Good to be back - South Melbourne 3 Port Melbourne 2

So, back to normal somewhat, the social club open even with its truncated "first day back" menu, and the South faithful were keen to spend a summer's Wednesday by the lake checking out the squad, while putting some money over the bar. Bentleigh Greens coach John Anastadiadis was just one of the interested onlookers at Lakeside last night, watching as former Bentleigh (and of course, also ex-South) player Andy Brennan continued to spend his pre-season time with South.

FFV match commentator Chris Gleeson has noted that Brennan will sign, but you know how I feel when it comes to these things - until a players steps onto the field in a league match, I'm always wary. After all, did we not once sign a player by the name of Jason Hicks, who ended up somewhere else without kicking a ball for us in anger? Did we not once sign Kevin Nelson, whose transfer was mysteriously delayed until after the team lists were meant to be handed in before round 1, 2006? And of course we can add the now incredibly obscure players of days of yore who we had signed but who never fronted up for us for who knows what reason.

For those South fans who have begging, craving, lusting over a need to bolster our forward stocks, last night's hit out had plenty to offer you. Milos Lujic, Leigh Minopoulos, Sam Smith, Amir Osmancevic, Andy Brennan (first half only), Giordano Marafioti and even Kaine Sheppard. Sheppard, most notably in local terms of Heidelberg, and most recently of Finnish club Seinäjoen Jalkapallokerho, had been training with Northcote. Does this cavalcade of attacking talent mean - even if Chris Taylor decides to ditch half of them, because where would you put them all anyway - a pending change to the game plan? I would not rule that out.

Defensively, things are a bit more, well, problematic (I will try and make that the last time I use that word this year). As reported in a brief paragraph in last Thursday's Neos Kosmos, our number one goalkeeper Nikola Roganovic has retired. Together with Zaim Zeneli's move to North Sunshine, our goalkeeping combo will be all new in 2018. There was some discussion over the off-season - oh, about a month or so ago - that we were in the hunt for Chris Oldfield, but that doesn't seem to have progressed. Thus we're trialling a few blokes, and are apparently looking to get Alistair Bray as our number one choice.

In front of the goalkeepers we have a few options - Kristian Konstantinidis, Ajdin Fetahagic, Darby Dexter, but new recruit Jake Marshall will be out injured for a couple of months, or so they say. Under 20s right-back Josh Hodes continues to get game time, and if it's true that Tim Mala will be taking a year off from soccer, then that's one less obstacle in Hodes' way to getting a senior gig at South. Those hoping for a holding or attacking midfielder, I guess that situation will eventually find someone playing that role. Maybe we'll just direct everything up the wings as per last season, with the twist of using the right-hand side as well as the left.

As for the game itself... very energetic from most players on both sides, but also very loose, with a lot of space for forwards to have a crack at goal. The finishing could've been better; but then again, the  finishing could almost always be better.

Friendly on Wednesday vs Port, at Lakeside

This Wednesday at 7:30PM, it's a case of getting in while you can - the club has announced an open doors pre-season friendly against Port Melbourne at Lakeside. No need for special handshakes, secret codes, or knowing the bloke on the door. I don't know if the social club will be in operation.

Inside Football Stadium 54-50 - Blue Team 4 White Team 0

On a hunch and with a backup plan in place just in case this adventure falls apart, you venture out without any guarantee that you will find what you seek.

There's an overcast sky, and the route resembles that of another journey you've made hundreds of times before.

Approaching the presumed destination, at the assumed but unconfirmed and unknowable kickoff time, you can hear the thud of footballs being kicked.

Getting nearer to the sound, in the distance and through a fence, you can make out players in blue shirts. This must be the place; this must be the time.

Going against intuition, you try a northern gate; it's locked. Going around to the southern side, you slip through a gate along with people you do not recognise. The gatekeeper does not seem to mind.

There's a game which has just kicked off, but you're not here; this isn't happening. Someone who seems vaguely familiar agrees with you on that point, pointing out that it's 'family only' today.

You make the claim that you are family, but it comes out more like a question than a statement of fact. Everything seems uncertain.

Looking around, at first you don't recognise any familiar faces. There's perhaps 100 people at most in the grandstand, but where they've come from and how they knew to be here now, you don't know.

There are a full compliment of officials, but the balls seem flat. You think to yourself that surely the officials cost more than filling the balls with free air. But maybe air on this strange planet isn't free.

A man comes up to greet you, as if he knows you. You think that you've seen his face before, and his voice strikes a familiar tone. The environment has you doubting reality, but you play along.

You think you've seen the blue team somewhere else, in another dimension perhaps, but the team in white shirts and black shorts, you haven't the faintest idea of who they are.

In the first half the teams go back and forth, the white team relying on counter attacks, getting close on a few occasions. The blue team would've scored had their striker been possessed of a right foot.

There is nowhere to socialise, and nowhere to have a beer or some food. You can't help but feel that  this is not the way things should be, but you don't know why you feel this way.

The second half sees the blues swap over personnel en masse, and then fire four goals past their opponents.

You want to take down notes of notable performers, but many of the blue team's shirts have no numbers. Only haircuts and boots provide distinguishing marks.

The match ends, and you leave the ground and know instinctively that you've never been here before, and you weren't here today. No one was here. Even the betting websites deny the existence of this game. It didn't happen.

With apologies to Edward Packard.

On the matter of the sudden expansion of a giant ball of burning gas

If there are any South Melbourne Hellas fans left - and I'm not sure that there are - they may be wondering what's going on at their beloved club. Is the club signing any players? Does the senior team have any friendlies coming up? Does the club even exist?

Some of these concerns can be put down to the club's sole paid part-time social media person being overseas on holiday (fair enough), but I assume that there are other people around at the club who could tell us stuff if they wanted to. But maybe they don't want to? Maybe they don't know how to? Maybe they think that if no one talks about the club for long enough, it will cease to exist, and therefore we'll all be the better for it.

Let's look at one curious situation in the lack of 'news'. Jump onto the Lakeside Stadium website and check out the calendar there for a list of upcoming events. In December 2017, within a reasonably crowded month events-wise for Lakeside Stadium, you can see SMFC gala days and midweek exclusive use sessions, used for training and scratch matches.

Moving ahead to January 2018 however...

and there appears to be diddly squat SMFC content. There's South Melbourne athletics, Athletics Victoria, and even a Carlton Football Club exclusive session, which I assume is them trying to prepare for the AFLX thing, or else why waste time hiring out Lakeside? For the running track? To be fair, there appears to be very little official use by anyone for January, but that doesn't lessen my concern from a South Melbourne Hellas point of view.

Is it possible then that the former, glorious South Melbourne Hellas social media presence was actually an example of star death?

When a star like South Melbourne Hellas has burned all of its hydrogen fuel, it expands to become a red giant. This may be millions of kilometres across - big enough to swallow the planets Mercury and Venus. After puffing off its outer layers, the star collapses to form a very dense white dwarf.

In simpler terms, perhaps our social media presence, self-produced media, and A-League bid antics, rather than being a case of a resurgent South Melbourne, those efforts were actually a form of bloated nuclear-cosmic self-cannibalism; the final stages of the lifespan of what was at best only a modest sun, before it collapsed upon itself and becomes a dim white dwarf. Hey, you try and come up with new analogies for this situation after ten years.

On another topic, with the A-League expansion banter fading well into the background, there has been what I would consider a shift in the rhetoric coming from the club, or at least from the president. Where once South Melbourne A-League bid media efforts were totally geared toward A-League expansion, as that issue has moved to the backburner, Leo Athanasakis has been posting comments in favour of promotion and relegation.

The following examples - here, here and here - are just some of the posts which our lovable larrikin prez has made over the past couple months on the matter. This point of view of his may be new or it may be old, but it is not one that has been made by someone at South Melbourne with any official standing, at least certainly not at the levels where I would have expected to have noticed it before.

But back to Lakeside. We're told repeatedly that we're in control of at least some (perhaps key, perhaps not) aspects of Lakeside Stadium, so where is our presence? Outside our priority period during the soccer season (April to September, or thereabouts), do our costs for using the venue go up? Is that why we're scheduled not to be at home in the early part of the 2018 season? Is that why our January presence on the Lakeside calendar is invisible?

What I'm trying to say is, in recent pre-seasons following our return to Lakeside, we have promoted pre-season matches held at Lakeside to our supporters, and attracted interested crowds, and yet for the moment it appears that we're not doing that. Could we even - and I'm shuddering as I type this - could we even be breaking in clandestinely, Alex Dimitriades style, into Lakeside to play and train?

Regarding the friendlies out at Springvale White Eagles...

A bit of a heads up on this: I've been informed that it'll mostly be the club's under 20s who'll be making the trip out to Keysborough over the course of the next three Saturdays, so those who may have been inclined to make their way out to the Serbian Sports Centre should keep that in mind.

Book review - David Hill's The Fair and the Foul

Let's cut right to the chase: no one needs to buy David Hill's The Fair and the Foul, and no one needs to read it either. I can only think of two kinds of people who would end up reading this book:

1. Older Anglo-Celtic Australian males who received this book as a Christmas or birthday present, to be read on holiday or during a long train trip from regional Australia to see a city-based medical specialist.
2. Australian soccer people who hate David Hill.

Your correspondent clearly falls into the latter of these demographics, and thus my copy was sourced from a university library. Yes, David Hill will probably get a lending rights royalty in addition to his cut of whatever Victoria University paid for the book, but I'm trying to minimise the damage as much as possible without resorting to treating a bookstore like a public library.

Anyway, this book's problems are numerous. Hill flits between thematic and chronological approaches, occasionally inserting personal anecdotes. This prevents a coherent narrative emerging, while also undermining the book's sense of purpose; it's a real mess of a book, often little more than a bunch of populist generalisations which zip by. And as Tom Heenan points out in his review, there are far too many factual mistakes for a book which aims to be on at least some level an authoritative reference to Australian sport, regardless of its generalist scope. (though Heenan's review also has a key mistake, claiming that Hill was chairman of Soccer Australia from 1987-1995)

All of these failures point to slack editing. The book has an index and reference list, though it does not include a reference for the one quote that I really wanted to chase up on behalf of someone else.  There are even moments where Hill feels the need to explain things which don't need explaining: after quoting cricket writer Gideon Haigh's assertion that Australian cricket authorities in the 1970s were a conservative gerontocracy, Hill goes on to say what Haigh meant by that statement.

Ignoring for a moment the fact that Hill spends much of the book talking about the heroes and villains already familiar to most Australian sports fans with some historical knowledge, a few themes carve an accidental course throughout Fair and Foul. Hill tells us that Australians are often too forgiving of their sporting heroes when they screw up; that Australian sporting clubs and bodies, when given the choice between money and ethics, will almost always choose the former; that in the battle between those seeking to professionalise sport and those seeking to keep a sense of antiquated 'purity' alive, neither group had athletes' best interests at heart.

Hill also pulls up a great unspoken thread of Australian sport - that of the interaction of class and sport. There are the egos of men like Alan Bond and Kerry Packer, the immovable elitism of amateur sporting bodies, and the uncaring administrators of football codes who disregard the emotions of fans as being a burden to progress. Then there are the athletes themselves, especially those from working class or disadvantaged backgrounds, for whom having talent is not enough, and who have to overcome barriers of class in order to reach the top.

As much as these threads and others like them are inherently interesting, they go largely unexplored. In detailing the folk heroes/legends of Australian sport up to the end of its amateur era in the 1960s and 70s, Hill never explains what if any relevance that era has to contemporary audiences. Do Australian sports audiences care for the Lithgow Flash and Les Darcy, or for Herb Elliot and Harry Hopman? One of the great Australian sporting truths is that what appears to be a shared national sporting culture is often anything but. Across gender, race, class, and geographic boundaries, the Australian sporting experience is, if anything, an incredibly fractured one. Individuals or teams which manage to escape the confines of their particular demographic are the exception, not the norm.

Despite the way they disrupt whatever narrative momentum he manages to create, Hill's personal experiences are the highlight of the book. Whether you love or hate Hill, he's had an interesting life, and a large part of that includes his proximity to sport. For Australian soccer fans, Hill's controversial tenure as chairman of Soccer Australia comes first to mind, but Hill was also a good rugby league player (offered a place in North Sydney's first team squad, he opted to play second tier instead), was president of Norths for three years, was involved with the anti-tobacco push in sport, and in broadcast deals as part his tenure as chairman of the ABC.

Among the worthwhile sporting nuggets Hill provides are his being invited to Kerry Packer's private television room - the one that had global satellite feeds, and from which Packer programmed Channel 9; the insights into the hold the tobacco industry had on Australian sports bodies through the 1980s (with clear parallels to the gambling industry today); being invited to a big cricket shindig because the organisers have him mistaken for a more prominent and successful namesake; and that the process of getting Terry Venables to become Socceroos coach started with an English backpacker who was working as an admin temp at Soccer Australia.

But these moments are few and far between, and their scarcity only serves to make them feel at odds with the rest of the book. Even worse, the fleeting nature of these personal reminiscences means that the chance for reflection and insight on Hill's behalf is almost non-existent. For example, while praising himself for the Venables adventure, Hill fails to mention that Venables also cost Soccer Australia its Coca-Cola sponsorship (Venables signed up with rival beverage company Schweppes).

As for the book's soccer content, it's largely limited to two chapters, one about our more recent world cup qualification history, the other about the game's status as the 'sleeping giant' of Australian sport. The 'sleeping giant' chapter spends much of its time focused on Tony Labozzetta and Marconi, and the outcomes of the Bradley report, Stewart inquiry, and NSL task-force report. There is almost nothing new here, and frustratingly considering his proximity to that era, almost nothing you can't find in more depth elsewhere, such as in Ross Solly's Shoot Out. Neither does Hill mention the ABC's abandonment of the National Soccer League part way into its broadcasting deal while Hill was ABC chairman.

Most gallingly for those of a particular political persuasion in Australian soccer, Hill does not apply the same set of standards to ethnic soccer supporters as he does for rugby league fans. Hill reiterates that his expulsion of Heidelberg United, Parramatta Melita, and Brunswick Juventus from the national Soccer League in the mid 1990s was necessary for soccer to shed its dead-weight of ethnicity to move forward into the mainstream. Hill points out - not without merit - that if the 10,000 strong crowd protesting that decision had actually turned up to games, the clubs and the game would have been healthier (or at least have made it harder for Hill to argue for the removal of those clubs).

But when rugby league's Super League war and and its aftermath occurs, Hill is much more sparing of the feelings of the fans of some of rugby league's struggling clubs. (as a rugby league novice, I found Hill's explanation of how the Super League war played out from beginning to end to be a useful primer on the subject). For his own side, Norths, which ended up in a disastrous merger (and later de-merger) with Manly, the blame is placed entirely on Norths' board at the time. For South Sydney, who were expelled from the league at the end of the ARL/Super League split, Hill addressed a crowd of (apparently) 50,000 Souths' protesters telling them to not give up the fight for reinstatement to national competition.

Why he was more supportive of Souths' fans than the ethnic soccer supporters is for the reader to infer. But a look at Souths' average crowds since the Rabbitohs' return to the national competition in 2002 shows no significant increase in attendances. Of course the situations are not exactly like for like - rugby league had a media profile and corporate support that could be exploited whereas soccer in its ethnic setup did not - but there's scope to see inherent contradictions in Hill's support of one group and not the other.

Hill finishes his book by comparing the future outlooks for the four football codes. For everyone other than the AFL, he foresees problems. Rugby union's crowds and player pool are, as they always have been, incredibly limited, and its dependence on very select demographics continues to stifle its chances of increasing its national footprint. Rugby league's player pool, even in its working class heartland, is under stress, its crowds have been slow to increase, and when combined with league's tiny global footprint, rugby league is an increasingly difficult position. This is notwithstanding Australian rugby league's healthy income from its broadcast rights (and unhealthy cowering to those broadcasters in terms of fixturing), and its willingness to make changes to the game to increase its attractiveness.

For soccer, while the A-League has manifest itself as the league that Hill wanted but could not create in the 1990s, its status as a backwater in terms of soccer's global empire holds it back. Meanwhile Hill has almost nothing but praise for the AFL, the most stable, wealthy and progressive of the Australian football codes, unencumbered (apparently) either culturally or economically by its limited global reach.

Despite some interesting if largely unexplored narrative threads, and the occasional interesting personal anecdote, The Fair and the Foul is content to rehash the usual stereotypes of Australian sports history and culture, This probably fits in with Hill's oeuvre of populist history writing - I've not read his other history books - but the book adds little to update or challenge assumptions about Australian sport. Should Hill ever decide to write a proper sporting memoir, going into detail about his experiences in rugby league and soccer as a player and administrator, and his dealings with various sports while chairman of the ABC (Fair and Foul includes a good one about lawn bowls, the ABC, and a Mazda sponsorship), that will be a book worth reading. But for now he seems content to faff about with disposable output.

December 2017 digest

Puskas documentary
Remember the Puskas documentary that Tony Wilson and friends were making? Well the crew managed to get their most important interview subject on tape!

Interviewed Ange for our @smfc Ferenc Puskas documentary. Was generous, funny and effusive in his love for the a Hellas era that forged him. If you have Puskas photos & film, let me know! #smfc #hellas #ferencpuskas pic.twitter.com/mGBGRVcy44

— Tony Wilson (@byTonyWilson) December 30, 2017

But as Tony notes in his tweet, they're still looking for Puskas photos, film, artefacts, stories, so if you have anything, get in contact with him, or get in contact with me and I'll act as the middleman. 

AGM
The 2017 AGM date has been announced, and it's Wednesday 24th January, in the social club. The two meeting times are set for.

• 6:00PM South Melbourne Hellas Club Ltd
• 8:00PM South Melbourne Football Club Ltd

If you are a member and you didn't receive notification and the relevant attachments via email, check your junk mail folder - that's where my email inexplicably ended up.

Friendlies
Three friendlies - against Kingston, Oakleigh, and Dandenong Thunder - have been booked over consecutive Saturdays in January, all out at Springvale White Eagles. The Public Transport Faction does not approve. Check the 2018 fixtures page for details.

2018 fixture released
As with 2017, another brutal start to the season with six away games to start, and nine of the first ten away. Some other things worth noting

• The WNPL fixture hasn't been released yet, so I've no idea about men's/women's double headers.
• While most of our home games have been kept at the Sunday 4:00PM timeslot, three fixtures differ. There is of course the simultaneous 3:00PM kickoff in the final round, but against Oakleigh and Pascoe Vale in June, we have a Saturday 5:00PM game and a Sunday 7:00PM to act as lead-ins to Socceroos World Cup matches. Convenient!
• Orthodox Easter week falls on the first week of April, which for our purposes coincides with our entry into the FFA Cup qualifiers.
• The Veneto Club's synthetic pitch is being relaid. Somehow we'll still end up with another 2-2 result there.
• Green Gully has moved its home games to Friday nights.
• Our away game against Port Melbourne seems to have been scheduled for a Saturday evening.
• While Avondale have apparently struck a long term to play out of the long out-of-action Reggio Calabria Club in Parkville/West Brunswick, our away fixture against Avondale hadn't been updated on FFV's site when I did this update. Word is that the place needs a lot of work to get up to scratch.

If you want to see the current state of the Reggio Calabria Club's soccer field, this tweet by Chris Gleeson gives you some idea of how much work needs to be done to get the ground into shape.

pic.twitter.com/FbUxOSk6xI

— Chris Gleeson (@gleebo41) December 24, 2017

Check South's senior men's fixtures here, as per usual, if I've screwed anything up let me know.

Arrivals and departures
Some more 'outs' were announced early in December, most notably former captain Michael Eagar.  Confirmation from the club also that David Barca Moreno, Zaim Zeneli and Stefan Zinni are also no longer at the club. But you already knew that.

 It had been strongly rumoured Eagar was on the way out through parts of the 2017 season. Eagar's omission from the starting XI throughout the second half of the season especially confused a lot of fans, as there seemed to be no clear reason for it, and indeed, we seemed to play better with him in the team than out of it. So it goes.

Luke Adams is also out, which means that our central defensive pair will be undoubtedly new next season. To that end we've signed young defender Darby Dexter from Port Melbourne, and Kristian Konstantinidis has re-signed for two more seasons. Matthew Millar has re-signed for 2018.

For whatever it's worth, the following players are assumed to be contracted for next season.

• Matthew Foschini (signed until the end of 2018)

• Milos Lujic (signed until end of 2018)

• Jesse Daley (signed until end of 2018)
• Jake Marshall (signed until the end of 2018)
• Nick Epifano (signed until the end of 2018)
• Darby Dexter (signed until the end of 2018)
• Matthew Millar (signed until the end of 2018)
• Kristian Konstantinidis (signed until the end of 2019)
• Brad Norton (signed until the end of 2019)

Out

• Stefan Zinni (Avondale)
• Zaim Zeneli (North Sunshine Eagles)
• Michael Eagar (Port Melbourne)
• Luke Adams ('overseas', whatever that means)

Centre Forward is online!
Four years ago I did a hasty review of a North Korean soccer flick that I'd seen at the Melbourne International Film Festival. It turns out that since then someone has actually uploaded that film to YouTube, so you know, if you're looking for something a little different, you can watch it or something.

Goal weekly archives now available!
A nice bit of news for those into the Australian soccer archive business. Goal Weekly has put up its entire back catalogue online in pdf format.

Thanks to everyone for this year, and the ten years so far

I would like to take a moment, as I always do at this time of year, to thank those who have contributed to the blog or otherwise made my South Melbourne experience more enjoyable. Thanks to:

Pavlaki and Chris, especially for driving me around Wodonga and its surrounds during pre-season, as well as anyone who offered myself and Gains a lift anywhere.

Everyone who left a comment at some point, especially all those people who contributed their stories for 'fanatic of the week'.

T. Arvanitis whose contribution within this post got a hell of a response from the public. Savvas Tzionis for his piece on coming back to Hellas, his Allentown reworking, and especially his story of sneaking out for a durry with Roberto Carlos at that ridiculous night at the casino which apparently cost either the club or people connected to the event a lot of money, or so was the word that was going around then. Also Foti and Manny for their point/counter-point piece on the AAFC's Championship proposal.

Todd Giles for sharing his Newcastle vs South match programmes. I'm glad I could return the favour.

Teo Pellizzeri at FFV for renewal of my media pass. Coaches Chris Taylor and Chris Marshall for the occasional chat. Tony for the guided tour of the then still shell of a social club, and for taking that handbag off my hands - oh, and for enjoying the milk carton gag. The people working in the social club for their concern after I joined the broken seat club.

Assorted folk of #sokkahtwitter, especially those who re-tweeted and shared South of the Border materials. Dave for joining that club - I think Savvas and Gains are the only other two members - who had the fearlessness to go back and read this stuff from all the way in the beginning. It starts off bad, stays that way for a few years, then finally starts to become readable.

Cindy Nitsos and all photographers whose photos I used.

Joe Gorman for extending my fame a smidge.

Matthew Klugman for his help with the whole thesis business, and Ian Syson for finally admitting defeat with regards to sentence structure.

And Gains, of course. The Public Transport Faction keeps kicking on.

...and thank you all for ten years of supporting South of the Border
I've thanked a lot of people for various things over the years - dig yourselves through various articles across the past ten Decembers if you want to find them - so this is more of a general thank you to everyone.

Thank you to the people who have come on board late, bigger thanks to those who were here from the beginning, and biggest thanks to those who came here late and went back and read through it all.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed an article, a comment, advice, or shared this material with others.

Thank you to those who have over the past decade offered encouragement and support both private, but especially public, whether you were a public figure or a minor one.

Thank you to those who have understood, and those who have not understood but nevertheless tolerated my flights of whimsy.

I started the blog because I was frustrated at the level of discussion on smfcboard, and because I wanted to practice my writing. I like to think that since then, the quality of dialogue inside the club has improved, and that my writing has come on at least a little bit, and that it would be nice if the blog was responsible for at least part of any of that.

Whatever else this blog has or hasn't achieved over the past ten years, I am most proud of having encountered a selection of South fans who have told me that South of the Border helped them maintain a connection to South Melbourne Hellas, helped them re-connect with the club, or was an element in helping them make their first connection with the club.

Lastly, I said I was not going to thank anyone specifically, but I always do. Gains hates the publicity but his friendship on the terraces, on public transport, and his ability to pick mostly very good and very cheap restaurants is an essential part of this blog, even if the effects of that on the blog are not exactly visible. And of course, Ian Syson, who believes in all sorts of people and their ability to write meaningfully from the margins.

Snippets of news from far off places - Langwarrin 2 South Melbourne 3

I wasn't there, don't ask me for any details other than what already exists in the public domain - namely the scorers, Epifano, Lujic and triallist Amir Osmancevic. Maybe a friendly against Gully on Friday at Gully, check your local guides closer to the date.

Cobwebs - South Melbourne 3 Sunshine George Cross 0

So, here we go again, brushing away the cobwebs and assessing the decay accumulated in the couple of months spent away from the place.

I'm not going to say that the club's in chaos, but there was a dishevelled feel to the place. There are big holes in the futsal court wall above the goal nearest, but more noticeable was the vibe in the social club proper. Phil the social club's venue manager has resigned and until the club sorts out the venue manager situation - and more broadly, how the it runs the social club - regular service may be a bit more erratic.

At least the club is now able to leverage home pre-season games to a degree by having a social club, and last night it was even able to draw in some people from the fun-run that was taking place outside. Things could always be worse on this front. Nevertheless, much as I like (new board member) Skip Fulton - after all, he got his South Melbourne start right here at South of the Border - do I really want him to be the one serving me drinks? On special occasions - like Friday's Christmas party - sure, why not, but otherwise they've got to sort out the social club situation quickly.

As for the match itself, it would've been churlish to expect anything resembling quality, whatever that means, and Chris Taylor wasn't even there. It was the first scratch match after the end of the off-season, after just a week and half or so of commencing pre-season training, and at a temperature of 35 degrees or more, the players were drenched in sweat within minutes. Thank you to Brad Norton for coming over to the supporters after each 35 minute half and sharing some of his sweat with us.

Still, there were a few surprises on field. As rumoured, Iqi Jawadi was back having a go, which is interesting after the way he left. Also back for another attempt at cracking the South senior team list was former youth player Anthony Giannopoulos. No sign of Andy Kecojevic, but one of Matthew Millar's seven brothers played the early part of the game before copping a knock. Youth striker Giuseppe Marafioti played for a bit, and occasional triallist and most recently of Kingston City midfielder/forward Velibor Mitrovic was also having a kick.

Marcus Schroen was present, and at least one person has suggested that Mitrovic would make a sensible like-for-like replacement for the injured Schroen. English recruit Sam Smith was absent - he's apparently sorting out some of his affairs back in the UK. Nick Epifano was there, after strong word that he had decided to leave the club. Maybe he changed his mind, maybe no one else wanted him. No worthwhile news on whether Andy Brennan will be re-joining us as part of the Bentleigh off-season exodus.

The next friendly is against Langwarrin on Sunday, at Langwarrin, kickoff 2:30PM. A fairly traditional fixture now because of Chris Taylor's proximity to all things Mornington Peninsula, even if he apparently won't be there himself. Neither will I for that matter, because it's in the middle of public transport nowhere. Still awaiting notice of a kickoff time for that one.

Also hearing word of a match before Christmas against Green Gully, details to be confirmed on that one as well. I did ask around to see what plans if any there were for a pre-season weekend away, in the vein of the club's trips to Adelaide, Sydney, and Albury-Wodonga in recent years, but there was no news on that front. If they do something, hopefully it's something that accessible by train.

There's impatience from some quarters about the fixtures being released - I think the FFV will be making an announcement on that soon.

Friendly tomorrow vs Sunshine George Cross

Well, turns out the rumours of minimal activity before the Christmas/New Year period have turned out to be a little bit premature. The senior squad started its pre-season training programme last week, and now there'll be a pre-season friendly/scratch match tomorrow against George Cross at Lakeside, kickoff at 7:45pm. See you all there.

2018 memberships now out

How about this for a surprising turn of events? The new year isn't here, we haven't even had the AGM (well, actually that's not so strange...), and yet somehow the South Melbourne 2018 memberships are already available for purchase. It's a very streamlined affair, with two or three things worth noting.

First, the pricing scheme is basically the same as it was for 2017. Second and related to point one, this time there can be no confusion about what is and isn't included - a confusion which in any case only really existed in the disingenuous mind of president Leo Athanasakis. So, now only home controlled league matches (no finals) and FFA Cup games up until the round of 32

Third, unless you're buying a new membership or perhaps changing membership categories, you should keep your current membership card. Now, if you did throw it out, I don't know what you should do, but I'm sure the club will have a plan for that.

Update 11/12/17
Purchase my membership this afternoon, and got this email.

If you are an existing 2017 SMFC Member, you will be able to use your existing card with all your entitlements being updated based on the level of membership that you have selected.

Also, it looks like the club has ditched the membership portal that they had been using the past few seasons.

Book review, sorta - Walk Alone: The Craig Johnston Story, by Craig Johnston and Neil Jameson

I'll be clear on this. I skimmed/speed read through much of this some time in late 2016, so don't treat this review as some sort of gospel truth. I was mostly interested in particular aspects of this as it relates to one of the chapters in my thesis. But even from a cursory reading, this book is interesting, at least up to a certain point. And then not so very much, at least to me.

The least interesting parts to be honest are when Johnston is at Liverpool. As a long-ago lapsed Liverpool supporter (it's a long story, not very interesting, even as that experience explains some things about me), I really couldn't care less about the trudging through the seasons, the reminiscences of games and incidents, with the exception of Johnston's experience of Heysel.

What I found most interesting then were the things outside Johnston's time at Liverpool, beginning with his Newcastle upbringing.  If Newcastle (and its southern counterpart in the Illawarra) are often thought to be among the holy cradles of Australian soccer, then what is often seemingly left out of those hagiographic discussions is the ethnic quality of the game there.

And in this case one is not talking about those we usually consider as 'ethnic' in Australia, but rather that invisible ethnicity in the form of the British migrant. It may be true that I will overstate the case for the invisibility of the British soccer character as it applies to the Hunter and Illawarra regions, but I think there's also some validity to the notion that the soccer in these areas is considered far more 'Australian' than the post-war 'ethnic' boom period scene; that Britishness and Australian-ness become conflated ideas.

For his part, Johnston is forthright not only about the British upbringing he had personally, but also about the British character of Newcastle soccer. This is amplified for him by his family history and personal experience. One of Johnston's grandfathers was from Edinburgh; his father, like other young soccer players in the region, went to Britain and tried to become a professional footballer, but failed. Johnston also ties that sense of Newcastle soccer's British qualities to the fact that the aforementioned British character was also bound to a British working class character.

Indeed, through establishing the book's narrative in this way, Johnston is at pains to emphasise his own sense of Britishness, one bound up with the game as his forbears knew it and as he himself experienced it in the Hunter Valley. In that sense there is a pervasive sense of Anglophilia in this book, at least it relates to soccer, It is why there is a skewed and narrow sense of what Australian soccer is to Johnston, one that takes little account of the changes that occurred outside out of the 'heartland' soccer areas like Newcastle, and which transformed the character of the game.

By the time Johnston's career has taken off, he is in England full-time (except for that brief stint for Newcastle KB in the NSL), and thus has very little to say about Australian soccer as a whole. Australian soccer then for Johnston is an experience largely left behind once he succeeds in securing a contract at Middlesbrough.

But Johnston is also keen to emphasise the Australian qualities of his upbringing, especially that of a rural/regional lifestyle, full of activities other than soccer, including skateboarding (he even takes his skateboard to England) and surfing. And yes, Johnston does come to that bit about 'surfing for England', and his explanation has much legitimacy to it, or at least more nuance than the vitriolic response that his offhand comment has seen him endure over the years.

Johnston is a good student, but restless. That restlessness is channeled into his football via a manic commitment to fitness, and relentless pursuit of improving his technique by himself in England. One of the harsh lessons that Johnston learns early on is that in the cold and lonely existence of the wannabe professional footballer, there are few friends, and that it is truly dog-eat-dog. Whatever else one might think of Johnston, one can't fault his determination to overcome his initial failure and his technical limitations as a footballer, and succeed regardless.

(In that sense there are parallels between Johnston's attitude and view of himself as a footballer with Paul Wade, the ironically British born player who came to define and be defined by his utter commitment to Australian soccer).

And then Johnston goes to Liverpool, and apart from the usual tribulations of injury, media, managerial and playing intrigues, Johnston seems to be having a great time (yes, there is an account of how the 'Anfield Rap' came about), living the dream playing for one of the most famous clubs in the world, and one at the peak of its power. So I breezed through those parts, remembering little of them, until the point where Johnston's sister falls ill and he retires from the game in order to help care for her.

It's a little irritating then that the book stops at the end of Johnston's playing career, so we don't get to learn about what happens next - which for Johnston includes a continuation of his pursuit of photography, a run-in with bankruptcy, and his invention of Adidas' Predator boot. But it's a well produced (plenty of photos, excellent page design) and well written book, full of Johnston's personality, and worth picking up if one come across it. I read it in bursts at the State Library, a nice hardcover thing, though I assume there's a paperback version somewhere out there

Allentown

All the way back in the blog's earliest days, when part of the ethos was to have new content uploaded every day - how quaint! - I posted this South Melbourne Hellas oriented reworking of an AC/DC lyric by then new but now old friend Conya. It seems blog favourite Savvas Tzionis has decided to do something similar with Billy Joel's 'Allentown', broadening his scope to match up the plight of the working class Pennsylvanians with that of those stuck in NPL Hell. It has a taste of the 'seven days of bitterness' about it.

Allentown
Well we’re living in the NPL
And the football clubs are stuck in this hell
Out in Mooroolbark they’re killing time
Third string imports
Will they survive?
Well our fathers came out of after the war
Spent their weekends at Olympic Park
Took their kids out to the NSL
Left them to watch
But where was the zeal?
Now we’re living in the NPL

But the restlessness was handed down
And its getting very hard to play

Well we’re waiting in the NPL
For the A-League we never found
For the promises our leader’s gave
If we worked hard
But we didn't behave
So the premierships hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No we never learnt what was real
Mainstream Appeal
Lowy Westfield
And we’re waiting in the NPL

But they've ruined all the national teams
And the old fans they just crawled away
Every team had a pretty good shot
To get as far as their ability got
But something happened on the way to that place
They threw the wogs out and they kicked in our face

Well we’re playing in the  NPL
And its hard to keep a good team down
But we won’t be going up today

And its getting very hard to play
Cause we’re stuck here in the NPL

November 2017 Digest

I hope you'll all forgive the very slow pace of the blog during the off-season. Even though there's so much I could talk about, being at the pointy end of the thesis project means that by the end of the day I'm pretty burnt out from staring at screens and trying to write. And where usually this would be my space for chilling out, for the first time in ten years I just don't have the mental space for it. One way or another it'll be over in the next two or three weeks, so keep patient and things will be back to normal soon enough.

Or you could submit something of your own to keep things ticking over...

AGM news
No date set yet. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

2018 season schedule...
Starting in the last week of February, which is a week or two later than what happened for the 2017 season. 

In the meantime, if like me you're waiting for pre-season friendlies to start to alleviate your boredom, don't expect anything this side of Christmas. My sources tell me that the team might reconvene for some training sessions before 2017 is out, but there almost certainly won't be any scratch matches held until January.

On the same token
Some of our current (and maybe current) players have been sighted participating in Knox City's longstanding All Nations Cup tournament. Nick Epifano is playing for Italy, while Andy Kecojevic is playing for Serbia. Milos Lujic, who has played for Serbia at this tournament in the past, also looks like he fronted up again this year.

Hashtag news
Sony will no longer sponsor the NPL concept. It's farewell to #ps4nplvic, and hello to... well, no one knows yet.

Arrivals and departures
Still pretty quiet on this front, but things are picking up ever so slowly. The big news was the signing of English striker Sam Smith from Gold Coast City. We had been keen on him, then it looked like he'd re-signed for Gold Coast, but it seems the mess Gold Coast is in off the field has titled things back our way. Nick Epifano has signed on for 2018, while skipper Brad Norton has signed on for another two years.

Some 'outs' have also cropped up. Reserve goalkeeper Zaim Zeneli has left South, joining North Sunshine Eagles in State League 1, while Stefan Zinni has signed with Avondale.

For whatever it's worth, the following players are assumed to be contracted for next season.

• Matthew Foschini (signed until the end of 2018)

• Milos Lujic (signed until end of 2018)

• Jesse Daley (signed until end of 2018)
• Jake Marshall (signed until the end of 2018)
• Nick Epifano (signed until the end of 2018)
• Brad Norton (signed until the end of 2019)

Out

• Stefan Zinni (Avondale)
• Zaim Zeneli (North Sunshine Eagles)

Help us make a Ferenc Puskas documentary

Here's something to get excited about.

Filmmakers Tony Wilson, Rob Heath and Cam Fink are in the early stages of making a film about Ferenc Puskas' time in Australia. Naturally this will mostly be focused on his relationship and proximity to our very own South Melbourne Hellas.

One of the things the filmmakers want to get across is the bizarre fact of this absolute great of world sport living almost anonymously in a supposedly mad sporting city, so part of this film will be about the parallel world of Australian soccer.

Now here's where you can come in. This is a call for items such as footage, photos etc. To that end the kinds of things the filmmakers are looking for include:

• Any home or personal video footage from that era that people may have. They're not looking for official footage taped from televised match broadcasts - though if you can point the documentary team toward interesting moments contained within such footage, that would be good. Apart from the copyright issues associated with using broadcast materials, the filmmakers are looking for homemade footage because it will assist in telling the story they want to tell - that of a period of time that was as much about the fans who experienced Puskas and his time in Australia from their own point of view.
• Ditto for photographs.
• Ditto for artefacts, match programmes, etc
• Anyone who has a good personal story to tell about their experience of Puskas' time in Melbourne, or who knows someone who does, and who would be willing to be interviewed for this project.
• Anyone who may have been connected to Parkmore Soccer Club at the time Puskas was supposed to have been there.

Of course the filmmakers are rounding up the players and so forth that played under Puskas, and they'll be chasing up as many officials and such as possible, but it's also true that many of those people have drifted away from the club in recent years. But you, the South Melbourne Hellas community, certainly do have those networks, so please discuss this project with people you think may be interested.

So if you can help in any way, shoot me an email me at blackmissionary@hotmail.com, or contact Tony Wilson at tony@tonywilson.com.au or call him on 0416 100 645

The link below is for the film's Documentary Australia page

https://www.documentaryaustralia.com.au ... melbourne/

And here's an article by Con Stamacostas of Neos Kosmos

http://neoskosmos.com/news/en/When-Puskás-came-to-South-Melbourne

Point - Counterpoint: The AAFC's 'The Championship' proposal

A week or so ago, after the AAFC released its sort of plan for a national second division, I remarked on Twitter that because I was busy and because I didn't particularly want to write on the topic, that it would be great if some other people would like to write something for South of the Border on the matter. There was also the desire to see both 'pro' and 'con' positions taken, and if it were left up to me I would've ended up writing something pithy and nihilistic.

While I didn't make a point of this in my initial request for submissions, more than anything what I wanted were two pieces that could work as opposites while also acting as a sort of time capsule from South fans' perspectives. While initially I had the idea that the two writers (working independently of each other) would come up with something completely opposite to each other, the difference that emerged ended up being one of attitude - Manny's optimism versus Foti's scepticism. While holes can be picked apart in both pieces, it's that difference in emphasis that's most interesting to me. Thank you to Manny (Point) and Foti (Counterpoint) for their contributions.

POINT - A piece on purpose and leadership
In spite of the supposed ‘staleness’ of the A-League, there has never been more to talk about in Australian football. In light of the FFA’s current governance reform crisis just about every issue in the game has been discussed. Junior fees, player development, aspirational football, A-League expansion – and although these issues have always been around, it had only been in light of governance reform that the conversations about them have become linked. People are starting to realise the importance of managing a football ecosystem rather than managing problems in isolation - even A-League expansion discussions, all to often reduced to TV rating and attendance speculation now incorporates everything from infrastructure, to junior development. This change in the conversation can only be a good thing for Australian football, although despite all the chatter, surprisingly little has to do with actual football.

It should never have come to this. Only a few years ago FFA released the much publicised ‘Whole of Football Plan’ that boasted big statements and bigger numbers, unashamedly aiming to make football the biggest sport in Australia. The ‘plan’ was missing a massive component - never does it answer why football should be the biggest sport in Australia. The Whole of Football Plan to me is the most obvious symptom of the sickness this sport carries. It chose to accept a reality defined by others rather than accepting the reality of its own identity. In doing so, the past decade has seen the game’s stakeholders lacking leadership and common purpose, allowing the rogue inertias of different parts of the game to move in different directions, pulling the sport and FFA apart in the process.

Moving forward we need to understand purpose and question things in the context of a greater goal. Why do we need big attendances? Why do we need TV ratings? Why do we need to fish where the fish are? What is all this leading to? These are the kind of questions that stakeholders have been left to answer themselves, and it is the reason a body like the AAFC has to exist.

I’m sorry Paul, and I’m sorry to the readers expecting a debate about the purpose of a second division. Although there will be elements of that discussion we need to realise that there is no steady state. Australian football has gone though and will continue to churn though different systems and clubs. I see promotion and relegation in one form or another as an inevitability, and a second division as imminent. However the likely form of the coming second division will be dictated by state league clubs and it is more important that we understand their incentive and their search for purpose so that we can best challenge it and align it with the greater goals of Australian football, whatever they may be.

Make no mistake, state league clubs have been forced to create this AAFC to have a real discussion. For too long technocrats at national and state level dictated curriculum, league structures and conditional licensing to clubs – but let’s be clear, not all clubs but rather the top state clubs, the competitive state clubs, the ambitious state clubs who have been suffering under the weight of their own competitive identities in a system that does not support them. So let’s have that discussion what the hell do they want, what does ‘The Championship’ want and what could it mean for Australian football.

The Championship Strategy
The AAFC’s Championship proposal firstly points out that it is just that, a proposal. It is not a breakaway league and the proposal is open to debate and change. The plan was delivered in October 2017, as promised, and whereas the FFA have pushed back the release of an expansion framework twice over the past year alone – effectively derailing that conversation – the AAFC has taken steps to offer an open constructive dialogue.

A National Second Division for Women
The first thing that hit me when reading the proposal was the intention to create opportunities for men and women. How this will work with promotion and relegation is yet to be explored. Will club results be stapled? Will a women’s team that is promoted to the W-League work with a men’s team relegated to the state leagues? Women’s second tier football is a surprising new dimension to the football pyramid discussion, however where will clubs find the money for a national female second division? Beside riding the new wave of female sports corporate sponsorship I don’t believe it's viable. In a world where women’s teams and men’s teams are packaged together you may be able to create a valuable product but not one that will work in an open pyramid as supposedly intended. I’m sceptical of these joint team ventures in anything other than a closed system and have to wonder whether the AAFC is just using women’s football as moral capital or if this is a sign that an open pyramid is even further away then we hoped.

Bridging the states and the A-League
The AAFC also hope the competition brings a higher standard of opportunity for men and women. The gap between the state leagues and the A-League needs to be bridged and a second division will help this. Too often we see state league players unable to break into the higher level and a second division will help scouting and development by offering a more competitive environment than the current state leagues. Importantly though, what about players falling from the A-League? Losing an A-League contract is often the end of a career as the likely destination (the state leagues) offers neither the cash, prestige or development opportunities for players to rely on to help them restart their professional careers. Even mediocre A-League players suffer in the current system. They are often wasted on the bench, becoming A-League journeyman. A-League clubs trust A-League experience and state league clubs often need to stretch their budgets to access it. Without somewhere for these players to leave the system they continue to take spots on the bench from younger players, and mature aged state league players, they continue to never push their team mates or the competition. Surely they would be better dropping down to make way for new blood and test themselves with the responsibility that comes playing at a lower level to lift the players around them and prove their worth for a second shot. In short a second division will bridge the gap that Australian football is suffering from. If the AAFC clubs are brave enough and ambitious enough to fund it themselves now good luck to them, because it will happen one way or another, eventually.

Commercialisation of the Grassroots
The AAFC also stated their proposed competition will improve the commercial appeal of the game, although considering other second tier competitions in Australia such as the National Rugby Championship, this certainly hasn't been the case – although isn't necessarily a problem. If the league can serve another purpose (developing players and clubs) and remain financially viable, it doesn't need to grow the size of the pie but it would mean that we are getting more out of existing resources. Considering the asset rich nature of our sport, dozens of upgradable stadiums, hundreds of thousands of players, volunteers and administrators, it could be possible that filtering all of this wealth and expertise into nine clubs may not be the optimal strategy – and in fact I would argue has not been!

In the 13 years of A-League what lasting benefits have we gotten as a football nation? I’ll tell you – 6. AAMI Park, the Mariners' centre of excellence, a rebuilt stand at Perth Oval, Adelaide’s training ground, the City Football Centre, and the soon to be redeveloped Parramatta Stadium. The strategy in the past 13 years has generated tgree football managed resources. Our biggest club – Sydney FC is nomadic, with no permanent training ground. Meanwhile our state clubs languish without leverage for council money or private investment all while sitting on self-managed facilities at the height of the property boom. This is the real commercial opportunity of the game because it is commercial opportunity with purpose. By opening the football pyramid we can create a multi-million dollar national football facility boom like weave never seen.

One that will pay dividends for years to come – and one that is not possible through the narrow nine-professional teams or a centralised national body. I feel as though the AAFC are right if this is what they mean by commercial appeal of the sport, however if they are limiting this commercial conversation to broadcast content and private backers who can only be relied on to provide short term financial assistance mark my words – the competition will only provide the short term transient benefits and much like the State Leagues today will spiral out to unsustainable player payments and reliance on benevolent private interests. The commercial benefits of the League need to be thought of in the long run.

A final thought on the AAFC’s intentions
There’s no doubt the AAFC and their member clubs are ambitious. We need a second division in one form or another for our players but I hope they are genuine in their intention to open the football pyramid, respectful in the development of the women’s game and are thinking long term about the commercial benefit of the league.

COUNTERPOINT - I want to believe, but...
I do not follow the A-League and I have never been to a match. I have watched bits and pieces of a handful of games on TV only because my friends chose to watch matches at get-togethers/gatherings (while I would disengage and “tune out” on my smartphone) when there is no AFL on. These friends like to mock me for following South Melbourne in the Victorian soccer wastelands every week instead of following Victory or City in the A-League. Luckily for me, it is hard to take their mockery seriously when in the NSL years they attended a handful of Lakeside/Middle Park games each year, and now attend at best one A-league fixture a year. They also don’t swear allegiance to a particular A-League team so the “bandwagon supporter” tag fits them perfectly.

Like many that have witnessed their beloved NSL clubs drop to the State League, I too yearn to see the day where my club will return to the top-flight and compete for the top prize in this country. For many years I have believed that the only way a fifth star could be added to the “Hellas” crest while keeping South Melbourne in the hands of the members would be via the creation of a second division along with promotion/relegation to the A-League. It seemed like the perfect solution that would fix the sport’s structural problems and also reverse the decline of the Socceroos’ talent pool. However, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that a second division wouldn't be financially viable.

The Championship
Over a week has passed since the AAFC released its blueprint for a national second tier competition to be known as “The Championship” consisting of 12-16 teams and beginning in 2019. While most of the “NSL bitters” on #sokkahtwitter were excited by the proposal, I couldn't help but feel that the structure had quite a few flaws. (If you haven’t already seen it, you can view the proposal at http://www.thechampionship.com.au/).This is why I decided to write this piece when Paul Mavroudis put out a call for submissions for South Of The Border. I am not a writer, so please excuse me if this is boring and hard to read (This is probably the longest essay I have written since I was at university 14 years ago).

Playing Rosters
In general I am against restrictions on player rosters. Just like with the NPL’s Player Point System, it appears as though this league is being created as a pathway for players into the A-League. When you place quotas/salary/age caps/restrictions on squads, you are limiting how strong squads can be, and therefore limiting or slowing down player development potential. Young players will never become develop football smarts if they don’t come up against experienced players that have played at higher levels. It should be up to each club to decide whether it wishes to field a team of ex-marquee players in the twilight of their careers, focus on promoting youth from within, striking a balance between the two, or employing another philosophy. Allowing freedom and diversity will achieve the best results.
One last thing on this, if there are going to be playing roster restrictions, they should at least be in line with those of the A-League clubs so that relegation doesn't force them to clean out their squads completely.

Criteria – Men’s and Women’s teams
I didn't know there were plans for a women’s second division and it seems absurd that they are creating one at a time when each W-League franchise has a salary cap of $150,000 across their whole squad. (That is an average salary of under $7,500 per player). Surely they shouldn't be thinking about a national women’s second division until women’s salaries in the top flight rise to a level where they can be considered full-time professionals.

The criteria mentions that clubs must field men’s and women’s teams with matches to be played on the same day (with one to be played after the other). While I can see the benefit in this, it makes no sense to insist on it given that the prospect of promotion and relegation will mean that the men’s and women’s leagues will eventually consist of different clubs. The Mariners don’t have a W-League club, Canberra United doesn’t have an A-League club. Should a marketable NPL women’s club with great facilities and development setup miss out on applying for The Championship because it has no men’s team? Are the Melbourne Knights ineligible to apply for a place because they don’t have a WNPL club? (On second thought maybe this criteria isn't so bad :-D ) But seriously – the men’s and women’s competition should be separate legal entities. It shouldn't be up to one to bankroll the other. Let each one stand up on its own merits.

A view to expanding to 20 teams by 2024 and Promotion/Relegation by 2024.
For any competition to survive, it needs crowds. More spectators will translate into more sponsorship and TV broadcasting revenue. One would normally expect a second division to attract higher crowds than what is achieved at NPL level. What causes this crowd increase? I guess it is the excitement generated by rivalries, a greater possibility of showdowns with big clubs and playing for a more “meaningful” prize.

The fact that promotion/relegation will not be available from the beginning will minimise the crowd increase that one would expect from entering a national second tier competition. While the crowd in a local Heidelberg or Knights derby game might be a bit more than what we currently achieve, we would expect fewer travelling fans from interstate clubs as the gimmick of playing an interstate club quickly wears off, and supporters will be selective about the few away games they might be willing to travel to each year.

If the second division is to be marketable and attract interest from TV broadcasters, the average crowds must be at least FFA Cup size. As an example, South Melbourne vs Edgeworth achieved a crowd of 2,500 in the FFA Cup round of 32 this year. Sadly, without promotion/relegation being immediately introduced, The Championship crowds for South Melbourne vs Edgeworth would be unlikely to achieve even half of that and our crowds would be on par with what we get in the Victorian NPL.

In 2017 South Melbourne’s NPL crowds ranged from 400-2500 people depending on fixture time, opposition, and weather. If you regard South Melbourne as one of the benchmarks at NPL level, and assume that crowds such as these are as good as it will get for the other participants of The Championship, will sponsors stick around till 2024 to finance The Championship’s minimum $1.6 million travel and accommodation costs? (A 16 team competition would mean that annual travel expenses of at least $83,000 - $115,000 would be needed for each participant). Even if The Championship survives that long it is unlikely that promotion/relegation will be introduced in 2024 as A-League clubs will never lend their support to being relegated to a league with such small crowds.

Unfortunately, when it comes to sport in Australia, crowds are part of the product. If people see empty stadiums on TV they won’t want to go. If the football is mediocre but if there is a great crowd and match day experience people will want to return and form a bond with a club.

Random Thoughts:

• I am always skeptical of nice round numbers (eg $1,000,000 salary cap, $2.5 million budget) How did they arrive at these figures?
• Is it possible to have a 20 person squad of full time professionals under a salary cap of $1,000,000?  
• Is a $2,500,000 budget feasible?
• The AAFC has been banging on about promoting “football culture” yet this competition has a finals system, and they want the winner to qualify for Asian Champions League.
• If South Melbourne, Heidelberg and Melbourne Knights were to leave NPL and join The Championship, what is the impact on the NPL if promotion/relegation doesn't exist for a while? 
• Perhaps fan base, stadium and location should be the only criteria?
• How do you fairly offer promotion/relegation in a way that will prevent the possibility of all teams coming from one major population centre and therefore minimizing TV rights revenue?

Migration of smfcfans.com complete

The migration of smfcfans.com to a new server is now complete. There's some added functionality for users, who can choose between 'forums' and 'discussions' tabs in how they view the threads. There may be some tinkering to come, but the main obstacle is now over.

October 2017 digest

Whinge, whine, woe is me, thesis writing is hard, blah, blah, blah. Did you know that I removed 100 cases of the word 'not' (from around 600) from my thesis in order to make it come across as more assertive?

Anyway, here's a quick round up of some stuff that has been happening during the off-season. I did not include my trip to the rugby league world cup opener, or the screening of that PAOK doco at the Greek film festival. Maybe some other time, but probably not.

AGM news
No date set yet.

Futsal court news
Well it looks like the club have admitted defeat in running the futsal court themselves and have outsourced its operation in part at least to the Australian Futsal Group. I guess at some point we'll learn more about this arrangement.

Arrivals and departures
Early days. Or late. Whatever.

Anyway, we've made our first signing, 19 year old central defender Jake Marshall from Brisbane Strikers. This is an interesting pick up, because it suggests that one of our many existing central defender options may be on the way out, with everyone who's willing to take a stab it suggesting that Michael Eagar is on his way back to Northcote. Either that, or we're to going to go for a 5-4-1 formation with three centre-backs. 

Apparently Marcus Schroen's knee injury is a full blown ACL scenario, so he'll be out for nine months or however long it takes to get over a serious injury like that. One of the defenders we signed last year, Ajdin Fetahagic, is apparently training again after having done his knee during last year's pre-season.

For whatever it's worth, the following players are assumed to be contracted for next season.

• Matthew Foschini (signed until the end of 2018)

• Milos Lujic (signed until end of 2018)

• Jesse Daley (signed until end of 2018)
• Jake Marshall (signed until the end of 2018)

Socceroos vs Honduras screening

The club will be screening the Socceroos vs Honduras World Cup Qualifier Playoff 2nd leg in the social club, so put November 15th in your diary to make a trip down to Lakeside if you're into that kind of thing, don't have a TV at home, or just get really lonely during the off-season. No, I am not projecting.

New sponsor

The ambulance chasers that sponsor pretty much every soccer club in Victoria are now also sponsoring us. Good news I guess.

Children, the times they are becoming quite different

Apart from being busier than usual in my 'day job', things have been moving at a pretty decent clip on the Australian soccer 'will it/won't it implode front'. Frankly anything I'd have written even five minutes ago is likely to end up as out of date as Joe Gorman's end of history magnum opus potentially has. 

The short and sweet of it for those who don't slavishly keep up with the news for whatever reason is firstly that the AAFC has released its proposal for a second division, and before their end of October 2017 deadline no less. 

I've had offers from two different people to write the pro and anti sides based on their own analyses, and hopefully they come through with the goods so we can have a good point-counterpoint session, even if won't be able to match The Onion's classic 'humidifier vs humidifier' piece.

Everyone knows I have severe reservations about the prospects for a viable second division and promotion/relegation set up, but good on the AAFC for getting the ball rolling by getting the framework of a proposal into the public sphere. 

Reiterating the caveats that anything I have to say on this is based on zero expertise, a fundamental slavery to Dr Phil's self-help homily 'that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour', as well as adhering to the rule that all good list jokes should contain three items, my main point of difference with AAFC is a matter of attitude.

The AAFC and those who support them - even those who may be doing so only under the guise of a trojan horse/fifth column initiative - are all dedicated in some way to the idea that Australian soccer still has tangible untapped potential which can and needs to be exploited now, and not twenty years down the track of FFA's Whole of Football Plan roadmap. They believe that their plan can tap into latent investment, crowds and the frustrated ambitions of second tier sides hamstrung by the current state based arrangement. They also believe they have at least the start of a plan that will provide more opportunities for Australian players, especially younger players, and that they have the support of the PFA and at least some A-League owners. 

But here at South of the Border, which is 99.9% me, we prefer pessimism. In this case, I'm of the opinion that rather than untapped markets, we're much closer to a zero sum situation as far as Australian soccer goes, even as far as Australian sport goes. I'd also like to see the states actually come out and, er, state their support for this, and I want to hear about contingencies for what happens if things go wrong, because this is Australian soccer and thing goes wrong a lot. AAFC also claim that they're confident about a broadcast deal, but some of the specifics they've released about how this will run has me very sceptical, especially because it seems that the form of cartel discipline that is being asked of potential second tier participants is dependent on a level of co-operative self-discipline that is quite alien to Australian soccer outside the A-League.

I'm also intrigued that a women's competition is meant to be a part of this second tier, and I'm sure people in that field will be interested in more detail on that also. That, and how promotion and relegation will be worked out, especially if the teams are going to be going up and down while crossing over from winter to summer and back to winter seasons. Don't say it can't happen, because it was a brutal experience for Heidelberg in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

(And the less said about the demand for an AFC Champions League spot for the winner of this second tier, the better. I'm reminded of the Martin/Molloy 'Bag of Sawdust' skit, specifically the exchange 'and bring back semi-automatics' 'yes I think that might've been added by the chap who pushes the wheelbarrow, have you noticed it's in a different handwriting', so I'm thinking that someone stuck in that suggestion surreptitiously)

The other thing which happened relates to the ongoing saga of the mandatory reform of FFA's congress set up. At the moment it's limited to nine state bodies and one A-League representative, with the debate centred initially on which of two proposed reform models - FFA's, or their opponents - will get up, and later on whether FIFA will step in anyway to 'normalise' the situation and make us more democratic, because at this stage our federation's democratic breadth is apparently even worse than North Korea's.

The latest development is that after somehow finagling himself into the position where he had the deciding vote on whether to support current FFA chairman Steven Lowy, FFV president Kimon Taliadoros must have remembered that David Gallop stole his marble rye and decided to opt against supporting the Lowy faction - for now.

Being a pleb like most of you, I've not deluded myself that I can possibly have anything interesting to say on these matters, taking up the rather nihilistic position we're all doomed whichever way things go; indeed, that we've always been doomed. At best it might be nice to be spat on from a great height by a new bunch rather than the current regime.

Even so, this saga and especially the dovetailing of the second division proposal with the congress issues has thrown the cat among some pigeons, and that's been kinda fun to watch play out. There's been the odd person threatening to walk away from the game should 'our types' ever get back in the building, and while that's been a well-worn trope over the past decade, what makes it interesting now is that the claim comes less as an idle threat than one informed by a genuine panic.

And If you'll indulge me a ridiculous flight of fancy, how funny would this all be if it was actually part of some grand South Melbourne Hellas/Old Soccer plan like some people have implied? Get the Knights and Gully to do the heavy lifting for the NPL revolt before coming in and taking most of the credit. Get former board member Tom Kalas to form what appears to be a ramshackle collective designed to proffer pie in the sky dreams more than anything else. Get 'one of our own' into the FFV presidency, and have him maneuver himself into having the deciding vote. And best of all, never get the club talking about a second division or promotion and relegation, focusing instead on winning a licence in an A-League bidding process which doesn't even exist, all while having Bill Paps make up increasingly bizarre claims about our club's ability to function at a fully professional level.

I mean, it wouldn't make the past 13 years in the wilderness worthwhile, but destroying Australian soccer from the inside with such a madcap plan would be funny.