Monday, 11 February 2013

Bourgeois Anthropology - Middle Class Handwringing Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Footy's Almost Back!
The roll call of footy jumpers I saw.
  • 1x St Kilda
  • 1x Footscray
  • 1x Collingwood, heading back towards Flinders Street before the match.
  • 1x Geelong, with matching shorts.
  • 1x Essendon - as soon as he appeared in M11, the 'Essendon are drug cheats' chant started.
  • 1x Sydney, dressed as Warwick Capper, including shorts which left nothing to the imagination.
Kostume Kapers
For some reason the marketing gurus at Cricket Australia thought it would be a good idea to encourage people to dress up in costumes, because goodness knows it's not the like actual game matters in any way. There were some good efforts, but where I was sitting, it seemed like an extra reason to get drunk for most of those people. Some of the more notable efforts in our vicinity included:
  • Warwick Capper - see above.
  • Spiderman - when not drinking, he spent a good portion of the match performing an incredibly annoying dance, trying ever so hard to get on camera. He succeeded.
  • A wizard, but not Gandalf or Harry Potter related.
  • About 5-6 blokes dressed in Jamaican bobsled outfits ala the film Cool Runnings, but sadly without anyone in the role of John Candy.
  • Some bloke wearing a pretty crap wedding dress.
  • Wonder Woman - perhaps unusually (considering the usual demographic of nerd dress up shenanigans), she was actually a woman.
  • Bananas in Pyjamas
  • The bloke in an obviously very hot and sweaty panda suit, on whose face one could read a ton of regret about wearing that suit on such a warm day.
Sneaky Sound System
Still going, still crap.

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

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

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

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

I never realised how boring this game is.
Firstly, the way the rowdy patrons actually put some effort into getting thrown out was fascinating, like they were actually aiming for that result. They drink a lot and drink quickly (one group enjoyed smashing the empty plastic cups against each other's faces). The attempt to curtail the drinking culture by not opening the bars (or food) outlets on the bottom of the lower deck did not work at all. One bloke near me (whose mates had already been thrown out) threw an empty Pringles cylinder, and then followed it up with an empty Coke bottle. He tried to feign ignorance but it was no use, and he didn't put up much of a fight when he got spotted and asked to leave. I wonder if he and others like him will get charged the $563 on the spot fine for throwing items.

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

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

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

Wednesday, 6 February 2013

Pepe in Papua

Want to know what happened to former assistant coach Joe Montemurro? Well, he's ended up in Papua New Guinea. Also good to know that the National Soccer League lives on.

NEW kids on the block, FC Port Moresby, WNB Tavur FC and NC Civil Works Oro FC will be out to impress their supporters when they debut in the 2013 Telikom National Soccer League tomorrow.

Aspiring newcomer, FC Port Moresby will face a baptism of fire against reigning champions, Hekari United FC, while Oro will take on neighbouring Milne Bay franchise, Eastern Star FC, in their opening match.

Under Italian coach Joe Montemurro, FC Port Moresby have been preparing well since making their intention known to take part in the semi-professional competition.

Known as Pepe, Montemurro was extremely impressed with the talent of his charges, which include eight national reps plus prominent emerging youth players who have won age group international caps.

“This blend of youth and experience of PNG’s finest home-grown players is a coach’s dream,” he said.

“FC Port Moresby players come from all four regions of PNG and we are excited about building a fan base that extends nationwide.”

On the prospect of facing Hekari first up, Pepe said “Every team wants to play against the champions to truly test themselves.”

“This is a fantastic introduction to the 2013 NSL season, of course, the premiers will start as favourites but I am confident that we can promise Port Moresby residents that your team is here to play.”

Senior player Reginald Davani said his squad had been preparing well for the opening match.

The club has secured the services of former Hekari United player Neil Hans, who will lead the side against his former teammates.

Hekari coach Jerry Allen could not say much about his chances

Saturday, 2 February 2013

The results of very novice hoarding

Bit of a slow time of year, isn't it? Not much going on for this blog to report on. So let's go back in time a bit, and relive some highs, lows and mundane parts of South history.

While doing some cleaning, I came across some old copies of Neos Kosmos English Weekly from 2001 and 2002. I don't know why I was collecting them, and I'd forgotten I'd even had them.

By contrast, I remembered that I had a half dozen copies of the AFL's Football Record. Goodness knows why. Biggest waste of money, but those were the days before you could get them all online.


You can rest assured that I'm no hoarder - it was just some stuff that had gone from drawer to shoe box to slightly less worn shoe box and so forth for about a decade or so. Then again, I have to share this place with four other people and their crap, so proper hoarding is not so much of an option.

There was other stuff, too, such as:
  • Reform of Soccer Australia, which of course we all thought would never happen.
  • Ian Knop and the state federations trying to justify the player levy increase to bail out Soccer Australia.
  • Something about Ned Zelic wanting to play for Australia again.
  • Soccer Australia frantically trying to get the National Soccer League finals onto television.
But none of that had any specific mentions of South. There were only four articles in that lot to do with South at all, and for the most part it's routine stuff. Thanks to my bro for scanning, cropping etc.

The first article is about one time South VPL player Evan Karavitis, when he was just a fresh faced youngster at the Victorian Institute of Sport, looking to make it big in the world of soccer. He got called up for one of the national underage teams, along with a bunch of other hopefuls including then South junior Stefan Piorkowski. Kristian Sarkies is there as well. Some bloke called Postecoglou was in charge of things. According to some basic research, the bloke couldn't coach his way out of box of corn flakes.

The second article is from when we 'miraculously' stormed into the finals of the 2001/02 season after being just awful for about half of it. Much harder these days to have these kind of occurrences when more than half the teams in our national competition qualify for the finals.

The third article is about Paul Trimboli looking to stay at South. Also has some bits about Steve Blair getting involved with the administrative side of the club.

The final article in this collection is about South's first home game of the 2002/03 season, and the difficulties Zeljko Susa had in getting a clearance from his club in Croatia, even though they no longer wanted him.

Monday, 28 January 2013

AGM 2012 - Onwards Toward the Final Victory!

One could argue that I'm here to provide a public service. But at the same time, the AGMs are for members only, so why should we spill all the beans to those who aren't members of the club, or who can't be bothered making the effort to turn up?

Anyway, yes, the Australia Day long weekend was a crap time to host this delayed event, but the turnout was still made up of pretty much exactly the same people you'd normally expect to see, give or take a couple of people on holidays and one or two who slept in and missed it.

Money
The club recorded its first profit since the Brazil adventure. There was no applause for this milestone. A sign of maturity from the members?

Social Club
Will it be ready by the time they want? Have to wait until FA Cup night. Here's hoping for a Brentford vs Luton final.

Women
The club as usual claims progress is being made. I get the feeling that the two parties are still on very different wavelengths.

National Competitions Review
Not much change from the last time we talked about this. The FFV and FFA insist it will go ahead in 2014. Off the record, one proponent suggests that most of the VPL clubs acknowledge this fact, and that they are beginning to at least consider applying for an 'elite' licence. George Koukoulas, who is a member of the FFV men's standing committee, claims the opposite, that most of the clubs are still fundamentally opposed. South claims it is prepared for either eventuality. The FFV comes put with its next stage of recommendations and and possibly bidding process information in two weeks.

Vote Early, Vote Often
An election is due at the next AGM. Unlike all the post-NSL elections, which have seen no rival tickets showing their hand (despite murmurings at the time that there would be), we could see some more action for two reasons.

Firstly, this will be the first elections after the FFV's constitutional reforms which saw players and parents of junior players added automatically to the list of people who can vote. In our case, we have been assured in previous AGMs that these people will only be eligible to run for SMFC and not SMH (the SC got dropped off the end of SMHSC at the previous AGM)

Secondly, there is the obvious dissatisfaction with the current regime shown by former(?) board members George Koukoulas and Lucky Chrisomalidis. Will this be enough to get them to start their own ticket? And who would be on it? Whatever happens, I hope that there is at least some sort of opposition, not because I think the current board are doing a bad job, but just to see a different set of ideas so we can weigh them against what we have now.

Ruthlessness
The club needs to be more ruthless in vetting who is a member and who isn't, and in which meeting they should be in, and if they should in a meeting at all. Having the SMFC and SMH AGMs on separate days seems like an obvious solution to at least one of these issues.

Apparently Melbourne Knights are far more thorough with their arrangements, not even allowing notes to be taken (there goes my question sheet!) and all documents given out during a meeting to be returned at the end of the meeting - and if that doesn't happen, no one goes home. Sounds like another level of fun to be added.

Not Around The Grounds
I was disappointed with the representatives of the football department, when it came to explaining their attitudes towards going to watch other VPL and state league matches.

You see representatives of other clubs at grounds all the time, in their thick, club branded tracksuit jackets. I even made the quip (which got a few laughs!) that I see  Heidelberg coach George Katsakis at so many games that I sometimes think he's stalking me.

Yes, I have no life, and that is why I can be seen at 1-2 games a weekend which don't involve South. But I would expect to see South football department people at other games every now and again, instead of rarely. It's not just about scouting players and reconnaissance - it's about being seen mingling with the hoi polloi. It may not mean that we won't be seen as aloof, but at least they'll see us being aloof.

Farewell, Steve O'Dor
The rumour circulating during the off-season has been confirmed - Steve O'Dor has apparently retired, at least from VPL football. Work commitments appear to have taken their toll.

The Best Question
Someone, I assume new to this whole experience, asked about a rumour he read on the internet about whether we were going to take over Melbourne Heart. This is what happens when you let your children read FourFourTwo forums unsupervised.

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Bouzis Cup/Almost Famous/SMAGM 2012/Fries With That

Bouzis Cup
Those of us who have been dragged kicking and screaming into the local asylum for lack of South action, will be pleased to note that some South Melbourne related pre-season fixtures have been released.

With the Hellenic Cup taking a sabbatical for this year at least, it looks like some individual clubs are attempting to fill the void with their own tournaments.

To that end, Westvale Olympic is hosting what they're calling the George Bouzis Cup, starting on February 23rd. It's three groups of four, and we're in group one with Westvale, Western Suburbs and Old Camberwell. I've added the matches to the fixtures/results page.

There's no women's, veterans or youth competition, just senior men. They're using both pitches out at McKechnie Reserve, which is good to see, but sadly they've already committed to the mistake of trying to crowd too many games into the schedule - instead of having the three group winners and the best second placed team play semi finals, they've got the top two of each group and the two best third placed teams going through to the quarter finals.

Which results in the semi-finals and final on consecutive days. Have people learned nothing from the farcical scheduling capers of the Hellenic Cup?

Northcote and Oakleigh are the two other VPL clubs taking part, so there's a good chance we'll be meeting them at some point during the tournament.

I'm mostly glad that I get to see pre-season South matches in the western suburbs (and across the road from St Albans station!) without having to travel to public transport black holes in the eastern suburbs.

Almost Famous
The following notice has been issued from the SMFC Ministry of Infomation.

Calling all SMFC Fans!

Do you want to be a part of the 2013 Membership Commercial?

If yes, register your interest by contacting the clubs Marketing Manager George Kouroumalis via email at multimedia@smfc.com.au.

Please note!

You MUST be available on the evening of Wednesday January 30th and MUST own a piece of SMFC attire or any BLUE clothing.

South Melbourne AGM 2012
The AGM so Greek that it'd be late to its own funeral is on this week. I wonder what surprises the committee will have for us...

Would You Like Fries With That?
If you're going to be charging $29 for a chicken parma, could you at least provide hand-cut chips instead of something out of a freezer bag? And would it be too much to ask to not chuck them under the schnitzel? First world problems, I know.

Saturday, 19 January 2013

Dina Dounis - Soccer At Middle Park

In my other line of existence - being a career student at university - my honours thesis looked at the history of Australian soccer literature. That is, creative written work by Australians on soccer, and by Australians or otherwise on soccer in Australia. As has been mentioned previously, the nature of this work was in large part bibliographic - trying to find all the disparate texts and create a genre of sorts for them. The secondary goal was to begin analysis into the issues of the naturalisation of soccer in Australia; that is, at what point and how will soccer become genuinely Australian, and not subject to the whims of the cultural cringe.

One of the more interesting aspects of this research is how little of the substantial work has been done by members of the major community players in Australian soccer. That is, where was the work by the Greeks, the Italians, the Croatians, etc? Yes, there are certainly works about these groups and their involvement in Aussie soccer, but often times these are written by people from outside these communities.

So the question that leads on from there is, why are there so few texts from Aussie wog writers dealing with soccer? The easy answer is, combined with their under-representation in Aussie literature anyway, and ingrained antipathy among the intellectual class for sport (David Malouf's poem 'At a School Athletics Day' always comes mind) and it seems utterly natural that these works shouldn't exist.

But when you dig a little deeper, you find the apparent lack of even mentions of soccer within migrant written works as problematic. Soccer clubs are some of the major institutions created by Continental European migrants. And it's not like other major areas of their lives are not covered in Australian literature. Social life, family life, church etc. And yet soccer seems to fall by the wayside for some reason.

Maybe the texts do exist, but are hidden in language/community specific literary journals (like the Greek 'Antipodes' journal)? Perhaps because they are written in languages other than English, it makes it more difficult for databases to annotate and archive their existence? Perhaps, influenced by their Anglo brethren, writers from non English speaking backgrounds do not conceive of sport as important enough to be written about 'seriously'?

All of which is a circuitous way of getting to the thing that I wanted to cover most in this entry. While having another look at the AusLit database, which collects and categorises works of Australian literature (sadly for the general public, access is generally limited to people with university library accounts), I found something intriguing. Among several new entries, there was this poem by Konstandina Dounis, who also goes by the name Dina Dounis.


I was happy to find it for several reasons. It's about South and it's (of course) about Middle Park. It's the first text that I've found that deals with our club outside of allusions one could take from David Martin's 1962 novel The Young Wife and my own haiku phase, and disregarding uses of Middle Park and South in the film adaptation of The Heartbreak Kid and of course the still much loved sitcom Acropolis Now.

It's also by a Greek, unlike most of the main literary texts dealing with Aussie-Greek soccer. It's by a woman, which helps undercut the notion that it was only blokes at the soccer in the old times - indeed, Dounis says it is a family outing. Dounis also brushes aside the issue of crowd violence as something 'occasional'. It also brings class issues into the picture, something which I told my students in my Australian Literature tutorial to do, but which they seemed to not be interested in.

My guess is that Dounis seems to be talking about going to Middle Park at some time during the 1960s. The poem makes allusions as to why crowds have fallen at all ethnic clubs (putting aside for the moment South's exclusion from the top flight). That sense of ethnic community solidarity, which was once so necessary for newly arrived migrants, on an individual and community level, is no longer a driving force. As discussed by Matthew Klugman in his work on Sydney's Italian-Australian soccer community (which you can find in here), while there is still nostalgia among first, second and third generation migrants for that part of Australian soccer, these days it is almost entirely a nostalgic phenomenon.

In the present, members of these communities do not feel that they need that tangible or formal bricks and mortar style of community interaction in order to be 'Greek' or 'Italian' or whatever cultural tag may apply. The same could probably be said of regional associations, local community groups and churches. The decline of the ethnically backed soccer club does therefore not exist in a social vacuum. The poem is balanced in both undercutting and confirming stereotypes of supporting South, but being anchored by a nostalgic tone, it avoids making a direct comment on the present and future.

If you want to find out more about Dounis you an start by going here and here. If anyone out there knows of any literary texts dealing with Australian soccer, no matter how trivial and whatever the quality or language, do let us know. We'd love to know about them.

Wednesday, 16 January 2013

2013 preparations slowly building steam

This off-season has seemingly lasted forever, and there's still two and half months to go. And without a Hellenic Cup to add structure to the pre-season, it will be an even more meandering affair than usual.

The latest news is that we've signed another forward/striker from Queensland, one Rhys Meredith. Meredith has been another one of those types on the edges of making the A-League.

Of course, we've already signed one Queenslander in Tyson Holmes. Interestingly, Hume City have also signed a couple of Queensland based players. Is this the beginning of a trend, or just an aberration? And why the VPL rather than NSWPL?

We've also signed Alan Kearney from Southern Stars, an apparently hard working Irish midfielder. Could do with one or more of those.

The players have started their pre-season schedule. Some of the players people thought may have been on their way out are still around. Goalkeeper Peter Gavalas is perhaps the most high profile of these. Gavalas had an awful year in 2012.

But with a two year contract, it was either keep him or find a club willing to buy his time out. It looks like he'll be number one again for this season - here's hoping he gets back to some of the form that prompted us to sign him in the first place.

Apparently former under 21s keeper George Malliaras is also taking part in pre-season with us, after a year at state league 2 outfit Clifton Hill. I saw him play for the Hillmen against Altona East last season, and to be honest I saw nothing in that game to suggest he had rectified his weaknesses. But maybe that was an off day.

Marinos Gasparis is still around, as is Dimi Hatzimouratis. I was prepared to see Gasparis leave - at his best he is one of the more effective midfielders/forwards in the VPL, but consistency has always been his enemy. Hatzimouratis was severely restricted by injury last season, so I'm interested to see him with a full and proper pre-season under his belt.

Steve Burton is reportedly gone back to Perth, as is back up goalkeeper Jason Saldaris. The status of Rhodri Payne's tenure depends on who you ask. Some claim he's still wanted, at least for pre-season, while others think he's gone. I tend to fall into the latter group. I liked both players, and felt that Saldaris was stiff not to get more opportunities considering Gavalas' woes in 2012.


Nicky Jacobs will miss most of the year recovering from the broken ankle he received while playing school football. Some of other 21s like Matko Budimir, Anthony Giannopoulos and Baggio Yousif are also training with the senior squad, but is that much different to last year?

Not too much word on random trialist types, but then again, we haven't played any friendlies yet. I was so bored last week that I went and watched an Altona East pre-season session last Saturday.

Saturday, 12 January 2013

Our Lakeside lease in the Victorian Gazette

From here. What's interesting about this is that we had been told at an information meeting that the club had to use its exclusive areas for in a particular manner - for football purposes. There was argument about why we couldn't use the space for say, the previously medical or corporate suites, as opposed to the board's choice of establishing a futsal court.

The board's explanation at that meeting was that commercial enterprises such as corporate suites were not allowed under our lease agreement with the government. The Victorian Gazette though, seems to contradict that - you can see the details below. Perhaps by the time it got to the minster, it became out of date?

Or perhaps the board meant to explain it in the sense that our government grant for the redevelopment of the social club could only be used if we redeveloped the space for football purposes? Either way, I'm happier that a facility is being provided, in the form of a futsal court, that can be used by our own juniors. The commercial implications of taking this route have been and will be debated for some time though. I'm also interested to see what the board's response is to the seeming contradiction.


Crown Land (Reserves) Act 1978
ORDER GIVING APPROVAL TO GRANT FIVE LEASES UNDER SECTIONS 17D AND 17DA
Under sections 17D and 17DA of the Crown Land (Reserves) Act 1978, I, Ryan Smith,
MP, Minister for Environment and Climate Change, being satisfied that there are special reasons which make the granting of five leases reasonable and appropriate in the particular circumstances and to do this will not be substantially detrimental to the use and enjoyment of any adjacent land reserved under the Crown Land (Reserves) Act 1978, approve the granting of five leases by the State Sport Centres Trust for the purposes listed in Schedule 1 below, over parts of the Lakeside Stadium Reserve described in Schedule 2 below, and, in accordance with section 17D(3)(a) of the Crown Land (Reserves) Act 1978, state that:

(a) there are special reasons which make the granting of these five leases reasonable and appropriate in the particular circumstances and

(b) to do this will not be substantially detrimental to the use and enjoyment of any adjacent land reserved under the Crown Land (Reserves) Act 1978.

SCHEDULE 1
South Melbourne's lease arrangement will see it Administration offices, members lounge and bistro, change rooms, medical suites, museum and shop.

Tuesday, 8 January 2013

Glenorchy Knights striker Simon Strang to trial with South

Here's some pre-season player news from Walter Pless' blog.

Simon Strang shakes hands with his coach, Chris Hey of Glenorchy Knights [PlessPix]
Simon Strang, the 22-year-old Glenorchy Knights striker, is off to Melbourne on Wednesday.

Well-known Melbourne football identity Jimmy Armstrong will take Strang to South Melbourne and Moreland Zebras for trials.

Strang has played for Tilford Zebras, New Town Eagles and Glenorchy Knights.

He scored half a dozen goals for Knights in the Southern Premier League last season.

“I’m going to South Melbourne first and see what happens,” Strang said.

“After that I will have a look at Morwell Zebras and I’m very excited about it all

“I have to thank George Krambousanos and John Muir for all their encouragement and help in arranging this.”

Krambousanos has in the past assisted local players James Sherman and Matthew Hill to find clubs in Melbourne.

“Jimmy Armstrong has strong links with South Melbourne and he’s a leading figure in Victorian football,” said Krambousanos.

“He’s always doing something for people and he’s just returned from Scotland so he’ll help Simon out on this trip.”

Sunday, 6 January 2013

What happened while we were on break...

Tyson Holmes officially signed. Here's a brief interview.



In a great example of South Melbourne FC Digital Media Team™ tomfoolery, the signing of Carl Recchia was announced with a video interview on youtube - only for it to be changed to 'private'. Then opened up again when they felt the time was 'just right'.

Even though, it's not open, I'm not going to bother linking to that video. Instead I'll do the churlish thing and describe it. It's a very brief chat with Carl, interspersed with highlights of Carl's previous South stint - this will be his third? - combined with the requisite fawning over the new facilities and goodtobebackisms. Just don't expect any illumination as to why Carl left in the first place.

There was also an AGM date announced - Sunday 27th January. About time, though some are grumpy because it's over the Australia Day long weekend.

I lost my patience at some new dawners. First time for everything.

The best book I read over the break was Miles Vertigan's 'Life Kills'. The story of plane hijacking told from the point of view of the terrorist, two bimbo stewards and a couple of macho pilots. A hyper-passive nihilist death march to the justified end of western civilisation. It's also funny.

Lastly, a mystery has also been apparently solved - the mysterious jersey which no one could identify was probably a women's team jersey. Check out 1:45 of this video.

Saturday, 5 January 2013

Thursday, 3 January 2013

12 Days of NSL Talkback - Zeljko 3

Zeljko discusses issues at the Melbourne Knights with regards to community integration.

Thursday, 27 December 2012

Wednesday, 26 December 2012

12 Days of NSL Talkback - John

What kind of soccer will Eddie Krncevic's team play? And does Red Star play from behind?

Tuesday, 25 December 2012

12 Days of NSL Talkback Radio - Daniel

A Melbourne Croatia/St Albans fan uploaded these some time ago. Some of these are pretty funny. This first one is not too funny though, and is in quite poor taste, being the day that some of our fans attacked the Adelaide City bus, with Angelo Constanzo being the most notable victim of the broken glass.

Thursday, 20 December 2012

Five Fabulous Years

Another year over.

Being honest here, there are times when I do consider stopping the blog, but that feeling doesn't tend to last too long.

I'm still not too sure about this project's purpose, but even after another loss, another minimum of an hour's journey home on public transport, and no light at the end of the irrelevance tunnel, I'm still drawn here.

Perhaps if I was someone with something better to do, I would have given up already. But that's enough self--pity for one year, because we also had a lot of fun.

That whole Toumbourou/3XY/Ta Nea/Greek Media Group thing entertained us something special during November. It also saw us get a large increase of visitors and comments. So many comments! And then the issue died and you all disappeared. Typical.

For what it's worth, this was my favourite post of mine of the year, because it shows my love of free to air television. I also liked this one, because it has a picture of a very tasty looking piece of cheese burek. And who could forget board member Tom Kalas stealing/borrowing/reinterpreting the first half of this post for his presentation to South members on the NCR?

Unless something major happens, we'll be keeping a low profile on the blog for the next couple of weeks, but do tune in every now and again, as I have about a dozen posts lined up which will entertain you for about two minutes per day. Anyway on to the thankyous.

Thanks to
All my readers, whether you like what you see or not. You add an incentive to keep going. Double cheers if you left a comment at some point.

The South Melbourne Hellas Hattrick crew.

Arthur Papas, for being a good sport.

Krizar, who balances out my loose anarcho-syndicalism with his western suburbs fascism.

Gains, for sanity and perspective. And for dinner options that weren't run of the mill souvlaki joints.

Steve from Broady, for his exquisite story telling.

Big thank you
Kiss of Death for providing match previews, and an aggressive angle to an enterprise which often veers too close to the maudlin and the mawkish.

And of course
Ian Syson.

Thursday, 13 December 2012

2013 fixtures are out

Came out yesterday I think it was. Let's see, what's interesting about them... oh, we play everybody twice, which isn't always a guarantee. We have our third Greek derby in a row to finish off the season, and this time it's also local derby, what with it being away and against Port and all. Will we have to pull out the heroics of 2011 against Northcote again? Or will it be a nothing game like the 2012 Bergers match up?

What else... oh, we start off with four consecutive away matches. Now, I'm lead to believe that there will be athletics events during the first two rounds of the season, so I don't have any problem with that. Curiously though, the FFV claims that the precinct will be out of action for eight weeks while works to remove the grand prix infrastructure take place.

I find this odd because, well, apart from the athletics people using Lakeside just two weeks after the grand prix (scheduled for 17 March), I can't recall ever having to miss that many consecutive home matches ever because of the grand prix, and certainly not six weeks after the race is finished. The mysteries of life I suppose.

Monday, 10 December 2012

Whatever You Do, Don't Panic!

Remember this crap? Well, because Melbourne Heart got another crappy crowd, we're once more at the stage where two things are happening. First, the usual South suspects have come out to dance on the Heart's impending grave, without noting the inherent ironies of doing so, while on the other side of the equation, Heart's supporters are by and large looking either to blame everyone and everything bar the model their club is based on, or attempting to come up with ever more ludicrous solutions to their plight.
I won't bore you with the full range of those ideas (examples include moving the team to Geelong, buying a Greek marquee player, getting a 10k capacity boutique soccer stadium built at Glenferrie Oval), but one idea that comes up from both sides of this issue is a merger/amalgamation/takeover scenario with our very own South Melbourne Hellas.

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

The Heart fans' idea tends to run a different way - that they should play out of the cheaper and smaller Lakeside Stadium in order to tap into the supposed latent A-League support buried within the South Melbourne community. Never mind that:
  • Our actual active support, like every other state league club, is poor.
  • Most of those people who could become enchanted with the A-League are already there.
  • If you want to find big numbers of Greeks at sporting events in Melbourne, you're more likely to find them at a Collingwood or Richmond AFL match.
  • And what's the obsession some Heart fans have with attracting Greek-Australian fans anyway? Aren't they meant to be a 'mainstream' operation?
The best parts of this situation (which seems to come up at least once every season) are the ever more ludicrous lengths people will go to back up their particular point of view. The person who created the two logos included in this entry deserves a prize for creativity, and for highlighting the difficulty in establishing whether anyone on either side of this issue is being genuine in this debate. That they are the views of a small minority of internet warriors is not much consolation.

Monday, 3 December 2012

More Spanos/Learning Greek Is Fun/Fixtures! Wait, Fixtures?

James Spanos Wins Under 21s Best and Fairest
I don't know why we're surprised anymore - James Spanos does it again, winning the under 21s best and fairest. The man is incredible, especially since he goes almost completely unnoticed by this blog and even most other pundits. Maybe it's time we truly admitted that our infatuation with one particular under 21s player this season has clouded our judgement to the detriment of our reporting.

So well done to Spanos, and well to the South Melbourne Super Duper Academy Revolution 3000, for not needing to actually have a proper voting system for finding out who the best 21s player was this season, and just going for Spanos. Excelsior!

Pateraki and Rombotis, Behind the Bike Sheds After School
Congratulations to all my non-Greek readers, you're about to get an off-season lesson in this beautiful language.
  • Τζαμπατζήδες, tzambatzithes - freeloaders or cheapskates is a good start, but this Greek phrase its own certain je ne sais quoi.
  • ψευτες, pseftes - liars
  • Kύριος Kεραυνος, Kyrios Keravnos - Lord (or Mister) Thunder
  • παπαγαλοι, papagali - parrots
  • Βραζιλία, Vrazilia - Brazil 
  • σπορια, sporia - seeds
If you missed the 3XY sports program, well hooley dooley, did you miss some fireworks. Host Kostas Paterakis was mad. Really mad. It seems as if Stathis Rombotis said so0me really nasty things about Pateraki and 3XY, because Pateraki was breathing fire.

Now, I haven't read the original article that seems to fired Paterakis up so much, but for the next hour or so, he laid into Rombotis. For once South wasn't copping the brunt, or indeed any flak in their coverage. This was personal.

It started off with παπαγαλοι and σπορια, and got more hilarious from there. Judging by Paterakis' tirade, Rombotis (whom Paterakis kept calling Kύριος Kεραυνος) seems to have made the allegation that the whole 3XY (and perhaps by inference, Greek-Australian sports journalist fraternity) are Τζαμπατζήδες. Well, Kostas didn't take kindly to that, nor the allegation that he and his colleagues were ψευτες.

During elaboration of the matter, we somehow ended up in Βραζιλία, and the 2000 World Club Championships and who paid for who to get over there. Then we moved into the 2004 efforts to save the club, from which Paterakis claimed that Rombotis was absent.

Then Paterakis, absolutely fuming at this point, basically called Rombotis out, daring him to call, as long as he kept his call to five minutes, because they didn't want it to drag on for an hour. If Rombotis did call, he didn't make it to the air.

Some other highlights:
  • The thunder sound affects they played at one stage
  • Playing, I'm pretty sure it was this παπαγαλο song. I nearly died.
  • Once again confirming why they have no time to cover anything on their show, by talking about this issue for about 50 minutes (and let's not forget the 20 minute chat with Kevin Muscat - I switched it off for that discussion).
  • Mind you, they had finished with the issue, then George Karandonis turned up and it kicked off again.
  • The claim made by Paterakis that, if they wanted to, they had plenty of other ways of hurting South. 
What was great about this hour long tirade, is that apart from the times when they're wrestling with whose microphone is supposed to be on, and callers dropping out, is that there was some actual effort put into the show. Little things like song selection and sound affects add so much. More please.

Still, disappointed that there was no sign of the promised extended talkback session on South's recent crisis. Nor was there any reference made to the previous week's promise to have a South representative on the show next week. Don't tell me that's going to end up not happening like the last time they made that promise?

2013 Fixtures
Apparently these were supposed to come out today. No such luck. A certain παπαγαλο has told us that the season will be starting on the week of April 6th.

Friday, 30 November 2012

Queenslander Tyson Holmes joins South for 2013

Have we ever had a Tyson play for South before? The story below is from the Sunshine Coast Daily.

Fire dynamo moves on  by Steve Zemek

New signing Tyson Holmes playing for
Sunshine Coast Fire in the QSL Photo: Warren Lynam.
FOOTBALL: Tyson Holmes has always been a fish slightly too big for the Queensland State League pond.

A founding member and former captain of the Sunshine Coast Fire, he has been an integral part of a side that has dominated the competition for the past five years.

It would be an embellishment to say he has been the lone driving force behind the club's success, but the Fire's rivals will be glad to see the 25-year-old's back.

For years it has been a catchcry of his coaches and teammates: "Tyson should be playing in the A-League."

The attacking midfielder has been on the cusp before, trialling or training with several national clubs, including Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and the defunct Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury.

While his signing with Victorian Premier League side South Melbourne FC does not guarantee him a saloon passage into the top flight, it will move him from the periphery into the direct line of sight of many A-League clubs.

He stops short of saying his move is motivated by a desire to play in the A-League, but does acknowledge the Victorian competition is considered the strongest state league in the country and that he has a desire to prove himself.

"The Victorian Premier League is probably the strongest state league in Australia," he said yesterday.

"A lot of the players are coming through to the A-League from the Victorian Premier League. All the A-League sides keep an eye on the competition.

"It's a massive opportunity. I'm going to get down there and try to prove myself and get out of my comfort zone away from Queensland."

Holmes fielded offers from several Victorian clubs but signed with South Melbourne after being impressed with its set-up and professionalism.

The club is considered one of the most prestigious in Australia, winning four National Soccer League championships in the 1980s and '90s.

Holmes said it was a difficult decision to leave the Fire but he felt the time was right after the side's fourth grand final win in front of a home crowd against Whitsunday last month.

"Playing with the boys has been fantastic - they're a bunch of my best mates," he said.

"With (retiring forward) Shaun (Blackman) and a few others probably going away, the grand final at the end of the year, it just felt right - it felt like it was time to move on.

"It's amazing what we've achieved. It's been an extraordinary time, but it's time to move forward."

Thursday, 29 November 2012

Worlds of Football Conference 2012

Here it is, finally, a little late, no pictures (I'm sorry, I just couldn't be bothered), but finished.

The conference's theme this time around was 'Heritage, Communities and Cultures'. Of course, within the scope of that topic there was much wriggle room, but the narrowness of some of the papers, principally the AFL club related selections, left me cold. However, there were several worthwhile papers also given, and some good rapport had with the other delegates. My handwritten, notes, where I took them, are pretty crappy, and thus this rundown will not be as good as my notes on the previous conference. The further on you go, the more likely these notes will also suffer from the exhaustion of the long and crowded schedule.

 

DAY 1 - MCG / Hans Ebeling Room
First up was the keynote address by Kevin Moore, from England's National Football Museum. How do you create a museum for the entirety of the game, in a nation that has such fervour for the game? It's not easy. But Kevin Moore says you start off by not targeting it at die hard football fans, because they'll turn up anyway.

Because you see football as part of broader society, you don't try and gloss over all the negatives in the game's history, including the stadium tragedies, the violence, racism, misogyny and homophobia, no matter how distasteful these issues are to some. You provide an outlet for people to create and provide their own memories, within reason.

You do not make yourself the be all and end all of historical preservation. You work with local communities to find ways of preserving local history locally, and only step in to preserve history as a last resort. You try and tell stories, not just provide facts and figures. You recognise the importance of topophilia, but you do not become a slave to it, in part because football topophilia can be expressed in several ways.

In summary, Kevin Moore provided a very interesting look at the development of the National Football Museum, from its beginnings in Preston to its move to Manchester. Moore talked about the difficulties in securing funding, the fact that there is no national sports museum in England, and that the museum in some ways has to compete against Premier League club museums, which seek to tell a very different, hagiographic story, and which are often not standalone enterprises, but part of the 'stadium experience'.

An Aside
One of the people attending the conference, though he wasn't presenting a paper, was Ian Kerr. Kerr is trying to start a new higher-brow football journal called The Thin White Line- think The Blizzard, but with an Australian bias. He's currently trying to get edition zero up and going. Kerr has a background of working in trade magazines and publishing, and he seems to have a pretty good grasp on the kind of content he wants. So if you're interested in contributing something to this publication, do give him a buzz. I might end up doing something for it, if I can deviate from my decidedly middle of the road approach.


DAY 2 - MCG / Jim Stynes Room
Day 2 began with a panel discussion, featuring Helen Walpole from the National Sports Museum, Gregor McCaskie from the Essendon Football Club Hall of Fame, and the aforementioned Kevin Moore.

Walpole talked about the National Sports Museum's collection, which told us something we could probably guess by ourselves - that cricket, Australian Rules and the Olympics are at the forefront of their collections. That's understandable, but I think it presents a particular problem to that museum in that it will then struggle to deal with the other stories that Australian sport has. As someone who likes to talk about the parallel existence of soccer in Australia, this concerns me. Then again, the game itself has to learn to take better care of its own history.

I think Essendon Hall of Fame curator McCaskie talked about the difference (as did Kevin Moore) between Hall of Fame setups and museums, in that the latter term should be a protected one, to avoid confusion between educational efforts and self-promoting ones. McCaskie also reflected on how people are fallible. Memory is faulty, reputations whitewashed.

Then it was time to move into some of the papers.

Deb Agnew looked at the issues the SANFL had with youth retention. She was mostly focusing on boys participation, and the reasons behind the stable but unchanging participation numbers. Surveys were conducted across several clubs, both country and city, about what lead to players staying or dropping out. While players often responded that umpiring was a major bugbear, injuries were far more important in seeing players leave the game, especially as they made the transition from junior football to senior football.

I was interested to learn that Australian rules clubs in South Australia are restricted to having 28 players on their list, at every competitive age group. It was also interesting to see that the AFL youth program Auskick had almost zero impact on influencing South Australian participants from taking up the sport at older age levels. The fact that the numbers were stagnant was not elaborated on to a great degree.

Part of the problem with state specific football papers, is that each state is different enough historically and culturally, that it is difficult to conduct meaningful comparative work, let alone decide which state should be used a 'control' sample. How we as Australian sports academics get around this is something that needs to be worked on.

Ian Cunningham's presentation was on communication and sports officiating - 'developing a feel for the game'. That kind of thing is a pretty nebulous concept as far as I'm concerned. Cunningham looked at officiating and player reactions to officiating in several different sports. Nor surprisingly, there seemed to be a general trend among player respondents that they preferred a free flowing contest. There was analysis of hand gestures, body language and use of verbal language - apparently six word explanations of decisions work best in that environment.

I thought there could have been greater depth to the presentation. While Cunningham managed to answer most of the questions thrown at him adequately, he didn't have an answer for my question about whether there was a difference in player views between sports like rugby union, where only the captain can speak to the official, and sports like soccer, where every man and his dog feel like they have a license to harass the referee.To his credit, Cunningham acknowledged that was something he should probably follow up on.

While having a chat with him during a break in proceedings, neither of us was able to find an answer as to why players felt that referees needed to have played the game to understand it, while players who had never officiated a match felt they had enough authority to judge referees. One of those mysteries of life, I suppose, to be put alongside while male sports reporters who have no high level experience are more qualified to cover sport than their female equivalents.

Deb Agnew presented a paper that was very much a follow up to her presentation at the previous conference, on the difficulties faced by AFL footballers upon retirement. In that sense, there was little new information that was provided, but the vox pops from the player interviews were still interesting.

Peter Ochieng presented one of the more surprising papers at the previous conference, in attempting to rescue the bad reputation of player agents and managers, by emphasising how important good agents were to a healthy footballer marketplace, especially for African players. This time around he sought to find a method of identifying what separates African Cup of Nations winners, from African Cup of Nations losers. Using data based around resources allocated to football - professional players, clubs, stadiums etc - he used statistical techniques beyond my understanding to try and find impartial rationales for why some countries were successful, and why some weren't.

While not initially being super impressed by the outcomes and methodology, I at least was able to see that his data was important, and that his use of that data was probably sound. But now I'm not so sure. I'm not satisfied with how he couldn't really find a way to accommodate Egypt into the frame, considering their relatively low level of achievement on the resources scaled compared with their very highly successful tournament participation. Nor was I happy with his explanation of why South Africa had failed so miserably as a footballing nation over the last decade or so. And there was no correlation given to the difference in results (if they exist) for World Cup qualifying as compared to African Cup of Nations qualifying, complicated as that is by them being often lumped in together as part of the same process.

Shane Pill provided one of the more curious presentations, on Australian rules football in the USA from 1910-13. What could have been another out and out propaganda piece was actually rooted in solid scholarship, and told an interesting story to boot. It seems that Australian rules had gained some sort of traction among a segment of the private school system in parts of the United States, but that World War 1 and the rise of college football (of the American variety) put a stop to it. I think Pill overestimates how much traction Australian rules had actually made in the US (I'm not sure if that was his intention, but that's how it came across to me), but it was an interesting presentation nonetheless.

Matthew Klugman presented a paper he had worked on with Francesco Ricatti, who was absent from the conference. The fancy name for the paper was Connected to Something: Soccer as a Site of Transnational Passions, Memories, Communities for Italian Migrants. The actual presentation focused on Sydney's Italian soccer community, and their relationships to their major clubs, APIA Leichhardt and Marconi Fairfield.

This was one of the standout papers, not just because it was right up my alley thematically, but also because it tackled a lot of the myths and assumptions about Italian soccer in Australia, as well the myths of the transition from NSL to A-League.

The Italian politics of North vs South did not feature heavily in the presentation - if anything, the Sydney issues of inner city (APIA) vs outer suburbs (Marconi) were more important to the way the supporters of these two clubs viewed themselves and each other.

The paper looked at what many 'bitter' Australian soccer fans still refuse to acknowledge - that the affinity people had for these clubs was situational, and bound to be temporary at the first sign of trouble. Australian soccer is not unique in this regard, but the ethnic question serves to a provide a simultaneously dominant and obscuring narrative - one could easily make similar observations about the VFA, for example.

Despite the obvious passion and nostalgia of the interviewees, personal experience demanded that I ask two obvious questions:
  • How many of the people interviewed still attended APIA or Marconi matches?
  • If they didn't still attend matches, how did they reconcile their nostalgia and their view of themselves as supporters of those clubs, with their current lack of support by means of attendance?
The answer to the first question was, mostly no. That question was extraordinarily loaded (how partisan of me), but unavoidable. The answer to that second question was interesting, and revealing. The respondents seemed to think there was no conflict in their present attitudes with their previous behaviour.

What they disliked most was how the A-League and FFA had branded all of that era as either unimportant, or something to be wiped off the historical map. The respondents felt disrespected. Coming back to the state vs state issue, there were questions about Italian soccer supporters from Victoria and the fate of Brunswick Juventus, but not being within the scope of this presentation, it was an issue that remained unresolved.

One can easily project a similar study on Greek-Australian soccer fans bearing similar results, but there would have to be some divergence. After all, APIA dropped out of the NSL in the early 1990s, and Marconi crawled to the end of the NSL in terms of supporter numbers. In comparison, if you believe the data from that time, South Melbourne was apparently maintaining and increasing its spectator numbers

One would also have to analyse not just those supporters who left South because they made a distinction between 'Old NSL South' and 'Newborn VPL South', but also those who turned ideologically on the club.

Brian Moroney's paper on 'The UltraS of modern football' was interesting, if disconcerting. I'll admit that when it comes to the crunch, I don't really know squat about football ultras, let alone the one with a capital 'U' and a capital 'S'. Academic work on this more extreme faction of football support is thin on the ground, in large part because the UltraS are rightly wary of academics and journalists. So it was a fair effort for Moroney to be able to get the trust of members of Lazio's 'Irriducibili', especially considering he doesn't speak Italian.

It just so happens to be that the UltraS aren't just a football movement - they also have charitable and social wings. Moroney struggled to accommodate those noble causes against the driving ideological force behind these movements - violent fascism. Nor was he able to answer the question about how Livorno's left-wing supporters fit into this scene. But perhaps I'm the wrong person to be looking at this topic, since I abhor violence and fascism, and think that neither of these two things has any place at the football.

If you want to have a read of a version of Ian Syson's presentation, entitled 'The Calm and The Storm', just hit the link, and make up your own mind. He'll appreciate the hits, too. I will say however, that as with my earlier musings on Deb Agnew's paper on SANFL youth retention, the differences between states is something that will come up repeatedly for Syson as he continues this work. I think Syson is aware of this, but how to deal with the different stages of Australian (nee Victorian) rules expansion across the colonies? Was it undertaken as an evangelical crusade? Or was it more akin to a form colonisation? Does it have more of a sense of empire building? And how much do the code wars of our times get in the way of accurately assessing the equivalent issues from 100, 120 or 140 years ago? Something to ponder

Stephen Alomes is a bit of a lunatic - not that there's anything wrong with that. Given his reputation of being one of the AFL's/Aussie rules' most shameless propagandists, at least in academic circles, I was expecting the worst. Somewhat surprisingly, it took him a while to plumb those depths this time.

His presentation topic was on the aesthetic merits of Australian Rules football, and what to do about the rolling maul that threatens to suffocate the game. There were interesting points that Alomes (whose academic career seems to specialise in explorations of Australian nationalism) made about the notions of play, art and the agon, but all the potentially fascinating insights that could come out of such a discussion were undone by Alomes' starting point - that Australian Rules football is the best game in the world - and working back from there.

Alomes also heavily and unashamedly tried to plug his new book, which made the actual interesting parts of his presentation even more isolated. I'm still confused as to what purpose he thought there was in showing the audience his rather mediocre paintings of Australian rules football scenes were. The highlight came when academic and former 1960s Melbourne player Bob Stewart, asked Alomes when the 'golden age' of Australian Rules was supposed to have been, considering that Stewart had played in his fair share of games out there (pointing out to the MCG arena) where the ball struggled to leave the centre square, and had 36 blokes surrounding it.

It's fair to say that when Alomes says that Australian rules is the greatest game in the world, he's not on the same wavelength as many of the game's lay supporters who make that claim. The contradiction of Aussie rules is that, in its own mythology, it is and always has been the greatest game on earth; yet its rules have changed frequently, while at the same time these rule changes are bemoaned by the common man. Alomes suggests that the game needs more changes - restrictions on how many players can be around the ball, numbers on the field, no marks for kicks that go backwards. For someone who loathes the offside rule, these seem to be inherent contradictions in this change manifesto - and yet he seems entirely unaware of this.

As best as I can recall, Roy Hay and Les Murray provided an interesting look at why the Hungarian football team didn't turn up to the 1956 Olympics, especially since other Hungarian teams, like the water polo side, did turn up. Since I don't watch much of SBS football broadcasting anymore, it was good to see Les doing something a bit different, and dare I say meaningful. Hay set up the presentation, and Murray took it from there, including relaying details of meetings he had with former players and officials of that era. Most evocative were Murray's descriptions of life under the communist regimes of that era, and the important role he perceived that Hungary's successful football side had in maintaining communist rule.

The panel on 'the future of football', consisting of Richard Baka, Les Murray, Steven Alomes was, as expected, mostly a waste of time. However, it was almost made worthwhile by one old bloke in the audience who asked Murray what kind of future soccer had in Asia, when Asians don't really like soccer? Yes, someone actually asked that question.


DAY 3 - WHITTEN OVAL
Chris Egan presented a paper on the founding of Perth Glory, with the premise that rather than being the 'English/British Wonderland' it was often portrayed as being, the Glory was actually more influenced by Western Australian parochialism (which Egan called 'nationalism'). In that sense, he was arguing against Tara Brabazon's assertions from over a decade ago, that Perth Glory's 'Englishness' was its defining characteristic, making it out of synch with both Australian sport in general and the NSL in particular.

If I got it right, Egan argued that he wasn't saying that Brabazon was wrong, but rather that her more contemporary analysis, as well her as her particular academic background lead almost inevitably to those conclusions. Roy Hay, one of the audience members, was more forthright in claiming that this paper was overturning Brabazon's understanding of Perth Glory.

Egan also talked briefly about Perth Glory's victory over then A-League boss Matt Carroll and the FFA in being able to celebrate its entire history, and not just the A-League parts. Egan argued this was important, in that it would help make sure that recent Australian soccer history was seen as part of a continuum, and not as something which appeared out of and was connected to nothing.

While I admire the sentiment, I think Egan perhaps is too optimistic in seeing this win by Glory being replicated for use by ex-NSL clubs, especially the ethnic ones. I talked about the assault on South's continuity in this post, something which comes not just from the FFA, but from our former supporters. Egan has left a comment there, and I'd be interested to see if more of my audience has something to say on the matter.

Egan's paper is part of a larger effort, that of writing a book on the first 15 years of Perth Glory. It was one of the best papers of the conference, especially for the great primary sources Egan was able to obtain, which saw various figures disagreeing about the rationale and political implications of Perth Glory's entry into the NSL. We look forward to seeing the end result, in a few years time hopefully.

Because of a changed schedule (Mark Pennings, who was meant to be first up in his session, but turned up late), I missed MCC librarian Trevor Ruddell's presentation on the uniforms of Australian national teams. And because Chris Egan's presentation started late, I only got to see the tail end of Tim Hogan's presentation on a bibliography of Australian Rules football.

Hogan was looking at every single type of written material, and the ways of categorising and collecting them. In some ways, this topic is in line with my own, albeit mine (as you'll see later) has a much narrower focus. I did get to have a good discussion with Hogan about my work, all of which made me disappointed not to have seen more of his presentation.

Mark Pennings was there to talk about his new book (the first of four volumes) about the early history of Australian rules football,  and the issues around researching that topic. Veracity is at the top of that list. Even when you think you have all the scores down accurately, something comes up to annihilate the validity of your data. Likewise, most amateur chroniclers of that era did not have an eye for posterity, and their information is provided with large gaps, as if the missing details should be taken for granted.

This then leads to massive misconceptions about what rules were being used, who was organising games and how, all of which influences the propaganda battles of the present. And while the presentation was entertaining and informed, one also got the feeling that while Pennings is at the cutting edge of Australian rules historical work, he's still at best halfway to where Ian Syson has ended up. That doesn't really mean that one is right to the exclusion of the other, but it's interesting to see how two different writers coming from two very different places, at times using some of the same material, can come to such different conclusions.

Following the morning sessions, there was a panel discussion of sorts on 'Football in the West'. Brett Daniher, Western Bulldogs' community liaison I think was his title, went first. He talked about all the community work that the Bulldogs do, and the attempts by some other clubs to mimic it. I suppose rather by necessity, Daniher fell into the trap of trying to sell the work as integral to the Bulldogs' efforts to mark out their territory in the western suburbs, in order to maintain supporter levels and find new supporters. And yet, he never seemed to touch upon the fact,that  even though the western suburbs are growing very quickly, that unless these new arrivals were from non-Australian rules backgrounds, most would likely bring their AFL allegiances with them.

As far as I can remember, Scott Munn, Melbourne Heart's CEO, didn't talk so much about the western suburbs. He talked about how the future challenges in getting people, especially young families, involved with sport (focusing mostly on his own elite level) will not be related to costs as much as it will be related to time. It struck me as quite a middle class sort of argument. That is, not that the argument was invalid, but that the argument was narrow, and therefore prone to negating the importance of getting working class people involved with soccer. It strikes me only now, a week or two on from the conference, how easily such a comment could be allowed to pass - it doesn't say good things about what the authorities (and clubs) think about the place of the working class in local soccer.

As an aside, one of the more curious things that was said by Munn, was that one off attempts at trying to convert people to your cause like school clinics were almost doomed to fail (he used some clever analogy about pissing on your own leg - I can't remember how it went, but it was quite funny). All of which puts another attempt by Heart to give away free tickets into a whole different perspective.

Tim Shellcot from the Western Region Football League was the best of the three speakers in this session, in part because he didn't suffer from a proliferation of marketing speak. He put forward the challenges faced by the organisation, which fell broadly into two main areas. The first challenge was obtaining new facilities in growth areas of the outer western suburbs. The second was trying to find ways of bolstering the survival chances of older clubs from the Footscray/Sunshine areas, where demographic changes have wreaked havoc on clubs who have failed to keep up with the times.

Sound familiar? Those growth areas will be fought over by every sport. Those clubs in the traditional Footscray District Football League (the league's former name) areas are going to face the same issue many of the head in the sand soccer clubs will face. Lack of diversity will not see them viewed favourably by councils who are seeking to have their facilities used by the broadest range of their constituents.

Shellcot's one failure was in not considering soccer as his organisation's number one competitor. Instead, he singled out cricket as a threat, as that sport, traditionally part of the Victorian Anglo-Celtic winter-summer nexus with footy, is according to him now competing for monopolisation of talent. It is an interesting phenomenon of recent times, that talented young athletes are being asked to commit to a single sport at a younger age.

There is also the issue of grounds being shared with cricket. Shellcot did not seem to be able to the see the cricket side's argument on these matters. Nor did he elaborate on the strong place soccer has in the western suburbs, and what influence that may have had in the areas like Sunshine and surrounds where Aussie rules is apparently struggling at suburban level.

Laura Hale gave one of the few explicitly new media related papers, on using Wikipedia and Wikinews as a way of promoting African women's soccer. As a one time semi-prolific wikipedian myself, it was interesting to hear about many of the trials and tribulations I had also gone through: needing to use foreign language sources, fights with other editors, avoiding original research etc.

In addition to that area of her presentation, Hale also discussed her involvement, via her online work, of creating improved media kits for some of the Paralympic sports as well as for able bodied Olympic athletes. Even simple things like having a photo and bio for every athlete! It was interesting and impressive stuff, with lessons to be learned for many smaller scale sports organisations who think that this kind of stuff is inherently beyond their abilities.

Then it was time for my own presentation. Based upon my honours thesis, which I finished last year, I gave a very stripped back look at the history of Australian soccer literature. No time for quoting from the texts, or getting into any sort of depth with regards to the major texts, nor for analysing the parallels between the academic work and the creative work. What I decided to cover then was a brief history of this niche (and in some ways artificial) genre; a look at my research methodology; the varied themes of the texts; what doesn't quite fit; and the future directions this area of research should take.

Despite having a small attendance at my presentation, the questions from the audience were quite good. I was asked about whether I had covered similar texts from overseas, to which I had to reply that, no, I hadn't, but that I had some intention of doing so. A common response I had to give was that, within the scope of the thesis, there just wasn't enough room to cover all the areas of this genre that I wanted to, especially the area of children's and young adult texts - that would hopefully come in the next phase of researching and writing on this topic.  One of the audience members had apparently attempted similar work with the theme of swimming, and could identify with the difficulties of a pre-database era in terms of research.

Because I was scheduled directly against him, I unfortunately missed Les Street's presentation, looking at Sydney's NSL venues, work which was based on his masters thesis looking at (I think) the history of NSL venues. It was the presentation I was most looking forward to, and I was really disappointed that I didn't get to see it.

Paul Kennedy, of ABC News 24 fame, gave a presentation about a short documentary he made, which was broadcast on his Contact Sport program. The documentary (which you can watch here) looked at the 1892 boat accident which wiped out a majority of the Mornington Football Club's playing list. Worthy material perhaps, but it didn't do much for me. Part of that was due to the documentary itself, which felt a little like one of those earnest films made in a university documentary class (and I should know, I was a student in such a class), with the same sort of production values. The use of music, title cards, hokey narrative devices and the most obvious 'serious/poignant' camera angles was just so amateur that good community television making has left them behind. Perhaps others will get something more out of it.

Rachel Murphy is the Western Bulldogs' liaison person for their relationship with Victoria University. She went through the ways in which students get access and work experience through an obviously mutually beneficial arrangement. But like Brett Daniher's earlier presentation, it all felt a bit too much about the hard sell to me. It's the perennial plight of the cynic.

Peter Haby of the Hawthorn Museum, provided an an overview of that institution, mainly its role and its history. Haby was obviously knowledgeable and passionate about his topic, but the presentation was unfocused and unwieldy, and felt like it went on forever. Now I know that's not a very academic way of looking at things, but there's no way of dressing it up.

Still, it was interesting to hear one version of how some sporting anoraks, trainspotters and assorted weirdo collectors have been able to re-cast their obsessive hoarding and statistical obsessions into respectable pursuits. And not just respectable - but also marketable. Not that these sorts of museums are self-funding, not a by a long shot. But within the scope of selling a club, history. as approved by the clubs themselves, is suddenly worth looking after.

Of course, the aforementioned anoraks just want to carry on doing what they've always done, with the bonus of sharing their life's work with the general public.

Helen Walpole from the National Sports Museum gave a very practical demonstration of everything you need to look out for when attempting to preserve and display archival material. Wood, acids, oils, air, dirty hands are all just waiting to devour metal, cloth, paper - in fact any material you can think of. The importance of selecting tools and devices that cause the least amount of damage and risk  to artifacts is crucial, and the novel use of fishing line, mannequins, gloves etc, were fascinating.

It put a lot of things into perspective, seeing as South itself will be creating its own museum when the social club gets redeveloped. Are we going to go down the same route of every local club, just cramming everything into a bunch of trophy cabinets? Or are we going to use this opportunity to tell a story, both of our club and of the objects themselves?

Complaints
Call me petty, but I preferred the previous conference's location at Victoria University's Flinders Street campus, if only because the lecture theatres and clasrooms used actually had tables where someone could take notes properly. The notes I made on this conference suffer greatly in comparison to their predecessor, because about halfway through day two I just gave up trying to write on a notepad on my lap.

And while the aesthetics of looking over the MCG from the privileged areas of the MCC were pleasant enough, it reinforced the fact that these areas are off limits for the vast majority of the public. Which would be fine if it was during the cricket season, but the fact that access is also granted during the AFL season always strikes me as hypocritical. No doubt that there are bound to be those who have an MCC membership who will say that they have every right to have access to AFL matches. I'd hazard to guess that if AFL access was removed, we'd see a massive decline in the membership base of this so called 'cricket' club.

There was also a distinct lack of rugby league and union presentations, just one presentation between the two sports. Add to this the tunnel vision/myopia of some of the Australian rules papers, and it all got a bit too samey at times.

And finally, in no particular order of importance:
  • Powerpoint must die.
  • Flowcharts must die.
  • What's with trying to give us all this Western Bulldogs crap? And especially with trying to get conference attendants to contribute to the Western Bulldogs museum? I came here to see interesting papers, not for being bombarded with Bulldog propaganda.
  • The people who packed away the scones before half the people could get to them must die.

Positives
The good papers - the ones with new insights, those which overthrew old assumptions, and who were engaged with the questions of methodology - were worth the effort. Those attendees who were also willing to cross code boundaries made the experience worthwhile.

The next conference, scheduled for some time in 2014, will apparently be at least loosely based around the theme of soccer's 2015 Asian Cup, which Australia will of course be hosting. Expecting some really interesting papers then, especially in seeing what sort of 'Asians love Aussie Rules' propaganda pieces come out of it.