Notes from last week's 2020 AGMs

A little overdue, fairly brief, and posted without any sense of popular demand,

A small, dispiriting turnout, even taking into account the AGMs being held in mid-week, in late February, and during the pandemic. Issues also persist with the membership database.

Bill Papastergaidis chaired the meeting, and began with the claim that 2021 would be a great year for South Melbourne. Representing the club on of the evening were Papastergiadis, president Nick Maikousis, secretary Eric Zimmerman, and treasurer Mario Vinaccia. There were other board members present, but not active in being on the presenter's front panel. There were also absentee board members, though who can keep track of all the comings and goings to be able to name names. 

The bulk of the presentation was made up of the treasurer's report and the president's report. The treasurer's report was first. Though presented with due care by the treasurer, the financial report for the 2019/20 financial year was difficult to assess on its merits (even taking into account my novice understanding of finances) because it is now effectively nine months past its reporting date, and because the full impact of the pandemic and lockdown.

These issues were unavoidable, and I offer no criticism on that front. Vinaccia was upfront about the challenges facing the club because of the lockdown, and the plans that had to be put on hold because of the pandemic, including both in terms of paying off certain debts, as well as increasing sponsorship revenues.

What was presented in terms of the hit that the club took from the pandemic - from the tail-end of 2019, and until at least the first half the year - is that revenue and expenses largely remained steady, albeit understandably lessened by the shutdown of football in early 2020. 

Among the budgetary challenges approaching the club is the end of the more generous term of the monthly government stipend, and how that decrease in revenue will need to be made up from other sources. The club had been attempting to set up coterie and sponsorship arrangement prior to the onset of the pandemic, which seemed to have an initial degree of success, but were undermined by all that's come to pass. Still, the club will persist with this plan, because it must.

Much stock is being in establishing and participating in a National Second Division which, while it would increase expenses, would also increase revenue opportunities, memberships and attendance, and value for sponsors. If you haven't noticed a narrative thread here, adding value for sponsors is a big focus for the club in general.

The treasurer did note however that the pandemic allowed the cub to recalibrate its organisational and financial strategy, including taking care of cleaning up matters with both debtors and creditors including the well-publicised settlement reached with former coach Chris Taylor. And no, the exact details of the settlement were not prised out of the committee.

Within the president's report were recognition of the hard work undertaken by people at club to broaden its scope, in this case the powerchair and blind football teams, but also the juniors. It's been a long time coming, but we've had another rebuild of the junior wing. We are close to signing a deal to take control of the pavilion down Middle Park way, something which was in the pipeline for some time, but got interrupted by the pandemic.

The social club kitchen will have a new match day operator (under the club's control), with promises of better quality and faster service. As noted in previous posts, the club reached an amicable termination of the agreement with the previous operator of the social club space.

Maikousis noted that he was close to signing a lucrative deal for exclusive usage of the futsal court space by the taekwondo folk, which will hopefully see the space bring in the revenue it has largely failed to do so for some years now.

The pro-shop will get a new fitout courtesy of Kappa, which may be ready by round 2.

Covid restrictions for Lakeside Stadium are ongoing affair prone to changes in government health policy. At the time of the AGM last week, Victoria was still in a state of limited reopening following on from the most recent lockdown. While special permissions could have been granted under those circumstances for larger crowds, the likelihood of that happening was low. However, now that restrictions have been loosened, things may be a little different.

Inquiries are being made to see what kind of improvements can be squeezed out of governments and organising bodies, in order to improve player amenities at Lakeside Stadium, 2023 Women's World Cup. That's in the event that Lakeside is used as a training venue by one of the visiting teams.

Venue and kickoff time change for this week's match - UPDATED

What was rumoured to be the case earlier in the week, has now been confirmed as fact - although a few details remain undetermined. 

The Heidelberg United vs South Melbourne match for this Sunday has been moved from Olympic Village, to Jack Edwards Reserve in Oakleigh.

The kickoff time has also been pushed back from 5:00pm, to 6:00pm.

There will be no curtain raiser match - these are still being played at Olympic Village.

There has been no information released yet as far as I'm aware about what the crowd capacity will be limited to. There is also no information yet on whether there will be pre-sold tickets.

While the situation could develop quickly, at this stage I am not recommending heading to this game, until such time as matters relating to capacity and ticketing are resolved.

UPDATE 27/02/2021

In lieu of any official guidance from Heidelberg and Football Victoria in regards to a crowd cap and ticketing arrangements, I was very much leaning to not attending this game. 

However, after watching last night's games on YouTube, especially the Dandenong derby, my opinion has changed insofar as no one seems to want to take any responsibility for how games are organised on the covid safety front, 

So my advice now is, if you're going to go, do what I plan to do, and get there early enough so that in the event that they do reach a point where someone decised there are enough people there, you'll be in Jack Edwards Petri Dish Stadium rather than outside of it.

Excitement for season 2021 is somewhere around here, I'm sure, but I seem to have misplaced it, no it's not lost, I just don't know where it is

At last, after several months of the pandemic lockdown crushing local sport; then several more months of not much action anywhere, which may have been part of the lockdown, I don't know, because the back-end of 2020 went by in a big couch potato blur; followed then by a good couple of months of actual pre-season action, which included several games at Lakeside behind closed doors, a game in regional Victoria, a handful of games reputedly in metropolitan Melbourne but which may as well have been in regional Victoria, and another otherwise accessible to me game called off for the recent lockdown; after all that, I finally got to a South game.

And then, as per my custom during pre-season, I proceeded to pay as little attention as possible to the game being played in front of me, reminiscing instead about junk food and the kickboxer Dennis Alexio.

And that's fine. Those of us who attend pre-season games have our own motivations for doing so. Some enjoy the proximity to South; some enjoy attempting to play the optimistic or pessimistic prognosticator; some people are there to scout the opposition. I'm there to socialise and overhear conversations that I can leverage for content for this blog.

Having said all of that, what did I learn from the experience? In terms of the on-field stuff, almost nothing. The team that South fielded today had a large number of youth team players, likely bench options, and a handful of people who will start games, and some who may have started in the recent past but who are not guaranteed to do so in 2021. 

Our backup goalkeeper option James Burgess should be a step up from the back-up options we've had in the past few years, but in terms of everyone else that played today, I did not see anything to make me think that they would be the key to an improved overall performance from the senior men's team. Having said that, my pre-season ratings of South players and performances on a scale of 1 to 10 - where 1 is bad, and 10 is good - tend to be begin at -5, and move very little from there.

St Albans (no idea of the relative strength of their lineup) were the better team - in a game that I want to say was messy, but was it really? When's the last time I actually watched a match to remember what a good or bad one looked like? - and probably should've ended up scoring one or two more than the one goal they did. My estimation of what St Albans should have scored is based on them creating about six or seven really good chances, with a competent forward line scoring from between one-in-three or one- in-four of that quality of opportunity.

Maybe 1.5-2.5 goals would've about right.

As for South, we had one loopy long range shot which the opposition keeper tipped over, and a moderate flurry within the last five minutes. The rest was, as alluded to elsewhere, very meh. Nothing to get worked up about either way, yet. Soon enough though, we can all claim the club is dead.

Next game - possible venue change, check your local guides

This week's first game of the season is against Heidelberg. This is a game that is scheduled to be played at Olympic Village on Sunday. However, the ongoing renovation of Olympic Village is not complete, and there is strong talk that the game will not be played at that ground.

(there is even some discussion, based on what exactly I don't know, that the Olympic Village stand itself has actually been condemned, but that's neither here nor there for the purposes of whatever happens this week, assuming that rumour even has any basis in fact)

Just where exactly the game will be played - assuming that the game goes ahead at all, and is not instead postponed - is something that is yet to be determined.

Reversing the fixture so that we host it at Lakeside is not an option, as the Victorian Track and Field Championships are being held at Lakeside from Friday until Sunday. My understanding from hearing chat today at Churchill Reserve is that John Cain Memorial Park is also not ready to host games just yet. I suppose Heidelberg could ring around the rest of the NPL's Greek teams and find out if Port or Kingston Heath or Jack Edwards are available.

For the time being, I would say keep an ear out for whatever change may happen for this game, because things could change at quite short notice

Everything has been going on for too long, but let's keep going anyway

The other week South Melbourne's Facebook page put up a "Happy Valentijn's Day" gimmick post, making allusion to Dutchman Jasper Valentijn who played with us during the 2007 pre-season and Hellenic Cup. In order for that post to happen, the club's social media person needed a photo of Jasper, and they thought that I might have a photo of him. Well, I didn't, though I know one existed, and not the one where he's naked in a locker room with teammates from one of his clubs in Europe, but an actual photo of Jasper in a South top.

I could not for the life of me find a photo on the net, until I remembered something I heard on a segment of an Australian soccer history podcast - yes, a podcast that I co-host, and the relevant segment of which I led the discussion of. Thus I went scurrying through the Wayback Machine, and managed to find a photo of Jasper Valentijn during his brief time at South, and thus the post went up to general indifference. Not every attempt at engaging social media users is going to be a homerun, and that's fine.

Of course, the most dedicated of South of the Border's readership will recall that this blog already did the Valentijn's Day gimmick eleven years earlier (and did it with slightly more narrative effort), which is not to accuse anyone of being derivative; only to acknowledge that (with the appropriate amount of horror that I have wasted my life) that I have been posting on this blog for a very long time. Kudos to those readers who were there at the beginning and stuck around, and kudos to those who came later and foolishly decided to start reading this nonsense from the beginning, when it was legitimately awful.

Oh, and when there so much of that awfulness.

Anyway, I found the relevant photo on this archived page, and instantly aged about ten years. Fourteen years ago. There wasn't even a South of the Border then. It's ten years since we signed Trent Waterson for a second time, and seeing Frank Drakopoulos trying to punch-on with half of Cobram Victory when he was playing for Clifton Hill in a Dockerty Cup match. Nine years since Dino Djulbic made his Socceroos debut. About seven and a half years since Fernando played his last game for us. About six years since I saw Andy Bourakis playing at Western Suburbs, and six years since we played against Tansel Baser's Whittlesea United in the backblocks of Thomastown. Approaching five years since we won anything. Fourteen years since the first - but not the last - attempt by South to get a spot in the A-League.

One can opine endlessly about what has and has not changed over the past decade and a half, but it's best to do that only intermittently, otherwise you forget that you're also living in the here and now; regardless of how much supporting an antique club like South under the current circumstances sees you be treated like a museum piece yourself. Every club is to some degree or other a personification of its supporters, and vice-versa, but damn it if supporting South for the past decade and a half hasn't made the club indistinguishable from each other in the same way that after a certain amount of time a dog owner begins to resemble his pooch.

On a personal front, last year was going to bring some changes anyway, and then the pandemic happened; and as with every major crisis that arrives, NOTHING WAS EVER THE SAME AGAIN and yet somehow also managed to stay pretty much the same. It is not out of the realms of possibility that we will have yet more lockdowns, delays, and rescheduled matches, alongside the restrictions that will be a part of our soccer lives for at least the immediate future

The blog certainly lost its edge and enthusiasm over the past couple of years, only some of that due to 2020's lack of things to write about. I got tired, and while I like to think I can bounce back and recapture some of the enthusiasm and quality of the blog's peak, why promise something that I might not be able to commit to?

In the NSL days, I was distant from South in a lot of ways, with the most important of them out of my control. I tried to make up for that in the post-NSL era, and have largely succeeded, perhaps going too far the other way. Is it any wonder I've got to the stage where I've felt there's no water left in the well to draw upon? Supporting South is exhausting work, and doing it the way I do it - trying to find ways to write about occasional and restricted glory mixed in with interminable periods of mediocrity - just makes things worse.

And yet here I am, still going for probably not very sound reasons such as a misguided and misplaced sense of loyalty, or contributing to the historical record, maybe even the kind of the pathetic hubristic guilt that comes from wanting to leave behind something of one's existence for future generations which will have bigger things to worry about than what some geek thought of overpaid park footballers (whom he was helping to overpay, in his own marginal way). Which is another way of saying that I can't wait for the season to start.

And if you're wondering what Jasper Valentijn is up to these days, I think he's the manager of a padel club in Groningen.

 If Ian Syson can buy one, so can you

A reminder that memberships for season 2021 are available, including now via the official website! If you were a paid up member in 2020, you also have the option of renewing for the cheaper rate of $50.

Annual General Meetings on Wednesday

Also a reminder that the 2020 South Melbourne Hellas and South Melbourne FC AGMS are on this Wednesday evening at 7:00 and 8:00 respectively, in the social club. 

South Melbourne Facebook pages taken down, and then restored

I'm sure that readers have been aware of the Facebook vs Australia situation, and the ways in which Facebook's blocking of Australian news pages has taken out a lot eof non-news pages as well. One of the victims of Facebook's brinkmanship with the Australian government (and the traditional media outlets that the government is acting on behalf of), was the South Melbourne FC Facebook page. 

And then it was back-up, eventually, and we could learn all about which player's birthday it was again.

While it's easy to scoff at the temporary loss (especially by those who are banned from posting comments on there), the sad truth is that for many people out there, Facebook is the internet. For someone like me who despises Facebook for all sorts of reasons, and uses it only to keep in nominal touch with otherwise estranged relations, and for Australian soccer history guff, I could care less about Facebook's reckless implementation of banning news sites or the .

I mean, I still actually pay a subscription to a major daily newspaper, as well subscribe to other community broadcasters. I'm still a member of online forums (remember them?), and not just soccer ones! But the reality is that for many other people, if it's not Facebook, it may as well not exist. Not only are most community based organisations of a certain size not going to bother with updating a website (f they can even find someone to do it, or if the person who had the password hasn't pissed off from the club) - but a lot of people these days just don't visit websites that aren't information portals of some kind, as opposed to being an original source of information.

Which, to sum up, is a situation that sucks, because I really hate Facebook, but we're all trapped in it to some degree, even those of us who want nothing to do with it.

Public transport guide updates

Since every team due to compete in NPL Victoria in 2021 is the same as in 2020, I've not bothered to go back and update the blog's public transport guide. I assume pretty much everything has stayed the same, except for maybe some increased services in some areas.

A word on this week's game away to the Bergers though, assuming it goes ahead - if you're coming from the Sunbury line, there will be train replacement bus services, so plan your journey accordingly.

Accredited, once again

For season 2021, your main correspondent on South of the Border has once been granted media accreditation by Football Victoria. So, take that opposition NPL clubs, I'm getting in for free again. Who knows how my schedule will work out in terms of being able to get non-South games this year, but I'll do my best to get "around the grounds" where I can, even if it's the least loved segment of any given week's report.

Write for South of the Border

As usual, I'm always looking for guest contributors to South of the Border, for both regular and occasional segments. Especially keen for someone to do match reports for South's NPL women's games, but whatever South related topic or slant you have in mind, just send me a pitch and I'll consider it.

If You Know Your History has returned for 2021

The Australian soccer history radio show and podcast I host with Ian Syson on FNR has returned for 2021. It's going to air at the moment on Thursdays at 6:00pm, via Facebook, Twitter and Twitch, and available later as a podcast via a number of sources. I've been a bit slack with updating the show's blog page, but that's partly because my cheap earphones had started to cark it, and lockdown had made it difficult to get a new pair at short notice. And then it turned out that one of my brothers had two spare pairs, and now my only excuse for not updating the blog is laziness.

Friendly tomorrow against St Albans

 At Churchill Reserve in St Albans, kickoff 1:00PM. Final warm-up match before the season starts.

Well then...

.. I assume tomorrow's scheduled friendly will not be proceeding tomorrow. A pity.

Friendly on Saturday against Brunswick City

Our next friendly is on Saturday evening against Brunswick City, at Dunstan Reserve in West Brunswick at 6:30.

Could this be the first South game I attend since March 2020? I think it could well be.

The shorter, the sweeter

Some tiny bits of news.

Last night South beat the Knights 1-0 in a closed doors session at Lakeside.

The AGMs have been announced for Wednesday 24th February in the social club, at 7PM (SMH) and 8PM (SMFC).

Every now and again I get to add another match program scan to my collection. Here's Nrothern Spirit away from 2003-2004. Thanks to Mark Boric, Greg Stock, and Geoff Coy for teaming up to get us another one from the late NSL era, where things tended to get a bit more iffy on the program front.

Fred, Fredd, and Freddy

Just when it seemed that the 2021 senior men's squad was settled, the club pops up with a surprise signing an "excitement machine" named Freddie Sey.

Apart from his pro forma remarks about being glad to be playing for South, his introductory video offers only fleeting, and sometimes grainy, clues to the kind of the player Sey is. He's an attacking player, that much is clear, looking to take shoots and take on players. Clearly Sey likes to dribble, though I suspect his ambition outweighs his proficiency on that front. He's also probably the type of dribbler who likes to kick and chase, burning his direct opponent with pure speed. That might not work so well in this league and especially some of its smaller grounds, but it worked for Andy Brennan for enough weeks in 2015 to get Brennan an A-League contract, so it might now work for Sey in 2021.

As for everything else about Sey, South fans were left scrounging. A New South Wales 'African Cup of Nations' appearance in 2020 was easy enough to find. But did he actually play for any clubs? His public Facebook profile offers little in the way of soccer content. Friend of the blog Paul Hunt noted that Sey has gone under the name Freddy Ankumah-Sey, which helps us to track him to NSW NPL2 side North Shore Mariners, where Sey played at in 2017 and 2018.

That led to a prompt from another reader, suggesting one search for Frederick Ankumah-Sey. That reveals a few more results, mainly that Sey played for Rydalmere Lions and Bonnyrigg White Eagles in 2019. Assuming that all these names are the same person of course!

No one wants to harshly judge a player they've never seen, let alone never heard of. But one does automatically wonder about a left-field signing like this.

Friendly at Casey Comets

Tomorrow night, the senior men and the 20s are playing pre-season friendlies against Casey Comets, out at Comets Stadium. The 21s start at 6:00pm, and the Seniors at 8:00pm.

As the game is not at Lakeside, the game is open for people to attend, though I won't be there myself - a three hour public transport trip doesn't quite seem worth the bother. Yes, I have gone soft.

*opens newspaper* hmm, let's see what's in the news today

The online response to the club's release of the 2021 membership packages seems to have been pretty muted. Maybe it's because people have stopped caring, or maybe because the club did the right thing (whatever their motivation for doing so) by offering the renewal discount to 2020 members, there's nothing to complain about. And when people aren't complaining, there's fewer clicks, less rage posting, and less overall engagement. Maybe the club should've actually charged the full rate to everyone, getting those social media metrics up?

(Also, where is the link to the membership portal on the front page of the club's website? And are members still going to be charged for entry to home FFA Cup matches?)

Anyway, memberships are for real games with with real meaning, unlike the past two pre-season friendlies, which mean nothing. These two recent friendlies, both played behind closed doors at lakeside, were a 2-1 win over Northcote, with what looked like a pretty soft goal to concede; and a 3-2 win over Avondale, which I hope people won't latch on to as proof of anything, especially competency. 

Not that I think that there's actually much chance of people getting carried away, because I wasn't there and neither were you. So what can we say? Nothing, that's what, except that maybe Marcus Schroen looked thin or trim or skinny or what have you on one of those recent videos the club posted. Maybe I've forgotten what he looks like in person, and while it's not like he was ever the chonky type, maybe a proper pre-season instead of galivanting about the Spice Islands has done him some good.

Much of the rest of the week's focus (online at least) seems to be on the continually degrading state of the Ferenc Puskas statue out the back of Gosch's Paddock. In a recent-ish I noted the reaction to what appeared to be the then vandalism or theft of the plaque on the plinth. Now whether because of more vandalism, or shoddy craftsmanship, the plinth has degraded further, and the calls by South fans (and some others) to repair the statue and move it to Lakeside have been re-doubled.

Most of this anger comes from a good place. The statue is of a South legend, and the statue is in a poor location and in an increasingly poor condition. And after all the effort involved in getting the statue project up in the first place, I don't think that anyone would be happy with the outcome four years on, not just because of the money spent, but also because it's supposed to be honouring a legend of world football, and someone the statue's funders apparently hold in high esteem.

Moving the statue to Lakeside (apparently there's plans to at least try to make that happen now) would probably solve at least some of those problems: namely, the more prominent location, being closer to the club he was closest to while he was here, and you'd like to think also a reduction in the chance of vandalism. Repairing the statue and moving it to Lakeside (hopefully at someone other than the club's expense) won't solve the aesthetic problem of it being a lousy looking statue, or of its design bearing little connection to what Puskas looked like while he was here, but the perfect being the enemy of the good, you'd rather an imperfect solution rather than the situation that exists now. That, and it would be funny to have a statue conceived of and funded in part by a prominent former sponsor long since associated with the A-League, to have visit Lakeside and South Melbourne in order to get close to his attempted homage to one of his heroes

2021 memberships now available

The low-key build-up to the 2021 season just kicked up a notch, with the release of the 2021 membership packages.

It's pretty much the same deal as last year, with the notable exception of a $50 renewal option for 2020 financial members.

This is a very sensible decision by the board, even if though the club will take a financial hit from it. It's certainly a good outcome for paid up 2020 members. More importantly, it's an obvious gesture of goodwill to the members from the club, as well as a practical demonstration - hopefully the first of many - that this board does not take South supporters for granted.

At the members forum last month, the cost of membership dues for 2020 members in 2021 was discussed, and the idea thrown up from the floor that the membership for renewing members should be capped at $50, the same as an active life member. The board's representatives on the day weren't exactly thrilled with the idea, but it was a constructive suggestion without malice - and I hope that the fact the suggestion was constructive, and not belligerent, was part of what got this idea over the line.

There'll be people out there who were paid up members in 2020, who will be happy to treat their 2020 dues as a donation, and once again pay the full-rate again this year.  But while it's beyond cliché to reiterate these things, it is true that the club itself is not the only thing that's taken a financial hit from the pandemic. 

Farewell the grand inconvenience, at least for this year

So it the Australian Grand Prix has been postponed until the end of the year. 

Usually that event is an incredible pain in the arse for South Melbourne, as it messes with a ton of operational matters.

Fixturing is the most obvious grand prix related issue that most fans will have to deal with. Apart from relatively minor inconveniences like diminished parking access, the assembly of the grand prix's infrastructure usually means that the area around Lakeside Stadium is out of bounds for several weeks. 

That often means no more than one home fixture within the opening seven or eight weeks when the weather is still warm, neither the state leagues or juniors nor the AFL have started their seasons, and before people have become even more jaded than they usually are about all things South.

It also means that all those home games that we didn't get early in the season get piled up in winter, taking a toll on fans and the playing surface. On top of that, our senior teams are forced to scour Melbourne looking for grounds to train on.

So now that we're not going to have a March grand prix, will we get some positives out of this? I guess we should be able to avoid training away from Lakeside and our grounds down near pit lane. But will we be able to somehow score an extra home game within the first six weeks?

2021's fixture isn't the worst when it comes to the grand prix impacting our early season, perhaps because of the later start to the coming season. Still, I think it's worth taking a shot at getting one fixture reversed, that being the round 4 game away to Port Melbourne. 

Considering the fixture, it'd be worth at least asking the question. Unlike the rest of our stretch of winter home games, our scheduled home game against Port in the middle of the season is not a part of double-header with a senior women's game.

You'd like to think we'd get at least some boost in membership and attendance, and it would ease the burden on the Lakeside surface during the winter months. Well, maybe not, but it'd still be nice to have to play the usual streak of early season away games when the main reason for that annual extended road-trip no longer exists.

Believe me, this is not a complaint, I'm just trying to make a serious but elusive point

So last Saturday South had a friendly against Green Gully. It was at Lakeside, so it was behind closed doors (such is life), we lost 1-0 (the score-line really doesn't matter), and the world moved on. 

On the socials after the game there was an unsurprising interview with one of the youth team players who got a run. Again, no complaint from me, because these interviews are not meant to be particularly interesting or illuminating.

We got some sort of quick highlights package from a camera-angle reminiscent of one of those novelty video game angles that no one in their right mind ever uses. Once more, I expect no different, because why would there be a multi-camera set-up for a pre-season game of no importance?

Still, it is hard not to feel emotionally distant from the club at the moment. The members forum late last year and the couple of games in the eastern suburbs aside, everything's been closed doors and just... distant. I can't really find another word for it at the moment.

Memberships for 2021 aren't out yet, but they will be here soon enough, and so too will the season proper. We'll get our first home game in round 2, and then be away for a month. You'd like to think that those who are there most weeks will find themselves back at South games, but will they actually?

There's the beginnings here of an outline of a post I'd like to write, about the nature of conditional support, and the limits of "<insert team> until I die". In the past I'd probably have already written it, because I'd have felt it necessary to do so. I'd have felt that it was a pressing and worthwhile matter to discuss.

Now I'm less jaded (which for me sometimes worked as a motivating factor) and more tired. By life, sure, but also by the lack of South Melbourne action, but also by the lack of proximity to the culture. And to get to the point, how many people still care?

I mean, that's a question we've asked a lot over the past 13 years of this blog, so forgiveness please for retreading old ground. But the post-Taylor seasons were a drain and the pandemic enforced break, rather than allowing people to recharge, might it act as a disincentive to come back to South?

We know that the rest of Australian soccer hasn't missed us, and neither have most of the supporters we used to have. But what if during this time off, a good chunk of the South fans we still have, spent 2020 not missing South, to the extent that they don't think about coming back?

Everything about South (its own media, online fan activity) seems so mellow, so withdrawn, that it doesn't feel like we're building toward anything. I get that there's a lot of players we haven't grown to love or loathe yet, and that's a part of the problem. I get that everyone's a bit cautious about over-selling what soccer will be like, and whether we'll have a truly competitive team.

Oh, and there's the National Second Division stuff which, even if it too isn't getting people particularly fired up, still looks more appealing to most people than another season of trudging around the industrial backblocks 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, once South starts again for real in late February, will it matter to the people who still cared?

It's not meant to sound alarmist. There's just been this incredible void with anything to do with South, and who knows what we'll see on the other side of it. It's not the first time we've had to deal with such an absence and degree of inaction. And unlike the previous we (as far as I know) haven't come close to carking it, but I guess there's at east a hint of the same quality of the unknown. 

It's not a matter of an ordinary off-season, take some time off, and welcome back. It's been so much time away that it's more than enough to break the habit of caring about South.

I guess I just want to get back to a game to see for myself if it still seems to mean what it's always meant; that there's still enough people who feel excitement, and angst, and camaraderie to keep this thing continuing as a viable cultural (and not just business) concern.

Friendly vs Kingston tonight

As per the club's notice, our senior men will be playing a friendly tonight against Kingston, at The Grange Reserve, 7pm kickoff.

Friendly this Saturday vs Goulburn Valley Suns

Great news everyone, finally some open doors, South Melbourne pre-season friendly action. The catch though, is that you'll have to be in Shepparton by 11:00AM.

So, um, yeah, that's me out. 

But if you're really keen, as part of its week in Shepparton, South Melbourne is playing Goulburn Valley Suns at the Shepparton Sports Precinct at 11:00 this Saturday.

Remembering Tommy Docherty, someone I don't remember

Former South Melbourne Hellas coach Tommy Docherty died on the last day of 2020, and while I don't usually do any sort of deep-dives (or even shallow dives) on the passing of former South people, Docherty's tenure at South has always intrigued me, as does that time in South's history.

I mean, even putting aside the decline of our collective Hellas and general soccer memory, that whole late 1970s and especially early 1980s period - at least the bit prior to Len McKendry turning up and sorting things out - seems to be glossed over by our supporters.

And that's understandable. because unlike our dominant 1970s state league performances, South's first few years in the NSL were hardly a runway success. After all, we did finish last in 1979, and only avoided relegation because of a certain degree of administrative shiftiness, for which Sydney Olympic has never forgiven us.

That loss of collective memory isn't helped by the acute lack of footage from those early NSL years, but that doesn't completely explain why that South era doesn't get remembered as well as other similarly unsuccessful eras. It's not helped either by 95% of our supporter base (give or take one or two percentage points) disappearing into the aether.  

Oh, sure, there are moments and players from that era that people like to bring up, like Malcolm 'Supermac' Macdonald's guest stint, and the extended presence up front of former Liverpool star Alun Evans. 

But in general it seems to have been a period of time when the club chased a lot of big name players, paid very big transfer fees, and got little reward for these endeavours. When that approach failed, the club continued to repeat the same process while wondering why the team wasn't improving. Stop me if you've heard this story before.

That's certainly a simplistic retelling from someone who wasn't even alive then. Nevertheless, from what I can tell, the signing of Tommy Docherty as South coach midway through 1982 was typical of the club's thinking at the time. Instead of pausing and perhaps trying to figure out the root problem, the committee would invariably try and throw more cash at the problem in the hope that money alone would solve the club's unbefitting lack of success.

Enter Tommy Docherty. The Scotsman was a former player of some accomplishment, and had coached a variety of teams in England, most notably Manchester United - whom he had gotten relegated, then promoted; then won the FA Cup with them in 1977, upsetting Liverpool; and then found himself sacked soon after, when his affair with the wife of United's physiotherapist came to light. 

After a couple of short stints at Derby County and Queens Park Rangers, Docherty coached Sydney Olympic in 1981, though he soon returned to the UK to help his former club Preston North End - for whom he had played over 300 games - get out of a relegation scrap. For whatever reason Docherty's coaching stint at Deepdale didn't last, and so he hit the road again looking for new opportunities. 

And that's how he ended up back in Australia. Docherty was in the country in May of 1982 to promote a soccer skills program or some such over a five week period. During this time, South approached him to take over the club for those five weeks in his spare time, with an option to coach out the rest of the year. 

Despite big spending on numerous "name" players, under incumbent coach John Margaritis, South had played disjointed, inconsistent football, was apparently suffering from poor player morale, and was entrenched in the bottom half of the table midway through the season.

Docherty took over the coaching reigns from round 14 onward, with Margaritis stepping aside from the position of head coach while remaining within the coaching structure; that was an arrangement that would last little more than a few hours, with Margaritis quitting soon after introducing the players to their new coach. 

It's a little bit odd to think that a well-credentialed senior coach like Margaritis would agree to such an arrangement in the first place, and sure enough the man himself must have realised quite quickly that it made no sense. Certainly several pundits at the time, including Rale Rasic (who in just a few months' time  would succeed Docherty as South coach), agreed with the unusualness of the affair.

With training at the time only three days a week, Docherty was able to live large to a certain degree, supplementing his soccer income with radio and television appearances, and one also assumes his regular newspaper columns. One report from The Guardian in 2000 suggests he was making more in Australia from his combined coaching and pundit work than he would've made as a manager at a top English club at the time.

Being an affable and gregarious walking quote-machine, Docherty was good for publicity, but it's arguable that he was much good for South on field. Some players, like Charlie Egan, seemed to relish his fellow Scots' style, but other veteran players soon found themselves on the transfer list. And it's not like the team's results improved all that much, although Docherty's preference for attacking football at least probably made things more interesting.

After five weeks of mixed results, Docherty returned to England to take care of pressing legal and financial matters - namely the matter of a court summons over maintenance arrears due to his first wife, Agnes. During that time, Mick Watson acted as caretaker coach. On his return, Docherty coached out the rest of the season, made tentative plans for 1983, but his contract was either not extended or was bought out by Olympic.

And it's his second stint at Olympic which is perhaps his most notable legacy in Australian soccer, as some of their fans tend to give him the credit for building the squad that would go on be a regular competitor for titles in the 1980s. 

As for South, even if we don't seem to remember his time here too much, he certainly remembered us. Interviewed on the eve of the South Melbourne vs Manchester United Club World Championship match, Docherty remembered his time at South as requiring more diplomacy in the changerooms than he was accustomed to; he also noted of South's fans that "they were the best winners in the world, and the worst losers"; and that when some supporters threw apples and oranges at him, Docherty would goad those fans by eating the apples and peeling the oranges.

Even a cursory look through the papers of the time (both the mainstream outlets and specialist soccer press like Soccer Action), reveal that Docherty loved football, and was happy to entertain the press and public. In the long-run, South probably would've been better off if he'd taken the job a bit more seriously; still, there's something to be said of his not taking the game and himself too seriously. After all, soccer is a game, and games are meant to be enjoyed, or so I'm told.

New year, new signings

A new year is here, and a little more progress has been made on the playing personnel front.

Two areas of concern seem to have been addressed with these signings, one being the back up goalkeeper situation, and the other, the desire for another forward.

The goalkeeper is one James Burgess, a 21 year old former South junior, who's been plying his trade Langwarrin and Springvale White Eagles. Insert some of joke about once a upon a time having a coach who would recruit from those places, or banish players to them.

I know nothing about Burgess apart from what comes out of the official press release, but one does wonder - surely a 21 year old isn't moving from (I assume) a starter's role lower down the leagues to sit on the bench here?

Burgess' arrival at Lakeside surely means that Josh Dorron's time is officially up, even if nothing is actually officially announced. He was on the fringiest of fringes in 2020, when he was "loaned" to some club lower down the food-chain, so it always seemed unlikely that he was going to get a game ahead of Clark and Nikola Roganovic last year. 

That it turned out that no one would play a game after March probably just made it even easier to let him go. But we'll always have the night that South plucked him from obscurity - that is, recruiting him because the football department actually saw him - and one of the worst chants ever performed by South fans that wasn't racist, homophobic, sexist, sweary, or offensive in some other way.

The other signing is a bit more pivotal. The player in question is one Henry Hore, another Queenslander making the move to what one Bananabender has referred to as the Queensland Development League - that is, NPL Victoria.

Again, I know very little about Hore, except that he was in a championship winning team up there last year, including being teammates with fellow South signing Marco Jankovic. Who knows if Hore can make it happen down in Melbounre, but you'd rather winners than losers, yes? Maybe.

Scrabbling around on the internet suggests that Hore is a forward/attacking midfielder, who apparently only weighs 67kgs. I don't know who's been weighing him and posting his details online, but if that weight class is true, it does seem a bit on the lean side.

Nevertheless, asking around social media for comments on Hore's quality, and the Queenslanders seemed universal in their praise and assessment. They say that Hore is a technically sound, versatile player, who can play across any of the attacking positions; tyat we can expect plenty of goals and assists; that he has a bag of tricks and a good deal of pace, and covers a lot of ground, and that he loves to play a 1-2.

All of which sounds very promising, but there's always a potential catch, and in this case it's one of South of the Border's all time favourites: if he's actually that good, why is he playing for us, in this competition? It's a valid question when you consider that Hore has played for Perth Glory in the National Youth League, and apparently "killed it" there, and that he was also apparently close to getting signed by Brisbane Roar as recently as last month.

It makes you wonder what those two teams know that no one else is telling us, especially Roar, who you assume would have been Hore from up close for the past couple of years. Is it because he's too little? Too old at 21? A-League scouts too dumb or cowardly, or merely distrustful of the standard of the NYL or NPL Queensland to take a punt on home grown talent right in front of their eyes?

Whatever the case may be, in time we will hopefully see plenty of Henry Hore, or at least enough to judge for ourselves whether his admirers were right in their assessments. 

We'll also see whether or not we got the right Hore, with Henry's older brother Mitch signing for Bentleigh. 

South senior men's squad as of 3/1/2021

• Luke Adams (played in pre-season friendly, and interviewed following one of those games)
• Zac Bates (played in pre-season friendly, and interviewed following one of those games))
• Daniel Clark (yes, back from Queensland)
• Pierce Clark ((yes, also back from Queensland)
• Ben Djiba (could yet become the right-sided fullback or winger of our NPL dreams)
• Lirim Elmazi (was wished a happy birthday, distinctive head spotted in other social media content)
• Chris Irwin
• Perry Lambropoulos (was wished a happy birthday)
• Mathew Loutrakis (interviewed post friendly)
• Jake Marshall (played in pre-season friendly
• Brad Norton (scored goal in pre-season friendly)
• Luke Pavlou (some sort of mention in a social media gimmick video or something)
• Harrison Sawyer (yes, also back from Queensland)
• Marcus Schroen (was interviewed in that video about South Melbourne;s new blind football team)
• Gerrie Sylaidos (scored goal in pre-season friendly, also easily recognisable thanks to trademark bandana)

Youth team players named as part of social media guff from a recent friendly played with a "youthful side", and/or, 20s players that might still be around next season:

• Sasha Murphy
• Yianni Panakos
• Esad Saglam
• Giorgi Zarbos (unclear if he will stay or seek greener senior football pastures)

In:

• James Burgess
• Henry Hore
• Marco Jankovic
• Josh Wallen

Neither here nor there as far as I can tell:

• Josh Meaker

Out:

• Melvin Becket
• Josh Dorron
• Stephen Folan (returned to Ireland in mid-2020)
• Amadu Koroma
• Nick Krousoratis
• Nikola Roganovic (retired, again)
• Peter Skapetis (Kingston City)

Expert Opinion: Three seconds of fame (previously unpublished)

A little gift to close out the year.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except for joyful but ignorant attempts at gardening, 2020 was rubbish

In keeping with the blog's low level of productivity in 2020, I was going to produce a very, very short piece thanking a handful of people, and then moving on. 

At best it would have been a box-ticking post, doing one's duty to increasingly vague ideas of the blog's continuities, and then forgetting about it.

But upon further reflection, it is worth making at least brief reference to the pile of crap that was 2020.

I doubt there will be many people who enjoyed this year. From my point of view it was an ordeal. Not an unmanageable ordeal, but an ordeal nonetheless. 

At least in previous years there was not, for me at least, this extended social isolation, partly a result of social distancing, and partly a result of things not related to the pandemic. At least in the past there was something to look forward to, and one of those things for me was attending South Melbourne Hellas matches.

Attending Hellas matches didn't solve any of my personal problems, and I wouldn't expect it to do so. But apart from watching the games live, there was also an entire procedure undertaken in order for me to watch South games. This procedure included the trips (usually by public transport) to and from whatever ground we were playing at; the getting to the ground early to make the most of the evening or afternoon; and of course writing the blog piece after a game, which gave me the chance to try and make sense of what I'd experienced, and to place it within a wider context.

My weekend was scheduled around South games - everything else in terms of leisure time was a bonus, and subject to negotiation with other duties. But apart from the certainty created by routine, the most important thing of all was that going to South games was a social experience. There were people I could speak to, whether briefly or at length. There were people who were glad to see me, and people who weren't. There were handshakes and eye contact. And there was a feeling of a common cause, no matter how absurd that cause is, and how marginal it has become. 

People shared their joys and frustrations together, in social proximity to each other. What the pandemic and the lockdown diminished then, on so many fronts, was that feeling of social proximity. We were all in it together we were told, and that was true to a large extent. But we were also mostly all in it together apart. We became remote from each other. No amount of online work - chats, forums, Zooms, or whatever other technological tools kept us connected - can replace that absence of social proximity. 

This year I continued to co-host a podcast on a weekly basis with my good friend Ian Syson, producing 36 episodes, mostly remotely via Zoom, and it was enjoyable, not least for giving me something to look forward to, a reliable signpost in the desert of social distancing; but what I most looked forward to by the end of the year was getting back into the studio. And it is to the resumption of engaging in the practice of social proximity that I look forward to most of all in 2021. 

I hope the team does well on the field and that it prospers off it, but I especially look forward to reconnecting with my fellow South fans, and maybe even some opposition fans. There were about 20 people at the members forum in the social club last week, and as low as that seems, it was wonderful to be in that room with those people, and to be chatting with them after the meeting had ended. 

I missed watching South play, but mostly I missed being near South people, and I look forward to getting back to Lakeside in 2021, reconnecting with the human side of the sport and the club, and once more making the abstract idea of supporting this club into something more tangible.

Fuck, just getting back into Row H will do me wonders; until we cop that first goal of course, and then I start wondering what I'm doing there.

Now that the verbose emotionality is out of the way, thank you to the following people and organisations in what was South of the Border's 13th year.

Thank you to Football Victoria for media accreditation, even if it only lasted five games.

Thanks to Football Nation Radio for continuing to give me and Ian a radio slot to talk Australian soccer history.

Thanks to everyone who offered their condolences after the death of my father, but especially to Greg Stock, Sam Barres, and Davy Raff for checking in on me regularly at the toughest time.

Thanks to those also who gave me and Gains a lift at some point during those memorable five games of 2020.

Thanks to Gains for being my public transport buddy.

I would like to think that I'll try harder next year.

2021 senior men's and women's fixtures released

Well, here's something to look forward to, maybe. The 2021 senior men's team fixture has been released, and there are a handful of points worth bringing up.

The first thing to note is that the senior men's running order is pretty much the 2020 fixture repurposed for 2021. There are a couple of minor changes in the early stages - our opening round fixture against Heidelberg will be at Olympic Village instead of at Lakeside; and our round six game against Thunder will be a Wednesday night fixture at Lakeside, as part of a league-wide midweek round.

Everything else appears to be about the same, except for the allocation of South senior men's home match days. And if you like Sunday afternoon/early evening soccer at Lakeside, you're out of luck. In 2020 we were due to play just the one Sunday home game - the Eastern Lions game early in the season - this year, there will be no Sunday home games.

The club has committed to exclusively trying out Friday and Saturday nights, with a couple of exceptions - the aforementioned Wednesday night game against Thunder, and a Saturday 3:00PM kickoff against Hume, the latter of which is an accommodation for Orthodox Easter.

The only Sunday games are St Albans away (naturally), Eastern Lions away (unusually), and Bentleigh away (final round simultaneous kickoff). All up for home games, it's one Wednesday night, four Friday nights, one Saturday afternoon, and seven Saturday nights. 

The senior women's fixture has also been released, and the news on that front is that there will be six NPL-NPLW double-headers on those Saturday evening senior men's fixtures. The women will be relieved at not having to trudge out to Knox or Darebin for their home games.