Our time is passing, old friend

I suppose we should acknowledge something that happened over the weekend, if only to keep the blog ticking over, and to avoid being accused of glossing over quasi-significant events in Australian soccer history.

For regardless of whether it was something that could actually be claimed outright, courtesy of Sydney FC's fifth A-League title yesterday, South Melbourne is on most objective levels no longer the most successful soccer club in the country.

So as South fans, should we feel sad? Aggrieved? Petulant? Resentful? Argumentative? Aloof? It's really up to you I suppose. Who I am to tell you how to deal with this utterly momentous, yet also inevitable moment? 

And it was inevitable. For most of its 15 years, the A-League has been a competition comprised of an average of 10 or so teams. Furthermore, according to the people who follow that league closely, and whose comments I most frequently come into contact with, in most of those 15 seasons about three-quarters of the teams have been garbage. That doesn't exactly compare favourably with the NSL, which always had more teams in a season, and of which it could be said only five-eighths of the teams in any given year were utter rubbish, leaving out the mess of the 1984-1986 conference system.

Be that as it may, the combination of a small league and a large contingent of non-competitive teams - despite salary caps and salary floors - means we were going to end up here eventually. It could've happened earlier, it could've happened in another few years. You're free to treat it like the SANFL pre-1997 - two very successful clubs with 60 flags between them, and three or four others that couldn't muster ten flags collectively.

For my part, I'm not too fussed. In fact, for someone who cares little for the goings on in the A-League - except for when there used to be crowd shenanigans which exposed everyone's hypocrisies, and the sports business side of things - I was always more annoyed by other things. Namely, the way the A-League elevated what used to be called the minor premiership into a championship in its own right; which also lowered the worth of a grand final already compromised by a finals system which let more than half the league in as if it was the Canadian Football League, and the fact that said finals system gave almost no material benefit to a team finishing higher up the ladder.

Even so, that garbage, no double chance finals system bothered me more because it's the system we've come to use in Victoria. They could do what they like in the big leagues, but if we are to have finals in Victoria, why can't we have something which doesn't render one early false step in the finals for a top side an automatic failure? But I digress. 

I have argued before that merging stats doesn't mean merging narratives. On a raw data level, Sydney FC have won more national titles than anyone. On a narrative level, we haven't been allowed to compete for any of the titles Sydney FC has won; which is not the same as Sydney FC not even being a twinkle in Frank Lowy's balls when we won our four NSL titles. Indeed, for a good chunk of the A-League's history, the narrative was that what came before the A-League was either irrelevant or non-existent.

Which, to be fair, is actually true on both counts. Forget mealy-mouthed and revisionist takes from people involved with dismissing or burying the NSL's history. Except for little checkpoints like this, everything that came before (with the possible exception of some player records) is irrelevant and/or non-existent.

And it's not just on an official level. Someone asked the question on one of our forums, about what our seven pre-NSL state league titles mean in the great scheme of things. And when it came down to it, all I could really think of is, "not much". Yes, they matter to the few hundred supporters who still attend South games. But most of our supporters are either dead, or doing something else with their lives these days. For both the dead and living South fan (and I assume, for the fans of other clubs like ours), the past has long receded in the rear view mirror.

Yes, people may jump on the odd social media post (whether posted by us or by some nostalgia site) and wax lyrical about good old days and whatnot, but that's the totality of the emotional engagement. It's little different to the way people reminisce about 1980s and early 1990s NBL. A few wistful signs while remembering Gaze to Copeland, Bruce Bolden's free throw routine, or Phil Smyth's bald patch, and then on to whatever it is that occupies their attention in the present.

But for those of you that care about the seeming indignity of our situation in a more, let's say... "robust" manner than my trademark morose indifference, there's little reassurance or guidance that I can offer on how to respond to those who would wish to goad you on these matters. I guess you can just hold to the dream of a National Second Division and eventual promotion and relegation; or if you're still an unreconstructed 2005 World Game Forum-style bitter, plan for the death of the A-League within three years, tops. Those of us still here are all in this together, but we're all in it together in our individual way.

¿Esteban ha sido despedido? No parece probable.

The dark little corner of social media that deals with Australian soccer has been quietly buzzing with intimations that South Melbourne senior men's coach, Esteban Quintas, is no longer coach of South Melbourne's senior men's team. 

The rumours started because of this job listing by the club looking for a new senior head coach. South fans were perplexed, wondering if this was some bizarre new way of telling the public that the senior coach had been sacked. Non-South fans apparently scoffed at the combination of what they considered low pay and high experience and proficiency requirements.

So is the club actually looking for a new coach? If we follow the logic of one South fan who has made a comment on this issue... then probably not. Our friend on the forums suggests this is likely just part of the process of renewing Quintas' work visa, which requires that the club put up the job for new applicants. It may even be that the combination of a seemingly lowball monetary offer with high requirements is a way to put off potential applicants.

That, and the erratic grammar and references to the A-League and B-League, which may even indicate that this is a rehash of an employment ad the clubs used the last time we were looking for a senior coach.

I mean, it would be harsh to get rid of someone who hasn't lost a game in months. OK, I'll show myself out...

Up, up, and away, in my beautiful... well you know the rest.

#Lakeside stadium in Microsoft's #FlightSimulator2020 @smfc pic.twitter.com/KJkfQASpOw

— SMFC Eastern Suburb Supporters (@EsSmfc) August 19, 2020

Brad Norton signs on for 2021 season

Apart from whatever Football Victoria thinks it can concoct in terms of a short-forum tournament for the tail-end of this miserable year, it appears that the rest of 2020 for South fans will be spent like this - ticking off signings and re-signings for season 2021. And maybe the announcement of some sort of limited edition merchandise if we're lucky. Who knows how this year's AGM will get held, but I'm sure people will figure it out.

Anyway, not a new signing this time, but another re-signing, with Brad Norton committing to South for the 2021 season, which will be his tenth in blue and white. It's been a very long time since we had a ten year player at the club, and Brad has done well to last as long as he has. Think about this - he's not only survived the last two and a bit seasons of upheaval (in some respects for him, the easier said than done bit), but he's survived the clean-out that accompanied Chris Taylor's arrival.

So who was the last ten-year player at South? From the players who played for us only post-NSL, Fernando de Moraes managed nine seasons; among the next best, Ramazan Tavsancioglu, six. The best of the rest probably somewhere around that five or six year mark. 

Then there are those players who spent time with us both in the NSL and after it. Tansel Baser had five NSL seasons at South, and two more in the VPL era for a total of seven - there will be those who think that Tansel could've made it a few more, had he not been shuffled out the door perhaps before his time was done. Someone saw his injury riddled body and made a decision, which in hindsight turned out to be wrong, as Tansel had a good few years at Hume City after us.

Con Blatsis, like Baser, was part of that mid-1990s Frank Arok-era youth intake. He also had five NSL seasons at South, and played in our first two VPL seasons; but while remaining on our senior list from 2007-2009, Blatsis never managed another game due to injury.

Vaughan Coveny had racked up nine NSL seasons at Lakeside, and three more in the VPL in stints broken up by his participation in the A-League, as well as the 2004 season spent with Essendon Royals - so twelve seasons all up, including three erratic VPL seasons, which gets Horsey comfortably over the line. 

The other player that comes to mind is Dean Anastasiadis, who had four mid-1990s NSL seasons with us, and two more seasons right at the end of the NSL at Lakeside - though in the 2003/04 season he appears not to have managed a game, with most goalkeeping duties taken up Eugene Galekovic, and the remaining handful by the artist formerly known as Michael Theoklitos. In our hour of need after the NSL however, Deano came back for four more season to make it to ten years all up, even if we might have been better off with a different keeper in the last couple of those seasons. 

So there it is, or perhaps (fingers crossed) there it will be - our first post-NSL era ten-season player. If all goes to plan, Norton will be our first ten season player since Dean Anastasiadis; the first player to play ten consecutive seasons at South since Vaughan Coveny, if we leave out the necessity of players like Coveny having to play elsewhere in 2004 following the dissolution of the NSL, (Anastasiadis also played with Coveny at Royals that year).

Figuring out this stuff is not the worst way to pass the pandemic time.

During this pandemic, I demand entertainment! Failing that, some sort of distraction will do.

You ask me here to have lunch, tell me you slept with Elaine, then say you're not in the mood for details. Now you listen to me, I want details and I want them right now! I don't have a job! I have no place to go! You're not in the mood? Well, you get in the mood!

During the week there was news that Mike Charlesworth, the current owner of the Central Coast Mariners A-League licence, had decided to put up said licence for sale. With the Newcastle Jets licence also up for sale, that makes two A-League licences currently on the market, both from the competition's two least valuable audience pools.

In the not too distant past, the potential sale of the sale of the Mariners licence (the Jets one would be harder to budge for various reasons) would've had South Melbourne Hellas committee folk laying siege to the A-League gates - exciting those among our fan-base who look forward to getting back into the big leagues; annoying those of our fans who want nothing to do with a competition which would compromise the (supposed or inferred) integrity of the club; and unnecessarily upsetting certain types who juggle the not-at-all contradictory beliefs that South Melbourne shouldn't be in the A-League, South Melbourne couldn't be in the A-League, and that if South were somehow to get into the A-League, it would instantly destroy not just a competition which is both healthier, more popular and more robust than than any national soccer league Australia has ever had, but also see Australian soccer collapse in on itself like a Cthulhu-esque horror being slayed in a Conan novel.

I mean, I've added a bit of extra mayo to the scenario for comic effect, but you know how these things usually go.

So after so many bid and takeover disappointments, when an A-League licence comes up for sale with a sketchily reputed price-tag of $4 million - well below the cost of a licence paid by those consortia which won the two most recent expansion slots - where is South Melbourne? As it turns out, nowhere. But why? What has changed? Well, clearly a lot has changed in Australian soccer in very recent times, and there are more changes set to come. There's the gradual shifting of the A-League season to winter, though for how long remains unclear. There's a revamped, stopgap television deal, effectively making the A-League a casual employee of Fox Sports. There's the people still trying to figure out a method and timeline for FFA to offload the comp to the owners of the A-League franchise licences. There's mooted overhauls of transfer systems and salary caps and salary floors. There's also the "depending on your viewpoint" of the either "perennially stalled and always improbable" or "the measure twice cut once to get it right" National Second Division.

Oh, and this whole pandemic thing, too, of course, whose end I'm sure is just around the corner.

For the official word, Joey Lynch managed to get direct quotes from our president Nick Maikousis - published in an article the club was happy to quote from and link to, rather than publish its own press release. Those few sentences suggest two things have happened from a South point of view, one minor, and one major. First, the relatively minor one - that more or less because of all the uncertainty noted above, plus the unknown about whether FFA (or whoever's in charge of the A-League now) would even allow the licence to be moved from Gosford, or even out of New South Wales, or any further than Canberra.

I mean, even if the FFA or A-League were to allow relocation of the Mariners licence, could you really see it being allowed to be moved to Melbourne, where we've just had a third team added that no one seems to particularly care about (yet) outside matters relating to housing developments and public amenities in Melbourne's west suburban sprawl? Less convincing is the argument about whether South Melbourne could afford to relocate the Mariners licence - as if the licence was anything more than a piece of paper saying "you are in the A-League"; it's not like we'd have to take the Mariners' stuff with us - this isn't moving the Colts out of Baltimore in the middle of the night.

The more important thing though is that we have now well and truly hitched our wagon to the National Second Division train. Now you all know what I think about the NSD - that my now largely private derision for the concept is based upon ill-conceived ideas like: "show me the money"; "your views of promotion-relegation are ahistorical and don't allow for valid exceptions"; and "this is just a brilliant fifth column manoeuvre to undermine the A-League by being concerned for its welfare, all while taking advantage of the circumstance (in Australian soccer history terms) of a comparatively popular and stable competition, which nevertheless suffers the notable weakness of its poor public perception of success, value, and viability". 

But that's just me, the classic example of an over-read and under (real-world) educated contrarian nobody. Now who knows what the road to Damascus moment was for the people currently running South Melbourne, or even if this new found faith in the "global football standard" will stick, because we're not exactly the most dependable people in a crisis. Still, little moments like this help pass the time, because it's not like there's much else to do.

Joshua Wallen joins South, next year

Another day, another Bentleigh player set to come us. Honestly, I have no idea who this guy is beyond what the club presser says, and that Wallen is not a Queenslander - according to one of my correspondents, Josh is actually from far north New South Wales and has played in Queensland, which is much of a muchness really. Some South folk are asking who's going to make way for the new signings, which seems like a good question to ask.

Pierce Clark also heading north

Another pandemic day, and another Queenslander playing for South Melbourne is heading up north for a little bit to see out the soccer season in a place where they're actually playing soccer (in Bluey voice) "for real life".

So goalkeeper Pierce Clark will be heading up to play for South West Queensland Thunder, before returning to Lakeside for season 2021.

Marco Jankovic heads north, then South

So, in previous pandemic dispatches from the president there was mention made that, in true NRL style. we had already signed players for next season. Well, here's one of those - defender Marco Jankovic from Bentleigh. My concern with this is that I worry about when Bentleigh releases any player and we end up snapping him up, because I'm suspicious about why said player would leave a stable, successful environment for whatever it is that we're doing. Anyway, like Harry Sawyer, Jankovic will be spending the rest of the 2020 season in Queensland (in his case, playing for Lions FC), so our most immediate hope is that both players come through that in one piece.

Harry Sawyer goes north

Harry Sawyer - the likely winner of South Melbourne's 2020 golden boot award, for whatever that's worth this year - has signed up with Gold Coast Knights for rest of the season. The move has been described by Gold Coast Knights' social media outlets as a loan move - though I am unaware if Sawyer was signed to South for 2020 and 2021, so who knows what such a loan move actually means for Harry's future at Lakeside. Then again, who knows what the future holds for anything anymore.

CAKE!

Having spent over a decade at a western suburbs university full of self-doubting weirdos, I'm well aware of the idea of "impostor syndrome" - but the creator of this minor masterpiece being critical of their work is a bit too much.

@smfc pic.twitter.com/X9mEvfbuj1

— Est1959 (@Est1959) July 25, 2020

I mean, if I had anywhere near the cake design skill of our friend here, would I have spent the past 13 years blogging about soccer?

Party like it's 1998

I'll play them if I have the chance - usually by being the stingy sort and just borrowing it from the local library - but I'm not a big enough fan of modern soccer video games to go out and buy my own copy. But I know some of you are, and you've probably already seen this making the rounds.

Someone has gone out of their way to apparently try and re-create the glory days of Australian soccer for play on the latest Pro Evo game - and by glory days, I guess this means the National Soccer League circa-1998. And who of us could argue? Though like Billy Natsioulas, one does have to query whether they got Trimmers' speed stats right. They also misspell the sponsor's name, bit that's neither here nor there really. Seeing how they no longer exist, Viviannes Collection is hardly going to issue a cease and desist anyway.

I assume those of you who bother with such things know how to download and make the option file work.

Stephen Folan returns home

As reported by the club's media avenues, visa player Stephen Folan is returning to Ireland.

With the 2020 senior men's season now cancelled, our Irish recruit Stephen Folan has decided to return home with his wife.

We would wish Stephen all the best for the future and thank him for all his efforts in his short time with the club. pic.twitter.com/IfQrkBC8l4

— South Melbourne FC (@smfc) July 22, 2020

Makes sense.

2020 NPL Victoria season cancelled

So, that's it for senior men's or women's soccer in the mainline metropolitan competitions for 2020.

While Football Victoria and a select few clubs who believed in their (given by who knows) mandate of football heaven that they must try and play through a pandemic, the pandemic has ultimately won.

But only for now. Because even as there appears to be no end in sight to the pandemic easing in Victoria to such a point where we might conceivably see local soccer return this year, still the dreamers of dreams are going to try and find a way to get any sort of soccer played in what remains of this awful year.

At the moment that seems to be mostly around getting junior competitions completed under some modified format, because won't someone think of the children and all that. Or won't someone think of a governing body that would hate to have to refund a ton of money back to clubs who would, in theory at least, return those fees back to those who put the money in the food chain in the first place.

And while sporting body budgets are always erratic things prone to mild swings of boom and bust, and belt tightening and free spending, having no competitions and therefore no fees coming into your coffers for a whole year would be hard to deal with for any governing body. And even if there was some kind of government bailout to cover your arse for this situation, it might not yet be enough.

Anyway, all of this is disappointing, but understandable. I blame no one who wanted to bail on the whole year when it seemed like most teams were gearing up for some kind of return. I blame no one who bailed when it became obvious that the virus' first wave had returned. I don't even blame those who wanted to play, whatever their motivation for doing so.

As it is, Football Victoria is looking to try and organise cobbled together tournaments of some sort for the spring and summer, for what purpose other than trying to claim some of their soon-to-be missing fees (assuming they don't keep the fees of those that choose not to play in of these proposed tournaments).

As it is, I would like to be able to say that I can write up a season review now, but since there might be some sort of South related action yet in 2020, I'll guess I'll just pad out the weeks with other crap until such time as everyone gives up on trying to get anything going this year.

The extended gist of the June 2020 president's message

As many of us are aware, as part of a personal push to improve member/board relations, president Nick Maikousis had promised to instigate regular member forums to inform members of ongoing matters at the club - as well as receive more prompt feedback from the membership rather than wait for an AGM.

Regular member forums also reduce the time needed to be spent at AGMs as well, of course, but I guess that's more of a fringe benefit.

If you haven't noticed these promised member forums, it's because they haven't been happening this year, for obvious reasons. Still, after giving an update via the re-booted South Radio in early April, Maikousis has not made any further appearances or made any further announcements until yesterday. 

As a matter of fact, South Radio also seems to have disappeared again.

All of this is understandable, because there's been both nothing happening, and a lot of stuff happening. The nothing is both on field, because no one's playing any games, as well as off field, because there'd been little obvious progress being made on a resumption until recently. But the lots of stuff happening is also true, as the club's senior teams had returned training, and there was constant talk about how the competition would resume.

Either way, it's nice to have official word on a number of issues. Of course you can all watch the video on Facebook - it's only about ten minutes long - but if you don't like the usage of the generic dance music that the club's media wing has made its signature, you may as well as read this summary instead. 

This summary also has the benefit of being easier to find for future reference. 

First cab off the rank is that all teams and all age groups have resumed training, which is nice I suppose. In regards to the men's season, Maikousis noted the difficulty of getting even this far into agreement to resume the season, remembering that just three NPL clubs (ourselves, Hume, and Gully) wanted to resume, and that Bentleigh have withdrawn from the 2020 season. Our club pushed for as much football as possible to be played - and thus we will (probably) have a completion of the remainder of the first half of the season, and an expanded eight team finals format.

The proposed finals format will include home and away legs. Maikousis makes no mention of matters relating to promotion and relegation for this year. It appears though that there will be a Dockerty Cup played for this season, which is nice.

The issue of a mid-season transfer window remains unresolved, though Maikousis noted that clubs may be able to use players signed for next season, for this season. How that actually works I'm not sure. No mention was made of any of our players potentially leaving for other clubs during whenever the mid-season transfer window may look like. 

There was brief mention made of the women's NPL and position in that. As expected, the plan is for a full home and away season, with finals series. At any rate, there are no fixtures set for either competition at this stage. 

While no direct mention was made of the possibility of crowds returning to games this year, in the event that clubs are allowed to host crowds at games in 2020, the club will extend the rights of members to use their memberships for home Dockerty Cup ties as well as home NPL games. 

Though I think we can safely assume that under the current circumstances, a return to crowds is a tad unlikely.

As noted in earlier dispatches, the club is exploring the option of providing discounts to current members when renewing their memberships next season. I just hope the club's membership database is up to scratch.

Maikousis noted that Eric Zimmerman has joined the board, with his immediate remit being the building up of our sponsor portfolio and business networks. Again, this has been a stated goal of Maikousis that's been oft repeated.

The president noted that there are no outstanding payments owed to members of the current senior men's squad. I don't know what that means for members of previous squads. The club is also seeking an overhaul of the player contract and dispute resolution process, and is working with bodies such as Football Victoria and the PFA in order to avoid having an "Avondale situation" happen again, as well as I assume avoid having wage dispute matters dealt with through the media for want of appropriate dispute resolution channels.

The Chris Taylor matter has been resolved, though the nature of that issue's resolution will remain undisclosed and confidential. No surprise there. All one can say is that I'm glad that's finally over, though who knows what the monetary costs were, as well as the costs to our reputation and success on the field.

Lastly, the club is pushing ahead with trying to get the second division  up and going - something about "seizing the opportunity", and offering all the resources the club has at its disposal to FFA, in order to make the dream of aspirational clubs all over the country come true. Who knew we had that many resources?

News! Sweet, nourishing news!

Finally some solid sense of when local soccer might come back, as well as in what form. Hold on to that feeling for as long as you can though, because you don't know when it will be taken away from you by irresponsible Essendon players or people attending poorly thought out house parties.

So the date for resumption of NPL Victoria is the weekend of July 25/26th. According to this Joey Lynch article (which is well worth a read), the recent spike in corona virus infections and the associated re-implementation of some pandemic restrictions won't have any effect on the resumption of local soccer, but we'll see. 

The consensus resumption format *seems* to be that in the men's NPL competition there will be eight more rounds played to complete the home and away season, which with the five already completed rounds, will at least set up a situation where everyone has at least played each other once. After that there will be an eight team finals component, of who knows what format.

This proposed return to action has been complicated by the fact that Bentleigh Greens have withdrawn from the rest of the 2020 season, As long as they pay their fiscal dues for this year, they get to keep their spot, and it seems like there won't be any relegation anyway.

As to what happens to Bentleigh's first five results, one assumes they'll be annulled and each team granted a bye from now on, but until such time as Football Victoria clarifies the situation all I can d is speculate. No official word either on what happens to members of Bentleigh's squad now that there's no senior team for them to play for in 2020. The talk is that at least some will try their luck in the state leagues.

No word either from what I can on the status of and/or existence of a mid-season transfer window, or whether the Dockerty Cup will continue - though the persistence of the latter for 2020 does seem to be something that is being mentioned.

As for the NPL women, they're looking at a 14 match home and away season with a top four finals series. Unlike the men, the women's NPL had not yet started before the pandemic lockdown. South is still signing players up for that competition, and in some respects it all looks a bit more straightforward on that front, for the time being at least.

In terms of whether fans will be allowed to attend games, my hunch - and it really is only a hunch - is that it's not bloody likely, especially with the recent spike in corona virus cases. Quite how anyone will enforce a ban on spectators at games in open parks - such as those used by many women's teams, and of course many state league teams - is anyone's guess though.

Football Victoria plans to continue streaming some games, but that doesn't mean there's any guarantee that we'd be a team being covered. Still, I assume the club itself would endeavour to do whatever is possible to provide streams of games.

And there's also this...
Interesting news emerged over the weekend that along with a reformatted broadcast deal, the A-League will move to a predominantly winter season from next year, for at least the next couple of seasons. Whether this is a temporary move in order to deal with the effects of COVID-19 and the 2022 Qatar World Cup - which will be played in November-December - or a move that the A-League will be in for the long haul, remains to be seen.

I have my doubts about the sensibleness of this change in direction, but that's for those who are more engaged with the A-League - and those who are trying to get promotion and relegation up - to deal with. What hasn't been explained yet - not that I was expecting to have been sorted out so early in the piece - is how this will effect the leagues below the A-League.

From a Victorian perspective, one assumes that there will be little problem in terms of accommodating the match day use of AAMI Park between Victory, Heart City, Storm, and the Rebels. Where Victoria Patriots Western United end up is an ongoing problem, and while I don't think that any of the local A-League teams will end up at Lakeside at times during the winter, it will be interesting to see if any attempt is made by the government to accommodate them on the off-chance that AAMI Park is double-booked by another sporting event or a concert.

Of course there's also the issue of training venues which some local A-League teams are sorted for (City, United), and one which still isn't (Victory). Again, we will wait and see.

Up until now the tail-end of the summer-based A-League seasons have already extended into the start and/or end of the NPL Victoria (and before that, Victorian Premier League) and state league seasons. In the beginning, when the A-League had an August-September start, the competition would finish in early February. In more recent seasons, as the A-League has pushed back its season starting point, the competition has gone all the way into May. That is much like the National Soccer League had done its business during its summer seasons, with both competitions crossing well over into the start of grassroots soccer seasons across the country.

Where this becomes relevant to us is scheduling. Some states - I believe South Australia is one such case - does not allow local competitions to run against Adelaide United fixtures. That's easy enough to do when you have just one A-League team in your city, but also where there isn't a holdover collective of clubs who are not fans of your city's A-League team representatives. The multiple teams issue in particular is going to be very interesting to see play in Victoria in terms of scheduling A-League matches.

On any given week, there could be two A-League games in Melbourne, with limited premium time-slots available. Saturday afternoons are out, because that's already taken up by the vast majority of senior men's soccer teams. Sunday afternoons have a variety of junior and women's competitions in action, though most will be over by early afternoon in the event that our local A-League teams choose to go with a late Sunday afternoon kickoff.

Friday nights, apart from often being the AFL's marquee night (with most of those games being played in Melbourne), will also go up against the majority of NPL senior men's games. These Friday night senior men's games have come about sometimes from long habit, and some from recent attempts to avoid clashing with junior NPL Sunday fixtures.

Will the A-League seek to create rules in cities like Melbourne, which have multiple teams, preventing local soccer from clashing with local A-League fixtures? Or will most teams - including the increasing numbers of state league teams which have gone with Friday nights as their preferred home game timeslot - simply move out of the way when there's a clash? It will be interesting to see how the A-League goes about trying to make this work, considering that some of the accompanying rhetoric around the move to winter is about coming into line with/connecting with grassroots soccer and its participants.

(keep in mind that I don't buy the angle that there is any great hostility toward the A-League from most local soccer people - apart from the usual suspects - just indifference)

The switch to winter doesn't seem to bode well for the future of the perennially embattled Y-League. Will they persist with their too-short, budget summer season? Or will it also move to a full-length winter season winter, where you would then assume the A-League (senior) NPL reps would leave their respective comps? Or will the concept gets dumped entirely - with A-League youth teams (and I assume senior players who miss out on A-League selection) going on about their business in the NPL competitions?

There's also no word on what will happen to the W-League, and whether it will also move to winter. If the W-League moves to winter, it jeopardises its favourable alignment with the American NWSL. If the W-League does move to winter, it will probably see most capable W-League players move overseas to the more lucrative NWSL, as well as then sucking up even more players from local WNPL competitions to fill out the numbers.

All in all, a lot of things to ponder for those of us in the second (and third and fourth) tiers, even though public consideration of our relationship to this change seems to have been negligible at best, except as possible customers for a competition heading into waters left uncharted for 30 years.

Who knows? Not me, that's for sure.

So where are we at with a potential restart and/or resumptio to the season? Who knows. Every day it seems there's restrictions being lifted, or at least talk of such in the near future. And yet in terms of the soccer stuff, most of us plebs are not much the wiser.

When will we see a restart? Will we be allowed to go? Which teams are in or out? What would the competition even look like? For whatever it's worth, both our men's and women's teams have been training, but anything more than, your guess is as good as mine as to what will actually happen.

There was talk of the leagues across the board being restarted - with promotion, and no threat of relegation, to avoid punishing teams that did not or could not resume play. Apart from the effect of inflating the numbers for the top division in 2021, that idea also necessitates the flow on effect of what to do for the top NPL division. Why would teams play if they weren't going to get relegated, weren't likely to win a championship, and weren't going to be able make any or much money at the gate and canteen?

And then there's talk of players moving on from NPL clubs to cash in on state league teams willing to throw the dice for promotion in this compromised season.

To the right is one set of possible scenarios as discussed within Football Victoria's meetings, which includes the possibility that the likely patchwork NPL season could include teams plucked from NPL 2 and 3 to fill out numbers.

Another source has told me that the league will resume on July 17, that Heidelberg and Avondale will be sitting out the comp, while Knights and Oakleigh are on the fence. Everyone else will play, and there'll be eight more rounds plus finals. Apart from their general commentary, another source of mine who is close to Heidelberg has told me that Heidelberg are very wary about the insurance implications of resuming, among other things.

Apart from that, there's  not much to say. I've been doing my radio show in Football Nation Radio, and piss-farting around wasting time. At least the footy's back.

Scrapbook artefact Wednesday - SM Hellas vs Newcastle BHP, 1993

After initially being a cautiously keen user of the Australian Football Before the A-League page, I'd boycotted it for a few years. Partly because I'm not a Facebook fan; partly because the page was becoming increasingly repetitive and was of poor quality from an artefact and discursive perspective; and partly because the moderators of the site did nothing to curb possibly libellous personal abuse levelled at myself and another user.

But the past is the past. Though some of the discussion on there is still vintage garbage TWGF level in terms of its pitting the past against the present, the quality of the artefacts seems to have improved somewhat, as the page's user base has increased in size. Some people are even posting full programs instead of just newspaper cut-outs!

In amid the usual and the surprising, you occasionally stumble across interesting items like this:

Click to enlarge the image. Credit: Mark Taylor.

It comes from a series of scrapbook notes taken by one of the page's members, Mark Taylor, who has been sharing them on the group's page. The game was South vs Newcastle in February 1993, the home game after the Clash of the Titans. In its own way it's a kinder gentler version of something like this,

Anyway, thanks to the relevant Facebook page, I've also been able to add even more content to South of the Border's match program archive, including the program from the opening of St George Stadium - at present our oldest NSL program on the site, and our second oldest overall. We've also got away to Marconi in 1979, and hopefully soon Marconi away 1980 and 1981.

More nothing than you can poke a stick at

Even though the pandemic is hardly over, Australia is gradually opening up again, and across the board sports are looking to resume in some form or another. So are is the NPL Victoria coming back this year?

Last week indiscreet murmurings on internet forums suggested that in our division, nine of the fourteen clubs weren't too keen to resume in 2020. Furthermore, the other five clubs, while wanting to resume, were sympathetic to those that didn't want to start again, especially if it meant not having crowds and the associated revenue at games.

But this apparent understanding began coming undone when news seeped out that the NPL 2 and 3 teams were keen on getting their seasons underway. How this would work without promotion to and relegation from the top division is an interesting question.

The whole notion of a detente however was blasted out of the water by Hume City's president Steve Kaya, who railed against the apparently ten NPL Victoria clubs refusing to resume, and noting that his club had resumed training. So, one team named within one faction, thirteen more to go across both. Then Green Gully announced that it was also resuming training, and the question for me was where did South sit?

My hunch - and it was only a hunch - was probably on the side of South being one of those not keen on coming back. That's less because of middling our performances had been, and mostly because our president Nick Maikousis had said at the beginning of the competition's shutdown that he didn't think the competition would return.

But according to Michael Lynch, alongside Hume and Gully, it's our club and Eastern Lions who make up the group of four clubs looking and/pushing for a resumption in play. Though there's some soccer-forum conjecture about Lions are actually in favour of resuming.

Football Victoria, which has been sending out intermittent updates on the situation via email, has a hopeful target of early July for the resumption of NPL senior football. From my isolated locale, I can't tell what's likely to happen.

Do the fans really want play to resume so badly that they're willing to put up with not being able to go to games? Are the players keen enough to come back even though it would mean having to put up with extremely stringent safety procedures on match days and at training? Is there even genuine scope for a return while the corona virus is still active within the community? What's the point of resuming if the whole thing can probably get shutdown with just one case if the virus in a player or official?

As usual, I've got a lot of questions and no answers.

Lakeside to receive funds for renovation
In other COVID-19 related news, the state government is planning to upgrade a wide variety of sporting facilities, as part of a pandemic economic recovery plan. According to this article in The Age, that includes renovation of Lakeside Stadium, whatever that means.

Match programs
Program-wise I've added the "possibly incomplete" Canberra City away 1980, the "I recently bought a copy off eBay" Sydney Olympic away 2004, and the "I was tardy in scanning it" Green Gully away 2019 to the collection. You know where to find these by now.

Tassie All-Stars stun the mighty South Melbourne Hellas in 1981 (via Walter Pless)

Photo of a pennant from the game between the Tassie All-Stars and South Melbourne
 Hellas, sent to Walter Pless by former Tasmanian player Craig Pitt. According to Pitt -
who played  against South for Tasmania in the early 1990s - the likely reason he has this
 pennant is that  he was a ballboy during the 1981 meeting between South and Tasmania.

During the coronavirus downtime, I've been mucking around with a collaborative project set up by Tony Persoglia to create and compile a database for interstate competition and tour matches, which will ultimately be uploaded to OzFootball. It's the kind of information which already exists in a piecemeal format on OzFootball - and in different, hard-to-find print almanacs - but which really needs a comprehensive clean-up so that we have a reliable one-stop shop for this kind of information. Here's a sample page of how this information will be presented once the collective effort is fully unleashed.

Meanwhile, unlike South of the Border, which has been slack with any sort of updating,
Tasmanian soccer journalist and historian Walter Pless has been spending the COVID-19 break putting up a series of fascinating posts on his blog on the olden days of Tasmanian soccer. Our lockdown interests met at the point where I needed info on a Tasmanian rep match from 1965 against an Auckland select in New Zealand.

While digging around for relevant info to help me out, Walter came across some South Melbourne Hellas archival materials, and kindly passed them along - and also managed to write about the Tasmanian state team beating our own South Melbourne Hellas in 1981. Here's the article originally posted by Walter on his blog - which he's kindly allowed me to reproduce on South of the Border. Naturally it's very much from the Tasmanian point of view. I'll have something more contemporary on the blog in the upcoming week.

Walter Pless' article in Soccer Action from October 21, 1981, covering Tasmania's win over South Melbourne.
The article above this one has then Hellas midfielder John Stevenson claiming that "it's Hellas' title in 1982".

Tasmanian coach Steve Darby really put his name, and that of Tasmanian football, on the map when he coached a Tasmanian All-Stars side to a 2-0 win over the highly-rated South Melbourne Hellas at South Hobart on 11 October 1981 before a crowd of 1,500.

South Melbourne Hellas had just finished second in the National Soccer League and their side included Alun Evans.

Evans began his career with Wolverhampton Wanderers and I had seen him play for Wolves in the United States against Stoke City in 1967.

Tasmanian coach Steve Darby. Photo: Walter Pless.

He joined Bill Shankly’s Liverpool in 1968 as a 19-year-old and played for The Reds for four seasons before losing his place to new signing Kevin Keegan.

Evans was the star of the South Melbourne side that came to Hobart but although he went close to scoring several times, the Tasmanian defenders kept him goalless.

Tasmania’s coach, Steve Darby, also had an impressive CV. He had been assistant national coach of Bahrain before coming to Tasmania to coach Devonport.

Darby also played for University and coached New Town Eagles, as well as the State team.

Darby went on to be the State Director of Coaching before leaving Tasmania and becoming a successful men’s and women’s coach in Australia and South-East Asia.

He coached the Matildas and the Vietnam women’s team, and was also assistant coach of the Thailand men’s national side.

The Tasmania All-Stars side was impressive and included former Middlesbrough First Division player Peter Brine in defence.

Photo: Peter Brine (rear at left) back in Hobart in 2018 to
 catch up with Craig Jones (front left), Nick Di Martino
 (rear right) and Denis Payne. Photo: Walter Pless.

The Tasmanian team was: Phil Kannegiesser - Alan Burton, Peter Brine, Darby Conlan, Chris Hey - Steve Kannegiesser, Eric Young, Willy Peters - Bruce Ward, Mark Oakes (Nick Cook 60), Ian Parker.

The South Melbourne Hellas line-up was: Laumets - Boon, Lutton, Xanthopoulos, Traficante - Stevenson, Shirra, Nicolaides, Campbell - Evans, Buljevic.

The Tasmanian side included other imports such as Eric Young (ex-Manchester United), Bruce Ward (one of the most lethal strikers ever to have played in Tasmania),Ian Parker (brilliant left-winger from the UK), Alan Burton (also from the UK) and Nicky Cook (was with Hull City).

The home-grown talent was impressive, too, with Chris Hey, Phil and Steve Kannegiesser, Darby Conlan, Willy Peters and Mark Oakes all playing from the start.

Eric Young (left) and Ian Parker catch up in Hobart in 2008.
 Photo: Walter Pless.

South Melbourne’s coach was former Greek international John Margaritis, who coached Olympia in Tasmania in the 1960s.

The referee was Tasmania’s Norm Johnston, a top-class official who had come to the State from Western Australia. He was here only a few years before returning interstate.

Goals by Ian Parker in the 11th minute and Bruce Ward in the 79th minute did the job for the home team.

I’d love to see the video of the game. It was filmed from the back of a ute parked on the grass at the side of the pitch near the present scoreboard. I know because David Martin and I were the commentators. David, Reg Tolputt and I used to host a half-hour football show on local radio station 7HT on Saturday mornings. Reg was one of the founders of new club Salvos (Salvation Army) and he was also the manager of one of Steve Darby's Tasmanian sides.

My match report in "Soccer Action" [see above] didn't appear until 10 days later because Steve Darby and I had been attending the semi-finals and final of the Under-20s World Cup in Sydney [won by West Germany 4-0 against Qatar].

Jump! Jump! Jump! artefact Wednesday

Ah, 2007. It was a season which held so much promise. We were fresh off a championship, two years after almost going broke. We had what looked like a good squad, and a good first up crowd against the Bergers at home in an exciting game, followed by a thrilling win against Richmond, which I missed because I was at an Elbow concert. Another win against the Essendon Royals, and things looked promising. And then they didn't. Dean Anastasiadis went down with a season ending knee injury in round 4, and we soon found out that for the most part we were adept downhill skiers, but not much more than that, and the season ended with us missing the finals by three points, amid suspicion from some fans that'd we kinda tanked some games - specifically the 3-0 loss at Western Suburbs - because we had cash-flow problems.

But one could easily point to the uneven draw as a causal factor - though the league had 16 teams, there were only 26 rounds - and the fact that we only played that season's wooden spooner Springvale White Eagles just once. We could point to the mess of the goalkeeping situation once Deano went down. And you could of course point to many calamitous poor results, including the 2-0 home loss to Sunshine George Cross the week before that humiliation at Ralph Reserve. But all that is irrelevant compared to the forfeit forced upon us by Football Federation Victoria, for a home match against Melbourne Knights. But first some background.

2007 was a crazy year on the terraces, hills, concourses, and the streets of Melbourne. There were was the Cros vs the Serbs (and Greek onlookers) at the Australian Open tennis. There was a stolen Melbourne Victory banner which found its way to Clarendon Corner in round 1, and which made a reappearance at our game at Richmond. There were also more ethnic related incidents at the Water Polo World Championships. A combination of these things saw FFV and/or Victoria Police - it's not quite clear to me even now who was exerting the greater pressure - to demand unrealistically expensive security measures. South refused to pay the asking price, and FFV preemptively - that is, days out from the game - awarded a 3-0 forfeit to Knights.

The next week we were scheduled to play against Fawkner at CB Smith Reserve. This is the old CB Smith, with the tin shed along the western wing, and most importantly, an open view from outside the southern end, where there was only a high chain-link fence to visually obstruct spectators. It was a perfect venue to conduct what we called at the time a protest against FFV, which naturally proved futile, and only really served to hurt Fawkner on one of their bigger paydays for the year. The Agitator brought a slab of Heineken, and the game was an awful 0-0 draw - though we could've sneaked a winner late. The most interesting thing, unplanned amid the scarcely planned nature of the whole enterprise, was at the end of the game when the Clarendon Corner stalwart known as "Box" climbed up the very high and probably very rusty fence to chants of "Box! Box! Box!", and then when at the top, "Jump! Jump' Jump!". Thankfully he had a little more sense than that, and climbed back down.

I can't remember where I found this photo, so if it belongs to you let me know. But this was 13 years ago, and my haven't we come a long way since then.

#itstime artefact Wednesday - #SMFC4ALEAGUE t-shirt

Time has stopped. Time no longer exists. There is no A-League. There is no South Melbourne Hellas. There is no soccer. We exist in the collective individualised state of attempting to engage with the twin voids of chronology and meaning. All we have left is the remembrance of time, and the events which occurred back when things still used to occur. I bought this t-shirt late last year at the Savers outlet in Footscray, for the princely sum of $3.49. I don't remember what the club was charging for these shirts. Not being convinced of the merits of the South Melbourne bid, or the legitimacy of the A-League bid process as a whole - and because I am preternaturally too cool for school - I didn't buy a shirt from the club when I had the chance. We could wonder which of our fans had bought one of these shirts and then lost all hope and abandoned the club after our most recent A-League bid failed. More likely, the shirt belonged to a former casual employee, volunteer, or sundry associate of the club, who would have no reason for keeping this shirt. For those of us still here, it's not an item that's going to end up in the poolroom, but there wasn't much choice for me when I saw it on the racks.

Nick Maikousis on South Radio

South Radio has put up a rather good interview with club president Nick Maikousis. For those not keen on listening to the full 30 minutes, here's a brief summary, though I won't have done the interview justice.

Maikousis notes that all operations at the club have shut down at all levels. Seniors mens, womens, juniors, the lot. Senior players are still training in isolation, under a stressful situation. Some players are entirely reliant on football income to make a living, but all of our contracts are game based.

Maikousis does not foresee the season resuming. That's interesting in itself, because as yet I have not seen anyone in any senior position in Victorian soccer making a statement like that, despite its obvious plausibility. He does throw up a rough scheduling model under which he believes that the 2020 NPL Victoria season could resume, but the time-frame would be tight - and it would be difficult for clubs whose grounds become unavailable in the off-season to maintain access to grounds, should the season be extended.

(largely left out of the discussion is what impact such a catch-up model would have on the condition of grounds having to take up at least two senior and reserves matches a week)

With his belief that the 2020 season is unlikely to resume, Maikousis goes on to discuss modelling of what a season without football will look like for South across the board - in terms of sponsorship, membership, costs, etc. He goes on to make the claim that for South, match day revenue is less important than it is for other clubs - which makes the idea of resuming under a closed-doors system less likely to happen in his opinion. The line that the club's revenue focus is now on sponsorship sits in line with comments made at the most recent AGM, but it is a comment which also downplays somewhat the fretting over lost match day revenues due to both our recent (past two years) poor form, and especially the impact of the live streaming og every NPL game.

While nothing has been settled yet, there is the possibility that those who have already paid sponsorship and/or membership fees, may have their benefits rolled over into next year, especially in the event that the entire season is called off. This would be an interesting move, with quite a few variables. What if a junior player does not return next year? If a sponsor's business is effected so much that they cannot continue into next year, if say, they've only made part payment? Still, best to wait and see what actually happens with the rest of the season, and event what Football Federation Victoria will end up doing with its operations.

The club is working through the ramifications of the shutdown on our various facilities, which includes the Middle Park and Caulfield grounds as well as Lakeside, and the rental and financial obligations related to those. The club will also investigate the various government subsidies which have emerged as a result of the corona virus shutdown. There was no mention of the effects on the sub-lease of the social club operations. Maikousis did note however, that the club's external debt repayment plan - originally slated to be complete by the end of 2020 - would likely be pushed out by three months.

After the broadcast was published, there was going to be a meeting between the various NPL clubs to discuss the situation.

Maikousis also provided an update on a meeting with PFA head John Didulica, regarding the recent accusations of unpaid wages. Maikousis made the point that the issue was not about wages, but rather about end of contract terms regarding players who left during the middle of the season - an issue which is being resolved, or close to being resolved. The president also claimed that the club and the PFA are in agreement about the lack of an adequate dispute resolution process when issues arise between clubs

NPL shutdown extended

So the pause that was set on grassroots soccer in Australia until mid-April has now been extended until the end of May. Given the way the COVID-19 situation continues to unfold, that extension won't be a surprise to anyone.

Maybe because of the tedious way the season had been going, I've not been missing South games as much as I thought I would be, and I suspect that's probably the same for a lot of our remaining supporter base. Still, I do miss some of the people. And it'd be nice to keep busy and get some fresh air and be able to watch people exert themselves for my entertainment. The restricted triangulation of going to the supermarket, the local bakery, and the front garden can get wearisome even for the best of us.

Soccer-forum.net and smfcfans,com have both more or less lost all momentum. There's just nothing to talk about except the thing that everyone's talking about, unless you want to dig into the past. Looking forward, we're probably not quite at the point where the whole 2020 NPL Victoria season will become a write-off, but it must be getting close. Who knows how you'd even resume the competition should the situation be stable enough at the end of May.

The economic consequences of the shutdown on local soccer are still yet to be fleshed out, and it's probably too early to know how far-reaching the effects will be. But for South, there's some interesting questions to consider, and I'm interested in how the board will handle them. There's player contracts of course - with South reputedly being one of the few clubs in the competition to have their players on professional contracts instead of amateur, you'd hope that the bulk of those contracts were based on players actually playing.

There's also coaches and support staff, for some of whom South will be their main source of employment, as opposed to it being a weekend thing for a bit of extra coin / lucrative hobby. Oh, and then there's the situation every NPL club will be having to deal with - what happens to their youth programs which will have cost parents a great deal of money, and whose seasons would have barely started. And some of our coaches and at least one of our players must be on working visas. There's also income streams from sponsors, loss of match day revenue, and let's not forget Vic and the folk who lease out the social club space. We're fortunate enough to have the monthly government stipend, but we also have debts that we're trying to clear... it's just so much uncertainty.

On the social side of things, the club itself continues to sporadically provide social media updates. There's the high level personal trolling of me by the club with 'Melvin Mondays'. There's also been a revival of South Radio, which seems to only be available via Facebook at this stage. According to senior team manager Kris Peladarinos, the players are training and keeping fit mostly by themselves at the moment. We'll have to wait until president Nick Maikousis makes an appearance on the show to get more solid information about how the club is dealing with the issues brought about by the corona virus shutdown.

Press Pause - Altona Magic 1 South Melbourne 1

Late, late, late, not that anyone cares, least of all me. There are bigger things to worry about these days, but nevertheless, to the game itself. Oh, dear. A late flurry of activity doesn't make up for the fact that before that it was slop central from both teams. That would've been fine, well not fine but bearable, well maybe not even that, had we not gifted Magic with the opening goal of the game.

Picture this: Daniel Clarke down and injured in the other half of the field for some time, the referee not stopping the game, it's his prerogative I suppose. You assume that the South players are aware that Clark is down, and should at least kill the play, after all, there's only a short time left before halftime, and who'd want to concede at that particular moment?

But Jake Marshall clears up the line instead of out, the ball comes back our way, and if Moses faced a Red Sea made up of South defenders he wouldn't have needed his magic rod or God's help to get through to the other side.

Turns out the only way to get back any sort of dignity is for two unlikely things to happen, most of which involve a short corner. The corner is played short to Melvin Becket, who doesn't trip over the ball, doesn't sky it, and doesn't shank it. Instead he chips the ball expertly to Brad Norton, who the Magic defense treated with due social distancing respect by being nowhere near him. Norton headed it, it went in, and we got a point we were probably due, but geez it felt crap getting it anyway.

And as I realised a little later than I would have liked, here was Brad Norton scoring from a short corner, five a half years after I'd admonished him for taking a short corner in Shepparton.

There must have been some latent belief among some of the players that they were better than a side like the battling Altona Magic, but where was the proof of that on the day? Nowhere to be found, of course, and whatever positive vibes the squad may have brought into the season must've be near gone. So we've only lost one game, gone unbeaten for four games in a row, but damn if we don't make scoring look like an absolute chore, among our sundry other deficiencies.

But that's all by the by now. The real question last Saturday, the one that went more or less unspoken, was should anyone have even been at the game? Was the presence of the two teams and the smattering of supporters who turned up just being selfish, merely kidding themselves that the COVID-19 social distancing recommendations didn't apply to them, or just following orders in the vacuum of decision making created by the slow moving state and national federations?

I admit to feeling selfish being there, as if actually, being at a South game is an optional experience, not a mandatory unless absolutely unavoidable one. Would I have gone tomorrow to Dandenong tomorrow if the game was on? I'd like to think at this stage probably not, but also: maybe? What would people think if I coughed or sneezed. What would I think about myself? It's not a flattering thing to think about oneself, but at least this matter has been taken out of our hands.

Now there's the matter of what happens now, and what happens next. Who's paying the bills, who's due bills, and once we get through the other side of the pandemic, will anyone or at least enough still care?

Next game
Not until at least after April 14.

Final thought
So what do we do now?

Middlebrow - Port Melbourne 1 South Melbourne

Not that anyone's happy about it, or that anyone should be happy be about it, but given the last two and a bit years, did anyone expect us to be any better than one win, two draws, and one loss at this stage of the 2020 season?

In a battle between an upper-middlebrow side and a lower-middlebrow side, I think you'd be more upset with a draw if you were the former. Neither of these two sides is particularly good, and Hellas fan trademark histrionics aside, neither of these two sides is particularly bad either. It being the case that there are 14 teams and six finals spots in this competition, Port might sneak a finals place by virtue of their being less mediocre over the course of the home and away season than several similarly equipped teams. Not seeing our side as being that capable, I don't believe we'll be a serious contender for sixth, but barring some disaster on a slightly bigger scale than what we've become used to, we probably won't be in the bottom two or near enough to cause us extended angst.

So hooray for optimism and all that. Nevertheless, four games in I am struggling to figure out where the improvement will come from this season. All I can see happening is more shuffling players on and off the starting eleven, and on and off the bench. I used to half joke that it was foolish and unfair to expect better from players at this level - after all, with the odd exception, if these players were better than what they are, then they probably wouldn't be here in the NPL. Sadly, the joke now seems to have been extended to if these players were better than what they are, they would be playing for someone else in this competition.

That's all very cruel sounding from someone like me, who can't kick a ball, jog, or see further than a a few metres. But, to wit - we fielded two players on Friday night that had played for Port last season, one of whom was a bench option for us when we were good, and who now has a starting eleven sport ahead of someone many of us assumed would be one of our rare junior to senior success stories. And the other Port pickup hasn't done much yet either, and I am not counting the Eastern Lions game because they still managed to score twice, and chances are that everyone will beat Eastern Lions this season.

There is no middle of miidfield. Flawed potential saviour Marcus Schroen is injured. Luke Pavlou is serviceable, but serviceable isn't commanding, dominant, or game changing. Melvin Becket, bless his enthusiasm, was so enthusiastic when he came on last week that ran around like an eight year old chasing the ball everywhere, and found it tangled within his legs at the one time he found himself in the actual correct position on the field. Just as troubling is that considering that we have a squad full of wingers, we got torched on the wings, and probably our second most-capable winger (Chris Irwin) got his face cut up so bad he had to come off before half-time. Our most seasoned and one well-credentialed winger (Nick Krousoratis), who came on to replace Irwin, was probably *this* close to being replaced himself for his continued ineffective performance.

Gerrie Sylaidos, trying to make things happen. Photo: Cindy Nitsos. 

Our actual best winger (Gerrie Sylaidos) is being shuffled between number 10 and the wing, with fans complaining about the wisdom of both moves. Yet in the first half, it was he who created and scored our one good chance single-handedly - you'd be generous to give Amadu Koroma an assist credit for his throw in - and when moved out to the left in the second half, looked lively again as we sort of walked back from the cliff edge we peered over during the minutes 15-45. And where's Peter Skapetis? Now without pretending that Harrison Sawyer is the Second Coming of Milos - and these days even Milos barely looks like Classic Milos, and that was against a whole of team effort that was seemingly begging him to score - the service to him has been mostly been dire.

But we didn't lose, and that's what I'm taking out of this. Not one South person is genuinely quibbling about the result or how we got there. As upset as anyone can be for the penalty that was awarded against us - which even with the modified, pro-cruelty handball ball, seemed beyond harsh - Port should've scored at least two or three around that goal. And that extra bouncy ball lifted over Pierce Clark, which took an off-break towards goal, and somehow managed to bounce over the crossbar? There's good luck and bad luck, and we had our fair share of both.

When you were growing up, you probably thought your life would turn out, turning up to three-quarters-dark sporting reserves in the suburbs - seriously Port, are you planning to host witness protection cells in the corners of that pitch? - to watch semi-pro footballers fumble about frantically. Maybe you dreamt of being an astronaut, systems analyst, or military strongman, but we're all in this together until they shut the league down along with the rest of society - assuming of course, that NPl Victoria is considered part of society.

Next game
Saturday evening away to Altona Magic. Some say Magic are a very poor side, close to the same level as Eastern Lions. Others say Magic are not that bad, and are more capable of creating chances, and even producing some solid enough defence. I mean, you tell me what to make of any team after four games, especially one 99% of us haven't paid much attention to. Whatever happens on Saturday, we'll get upset.

Soccer Saturday Football Friday
It seems strange to think of now in these days of multiple content streams, but there used to be a time when people in Melbourne  - or at least Australian rules fans in Melbourne - yearned for the days when all or most VFL games were played on the same day at the same time. You'd go to your preferred game on a Saturday afternoon, and rush home to watch extracts from two or three other games on television in the evening.

Those days are long gone of course, even for local soccer. Once upon a time top-tier senior soccer in Melbourne would've been all on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, midweek cup and tour games notwithstanding. But we've long been accustomed to the situation of having some combination of Friday nights, Saturday afternoons, Saturday evenings, Saturday nights, Sunday afternoons, Sunday evenings, and even that most cursed of all timeslots, Monday nights.

But change being the only constant, things keep evolving. And so for a variety of reasons, we've seen more and more teams migrate senior games to Friday nights. Last Friday we had six of the round's seven matches being played at close enough to the same time, mostly staggered (probably by coincidence more than anything deliberate) at kickoffs of 15 minute intervals.

There's not much that Football Victoria can do about this. They set rules about how early or late games can kick off on a proscribed match days, but otherwise leave fixturing to the clubs. Which is fair enough - clubs should have the ultimate say in when they think they'll get their best turnouts, and how best to manage the load and availability of the fields they have at their disposal. Now some people might complain about not being able to get to other NPL games, but if I'm being honest here, that doesn't seem to be the main complaint people have with this arrangement. I mean, one can't simultaneously say that NPL crowds are crap (which they are) and then posit that simultaneous matches are inhibiting attendances for all but the most sick NPL attendees.

(though clubs who have come to rely on fortnightly visits by George Katsakis and his chucking fifty bucks on the bar and canteen might have a more valid complaint - I mean, not even George can visit all six games on a Friday night)

No, the biggest gripe seems to be from and for those poor souls who prefer to stay home and watch the NPL live streams. Switching between two or three games? Easy. Between six? Much harder, especially as NPL Victoria is still well short of being able to produce an NFL RedZone production. But even though the live streams have at least anecdotally hurt NPL attendances, it's hard to know how much of an impact they've had because no one's done and no one's really capable of doing the due research.

But the live streaming is an important thing to consider, because with this national second division that's set to come in some time within the next few years, the people who want an NSD need to get their heads around who's going to come and watch their games, and who's going to pay to watch their product on some sort of screen. And proper fixturing of games, including spreading out games, will become a key element of that, though I figure that an NSD will see Melbourne teams have a lock on Fridays, because the other states generally don't seem to play games on Fridays.

Until I was disabused of my assumptions by someone more in the know, my assumption was that far fewer Australian soccer fans are interested in watching NPL (and even an NSD) than certain groups would like to think, and that goes especially for live streaming. Counting incidental ultra-short-term views on Facebook as having a value beyond their measure seems like a dangerous form of self-delusion. Plucking out numbers without context and comparing them at all as like for like with free to air and pay television seems like a recipe for self-delusion. Apparently however, most of NPL Victoria's viewership - around 80% - comes from Victorian sources.

That apparently changes significantly for Monday games, after gamblers in Asia collect their paychecks. (Monday is apparently payday in many south-east Asian nations). Not being the kind to watch these games on Facebook, I can't say much for the comments left there which might indicate who the audience might be. But recently on NPL Victoria's YouTube streams, the comments have been opened up again after being locked for all of last year, and the results indicate very little local or Australian audience interaction. Like YouTube streams of Tasmanian games, which tend to leave their comments sections open, Monday's standalone NPL match between Eastern Lions and Dandenong Thunder held few surprises in terms of the audience.

And that audience seems to be mostly made up of overseas gamblers taking advantage of games  being played outside the time slots of most football leagues. So apart from the comments that are in Arabic or Cyrillic scripts, most of the rest is easily intelligible. People claiming to have inside knowledge, people alleging rigged games, and people confused about what level they're actual watching, with comments running the gambit from expecting VAR to be part of the experience to the assumption that no one is being paid, and that the league is completely amateur.

These idiots actually go to games. Photo: Luke Radziminski.

To be fair, when you see utes moving around in the background, it can be easy to assume that the competition is amateur, however the cruelty of some of the comments - poor standard, poor players, poor stadiums, poor crowds - is probably not the kind of commentary Football Victoria, the broadcast teams, and even fans of the comp will want to have spread, even if fans of the competition especially already think and post much the same criticism. The live stream is, after all, meant to function as a form of promotion of the talents of the players and commentators and the local game as a whole, not matter how funny it is having some guy going "i have corona virus who wants some" in the comments.

I've noticed that...
The club has put up a notice on its Facebook page that:

"South Melbourne has been working with all stakeholders Football Victoria, the AAFC and Football Federation Australia & more recently PFA to see Australia return to a football structure which embraces and encourages aspirational football. 

We believe the NSD is critical for the development of Football. We are looking forward to continuing our participation in the next phase on this journey, including the submission of South's Expression of Interest, which will enable South to once again play regularly on the national stage."

Which is fair enough I suppose, though you kinda wish they could put something up on their website, not least because the website hasn't been updated since February 24.


Final thought
It was really a very minor thing, but I heard some news about South the other day that was so unexpectedly positive, containing evidence of the club's attempt to be morally upright and legally compliant in a way that any normal business should be, that my first reaction was not joy, but rather shock and disgust.

That's Entertainment! Oakleigh Cannons 0 South Melbourne 0

Once more, forgive the lateness and brevity and crapness of this report, only some of which can be put down to the grinding boredom of this game.

Consider this: in the lead up to this game, our supporter base was beset by consistent predictions of us going home with a minimum three goal loss. So it stands to reason that after we escaped Jack Edwards Reserve with one more point than most away teams are likely to get there this season, near everyone has maintained their resolutely grim outlook on life.

To be a little fair, when you're up a man for 80 minutes you should at least be getting a draw. You should also be getting at least a couple of shots on target at some point. But as someone who is not particularly confident about this season amounting to anything more (or less) than mid-table mediocrity, I'm happy to take a point from this game and move on, knowing that there's always the possibility of greater and more genuine humiliation just around the corner.

Of course there is the ongoing concern about just how we're going to score this year if Plan A doesn't work. For those who haven't been paying attention so far this season, Plan A is basically to use speed and overlapping play on the wings and wide areas to send in dangerous crosses to our target man, or if things really go our way, somehow dribble the ball into the box from those aforementioned said wide areas.

Plan A depends on a few things to make it work. Speedy wingers and full-backs with decent crossing. Wide grounds to give said players more space to exploit their advantage in speed. Preferably a target of size and talent. And perhaps most importantly in a competition like this, Plan A opposition sides which are ignorant in the way in which we choose to play, or which are so poor that any knowledge they have about our game style is rendered moot.

So far in 2020, the wingers have been speedy, but the crossing - except from the first half corners in the game against Eastern Lions - has been poor. Against Oakleigh, the narrowness and smallness of the ground, and the home side's defensive discipline once they went down to ten men, made the execution of Plan A much more difficult. The target man was starved of service and quality, and his two half chances ended up a) wide, and b) stubbed.

It's also fair to say that in this game, Plan A wasn't really adjusted despite Oakleigh going a man down. A defensive and cautious set up persisted throughout the game, with no obvious change except for what some people consider puzzling personnel swaps in the second half. Plan A on Friday night was to move the ball from one side of the ground to the other and back again, working our way up the ground until such point as there was an overload or overlap on one of the wings.

Who knows if it was meant to be done as slowly as it was, but on a narrow ground against an experienced and disciplined Chris Taylor coached team, this relative slowness of ball movement made things harder than it should have been. Some better crossing would've helped, but for the vast majority of the crosses produced on the night were of poor quality. One can eviscerate Harry Sawyer for what you perceive to be his deficiencies, but just about any forward is going to struggle under the circumstances that Sawyer found himself in on Friday night.

Never mind that there is almost no meaningful play down the middle of the ground by the team. It's ironic that the one time the team did manage to get through the centre channel, Gerrie Sylaidos' through ball to Sawyer resulted in the Oakleigh player getting his marching orders. But like most of his teammates, Sylaidos struggled to create much after that. His super-fans might say his talents are being wasted with him being played out of position - the argument being he's a better winger than number 10, but if you have no other option, Gerrie has to do the job, especially when the squad has so many wingers.

It can also be true that there's an instruction to the team to avoid taking players on, especially in the middle of the field. Taking players on, playing more risky passes - all these things are being weighed up against the idea of "what if something goes wrong?". And while the those on the hill screaming obscenities and abuse towards their own team and especially its coach probably have little impact on the game, it does highlight one thing - if we're going to be mediocre, could we at least be mediocre in a way which gives us a chance of achieving something, or of at least being entertained?

For instance, having taking Sylaidos off (a move guaranteed to raise the ire of a good chunk of our fans), why not insert Melvin Becket in his place? Sure, Becket's hardly one of my favourite current players, but things tend to happen when he's on the field. Things tended to look better when Ben Djiba got on the field for Amadu Koroma, which makes some people wonder why Djiba hasn't been in the starting ahead of Koroma.

Defensively, the team was generally solid, and Lirim Elmazi looks like the best pick up we've in the off-season. Still, there were a couple of times when Oakleigh were able to break down the wings because the channels that Taylor-coached teams like to use were not closed down. Of more concern is some of the defensive set ups from set pieces. We've already conceded a goal from a free kick this year, and on Friday night playing against ten men, we found ourselves gifting Oakleigh a great chance by letting them have a free man in the box from a corner.

Ultimately though, it's the coach's prerogative about how a team plays, and if rolling the dice isn't part of the plan, so be it. And for most of the game, the team was disciplined to a fault in a way that South teams over the past couple of years have not been. And as long as there's a steady accumulation of points or at least a trickle, any frustration with this overly cautious approach will be tolerated, until such point that the utter boredom at its heart crushes all our spirits.

Next game
Tomorrow night away against Port Melbourne. Please note the senior kickoff time of 7:45 - there is no curtain raiser, as the reserves game is being played on Saturday.

Final thought
Thanks to Emile for giving me and Gains a lift back to the city.