Notes from the 2022 AGM

Another year, and another delayed AGM, this one even more delayed than the one before. For whatever reason, the interest of our ordinary members on such matters remains weak; the less said about the non-existent interest from parents of the juniors, the better. Maybe some people prefer it that way. At least the attendance was much better than last year's effort, which is not saying much; but we should grab onto whatever positive that we can.

Those who did turn up were engaged, and asked some good questions. There was better attendance also from board members and/or directors, though no note was made of those who were apologies. Officially facing up to the members were secretary Skip Fulton; chairman Bill Papastergiadis; president Nick Maikousis; and former club treasurer, and now merely the club's accountant, Mario Vinaccia. I'd say it's difficult to keep track of who is and isn't on the board these days, but that's more of an ongoing problem.

I think I tend to note most times when I post one of these reports that I'm apparently morally obliged to not reveal every little detail that was revealed on the night, but instead to keep it informative but general, if not vague. Sometimes there's even hostility at revealing any detail about what occurs at our AGMs. But this year there's even a Neos Kosmos article about the AGM, including incorrect info about new directors being elected to the board, where they were actually merely appointed; it is not an election year after all. There was even a cock-up where our financials were sent to categories of people that they shouldn't have been, but for me that's more of a database issue (one that we just will not solve).

Besides which, I don't see the point in hiding our finances - if they're bad, they're bad, if they're good, they're good, and it doesn't really make a difference who sees them. But that's probably a minority view, based at least in some part on my not understanding financial reports. In any event, the club's finances at the moment are apparently good, so there's probably less angst about the accidental disclosure than would ordinarily be the case.

First up was the South Melbourne Hellas AGM, which took up most of the night; the SMFC AGM was pretty much just the playing out of the necessary legal formalities. Naturally, coming through the other side of the lockdown years coloured pretty much everything. The club's on and off field achievements over the past year were listed. The senior men finished top of the table, the boys 21s won their grand final, and the women's department continues to develop players for higher leagues. 

The financial position remains relatively strong, with the club recording another surplus. This was helped in the relevant financial year by the Australia Cup match against Melbourne City, the hiring out of the futsal court to the combat sports group, and increased sponsorship. Then again, the fact that the Melbourne City game of 2021 is being talked about in 2023, shows how out of date some of this information is. Along with pandemic crowd capacity restrictions, the filming demands of the host broadcaster also took their toll on revenue that day; corporate box related revenue made up for that in some respects.

The club's government stipend has recently reduced in size, as per the terms of the lease agreement. Overall wages across the organisation remain stable, including for coaches and players. Sponsorship continues to improve, thanks to increased networking efforts from the top brass, but also because of our work with the blind and powerchair teams. While these teams are worthwhile ventures in and of themselves, their presence gives the club as a whole a more diverse public face, opening up the range of grants and sponsorship opportunities available to the club. Though the state Labor government has remained in power, there has been a change in the local member of parliament, with Martin Foley retiring, and being replaced by Nina Taylor. The club is also nurturing relationships with the new federal Labor government.

The club has cleared its bank loan debt, which was taken out after the heirs of the late Tony Toumbourou asked for their father's club saving loan to be paid back. In order to avoid a similar fate reoccurring with extant directors' loans, the board is looking into the process of arranging for those debts to be dealt with; one suspects that more info will be provided on this at the next AGM, whenever that is. Aside from removing a tangible financial liability hanging over the club's head, it would also look better for our National Second Division bid to be coming in without those kinds of debts, even if they were for the time being merely theoretical, in that none of the current directors with loans would act upon them. 

The National Second Division process continues as before, with the club expecting news of the next bidding phase (the second of three phases) to be made soon. The board noted that there remains uncertainty around key elements of the competition - principally how high the degree of overall professionalism, and thus cost, will be. The board claims that the club would be able to successfully participate in both higher and lower-end NSD models.

(this is me editorialising here somewhat - the problem is that pushing too hard for a higher-end, higher-cost model would potentially leave the NSD without enough viable teams; push too low, and the enterprise will come across as cheap and second-rate, as opposed to just being second tier)

The expectation remains that the NSD competition will be ready to go in March 2024. The club has created (or rather, adapted from its most recent A-League bid) a legal entity under the broader umbrella of the South Melbourne Hellas group, in the event that the club secures participation in the NSD. After a question from the floor, the club acknowledged that while now five years out of date, the club was able to use at least some of the work done in the preparation of that most recent A-League licence bid, as part of the club's bid for an NSD licence.

(one may recall that even among those more skeptical about the club's chances of securing that A-League licence back then, that there was nevertheless the belief that the process was useful from a reconnaissance and educational point of view; even in failure, the club gained a degree of knowledge and information that would become useful at some indeterminate point in the future, a point in time which just so happens to be now)

There was also an update (prompted in part by a question from the floor) about facility upkeep and improvement at Lakeside. The function room upstairs has had a refit of sorts, and there have been improvements made to the corporate spaces. The scoreboard has received a software upgrade, and may even have its screen replaced at some point. There is no news on whether things like proper permanent camera/media positions will be installed in the near future. No, the Puskas statue will not be relocated to Lakeside, a matter which is out of the club's hands. 

Little mention was made of the current state of the relationship between the club and the Trust which manages the stadium. The exception to that is that the club is exploring its options in terms of being able to get more control of venue operation and management of the stadium on our match days. In other Lakeside news, the organisers of the grand prix are attempting to exclusively commandeer the precinct for longer and longer periods in the time around their event. Where the usual expectation has been that we will be barred from the stadium for about two weeks, the attempt now is to exclude us for four. The board is attempting to use its political networks to prevent that from happening.

The Greek national day parade which was held at Lakeside this year (following its forced removal from the Shrine of Remembrance) was deemed a success, but with many unspecified lessons to be learned. A complex logistical operation in its own right, there is no firm indication that the club can or will seek to integrate a high profile Greek derby match into the event, an idea which has been raised by a number of people.
 

The now formalised partnership with Yarraville is apparently off to a good start, with last week's triple header at McIvor Reserve being considered a success. The board also confirmed that our two senior mens' home matches in early July against Hume and Oakleigh - unable to be played at Lakeside, due to the stadium being used exclusively as a training venue for the Women's World Cup - will be be played at McIvor Reserve. Special dispensation has been made by Football Victoria to allow for the lack of certain facilities at McIvor Reserve - a protected players race for example - though who knows if we will make an attempt to provide scaffolding for the media.

(The under 21s will be playing their matches after the senior men, which makes you wonder if the lights at Yarraville are good enough. The senior women will be on the road during this time, with their opponents being more accommodating in switching their fixtures).

Overall, the club finds itself in a reasonably strong position off field, albeit much of this seems unduly dependent on those currently on the board, and the sponsor and political networks that they have cultivated. It remains of concern that this approach seems quite top-heavy, and that there is always a risk that if the top two or three people go, that the sponsorship and influence that they bring will go with them. Without an increase in membership at the bottom end, successful generational renewal at a fan and board level remains at risk.

While not a distinct topic in itself, a common theme ran through much of the night, as it has done for much of the past 20 years - that the dissolution of the National Soccer League and the change in local soccer governance structures didn't mean just mean the material exclusion of our club from the top-flight; it also initiated the sudden onset of a loss of relevance at a political level. The project of keeping the club alive since the end of the NSL has not just been a material concern - paying our way, not going broke, etc - it has also entailed the necessity of rebuilding the club's reputation almost from scratch, as well as rebuilding the club's networks and sphere of influence.

Back then, as a mainstay of national league soccer and before that, a leading Victorian club, the club could count on an assumed level of social status, and a certain degree of deference from other soccer bodies (club and federation), as well as the Greek community. It could also count to a degree on club alumni to if not outright push South's interests, than to at least be a reminder of our influence on Victorian soccer. So much of that influence was lost when the NSL died, when we went into administration, and especially when FFA and the A-League (initially) prospered as if we never existed.

But the future lasts a long time, and the local soccer environment changed again, as is its wont. Sometimes all you need to do is hold on, and wait, and especially out-wait those tasked in part with keeping you down. That time spent waiting doesn't mean being inactive; rather it is time to be spent improving yourself for when an opportunity might arise. In a variety of ways, the club hasn't improved as much as you'd like it to have done during this time, even taking into account the many obstacles placed before it. And yet we are told, and I suppose there is enough evidence to suggest, that there has been enough progress made over the last little while - pick your own numbers of years of when you think it might have started turning - that we are now reasonably placed to take up the opportunity for "something better", assuming that "something better" actually materialises.

Ode to Joy - South Melbourne 5 Port Melbourne 2

Look, one utterly brilliant performance, one magical night of attacking football, should not make up for some of the utter dross we've had to put up with (and yes, I know we're in second place). I've been duped by grand romantic gestures like this before. How about that Gully game from earlier in the season? Or the 3-2 win away at Bentleigh last year? My brain tells me to be wary, that we'll be back to the usual way too defensive stance very soon; but my heart wants to do its own thing, to believe that I can love this team, that it has changed its ways.

(In some respects it also reminds me of our win over Oakleigh at home in 2007, and not just because of the score line - but also because of the same kind of vibe that night, including the cherry on top final goal - that we could do some good things if we wanted to. Then the season started falling apart again a couple of weeks later.)

After the AGM the other night, a board member said to me that he hadn't seen me leave a game smiling like that for a long time. Think about that - we finished top of the table last year, and have lost only one game in the league so far this season - but still, it didn't make me as happy as it should have. Sure, I can be a hard taskmaster and an all round curmudgeon. But I think what I felt is what a lot of you have felt - that while it was good to win, that at some point the whole enterprise should also aim to be joyful. 

(something, something, the game is about glory; something, something, it is about playing with style)

People work all week; the players train. I imagine a good chunk of our players also work, maybe at jobs that are psychologically fulfilling or perhaps not, but probably unlikely to provide the opportunity of being able to express themselves individually and collectively (on an admittedly small scale in this case), in a situation where they can bring joy to themselves as individuals and as a collective, and to those of us watching them. Yes, we take it seriously. But it's also a game. If the players don't have the freedom to express themselves within that context, if we as fans aren't provided the opportunity to be entertained, then doesn't it become just another version of work? And that's me saying that as person who kinda likes their job.

In a previous life I was a hack academic, and it's probably unwise to retrace your steps and go back to what you wrote years ago; but I can perhaps at least look back at some of my old work and see who I quoted. Ken Inglis said "by studying a people’s ceremonies of leisure one may get closer to understanding them", which makes immediate sense to me. If you turn leisure into work, is it still leisure? Inevitable as any form of organised sport may be to being cast as part of Brohm's "prison of measured time", are we not as least partly obligated to try and not make it as bad as he said it was? What about Pieper's rejection of the view that leisure should be a reward for work; that a Sunday or lunch break should not merely be reduced to a device by which someone can be called upon to work once more.

But I'll stop here before I start quoting Proudhon. The performance from both sides on Monday was a credit to the game of soccer. Both teams sought goals, it's just that one was better at seeking them than the other. When Port's Dor Jok scored a cracker to bring it back to 4-2, South fans applauded the goal. Sure it's easy to do that when you have a two goal buffer, but it's no crime to admire excellence, even if it comes from your opponent. When Andy Brennan stormed up the field and smashed home the final goal of the game, in retro 2015 Brennan style, it near on brought the house down. That's as it should be. 

I understand that not every game is going to be like that. And I understand why not every game can be like that; I don't expect the team to score five goals every week. But I do have the expectation that we should look like we want to score that many every week. Not just because we are South Melbourne (though why not have that as a reason), but also because scoring goals is fun. The intent to move the ball with purpose was evident all night; players were also willing to run with the ball and create space for teammates. How good to see Riak working his arse off, but with actual help from his teammates. How good to see the fullbacks repeatedly get up the field. How good to see every midfielder looking to receive the ball, or to win it back from the opposition. How good in general not to see the team (especially Lirim) camped on its own 18 yard box when it's not needed.

How good is it when people see something so good, that they can't wait to come back? That was my favourite part of the night. People seemed genuinely excited by what they saw. There was no feeling of "oh, we were lucky to win that game". No, the feedback was we deserved to win that game, and that we could've scored more goals, and not just from our usual set piece routines. The long throw and corner goals aren't the problem. They were never the problem. They're not the problem for other teams when they score from those situations. The problem was that we were seemingly intent on creating nothing else. So, yes, two long throw goals on Monday night, but also three goals from open play, from counters, from winning the ball in midfield, from pressing Port up the field, from the full backs getting up the ground and putting good crosses in. And scarcely a player on the field for us that I could criticise.

(and how close did Morgan Evans look to putting Brad Norton out of a job?)

Some were quick to attribute this performance to Esteban Quintas being forced into watching the game from the stands, thanks to receiving a third yellow card during the course of this season thus far. I think that's unfair. He still trains the team, he still picks the team, and his mere absence from the touchline shouldn't negate all the work he puts in. It does help when you get most of your players available again from various absences. It helps when you play against a team that plays open, passing football, which makes them vulnerable in certain ways that other teams are not. Indeed, it's probably no accident that our best two performances in 2023 have been against Gully and Port, two teams with not the best of defenses, and who also like to attack and knock the ball around.

But something was different. There were passes and moves that had not been seen much this season. There was a hunger in the side all across the field, and not just desperation on our own 18 yard box. Who knows what switch was flicked, why it all clicked into place the way that it did, and whether we'll get to see more of it. But please, more of it, because it gives me joy, which is the whole point of this endeavour.

Next game
Altona Magic at home on Sunday afternoon. I am looking forward to it.

Is there a curtain raiser this week?
Yes. The senior women take on Alamein, kickoff at 1:30PM

Room for improvement
Would have been even better if we could have bought a drink outside the social club.

Our other senior team
I had not seen much of the women's team this year, and what I had seen hadn't filled me with much optimism. It all looked a bit clunky. But I had a free afternoon last Saturday, and for whatever reason their game against Box Hill United had been moved to McIvor Reserve, not a long drive for your correspondent. I was wondering whether there would be any food, and as I was driving to the ground I went past Edwards Reserve, where the Melbourne City (Argentinian variant) reserves were in action, and thought about stopping there for a moment, to see what their canteen had to offer.

But I drove on, and saw a decent enough turnout at McIvor Reserve, and a functioning canteen. Not a great souv, mind you, but passable under the circumstances of being hungry. I'd checked earlier to see if the women's under 19s were playing the curtain raiser, and they weren't, so I didn't get to the ground too early, only to find out upon arrival that the men's 21s team had just finished their game. 

The ground was in excellent condition, though the grassy areas around the perimeter could do with a good mow. Also, it's possible that because it was just the women playing, but the lack of scaffolding and /or an appropriate elevated position to film and commentate the match from was not a good look. Credit to Joey Lynch doing a professional job at ground level while staring into the sun for a couple of hours.

I probably should have brought a hat instead of a beanie, and possibly applied some sunscreen because it was a lot warmer than I expected. Or maybe I should have just stayed in the shade. Anyway, it was a cracking performance from the senior women, who dominated proceedings up until they scored midway through the second half, and then let Box Hill fight their way to the end; the visitors probably should have equalised, but that's what goal line clearances are for. Before all that, we were being scuppered by a huge amount of offside calls.

But late fade-out aside, I was pleased and pleasantly surprised with how the women played - it was smooth, attacking, attractive football, and the only thing that annoyed me about is that I only wished that the men's team could do something similar. Wish granted!

More room for improvement
There was an ice cream truck at Yarraville. If we can't get beers outside at Lakeside, can we at least get a Mr Whippy van to turn up? Or bring back the loukoumades!

Final thought
Still buzzing.

Spoiled Brats - South Melbourne 1 Bentleigh Greens 0

Sitting in second place, and still complaining. Good. 

Finding new ways towards self-loathing for a team continuing to eke out wins, despite a few injuries. Also good.

Hearing news of an old foe copping eight goals, and being unable to take much joy from that either, because the style of play of your own team is utterly joyless. You better believe that's good.

The thing is, our style of play is what it is. You can raise the problem of injuries and outs, but would it really be that much different even with everyone back in? Not really. We cop stick from non-South people for complaining about winning, but they don't watch whatever this is, week in, week out. It's hard to watch and hard to cheer for. Wins feel more like getting something where we shouldn't have, which is OK once in a while; but make it routine, and it feels like a guy always winning the lottery. 

Since I stopped really trying to do anything of note with this blog, the already limited readership has tanked. I bring that up only to make this observation: that the things I say here really have such minimal impact nowadays. And I only bring that up as a preemptive defensive stance against any accusation that my misery guts point of view here has any sort of profound influence on others in the South Melbourne community. At best it seeps out, but it's easy enough to ignore.

What's a little harder to ignore is that others feel much the same way. They're not just wondering where the goals are - currently at just 1.2 per game despite our high ladder position. They're also wondering about where the Hellas mentality is? And where is the desire to create joy? Some people can wring joy merely from good results, and that's great. But what if you want something more? I suppose if the results are enough - and cup shambles aside, they've been good - why would you actually go to a South game? No one's going to South for the food. Some people might go for the social aspect. But for the football? That's debatable. 

Why not stay home, and flick across this and whatever other game is on NPL TV? Why not just check score updates on Futbol24? Why not just come across the result by accident while scrolling through social media? If the result is all that matters to such an extreme, there's no reason to watch the game. Just send the team out there, in front of no one (not as far-fetched a concept as you'd like it to be), and play the game out for the benefit of insomniac overseas gamblers.

I'm reminded, for the first time in many, many years, of the online football manager game Hattrick, which a few South people used to play. It was a random-number generated game if ever there was one. You'd set up your team lineup, conditional subs, tactics, and then the team would play twice a week in real-time matches. There was no action to watch - you'd get intermittent textual updates about important or interesting events during a game. Sometimes, a game might be so dull, that there'd be very little t report.

Then the game would finish, you'd train players, make limited business decisions, and do the whole thing all over again. The main point of the basic game was to set up your team in such a way that the random-number generator that ran the game engine would more likely favour you over your opponent. There were other goals you could set yourself - collect flags in international friendlies, develop players for the national team - but the basic game remained the same. Crunch the numbers, figure out what the percentages were, and go.

Since I suck at maths, and refused to do my homework, I was never very good at the game. But sometimes it was obvious what your only hope was. Sometimes you would clearly be the inferior side, and all you could do was set up your team for a smash and grab. So basically the most all-round defensive set-up your training regimen would allow, and hope that the random-number generator would make you a winner.

And on those rare occasions when it happened, it was marvelous. You'd try and expend the least amount of attacking effort to get the best possible result. Almost inevitably, such wins would contain a ton of luck, and your goal(s) would often come from what were called "special events". Back then Hattrick would allocate about ten chances in each game, which the two teams would fight over. Apart from that pool of about ten chances, each team had access to a limited number of "special event" goals - based on player specialties (speed, power, heading, technique).

During a live match, the match engine would fire up a text update. Maybe one of your "quick" players had burst through the offside trap. Or just as likely, your team took a corner... one of your players with the "head" specialty rose up, and connected with the ball... oh, what a save! But the ball is still live, and it's tucked away by one of the other players fulfilling the need for the text update to come up with some scorer! 1-0 to Juniper Hill, or whatever your team was called!

If it was the league you'd take the points and take pride in potentially ruining someone's promotion run, or if it was the cup, the extra money, and roll on to next week. You'd show some good grace for your win on the forum, while your opponent might take their frustration out on the same forums, slamming "too much random" being in the game.

Anyway, such were matches between the strong and the weak, and no really cared about style, because what could you read into a clutch of prepared text updates? But here we are in the real world, playing against an absolute no-name Bentleigh side - I knew just one player of theirs, goalkeeper Bon Scott -  who'd won one game all year. And they torched us, as much as a clearly battling side could do so. We gave them the ball, and territory, and let them come at us, as they intended to do.

Meanwhile it took about 12 minutes for us to get a meaningful touch in the opposition half. Thank goodness for set piece special events to get us out of jail, again. I counted about five minutes of play by us in the first half that showed initiative; others counted about seven. The second half was not much better. Marcus Schroen was a little wasteful, but that's about all you could say. We are fortunate in that our league opponents so far have been more than wasteful. Surely it can't last?

Next game
Anzac Day eve at home against Port Melbourne, kickoff at the non-overwhelming public interest time of 7:30pm.

Is there a curtain-raiser?
No. The women play tomorrow afternoon (Saturday) at McIvor Reserve in Yarraville.

AGM coming up
They tried to keep this very quiet. Goodness knows why, it's not like anything stupid is going to happen. Do they not want a quorum? Ah, memories. Anyway, mark down Wednesday April 26th in your calendar;  the SMH AGM is at 7pm, and the SMFC AGM is at 8pm. 

On the streams
A little bit more like it
Flicked across to Oakleigh vs Port for a bit. Not the best standard of game - and if you think we score a high proportion of goals from set pieces, Oakleigh's not far behind - but what stuck out was the intent from from teams to play, and play quickly. And play quickly didn't play panicky. It meant see an option, and go for it, don't let the defence get set. Pass and move. 

Final thought
This seems to come up every year now, if not twice a year. Sometimes it's our fault, more often than not it's theirs. Saturday was particularly farcical; at least at Kingston Heath we have the excuse of the painted grass fiasco from a few years back. But you'd think Bentleigh would be bursting at the seams to get some sort of mileage out of their away kit, whatever it is. Instead we had the farce of ourselves in a dark royal blue, and the visitors in a dark green that was even darker on the front, on a gloomy day. The cherry on top was the refs, who you think might have something to say about this, being in all black.

Look, if you're some two-bit club near the bottom of the pyramid, you can say that these things happen, and people would understand, albeit begrudgingly. But this is meant to be the de facto national second tier. Against better judgment, it's broadcast all over the internet. People bust their arses to make it look and feel presentable, and then Bentleigh just decide to make it look more amateurish than it really is. AT least the Lakeside lights are a bit more than passable, even if they don't all fire up. Bentleigh did the same to away to Oakleigh - who wear navy blue, and who's ground is not so well lit - earlier in the season, so clearly no one cares, and nothing is going to change.

At least we'll be out of this league soon enough, and hopefully joining something with a bit more professionalism, and a tad more aesthetic sense.

Monkey's Paw Curls - South Melbourne 3 Kingston City 4

Getting done over by a lower division team helmed by two former coaches of ours, while fielding several ex-South players was bad enough. But you know how they say "it's the hope that kills you?" I'm wondering where the hope is nowadays. We trudge on, bedraggled, now reduced to the forlorn hope of being rescued by getting into the National Second Division, and leaving the dregs of the last five and a bit seasons behind, regardless of how 2023 ends. A true restart, a new team, a new coach, and maybe a new (old) approach as distant from whatever this is supposed to be.

For the time being, no visiting team should show any fear or deference toward South Melbourne. In the past, poor or lesser teams might put in more effort to take our scalp. In recent times, some of the better teams in our own division have paid no mind to it being an away game, an overrated concept in this league anyway. Now we're at the stage when any opponent of ours - even a lower division one - is well advised to just play. Play with the ball, knock it about, take the game on, take the ball up the field. 

It will sound flippant, but in the game we played against Kingston during the pre-season in the Greek Cup, I noted of one of their goals that it had the style of how I would want a South team to score a goal. Sure, all goals count the same, but the usual ways - set pieces and scraps - will always be there. So why not add style to that, to create more avenues to goal?

Watching this game, it was difficult to tell that there was an entire division between the two sides. That can happen in a cup match - one team plays out of its skin, and gets the rub of the green when it counts. But there was almost no rub needed for Kingston. Their goal scoring chances - the ones they scored from and the ones they didn't - were almost all from quality build-up play, and a welcome fearlessness. 

And what's to fear from us? We started with our second choice keeper, even though we have the best keeper in the league. (though to be fair to Lejeune, not one of the four goals we conceded were down to him). Our vice-captain and key mid (Schroen), played just an hour, before being dragged. Our only striker (Riak) was also benched after an hour, with the game still very much in the balance. He was replaced at first by a winger (Brennan), and then by a defensive mid (Langlois). 

Despite all that, we still scored three goals. But the more important thing, at no point did this game feel safe. Worse, at no point do I think that any South fan felt with anything resembling confidence that we would take this out. It's not about doomsaying, or death-riding. It just felt like there was no point in hoping. We might have won, but it would have somehow felt hollow, unearned. The three goals we scored were all from our holy trinity - penalty, corner, long throw. It was the "monkey's paw curls" of goal hauls, emphasising only that we have little else.

Next game
Tomorrow afternoon (Saturday) against Bentleigh.

Is there a curtain raiser?
Yes. The senior women kick off at 1:00 PM, playing against Bayside United.

Final thought
Someone says to me after the game, "there's more to life than South". Thank goodness for that.

Everybody Knows - Hume City 0 South Melbourne 0

You know me, I don't like to complain. Things don't always go the way you planned. Case in point: I wanted to go to Saturday night's game, but events transpired so that I couldn't. So instead I sat on the couch and put the game on the television instead. How good is NPL TV? You don't get cold or wet, you don't have to give bad people money, you (or really, me) don't have to spend hours on public transport to get to games. And if you tune in early enough, you get to hear the commentators doing the sound check using such phrases as "big boy, big boy". Sure, sometimes there's a pole in the way, or the lighting is crap, or the cameraman gets bored and starts spacing out, but you get what you pay for, and usually it's watchable from a technical standpoint. And I'm sure all those kinds of idiosyncrasies will be absent from broadcasts of the National Second Division.

Anyway, it's been 30 years since an out-and-out ruckman won the Brownlow, and it's been 20 years since Jim Kourtis achieved the even rarer feat of winning Victorian soccer's Gold Medal for player of the year as a goalkeeper; but geez, I reckon Javi Lopez is going to give it a good shake in 2023. That's surely two games in a row where short of the refs ignoring what's right in front of them, that Javi's going to grab six votes. That's an endorsement of how well Javi's playing, but clearly not an endorsement of everything which leads to him being in that situation where he has to be a superstar week in, week out.

It's like this. Last week we had two shots on target against eleven. This week it was one shot on target against eleven, and I think that one shot was Ajak Riak having his shot deflected for a corner late in the first half. We then proceeded to play that corner short, for who knows what reason. Even taking into account my long-running hatred of short corners, it was an unfathomably cowardly sequence of play. It was very late in the first half. There was no chance that were Hume to gain possession, that they would be allowed by the ref to take the ball up the field. More than that, one of our only two shots on goals from the previous week - which went in! - was from a corner. It's like we're trying to fix the game, which makes me sound like one of our angry gambling friends who pollutes NPL social media. It's utterly baffling, unless you somehow come to the conclusion based on, I don't know, reams of evidence, that this is how our players are being told to play the game.

Speaking of that game, it was Javi Lopez keeping us in the contest, and let no one tell you anyone else out there for us did anything to lessen some of his burden. Remember that FFA Cup game against Melbourne City in 2021, where we were camped on our own 18 yard box for much of the game, and hanging on for dear life for most of the 90 minutes? Well, it was disappointing, disheartening even, but also you could sort of rationalise it. We were, realistically, a mediocre team from one of eight or nine second tiers, playing against the best team in the country, made up of full-time pros. Also COVID made things worse for us. And yet even in that game, we had a five or so minute patch where we managed to take it up the field, get a legitimate shot on target, and win a couple of corners. We made whatshisname make an actual save. Meanwhile an actual whatshisname, Rory Brian - a former South youth team keeper who's bounced around a few teams in this league - had nothing to do from an actual goalkeeping point of view, except take the occasional goal kick, and look a bit out of place as a mock-sweeper on a slippery field.

Result aside, last week's performance against Oakleigh could be judged as being not good. By comparison, Saturday's performance could only be described as pretty bad. We once again sat so, so deep; 2013 Southern Stars deep. We once again had no plan other than bombing it long, very long. Or playing it short across the backline, and then bombing it long. Poor Alun Webb being made to sprint up and down the wing like a dog chasing a tennis ball. Poor Danny Kim, watching the ball sail back and forth over his head. Poor Ajak Riak, expecting balls at his feet, and instead getting high balls sent to him while he's being double teamed, with no support; he got maybe one pass to his feet that I can remember, with his back to goal on the halfway line and an opponent on his hammer, and still managed to get a nice touch into George Tsitsinaris into space. 

And poor central mids who are effectively third and fourth centre-backs. Even having an overloaded defense is doing nothing to stop Javi being the main guy. Any opponent with enough patience to keep the ball and knock it around in a simple pass and move fashion, is able to pick us apart. We gift the opposition the ball, and we gift them territory. By all means, give them more of the ball if you think they're going to turn it over somewhere in midfield. But expecting effective counter-attacks from your own 18 yard box - or worse, six yard box - seems self-defeating at best. People keep taking the piss about Esteban Quintas' shouted refrain of "press, press", but where's the press? 

And yet we're second on the ladder. Shame on every other team below us for letting us get away with it. A pox on all your houses.

That game against Melbourne City, coincidentally, was Javi Lopez's first game for South, and through no fault of his own, he has been the team's most important player since, because he's ubiquitous. Arguably Pierce Clark was that guy before that. Lopez won the club's best and fairest award in 2022, in a season in which we finished top, and had a player score over 20 goals. So it's not like it's a secret. Everyone knows what we're about. If you happened to be watching this game at home, you would have noticed the commentary duo of Lachie Flannigan and Ed Gooden being very... careful in their observations. Maybe South Melbourne should try a different formation? Maybe send someone to help Ajak Riak? Danny Kim doesn't seem quite suited to what South's trying to do. Pat Langlois, normally a midfielder, was seen moonlighting as a right-back, yet is also the squad's leading scorer. Jake Marshall has the most block and clearances in the league. South's last three wins have all been by one goal to nil.

So, in short. I see it. You see it. Non-South people see it. But what's to be done about it? 

Next game
Kingston City at home on Tuesday in the Australia Cup. Kingston is currently near the top of NPL 2, has ex-South coaches Con Tangalakis and Gus Tsolakis as their co-coaches, and also has its share of ex-South players. What could possibly go wrong.

Is there a curtain raiser?
No.

Final thought
Forget for a moment nostalgia and the guff about "South DNA". You know what's really funny? For reasons of fealty to family (fair enough), clinging to relevance, and generating social media traffic, we are obliged to celebrate the ongoing success of Ange Postecoglou. That's fine, it is what it is, and I have no gripe with it. But even considering the particulars of his situation - managing the best funded team in a strictly two-horse league - we South fans on social media are constantly reminded of his coaching ethic, to entertain as well as get results. And while no one expects the same from our players or coaching staff, let alone for an equivalent kind of funding that Ange gets to be dumped into our senior men's team, we as remnant South fans can do little but cringe, as Ange gets to talk about his football ethic and where it came from - our club - while those of us still here have to watch highlight clips of our goalkeeper making saves, because there isn't anything else to show. We're a rump state off the field, and we're a rump state on it, defending what little territory we have left within our besieged walls.

Torn - Oakleigh Cannons 0 South Melbourne 1

Provided with two options, I decided against going to this match, preferring instead to watch it with a friend at their city apartment. A pleasant dinner on Clarendon Street, a nice stroll with only the hint of humming of the Formula 1 cars down the road (the roar of the V8s a different matter), and then a little bit of whiskey along with Altona Magic vs Thunder while we waited for our game to start. 

Here was hoping there wouldn't be the usual kinds of technical snafus when we've tried this before, but what do you know? A big error message saying "forbidden this", and "failed that", and seemingly no way to work around it. And then it started working, and everything was fine again. Well, almost.

One is naturally torn about such wins. In terms of the league season, it's always nice to pick up points. And to win at this ground, where apart from a couple of games against the Bergers, we haven't won against this mob at that place in ten years? I mean, yes, we did "win" here last year in the cup, but this was a tad more legit, in that it was one goal to nil. You know, an actual win, instead of winning nil-nil.

And after last year's grand final humiliation, I suppose we can restore a hint of self-belief about being able to get a result against Oakleigh, including missing several important (to us) players; Schroen, Djiba, Brennan, Norton, and Riak on the bench. And whatever happened to Jack Painter-Andrew Three of the subs being basically kids. In that respect, even with Oakleigh having played midweek, getting the win here was slightly more than nominally impressive. But there's also the other side of it, which is as follows.

Oakleigh had eleven shots on target to two, and eleven corners to one - the one being the passage of play we scored from. Stats of course don't tell the whole story. A shot on target can be a timid long ranger out of desperation, for example. But anyone who watched the game will know that the stats here do tell a story, and that's that this win was pure filth. A 1/10 chance that somehow came good. I don't know how Oakleigh didn't score, how their efforts kept ending up just wide or just high. Who knows how many goal line clearances. Even taking into account our being short-staffed, it was hard to take anything of value from it in the long run.

It was back to the very worst of the bad old days. It looked like we were a team in relegation trouble, not near the top. Kick and rush would have been a dream; kick and hope, something to aim for; a good chunk of last Saturday was pure kick and pray. Poor Danny Kim. Remember Fernando's ill-fated stint at New Zealand Knights, where he watched the ball sail back and forth over his head? Maybe Danny's a good player, maybe he isn't, but we're never going to find out playing like this. But we must be grateful for what we have, and acknowledge that things could be worse - we could be playing dire football and losing, instead of playing dire football and winning.

Next game
Away at Hume on Saturday.

Is there a curtain raiser this week?
Yes, but with a massive caveat - the under 21s curtain raiser kicks off at 3:30, meaning that it will finish over an hour before the scheduled start of main game. Hardly seems worth the bother popping in early.

Vale Jack Dardalis
I should have noted in the last post, but Jack Dardalis passed away last week. I never met Jack, but we all know the legacy - Marathon Foods, major sponsor, forever linked to the club through some of its headiest days, and some of Australian club soccer's greatest moments. What more iconic kit in our history than the solid royal blue Marathon Foods jerseys of the 1991 grand final and the years after that? Another elder statesman of the Greek community passes away, and another element of the past fades away with it.

On the streams
It could be better, it could be worse
Travelling into town on the train, I switched on NPL TV, and saw a snippet of Moreland getting smoked by Hume, and Knights about to have the same done to them by Avondale.

Final thought
Will I get a post up before the cup game on Tuesday?

I can't see through metal, Kent! St Albans 0 South Melbourne 1

I've been burnt by this increasingly frequent phenomenon before, but never quite like this. 

With all home duties sorted, I decided to head to Churchill Reserve early, get one of those sweet parking spots out the front, and catch a bit of the reserves match. Sure enough I got my nice parking spot right behind the "no standing" sign, but something was off... where were the gate attendants? Oh well, I walked through the unmanned gate, saw no action on the main pitch, and just assumed the ressies were playing on the second field.

I walked over to the second field, saw no familiar faces of the kind who also like to get to games early to watch a bit of the curtain raiser. Certainly there was a game on, and one team was identifiable as St Albans, but the other team was clearly not South Melbourne, but was instead one of the four (at least) Italian black and white horsey teams. And the kids looked just a touch too young to be under 21s. Well, that sucked. Still, what was one to do, drive off home and come back later? Better to stick around and watch what one social media interlocutor opined were the future of the state leagues; he didn't specify which state league exactly.

And I did get to see some entertaining stuff. Like a contested drop-ball! That was a pretty sweet moment, two young players attacking the ball firmly, but fairly. Even more entertaining was the visiting team (maybe) beating the offside trap, sending their man through on goal, only for him to trip over the ball, and scuff any attempt at a shot... but then also get fouled from behind in the box, earning his side a penalty, and the home team a red card. Up stepped a young man for the penalty, skying the ball over the crossbar like he was going for a two-point rugby conversion.

But then people I knew started trickling in eventually, and I'm not the biggest fan of junior football anyway, so off to the social club, and the finally the main game.

Let's be honest: we were never going to lose this game. I would even go as far to say that we were always going to win it. This is the exact time of year where St Albans start falling apart. Dinamo initially manages to surpass everyone's low expectations of them, their main ground looks good, the sun shines, and then... splat. No matter how well they start a Victorian top-flight season, the field soon turns to crap, and a good South or a rickety South turns up, and it doesn't seem to matter; this is the point where it all goes turns to dust for St Albans.

Apparently our lineup was a confusing mess. I didn't really care to check or pay too much attention to it. The first half was not good, but at least it went by quickly. The second half was better, and I just wish that we had scored at least one more goal, at least to make it a more sure thing. Dinamo flashed a few moments across the face of goal late, but they were never going to score, they were not going to get a single point out of this match. 

Really, all this messing about trying to find alternative accommodation during the grand prix and Women's World Cup, when we should just play at Churchill Reserve full time. The worse the ground is, the better we are on it. We should become co-tenants and dig up the main field a bit more. Max Mikkola did some nice things (throwing the ball straight at Dinamo's giant keeper not being one of them though), but what wins you games at this ground is pressing up against defenders with inadequate ball control. 

And this ground is so small, that even our penchant for sitting back still has us right up against the opposition in their own half. Even Marcus Schroen, not known for being a tackling machine midfielder, was able to dispossess an opponent, and begin the sequence of play for what was eventually the winning goal.

Also, it helps (sorta) if the opposition decides to handicap itself by getting what was apparently a pretty stupid red card during the first half for the fourth week in a row, much to the chagrin of overseas gamblers on social media. I say apparently for this week's incident, because where I was positioned, there was these giant metal benches in the way, and scaffolding, and light towers, and more benches, so I didn't see it live. I saw it on the video later, and my goodness, what a shit tackle and I don't know how the player can argue against it.

As for any more illuminating comments, the view from the outer side is so rubbish, and I somehow ended up in a discussion about fans invading the field for AFL players kicking their hundredth, and how old the crowd was for Megadeth at Knotfest, and all sorts of other malarkey, that I don't have much to offer. I'm just glad that Max's goal was at our end of the field right in front of us, not obscured by the detritus of generational piecemeal stadium construction.

Next game
Away at Oakleigh. That's this Saturday, if you're planning to go. No one's forcing you to attend. Rather conveniently, it's also on Saturday if you want to watch the game on NPL TV. 

New segment - is there a curtain raiser this week?
Yes. The under 21s play at 5:00pm

On the streams
I'm weak, I'm spineless, I'm a man of temptation... but what tempts me?
For whatever reason, I didn't end up watching anything last weekend. I've substituted having the footy on in the background instead of NPL TV, and it's good. But then midweek, and I'm reading people discussing some Australia Cup game with two teams I wouldn't cross the street to watch unless I was guaranteed they would lose, and even then... but also discussion about certain young Greeks - thankfully not affiliated with us, because which young Greek is even associated with us these days that isn't one of our ressies? - trying to stir up shenanigans, and my curiosity gets the better of me, albeit I leave it as late as I can before tuning in, about 15 minutes to go. And all I see, with the volume set to low, is a Chris Taylor side doing what it does best, grinding out a result when it has a lead. All of a bit of an anti-climax, which is good, right? 

Final thought
Behold the chilling re-enactment of an unnamed Sydney club trying to get its NSD application in on the last day.

Rubbish - South Melbourne 0 Heidelberg United 2

Nothing much more to say other then that the performance in the first half was absolute rubbish. Against probably the most mediocre Heidelberg team in a decade, we looked beyond inept. Without Ajak Riak, all we could muster was a series on pointless passing on our the line of our own six yard box, before booting it long up the field to Alun Webb or Max Mikkola. There was no midfield. We've seen this before at the worst times under Esteban Quintas; a giant "central midfield is lava" situation which all but begs the opposition to take up that space and press us to 2013 tanking Southern Stars levels. And who better to do that than Heidelberg under George Katsakis, who anachronistically still play with two up front?

The second half was better, in that at least we stated knocking the ball around, but the crossing and finishing were so poor, that it was far more likely that Heidelberg would score again before we would, and that's what happened. We had nearly 20 corners, two thirds of them in the second half, but without our two best corner takers, everything that came just floated harmlessly into the box. And the short corners? They were so numerous and so poor, that the usual suspects who are desperate for a short corner goal out of spite against me, didn't even bother getting excited about them.

The two best chances we had were the header that was cleared off the line (these things happen), and Alun Webb scuffing his one on one chance went put through clear on goal. Someone quipped on the forum hat he must've been in shock that a ball played was actually played at his feet, and that just might be the call of the year so far. Still, there were signs there abut how the team should play, which is lots of shorter passes, and always forward to the next person at the expense of going sideways. NPL defenses hate going backwards, they are almost uniformly terrible at it, so  why wouldn't that be the way to attack them, especially if you have ball playing mids at your disposal?

What's extra funny (apart from Esteban resorting to his old trick of a million halftime subs, like he was playing FIFA) is that other teams have started doing the long throw shtick as well. I mean, putting aside the fact that it worked at all, let alone to the extent that it did, surely it shouldn't be plan A, right? Anyway, all I can hope for is that last week was a blip, and not some sort of justified comeuppance for playing backfoot football and somehow coming out with maximum points most weeks.

Of more concern - and it's still early days, so let's not too get too emotionally wrought - is that it's hard to see just yet which of the new players has made us better. Sulemani looks a shadow of the attacking demon he was at Thunder. Painter-Andrews is in and out. Danny Kim is hardly there, and even if he started, would he fit our style? And while Riak has done good things, it's more of a sideways step so far than a forward, given that we still end up relying on guy up front, and the previous guy bagged twenty goals.

Next game
The annual grand prix enforced trek around the suburbs begins this Sunday, as we are away at St Albans.

Congratulations to Ajak Riak (also, we are doomed)
On one really obvious level, it's clearly fantastic for Ajak Riak to have made his international debut for South Sudan, playing most of the match in a 2-1 win against Republic of the Congo in African Cup of Nations qualifying. In what's a rare occurrence these days, Riak is probably the first South player since Luke Adams (who played for the All Whites in 2016) to play national team football while in the service of our club. 

But prestige aside, it means one of our more valuable players is possibly going to be missing at several key points of the season. South Sudan play against Republic of the Congo again on Monday, and then has two more qualifying matches during international fixture breaks in June and September. I suppose the only thing we can say is that we're not the only NPL Victoria team with this problem - two of Riak's South Sudan teammates are NPL Victoria players at other clubs.

Fixture news
First, our upcoming league fixture away against Oakleigh has been moved from the Friday to the Saturday, and the kickoff time from 8:30 to 7:30 PM. Good news for everyone who wants to go to the real Greek derby on March 31st, that of course being Collingwood vs Richmond at the MCG.

Second, our Australia Cup match against Kingston City has been locked in for April 11th, a Tuesday, at Lakeside. Here's hoping the result gets sorted in regular time, because with kickoff scheduled for 8:15 PM, we might not get home until morning.

Finally, the round 9 league game against Bentleigh, originally scheduled for April 14th - which is Orthodox Good Friday - has been moved to the afternoon of April 15th. Quite how the original date made it past those running the show has got me stuffed. 

AGM news
I have been told that the financial reports are done, and that we'll be having an AGM as soon as possible once we get access to Lakeside again after the grand prix.

Women
Yes, there were some schedule conflicts on the South of the Border home front, but also something went awry with my attempts to stream the senior women's first game of the season. I'm going to say it was probably 83% my fault, and the remainder someone else's. What I did see wasn't particularly edifying, in that it was a lot a rushed long balls up front, with occasional inadequate finishing. Hopefully it was just rust.

On the streams
South lost, the footy's back, and the Osaka sumo basho is on the internet thanks to dodgy streamers, so who's watching other teams?

Final thought
As South fans, we have the right to expect to be entertained by our team. One could go further; that except in exceptional circumstances, the team should be obligated to attempt to entertain us. Even accounting for the effects of nostalgia and being in this league, this is one of the things which made our club great: it was predominantly a ball playing club, with its best teams being not just effective, but life affirming. 

Flag - Dandenong Thunder 0 South Melbourne 1

I alternate between despising how this team plays and yet still manages to grind out wins, and admiring with significant reservation how this team grinds out wins even when it doesn't play particularly well. Last Saturday was more of the latter. First half OK, second half, or at least the first thirty minutes of it, ugly. We're going to run into a team that can shoot at some point this season, and it's not going to be pretty. Until that point though, we'll make do with being the luckiest team in the world, even if you subscribe to the idea that you make at least some of your own luck.

Sight lines at Dandy are pretty ordinary unless you're in the stand, and even there are poles a plenty to get in the way; when it's not being the National Penalties League this is the National Poles in the way League. First half regular spot and regular view behind the freeway end goal. Real close up view of no one tracking Pat Langlois into the box again, and thus he has three goals in four games. Much further away from the action, and generally stymied for a second match in a row, Ajak Riak plays his part in the goal, too, something really only verifiable from our angle by watching it on the replay later.

A shortish week, and South loses players to the attrition of the early season. Lirim Elmazi off injured early, hopefully precautionary. Max Mikkola off later, hoping for the same. Elmazi, not the most skilled with the ball, is still pretty good without it, and without him, we begin losing shape. Mikkola, not the best without the ball, but almost certainly our best with it, and without him composure and implied attacking threat vanish.

But it was hard to tell how bad it really was in the second half, because at the social club end of the ground there's now this huge new fence which makes viewing the game even harder than it used to be. So much has to be left to the imagination; and since I tend to imagine the worst, everything tends to look worse. And in the end, how much worse can you get than top of the league? The only way from here is down, after all.

Next game
Friday night at home against an increasingly shambles Heidelberg. The parking situation should be fun. 

Turns out the Football Victoria constitution guarantees some
 staff a pig every month, and two comely lasses of virtue true.

The NCIP is dead. Long live the NCIP.
Wild scenes behind the freeway end goal during the first half on Saturday, with security, under instruction from a mysterious "commissioner", trying to get us to put away a Greek flag. This at a ground with an Albanian flag painted on the grandstand, while blasting out Albanian tunes over the PA system, and whose home team had massive double-headed eagles on the back of their jerseys. All of which I have an issue with on the grounds of a lack of tasteful subtlety, but not much else really.

Now those of you who attend South games will probably have seen our for now anonymous friend (who is not Greek) and his flag at some point, (those of you who don't attend may have seen it on broadcasts or in photo montages) and you may have even seen his England and Wales flags at home matches. It's something he does of his own volition. No one's told him to do it. 

Anyway, our friend had been waving it rather than hanging it on the fence, but upon the security guy's request tucked it away for a bit. The conversation between I suppose you'd call it Clarendon Corner and the security guy ended with the secco being told to go back to the "commissioner" to get them to come down personally so we could have a polite chat about it. Security guy goes off, and comes back later saying the "commissioner" says it's in his book of regulations that the flag is banned, unless it has the club logo on it or some such to distinguish it from merely being a national flag. We then told the security guy again to get the bloke to come down and show us the actual passage/clause, because the National Club Identity Policy as it was has been dead for four years, and we can google the articles to prove it. And yes of course I googled it. 

Second half and we've moved to the other end of the ground, and the security guy walks past the social club goal on his rounds. He says the "commissioner" can't find the rule. Well duh. I mean the secco wasn't being a knob about it, but don't these people read the news? Aren't they meant to be up to date with what they're supposed to be policing? More to the point, we never found out who this "commissioner" was, a question which perplexed me then and still does, since designated match commissioners haven't been a thing at Victorian grounds for what seems like well over a decade. 

Women's season begins
Our senior women begin their season at home against Heidelberg on Saturday. From a distance (ie, glancing at the club's social media), it looks like the squad is swinging back to recruiting outside of its own junior ranks. 2023 also sees the competition expand from eight teams to eleven, with Preston, Boroondara Eagles, and Southern United all finding their way back into the women's top flight after varying number of years away. That'll add a bit of variety at least by, if nothing else, evening out the ratio of teams with "United" in their name just a bit.

Two, then four, and also 25 million more obstacles to our return to top-flight glory
Oh, the humanity. The A-League is going to add two new teams to its pyramid scheme outside the actual pyramid system, in Canberra and Auckland. Then somewhere further down the track, Brisbane and maybe Wollongong. Asking price for a licence, $25 million. Good luck to them. Some may well say what's the point of even trying to get up a National Second Division under such circumstances, but the choice remains the same today as it did yesterday and probably the day before yesterday. Stay in this dead-end league (even though it is the centre of the universe), or keep trying for something even a little better, given the fact that we (and people formerly working for us) have put so much effort into trying to set up our own retro-flavoured pyramid scheme outside the actual pyramid system? Me, I say we replicate on a national scale the baffling phenomenon of the marvelously dank Sunshine Plaza being right across from the brightly lit Sunshine Marketplace.

On the streams
Filling in time until the footy starts like a normal Melburnian
One time, Frank Sinatra came in here, and sat in this chair. I say, "Frank, you hang out with Michael Eagar. Just between me and you, how old is Michael Eagar?" Know what Frank told me? He said "Hey, Michael Eagar is a hundred thirty-seven years old." A hundred and thirty-seven years old!

Preliminary final thought, also about the streams
I will watch a lot of crap on the TV and such, but I will not watch teams when they're playing in grey kits anymore. Enough. Gully, out. Langwarrin, doubly out for wearing a grey kit when their home kit is blue and they were playing against a team that wears red. Wouldn't have been in that mess in the first place if the Moreland vs Magic stream was working though. 

Final thought
Thanks to Johnny for the lift back the city, always appreciated.

Outsourcing - South Melbourne 2 Melbourne Knights 1

South Melbourne FC maintained their perfect start to the season with a hard-fought 2-1 win over Melbourne Knights on Monday night at Lakeside Stadium. Due to an athletics meet that took over the stadium over the preceding weekend, the match between South Melbourne and Melbourne Knights was played as a one-off Monday night fixture at Lakeside Stadium. However, it is unclear if the move made a difference to the number of people attending.

The hosts started brightly and were rewarded in the 23rd minute when Marco Jankovic rose highest to head home off another Max Mikkola long throw-in, much to the delight of the home fans. In the second half, they doubled their lead with Pat Langlois pouncing on Chris Oldfield's save from Marcus Schroen's curling shot.

The Knights pulled one back from the penalty spot after goalkeeper Javi Lopez made a desperate attempt to collect the ball in the box, resulting in a foul. The remainder of the match saw South Melbourne revert to overly defensive tactics. While the victory was cause for celebration, the disheartening prospect of goalkeeper Javi Lopez winning the club's MVP award again looms large. Lopez was once again instrumental in South Melbourne's win, making several crucial saves to keep the Knights at bay. 

The match saw South Melbourne's star striker Ajak Riak being kept well in check by the Knights' defense, but Langlois was a standout performer in midfield, scoring a goal and creating several other chances throughout the match. The victory also raises questions about whether South Melbourne fans should be happy with the team's style of play, given their excellent start to the season. Some argue that the club's winning record should be enough to satisfy fans, while others maintain that the team's tactics should reflect the club's traditions.

Next game
Away against Dandenong Thunder on Saturday night. I almost hope that we lose so that Esteban stops wearing that non-club branded polo top. Very superstitious man, I'm told. Me, I abhor superstitions, and especially sporting superstitions. It implies a lack of trust in your ability to get results on your own merits. Leave the augury and haruspicy to the mug punters, I reckon.

There was a cup draw
Yes, I know. Came home from work, fired up the old laptop, launched Twitter, and saw that we'd been draw as the home against Kingston. Then I went to check out the tail end of the live draw video on Facebook, and the person commenting on the draw kept saying "verse" instead of "versus", and I couldn't shut off the video quickly enough. 

What's a truck?
What's an AGM? By the way, if they don't announce a date by tomorrow, the earliest the next AGM can be held will be April, a full month after the last AGM was held, which itself was held way later than it should have been. Maybe this is all part of the plan to align our financial reporting with the actual season, rather than the financial year. Maybe I just made that up.

Amway! Amway! Amway!
32 consortia - mostly single clubs, but also a handful of group efforts or partnerships - have put in an expression of interest for the National Second Division. The expression of interest is merely a first step of course, because afterwards you actually have to make a bid. Eight Victorian clubs have put in an expression of interest, and South Melbourne is one of those eight clubs. 

Of the 32 consortia, 15 have some connection to National Soccer League participants, almost all of them as standalone prospects. Consider the numbers I suppose. There were about 40 odd teams which played in the NSL. About a dozen of them are no longer in existence; another three are in the A-League. So of the 25 odd remaining NSL clubs, fifteen are still keen on taking another stab at something approximating national league football. You can take out of that what you will.

Without going into this too deeply, showing mock shock at the gumption of some of these upstarts thinking that they can compete at that level, I will make note of a couple of interesting absentees. Queensland Lions, objectively one of the wealthiest clubs outside the A-League, are sitting this process out, figuring I suppose that once bitten, twice shy. The other surprise absentee, considering the, er, "caliber" of some of the Victorian clubs who have expressed an interest, is Oakleigh. Who knows what their rationale might be in making that decision.

Uh, excuse me, Professor Brainiac, but I worked in a nuclear power plant for 10 years, and, uh, I think I know how a proton accelerator works
Of all the... look, let's get the disclaimers out of the way. I only got to see other people's responses to whatever the original comment was, because the original comment maker has me blocked on Twitter, which is absolutely their right to do so; that is what the block button is there for. Anything else then is me inferring what was said, which was probably something to do with how great it would be for South Melbourne Hellas and its fans when the new Anzac station is up and running when the Metro Tunnel project is finished in a couple of years, and how convenient it will be for getting to and from Lakeside.

Maybe. Look, I love public transport, even when it hates me. There is no one at South Melbourne that's more gaga for more trains and more non-car ways to get to all the grounds. And as someone currently living within the catchment of a station on the under-construction Metro Tunnel line, I can't wait for the project to be finished, even if it will mean an additional interchange to get to my workplace, assuming AI hasn't made my role redundant by then. But will Anzac station make getting to Lakeside Stadium easier by public transport? 

Well, yes, kinda, sorta, under one very specific set of conditions, and even then only if you're coming in from the south-east and you don't mind a vigorous constitutional, ala Sideshow Bob. That's it. If you're coming in from anywhere else, it'll do diddly for you, because you'd still be better off getting the number 12 or the 96 or even the bloody no. 1 from the CBD, unless you really, really like walking. 

Let's assume for argument's sake that both stands and both gates are open. The no. 96, whose nearest station to Lakeside is Albert Park, is a 700 metre odd walk. The no. 1, which stops at the corner of Park and Clarendon, is about 600 metres away, though you also have to deal with slow meander through the theatre and arts district. The no. 12 is about 150 metres away, with the main bit of awfulness being the very bad tram stop, which fortunately (from a safety standpoint) rarely has to deal with large crowds.

The future Anzac station/former Domain interchange site is over 1.2 kilometres away from Lakeside. Being that far along a busy road, there are also several traffic lights which need to be crossed. The average person takes about five minutes to walk 500 metres. Realistically, you're looking at a walking journey of over 15 minutes. If you're walking along the north side of the route, it's not exactly the most pedestrian friendly pathway. If you're walking on the park side, especially within the park itself, it's not the best lit place at night. 

A few years ago now, I walked from Lakeside after a match to the now defunct Domain interchange (which is slightly to the north of the future Anzac station) in order to go watch The Godfather at The Astor with my brothers. What a slog, and I'm not just talking about the movie. I occasionally walk between Sunshine station and my house (when public transport lets me down, or when the weather's nice), which is about five hundred metres more than Lakeside is from the Anzac station site, and my goodness, what an awful experience. Looking back at my Google Maps data from the day, it says I traveled 1.6 kilometres by foot, and that I ran. That's how fast I was apparently walking.

And I mention this because it seemed to be that someone was making the claim (and I hope that I am wrong about that) that it was merely a four minute walk from the Anzac station site to Lakeside. That's pure nonsense. From Sunshine to my place, it's a leisurely 15 minute stroll, with just one set of lights and a couple of small pedestrian crossings to navigate. And one could, of course, more often than not choose to catch the bus. There is no bus or tram service between the future Anzac station and Lakeside. So in short, the eventual arrival of Anzac station is actually going to be of negligible benefit to South fans.

The answer to none of your questions
So, why was Pat Langlois' goal from the corner against Moreland not filmed by the NPL cameraperson? Because they are under instruction to film all substitutions, and being inconsiderate, we decided to take the corner quickly.

On the streams
Everyone has a vice
Someone goes to me the other day, "you seem to watch a lot of NPL TV"; a comment which sounded to sit halfway between observation and accusation, and that's the way I've decided to take it. If there was somewhere to go, I would've gone. If there was something else to watch, I wouldn't watched it. If there something else to do, I would've done it. Or maybe I'm just kidding myself? Maybe I'm sick enough about this league to stay home, and watch Gully pick up three points in a grey away with indecipherable green numbers. The flick it over to watch the Bergers look hopeless against an energetic St Albans. The next day, there was some spiciness behind the goals between Avondale and Hume supporters, and once again no one in Avondale's little shed stand; I'm told that this is because its safety permit has lapsed, and they're awaiting council approval to let people into it again. And they want to join... well, who knows.

Final thought
Sure we used about 40 odd players that year, but of all the things to lie about, claiming to have played for South Melbourne in 2011 seems like one of the more stupid lies to come up with about yourself.

Lavender Blues - Green Gully 1 South Melbourne 3

Bringing order to chaos, but at what cost?
You know I'd almost forgotten that we didn't go to Green Gully Reserve last year? Rocking up to the game, I was shocked to be welcomed to a paved parking lot. Unfortunately it's one of those hideous concoctions which actively reduced the number of available spots. That'd be more a problem if there were actually any people there. Crowd was ordinary. There was no curtain raiser game to artificially fill out the concourse with parents and reserves players. There was also no Maltese marching band. Instead there was a dated Artie K-like mix playing over the speakers (ugh), and a free match program (very much appreciated), but hardly any sort of vibe from us or them. Can't wait to take this energy into the National Second Division.

What about all the times I didn't wear a tutu?! Nobody ever brings those up! 
You wear a suit to one game, and then that's all you are: suit guy. To get around that, I got home early on Friday, got changed into my South Melbourne Gunners t-shirt, only to find that I'd started an unholy trend. Me, the fashion trend-setter. Θα χαλάσει ο καιρός, as my mum likes to say.

Granny chic
Speaking of fashion, we were thankfully spared by virtue of being the away team, from seeing Green Gully's awful grey away kit. I don't know what it is about teams that think silver and grey are god kit colours, but anyway. Gully's goalkeeper kits this year include a shade of lavender that's pure old lady hand soap. Admittedly, I pine for the days where goalkeepers wore a solid clash colour jersey, and a shorts and socks combo that matched their teammates. 

Apples and Oranges
Unusually (I think? I'm not so sure now) the NSW NPL started earlier than its Victorian counterpart this season, so I've seen a little of their games and highlights. Their synthetic pitches and too many futsal players posing as outfield players gives that comp if not quite an air of effeteness, than certainly at least a postmodern sense of digital, anodyne precision. NPL Victoria, by comparison, though being played on better quality fields than ever, still has a bit more physicality. NSW players may more regularly score top bins goals, but it's always a bit easier when the ball doesn't bobble, and there's no Nikola Jurkovic types waiting to kill you.

One may not have thought it possible based on their 2000-2011 iteration, but Green Gully would nowadays almost fit in better north of the Murray than they do south of it. Remember when coming to Green Gully Reserve as a South fan meant not just an inevitable loss, but also a bruising one? Now we haven't lost there since 2013, and it seems to get that little bit easier each time. The old grinding, ugly Gully is gone, replaced by a ball playing side that could do great things, were it not for the fact that they play in a predominantly counter-attacking league.

And which team is both more conditioned to and adept at playing pure counter-attacking football than South Melbourne? Based on a statistically insignificant (but still instructive) two matches, not much has changed for us, except for the height of the balls going forward. Last year they were very high; this year they're a bit lower. That's all down to having Ajak Riak in the place of Harry Sawyer.

Now I may have gone off half-cocked on the forum a few weeks ago when watching choppy footage of a Greek Community Cup match, claiming Riak would not score a goal this season except by accident, such was his apparent lack of coordination. People at that relevant claim that he looked OK, nothing like what us stay-at-homes were watching, and maybe they've been proven right.

Riak seems to know how play off the shoulder of the last defender, he seems to know where to move, and how to generally make the right or at least better decision when provided with two or more possibilities. His cause (and ours) were helped by being up against a team that's no longer the old thug Gully on a choppy field, (pointless baited into it Zidane headbutts notwithstanding), so there was enough space to do his thing. It might not be so useful when teams play more compactly against us.

Still, his mere presence makes us more watchable (and that's no slight on Sawyer's very productive 2022 season), but overall there's not likely to be much change to the way we play. Maybe the full backs will get a bit further up the field a bit more often. but the entire race to be runner-up hinges on Ajak not getting hurt - the rest of the squad will be rotated in and out on a needs basis. The small bonus is if we transfer to playing a more ground ball attacking game, instead of a high ball one, it will be easier to switch to someone like Alun Webb playing up front when Riak inevitably gets injured.

Next game
Melbourne Knights at home on Monday night. No, it's not the Labour Day public holiday Monday; that's the week after. Athletics has the field over the weekend; fair enough. Also, kickoff has been moved from 7:30pm to 8:15pm to accommodate apparently "overwhelming interest", which is just code for let's make it even harder for Paul to get home after the game, because there's going to be rail replacement buses, and cabs that don't turn up even though they're allegedly one minute away, and then you walk home. And all this just to watch us lose to the second best team in the NPL (after Oakleigh, of course). Should I just go home after work and watch it on the TV? Maybe. 

NSD news
More and more teams have put out their little press releases that they're expressing an interest. We haven't done that yet.

AGM news
None. Might as well just privatise the club.

On the streams
Hip to be square (balls)
It occurred to me, much later than it should have, that this season is another pointless one. Just as pointless as the usual pointless ones, when there was misplaced hope of getting people back to the club by winning stuff. More pointless than the ones where we were all accosted by A-League bid nonsense. More pointless than those seasons where winning the league didn't matter, because it was all about the FFA Cup. More pointless than those aborted COVID seasons, and the pointless (but at least ultimately hilarious) Bespoke Cup season. Oakleigh's going to win the title this season or, at best, be cheated out of it by an Act of God. So could we at least enjoy the relegation battle (24 more points to go...)? Well, no. Thanks to the NSD (which is totally going to happen), there's possibly going to be three or four or five Victorian clubs getting out of this circle of hell, which will shake up the entire local league system. So what then if Port or Avondale score bangers against relegation candidates? So what if Moreland gets an upset win against a now zero and two Bentleigh? So what if Preston drop a point here or there on their way to promotion, to what exactly? Thunder vs Dinamo eight goal banger? Pointless, unless you're a gambler living in that particular moment where you're sweating on + or - 3.5 goals. Yes, I suppose we could just enjoy the games on their own merits, as they veer from one goal from a misplaced pass to another goal from a set piece. 

Final thought
Turns out that one of the court officers I work with is a Perth Glory fan. Just when I thought I'd shed all proximity to Western Australian nonsense, it's right there three metres away. 

Be Where You Belong - South Melbourne 2 Moreland City 1

Another new season, and another year of supporting this club. Though my commitment and interest has wavered between extremes since my first game circa late 1992, here I am, a touch over 30 years later, still doing this thing. Not quite as hardcore as the majority of the past 17 years or so, because life comes at you slow, then fast, and all of sudden you're a semi-regular working man. That's why I rocked up to the game in a suit and tie, because someone thought it would be great to have us stay back late in order to try and find a suitable court date some time this year in which to finally sort out who's responsible for bringing prawn white spot disease into Australian waters.

Anyway, I got to the ground early enough to get a seat at a table in the social club, but not necessarily early enough to grab something to eat. Though at $20 for any meal that wasn't a box of chips, one has to wonder if it's worth the bother. At this stage it looks like I'm eating more food at home or away from our ground, because while the cost of living crisis is certainly getting out of hand, it's no one's responsibility to single-handedly keep our social club operation afloat. Maybe consider providing some smaller, more affordable options; or even just having the kitchen open after a game. I don't know, I'm not a business person; I'm just a middle-aged pleb working an entry level admin job.

(And who's idea was it to not have the drinks tent outside the social club on a warm summer's day, with the kind of crowd that would make it economically worthwhile? So much for the match day experience.)

So on the face of it, it's another year of complaining from me, so at least we've settled into the usual South of the Border routine. But 30 years. Seems like a long time. Strange to think that some of what we would still call the newer faces in around Clarendon Corner have been around the club for 10 or 15 years. It's strange also to think that this season might be our last in this league that we thought we'd never get out of (and still mightn't); we've dedicated songs to this interminable existence (even managing to exchange "NPL" for "VPL"), and yet maybe this is it. And thus 18 seasons in, we can pay tribute via song to the hope that we might be getting somewhere; a league for you and me perhaps.

It could theoretically be worse. If you discount the starting point of the merger which created Moreland City as we know it in the early 1990s, then people involved with that entity have been waiting to get back to this level for 60 years. 

(Moreland City is an early 1990s merger of Moreland Park Rangers and Coburg. Moreland Park Rangers was a merger between Moreland and Kew Park Rangers. Before they moved to Kew in the 1970s, Park Rangers were founded as an offshoot of South Melbourne United in the mid-1940s. Moreland itself was an early 1930s breakaway from the then Brunswick club, which folded a few years later. So in some ways, you can make the argument South Melbourne Hellas and Moreland City are distant cousins.)

1962, the last season any club affiliated with today's Moreland City was in the Victorian top flight, was a very ling time ago. Moreland won just one game that year, while South won the first of its many state titles. They brought enough people to Thursday's game to make it interesting, and their side gave it a red hot go; well, they gave it a go until they scored, and then sat back, and copped two goals thanks to heinous defending. But it's not our job to hand back gifts like that, most of the time anyway - see Wallen's miss of the season, which should have been a contender for being a successor to that Fernando goal. He even asked the ref for permission to take the shot!

Anyway, the two goals we scored weren't exactly top drawer material. The first came when from their own goal kick, three Moreland defenders went to mark Ajak Riak, leaving the centre corridor open, lost the header coming back the other way in any event, leaving Alun Webb to slot a one on one. The second goal, one of many corners, this one finished off by Pat Langlois who was allowed to run and jump at the ball as if it were a training drill. 

Of the new players on show, Ajak Riak looked... actually OK. As long as his coaches, teammates, and to a lesser extent the crowd acknowledge that he's not Harrison Sawyer, he could be useful. He's naturally more mobile than Sawyer, can shoot hard, and seems to have a trick or two up his sleeve. Everyone says he's raw, and that might be true, but he also seems to know where to move and how to time a run. At the very least, his mere presence might mean fewer aerial long balls, and perhaps some lower through balls. Danny Kim didnt have a great one. Ali Suleimani probably wasn't out there long enough.

Of the regulars, Ben Djiba was excellent, especially considering his lack of match fitness. Jake Marshall was as solid as ever, and Max Mikkola was busy. Missing three or four potential starting eleven players - Jankovic, Painter-Andrews, Schroen, Hancock - didn't end up making too much of a difference. But it's only one game, and against a team everyone is expecting to be in the bottom three or four, no disrespect intended.

Next game
Green Gully away on Friday night. Gully lost to Oakleigh last night, but since everyone is going to lose to Oakleigh this year, that's not much to go on.

AGM
Do we even need to have one? I think we've had enough of them. Anyway, legally obligated corporate governance is for wimps.

NSD News
A few clubs have made expression of interest announcements about their intentions regarding the NSD. We're not one of those, yet.

On the streams
Not as bad as Paramount+, or so I'm told
There are saving graces of sorts to following a club in this league, and not a higher one. You get to see your team in person every week, if you so choose. You don't have to deal with VAR. And you don't have to deal with what people tell me is a very substandard streaming service. NPL TV has its problems, but it is apparently not as bad as the streaming service that the A-League relies on. Still, that doesn't mean that one can't complain. Stuck at home, with not much to do, I've been flicking through a few games this week, and look... there's only so much that can be done about about grounds with poor elevation, poor sight-lines, poor sun position. But camera operators can still, ideally, make the correct choice about what to film. So, player coming off the bench or a corner being taken? Thank goodness that Abraham Zapruder SMFC TV had its own reverse angle camera in place to capture Langlois' goal. Elsewhere there were the usual breaks or delays of the stream kicking in. Now that goal clips are being added to social media, it's troubling to see some clips producing content that is unusable, because of its frame skipping quality. 

But my biggest bugbear with NPL TV coverage - commentators who yell at me, the viewer, in the mistaken Brian Taylor inspired idea that volume = excitement - was missing this week, and for that I am glad. Thus I enjoyed seeing North Geelong embarrass Bentleigh; Altona Magic and Hume score within 30 seconds of each other; 10 man Port snatch a draw against Avondale; the Bergers going down at home to Dandy Thunder; and St Albans demonstrating that maybe attacking will get you further than playing deeper than 2013 Southern Stars.

Final thought
Look, this is just something that occurred to me, for no reason at all, and I'm certainly not here to tell people how to live their lives; but maybe some people would allegedly be better off with a raspberry lemonade instead of the limitless (at least compared to what's available to the plebs) alcohol available in the corporate box. That's especially the case if consumption of that plentiful booze only encourages certain people to allegedly pursue silly internet beefs on real world terraces, when they could be building the stadium they allegedly promised to have ready several years ago now. Allegedly.