A small, petty man - Avondale 0 South Melbourne 1

Your reporter could have purchased a ticket to the big AFL game that day, but instead did what he almost always does in such situations, and decided to head to the South game, regardless of the circuitous public transport path chosen, and especially regardless of the (as it turned out) even worse than usual public amenities on offer at the football arena portion of the Reggio Calabria Club, which at least in previous times had a half decent/passable canteen. Good luck to the food truck offering prawn twists and other novelty items at outrageous prices for making Lakeside's food offerings seem almost sensible by comparison. It's never a good sign when you don't see almost anyone eating anything at a game.

The worst part of the whole thing is that I got there early enough to catch about 60 minutes of the under 21s curtain raiser, so it was a hell of a long day to spend without consuming other than a can of coke, and a bit of someone's novelty Snickers bar.

For us, this was a dead rubber. A chance to continue working out the immediate future without Harrison Sawyer, while avoiding serious injuries and unnecessary yellow cards. For Avondale, it was basically win or bust, with Heidelberg likely to smash Eastern Lions, and Bentleigh Greens favourites against the all-but-relegated Dandy City. Now there was that one observant person on Twitter who noted that we must really hate Avondale considering that we played a pretty strong starting line-up, and there might be something to that. But otherwise, I think we went in pretty much as expected, minus the odd player here or there that didn't absolutely need to be out there.

And we got the job done. A 1-0 win thanks to an earlyish goal which highlighted a big part of Avondale's slip from preeminence this year; namely some pretty soft defending. I was disappointed that we couldn't add to the tally, especially as Avondale increasingly had to chase the game to give themselves some chance of making the finals; but I was otherwise happy that we seemed to be a bit more assertive overall, looking more like the side from the early parts of the season that pressed its opposition higher up the field. A good outing by Ben Djiba as well, after a few sketchy performances - when he was in the side. 

And, yes, it felt good to not only dispense with Avondale, who have given us a torrid time n recent seasons, but also to stick it up some pretty annoying characters at that club, who sought to target our supporters in prior visits to the Reggio Calabria Club. Yes, pity our poor feelings and all that, but good riddance (for the time being) of some pretty sore winners and now, also pretty sore losers judging by the antics of their coaching staff in the car park after the game. Not that I stuck around for such shenanigans, as I was hoofing it up Brunswick Road to catch a tram that would not properly sync up with the train arriving at Royal Park station.

Still, all the good feelings of the home and away season are now worth not much, as we head into the finals, which means we're either two wins from glory, or one loss from what will be deemed failure. But that's the Australian way I guess, even if New South Wales - the soccer state which loves finals systems more than anyone - is apparently dumping finals next year. Good luck to them for the principle of that move, but damned if I think they'll actually keep first past the post in the long run.

Back in Victoria, we're stuck with finals, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't this particular finals system. In other respects, things remained much the same, as the top six was made up of five Greek teams, well earning the competition the title of NPL Greece. I mean, look at this for the most recent title winners:

• 2019 - Bentleigh Greens
• 2018 - Heidelberg United
• 2017 - Bentleigh Greens 
• 2016 - South Melbourne
• 2015 - Bentleigh Greens
• 2014 - South Melbourne
• 2013 - Northcote City

I know that it helps that the last two seasons being obliterated means that run wasn't interrupted by Avondale winning the title, but Greek teams have also frequently been the runner-up during those seasons, and have won five of the past seven Dockerty Cup finals.

Next match

Thanks to finishing in the top two, we have a week off this week, and are back again next week. We'll be playing the lowest ranked winner of the first week of the finals. As it turns out, that will be fourth placed Green Gully, who knocked out Bentleigh last night, and are the lowest ranked team remaining thanks to Oakleigh defeating Heidelberg.

The match will be on Sunday 4th September at 4pm. Apparently that's also Fathers Day, though I never took much notice of such things. It was a choice between going up against the AFL finals on the Friday night, the AFL finals on Saturday afternoon/evening, or Fathers Day. I think the club made the right choice. Port, the host of the other semi-final, are going up against the sold out Geelong vs Collingwood game on Saturday.  

The under 21s final will take place after the seniors' game.

Nag, nag, nag

People scoff, but gentle intermittent nagging can sometimes achieve serious results. My nagging is now on record as seeing the restoration of the Dockerty Cup, the production of pompom beanies at South, and perhaps my greatest accomplishment so far, the recent availability of South Melbourne Gunners merch. Does it matter that it's via a RedBubble style outlet with $10 postage? Does it matter that the Gunners gimmick was loathed back when it was introduced, and still remains largely unappreciated now? Not a damn bit. If you can't appreciate the magnificent irony of the early 1980s attempt by Rik Booth and friends to de-ethnicise the NSL and introduce ridiculous gimmick team nicknames, and yet somehow make the South Melbourne Hellas logo even more ethnic, then that's on you. Or you could just buy the re-make of the Hellas World Order shirts, which may be more to your liking.

My Everest

Some people are asking, now that I've accomplished this trifecta, what's next on the nag wishlist? And after thinking about it, I have to say: the abandonment of short corners, which I realise is outside the control of pretty much everyone that pays attention to what I say at South. However, I will note this: last week the team played a short corner. It failed, as most corners (short or otherwise) tend to do, and I didn't even entertain the idea that we would score from it. But it was at least a short corner taken in the right circumstances, with the opposition scrambling to organise itself and not exactly paying attention to what was going on. It's a start.

Absentee Golden Boot

Congratulations to Harrison Sawyer, who despite missing the final two matches of the home and away season due to signing with Indian side Jamshedpur, nevertheless managed to finish the season as the league's top scorer. Sawyer finished on 17 goals, two ahead of Oakleigh's Wade Dekker and Heidelberg's Kaine Sheppard.

On the streams

Hello, hello (and goodbye)
Saturday last I got home in time from the supermarket to watch most of the Moreland City vs North Geelong game. The sums were pretty straightforward, even if I cocked them up twice on the South forum. First-placed North Geelong, already promoted, only needed a draw to be crowned champions. Second-placed Moreland City needed a win to guarantee promotion, and to win the NPL2 championship; a draw would leave them vulnerable to being overtaken by Brunswick Juventus, who were playing relegation threatened Werribee City. Well when I said I got home in time early enough to watch most of the game, I meant that arrived home about twenty or more minutes into the game, with the score already 1-0, and who'd know that that's the way it would stay for the rest of the game? A pretty tight, kinda ugly game, ideally viewed from the ground level camera. North had a couple of good chances late on to take the draw and the title, but didn't.

Brunswick Juve then allegedly threw their game very late against Werribee, conceding what some have called two very suspect goals, which kept Werribee in NPL2 for another season. Having not seen the late comeback in question, I could not possibly comment on whether the result was indeed suspect, much like I could not possibly comment on Port Melbourne's equally allegedly suspect 95th minute equaliser against Werribee in the final round of 2014, a result which incidentally kept both teams up. But where was I? Oh yes. We'll be seeing North Geelong and Moreland in NPL1 next season, at the expense of Dandenong City and Eastern Lions, neither of whose grounds I was able to get to this year, and in the case of Dandy City, I'm not sorry they and their impossible to get to ground are gone, even if the eually ridiculously located Elcho Park is its replacement.

But what of Moreland City? Their Campbell Reserve ground might be up to scratch (just) for NPL2, but I doubt it will pass muster for NPL1. The thinking seems to be that they'll end up playing out at CB Smith, but good luck with that considering Fawkner, Pascoe Vale, and Brunswick Juve also play out of there. Anyway, while I won't buy into the rhetoric that Moreland City have returned to the top-flight for the first time in 75 years (or whatever the number is), because I'm counting their history from their 1989 merger rather than from their individual constituent parts, we can I suppose talk some history. We last played against Moreland in a competitive fixture in 1962; against Coburg, another merger constituent in 1960, our first season; and we never played against Park Rangers. Still, the fact that the Moreland City family tree does include Park Rangers, it means that next season will see a meeting of distant cousins, in that Park Rangers were born from an early 1940s offshoot of South Melbourne United. Think of it like the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac getting together.

Through the fog

Against all your natural inclinations you try to be kind, you hope to be forgiving, you want to be understanding, and not even from a "what if I was in their place" mentality; just because it's the right thing to do, and there's not much to be gained from being unnecessarily cruel. But the NPL TV product is not up to scratch on so many levels, and while I wish it wasn't so, there's no way of getting around it. Even the things the offering does well, get undone when they're not done well or at all. To wit: the last couple of weeks, NPL Tv's social media (at least on Twitter) has begun sharing goals as they happen. A marvellous innovation, long overdue, but welcome nonetheless. But if you wanted to see last week's winning goal in the Avondale vs South game? Not there. And if you were watching the Oakleigh vs Heidelberg game on a unwieldy stream cast from a laptop to a television, because there is no dedicated NPL TV app even though the host technology Cluch TV app exists, and you wanted to catch up painlessly with the goals ftom the Green Gully vs Bentleigh game on social media, because you don't want to deal with the mobile NPL TV app... well, they weren't on the socials last night either. Sure you could get the goals from the dead rubber Kingborough Lions vs Olympia game, but nothing from last night. So it goes, but damn if it doesn't suck, despite the best intentions of everyone trying to make it work.

Now I will note of this game that it was exciting. It was of a pretty decent standard at times, albeit too fast at times. There were two injury time goals that bailed Heidelberg out temporarily, plenty of near misses, a penalty shoot-out, and lots of shenanigans. And yet so much of the experience was undermined by a stream beset with technical issues - including missing the first part of what turned out to be an anti-climactic shoot-out - and so many bouts of out of focus camera that one felt bad for the people trying to put together the product. 

I never (OK, maybe not never) like to think I go out of my way to be cruel when I criticise, but the quality of the footage stream last night was not up to scratch, I know that it's done on the smell of an oliy rag, but if we are going to offer this service which dissuades people from going to games, the least we can do is make it good. How many times last night was a team streaming towards goal, only for the footage to look like a news segment on some sporting scandal which blurred the images so no player could be identified?

The penalty shoot-out turned temporarily into a radio broadcast, and though it came back eventually,for a moment there I had to use my imagination, like some sort of caveman. The graphics for the scored/missed penalties also got botched, though I suppose luckily for all concerned the shoot-out was over almost as soon as it started.

Anyway, as for the match itself, people will talk about things like Sean Ellis' free kick with the last kick of the game. Me, I'm all about Matthew Foschini acting like a pork chop, in this case trying to start nonsense with the Heidelberg bench after Oakleigh equalised against the run of play in the first half. It was so petty and stupid, and he got the yellow card that he deserved, but it was also disappointing in a different way. Foschini has had his back and forths with us over the past few seasons, but seeing him get it on with the Berger bench and fans, well... I thought we had something special. 

Well, those kinds of antics at least help explain in part why our so called leaders at the time had so much trouble reigning in the excesses of the People's Champ.

Final thought

It's a shocking thought, but it would be nice to win the grand final.

Inauspicious - South Melbourne 1 Dandenong City 0

We said we weren't going to bring this up again, but our
win against Dandy City did see us finish as runner-up in
the 2021 Bespoke Cup. Not a bad effort after starting
so far back at the start of this mess.

Started off this adventure by getting to the ground early enough to watch the second half of our senior women's match, as their season gradually winds down. Nothing much to write home about here - the cup run is over, finals hopes are gone, and the most one can hope for is that the move away from a big name roster in 2022 will yield fruit in 2023. I think there's some scope for that, and besides - apart from Western United joining, apparently the next A-League Women's season will have a three month overlap with the the start of the 2023 NPLW season - so it's best that everyone gets used to seeing their national league players a little less.

As for the senior men's game, for a match that had little to nothing riding on it for us, there sure seemed to be a lot of misplaced angst. I get that everyone, especially the players and coaching staff, want to finish first. After all, it's a nice marker for all that they've achieved this season. But really, without the lure of the NPL national playoffs, finishing first is not much different from finishing second. It's the same reward - a week off, and then a sudden death finals match on your home ground. Considering there isn't going to be an NPL national playoffs series this year, Football Victoria might as well have used the top six finals format that was used in the VPL days, where the top two at least got a double chance.

But let's assume the match did matter to us, and that was why people got upset with us not playing particularly well. Lots of long balls. Lots of reliance on the long throw. Lots of bad decision making. Par for the course in 2022, but it's worked so far, so why not more of it? Well for one thing, we don't have Harrison Sawyer on field anymore, so we may as well try something new to better suit the personnel we do have. That's my main gripe, and last Saturday it wasn't even really a big gripe for me, because I'm rationalising it like this: that we have three or so inconsequential Sawyer-less weeks - two weeks off, and a couple of essentially dead rubbers - to try and figure out what we're going to do.

And if trying the old thing with new people didn't work, well, that's no good, but maybe we can see that it doesn't work, and try something different. The home and away season is more or less over, and the nonsense will soon begin of two games meaning more than the preceding 26 put together. But that's me speaking, a measure of calm in a perpetually emotional sea. Too many others keep looking to fulfill the truth of Tommy Docherty's observation that South fans are "the best winners in the world, and the worst losers". And we weren't even losing last week! 

Some credit must go to Dandenong City who, as per our match earlier in the season, had a red hot go, being unafraid to take the game to us. They had long odds on getting out of the jam they found themselves in, but at least gave themselves a shot. All for nothing as it turned out, as their loss - and Hume's come from behind win over Dandy Thunder, the latter of whom blew its own slim chances of making finals - means that there would be need to be two really outrageous results on Sunday for City to avoid the drop. 

And while looming relegation can't be a pleasant experience, I'm not sure that justifies calling people "tsigane" and Greek so-and-sos, especially unprovoked. (And I don't think any one of us even paid much attention that fan "favourite" Steven Topalovic was still out there for City, much less former wunderkind Peter Skapetis.) And the less said about the smashed up soap dispensers in the toilets, and the unpleasantness late on in the night with broken glasses in the social club, the better. Some people are annoyed that it's not Hume going down instead of City; I wish it could be both, but if wishes were fishes and so on. 

Next match

Final match day of the home and away season, away to Avondale on Sunday. There has been some conjecture about which way to take this game. Should we go hard core, and try and make Avondale miss out on the finals? Or should we focus on trying to avoid injuries and suspensions, and to hell with whatever happens with the race for the final two finals spots? Should we turn up to support the boys? Or should we stay at home, and not give Avondale any money? Would anyone notice either way?

For whatever it's worth, I reckon the most important thing is to use this week as another opportunity to figure out how to win games without Harrison Sawyer. 

Speaking of which

While he is no longer with us on the field, the big striker was still with us off-field last Saturday, taking part in the post-match celebrations. Still waiting on his visa to come through perhaps? South fans may have seen recently that the All India Football Federation was suspended by FIFA for "undue interference by a third party". India has already, at least nominally, lost the hosting rights to the U17 Women's World Cup, scheduled for October. While the suspension also means that no Indian team - club or country - can play international matches until the suspension is lifted, any hopes that the suspension would also block transfers of non-Indian players to the Indian Super League seem non-existent. Well, it was worth wondering about, anyway.

Also top of the league

The under 21s also finished top of their league, thanks to a comfortable 7-0 win. Several senior players stuck around to see the end of that match, including chanting everyone's favourite, "come on Hellas, score a fucking goal". Think about all the times Clarendon Corner have been told off for swearing, especially in chants, and then this happens. Well, I'm taking it as an endorsement, and something to hold on to in the event that we ever get called out on it again.

Q. When is a title not a title?

A. When you have a final series.

For whatever reason, Football Victoria has decided that this season the under 21s competition will also have a finals series. So that means that our 21s are not quite there yet. What it also means is that there's a chance that South could be host to a finals double header, possibly against a club that we'd also be matched up against in the seniors. 

The decision to go for a double-header would almost certainly preclude the match from being played on a Friday night, because even starting the 21s at 6:15PM, there would need to be the allowance for extra time and penalties, which would push the senior kickoff time to well beyond 9PM. Considering also that the second week of NPL Victoria finals coincides with the first week of the AFL finals, it's likely that no one would want to come up against a possible Saturday night blockbuster AFL finals match. So could we see ourselves playing on a Sunday, the way everyone apparently wants us to?

Final thought

Thanks to Will for the lift back into the CBD.

Goodbye Harry, goodbye hope - Port Melbourne 2 South Melbourne 1

Thank goodness we've got the week off, otherwise this crap would have come out after the next game.

It starts off bad

One of those days, weeks, years. Got to the ground early, hoping to see the 21s do whatever it is they do. No dice: Port did the thing where they scheduled the nominal reserves game for after senior game. So stuck in the Port social club listening to the end of the Pies' game on the radio, watching the last five minutes or so of Lions vs Hume, and admiring Port's new electronic scoreboard, which is finally up. It has room for the scores, a running match clock, and perhaps most surprisingly - and most useful for NPL winter nights - a temperature gauge. 

But much as we all like to laud any improvements to our suburban grounds, the scoreboard was a bit of a bust. The clock is hard to read (small black text in a yellow box), the temperature gauge doesn't update itself, and the scoreline at the end of the game sucked. To be fair, that last bit was mostly our fault, as we continued to struggle to create chances outside the usual long-throw and corner methods. And we didn't even get that many corners. 

Well we got one long throw goal - I think that's about nine of them this season - but apart from that, looked second best for most of the game, at least during those parts that I could see the game. SS Anderson Reserve seems to get darker every year. The benches are in near total darkness, and a black clad Esteban Quintas was able to scurry through the back half of the field almost unnoticed by anyone who wasn't directly behind the Williamstown Road goal. Hopefully the fact that the ground will be a Women's World Cup training venue next year will draw out some improvements to the venue.

Taking the "National" out of National Premier Leagues

I could complain more about this loss, but it was cold, and besides which, what was the ultimate prize on hand anyway? Finishing first? Yeah, I suppose that would be nice, but what's the prize for finishing first anyway? Oh, that's right, finishing first gets you into the NPL national playoff series, with the chance of getting straight into the Australia Cup round of 32. Looking into the matter in the week or two before, a few South fans seemed to notice that there was nothing in the Football Victoria or Football Australia competition calendars indicating dates for the post-season tournament run from 2013-2019, and thuse the question got asked, and eventually answered as per this Peter Filopoulos tweet; with the answer being there's apparently no longer an NPL national playoffs series.

(let's also take a moment to marvel somewhat at Filopoulos' comment on the tournament not having been in the calendar since 2019, as if there might not be some obvious reason why that was the case)

Quite what the "National" part of National Premier Leagues stands for anymore is anyone's guess. At any rate, while I'm disappointed that it's not happening for selfish South related reasons, let's not pretend that it was a particularly popular tournament while it was around. People like to point to occasional carnivalesque NSW grand final day crowds, and the equally "event oriented" midweek Australia Cup turnouts as proof of what a national second division could achieve... and yet I tend to look to the NPL national playoffs as a much more realistic sense of the kinds of interest that would be generated by a national second division. Hype low, interest minimal, outlook bleak.

And then it gets worse

So finishing on top now means diddly squat, except for some skerrick of morale I suppose. But we've got a top two spot sewn up, which means we only have to win two more games - as long as they're not out next two games - to be crowned champions. That's the dream, anyway, and I use dream in the sense of fanciful, because according to a good chunk of our online natterers, we're basically done, because one of our three most important players is gone. There's the goalkeeper, there's the long throw guy, and then there's the guy up front who a lot of people hated, but who nevertheless became so integral to our game plane over the past three years (whatever was completed of them), that who knows what the team will look like in his absence.

Midweek, out of nowhere, and to the dismay of everyone, the club announced that Harrison Sawyer had departed the club effective immediately to join an Indian Super League club. Still don't know which one (doesn't matter really), or for how much (probably diddly squat). Fair play to Sawyer. Players coming down from Brisbane to play in Melbourne aren't coming here for the climate. Some lucky few get into the A-League, and some might even get across the sea. Sawyer had been a professional in Asia before, so it must be pleasing for him to get back into full-time football.

For us though, on the eve of finals, this is near enough to a disaster. The game plane revolved so much around Sawyer, that fans spent most of the season what we'd do if he got injured, as he did last season. Other wondered why we didn't even try and sign a forward back-up; but then again, if the game plan is based around a super-tall centre-forward who can run all day and pressure defenders, I'm not sure where else the club would have found one. The good thing I suppose, if one can find a silver lining in this situation, is that we have a solid month before we play our first final to try and adapt to a new game style. The only other genuine striker we have is Alun Webb, the complete opposite in style from Sawyer, except for his workrate.

Whatever the more gung-ho approach was earlier in the season - high pressing, numbers forward, with occasionally reckless numbers forward leaving our defenders exposed - it's basically gone. I can't remember when we last saw it, and I can't even say that it was around long enough to say that it was fun while it lasted. Yes, you've got to grind out some wins here and there over the course of a home and away season, and this is still the (N)PL Victoria we're talking about, so don't expect miracles in terms of style, even if you think that we should be doing better than what we are.

And thinking we could be doing than what we are is very bad according to some people, because there's a table, we're on top of it. I can see their point. 

Next game

It's Dockerty Cup final week, so there's no South senior men's action this weekend. We're back next weekend at home against Dandenong City. The kickoff time for this match has been brought forward to 5:45PM, one assumes so that the under 21s can finally play at Lakeside this year, and hopefully clinch their title on home soil. The women's curtain raiser match against Heidelberg has also been brought forward an hour, to 3:00PM

In the mean time, our senior women are playing in their cup final on Sunday  - ie, tomorrow - out at Broadmeadows, against Calder United. 

Final thought

What a marvellous feeling eating an affordable, rather straight-forward, more than passable souvlaki. Revelatory in its ordinariness. 

Never get high on your own supply - South Melbourne 2 Altona Magic 0

Just a short one this week because I'm back in what by my standards would be considered gainful employment, and time is no longer my friend. Well, that's my excuse this week, and there's always an excuse.

Welcome back to the blog for South fans who love to metaphorically slash wrists. Welcome back to normal diabolical crowds, but still continuing on with the same results, with much the same method, with one frustrating exception. What was it with all the short corners? It's not just having Harry Sawyer, Marco Jankovic, and Jake Marshall to aim at, but also little Pat Langlois - remember him that scored those headers from corners early in the season? But also, apart from having all those perfectly cromulent targets to aim at, we also have Andy Brennan who has mostly been providing rather excellent service from corners.

Let's put it down to feeling so comfortable with our position and our opponent, that we decided to use this situation as an opportunity not to showboat - because we would never, ever do something like that - but rather to attempt some in game variations which may become useful in the finals. Now I don't believe that for a second, what with my pathological hatred of short corners (at this level), but it might help other people rationalise what they were watching, assuming anyone else loses sleep about these the way I do. It felt like a targeted hate-crime against me, and in this fishbowl that is South Melbourne Hellas post-NSL, every time we take a short corner attention is brought to me.

Well, I painted that target on myself I suppose, and it's not like one can un-paint that now. Speaking of paint and other brilliant chemicals, how good was the smell of paints, sealants, and whatever other alchemic concoctions are being piled into, under, and on top of our grandstand? It was like being in the back of the old Capricorn Floors van - there's an inside joke for like, three people, tops. I suppose since we're not not allowed to take booze outside the social club (except for trace amounts of alcohol in a lemon, lime & bitters), and the outside beer tent went back into hibernation, why not substitute liquor for fumes? What could possibly go wrong?

Apart from the awful second half, where we lost all shape, the only really bad thing to happen was Ben Djiba's red card, which felt contentious live, and much less contentious once we saw the replay of someone with way too much adrenaline after dribbling past three or four opponents, like your correspondent back in a CC White vs Blue match many, many moons ago. At least I had the good sense to finish my poor run with a mere crappy pass, and not trying to knee-cap someone. 

Anyway, Djiba will be out this week and probably for at one game after, but what a great chance for someone else to do something. I give Esteban credit for this - pretty much everyone gets a go of some sort, sometimes more than I think they should, and sometimes less, and sometimes not in a role I think they're suited to; but it's not like you die wondering most weeks over whether we'll make a sub. It is easier to do now that we can make five a subs a game, but that doesn't mean that the sub will always get made. Look at Chris Taylor for example - still stuck to his more rigid method of well, it's 1984, we've got a squad of 14 players, and you have to fight tooth and nail to somehowbreak your way into the starting XI.

Whatever works for you I suppose, and like I always maintain, there's more than one way to get to your destination in this game. There's pretty and ugly, there's big spenders and slightly less big spenders, and there's even apparently playing with no meaningful sense of a central midfield and not even bothering to make a mid-season transfer to at least pretend to fix this. If we win this title - and I hope that we do - it just may be the first time South (or any club) has won a title mostly through sheer spite. The throw-ins, the set pieces, the playing 15-20 minutes of comparatively good football a game - all while knowing (or some of us fans believing) that we could be doing even better. 

Now you may ask what's better than being three games clear at the top with three matches to go, but that's what the easily placated like to say. I just hope we're not getting complacent. I saw Max Mikkola sit on the main subs bench instead of by himself after he got subbed off last week, and I'm worried we're going soft.

Next game

Port Melbourne away this Saturday. Thanks to Oakleigh's loss on Monday, we are now just one win from claiming the minor premiership and the chance to play in the NPL national playoffs... wait, I'm being passed a note which says that no one seems to know whether the NPL national playoffs will actually take place this year. It seems like there's no mention of them on either the Football Australia or Football Victoria competition calendars. Well, I'm sure everything will turn out fine. 

I hope that if it's not going ahead that the thing was cancelled due to COVID or a failure to attract a sponsor for it, and not because people were planning to fill in the space with a National Second Division. 

Final thought

Whatever stupid thing happens in the rest of this season, let us all bask in the quiet relief that Avondale did not win its stupid 2021 Bespoke Cup. They might still win the 2022 title - and good luck to them if they do - but their failure to take out the title they felt they so deserved, and which they spent so much money on lawyers on, and which they thought was a right laugh until their seven point lead got chipped away to nothing, and then they stopped posting about it on their socials, and then started blocking people on their socials who brought it up... where was I going with this? Oh yes: the Bespoke Cup is over. Let's never speak of it again. 

Not dead yet - South Melbourne 1 Oakleigh Cannons 0

The most important news must come first.

So this "painting" the grandstand business, which has been going on for quite some time now, and which has been testing people's patience, especially constituents of Clarendon Corner, who have been exiled from their usual locale while this "painting" takes place. Last week this seeming farce continued, with now just the lower half of that bay cordoned off - as well as sections at the lake end of the grandstand - and setting off the thought bubble that at some point they'll end up cordoning off Row H by itself just out of spite.

However, I got a message from one of the bigwigs last week - always a concern, because any message I get from them these days I assume is going to be bad news, or some form of berating. Sort of like when you get an email saying that you have a message in your MyGov inbox. In this case, the message was educational rather than hostile, which is always welcome. And the message? It's not just painting that's taking place on our stand, but rather extensive restorative work. The stand is leaking in parts, creating a risk of eventual damage from rising damp. The stand is receiving repairs from both on top and from underneath. I am told that the works are proceeding in a piecemeal fashion, partly so they can see how the repairs go on particular sections of the stand, but also because the persistently inclement June and July weather this year has made progress slower than would ideally be the case.

So having informed nearby people of this, our collective thoughts then turned to the future, and the imminent national second division which I am assured is coming next year. Imagine the buzz of the first couple of weeks of this competition, as all sorts of people come out of the woodwork to watch South play Sydney Olympic or some such. A chunk of this almost certainly temporary renewed interest would centre on Clarendon Corner; its numbers would swell, and the increased weight in and around Row H and the lower half of our usual bay would see the stand creak and groan, and ultimately collapse, inuring many, and possibly killing a few. In the event that the club didn't die as a result of this imagined tragedy, the outpouring of grief among the latent and former South supporter network would see the club reborn, as those who abandoned in one hour of need, returned to it in another. The CC martyrs would be commemorated with plaques and memorials; each year on the anniversary of the tragedy, our fans would remember their fallen brethren; and though those most dedicated would no longer be with us, their sacrifice would lead to the rebirth of South Melbourne Hellas. Αδέρφια ζείτε, εσείς μας οδηγείτε and all that.

Or the repairs could just go really well, and the club can continue making us miserable for all the usual reasons, dragging on its interminable existence in this or some other equally interminable competition.

Back in the real world. there was a game to be won, and surprisingly to me, we won it. I'm not anti-winning matches, especially highly anticipated ones, but I must reiterate: I don't trust any of what's happening this season, which makes my enjoyment of this farce of a rather good run in 2022 conditional on us actually winning the championship, whereupon I can retcon all my ramblings into something altogether more positive and assured. 

Not counting last season's penalty shoot-out win in the cup, this was our first outright win against Oakleigh since 2017. Think about all that has happened since then. Three coaches, a failed A-League bid, and two cancelled seasons because of a pandemic. How many people got married, and/or had one or more kids? How many jobs have I had and lost in that time? The only thing that hasn't happened is the national second division.

What these Oakleigh clowns are trying to claim,
 I have no idea. Photo: Kostas Deves.

There were too many close calls for us in the first half, including one ball that sort of everyone just let roll across the face of our own six yard box. Seemingly close but not really, was a low shot or whatever it was from Oakleigh being saved by Javier Diaz Lopex, clearly well in front of not only the goal line, but also in front of the post. Cue some Oakleigh players, but especially Daniel Clark trying to claim that it was a goal. I get that players get excited, but come on guys, have some respect for physics at least.

The second half from us was better, but my goodness, we are still such a hard team to watch compared to some other teams. I know, I know, get the results, grind out the wins, not how but how many. But watching South players panic with the ball anywhere in the defensive third, launching long balls when keeping the ball would be better and no less dangerous, and avoiding playing the ball in the middle of the field as if their lives depended on it. That last thing must surely have been a direct instruction, because it was pretty much all wing play. I've never seen a team of this calibre - in that they are top of the table so late in a season - so determined not to play the ball anywhere near the central channel, until a cross can come in around the area of the six yard box.

It was fascinating to watch in its own nihilistic fashion. If we were going to turn the ball over, we were to make sure as hell that it was nowhere the middle of the field, which doesn't say a lot for what we think of our central midfield combinations. 

(yet Patrick Langlois, part of that midfield combo, was awarded man-of-the-match in the post-game awards ceremony of the Tony Clarke Memorial Shield business.) 

For apparently the eighth time this season (though who's counting?) we scored a goal from a Max Mikkola throw-in. Not much different to the usual pattern here: long throw into the vicinity of Harrison Sawyer, hoping for a keeper mistake, and eventually a goal. Every week I keep asking how long we can keep getting by on these shenanigans, and every week the answer seems to be, "at least one more week". I'm not comfortable with it, but lest I be castigated for being a Negative Nancy, I'm trying my best to just enjoy the ride. The effort is good. The results are good. The method sucks. But two out of three after five years of mostly crud is, for the time being, acceptable I guess.

Next match

Altona Magic at home on Saturday night. Magic have lost their last five matches, and are still in the relegation scrap. We're expected to win, but the last time we played each other should act as a warning not to be complacent. Remember that game, where some heinously profligate finishing from Magic in the first half left us in the game? 

The mathematics

Eastern Lions are now mathematically relegated. Everyone between 9th and 13th is still in a relegation battle, though it'd be a collapse of all collapses if Knights end up 13th. Finals wise, realistically the top three are in, with the remaining three spots to be fought out by four teams. Knights or Thunder could theoretically make it in, but it would take an amazing set of coincidences for that to happen.

More likely is a finals series with four teams and possibly five of the six being made up of the Greek NPL clubs, in which case, why mourn the absence of the Hellenic Cup, when we play in a Hellenic League?

So far as South is concerned, a top three finish is locked in. Three points from out remaining four matches guarantees a top two finish. Eight points from our remaining four matches guarantees first place; seven points makes us dependent on goal difference, assuming Oakleigh wins all four of its remaining matches.

2021 title race almost over, thank goodness

Oakleigh's loss means that the 2021 Bespoke Cup is Avondale's for the taking, as long as they can beat Port Melbourne. If Avondale lose, and we beat Dandy City in a few weeks time, we can finish as a runners up.

New program uploads

Haven't had one of these for awhile. An early 2000/2001 season effort was sent in this week by a reader, filling in a couple of gaps, which I'm grateful for. Highlight is Steve Panopoulos winning the South Melbourne go-kart challenge. I've also scanned and uploaded the 2021 and 2022 Knights and Gully away match programs.

Final thought

Second division

Hanging in there - South Melbourne 2 Dandenong Thunder 1

Apart from collectively managing to finish the season, South's main priority in 2022 according to at least some people, was to avoid relegation. A fairly obvious goal, even taking into account that he squad had been strengthened relative to its 2021 counterpart. That feat was accomplished a few weeks ago, which was nice, considering the odd near miss with relegation since Chris Taylor's sacking in early 2018. The next priority was to make the finals, also something fairly obvious, but also something that hasn't been achieved since CT got the arse.

Last week's win against Dandenong Thunder, combined with other results, means that we are now mathematically guaranteed to play finals. Fantastic, what a relief. Next step is to claim top spot, not so much for the very minor benefits that a top two spot grant, but for the hope that we might end up with a post-season NPL national playoff run. Embedded somewhere in there is the desire to win the championship, especially because we threw away a potential cup run, and no. I am not going to get over how and/or why that happened.

So anyway, there's five games left until the finals, and we're in a reasonable spot, even if after trying to figure out how we got here, I still feel unconvinced by the whole thing. That's a me problem. Last week we quite obviously brought in the sidelines, one assumes less to help Max Mikolla and his long throws - ineffective for a second week out of three as opposition defences catch on - and more to constrict the Dandenong Thunder's wide play. That worked pretty well, as did the idea of gifting them mostly meaningless possession, which they didn't do too much of note with, except on our right-hand side, where an overenthusiastic Andy Brennan, and an underdone Perry Lambropoulos got caught out in cases where they shouldn't have.

Having managed to carve out the odd chance ourselves, as well as restricting Thunder to the kind of slower possession game style they likely don't prefer, it was infuriating to concede goal from a set piece, especially from a guy who coaches our own under 12s. Also, thanks to the under 12s in front of whatever's left of Clarendon Corner for letting us know that irritating fact. When is paint going to dry anyway? With Oakleigh having smashed Avondale earlier in the day, we were in second place on the live ladder, and though it was not impossible to see how we could come back into the game, we had lost our way a bit, getting sucked into melees and assorted nonsense.

Thanks then to one of the more unnecessary penalties you've ever seen give away. The ball was released wide right into space in the fourth minute of first half injury time. Mikolla and his Thunder opponent sprinted for the loose ball. Mikolla got there firsr, and was clearly fouled by his opponent. My only quibble watching it live was wondering whether the ball was in the box, because surely a defender wouldn't be so daft to give away a foul at that place, at that time, when Max was by himself, on a terrible angle, and would be covered comfortably by even moderate jockeying.

Harrison Sawyer added to his "non playing against Eastern Lions" goal tally by scoring from the spot, and at half time I think we all felt a little better about ourselves. Second half was more of the same, including many of the same kinds of subs we often make, including one which continues to have minimal effect. What stood out, obviously, was Pat Langlois diverting Brad Norton's long range shot into goal for the lead, and Lirim Elmazi getting sent off probably unnecessarily, meaning our already "creative" heavy midfield corps becomes more unbalanced without a designated "ball winner" type.

Indeed, unnecessary yellow cards were a big problem last Saturday, especially after some of our players went out of their recently to reset their yellow card tallies by getting deliberately suspended. So it goes. On the plus side, Oakleigh's Joe Knowles is also suspended, which you'd hope is of some benefit to us, though Oakleigh are hardly short of attacking options.

I agree with the sentiment that we need to win this match in order to finish in first place. Win this game, and we go five points clear with four games to go, with two very winnable matches (Altona Magic, Dandy City), and two very hard ones (Port, Avondale). Oakleigh meanwhile have Bentleigh, Knights, St Albans, and Hume, an easier run to be sure, complicated only by Oakleigh's Dockerty and Australia Cup committments.

Next match

Oakleigh at home on Saturday night, in case you haven't heard. Seeing as this is a reversed fixture, there's no women's match curtain-raiser tomorrow. At the time of writing, it also appears that the men's under 21s also aren't scheduled to be a curtain-raiser. There was some murmuring that the Tony Clarke Memorial Shield might be on before our senior men's match, but I have seen nothing to indicate that that's happening tomorrow. 

If you're looking to spice things up further for tomorrow in the worst way possible, tomorrow's match is also a potential title decider for the 2021 Bespoke Cup. If Oakleigh wins tomorrow night, they get the ignominy of winning that "championship". If they draw or lose, then it's up to Avondale to beat Port the week after.

A sentence or two on the women's team

With results like that, maybe they should sack coaches more often. After knocking off Heidelberg in the cup, the senior women knocked off Bulleen in the league. And quite comfortably, too, at least as far as the scoreline goes. They say that Bulleen had a few out on national team duties, but you can only beat who's in front of you, and we managed to do that. Still a massive slog from here to make the finals, but at least we have a cup final to look forward to. Too bad it's against Calder, but you never know what could happen on the day. 

Final thought

Opposition fans turned up to a game at Lakeside last week. To borrow the sentiments of Richard Rants, it almost felt like what we do still matters.

Lens Flare - Eastern Lions 0 South Melbourne 4

More apologies for lateness and brevity.

I did not attend this game, as I decided to go to a mate's place to watch it instead. That would have worked well, were it not for multiple protests in the city curbing public transport - and me being an idiot - for not being able to get to my mate's place in time. That itself would not have been an issue if the pause button on the app actually worked. Is there even a pause button? The trick I think is to actually watch matches through the "match centre" portion of the site, which inevitably boots you out of the app to your browser. 

So I missed the first ten minutes or so thanks to public transport delays, being required to be buzzed in and taken up a lift, and then not being a pause button. Since Eastern Lions, despite their struggles in 2022, had at least had a habit of scoring first and/or early, I was concerned that we might already be 1-0 down, and playing even more catch up to Oakleigh. Oakleigh ha already dispatched Dandenong City 5-0 the night before, so not only was there the matter of Oaks having taken the lead at the top of the table, but also a matter of goal difference.

As it was, we were actually already 1-0 up, and going to the replay function showed that it was pure training ground stuff to take that lead. Eastern Lions have barely been competitive this season, and that trend continued in this match. In 2021's abandoned season, they won four games from eighteen, three draws, and tended to always look plucky. This season they've had one win and three draws, and have probably been lucky to get as much as that.

So the disappointing aspect from this game, if one is to be disappointed, was that we didn't look that threatening from general play. A corner goal, a penalty, a throw in goal, and an open play effort after a dreadful backpass was picked on by Harrison Sawyer. Players that came on as a subs, and who could've had some downhill skiing fun, didn't really take that opportunity. No matter - we got through the game with the expected win, the expected margin, and I assume not too many injuries or unnecessary yellow cards.

At home, even if not my own home, the experience was augmented by a potent negroni, and in this case by lens flare. The great thing about livestreaming at this level, is all the variances in quality. The wrong cameraman, the wrong commentator, the wrong weather, the wrong lighting, teams that can't work out a uniform clash. One thing that's harder to deal with is that you want the crowd (such as it exists at NPL level) to be visible, but that may also mean putting the camera on the side facing into a setting winter sun. And is the case with almost every single game broadcast from Gardiners Creek Reserve, the commentators staring into the sun can't see what's going on, and neither can the home viewer half the time because of lens flare. It's not exactly an appealing aspect of the live stream experience.

Next game

Tomorrow night against Dandenong Thunder. Oakleigh plays away to Avondale earlier in the day, so we'll know by our own kickoff time whether we'll be needing a win to retain top spot for another week. Top spot meaning not much at all officially, except for the hope and assumption that it will include entry into a post-season NPL champions tournament. 

Speaking of Harry Sawyer...

Earlier this year, Sawyer became the 10th known South Melbourne Hellas senior men's player to score four goals in a league match. On Saturday, he became the first known South Melbourne senior men's player to score four goals in a league game, twice.

We say "known", because the 1960 season, South's first, remains primeval in terms of lineups and scorer details. There were about ten league games in 1960 where South scored at least four goals, including two hauls of nine, and one of ten. In all likelihood, someone would have scored at least four in one of those games, and most likely more. 

But that shouldn't diminish Sawyer's achievement. To add to the novelty of this record, Sawyer's four goals on Saturday was the first (known) time that a South player had scored four or more in a league game, without any teammates scoring in the same game. Discussion however, over whether Sawyer is a better striker than Milos Lujic - as ventured into by some online South people - should be put aside for at least awhile yet. 

At some point as well, adding on the many other statistical oddities we'll have to take care of, is finding out which South player has scored the most goals against each opponent. For his part, Sawyer has scored 12 goals against Eastern Lions in four league games spanning 2020-2022.

Women's team

A week is a long time in football. Saturday the girls lost 4-2 to Box Hill, giving them a four match losing streak, and putting them miles out of the race for the finals. There was talk of player exits and holidays, and then the coach - a long-time servant at the club - parted ways with the club, farewelled with as perfunctory a press release as you can get. So far, so bad. Then on Tuesday night out at Oakleigh, they were 2-0 down against Heidelberg in the semi-final of the cup. Then came the comeback, and the 3-2 win, and progression into the final for the second season in a row. They'll meet the winner of the Bulleen-Calder match, which is taking place next week. I'm not sure we're equipped to beat either team, especially Calder, but stranger things have happened I suppose, and in a one-off game, you just never know.

Sponsor Splash-out

Here's some good news, with a strange twist. The club has just announced a record (post-NSL?) sponsorship deal with CF Capital, which will run for the next two seasons. Great, wonderful, can we afford to have Sunday games back now etc. They're even tipping in money specifically for the blind and powerchair teams, which is also good. My info on this is that after the agreement was already made to be our new principal partner, that after seeing the blind and powerchair teams at the player auction night, CF Capital decided to increase their sponsorship of the club. Who knew being a good social citizen could have such rewards?

The strange part however is no doubt this:

South Melbourne FC members and supporters will become familiar with the CF Capital brand around Lakeside Stadium as with signage featuring the logo prominently for the livestream audience in front of the Clarendon Corner. 

Are there enough people in Clarendon Corner most weeks nowadays to find this appealing? If Clarendon Corner does something stupid, do you really want to have your brand attached to that? Since we can no longer hear Clarendon Corner because of the nature of live stream filming from the opposite side of the ground, what can you actually see from that distance that makes it worthwhile? And what happens of Clarendon Corner decides, out of spite or whimsy, to just move to a different part of the stand? 

Ah, it's all moot anyway, everyone's too old to care.

Final thought

I completely forgot to take an inadvertent photo of my host's cable setup this time.

Lead at the top down to two points - South Melbourne 0 Green Gully 0

A few years ago, and probably on more than one occasion, I quipped that should the unthinkable actually happen and South return to an/the Australian top-flight competition, that there should be a special section for the fans who continued to support the club through the pee-pee soaked heck-hole years, so that we would not have to interact with all the people who jumped off the South bandwagon when the club needed them most.

Looking back, the most fanciful part of that suggestion was not that South might get into the A-League, but that there would be enough people to even fill such a privileged section. Last week's game was on a Friday night, which I suppose was more pleasing to people at least in theory, but not so many more of them that it might make a difference in the places where the hoi polloi sit. It's a good thing that assorted random friends and well-wishers of Brad Norton's turned up to add alcohol-assisted enthusiasm, after the Celtic-Ange bandwagon seemed to last about one match. We await with baited breath the arrival of the next random group of attendees to a match at Lakeside.

Still, the seating arrangements at South matches are getting ever more garish in highlighting (assumed) cost-cutting, as well as the difference between gods and clods. The so-called "painting" works remain in progress, last week creating a rather farcical situation where not just the bays nearest the social club are roped off, but also the top half of the bays in the middle of our stand. And still, those of us still attending continue to look for evidence of the painting works. 

At some point they may as well just fence us all into a little bracket - that way Stevie's confetti show can also get contained, although it may mean his shredded newspaper might have more chance of ending up in your box of chips. At least the sponsors and their fellow travellers came in good numbers, and since they're the ones keeping this club afloat, I guess we plebs should be glad for that fact; even if we can't buy a beer to drink outside like at every other ground in the state, and even if beer isn't actually that good of a drink, and who made beer the boss of sports venue drinks? I suppose there should also be options for people who don't like beer anymore. Insert the sound of a cash register chiming right here. 

But that could just be me griping for griping's sake, seeing as how the on-field performance continues to exceed by a long way the relatively low expectations I had for the team not just before the season, but also up until about some time a few weeks ago. Even being held scoreless for the first time this season, I could hardly find the effort to complain about how the team is playing, though it would have been nice to have taken at least one of the very gettable chances presented to us. All I could think of however. apart from being glad we had not lost - which would have been an injustice, regardless of Gully's own more than passable performance in this match - was just how entertaining the match was.

It really was an enormously fun game to watch. And indeed, if one dares to quibble with the quality of skill on display in this and other 2022 NPL Victoria games, one can hardly say that South games have been boring. It helps when the team's ding well, and there's something to play for beyond a mediocre position on the table, but one of the tragedies of this post-covid interrupted seasons, is that people are looking at all sorts of things to complain about, and even if they're right (and they probably are), they're missing the point that the team has been providing an entertaining product.

Even Brad Norton's yellow card was hugely entertaining. He was looking to get a yellow to get his set of five, so he could miss the Eastern Lions game where his absence one assumes would not be sorely missed. Now when he did get the yellow, either it was a case of him not wanting to get that yellow then, or it was merely a great display of kayfabe, because his reaction to being carded was a beautiful example of "selling". Then you had the carry on from the Gully bench at various times during the night. Then our squandered chances, including what looked like a shocker by Marcus Schroen. And at the other end, some ridiculous saves by own Javier Díaz López.

The match was so entertaining, time not only flew by, but we also wondered whether or not Max Mikkola really needed to make as many long throws as he did, because they increasingly seem to wear him down. Gully also seemed to figure out, at least temporarily, how to defend them, which involved a tactic no more complicated than putting a lot of numbers back deep. Even Andy Brennan managed to get to 77 minutes, which is about 17 more minutes than his usual presence on a football field. So many stories within the larger story. 

A shame that Port couldn't even get a point against Oakleigh the next day, but them's the breaks.

Next game

Eastern Lions on Saturday afternoon at Gardiners Creek Reserve. I probably won't be there, because I looked at the kickoff time, competing commitments both before and after the game, as well as the location of the venue vis-à-vis public transport, and decided to take a different course of action: namely, to watch the game at a convalescent friend's place. Looking forward, somewhat, to the the three week stretch of home matches.

Final thought

If anyone can figure out what's going on with the social club kitchen, that would be great. Last week's burger assembly would have failed to pass any reputable building inspection. Also, half-way through the pre-game dinner service, shoestring fries gave way to a slightly thicker cut of chip. Are they just winging it on supplies?

The perils of being asked to believe again - Hume City 1 South Melbourne 3

Everyone apparently hates Saturday games, so here was another Saturday game; at least this time it wasn't out fault. I watched a bit of NPL 1 and 2 action on the train. Eastern Lions vs Dandy City, with Dandy 1-0 up, and then 2-0 up with old mate Kosta Stratomitros getting sent off for what looked like dissent; a course of events which when related to another South fan prompted the response, "how could he get sent off for dissent? He doesn't even speak English!". My thinking is that it's possible that with the plentiful amount of Greeks refereeing in our division these days, Kosta could have been unlucky. 

At 2-0 I drew a line through both that game an Lions' tenure in NPL1, and moved onto North Geelong vs Langwarrin, which included old mate Fraser Maclaren in goal for the visitors. That game looked to be heading to a 1-0 win to North - whose Elcho Park home still has an NPL sponsor banner with PS4 branding - but Perry Mur must've found a penalty for Langwarrin deep into injury time; a sequence of play that I did not get to see, because I had to get off at Coolaroo station about ten minutes before the end of that game. 

I got to the ground around 5:15, with the thinking that at least I'll be able to see most of the curtain-raiser. Well, that plan was scuppered when I found that upon arrival, the match was already well into its second half, having inexplicably started an hour earlier than the match really had any right to. Hume have experimented with kickoff times for its curtain raisers - including having them not be the curtain raiser, but rather the closer - but the point of having the match finish a full hour before the scheduled start of the senior match is still perplexing to me.

Anyway, when I arrived it was 1-0 to our reserves with about a half hour to go. Then Hume got a red card, then they levelled, and then they botched about 2-3 very good chances to win the game. It finished 1-1, and I learned nothing about who may or may not be a good senior team prospect from our side. That lack of insight is probably more on me though, seeing as how apart from not being particularly impressed with either side, I was also distracted by the frequent appearance of low flying aircraft. Now I previously lived under a flight-path, and currently reside adjacent to one, but neither of those situations was quite the same as having jets fly so close so as to drown out conversation with the person next to you.

Still, there's only so many descending planes you can look at while waiting an hour for the senior game to start. That's time that had to be filled in with a chicken kebab (a little dry, but good flavour), a can of sour cherry nectar (savoured, slowly), and waiting for South people to turn up. That eventually happened, where we discussed the late collapse of South senior women's team against Heidelberg earlir that afternoon, and we then watched the frenetic warm-up of the senior men. No Max Mikolla, who was put with five yellow cards, no Josh Wallen on the bench, who was injured and also suspended. Perry Lambropoulos was back on the bench, after a long injury lay off. 

 

Hume had been in better form of late, but thanks to Dandy City's win earlier in the day, were now in the relegation zone. Their crowds - such as they were - have fallen away, much like our own and pretty much every other team's. Best indication of how everyone's crowds have dropped is people discussing how easy it is to get in and out of a car park after a game. 

In this match we reverted somewhat to early season type, and put this game out of its misery within about a half hour. No long throws, no goals from penalties, no goals from corners of free kicks. It was all rather dull, straightforward stuff. Second half, the cue was put firmly in the rack, and Hume managed to get a late consolation goal which negated the payment of a clean-sheet bonus. One couldn't call that second half performance a fade-out, though some people may still want to try, because we were so in control of the very little that happened. 

But the really horrible thing is how soft everyone has gotten. Everyone hated the coach, the way we play(ed), and now it's like... not so much of a big deal. People have turned. Apparently all it took was 14 wins from 18 games, as opposed to a mere 13 wins, and the maintenance of a four point gap at the top. So people are now like... maybe I was wrong. Or maybe after the awful results of the last few years, this isn't so bad. And like, Harry Sawyer doesn't look a baby giraffe anymore, but rather an accomplished and versatile striker who maybe should be playing in a better league. Esteban Quintas is no longer an out and out fraud, and perhaps no longer even being carried in 2022 by the superior playing personnel at his disposal, but has been turned into a more considerate, changed man, more flexible, more willing to delegate.

Editorial extract from Soccer News,
  vol. 01, no. 02, 1948.

It's the same kind of guff I heard a lot of when Collingwood made its unexpected run to a grand final loss in 2018, with Nathan Buckley almost becoming a coach worth cheering for.  It's like watching someone who's been burned before, slowly learning to love again. And it's sickening. The team that was considered to be taking advantage of inferior and under-prepared opposition, riding its luck on set pieces, relying on 20 minutes of good play and the acrobatic exploits of its goalkeeper, is now being touted as well, a passable unit. Perhaps more than passable. Me, until that grand final trophy is in our hands, I'm going to cling on to the idea that the only reason we're good, is that everyone is actually not what we term really good.

Next game

Green Gully at home on Friday night.

Because some of you are still wondering

After noting in the most recent match report that, barring some unfortunate accident, our senior men had mathematically avoided relegation, I suppose it's only fair to provide an update on what's going with the other irrelevant ladder race: in this case, the 2021 Bespoke Championship.

Without going back to check, I believe that the last time I posted about this matter would have been around about the time we played and lost to Oakleigh away. At the time, that result was counted by Football Victoria as three Bespoke Championship points for Oakleigh, even though it should not have been counted as such because it was an Oakleigh home match, and not a South home game which should have been designated as the relevant fixture for this nonsense.

I didn't expect FV to correct the mistake this century, but it appears that they actually have. So kudos to them for keeping up with the farce. That's more than can be said for Avondale, who have gone rather silent on their socials about this monstrosity that they helped bring into existence, as well as the anecdotal suggestion that they've been blocking from their Facebook page anyone who brings up the current status of Bespoke Championship.

For our part, as you can see on the table on the left, South is out of the running for the Bespoke Championship, with only Oakleigh and Avondale left to duke it out. Oakleigh's remaining fixture is against our good selves in a few weeks time, while Avondale play against Port the following week to wrap up the meaningful part of this meaningless exercise.

Slightly more relevant

We're 15 points clear of seventh place, with just 24 more points up for grabs - and with neither sixth or seventh place able to get any more points off us.

Final thought

Thanks to Johnny for the lift back to Sunshine, it was much appreciated.

Another day, another win - South Melbourne 4 St Albans 0

Another week, another terrible crowd. One could blame the cold, the timeslot, the lack of outside beers, the uninspiring opponent, the general lack of hope, waiting for the NSD, covid, live-streams, camping, long weekend getaways, birthday parties, not being invited to the player auction night, the kids, traffic snarls, political strife at home and abroad. But I promise you, the second all those things go away, people will turn up to watch South again. 

I would have got to the ground fifteen minutes earlier than the already absurd time I got to the ground, were it not for two blokes punching on in the first arriving (and quite crowded) route 12 tram at the corner of Collins and Spencer. Well, it was more like one tall bloke punching on with a much smaller bloke, with the tall bloke being held back by a small Asian woman, and the small bloke eventually getting off the tram and having his meager possessions tossed out onto the tram platform.

Suffice to say, I was happy enough to let that tram go and wait for the next one even if it was another 15 minutes or so away. What good would turning up earlier have done anyway? I'd already had lunch, and the assumption that there would be anyone I knew in the social club to have a quiet drink with turned out to be way off base. Everyone's got something better to do. At least there was time for one member of staff behind the bar to learn about the existence of the "scotch and dry". 

In such miserable circumstances, it only made sense to pick the wonkiest table in the room upon which to sip my drink, while watching the live stream on my phone of the women's team losing to FV Emerging in the arena outside. I have my reasons for not heading outside; and I was watching the game on my phone, because none of the television screens in the social club were on, probably because the only person who seems to know how to operate them was also not in attendance on Saturday.

Eventually enough familiar people turned up that it was worth moving to a non-wonky table, and then the game was on and one had to step outside into - it must be said - the not really all that cold weather, notwithstanding Max Mikkola wearing gloves, which South of the Border will forgive for obvious reasons. Once more, as with the past few weeks, we were forced from our regular Clarendon Corner bay, into the middle of the stand. Apparently that area that's closed off to patrons is still undergoing painting works, though people are now suspecting that it's just another cost cutting measure. While we were still able to set up camp in Row H, it nevertheless feels like being a migrant in a new country trying to replicate your existence 

Some matches zip by, while others seem to hang around. This was one of the latter. When we opened the scoring at what point past the twenty minute mark that it was, I was shocked that it we weren't so much closer to half time. Credit to Max Mikkola for that opening goal, making the most of his initially crappy free kick attempt to volley home a belter that I was oohing over almost as soon as it left his boot. Credit also to Marcus Schroen for letting someone else take a free kick. It's called delegating, and every leader should become accustomed to doing it.

Max's next goal, soon afterwards, was much more straightforward, except for a bit in the lead-up which ended up seeing Nikola Jurkovic get sent off. We assumed at the time it was some sort of dissent, but replays suggest that Jurkovic tried to elbow one of our players in the head while aiming to try and block our player from running downfield. Classic Jurkovic move, and that pretty much sealed the game. One more goal from a Max long throw, and another from a Max cross, and that was more than enough to settle this one. 

Incidentally, the best bit about the fourth goal, which was achieved by a lovely angled header by Schroen, is showing exactly what Marcus is best - forward play, as a sort of pseudo-second striker, something like his performance in the 2016 grand final. 

That's something for the top brass to think about, while I muse on other things, like an injured Josh Wallen deliberately getting a yellow card, so that inevitably missing the upcoming Hume isn't a complete waste.  One person did put up the suggestion that instead of potentially scoring a fifth goal, it would have been preferable to concede a goal, because that would at least eliminate the cost of a clean sheet bonus. 

Once again Mikkola was benched early, this time about an hour in. Once more he was very upset at that, and I can see why: most players want to play as much as they can; most players having the kind of night he was having want to keep that run going; and if you're being looked at for potential A-League recruitment, you want to keep showing off your wares. But I can (this time) why he was subbed off by the coach. The game was done, so there was no point in having him out there potentially getting injured; the game was done, meaning it was a chance to give some of our younger players a run; and Max also already had a yellow card (which will apparently see him miss the next match anyway), so there the risks outweighed the benefits of him being out there much longer.

Be happy with the comfortable win, and on to the remaining games in the home and away calendar.

The race to avoid relegation, the race to the finals, and the race to top spot

Saturday's win saw us reach the 40 point mark, well clear of the 30 point mark people have been throwing around only half-jokingly in terms of avoiding relegation. Relegation talk is all a bit moot now, seeing as how the two teams currently in the relegation zone are unlikely to get 30 points between them. In any case, with just 9 games and 27 more points up for grabs, second last-placed Dandenong City - currently on 10 points - can at absolute best only reach a tally of 37 points, a game behind our current tally. So, congratulations to us for avoiding relegation officially, barring some extra-curricular rule breaking nonsense. 

So attention now turns to the race for the finals, where we still have to play the teams currently in second, third, fourth, and fifth. We're currently 14 points clear of seventh placed Heidelberg (whom we already played twice, and thus cannot take points directly off us), so it would take a monumental stuff-up from here to fail to make the finals. I'm not saying it's not possible, only that it's really rather unlikely, seeing as how we also have to play each of the bottom three once more. But stranger things have happened I suppose.

The race for top spot however, is still very much wide-open, though you'd prefer to be in our position than anyone else's. Oakleigh's loss against the Bergers yesterday gives us back some breathing space - four points to be precise - which might come in handy come the end of the home and away season. Granted, first place offers almost no material advantage for finals, but it should (I hope) the opportunity to play in the NPL national playoffs.

Next game

Hume away on Saturday night. Assuming he even plays, will the 17-year-old Hume goalkeeper have turned 18 by now? Will there even be enough South fans in attendance to heckle any Hume goalkeeper? Even if there are enough South fans in attendance, will they be too precious to stand out in the cold, preferring instead to stay indoors, and eating kebabs while watching GWS vs Footscray?

Final thought

I still cannot comprehend how the social club can't just sell you a burger without a serving of chips, or a chicken sandwich without a serving of chips, or a lamb sandwich without a serving of chips; and yet hey also cannot find a way to serve plated meals which would naturally come with a serving of chips.

Losing sucks, and yet... - Melbourne Knights 2 South Melbourne 1

Six days a week of election work (two kinds!) has taken its toll on my social life over the past month and a bit, and thus here we are again with another ridiculously late post. I've barely even been on my computer in the last week, except to visit government and banking websites. 

And look, I'm disappointed with how last week ended, but also - it was a whole week ago. There's something to be said for writing posts immediately after the fact - or as close as possible to the conclusion of a match - because it gets the frothing anger vibes down good, which certainly makes for more visceral communication. But the further one gets away from the match, the more one sees the whole affair in perspective, which also has its merits.

So, while unhappy that we lost the game, and the manner in which we lost it, it's not the end of the season for us, much less the end of the world. After several weeks of brute force heroics which saw us win games that we probably didn't deserve to win, a couple of elementary defensive errors and some poor decision making cost us a game we otherwise had the better of. Josh Wallen was at the heart of these affairs, playing in the uncustomary position for him of right-back.

(my favourite comment on this game, perhaps the season, is the observation that Quintas' attempt to turn Wallen into a right-back is like John Anastasiadis trying to turn Gianni De Nittis into a left-back)

A few people have asked why he is playing there, when there are other options available who aren't injured or suspended. Lirim Elmazi, Morgan Evans, Chris Irwin... all more experienced and suited to playing in that position than Wallen. Maybe playing Chris Irwin at right-back would mean you could play Jai Ingham on the wing for a half, and then replace him with Andy Brennan for a half, since that is all either Ingham and Brennan seem able to manage.

(and again, what was the point of allegedly kidnapping Ingham at the airport to only play half games? or can we only afford to pay him for half a game?)

Anyway, the other big talking point was why didn't Max Mikkola start the game? Apparently he did train during the week, and thus was not selected as a starter. But apparently he did not train this week, because he was trialling at Central Coast Mariners. Which, if that is the case, it would seem silly, perhaps, even stupid, to exclude a player who was missing because of football commitments. and not because he was ill or on some kind of bender.

That's assuming what gets posted on smfcfans forum is true. 

Anyway, there were enough moments where the ball could have bounced a different way, and things would have been better for us. That's football. Well, I suppose one can be more prosaic about these things because Oakleigh are still trailing us, thanks to their 0-0 draw at Dandy Thunder. Still, we wait for them to eventually catch up and surpass us, as Chris Taylor coached teams are designed to prosper in the second half of the season, while Esteban Quintas coached sides make hay during the first half of the season and hold on for dear life during the second.

Or so the mythology goes.

As for mythology, the myth of the Original Derby took another beating, with a small crowd, and not that much tension. Maybe the last-second drama reminded people that there's something more to this fixture. Just as likely, a last-second winner in any game gets people fired up. Blame the cold, blame live streams, blame Friday nights. But all the excuses in the world won't help make the argument that these teams and this league is not only a going or worthwhile concern, but also one that deserves to developed into part of a national second tier.

Or is that what we're all waiting for? It's seemed somewhat counter-intuitive to me to talk about loyalty, and hanging in there through thick and thin, all while people hedge their bets about whether it's worth bothering to turn up unless we're in a better league. After all, we supposed to support the club, and not the league it plays in, right? 

Simple truth is that everyone's older, both literally and demographically. The young guys who used to make up the terraces are now middle-aged, with more commitments, and less time. And the young guys who should/would have replaced them don't exist. We have been staring at demographic oblivion for twenty years, and seemingly every week now we ask ourselves how much worse it can get.

Well, at least my election work is over, so I'll have to think of another excuse for why the next post is late.

Next game

Tomorrow (Saturday) evening against St Albans at home.

Positive vibes

Driving up to the gate, I could overhear the gatekeeper to the car park telling club photographer Cindy Nitsos up ahead in the queue to write something positive about the Knights. 

Then it was my turn, and I got the same treatment, after flashing my media pass, which helped me get out of paying five dollars for the car park.

But also - five dollarydoos for parking! Three was fine, but five seems obscene. 

Anyway, positive things about the Knights. They produce a serviceable match program for this league. Their players seem much less thuggish than usual. I didn't notice any racist chants this time.

Final thought

Good to see the reappearance of an old friend last Friday. Sometimes winning and losing takes a back seat to more important things.

Long throws to the rescue again - South Melbourne 3 Bentleigh Greens 2

At least for the past few weeks I've been able to palm off waning motivation for writing this stuff each week onto the fact that I have actual work. Previously that was election work that was kind of varied and interesting, and now it's an extension of election work that is repetitive and monotonous as all fuck. I get up at 5:30 in the morning, get home around 4:30 in the afternoon, and somewhere in the middle of that I work seven and half hours, six days a week, shoving senate ballot papers through a scanner and a creaser, which sometimes work well. After that, there's home business, after which there isn't much time to do anything else. My goodness, it's almost like I'm a normal person. I miss being a career student, and its attendant life of leisure. 

Anyway, one thing which has remained constant is consensus that there is a diminishing interest in all things South Melbourne - not from me, mind, but from pretty much everyone else. This isn't new, and we have all moaned and despaired for a good 17 or 18 years or so now. Sure there's an argument to be made that's even worse now, with even former rusted-ons looking for reasons not to turn up. It doesn't help that the club does give them reasons not to attend - inconvenient match times and lack of beer outside the social club cited as two recent examples - but on the whole, it's not a new problem. People have been saying the same or similar for the past nearly 20 years, and those of us still consistently attending will keep saying until we are no longer there to say it ourselves. 

In short, we keep learning the lesson that being loyal is like being pregnant, in that you are until you aren't. Me, I blame streaming more than most other options as being responsible for league-wide declines in attendances, interest, and general banter. Soccer-forum's dead, Twitter is dead, and like our club, everyone at this level has put their effort into standby mode until the National Second Division happens. And yet South supporters still have an old fashioned web forum like it's 2002. It may not be going strong, but it's still going, which basically sums up everything

What's somewhat tragic about all of this is that our support is becoming more diminished even as the team is having its best run of results since 2017. That's not quite the same as saying that the team is plating great football - but it is winning a lot of matches, even if these wins are sometimes/often painful to endure. 

Cue the howls of derision from opposition fans who watch us as we despair over a team clear on top of the table. They have a point, it's true. Results wise, things are better for South then they have been for some time. And it's also true that South fans tend to have a reflex that nothing is ever good enough, even with the allowance that there is an abhorrence (from some, if not all South fans) at the methods we're using in getting these results, and the apparently huge amount of luck also being amassed along the way. But most opposition fans also don't watch our games in full, so they're no more likely to be reliable interpreters of South's 2022 season up until this point than South fans with all their own biases and hangups.

A case in point - how do you make sense of what happened last Saturday night? At times we were comprehensively outplayed. Once again it was revealed that we have a weakness against teams that keep it on the deck, like Bentleigh, Avondale, and Oakleigh do. 

It's not just the keeping it on the deck that causes us issues - it's also that these teams play keepings-off well, not turning it over cheaply. We rely too much on teams giving us the ball back in midfield, so that we can quickly release Mikkola or Webb on the counter attack. Teams who play short passing games to get around our insipid central midfield presence, will keep on having a field day. And if we do win the ball back in defense, we tend to just pass it around the back before launching it to Sawyer. We keep trying to use Schroen as a midfield distributor/link man/play breaker-upper, and it doesn't work because he's almost none of those things, except in very specific circumstances - which is pretty much him facing the goal we're going to, or where he can turn on to his left.

And yet, with the exception of Oakleigh, most of these teams have also managed to repeatedly also concede a barrage of goals against us. Our team has scored in every single match this season, which is astonishing considering how apparently awful we are. Perhaps much as we are deficient in all sorts of ways, we have managed to expose that many opponents are also deficient in one specific area, and that is in defending set pieces. Remarkably, the particular set piece that opposition sides are having difficulty defending against us is long throws. 

I'm not sure if Max Mikkola's throw-in technique is legal, even it's surely more legal than all those dinky little drop at the feet throw-ins that are obviously foul throws. I don't know if his technique - or any long throw-in specialist's for that matter - is teachable. At some point late in the game, a Bentleigh player attempted a long throw, which wasn't too bad for what may have been a first try. But then Ben Djiba chickened out from trying the same after Mikkola was subbed off, and all you could do was laugh. 

As nice as it was to win, even if two and a half of our three goals were a result of the long throws, much time was spent o the terraces trying to figure out why Bentleigh goalkeeper Pierce Clark and the Bentleigh defence were having so much trouble defending the long throw in. Was it the angle? Was it dip, was it the lack of pace on them, compared to a corner kick? At face value, it seems pretty straightforward - a ball is thrown in a straight line, at a relatively flat trajectory. And yet time after time, Bentleigh floundered. The third goal was the was epitome of this failure, because Clark ran more or less underneath Mikkola's long throw, wherein the ball landed on an unmarked Harry Sawyer's head.

At the other end of the ground, Javier Diaz Lopez was making save after save, all of which got turned into a well-meaning though ultimately depressing compilation video, which showed how lucky we were in the greater scheme of things at both ends of the ground. Every week I say it's not a sustainable way to a title. Most weeks it turns out I'm wrong. As long we keep winning, I'm OK with being wrong.

Next game

Tomorrow night at Somers Street against Melbourne Knights. 

Final thought

Time to get some insurance for Max Mikkola's arms.