Book Review - Jonathan Tulloch's The Season Ticket

Teenage friends Gerry and Sewell don't have much. They're not at school. They don't work. Their family lives are a mess. They barely have enough to eat, and spend most of their time chroming or smoking. All of which, according to then debut novelist Jonathan Tulloch, are not unusual circumstances to find yourself in when living in Gateshead, located across the River Tyne from Newcastle.

The one thing they seem to get any joy out of is supporting Newcastle United - the irony being though, that living below the poverty line as they do, Gerry and Sewell will probably never see a game in the flesh: Sewell hasn't been since he was a small child, and Gerry has never been at all. High prices and limited stadium capacities, a result of the English game being taken over by middle class interests, have forced out the working class from top flight football.

But Gerry has an idea - what if they gave up all their vices, and saved every penny for season tickets? Then they could go to every home match, in reserved seats, and drink their tea, and no one could do a thing about it. Thus the story moves on to detail the several daft schemes the boys come up with in order to earn enough money for season tickets.

Some of these attempts are quite funny, even as the reader can see the inevitability of the boys' failure. Starting off with an attempt to become scrap metal collectors, each scheme becomes more and more absurd. Some of these sections work well, most notably a social worker's attempt to bribe Gerry into attending two weeks of school, with the promise of two tickets to a cup match.

But others aren't so successful - an unintentional trip into the woods, and the boys' final scheme feel out of place and frankly, quite unbelievable. The novel also interrupts these comic sojourns with occasional 'hard-hitting' social realist chapters. Gerry's mother is sick, his sister Bridget is missing, and his father is a deadbeat alcoholic. Sewell's situation isn't much better.

While Tulloch's background can indicate an authenticity in his portrayal of Gateshead - he was a teacher there - too often it feels like he's overdoing it, making Gateshead seem like just about the worst place in the developed world. If there was some sort of nuance to his descriptions of the town and its social calamities, it'd lessen the sledgehammer effect a bit.

Like Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting (an obvious influence) there's also liberal use of dialect, in this case Geordie. I can't speak as to its authenticity, but for the most part there's no difficulty understanding the lingo, give or take a couple of words of local slang, mostly related to drug use.

Indeed, the entire novel feel like a case of Irvine Welsh lite. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and this book is still good enough to entertain in its own right. But it lacks the high level craft of Welsh's masterpiece; its playing with narrative reliability, its different voices and accents, and a city populated with several characters all of which add depth to the story.

A worthwhile comparison can also be made to Barry Hines' The Blinder, which we also reviewed on this blog, set 30 years previous to the events in The Season Ticket. There, the protagonist is both academically and physically talented, and his working class background, while an obstacle to his success, is nonetheless not an insurmountable one. Working class patrons can still attend matches with relative ease. Players are not removed from the lives of the communities they represent. In The Season Ticket, just about all of that has changed.

The Season Ticket isn't a masterpiece, and it's not up to the standard of Hines' excellent, though flawed debut - but having said that, if you do chance upon it in a secondhand book store or are wondering what to purchase next online when you do your book shopping, give this novel a go. Or you could just bypass it entirely, and watch the novel's film adaptation, Purely Belter.

Off-Season Digressions - Boxing Day Test Match

After the pleasant surprise that was our baseball adventure, and still needing things to do during off-season, I decided to take up the opportunity and recommendation to finally make my debut at a test cricket match. You may recall that my live in the flesh cricket experiences are quite limited - the most notable example being the descent into Dante's cricketing hell that was this entry from February 2013.

I had been told that test cricket was different, and that I should go at least once to make a fair comparison. Then again, I keep getting told to go to A-League matches in order to make valid sociological statements based on 'actual experience' rather than whatever it is people think I'm relying on, but as I've said many times before, I've been there and done that, so I don't really see what the point is.

The first problem seems to be this. It's an event with a possible length of five days, so which day do you choose to go to? The first day, with all the sheeple who are there as much due to social convention as for the contest itself? Day two or three where the contest may or may not be still in the balance? Day four where one team has gained the ascendancy and is striving for the kill? Day five where, depending on the previous four days, the result may be decided in the first hour or peter out in a draw?

So therefore, do you go to one day, or every day? If you only go to one day, you miss out on most of the contest, which just seems like a bizarre thing to do. If you go to several days, the cost - unless you're an MCC member who brings their own lunch - ramps up considerably. At $24 for a concession ticket and $40 for an adult for the cheapest seats, and who knows how much food and drink you'll buy over the course of the seven hour day, a full suite of test match cricket attendance is a very expensive endeavour to undertake

Day 1
Stayed home. Watched some bits on TV, listened to a bit on the radio. Doesn't seem like I missed much.

Day 2

Day 2, looking from the Great Southern Stand across to the
Ponsford and Members stands. Photo: Paul Mavroudis

The plan had been for me and Gains (a first time cricket attendee) to meet Steve from Broady and his cousin Johnny in the Southern Stand. Turned out it was all allocated seating however, and besides that Steve was in the Ponsford anyway.

The first thing I noticed was that Bay 13 people were over at the bottom deck of the Punt Road End, thus we had an OK view of their antics, and the ability to see patrons gradually being tossed, some more forcibly than others. Unlike my trip in February, it was a lot harder to see what was going on exactly.

What it means also is that the crowd around us was also a lot more civilised, which is an entirely different thing from being sanitised. They watched the game, were generally appreciative of what was another very boring and slow day of test cricket. As slow as Chris Rogers was, at least he scored some runs. I'm not quite sure what George Bailey was seeking to accomplish with his approach.

George Bailey should be made to pay the 8k fine for spectators trespassing onto the arena.
— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) December 27, 2013

That post really should have got a few more re-tweets.

After tea we went over to meet Steve in the Ponsford, who'd informed me that he hadn't has his bag checked as he came in, among catching me up with all sorts of other gossip, include the Victory-Wanderers brawl in the city. At least now having a smart phone and a plan to go with it (thank you scholarship) meant I could keep up with events on Twitter. Eventually the day petered out into an Australian batting collapse and the decision being made to come back again the next day. I'm not sure how much Gains was enamoured by the experience. I think I liked the baseball more.

Day 3
A nightmare public transport run into town due to massive signal failures on the Werribee line was alleviated by my old man giving me a lift into the city. At Flinders Street Station while waiting for Steve to get out of Boost Juice, I met Julian, one of my PhD coursework unit classmates, and so we discussed our respective works.

Eventually we got to the ground late, and missed Brad Haddin notch up his fifty, thought at least we were able to watch it via some kid in the line, who had it streaming on his phone.

Day 3, looking from the Ponsford stand across to the
Olympic and Southern stands. Photo: Paul Mavroudis

Inside the ground we ended up at the top of the Ponsford again. This time it was England's turn to put in a tedious batting effort. That tedium also included a spineless burst were they lost four wickets for not very much. Early in the day, there was a 'justice for the 96' banner in the sparsely populated top deck of Southern Stand which was next to the new scoreboards, unfortunately too far away to take a proper photo of. The police and security quickly stepped in to get it taken down, though from our admittedly distant vantage point, it didn't look like it was a willing acquiescence from the English patrons.

By the way, those new, larger scoreboards are indeed fantastic and wonderful. However, there is a caveat. Their size now means that the protective framing around them, as well as the railings from the Southern Stand, mean that from certain viewing spots, they are obscured by very large pieces of metal. Not a problem sitting where we were on days 3 and 4, but on day 2 while sitting in the top deck of the Southern Stand (in what would normally be a good viewing position) it was obvious that someone hadn't really thought it through.

Day 4 - A lot of waiting, and an early finish.
Unlike the previous day, we managed to get to MCG early, and into the line outside the Ponsford stand ticket booth by 10:05. Finally got our tickets at 10:45. Forty minutes. The lines were absurd, but were made much worse by the dithering of so many patrons who would rather spend an eternity selecting where they would like to sit, rather than just being happy enough to take the first option and actually getting inside and watching the damn game.

When me and Steve finally got to the front of our line, I was prepared with exact money, proof of concession, my order and was ready to get out of there as quickly as possible. But no, the ticket seller had to keep asking me what I wanted - did I want to be in the sun, did I want to be in an aisle seat. Like I gave a stuff about an aisle seat! Tedious transaction dealt with, and already 25 minutes of play missed, at least we had the small time saving grace of Steve once again managing to get in without a bag check.

Once in the ground, we all had to deal with the fact that England's captain Alistair Cook seemed to have no understanding of the concept of the third man fielding position. And thus Chris Rogers - who earlier in the test had made a torturous innings of 60 odd - was able to cut deliveries repeatedly to that boundary. Since I don't have as much invested from an emotional standpoint in the fortunes of Australia's cricket team, and had a more old fashioned desire to see a good contest, I was disappointed by this elementary lack of competency. But that's sport for you.

Lunch time saw more lines. More lines! My goodness. For some reason whoever runs the MCG felt that they didn't need to open almost any food outlets on the top deck despite the very healthy crowd. After seeing that the only food outlet on the top of the Ponsford stand had a line a mile long, it was decided that we would walk around to the more sparsely populated Southern Stand to see if anything was open there. It was not. It was appalling organisation and all to save a couple of bucks on wages.

After standing in line at the only open canteen booth on the wrong side of the MCC gate tracks, it was obvious that of the two main options - chicken schnitzel roll or pork bun (not the steamed Asian dish, but rather a pork patty in a roll) it was obvious that everyone was waiting to get a schnitzel roll. Being far too hungry to give a damn about waiting for the chicken option, I decided to take the a pork bun off the shelf (the boxes being identical except for a handy little sticker saying 'pork bun' on them) and be done with it.

Of course, back at my seat upon opening the package, it was of course a chicken schnitzel roll, which is what I wanted in the first place, though of course not what I had expected. I had had the reverse happen to me at the footy once, so I suppose this was a kind of karma. Bad luck though for all the people who forked out $10(!) for either option and ended up with something they didn't like.

The match, which I had expected to possibly go into a fifth day due to the very slow run rate of almost the entirety of the previous three days didn't even manage to get to tea, with the main thrill being Shane Watson again not managing to reach his hundred, albeit this time because there weren't enough runs left for him to be able to do so. Quite why we stayed for the speeches and man of the match awards I'm not sure.

Day 5
Stayed home and watched the NFL on TV. Too bad the first two games were largely inconsequential and lousy (should at least have had the Bears-Packers game), but at there was no avoiding the Cowboys-Eagles game.

The Barmy Army
Sure their team has sucked these past couple of months, which has possibly thinned out their numbers and consequently their enthusiasm over the course of the tour, but I still don't see what the fuss is all about. Throughout most of the three days I spent at the game, they were pretty much a non-entity, providing not much more atmosphere than other parts of the ground. The end of day 2 I think it was they managed a very long period of chanting, as the cool breeze came through and their side was in the ascendancy. But one gets the feeling that a lot of the hype about them is due to the novelty to mainstream Australian audiences of a group like that even bothering to sing. Seems like pretty standard European football behaviour for me. Still, they did better than the Mexican waves and 'you are a wanker' fare of the relocated Bay 13. It is what it is.

Verdict
Do you like cricket? If you only want to to turn up to one day, it doesn't really matter. If you want to go to more than one day, surely there's better things you can be doing.

Test match cricket - despite the six hours of 'value' you get - is a very expensive hobby if you want to go to more than one day, unless you have an MCC membership, in which case cost doesn't really come into it. And if you have an MCC membership and you don't go, you're probably one of those people who I despise who have an MCC membership primarily or only for AFL matches - why not just get an AFL or club membership then?

You're probably better off just inviting your mates over to your place with a slab or two, maybe have a barbecue, set up the TV somewhere suitable. How much of the game will you actually watch? I suppose it depends on how many drinks you have, how many toilet breaks, how many any number of variables, including if you're there more for the social aspect than the game. If you don't have a slightly elevated seat over the bowlers arm or behind the keeper and first slip, how much can you perceive the ball swinging or spinning?

Admittedly this problem is magnified for me due to my atrocious eyesight, being  barely able to make out the ball at all from the pace bowlers, and therefore depending more on the reactions of the batsmen - that auditory quality I mentioned.

After having my cynicism undermined by the baseball experience, I had it rekindled by this one, not so much that I would never go again, but now with a whole arsenal of reasons at hand as to why one wouldn't.

Off-Season Digressions - Melbourne Aces vs Sydney Blue Sox/Baseball

Proudly brought to you by Penola Catholic College - where 1 part Catholic education meets 99 parts Broadmeadows stupidity.

How boring is the off-season? Yes there's a lot of politics and transfer rumours and uncertainty. And yes, we managed to get out to one meaningless pre-season game featuring the 21s and Selangor. But until things started gradually ramping up when everyone gets back from their holidays in January, there really isn't very much to do. So we decided, for whatever reason, to go to the baseball. Steve from Broady managed to get some free tickets (I don't think they're really that expensive anyway) from one of his contacts at Penola, and me and Gains joined him.

Part of my reasoning for going to the baseball (apart from my usual gimmick sport summer experience) was that as a western suburbs lad, I've driven past the Melbourne Ballpark in Laverton so many times, and never gone in, never seen what it looks like from the inside. It's always seemed to be just a white elephant sitting in the middle of nowhere next to the train line, an unusual landmark visible on your left as you take the shortcut to Merton Street from Kororoit Creek Road, or a little less convenient if the underpass is flooded and you're forced to use the freeway.

The view from along the third base line. The two scoreboards
can be seen in the distance. Photo: Paul Mavroudis

Parking sets me back $5, which is a bit pricey but who's complaining when you get free entry? The venue itself is functional without being anything fancy. The seating - which is limited to the areas behind the plate, and along most of the first and third baselines - is all elevated, with the exception of those areas at the bottom for the corporates. The elevation and hence the sight-lines and viewing angles are quite good, but the protective nets can be annoying, especially as they can make viewing the small electronic scoreboard difficult.

Looking across towards Melbourne Ballpark's 'premium' seating.
Photo: Paul Mavroudis.

Disappointingly, and for reasons which I can't figure out, the roof only extends to those seats behind the plate, those classed as premium seats. The seats themselves seem to be your standard MCG/Great Southern Stand variety, which as has been pointed out by one of our Twitter friends, were the same as used for the old BJS, Knights Stadium, Heidelberg, Preston, etc. So, if you do for some reason end up heading out to a game at Laverton, and aren't willing to stump the extra few dollars for a premium seat, bring your sunscreen, hat and an umbrella, in preparation for whatever Melbourne's weather throws up.

The game
Of course, rocking up to an Australian Baseball league fixture one is well aware that you will not be seeing the creme de la creme of baseball talent. But as an Australian soccer fan who largely ignores what happens above outside our shores, that doesn't really phase me. The teams seem to be made up of some locals (obviously), as well Americans and Japanese dropped down from the major (maybe even minor) leagues for some extra game/development time during the off-season.

Baseball is a weird game in an Australian context. It's been here for a long time, and the Claxton Shield has been played for 100 years in one form or another. While never a really popular spectator sport as far as I can tell, it did have a niche carved out for itself as a participant sport, especially for cricketers in their off-season, with Bill Lawry in particular extolling the virtues of cricketers taking up baseball in their off-season. There was also of course the old Australian Baseball League which went broke in the mid 1990s or whenever it was. These days the ABL seems to be largely funded by Major League Baseball, who presumably benefit from having a low pressure development league in their off-season, as well as being able to tap into the Australian baseball talent pool, which has provided its fair share of exports down the years.

Like cricket, if you're not on the correct angle, it can be difficult to discern the movement of the pitches. Eventually and rather quickly, once you start getting a feel for it you can be pretty sure about whether a pitch was a ball or a strike, but you won't necessarily be able to tell how the ball is moving through the air. However, perhaps this is at least partly due to my very poor eyesight. Like ice hockey and cricket, there is an auditory quality to the game that is present at a live fixture in ways that would be absent on TV. In cricket's case, it's the crack of willow on leather; in ice hockey, the skates on the ice, and the crashing of players into the glass walls; in baseball, it's the smack of the ball into the catcher's glove.

Some of the outfield play left a bit to be desired. the Aces' left-fielder in particular had a bit of a shocker, but according to one of the more knowledgeable fans there, that wasn't his regular position. There didn't appear to be much depth in the pitching stocks for either side, but especially the visitors. A small roster and being the final game of a four game series probably didn't help, as the Aces' managed a late rally with three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead going into the eighth, eventually winning 4-3.

There were of course American accents, and an American flavour to many of the day's proceedings, from the announcements, to the food (see below), to the presentation style. Normally I'd find that kind of thing really off-putting, but the fringe nature of the experience - like they were Christian missionaries in the remotest parts of Darkest Africa - made it seem less gimmicky than the equivalent Melbourne ice hockey experience (albeit I've only had the national team experience there, not the Ice or Mustangs just yet), and I've also never been to a local basteball game to make a valid comparison there either.

The fact that the crowd was very small - I'd say no more than 300 outside of the corporate areas - also gave it a quaint sort of vibe. With an already limited appeal for all sorts of reasons (standard, location, lack of media, cultural obscurity, unfavourable comparisons to cricket), it must also be hard competing directly against the local suburban competitions which run at the same time.

Women In Sport Day
No other sport does pointless fan gimmickry quite like baseball. Of course, in Major League Baseball there's 160 odd games each team has to play, so a crowded schedule means having to find all sorts of ways to get people in off the street, especially if your team ain't doing too well.  At the Aces for example, there's a tradie's day, AFL day, bring your dog to the game day, etc. Two weeks prior to our visit, the Saturday doubleheader was apparently the multicultural/diversity day, during which I believe there was going to be ethnic dancing - how I miss ethnic dancing at Australian sporting contests. Those were the days.

Anyway, the main slant of trying to promote women in sport was the attempt to raise some funds to get the women's softball team to Japan for the world championships or some such endeavour. To that end, they tried auctioning off some Aces' jerseys and signed bats - none of which did very well. There was also money donated when one of the softball girls did the worm from in front of the pitcher's mound to home plate. It kinda made me feel ill seeing female athletes have to beg like that. There was also a tug of war and some kind of bowling pin hitting activity. All pretty low rent, but kinda charming in its own sincere way.

This is where Steve from Broady's food report was supposed to go
Since he had the most food of all of us that day - and used trips to the canteen as an excuse to not watch a game he was obviously not enjoying - I had delegated the task of reviewing the food at Melbourne Ballpark to Steve. Unfortunately, he has failed to come through on this front, so it's up to me to give you the rundown.

The range of food at the venue is pretty ordinary. It's the usual dim sims, hot dogs, chips arrangement, at slightly less extortionist than normal stadium prices. The main difference to your run of the mill stadium food was the fact that, thanks to a recent sponsorship deal with Hormel Foods, for an extra $1 you had the option of adding some Stagg Chili to your chips or hot dog. I decided to pass on that front. Perhaps the most worthwhile item, even at a slightly exorbitant $8 considering the serving size, were the nachos, which were actually pretty good.

Former South fan watch
We managed to spot the ex-SMFC fan known as Strauchnie sitting in the premium seats. Small world and all that.

Would I do it again?
I wouldn't say no. I'll say this - I enjoyed it a lot more than my experience of one day cricket. I can see how drinking would help enhance the experience of watching the game, especially if you were going to watch a double header, but it's hardly necessary. It was a genuinely relaxed day out, with very low expectations, and I actually kinda had fun.

I have the theory that some games are better experienced live in the flesh, some better on TV, and some even work best on radio (especially cricket). For me, baseball is dead boring to watch on TV, would probably work in the background on radio ala cricket, but is a perfectly adequate game watched live - provided you have a decent seat and a couple of mates to talk crap with for three hours.

Six Solid Seasons Of South Of The Border

Six years. My how time flies. I didn't think I'd last a month when I started this. This year we had two regular and two semi-regular contributors, getting closer to what I'd hope this blog would be when I started it. I think my writing may have also come along just a little bit this year.

For the record I still like these pieces

• Middle Park poetry
• My day out at the cricket
• Something to do with taking it by the jugular
• Might as well throw in at least one match report
• Were we bad, or did they decide to be good? I doubt we'll ever know

Thanks 
Those who contributed articles anonymously. I hope you got a kick out of doing it.

Kiss of Death - its output was severely reduced this season due to competing demands, but the work that it did put out was solid. This piece still does the trick for me.

Manny, our resident comic artist. Still don't know who you are, but you added something cool to this project, and something I'd been waiting a long time for.

Costa from Goal Weekly for using stuff from here and commissioning further work.

Mark Boric, for providing encouragement - about time you started your own blog!

Arthur of 442 and soccer-forum, for his guidance on NPL Victoria matters.

Walter Pless, still the benchmark for this stuff.

Pave Jusup for his moral support. Likewise, Bill Vandermey. Hell, anyone that wrote to us, or about us, saying that they appreciate what we do here. Also thanks to the people I met along the way, such as Athas Zafiris and Joe Gorman.

Thanks to everyone whose photos I used at some point.

Thanks to everyone who reads this blog, especially if you left a comment - in particular this year, Justin Mahon, who provided interesting contributions on the legal arguments of the NPL Victoria scenario, all while dealing with some occasionally hostile banter from others.

Thanks also if you re-tweeted this stuff or spread the word somehow. I write my portion of this blog for me, for the vanity of leaving behind a shonky historical record, but the fact that some people still read it makes it easier to keep coming back.

Huge Thanks
Steve From Broady. My goodness, how quickly did his star rise? From being an occasional source of stupid stories I'd use to pad out an entry, and from him doing stats at Altona East in return for free food and a passing grade in 2012, to writing for me and doing stats, to becoming an official part of the SMFC media juggernaut. Thanks buddy for a great year's work. Will I be able to keep him next year?

Gains, for providing sanity (do I say this every year?), a belief that this club might end up somewhere good, and his match report from the home game against Port, which I missed because I was visiting my brother in hospital. Thanks also for providing one of the more disturbing moments of the year - the admission that he read the horror that was the 2008 season, just so he could live through some of what he missed before he became a South fan.

Lastly
Ian 'Ivory Tower' Syson.

Happy 15th Birthday SMFCBOARD

Still kicking on somehow. Also happy anniversary to this piece from five years ago.

Sunrise, Sunset, Sunrise, Sunset...

Firstly, congratulations to SMFCTV main man Paul Zarogiannis, who was awarded the Sam Papasavvas Award for volunteer work at the club. Well deserved.

That happened during the Gala Ball last Saturday, which I'm not going to complain about, because I did not pay my for my ticket.

Now, for a couple of ins and outs for 2014.

Out

• Peter Gavalas, 2013 FFV goalkeeper of the year, due to increased work commitments. He will be missed.
• Fernando De Moraes, whose retirement has been made official. We'd like to make a big song and dance about Fernando, but hopefully we can do that next year, because we anticipate - nay, demand - that the club hold a testimonial dinner in his honour in 2014.

In

• Steve from Broady. Admittedly, this is not South related, but apparently he's landed a job at my very own place of employment. There goes the neighbourhood.

Practice Match - South Melbourne (of sorts) 0 Selangor 4

With apologies in advance to all my new Malaysian internet friends for not being very  accommodating to you, by not knowing who any of your players are, taking some really awful unusable photos, and instead pursuing our usual rambling blog stylings.

Now, this fixture was advertised as being at Lakeside Stadium, last night at 6:00pm, with the private word being that it was a closed doors affair. And all of that was kind of true, except for the parts that weren't.

The match did not start at 6:00. It started at 7:20. The match was closed doors - they kicked everyone who was an athlete out at 7:00 or thereabout - except for all the parents and such of the kids playing in this game, and the odd South official such as Tom Kalas and Andrew Mesorouni. It was also good to see senior coach Chris Taylor keeping an eye on things as he prowled up and down the sideline.

And of course me and Gains, who managed to stay inside by the sheer fact that we got there so early that we blended seamlessly into the crowd. It wasn't quite the epicness of Steve from Broady walking in for free at Olympic Village a few years ago, but it was a start.

Now, I have recently purchased a smartphone, attempting to join the rest of you if not in the present, than at least somewhere in the not too distant past. However, because I am a very cheap person, I went for a phone with a pretty ordinary camera, and thus all my photos of anything further than a couple of metres away were just crap.

The various South juniors in their warm up.
Photo: Paul Mavroudis  (and why would anyone
else want to claim credit for it?)

Now, we had been informed by our friend Steve from Broady (who decided to boycott this match for reasons unknown) that there would be no senior players there, as most were on holiday/not in the country/washing their hair, and when we saw a ton of South under 21s and assorted juniors on the ground, we kind of figured out what was going to happen.

And that was that there would be a lot of different South junior players getting 15-30 minutes on the field. The only exception to this rule was the appearance for the first 30 minutes or so of Iqi Jawadi, who while of course qualifying for this team in terms of age, was also a regular senior player for South during the second half 2013 after his transfer from Dandenong Thunder.

Now, apart from the novelty of seeing a Malaysian team playing against us, I was interested in seeing what kind of style, if any, we would see from the South boys. What was our hotshot academy teaching them? Well, actually for the most part it was rather attractive football with some caveats.

They almost always tried to play the ball out from the back. There were very few long balls, especially desperation stuff over the top of the midfield. They did play some wide passes to the wing, especially the right hand side when there was space available, and generally tried to keep the ball. The skill level of the players was also quite good.

The caveats? Sometimes you just gotta clear the ball instead of piss farting around with in it defence. Selangor were on top in the early stages precisely because of this, and probably should have scored more than the one goal that they had at that stage.

After the first 5-10 minutes however our boys settled down, and started getting used to both the pace and style of their opponents. Several South boys commenting after their on field stint made note of the speed of their opponents.

Now, I'm no expert on South-East Asian football, but from what I have gathered, playing a higher tempo pressing game is not exactly the most effective thing to do in tropical conditions, so it was interesting to see Selangor use that approach. For the most part however, our boys handled that well.

While playing the ball out well, South would often get stuck in the transition between midfield and attack. Partly this was due to ostensibly playing with only one up front, but it was also due to the organised play of Selangor's defenders, who were able to cut off most of the wide attacking moves that we put together - and we had almost nothing going through the middle.

Selangor walk on to the field. Photo: Paul Mavroudis.

The thing is though, that against all the different combinations of South juniors, Selangor got very little of note happening in attacking sense - aside from careless South play in defence - until the last 15 minutes or so. Their second goal was their best bit of team work, winning the ball in midfield, and slicing through the middle of the over-committed and overexposed South defence, ending with a nice chip goal. It was interesting as well to see in this phase of play the South defenders lose their nerve and start diving in with tackles instead of trying to slow their opponents down with proper marking.

Part of the problem also for Selangor was their finishing. There were times when they should have just taken a shot, but instead their forwards preferred the extra pass or dribble. Just shoot the damn thing! Which they did for their third goal, an absolute rocket from maybe 25 metres out, which no keeper would have saved.

Selangor added a fourth goal just before the full time whistle. Overall, a pretty intense game for what was not much more than a bit of pre-season kick and giggle. No players from either side stood out, except the South keepers after the first one, and the Selangor player who went down and was actually injured as opposed the stereotypical Asian rolling around after a feather hit them nonsense (there was a little bit of that too, but not much, as it wasn't a very physical game).

To emphasise how low key this was - there weren't even any lines on the field. It would have been nice to be able to stay behind and maybe have a quick chat with Mehmet and some of the Selangor players and personnel, but the very late start kinda made that irrelevant, especially as I was keen to get some dinner at a not completely rubbish place.

No such luck.

South Melbourne vs Selangor tomorrow night?

Well, this is an interesting development. A little birdy sent us a link to a Facebook page, which included talking about how Malaysian football side Selangor - one of Malaysia's more important and successful teams, currently coached by former South technical director (and champion South and Selangor player) Mehmet Durakovic - would possibly be playing against our very South Melbourne.

The discussion was in Malay, with a lot of slang, so Google's translation tool didn't work all that well, but the indication was that any possible game wouldn't be any time soon. Except that by checking Selangor's twitter feed, it appeared as if they were already here!

Selangor training at Lakeside Stadium. Photo: Selangor twitter feed.

Furthermore, it appears as if Selangor (who will be here until December 16th, as part of their pre-season preparations) have scheduled a match against us tomorrow evening at 6:00PM. Will it be open doors? What kind of team would we possibly field at such short notice? I'm guessing yes to the first question, and probably some cobbled together youth outfit for the second.

So, depending on how desperate you are to see some South action, you may want to head to this affair - with the full knowledge that it may be a closed doors session and of absolutely no consequence whatsoever considering who we'll have on the park, with our actual senior likely not starting pre-season training until some time early in the new year.

UPDATE
My mail suggests this is a closed door session.

Book Review - The Blinder, by Barry Hines

Barry Hines' debut novel The Blinder focuses on 18 year old footballing prodigy Lennie Hawk. Lennie is on the verge of becoming a star in the First Division for his home town team, the representatives of an unnamed northern English mining town, who haven't seen success of any sort since the end of their golden generation some 40 years prior.

But Lennie is not just a great footballer - he's also academically gifted, and a large part of the novel deals with the decision he has to make on whether to take up a full time football contract or pursue university studies. And he has to do this while dating the daughter of one of the club directors, while also seeing the lonely wife of one his teachers on the side.

Written and set in the mid 1960s, Hines describes a football scene on the cusp of entering its modern era - the maximum wage cap for footballers is gone, but players are still by and large ordinary people, being able to walk down the street, have a drink at the local pub, and date local girls without the paparazzi tracking their every move.

Clubs from smaller towns can still make an impact, if not so much in the league, then in the cup. The spectators are split between the haves and have-nots - those who can afford the seats in the stands, and those who must survive the crush on the terraces behind the goals. In a terrifying scene late in the novel, police are helpless to prevent ticket-less fans storming the gates of a sold out match, trampling each other to see the big game.

Hines himself played for the English Grammar Schools side, and he ably conveys Lennie's on field joys and frustrations. Where some see Lennie purely as a commodity, Lennie sees himself as something akin to an artist - talented and unorthodox, the latter attribute is useful but also dangerous. It doesn't help that Lennie's also a smartarse, always ready with the quick reply. No one is immune from his unnaturally cool detachment or ready wit.

For much of its duration, The Blinder veers uneasily between social realism and boy's own adventure. Hines (who grew up near Barnsley) throws a little bit of dialect in, but not very much - it's still a long way from Trainspotting or Purely Belter. The most experimental part of the novel occurs when there are several voices in conversation at once, without much indication of who's saying what - but after a bit, the reader become used to it.

Class conflict plays a major role, most notably in the contrasting depiction of Lennie's father, recently laid off from his colliery job, and that of Mr Leary, club director, paper mill owner, and father of Jane, Lennie's girlfriend. But for the most part the working class don't exist in abject poverty, even when they're unemployed or complaining about conditions at the local factories. Indeed, Lennie's father is more in awe of the coaches and staff of the football club than he is of Mr Leary.

Most of the secondary characters have little depth, being mere caricatures. While Lennie complains about everyone wanting something out of him, he also uses and discards many of those around him for his own ends, or his own amusement. Lennie is a problematic hero, one that we want to to cheer for, but whose actions and manners often coerce the reader into wanting to grab him by the scruff of the neck to shake some sense into him.

By the book's final act though, Hines has decided to choose one narrative style over the other, and thankfully the right one - providing both Lennie and the story with a moment of lucid clarity. While The Blinder is often uneven, it's also entertaining and well worth a look.

A Brief Note
I had borrowed this book four or five years ago from Ian Syson. Why it took me so long to read I don't know. Very poor form from me. The novel is long out of print, but seems to be easily obtainable secondhand from online sources.

Co-Sig clubs get their way it seems

While much of the detail remains to be sorted out and disseminated to the general public, it appears on the face of it that Sheriff FFA has ridden into town and sorted out the black hats in the FFV.

All I can make out so far is the suggestion that the re-branding of VPL and state league 1 into NPL 1 and 2 will take place, with the current clubs as is, no zones, and the addition of some regional teams.

Amid the celebrations however, I am reminded of the old Chris Rock bit, where he talks about the African-American response to the OJ Simpson verdict:

We won! We won! We won! What the fuck did we win?

Wait and see, as per usual. The true result will not be felt in the first year, but in the third year, and the fifth year, and the tenth year, and so on.

Still, it's nice to be able to avoid the Supreme Court action, mind. That stuff is expensive.

AGM 2013 - South still with one arm tied behind its back - but putting up a good fight

As usual, I'm conflicted about how much I should spill into a public forum about matters which the general South member would prefer remain in house. Of course, I have my principles about openness, but the process must also be respected. Then again, people will blab anyway.

Membership includes an entitlement to attend AGMs, an entitlement of course denied to non-members. Non-attendance of members complicates the issue - either people had more pressing issues to attend to, or just couldn't be stuffed coming. How do you cater to both? So once again, here are some general thoughts on what happened at yesterday's AGM.

It was good to see, for the first time in several years, a proper membership list and security presence at the door. Unlike previous year, this AGM was not hampered by the board trying to rush through the different points. Indeed, this meeting went to the other extreme, lasting for four hours, with a small break somewhere in there. 90 minutes was spent on the financial statements alone.

It was an exhausting process, but for the most part unavoidable, since there were so many crucial issues to discuss. However, going over old issues, such as the signing of the MOU (which happened four years ago) and the Toumbourou affair (which was settled last year) didn't help matters. Still, this is what the day is for.

A motion was put up by former board member George Kapnias, that in future years the annual financial statements would be mailed out along with the notice of an AGM. The reasons given were that it's not like they're not available from the ASIC website anyway, and that unlike the Melbourne Knights AGM, papers aren't collected at the end of a meeting. The motion was carried.

The lease situation remains much as it was, though I fancy things are likely to come to a head sooner rather than later. If we took the government's offer of a 21 year lease, we could sign tomorrow. But we agreed four years ago to 40 years, and the general consensus around the place is that we have a right to the 40 years as stipulated by the MOU. The intention is to fight for that part of the agreement, and rightly so.

There was an NPL Victoria update, presenting the picture and the possibilities which may unfold depending on several different outcomes happening. This week will be fairly important, with the co-signatory clubs meeting again this week, a further response by the FFA, and a court date of sorts next week.

The board explained the kind of workload they're dealing with, and the way they've split up the different projects among themselves. The double whammy of the NPL and lease issues has meant that resolving the women's team issue, or working on reform of our constitution, has basically been impossible.

With regards to players staying and players going, the big news is that apparently Fernando De Moraes has finally called time on his outdoor career - though I would like to see an official announcement of that before we get all justifiably misty eyed. Nothing beyond that was divulged, though we have apparently signed a couple of players.

There was discussion of the youth program and its alterations with regards to costs and coaching. Mistakes were admitted. Integration of the under 16s and up with vocational qualifications is a welcome development.

Lastly, George Malamas joined the committee. Over the years, Malamas has been one of the more vocal people at AGMs. I often disagree with his positions, but never doubt his passion for South. It will be interesting to see what impact he will have on the committee.

The mood overall was passionate and generally positive, especially with respect to the effort the board members put in, as well as for many of the decisions that they have made over the course of the year. A variety of people asked questions, to the point where afterwards I was told that I wasn't as vocal as in previous years.

One Last Thing 
This was from after the meeting. Looks like the Hellenic Cup will once again not go ahead. Or at least, that seemed to be the chat going around, as little to nothing has been heard about it. There are apparently offers from interstate to go and play a game or two during the pre-season. We'll see how that develops.

2013 AGM on this coming Sunday

If you haven't heard the news - and that's entirely possible, as apparently not everyone received notice of this week's event - South's AGM is on this Sunday. Every AGM is important, but this one is going to be hard to top for the breadth and complexity of issues that are facing the club at the moment. Indeed, there are issues which normally would take centre stage quite easily in any given year, but which this year will take a back seat to the most pressing issue of them all, the status of the lease agreement.

This is, first of all, an election year. It is the first election year since the club, partly due to the FFV enforced constitutional changes, and partly due to its own maneuvering, has opened the suffrage up to so many people. After we had been promised that the social club wing of the club - the part that controls all the other parts - would remain solely at the mercy of social club members, it appears as if everyone who is a member of the club, including mere season ticket holders of South Melbourne FC, will be able to have their say.

There are always rumblings about people perhaps challenging this committee, which in one form or another has been the only committee to run for office since the end of the NSL. But each time an election comes around, no one else puts their hand up. Whatever my thoughts are on this current committee - and they are admittedly generally favourable from my end - it has always been my contention that the failure of rival tickets to emerge is a damaging prospect for the club long term.

Firstly, the lack of a rival ticket indicates that on the surface at least, there are few other qualified groups looking to take over this club. That may or may not be true, but it's not a good look. Secondly, the lack of a rival ticket gives a certain carte blanche to the current committee. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, even if a hypothetical rival ticket's proposed policies and agendas are backward, conservative, unfeasible, or (Zeus forbid) couched in the rhetoric of 'need more Greeks', at least it would provide a contrast to the agenda of the current committee.

The Lease/The Social Club/Exclusivity
The big item of course is the lease. Four years on from signing the Memorandum of Understanding, two years since we moved back into Lakeside, and we still haven't locked everything away for keeps. Still no social club, no 40 year lease, no football exclusivity, at least in practice. After being promised back in January 2013 that a deal was close, then again in July 2013 that we were a couple of months away from sealing the deal, here we are still waiting.

This is not meant to be an attack on the committee, because I'm sure they're hurting as much, if not more than us, being at the coalface of the matter on a daily basis. In the July meeting, the situation was explained quite clearly, that there were four agreements, and that they all needed to be signed simultaneously. The issue has become messier now, because the State Sports Centre Trust is clearly disrespecting the arrangement that we are supposed to have.

The lack of a social club is one thing. The Trust allegedly going behind our backs and letting A-League franchises use the venue without our permission is quite another. Unlike some South fans, I'm not averse to letting the A-League use the venue for women's and youth games. Apart from the direct income we'd get from their hiring, when the social was supposed to be up and going, there'd be another source of income coming in on a non-South match day. That, and if we didn't let them use the ground, some other club would make the most of the opportunity to make some money. And it's not like we haven't had those teams use the venue in the past.

But it has to be on our terms. If this is a big game of chicken that the Trust is playing to see if we'll blink and take them to court to sort out these matters once and for all, then I hope that we do. If the club is confident in its case, then they should go for it - of course how many legal cases can we take on at once is an issue we must also consider. If Athletics Victoria is also being treated poorly, we should seek to find a way to work with them to take on the Trust. If the Trust is also not treating its other tenants with respect - remembering that it also controls venues such as the State Netball and Hockey Centre - then we should endeavour to work with those groups as well.

There were four or so big ticket items within the lease. The guaranteed income, the football exclusivity, the social club and the 40 year lease. This is what was offered to the club by the government. This is what the club and its members agreed to. This is the least what we expect out of the situation. After finally securing that deal, then we have to work on making Lakeside feel like our home ground. The social club will be a big part of that - but externally, there must also be signs that we belong there, that it is our turf. And again, there should be ways of working with Athletics Victoria so they can make the venue feel like their home as well.

For the record, my mail is that the final sticking point is the lease. Everything else is apparently ready to go, but as we are no doubt aware, leases on Crown land are set at a 21 year limit - thus this government or the Trust trying to weasel their way out of the deal. There has already been pressure put on Hugh Delahunty, the Minister for Sport, and Matthew Guy, the Minister for Planning, by a range of organisations. Whether the situation has deteriorated since then, I guess we'll find out this week.

NPL Victoria
Lest we forget that we are still in the middle of this process. After supposedly being 'in the tent' with the FFV, then out of the tent and now leading the charge against them, it'd be nice to have further clarification on what's going on. Is the 60 odd club co-signatory group going to be happy if the scenario eventuates where South and a handful of other clubs, happy with what they've managed to wrangle out of the NPL deal, break away? What will be the consequences and costs of going to the Supreme Court? Are (us and the rest of the co-signatory group) going to follow through with the threats of not handing over affiliation fees to the FFV? And can we get a stright answer on what's going on with the supposed dealing with the FFA?

Juniors shakeup
Underneath the big ticket items, there have been significant changes to the way the junior wing of the club will operate. After reforming the junior wing, seemingly getting rid of the influence of the old Caulfield mob (unless I'm reading that completely wrong) and attempting to prepare for a tilt at the NPL as the FFV was going to run it, we've now changed things a fair bit. Coaches have gone. The lower level age groups will have more teams added, costs to players will be reduced, and the higher age groups won't have to pay a cent. There would be some who, not without reason, will see this as a cynical ploy of getting money from younger players to fund the higher age groups - unless of course these younger players are given priority over potential imports from other clubs...

Ephemera
Then there's other issues which need to be clarified. The team of course. What news there? What's going on with our A-League ambitions, if they still exist? Have we given up the ghost on ever reconciling with the women's team? Is it coincidental that their most successful period on field at least has come after they've officially split from us? And what the hell happened with this?

What I'm hoping for this week

• Proper meeting attendance/roll call taken. If you're not a member, you shouldn't be allowed in.
• Good questions from a variety of people.
  
• No putting down of new members, just because they're new.
• From new members, respect for the emotional attachment for the club held by the long term supporters.
• No shutting down of sensible debates. We need enough time to discuss the matters concerning our club. Yes, people get tired at these things, and yes, the debates can often drag on, but winding things up quickly for no good reason does no one any good.
• No disregarding the concerns of our supporters with a 'she'll be right' attitude.
• Respect for other members, even if you disagree with their point of view.
• People coming up with solutions, as opposed to just complaints. I know I don't have the best track record on this front - but there must be something that we as members can do to help. The committee does a lot of the day to day work, it's true. But the committee alone are not the club - the members as a whole are the club. Isn't this what we keep bragging about as the difference between ourselves and the franchises?

See everyone there.

Green Gully Soccer Club: 50 Years - Book Review (reprise)

This review of mine originally appeared on the now defunct Das Libero site, probably some time around 2007? Who can remember now. Here it is for posterity's sake.

A Tale of Two Gullys

Peter Desira with Richard Curmi, Green Gully Soccer Club: 50 Years, Sports and Editorial Services Australia in association with the Green Gully Soccer Club, Teesdale, Victoria, 2006, 258 pages including 16 in colour.

When you beg, borrow, steal or even possibly buy Peter Desira and Richard Curmi's Green Gully Soccer Club: 50 Years, you don't just get the history of one club, you get the history of two. Of all the many themes running through the narrative - the early struggles, their steady rise through the divisions, their National Soccer League stint, and the overcoming of its great rival George Cross - one theme stands out: how a club founded and run for 35-odd years on a shoestring is almost instantly transformed by the introduction of poker machines, thereby ensuring financial stability for years to come. Yet in this book, it is perhaps the most overlooked moment of the club's history.

The most fascinating part of the book for Gully and non-Gully fan alike is the club's early struggle in the literal nowhere of 1950s St Albans, a condition that defies the modern Gully stereotype of stability and plenty. That Gully has been run professionally for many years is without doubt; but to read of the early days when they had no running water, electricity or sewage is quite a shock. This isn't just for ‘new football’ noobs to digest: it is also important for the supporters of the once (and in some cases still) bigger clubs who were founded with the assumption that their particular ethnic community would fund them to the hilt and for perpetuity. There were few such luxuries for Gully in the early days, and the particular efforts of the club's founder Henry Moakes and volunteer Frank Kolbl are inspiring. This is the book's greatest achievement. It reminds everyone of Gully's other side, away from the club’s brilliant facilities and consistent success of recent years.

The club's rise through the league divisions is a story within itself. When they finally come face to face with their de facto biggest rival George Cross after 22 years of living in their shadow, they not only match the efforts of that one-time giant of Victorian football, but they surpass them. Yet I found something irritating about the way the authors told this particular tale. Occasionally they seem almost apologetic about the club having a support base comprised largely of people of Maltese background. I don't know whether this is a particularly Green Gully trait, or whether it's a reaction to the 'ethnics under the bed' campaign waged over recent times, but it comes across as quite jarring at times.

The club's rise into National Soccer League ranks is also fascinating not least for it being the scene of Socceroo captain Paul Wade's national league debut and simultaneously that of semi-famous actor Costas Mandylor. While some love to reminisce about the good old days, they like to neglect the teams at the bottom of the heap. Conversely, those who disparage the old days based on the sometimes massive gulfs in class between the top and bottom often do not pay enough respect to the difficulty poorly supported and funded clubs had in surving not just in the NSL, but also the sometimes terminal struggle after relegation. The promotion, demotion and in some cases extinction of clubs across the country due to their participation in the national league is a neglected part of the Australian soccer story. Gully managed the difficult job of survival, when other supposedly better-supported clubs such as Footscray JUST and Brunswick Juventus folded. Crucially, Green Gully accepted that they would never again reach national league ranks. Here lies a topical lesson for some other clubs.

And yet the yin to that yang, the introduction of pokie machines, is not discussed with the same vigour. The authors avoid the negative side of gaming machines. They fail to acknowledge how some other clubs rejected pokies on wider social grounds – or through keeping in mind that they were a soccer club first and foremost and that the introduction of pokies would mean becoming the sort of club that exists north of the Victorian border: high on memberships but low on actual attendances at games. Perhaps I'm being harsh here, but it is part of Gully’s stereotype among supporters of rival clubs.

The result for the neutral or non-Gully reader is that the story of the club's recent success doesn't quite have the same feel good vibe as that of the earlier triumphs, even taking into account the long wait between drinks and the post-NSL struggle to survive. Perhaps this is an inherent problem with club histories. Written or informed by insiders or fans, they almost always see the club's story as an overwhelmingly positive one, not through any deliberate bias but mainly because their story is viewed through the supporters’ prism. This book can't avoid that pitfall and is probably never meant to. Books of this sort are first and foremost for the initiated. Any outsiders who pick it up will of course already have their bias detectors on. That is the the nature of the game and its supporters’ culture after all.

It's a sad fact of Australian football historiography that apart from the odd unpublished thesis or pet project of some club obsessive, there aren't many books dealing with Australian soccer clubs. Apart from Juve! Juve!, Gilberto Martin's look at Brunswick Juventus published all the way back in 1990, and rumours of unfinished or in progress works on South Melbourne, Melbourne Hakoah and the Melbourne Knights it's slim pickings – especially in comparison with works based on the Socceroos or Australian players. Which is why Green Gully Soccer Club: 50 Years is a more than welcome addition to the Australian club genre. While the book has its inevitable flaws, it is an impressive and much needed work. Hopefully one of its effects is to inspire the production of works written about other clubs, so that the fullest picture of soccer in this country can be presented.

Soccer Boom: The Transformation of Victorian Soccer Culture 1945-1963 - Book Review (reprise)

This review of mine originally appeared on the now defunct Das Libero site, probably some time around 2007? Who can remember now. Here it is for posterity's sake, sloppy typos and grammar included.

When Push Comes to Boom

Association football in this country has been viewed as a foreign game for as far back as anyone can remember. For those opposed to the sport, this foreignness is amongst the game's chief evils. It's played by people who aren't from here; many of its customs are seemingly borrowed wholesale from overseas; when we do have decent players they are taken to foreign leagues and lands; when we have decent national teams, rules dictated by foreigners make the task of our team compiled of players playing in foreign lands all the more difficult. Those who love the game often lament Australians’ lack of appreciation of the sport, attaching to it a lack of worldliness; they denigrate the standard and players found here; or they complain that people in this country don't understand 'real' football culture, which can only be found overseas or – in an opinion held by some people in the more recent era of the game's boom – only among those who looked after the sport before it was cleansed and made mainstream.

Thus the immigrant influence has also become the dominant way in which the game has been viewed academically. John Kallinikios' Soccer Boom: The Transformation of Victorian Soccer Culture 1945-1963 is an important book because it diverts from that view. It attempts to cover soccer's change by minimising the 'ethnic' factor and instead focusing on the processes by which an amateur participant sport became a (semi) professional and spectator-orientated sport.

At the beginning of the era the book seeks to cover, the local game is in stasis. It is strictly amateur (to the point where even player transfers between clubs are rare) and most clubs play on open parklands. Tactics used are perhaps 20 years behind the rest of the world and the game’s Anglo-centric administration only has eyes for the English FA and the very occasional favours bestowed from the Old Dart. And then a sea change, primarily driven by immigrant clubs and administrators. New playing styles are adopted, spectators who demand victory necessitate enclosed venues, and players are being paid good money – sometimes more than their Rugby League and VFL contemporaries; Australian football after hibernating for 20-odd years suddenly has an ambition to be part of the world football community.

This narrative is not a major revelation. However, the originality of Kallinikios' argument lies in the contention that this wasn't done as part of some deliberate and exclusively 'ethnic' takeover. Rather the changes were necessary and occurred as part of a push to bring the game up to speed with the rest of the world, to professionalise it. Almost overnight clubs, players and administrators with the experience of participating in professional and semi-professional setups, who felt they could do a much better job than the incumbent administration, had arrived on our shores.

To demonstrate his overall point, Kallinikios delves into the varied problems of soccer's expansion. One of these is the issue of crowds. Following the post-war influx of soccer-loving migrants, match attendances rise rapidly; through this process Victorian soccer inverts from a participant-based sport to a spectator-oriented one. This generates immediate needs: identifiable boundaries between fans and players, spectator comfort, the means to collect money from spectators to facilitate these developments. Ground availability is another problem, particularly with regards to the infringement on local sporting traditions. Kallinikios elaborates on the search for a venue in Footscray, showing that the councils' reluctance to give soccer access to enclosed grounds was not solely a product of attitudes towards the ‘New Australian’ character of the clubs and the game, but also a reflection of the self-interest of Australian Rules officials (sometimes as members of the council making the decision) and fear of the backlash from the community – despite the financial benefits and the logic of making better use of council facilities.

Among the things Kallinikios does very well is put soccer in its place. The game was not merely an island enclave but part of society as well. When he draws parallels between the changes in Victorian soccer in the 1950s and the VFL breakaway of 1897, the realisation is that change is not merely that of an ethnicisation – though that is one its net results – but one of professionalisation. The administration of the time and a great number (though not all) of the traditional clubs were often unwilling, slow and sometimes simply unable to move with the times, to their eventual everlasting detriment. The fact that no winner of the league prior to 1952 won it afterwards is ample evidence of the speed and thoroughness of the old regime's decimation. The last time an 'old' club won a major trophy was in 1957 when Moreland took the Dockerty Cup.

Particularly noticeable were Kallinikios’ frequent self-references to how this work was shifting the debate, part of a new revisionist trend amongst soccer historians in this country. The suggestion is that academic soccer writers in seeking to understand the game's local history via the immigrant lens have overlooked and pushed to the margins other ways of looking at the game. Unfortunately, because the migrant influence is presented as a main theme in soccer histories the game gets further tied to that post. This argument taps into wider community notions of soccer as a foreign game. Kallinikios demonstrates this point by citing examples of soccer journalists who feared the game's takeover by migrants would be viewed negatively by the wider Anglo-Celtic population thereby reducing the game's appeal. Interestingly, their solution was for migrants to assimiliate into the existing clubs – one which bought into the broader contemporary ideology of assimilation and presaged much of the justifying rhetoric surrounding the ethnic cleansing of the A League.

While the book does a fairly good job of covering the era from a different view point of view – especially in the way it parallels the past with the present – it is not without its problems. One of these was the omission of facts which might contradict some of the key arguments. For instance, Kallinikios claims that Camberwell had no soccer tradition when there was in fact a Camberwell club in the 1930s (whether they played in Camberwell is another matter).

More significant is the minimising of the ethnic factor in regards to violent incidents and the understating of notions of national pride, avoiding such examples as George Cross only allowing members of Maltese background to join and Greek-Australian newspapers advocating the separate Greek clubs should unite for the 'glory of Hellenism'. (This eventually happened when Yarra Park merged with Hellenic, with the new entity taking over South Melbourne United soon after primarily to gain access to their Middle Park ground.) Kallinikios' assertion that this sort of thing mainly came about in a later era is where his argument falters, as there appears to be sufficient evidence to the contrary. This is partly because even though the book claims to cover the era up until 1963, in reality it falters well short, leading to the book's other main drawback, its lack of a post-script. I was disappointed that is no mention was made that Schintler Reserve, the long sought after ground in Footscray, is now gone and on its long-since faded line-markings sit shipping containers. And with so much of the book’s focus being on Juventus and Hakoah, the former's decline is ignored even as it was surpassed by South Melbourne Hellas, George Cross and Polonia. In Juve's case in particular, failure to mention their eventual demise 30 years on largely through their lack of a home should be considered an oversight.

Despite these shortcomings, Soccer Boom is still an essential read for anyone interested in the game's history in this country, especially for those looking for a different perspective. Its clarity and accessibility also make it more than suitable for someone not completely familiar with the game's past. It will be interesting to see what responses it will generate from the more traditional historians challenged by Kallinikios, as well as what will follow in its wake from among the revisionists. And as added bonus, you get an Australian soccer book not obsessed with New South Wales. Surely that makes it all the more worthwhile.

Con Harismidis, Tony Ising, Chips Rafferty and Online Petitions From Days Of Yore

A twitter discussion earlier this year on the greatness that is Con Harismidis got me searching for whatever was left of his internet presence. I didn't find much that wasn't already on this blog - if someone can find his mainstream press appearances that would be good.


What I did find was this petition from an unknown pre-A-League date. It was a simpler time, when people still believed that online petitions could make a difference.

Dear Soccer Australia or whichever body of authority this petition may concern in the future,

We, the undersigned, the fans of Australian soccer, are excited about the prospect of a new, quality premier national competition.

We believe that an independent, quality and fully professional premier national soccer competition is essential to the success of Australian soccer, both on and off the field.

The creation of such a competition is critical if the game's most important stakeholders, the fans, are to truly embrace Australian soccer.

You owe it to yourselves, to the players, to the fans, to all Australians past, present and future, to thoroughly consider the hard work and efforts of the Australian Professional Footballers' Association and go about implementing the appropriate strategies in order to establish a league that truly embodies the gigantic potential for soccer in Australia.

We wish to express our support for the PFA's proposed Australian Premier League by signing our names to this petition.

The future is in your hands, we sincerely hope that you take full advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity and make your decisions carefully and wisely.

There are 225 signatories to it. Rather than include all of the submissions, let's take a look at some of the more worthwhile entries.

• Make of this post what you will.

Tool
The NSL club you currently support: Pert GloRi
The International club you support:Engerland
Birthplace: Oztraliya
Comments : I waiting 26 yr 4 a fu.c.king no ethnik klub in melboun!!

• It was followed hot on the heels by this:

Mike

Birthplace : Melbourne
Comments : Soccer just isn't an Aussie game. Get over it.

• Younger audiences of Australian soccer forums may not remember when the poster known as Chips Rafferty was all for draining the pond.

Chips
The NSL club you currently support: Northern Spirit
Comments: The wogs hijacked the domestic game in 1957 . Now it's time to take what's rightfully our back.

• This person was more interested in self-promotion.

australiansoccer.net
The NSL club you currently support: South Melbourne
The International club you support: South Melbourne
Birthplace : Australian Soccer
Comments : I love australiansoccer.net

• Cropower sums up the discussions that were happening at the time, in both tone and content.

Cropower
The NSL club you currently support: Sydney United
Comments : Whats wrong with the NSL ?? Too many wogs is that it ?

• I think you'll pick up the problem with this post without too much help.

Daniel N
The NSL club you currently support: South Melbourne
The International club you support: Red Star Belgrade
Birthplace: Melbourne
Comments : APL should go ahead only with non racial backed teams. Soccer is a sport for all nationalities. Good to see scum like Melbourne Knights out. HELLAS OLE!

• Anyone ever been to Bollawonger Canyon?

Australia S
The NSL club you currently support: Butt munch
The International club you support: Liverpool
Birthplace : Bollawonger Canyon
Comments : Lets face it guys we're crap at soccer. Leave it to the English.

• The man himself, Con Harismidis

Con H
The NSL club you currently support: Hellas
The International club you support: Hellas
Comments : Hello everybody. I am Con Harismidis. My favourite player is Con Boutsianis. My other favourite player is John Anastasiadis. Hellas is best team in league. There is no Hellas there is no league. Hellas is best.

• Jason, born in Melbourne, supports Liverpool, but didn't feel welcome at NSL games. How do you argue against things like this?

Jason F
The NSL club you currently support: none cos i didnt feel welcome at any
The International club you support: Liverpool
Birthplace : Melbourne

• Simun has a few ideas on what should have been done.

SIMUN
The NSL club you currently support: MELBOURNE KNIGHTS & SYDNEY UNITED
The International club you support: HAJDUK SPLIT
Birthplace : perth
Comments : ..what this country needs is a competition not an auction, I thought that the best team was the one that always won, not had the most money..if this APL is going to succeed it needs to have more advertising , I hate to say it but like the AFL, turn on any channel and theres a AFL add right there, thats why AFL have 40,000 spectators to an everyday round game not just at a final..we need to start showing the people of AUSTRLIA why its called THE WORLD GAME and why we can travel all over the world to play it unlike AFL where you need to learn a totally new sport verse another nation(aka IRELAND)

• John sounds like a charming fellow.

John
Comments : Soccer is a poofs game AFL RULES

• Chris sees a difference between people and stakeholders. What odds he has a job at the FFV these days?

chris p
The NSL club you currently support: Northern Spirit
The International club you support: Glasgow Celtic
Birthplace : Sydney
Comments :soccer belongs to the people not stakeholders.

• Manny supports Olympic, but doesn't want Olympic in a national league. I wonder if he's still following them in the NSWNPL?

manny k
The NSL club you currently support: Sydney Olympic
The International club you support: Man U & Leeds
Birthplace : Sydney
Comments : can't wait for the new APL to start....i've waited for over 15 years for the ethnic clubs to disappear so that the comp could be city vs city..just remember...more kids play soccer than league, union & afl put together

• Bryce nails down not having the NSL on console games  as the burning issue.

Bryce M
The NSL club you currently support: Brisbane Strikers
The International club you support: Arsenal FC
Birthplace : QLD
Comments About time that a change happended in ozzie soccer. Im sick of being ashamed of our australian league. There is a reason why console games forget to include our league.

• Not the first time Tony Ising used a less than orthodox manner of promoting his Melbourne Victory idea - but that story's for another time.

Tony I
The NSL club you currently support: Melbourne Victory
The International club you support: Socceroos
Birthplace : Melbourne
Comments : Let's all support the APL.

• I'm with Nick, I still don't consider it a real league. I just hope Nick is still around South somewhere.

Nick S
The NSL club you currently support: South Melbourne
The International club you support: Celtic
Birthplace : Melbourne
Comments : It wouldnt be a real league without the most successful Australian side, its like the premier league without ManU, Liverpool or Arsenal

Farewell to GeordieHellas

A bit of sad news this week, with one of our favourite blog readers and recent South converts GeordieHellas revealing that he and the family are headed back home to the UK. It was always a pleasure to chat with Andrew on the terraces (and hear his catch cry of 'Howay The Hellas!'), and seeing his young son Harry grow up at Northcote and Lakeside.

A proud Newcastle United fan, Andrew was also heavily involved with the local Australian Newcastle United supporters group Aussie Mags, who I'm sure will also miss him. On the plus side, he'll get to see his beloved Toon in the flesh again, as well as watch them at a decent hour.

South of the Border would like to wish Andrew, Vanessa and Harry all the best back in the old country.

Hello lads and lasses,

Sadly the missus and I would like to tell you all we won't be at Lakeside Stadium next season as we are heading back home to Newcastle upon Tyne to live.

The missus and I went to our first South Melbourne FC game in 2007 for three very simple reasons, we liked football, we wanted to be able to walk (we lived in St Kilda at the time) to games so we could have a drink and because I'd heard of SMFC prior to moving to Australia in 2005.

I especially very quickly fell in love with watching SMFC, the missus liked the banter and the beer mainly to be honest, and so did I too but it also filled the void I felt from no longer going to watch Newcastle United games live.

Our son was born in July 2011 and he attending his first game at 3 weeks old! The last two years we've had family memberships, and actually relocated to South Melbourne, making walking to home game even easier.

We been to Richmond away, Bentleigh away, Melbourne Croatia away and Northcote away (and home numerous times of course!).

So we'd like to thank you all for being brilliant Hellas supporters, for being very welcoming and we wish you good luck in season 2014 and beyond. We will be following events from overseas and hope one day the club creates a overseas membership and streams the games live, just an idea!?!

Kind Regards.

Andrew

No NPL Victoria in 2014

In a classic case of be careful what you wish for - remember how I got fed up with all the NPL Victoria talk, and just wanted five minutes of space so I could discuss our finals campaign? - well, that turned into a solid few weeks of eerie silence post-season, unnerving everyone with its lack of detail and information.

A week or two back, the FFV, FFA and the co-signatory clubs had a marathon 10 hour meeting, as a part of a last ditch effort to avoid the pending Supreme Court action. The FFV tried to claim the moral high ground on the matter, claiming that it was more or less their idea, but I doubt anyone bought that line.

The usual leaks and rumour mongering didn't happen, adding further tension to the situation, and perhaps led to the situation were people were predicting a break in the unity of the co-signatory clubs, and then suggesting all sorts of comprises had been made to get the new format up and going in 2014.

Well, the FFV came out today and settled at least one matter, announcing that there would be no NPL Victoria in 2014, with the leagues to run as per the usual model. So first off, welcome back Heidelberg to the VPL after an absence of one season, and also to Werribee City for the first time since 1995. Secondly, 'the we're stuck in the fucking VPL' chant lives on for another year, which is great.

But all jokes aside, the FFV have again tried to claim the moral high ground, painting the co-signatory clubs as recalcitrant. Its timing could have not been more devious. Releasing your press release at 5:00PM on a Friday? The old 3RRR show The Spin (which focused on media and PR trickery) had a name for that - the five o'clock dump.

Already we had the situation where one of the key co-signatory representatives, Box Hill United's Nicholas Tsiaras, was excluded from the discussions by the FFV. Now the talk is that the FFV had more or less agreed to a compromise solution with the FFA and the co-signatory clubs, but later reneged on that deal. It seems like the concept of good faith has gone completely out the window.

So are we headed to the courts now? Who's going to foot the bills? Who has the staying power? Will the FFA finally come down like a tonne of bricks onto one of the two sides? One mess cleaned up, temporarily. A whole new can of worms about to get started.

2013 AGM date announced

The 2013 AGMs (and elections) for South Melbourne FC and South Melbourne Hellas have been announced. And in a pleasant change, the date (December 1) is neither

1. Late
2. Two days before Saturnalia
3. On a long weekend, when a certain rotund stats man goes surfing on the coast.

Don't you love progress? Onwards and upwards, as they say.

Oh, the date for the 2013 gala ball - I still don't know why they don't just combine the informal best and fairest night with the gala ball - has been set for December 14th, at what used to Albert By The Lake. $120 if you want to go to that. I'll probably end up going, but I'd rather spend that money on books.

The South Melbourne Hellas Hymn!

Everyone knows about Frozen Tears' legendary mid 1990s club song. However, fewer people know about the Hellas Hymn, a Greek language club song I'm guessing dates from some time in the 1980s, or perhaps really early 1990s.

I must apologise for the poor audio quality on this track - the mp3 was inherited from someone else several years ago, and I really should have insisted on them making a better copy. Then again, you may argue that the distortion on the track only adds to the cheesiness of the affair. Suffice to say, this is not my cup of tea. But if anyone has anyone details about this song and how it came about, or even if you just want to say that you remember it, drop us a line in the comments section.



The photo of the chipped case was taken during an inventory of the social club (recognise the table?) a few years ago, when I was asked to help pack away our club's valuables so the club could get started on the social club redevelopment. I think that was sometime during the Bronze Age.

I believe that Heidelberg also had their own Greek language club song (they also had a Frozen Tears song of their own - or was that for Collingwood Warriors?), and from memory, it was actually OK.