted other friends and relatives of his, all while you could clearly hear the players singing the song in the change rooms with gusto. Now what exactly was being said and who started it, I have next to no idea, as I stayed near the fence watching on in amused horror at the utter farce shambles of the situation, only joining in with the childish yet appropriate Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! chant.

It was hard to make head or tail of the situation, as those on either side of the argument ended up inadvertently ganging up on those who were trying to calm the situation down, as well as somehow involving those who weren't even in the discussion at all. As stupid and unseemly as all of this was, it only got worse when Epifano came out of the dressing rooms in his club polo and track pants, crossed over to the outer side, jumped the fence and looked like he wanted to fight with some of our fans, only to be held back by his mum.

Eventually our president Leo Athanasakis came out, and people started to move on slowly, though the yelling and abuse continued out into the car park area. Thank goodness that the situtation didn't manage to escalate even further. The remaining South fans stood in the car park holding an informal debrief, trying to figure out what had happened, how it had happened, and what would happen next - as well as an inordinate amount of people asking me when it would all go on the blog.

The general though by no means unanimous consensus seemed to be that whatever actions the club had taken to punish Epifano after the initial Facebook incident, they had failed to make the situation better; that by and large, Epifano was not copping any abuse out of the ordinary, that indeed it was still mostly genuine encouragement (though word had spread of his first half outburst, and thius some fans were in mood to be conciliatory) and that he was certainly not receiving the kind of attention that Minopoulos had received when he fluffed his chance in the first half, After fan frustration at a poor cross he put in during the second half though, the abuse and frustration was more apparent, and to make matters, Epifano had another go at the supporters. Epifano is now as good as persona non grata and that the club (and certainly not the coach) has no option but to sack him; and that had he been playing for Melbourne Knights for example, the hardcore fans there would have been a lot less tolerant of his behaviour than we had been.

During this debrief, several South players emerged from the ground on their way to their cars, all of whom were applauded by the fans. I even made the (unusually for me) witty quip to those players that they shouldn't worry that we were all in the car park, as we weren't out to get them. So what happens next? There are some who are still willing to believe that the club can deal with this issue. For others, perhaps most of those who witnessed the incident, there is no option other than the most blunt and most obvious - Epifano needs to be sacked, and anyone else who wants to go with him can please themselves, In the anger of the moment, that was my opinion, too. However, on thinking about the situation overnight, it occurred to me that in some ways this is a situation I've dealt with before, and that my reaction in that case was very similar.

For those not aware, part of my non-South life includes teaching literature classes at university. A few years ago I had caught a student of mine blatantly plagiarising. What made it worse was that upon discussion with some of my colleagues, it turned out that she was a serial plagiariser. I was all ready to throw the book at this student and be done with her. However, after going through the plagiarism process with the student advocate, it turned out that there were deeper issues causing the plagiarism. It was only after the adherence to due process though that we got to that point. Now this student, who was shy and lacked confidence, was at least able to get the help she needed, and eventually she graduated.

Whether that experience of mine is entirely analogous to this situation is perhaps in the eye of the beholder. I had got upon my high horse about the matter, but what had that achieved? Likewise, it's an easy and understandable fact about those South fans that have remained loyal with regards to getting on their high horses about the matter. Part of our self-esteem as South supporters these days is in the fact that we are still supporting our club in the same way that we did when we were in the NSL instead of this horrid existence trapped under the metaphorical floorboards of Australian soccer.

We still expect excellence from our players, many of whom have no regard or understanding about what the club means to us. In some ways this is inevitable - the players are from a different generation, and their experiences are often very different to our own. We don't even have a social club to get to know them outside of South's media team, where acknowledgement of the fans may as well be part of the performance as opposed to something from the heart - a harsh thing to say when clearly there are players of ours who do appreciate the supporters.

The entire experience was light years away from the recent Dockerty Cup game against Whittlesea United, where Tansel Baser was treated like the legend of the club he is, while he wholeheartedly reciprocated after the match. All of which is a very long-winded of saying, is there truly no hope for Epifano to remain at South? Are we past the point of no return? The evidence seems to say that he's a goner one way or another, and the supporters who have spoken on the matter seem to generally be on the same page on this matter. Will the club hold the same point of view? What will be the consequences if he isn't sacked? What's the point of having a code of conduct if its not enforced? Should supporters get access to the players' code of conduct? So many questions that I'd love the answer to.

Or we could just sack the bloke and let the chips fall where they may.

Next week
Saturday afternoon on Orthodox Easter Saturday, at home against the Melbourne Knights who have an equal share of the top of the table - and doesn't that second part of the sentence just sicken you?

Pearl Jam sucks
Yesterday myself and another music fan agreed on this matter. We may have to start a support group for all those who don't get why so many people seem to rate them.

Elias Donoudis and his narrow sense of what our clubs mean
More nonsense from this chump, this time complaining about how last week's derby against the Bergers was hardly relevant to the Greek community, as there were hardly any Greeks playing in the game. Nevermind that his beloved 1984 South championship team had only one Greek starting player during both grand final legs. What a malaka.

Final thought
Later that night, after listening to Collingwood squeak home after almost coughing up a 50 point lead, I went out into the backyard with my dad so we could watch the lunar eclipse. In the background, the usual western suburbs hoons were doing their thing, passenger and freight trains rumbled past, and some fruit bats attacked my neighbour's fig tree in search of a feed. Watching the moon gradually become hidden by the Earth's shadow naturally brought out all the usual Sagan-esque clichés about how small and insignificant we are, and how stupid getting so angry and passionate about soccer is. Yet, we'll be back next week to do it all again, taking this game way too seriously relative to its cosmic importance, People are strange.

My Eyes! The Goggles Do Nothing!

I'm still not over Peter Gavalas' error last week against the Knights. It doesn't help when you have a week off to think about it either. Without any sense of hyperbole, it has single handedly ruined our season. It may have also been quite possibly the worst mistake ever made by anyone associated with South Melbourne in our 54 year history. I'd go further, but records before that are too sketchy to make definitive statements.

But instead of complaining about it, maybe we should actually do something to make sure it never happens again. Here are some ideas I think we should consider.

Cap

It seems so simple. They were even handing one out with every membership, and thanks to the FFV's mandatory constitutional reforms from a couple of years back, just about anyone who's sneezed within vicinity of a South game is now a member, and that includes the players. So anyway, back to the hat. It's blue, has a South logo, and 'member' written on the back, without a year listed, probably to save money. It looks kinda crap, but are we here to win titles, or are we here to look good? Since I personally gave up trying to look good circa 1997, let's assume it's the former. I'm also open to the idea of getting someone to sew on a bit of cloth on the back, make it into a legionnaire's cap, for that primary school chic. If that kind of thing matters to you, of course.

Sun Hat

While it may come across as unwieldy, the advantage of this is you get more coverage all around the head area, and even some protection of the neck area, meaning no sunburn. The sun hat also lends itself more to accessorising - maybe add a feather or a flower, perhaps use it to start planning ideas for the spring horse racing season? Still, I'd probably go for the legionnaire's cap option over this one, unless it leads to South releasing a branded sombrero.

Balaclava

Pros:

• Will help you keep warm in winter.
• Will provide you with a certain level of anonymity after another stuff up.
• While making you anonymous, it will also simultaneously make you look like more of a bad ass, which may mean that angry fans will think you're some sort of psycho , and will therefore be less likely to confront you from over the fence (and in our case, running track). Opposition big men are also less likely to challenge you in the air. Of course that didn't matter so much last week, but you get my point.
• May lead to those old Perth Glory derived Con Boutsianis/We're Gonna Rob A Bank chants making a comeback.

Cons:

• Won't block out the sun. 

I could go either way on this one.

Welding Mask

Seriously, you can look directly at an eclipse wearing these things. Also useful in the event you have a really dull game, such as the Southern Stars game from the start of the season, and you find yourself with a bit of a chance to catch up with some spot welding. There is a downside though, apart from being a cumbersome item to carry around during a match (hence me ditching the idea of maybe using a leadsuit). And the downside is that communication with the defence would obviously get a bit harder. Then again, Pete Gavalas isn't one of the loudest goalkeepers I've ever heard in my time following the game, so it's hard to tell whether in this case it would be such a disadvantage.

Block Out The Sun

I admit, this is a bit of an extreme idea, but we're here to win championships, aren't we? The thing is, if it worked, I wouldn't be worried about the expense. But then you'd have to turn the lights on, and while Eddie McGuire's covered the cost of that (thanks champ!), you'd then have to worry about Gavalas losing the ball in the bright floodlights.

Play Someone Else In Goal
Now you're just being stupid.

Seriously, Who'd Be A Goalkeeper?
Did you see the replay of that goal? The way the wind caught hold of the free kick in mid-flight? That's some pretty messed up stuff up right there.

The Stupidest Thing I Saw In Canberra

No Kiss of Death this week. :(

So in lieu of that and because I can't be bothered to write up a preview for this week's match against Southern Stars - because surely we'll win that match - I decided to provide a taster of an upcoming write up on my recent trip to Canberra to attend a sports history conference and do some research on the leftist writer David Martin. The photo is from a map at the AIS.

Let The Navel Gazing Begin - South Melbourne 1 Green Gully 3

You miss a week and end up missing so much. It's not just missing the actual game – being in a situation where I had limited forum and Facebook contact for a week does something to you. Being away in Canberra for a week - my first interstate trip since 1999 that had nothing to do with South -  was both alienating and refreshing.

For a bit of background, I check this site's stats every day, in part to see how recent articles are doing, and in part to see if some old article gets unusual attention. I visit the various forums I'm on several times a day, to laugh, to learn, to be horrified and occasionally contribute my limited wisdom.

So even though I don't spend much more than one day a fortnight at Lakeside, I've become obsessed with what people say and think about South, from inside and outside the club; positive and negative; those who are obscenely ignorant and those who are perhaps too informed about any given situation, and who use that knowledge to lord it over everyone else.

So I rocked up to Lakeside with a sense of dread competing with a sense of low expectations. Some sort of talk had reached me that persons on the committee were unhappy with the fact that the timeline comment had appeared on this site. Somehow I managed to avoid any confrontation with committee persons on that matter (unusually perhaps by sitting in the same spot I usually do; or maybe the displeasure rumour was overstated), but it is a fact that the committee weren't the only people who were unhappy with that post seeing the light of day. Considering the forum response to that comment, several people seemed to have received much the same information.

Then again, there was talk that people were displeased that in his match report from last week, Gains mentioned that Tsolakis was unshaven, when it was completely obvious to everyone. Go figure.

I'll return to abstract navel gazing in a moment, because we did actually play a match yesterday, and it would be remiss not to mention it at least in passing. I didn't have any major expectations. Rightly or wrongly, a pall has been cast over season 2013. Still, in the first half we gave it a good shake. We went behind due to some poor marking, but at least went into the halftime break level, and perhaps even playing the better football. Vlahos' goal from a free kick was sensational, but it was also atypical. We had four or so one on one chances, but did nothing with them.

The second half wasn't as crash hot. Our defending was pretty dire - all three goals stemmed from some sort of poor marking - but people having a go at Peter Gavalas are probably guilty of erecting a strawman to take down. Indeed Gavalas had what I thought was an excellent game. The atmosphere at the ground became deflated at 3-1, and never picked up. Injuries to Gasparis and Tsiaras didn't help matters either.

We're back to that sense of familiar mid-season gloom of our VPL years. No amount of money, coaching changes or transfers has been able to change that trajectory, though just for the sake of it I'm going to maintain a candle of hope that something may happen this season. Otherwise, we should focus on blooding a few younger players, re-building some dressing room camaraderie and try to make the most of our cup run.

On the plus side, this collapse in form and morale has allowed us to participate once more in one of our favourite bloodletting games. Players that were quick are now too slight. Those that bullied the midfield now have no skill. Veterans are no longer experienced, but just plain old. Youngsters no longer full of promise. Inconsistency and upheaval and even the TV show blamed for our decline, when Green Gully has sacked coaches and had TV shows and still won championships. Games that we were perhaps unlucky in are now being pored over for signs of the decay setting in before most of us - including myself, though obviously not those with friends in high places - were surprised by the apparently sudden departures.

Leonard Nimoy: A solar eclipse: the cosmic ballet goes on.

Man sitting next to Nimoy: Does anybody want to switch seats?

Steve from Broady's Under 21 Report
South Melbourne's under 21s started the second half of the season with a home match against Green Gully at Lakeside Stadium. South's squad was depleted with five players going up to the seniors and a few players out injured, forcing South to promote a fair few under 18 players. South with another new face in goals kicked off. South dominated the first 20 minutes could not get any of their shots to count, blasting most of them wide.

In the 23rd minute Green Gully had a free kick on the edge of the area - the Gully captain stepped up and fired the ball low across the area with the ball finding its way past everyone's feet and into the back of the net, South giving another soft goal away and making a habit of going behind early this season.

As the first half went on South continued to dominate but could not get anything on the scoreboard. The teams went into the sheds at half time with the score 1-0 to Gully. South dominated the whole second half and still could not score. 1-0 it finished to Gully. South's 21s are having a poor season to date and in my opinion you rate the coach on two things in youth football. Firstly results, and secondly player development. And unfortunately South's under 21s coach has failed in both areas. Results are shit and players are getting worse each week. I have talked to reserve players and they have confirmed what I have thought for weeks that the expensive Brazilian coach is teaching them nothing.

The time has come to call for the coach's head. Anyone could have got the ressies 1-0 losses to Gully and Port; why do we need some overpaid Brazilian coach to do so?
Steve from Broady has spoken! SACK THE OVER PAID BRAZILIAN COACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Steve from Broady out for another week.

Steve from Broady's Canteen Review
South Melbourne's food van was in the spotlight this week trying to improve on their sub par effort from last week. And they did marginally better with a nice solid souv, nice pita that was not hard as a rock this week, lots of meat gets them a 5.5 souths food van going with the "just tap it in approach" will they eventually get a 10, only the food gods know, until next week get around it.

1. Pascoe Vale 10/10

   

   The club was quick to hand out updated membership cards yesterday.

2. Hume City 8/10
3. Bentleigh Greens 7/10
4. Northcote City 3.5/10
5. Southern Stars 2/10
6. Green Gully 1/10
7. Dandenong DQ 

South food truck

• Week 1, 4.5/10
• Week 2, 7/10
• Week 3, 8.5/10
• Week 4, 5/10
• Week 5. 5.5/10

South's NPLV Statement
Last week, amid the continuing fallout from the various sackings (sack the board, sack the fans, sack the bloggers, yada, yada, yada), the club released this statement on our NPLV discussions. To be honest, it's not a seismic shift in attitude, even if some Melbourne Knights fans got their collective holier than thou rocks off upon reading it. It certainly doesn't say that we've pulled out of the NPLV process.

The real shock here is, which no one in their rush to react in whatever pro or anti board stance that they had sitting in the cupboard noticed, is that this press release conforms exactly to what South's committee had said they would do:

• That they would work with the FFV.
• That they would try and make a workable and viable competition.
• That they would try and win concessions for our club.
• That they would not compromise the club's integrity (snigger) if we didn't get those concessions.

Θα χαλάσει ο καιρός and all that.

3XY Last Night
Apparently there was some more action on that front last night. Didn't listen to it. What happened?

Anonymous
Yesterday a concerned reader asked me who the commenter listed as 'anonymous' was – with particular reference to some of the posts seen in the recent players gone post. I told him what I tell you now – if and when people use non-Google accounts to post comments, then even if they use a handle of their choice, they are still more or less entirely anonymous, without any way of me finding out their identity.

It's sometimes difficult to balance out the concerns of newsworthiness, posterity and the public record against issues of taste and opinion, among other issues, but I hope that I stay on the right side of the line as much as possible. There are very few comments that I have ever blocked, though at one time I did allow comments only from registered users. That was because things were getting particularly nasty, and I really should have cracked down on that issue a lot faster.

Still, as much as I'm responsible for giving final approval to all comments published on this blog, some of the responsibility for that content does fall upon you, the reader who decides to contribute. There are people who use this site to put forward opinions on behalf of one agenda or another, and that's fine, even if I wish people were more open about their identities.

Thus far into the blog's history, comment section discussions, where they have existed, have been for the most part civil, even when they've been passionately disagreeing with alternative positions. I'd like to see that civility maintained and where possible, for commentators to add in some sort of marker, not perhaps to identify yourself outright, and but to at least create some sort of persona so that we can trace a continuity throughout the blog's lifespan.

The Scoreboard
Just for a moment there was video on there, of the game itself being played. That's an interesting development.

Next Week
Southern Stars at home. This could be fun.

Final Thought
People are still asking me what the state of our A-League ambitions is. Either hope springs eternal at Lakeside, or we're tiring of waiting for deliverance from this separation from God among the other ethnic heathens.

The time has come...

...for South Melbourne Heart!

Now this is a Facebook page that could surely do with a bit more publicity.

Previously, we here at South of the Border have covered the 'South should merge/takeover with Heart' phenomenon only sparingly, and with the utmost reluctance. Most notably, there was the moment of comic relief at the end of the 2012 AGM blog entry, from January 2013. More substantially, there was this article from December last year.

Still, most of the talk on this issue is refers to possible takeover plans rather than a merger, so it's nice to see someone put up the merger point of view, if only for a bit of variety. On their page they've put up videos from both teams, tried to come up with a home strip - the Paraguay national team style thing on the right hand side, with hooped socks no less - and one person, I assume the page's creator, tried to post a comment on the official South Facebook page in order to advocate for this idea. Sadly, it appears that comment was taken down by one of the humourless drones who monitor that page.

And even though we disagree with this idea on principle, we'll be keeping an eye on seeing how much support - legitimate or otherwise - this campaign is able to muster up.

PS.
And then, just as I hit submit and schedule this article for a later date, someone comes up with this. Good grief. How long until this nonsense ends?

PPS.
And then the Facebook page's creator puts up a thread on the Heart forum, which quickly gets locked. Need him to post a comment here, lol.

Whatever You Do, Don't Panic!

Remember this crap? Well, because Melbourne Heart got another crappy crowd, we're once more at the stage where two things are happening. First, the usual South suspects have come out to dance on the Heart's impending grave, without noting the inherent ironies of doing so, while on the other side of the equation, Heart's supporters are by and large looking either to blame everyone and everything bar the model their club is based on, or attempting to come up with ever more ludicrous solutions to their plight.

I won't bore you with the full range of those ideas (examples include moving the team to Geelong, buying a Greek marquee player, getting a 10k capacity boutique soccer stadium built at Glenferrie Oval), but one idea that comes up from both sides of this issue is a merger/amalgamation/takeover scenario with our very own South Melbourne Hellas.

The South supporters who are keen on this train of thought put forward the idea that our club should wait until Heart is just about dead (or not, in some variations), and then buy a stake in that franchise and change it South Melbourne by stealth. Never mind that like any half astute Australian sporting body, the FFA controls the licensing and naming arrangements. Never mind entering a competition with high overheads and almost no one making a profit. Never mind that our main goal should be to try and get what we're doing now right, because there are a lot of people who would love it to fail.

The Heart fans' idea tends to run a different way - that they should play out of the cheaper and smaller Lakeside Stadium in order to tap into the supposed latent A-League support buried within the South Melbourne community. Never mind that:

• Our actual active support, like every other state league club, is poor.
• Most of those people who could become enchanted with the A-League are already there.
• If you want to find big numbers of Greeks at sporting events in Melbourne, you're more likely to find them at a Collingwood or Richmond AFL match.
• And what's the obsession some Heart fans have with attracting Greek-Australian fans anyway? Aren't they meant to be a 'mainstream' operation?

The best parts of this situation (which seems to come up at least once every season) are the ever more ludicrous lengths people will go to back up their particular point of view. The person who created the two logos included in this entry deserves a prize for creativity, and for highlighting the difficulty in establishing whether anyone on either side of this issue is being genuine in this debate. That they are the views of a small minority of internet warriors is not much consolation.

You know you have a problem...

... when you start dreaming about blogging.

I Still Call South Melbourne Home

Words by SouthPole

I've been on forums that never close down
From soccer-forum to twg and old smscboard town
But no matter how far or how wide I roam
I still call smfcboard home

I'm always browsing, I love being free
And so I keep leaving the Hellas for Victory
But my heart lies waiting over the foam
I still call South Melbourne home

All the sons and daughters spinning 'round the world
Away from their family and friends
But as the FFA gets older and colder
It's good to know where your journey ends

And someday we'll all be together side by side
When all of the sellouts come back to Lakeside
I'll realize something I've always known
I still call South Melbourne home

But no matter how far or wide I roam
I still call South Melbourne, I still call South Melbourne, I still call South Melbourne home
But no matter how far or wide I roam
I still call South Melbourne, I still call South Melbourne, I still call South Melbourne home

Two years since The World Game Forum was shut down.

Lest we forget. While the community has regrouped somewhat at Football Anarchy, it'll never be the same as the old two bobber. The following was an example of the heartfelt anguish expressed when news of the forum's death sentence was announced.

OPEN LETTER TO SBS



Dear SBS


I am afraid your dragonion policy of closing down the TWGF forum is inapt and you are just taking forumites negative coments to seriously.

Some of us have been posting anti Aussie sokkah, anti A league posts for ages, but you should not be offended by them. HTFU.

Freaken, Skip, ECP, Benny Hinn, Chips and all the others are actully doing soccer a favor by showing the negative things about the A legue and posting AFL crowd numbers every week.

Some long time posters like Fronty is only joking when he says I piss on your SBS. don’t you understand jokes?
Havent you got a sence of humour. He is just being humerus FFS.

Please rethink your policy and allow us to continue posting.

If you do not, we will have to take more dragonion measures, which I will outine later.

You cannot behave like this without reaper cushions.

Some of our group have powerful contacts in places like Armenia, Croatia, Phillipines, Calabria and Sunshine. This is not be snuffed at


Waiting your immediate action.



This letter has also been posted to SBS Managing Director, SBS Sports, Les Murray and Admin.

Locked Bag 028
Crows Nest NSW 1585

South of the Border Awards 2012

Here are my crappy awards for 2012. I'll also be providing forecasts as to the winners of the 2022 season with my Nostradamus like powers based on the assumption that the National Competitions Review as put forward by the FFV gets up and going.

Player of the year: Dimi Tsiaras. Brad Norton could have won it for inexplicably playing more games then everyone sans Peter Gavalas. Luke Byles would have probably won it if I used a week by week voting system. But Tsiaras when he was playing at defensive mid, seemed to add a bit of cunt to the side. More of him in that position next season please, and less of him pinch hitting in defense as was asked of him in 2012.

2022 winner: Alain Prost Montgomery Trent Spoffington de Beaufort, the latest superstar out of the Xavier/Scotch/St Kevins etc 'my parents were loaded and I play football for South Melbourne' program.

Under 21 player of the year: The Cliff Hussey Memorial Trophy goes to Anthony Giannopoulos. Andrew Cartanos showed something in his stints at the end of the season; I liked Matko Budimir more as the year went on; Nicky Jacobs season was cruelly cut short the week after he bundled in the winner against Southern Stars. But bias propels me to pick 'Gia'. Last year his attitude and leadership qualities stank. This year, he's come along in leaps and bounds in both areas, and he appears to be a less selfish player. I was immensely disappointed he didn't get a run at all in the seniors in 2012.

2022 winner : We won't have under 21s by then. In the words of TISM, if you're not famous by fourteen, you're finished.

Goal of the year: 2012 was a very lean year for spectacular goals at South. So in that spirit, the award goes to Anthony Giannopoulos, for his amazing and sadly not caught on camera scissor against Oakleigh. He could have controlled it, he could have headed it, instead he went for the ridiculous and pulled it off.

2022 winner: After a 55 pass build up, James Spanos Junior, Esq. - inspired by watching Alessandro Del Piero during his Sydney FC stint - will nonchalantly curl one into the top corner.

Best performance: I would have said Oakleigh at home, where we dominated 88 of the 90 minutes, but I preferred Oakleigh away all the way back in round two. After getting beaten up for 30 minutes and being behind, we spent a good hour playing blistering football which made us all think we were due for big things in 2012.

2022 winner : It'll all depend on the KNVB methodology number crunchers.

Best away game of the year: Southern Stars. The chaos when Nicky Jacobs scored the winner was fun.

2022 winner: The Battle of Painkalac Dam against the Elwood City Grebes at the Moggs Creek gala day. Can't wait.

Call of the year: Lot of sadly memorable mentions, mostly originating from the mouth of Steve from Broady - 'the things that keep you up at night', 'get it in the mixer', 'what's for dinner'. But the clear winner had to be 'if they were at Northcote, they would have scored that', said by just about everyone, and by me even in cases and places where relevance was minimal.

2022 winner: In order to facilitate a 'fun, safe and positive environment for our children', all wit, including the sarcastic, withering, snide, sly, offbeat, cynical, existential and beatnik, will be prohibited.

Chant of the year: A few to choose from, but 'quack, quack, quack' from the Mighty Ducks takes the win this season

2022 winner: South Melbourne! (clap, clap, clap) South Melbourne! (clap, clap, clap)

Best after match dinner location: Technically, it was a pre-match dinner location, but Thai Deli on Clarendon Street (next door to the abominable Pizza Hut) was fabulous. Hope be there again soon - being closed on Sundays does make it harder to get there though.

2022 winner : Ontbijtkoek paired with Sisi.

Friends we lost along the way: Clarendon Corner, apparently. I wouldn't write them off so quickly though.

2022 winner : There will be no friends, only parents, and even then, only sometimes.

Barely related to anything highlight of the year: During driveway cricket at Southpole's house, bowling alleged cricket superstar Steve from Broady out for a first ball duck.

2022 winner : Sadly, the above will probably still be the highlight of my miserable existence.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much spare time

This is certainly worth a go.

BANGED MY HEAD ON THE CAPSLOCK TOO HARD AND NOW IT'S STUCK

The South Melbourne Dim Sim in hot oil for abusing South fans. 

REGARDLESS, I WILL NOT APOLOGISE FOR MY REPETITIVE WEEKLY RANTS BLAMING EVERYONE, YET FINDING NO ACTUAL SOLUTIONS, AND SELDOM IF EVER ACKNOWLEDGING THAT THE OTHER TEAMS ARE ALSO TRYING TO WIN AND ARE MAYBE BETTER THAN US FOR A MYRIAD OF REASONS MOST OF WHICH ARE OUR OUT OF A COMMITTEE'S CONTROL - ΕΣEΙΣ ΦTAITE! I WILL ALSO NOT APOLOGISE FOR CONTRADICTING MYSELF BY CALLING FOR STABILITY WHILE WANTING EVERYONE TO BE SACKED. BESIDES, YELLING IN CAPITAL LETTERS IS FUN! ESPECIALLY WHEN IT HAS BEEN SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN TO INCREASE THE PERFORMANCE OF OUR PLAYERS. A RECENT STUDY BY THE PONDS INSTITUTE PROVES THAT THE PLAYERS PLAY BETTER WHEN THEY TAKE ONBOARD MY POSTS ON A FORUM THEY CAN'T ACCESS AND PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE HAS FORGOTTEN EXISTS! I DON'T CARE THAT THE LAST NEW PERSON TO SIGN UP DID SO IN JULY 2011 AND THAT PERSON HAD ALREADY BEEN REGISTERED THERE BEFORE! AND TO THE SOUTH MELBOURNE DIM SIM, WHO HAS BEEN POSTING COMMENTS HERE TELLING ME TO SHUT UP, WHILE I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU ARE A TASTY, ALBEIT ARTERY CLOGGING TREAT, I SUGGEST YOU STICK TO ABSORBING SOME MORE SOY SAUCE RATHER THAN HAVING A GO AT ME AND OTHER LOYAL SUPPORTERS OF THIS GREAT CLUB!

Some nonsense I whittled two years ago

Neos Kosmos English Weekly used to do this thing where they profile a local Greek-Australian soccer personality. I don't know if they do it anymore, because my folks don't buy the Saturday edition, and I don't buy it unless I've written for it, which hasn't happened for a long time. Anyway, I offered James Belias, the editor of the sports section, the opportunity to take up my profile, even though I don't play or coach or ref or administer - in the real world anyway. He declined to make use of a Hattrick profile answering the same questions. Pity. Well, I have a blog which is sitting idly here doing squat, may as well use it for shameless self-promotion.

Name : Paul Mavroudis
Club : Juniper Hill
Position : Club owner/chairman
Occupation : Associate Editor of Das Libero
Last season : 5th of 8 teams in our division 4 series. Lost relegation playoff 3-0.
Greek clubs played at : None.
Ambition : Get my club as high as possible. Not suck.
Career Highlight : Against all odds finishing fourth in division V.150, even knocking off the top team. A round six cup run two or three season back.
Football heroes : Robbie Fowler, Paul Trimboli
Current favourite local player : Julius Stoker
Current favourite international player: Timothy Dahl
Fav Aus Soccer Moment : 3rd South goal in '99 grand final
Team in Greece : I'd be lying if I said I took Greek football seriously.
Other sports : Aussie Rules and Gaelic football
Away from footy : Reading, writing, blogging, arguing, music, surfing web, collecting enemies
Fave cafe : none
Fave night club/bar : None.
Fave music : Elbow, Eels, The Autumns, Lift To Experience, Manic Street Preachers, Faith No More, Weird Al Yankovic
Holidayed in Greece : Back when I was 12.
Favourite Movie : Millennium Actress
Best thing about being Greek Australian : The incredible achievements completed several thousand years ago by a minority of people that I can attach myself to. And supporting South Melbourne Hellas.
Worst thing : Being associated with Acropolis Now.
Hidden Talent : Ability to tell the truth and not be believed.

Pros and Cons of having Greek Tycoons

I've been keeping my ear to the ground, hoping for something interesting to pop up. No sign of coach sacking, let alone hiring. All pretty quiet when it comes to South at the moment. But there have been intriguing rumours circulating that Greek-American tycoon Roberto Rastapopoulos is interested in tipping his money into South Melbourne. Rastapopoulos is no doubt a clever and inventive character, but it's worth weighing up the pros and cons of having such a figure involved at South. Here are some points both for and against having Roberto on board that I came up with at short notice.

Points For

• Quite wealthy individual, would allow us to start becoming really ambitious about what we could do with the club.
• Well known identity, one which could garner lots of media attention for South.
• Well connected individual, especially in the entertainment industry.
• Has no baggage from previous club administrations. Could be part of a genuine fresh start.
• Could get us into A-League? They let the Gold Coast in after all.
• Could help placate those who think South is not Greek enough. 

Points Against

• His involvement might well mean the privatisation of the club, a move which our members have been historically opposed to.
• Has no known background or prior interest in sport.
• His Greekness could be used against us by those who claim we aren't open to others outside our Greek heritage.
• Alleged links to elements of organised crime.
• Hostile attitude to certain parts of the media.
• Is a fictional character from a children's comic book series.

As you can see, there are good arguments on both signs of the ledger. Just have to wait and see what, if anything, comes out of this scenario. There have been similar claims made before that people are ready to come in and put their considerable wealth and business nous to work for the South cause, and so far these predictions have never come true.

South get three points because we didn't field an ineligible player

Turns out Kliment Taseski has a dual registration. So, to reiterate.

Ange Dallas, not as incompetent as he was made out to be by everyone else except this blog. We've always stuck by you Ange, you handsome devil!

FFV just as incompetent as ever, not even knowing their own rules.

If only we'd won the game last week. Oh well, small mercies and small steps I suppose.

Revised/Updated Scotch Watch standings

• South Melbourne, 3rd place, 34 points, goal difference +3
• Bentleigh Greens, 6th place, 33 points, goal difference +7

South deducted three points for fielding ineligble player

Things go from bad to worse. The club has been deducted three points for fielding an ineligible player in last week's 1-0 loss against Richmond. The relevant player is Kliment Taseski, whose loan period with us apparently finished on July 4th. We were apparently notified of this on July 5th, but proceeded to play him on July 9th anyway.

The one slim chance of having this overturned is that during the transfer window, we applied for an extension to his loan. Logically however, I would imagine that the loan period would have only been extended to this point in time. I mean, surely even the FFV could not be that incompetent to have not accurately read its own player data?

So, taking that into account, and assuming that the FFV did not make an error, the blame must fall on the people responsible. The pretend coach Eddie Krncevic, the real coach Joe Montemurro and footballer director Ange Dallas. Because it's their job to know who's right to play and who isn't.

You wouldn't knowingly play a suspended player. And the responsibility for getting a team on the park is their job. No one else's. It's what they get paid to do. They've been delegated that task because that's how it all works. And if they're not held responsible, then the whole lot of them, from top to bottom, should probably be thrown out.

All the facilities, hard work and scrambling to stay alive is pointless if we don't have the merest hint of respect for ourselves and our primary purpose which is, after all, to play football and be pretty damn good at it. And to be brutal for a moment, we've sucked balls for most of the past five years. Something has to be done.

Questions that need to be asked

A suitable image stolen from a Lutheran site. 

Just kicking back today, trying to keep it real, but as always, against my will, also thinking about the big questions dealing with our existence. This was prompted in part by my bumping into an old bloke called Thanasi, a Heidelberg fan who I see at Altona East PAOK on occasion, and who loves to get me riled up about South's fortunes - apparently having two players sent off doesn't make copping five goals acceptable, or even plausible. Amazingly, he only seems to surface when South is on a lean run. Still, browsing the forums and thinking back to what's happened over the season thus far, several other questions have also come up. Here's a sample.

• Is Joe Keenan still at South Melbourne? If he is, is he ever going to come back?
• Galanos (rinse repeat)?
• What kind of idiot declares themselves both an ardent monarchist and a fan of Celtic?
• When we are we going to relocate permanently to SS Anderson Reserve?
• When are we going to finally get conned out of our forty year lease at Lakeside?
• Who is really the coach at South? Is it Eddie? Is it Joe? Is it Ange? Whose hand am I supposed to shake first in the event we win the title? Whose head do I call for in the event of a disastrous second half of the season?
• Was Simon Colosimo protesting outside John Cain Memorial Park with the Dandenong Thunder fans last week?
• Does Peter Zois still love this club? If not, which club does he love now, and are they treating him better? 
• Under which circumstances is it appropriate to throw a glass bottle at your brother's head?
• If you come from Glenroy and have a Dickie Knee hairstyle, is it appropriate for you to pay out on someone from Dandenong for having a rattail?
• Did a dingo really take Rama's baby?
• What's the difference between Harriet Tubman and the Red Hot Chili Peppers?

Halcyon Days of Making an Idiot of Yourself

Once upon a time we had a sort of intern here by the name of Cliff Hussey, who was initially inspired to create a rival or complementary South Melbourne Hellas blog, before we roped him in to do match reports and provide shaky, nausea inducing videos. Does he still come to games? I don't know. Where is he nowadays? Lighting up the Melbourne social scene judging by his Facebook ramblings.

Apart from the disturbing memories of his bizarre emo dress sense, Cliff did leave us with some great artefacts, the pick of the bunch being this video of the now banned fan known as 'Columbo', doing his usual abuse the keeper shtick before making making a fool of himself by falling over the fence and making some random kid laugh.

Google Translate

This is pretty much only for the Greek speaking and reading folks out there. Some random reader recently translated a post in here, which in turn translated several of the labels on the right hand side. See if you can figure out what they're all supposed to be, and have fun. I was going to be in a lot more, but decided to go for what I thought was the cream of the crop.

1. Τώρα Ακρόπολης
2. Όλα τα λευκά
3. Brisbane απεργούς (my personal favourite)
4. Πασπαλισμένο με φρυγανιά Πικάντικες Πτέρυγα κοτόπουλο
5. Doug Καφέ
6. Frankston Πεύκα
7. Κατεψυγμένα δάκρυα 
8. Πράσινο και του Στρατού Gold 
9. Καταπράσινη ρεματιά
10. Χαϊδελβέργη Φίλε Laser 
11. Hooped Κάλτσες 
12. James Σπανός 
13. Φιλί του θανάτου 
14. Μεγάλα Έργα Βικτώρια 
15. Ο κ. Cleansheets
16. Κανείς δεν μας αρέσει εμάς δε μας ενδιαφέρει 
17. Φυστίκι Man
18. Κολοκύθα Eaters Σπόρων 
19. ΚΠΡ
20. Πίνακας αποτελεσμάτων  
21. Sno Κώνοι
22. Η ηλικία 
23. Δυτικά του Σίδνεϊ Μούρα

What it chooses to translate is too random. Some Greek names are entirely in English; others half and half; others still, entirely in Greek. The same word or phrase will sometimes be translated into Greek, while other times it's just left alone. And then, just when you thought it couldn't get any stupider, some obviously not-Greek names, like Ante Kovacevic, get the full Greek treatment. Going through this has also reminded me of how much crap I have written.