Two different football games (guest post)

This poem was originally published on Manny's blog.


Amongst the family homes

Besides the Merri Creek

No trains or trams in sight

The fans walk through the streets

They wander from their cars

And make their way inside

An old suburban ground

To watch their teams with pride

They join thousands on their feet

Not all can get a seat

They shiver in the cold

Just like the days of old

Down at the MCG

From comfortable modern stands

Far more go to see

Two clubs of foreign lands

Many chose to go

To simply see a show

And there are many more

To watch clubs that they adore

Those who’ve come in suits

are removed from the grassroots

There’s money to be made

And guests to entertain

Deep in Melbourne’s North

Two stories intertwine

One has stayed on top

One reversing their decline

They share a Balkan past

And a football rivalry

And a vision of the future

Gives this game vitality

National aspirations

Beckon both these clubs

A final game before they rise

A taste of what’s to come

The friendly down in Richmond

Is derided by some fans

Too soon after competition

To travel to far lands

The players are too tired

To put on a great show

Many chose to rest

With their families back at home

There’s no three points or silverware

No preseason insight

There’s not too much to play for

For either team tonight

Preston score in seconds

The stadium erupts

Their fans’ nerves dissipate

In a moment of triumph

The South fans are not happy

The urgency soon rises

Losing is not an option

For that there are no prizes

On the pitch each player rides

The passion from the stands

Each kick and tackle fueled by cheers

And jeers of all the fans

Clapping from the MCC

Some flags from fan clubs too

The neutrals of the MCG though

Aren’t sure what to do

A goal – that’s nice – another – cool

Half time substitutions

The first team players slowing down

Young players the solution

The intensity pedestrian

The fans can recognise

The goals don’t seem to matter

It’s a training exercise

Until the end of the first half

It’s tense at BT Connor

South score a goal to equalise

Half time comes soon after

The second half a change occurs

The teams come out much sharper

They’ve learnt their lessons from the first

This next half will be tougher

South go onto take the lead

But the Lions do bite back

The game hangs in the balance

Until South’s winning attack

The MCG goes onto see

And quiet second half

The final score, a one-one draw

Placates the fans and players and staff

To add some tension this can’t be

The solution much be penalties

The Aussie Kuol scores to see

Newcastle crowned the winning team

The fans saw Ange and Kuol and teams

They admire from afar

Many leave the game with smiles

They saw their superstars

The fans up north leave their game

Hungry for much more

A taste of what next year could be

Makes them insatiable

The work from volunteers

The patience of club fans

Was paid off back in spades

They can hope again

Across the country football fans

Tuned in uncertainly

But South and Preston showed in the end

What Australian football could be

Knights can’t catch a break but South can throw a goal (guest post)

This post was originally posted by Manny on his own blog

Well here we are again. I managed to pull myself to another South game this season between work, study and the rest of it. Funnily enough it happened to be the return leg of the my last attended match. I headed down to Knights Stadium with a few of the boys and couldn’t be happier with how I spent my Friday night. We parked in one of the side streets and managed to get a seat before kick off – beer and cevapi in hand!

The First Half was really just a warm up

Heading into the match, I think most people were pretty confident. South have been flying on top of the table (Avondale match aside) and have been scoring buckets of goals. Knights on the other hand are struggling this season and even recently replaced their coach with Ivan Franjic. South were expected to walk this one, but as is often the case, the match itself was never going to be so simple.

South did not start the game in a flurry of goals, but rather, seemed happy to sit back and watch Knights control the tempo in the first half. The Knights though couldn’t make the most of their possession and only really created in a few nerve racking goal square skirmishes.

South’s efforts with the ball on the other hand seemed few and far, with a number of direct plays on transition failing to generate any clear cut chances. South were borderline reckless with the ball in the first half and seemed to lack any attacking structure. Ball after ball would fly down the right wing, and the few times where it found its target there wasn’t anyone waiting in the box to complete the play.

Rain rain rain

As half time came to a close, the heavens opened up and completely obliterated any chance of neat football for the rest of the day. Thankfully though, the rain was coming in from behind the grandstand so everyone was kept dry (except for the mini-roos who were absolutely drenched during their half-time kick-about).

Although I was grateful to be in the stand I was surprised that I didn’t have any other choice. This was the first time I had been to Knights Stadium where only the main grand stand was open to spectators. I’m not sure why the terraces were closed on the night, but considering that the Knights won’t be joining us in the NST next year, I think there might be little reason for the full stadium to open in the near future…

Return to the status quo

In the second half South showed a lot more promise. The boys were holding onto the ball and controlling the tempo of the game. South looked to create more structured and less rushed build ups in addition to the occasional direct transition play. It was better to watch, but ironically, these less compact tactics actually allowed the Knights to create their most threatening opportunities of the game.

Lopez put in a man-of-the match performance in that second half alone and made a number of game changing saves to keep the Knights off the scoresheet. At the other end of the ground, it appeared only one thing was going to break the deadlock – once again a long throw was met by Lucas Inglese to put South up 1-0 and ultimately pinch the three points.

Knights Stadium: Where Chap Laps and Eurovision meet

We made our way out of the game relatively smoothly (and a little smugly as we walked by the slowly moving car park traffic), however not before appreciating the music over the stadium P.A. system. I can only assume the stadium DJ was heading out after the match, because the home team result was completely ignored in favour of an upbeat playlist that traversed EDM, Croatia’s Eurovision entry, and early 00’s dance hits.

I used to think South was alone in solidifying their golden years in this way, but just as Lakeside is always blasting 90’s and 00’s dance hits I was glad to see Knights had a similar energy. Rated it!

Knights and the NST

Compared to Lakeside, Knights Stadium offers much more for the football purists. I can’t help but envy the homeliness of their stadium and the better, closer view of the pitch. But a nice view doesn’t pay the bills, and looking around the Stadium you can understand why the Knights aren’t gambling on the NST next year.

Unlike Lakeside, Knights Stadium is managed by the club. This means the Knights need to source funds to maintain their huge property in addition to football operations. As we know these days, cash flow is hard to come by. I say this not to suggest that the Knight’s don’t have the financial capacity (I don’t know their arrangements well enough to assume that), but I say this to make the point that the club has far more financial obligations than other clubs and it is understandable why they would want to take a conservative stance in relation to the NST.

It will be a shame not to have the Knights in the NST next year. Fingers crossed the competition is a success and they can join in soon after its launch.

What else of the NST

Things have been unusually quiet. The FA have done a great job managing the public communications the process, specially in that they have been able to limit communication leaks. I think the most important things fans can do though is be aware of the FA’s stated process. Specifically:

• Formal proposal and bid submissions which are due in mid-April.
• The Assessment and Review (A&R) Phase is scheduled for April and May
• The Completion Phase will commence in June 2024.

This also explains why there were some public leaks in April (including the Knight’s negative statement) as this is when clubs were finalising their submissions.

So what next for the NST? Well, I suspect the few remaining clubs either know they are in and have no reason to leak news ahead of a group announcement, or they know they are out and have lost interest in public comments as a means of negotiation.

Perhaps the Preston vs South game will be used as a platform for an announcement (I doubt that) or perhaps the FA is waiting until after the A-League Grand Final. If you are really desperate you can listen in to the 3XY Sunday Soccer program for scraps of rumours but otherwise we simply have to wait.

South vs Preston

Let’s say this first. South already played the Knights in the cup and now that we are facing Preston I find it hard to believe anything other than the fact these fixtures are less than random. Regardless the game is happening, and I’ll be missing out for reasons of both study and nerves.

This is a danger game in more ways than one. On the pitch it could be a huge banana peel considering the team’s relative ladder positions. Having attended a few Preston games over the years I can confirm that South will also face a vocal and passionate crowd, unlike what they have seen for a while – and considering our performances in high pressure Grand Finals… I am not getting my hopes up.

Also – and for this reason I doubt the FA will make any NST announcements at the game – this match will be secured like an A-League match. Over 80 security staff and police are expected to be in attendance in addition to a number of other security measures. After the recent Preston vs Oakleigh game ended with a bit of fuss I’m inclined to think some heroes may try use this fixture for their own ultra-lite grandstanding, but I sincerely no incidents occur. Not just for the match itself, but considering these clubs are due to play each other a couple times a year in perpetuity, it would also bode poorly for the future prospects of this fixture.

Regardless, a sell out crowd is expected and I think many many people around the country will be keeping an eye on this match. Fingers crossed… let’s go South!

Postecoglou in Prahran – Again! – Kind of! – But also, actually maybe!

I can’t believe it’s happened but after reading two books about the man this year, watching a dozen games, and hours of press conferences I am finally ready to admit it… I am looking forward to a break from tracking Postecoglou for at least a few weeks.

Optus Sport, Tottenham have now completed their season and have done very well by securing 5th place. Please consider this note my explicit blessing for you to slow down your relentless Ange-posting, for at least three weeks.

Also, special mention to KeepUp’s efforts this season – this $30m platform was seemingly designed to report on Postecoglou’s career but amazingly couldn’t make this intriguing business case work, commiserations.

That said, there actually is a little bit of Ange news left to squeeze out this season. A paper mural had been erected in Prahran, just a stones throw away from Albert Park, and of course Tottenham will be coming to Melbourne this week! Will we see Ange at Lakeside?

Notes from the 2023 AGM

Dusting off the blog for a bit of AGM action, with the usual suspect mix of opinion and fact.

As usual, I'm not going to recount everything that was said; even taking into account that there were a number of people in the room, so nothing's really a secret, it was nevertheless a meeting for members, and not outsiders. Besides which, I don't want to potentially get the president (and by extension, the club) in trouble for commentary that the president would not have intended for a wider audience, ala the 2023 Christmas party comments which caused some angst within Football Victoria, and which is an issue which remains unresolved, even if pretty much everyone else has moved on.

Amazingly, I had nothing to do with that, which probably says something about the state of the blog in its dying days as a regular ongoing concern. But back to the AGM. One could cavil with me putting out anything - at least some people usually do - and they may have a point. But some members would not or could not attend, but they still have, I think, a right to understand the broader state of the club and its future direction, especially with the National Second Division coming up.

Attendance-wise, things looked grim approaching the designated starting time, but it gradually improved to if not a great number, than at least to something approaching not completely unacceptable. The timing and notice provided of our AGMs is becoming even more ordinary than usual, which certainly has an impact; as does expecting our supporters to come into Lakeside twice in two days, especially midweek. 

Anyway, the meeting began with a presentation of the financials, and what can one say about that? Presented on the big screen via a scrolling PDF instead of the usual PowerPoint presentation (which says something about how even a delayed AGM didn't have complete preparation), we were told that there was increase in turnover from $1.8 million to $2.1 million (largely due to inflation), and a modest surplus of about $26,000, well down on some of the previous years' efforts. As noted in the post for the 2022 AGM, there was a plan to write off the director loans, and that has been done.

It was noted that the juniors more or less break even, and that the women's program is close to breaking even, observations that get trotted out at most AGMs. There was passing mention that at some stage in the past money from the juniors had been used to cover the costs of the senior men, without specifying a year. Considering that the juniors were a separate entity before the reunification - what was it, 2009 - one wonders what year exactly was that passing reference to? 

Mention was made of the most recent jersey night, which was held in the upstairs function room rather than in the social club. Some passing mention of a 40th anniversary celebration for the 1984 championship, the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the 2014 title, and a testimonial night for Brad Norton. I'm not holding out much hope for any of these things happening, not only because it takes a lot of work to put nights like that together, but also because for years now the South Melbourne Hellas social calendar includes so few events for the ordinary fan. The jersey night is strictly for the sponsors. Apart from the Christmas get together, there's nothing outside match day to gather the ordinary supporter to Lakeside. No trivia nights, no presentation nights, no family days.

Lakeside Stadium's location contributes to what might be called a lack of a feeling of "civil society". Where is the evidence of the club being a shared experience? There's still a South fan forum which exists outside the remit of the club, but it functions as both a social and technological relic. I suppose you could extrapolate that to what the club is as a whole. Come to an occasional game, and you've performed your, for lack of a better term, civic duty to the club. This follows on to things like volunteerism, which sees a thin pool from which to draw volunteers.

The organisation and operation of the club is incredibly top heavy. Much of the sponsorship of the club is connected to the personal networks fostered by the president. Much of the day to day operation of the club is down to individual directors and board members, when it should be the job of people working for the club in paid roles. Merch, media, meetings with outside organisations and stakeholders - it shouldn't be up to people taking time out of their day jobs to do this stuff.

And thus moving to the National Second Division (finally), this is one of my concerns - how does the club plan to scale up its operations, and can it scale up quickly enough and to an appropriate level? When you think about it, getting the on field bit sorted is the easy part. You'll be in a higher division, and you'll naturally attract better playing talent. But to avoid this becoming the dreaded "NPL on planes", you've got to be much better across the board. You've got to offer a better fan experience, a better media experience, a better sponsor experience, etc. I might be (and was) shouted down for commenting that we're only getting about 200 people to most games - but the point I wanted to make before being interrupted was that we struggle to amass volunteers and promptly feed people under our current circumstances, and that if the plan is to be regularly getting 1500 people to a game, then things will need to change. 

To be fair to the board and especially the president, they are aware of the issue of being a top-heavy organisation. And to be fair to our board, this is not only a South Melbourne problem. Just about every club that plans to be in the NSD is going to face a massive cultural and organisational adjustment, where throwing a bunch of money at problems will not address them. The prospective NSD clubs will not only have to begin employing (more) non-match day related staff, but also setting strategies for the new day-to-day staff to implement, to make their club, the new league, and the game better. If you're a budding sports business graduate, there might be a few roles opening up - though our club says it has developed short lists of people it would like to hire for certain roles.

People bring up money and crowds, and that's certainly a huge part of it. Quite how South (and some of the other clubs) end up funding the this thing in year one, two, and then afterwards has always been a central concern. And for our part, there were a number of possibilities thrown out about how that might come about - increased membership and attendance, both necessary, can only do so much. Broadcast deals which see money come into the league are a long way away. So it's going to come down to sponsorship, and perhaps even that dreaded term - part-privatisation. 

As part of the NSD planning, the club has to figure out how the new NSD sub-entity, operating underneath the SMH umbrella as SMFC does now, will operate. And one of the ideas floated - though not necessarily the preferred option - would be a part (up to 49%) privatisation of the SMFC NSD entity. It was made clear, however, that our members would have to approve such a move. In terms of operating budgets, the club will have to double its current turnover. When asked about how confident it was in its financial forecasting, the president said that the board had allowed a fair bit of fat in its anticipated costings.

But apart from finances, the NSD will also require major changes to how these clubs run themselves, and how they fit into something larger than themselves. Say what you will about the A-League and the APL cartel, but for the most part cartel discipline within that organisation has been strong. And I think we can say that, despite the seeming commonality of purpose that a variety of clubs have maintained to get to this point, that sense of common purpose will only now start to be properly tested. Up to now, it has mostly been talking about desire. Now desire has the chance to become reality, and that's a lot messier.

And what the NSD looks like is sill up in the air. Can we get to at least ten clubs across at least three states? Putting aside concerns about the viability of any of the current NSD eight, will any new additions be merely desperate add-ons just to the get comp over the line? Having the indefinite bank guarantees is great for providing peace of mind, but you'd of course rather not need them.

There's going to have to be a massive cultural change. The role of the board will have to be streamlined, taking it from a DIY set-up to a strategy and delegating operation. The plan is also to have all board members become directors. The club will have to at some point become financially independent from the sponsor networks nurtured by Nick Maikousis. Regardless of whatever happens with the NSD, the club has to become a re-generative operation - it needs new fans, new sponsors, new volunteers At the moment, it is atrophying. You'd hate to think that the NSD is the club's last chance to permanently turn things around, to make Lakeside a destination venue instead of something to avoid, but it's hard to see it otherwise. 

This AGM also marked the end of the board electoral cycle. The board positions of SMH and SMFC were vacated, and the current board members were reinstated unopposed. I will also note that the questions asked by the members in attendance were sophisticated, insightful, and a credit to those participating. For all the accusations of negativity that I might be accused of, it's never (or seldom) done out of spite. It's because I care about the club, and I don't want to see it die. While it wasn't a huge attendance, those present at the AGM clearly feel the same way, and their care and interest provided a degree of hope.

Lastly, a massive thanks to Ian, a member in attendance at the AGM, who let me know before the meeting how much South of the Border had meant to him as a South fan - even if he didn't always agree with the match analysis!

It’s nice watching South beat the Knights (guest post)

This post was originally posted by Manny on his own blog

Despite a big week at work the prospect of watching the opening match of the season, doubling as a potential NST preview, proved too much to deny, so I made the last minute decision to go to Lakeside.

Despite the obvious attraction of the match I can’t help but feel the early season kick off sucked a bit of the energy out of the fixture. Although I had a few mates going down, I had others who didn’t realise the season had even started.

To avoid the notorious canteen lines we grabbed a bite on Clarendon Street ahead of the game. This proved to be a great choice. When we did enter the social club, the place was pumping, but you also could hear impatient patrons arguing with the kitchen about food wait times.

I didn’t sit near the Clarendon Corner this week and was content to watch the game rather than participating in the chants. There was a decent active turnout overall with the Knights fans also occupying a small section near the Lake end of the ground. It does make for a better atmosphere with two sets of dedicated fans, and I can’t wait for more of this in NST games. Even last night with the Knights fans relatively quiet, just knowing they’re there makes the game feel a little more meaningful.

The night itself was absolutely beautiful, and a perfect night for Lakeside. The view from the grandstand were near their best and the weather was perfect for football. Despite this the the crowd seemed sparse when I got there and filled out less than I expected after kick off. There were probably about 2k there, which is fantastic for this level, but I did expect more.

The game itself was a pretty simple affair. South scored early through Harrison Sawyer. It was a great way to kick off the season for South’s main man who was actually awarded the captaincy this year after returning from a brief stint in India and Finland.

After Sawyer’s goal, South never really felt out of control and the game was pretty choppy. South did manage to start the second half well with a few clear cut chances but after the that the Knights kept the majority of the possession. Despite holding the ball the Knights never really looked threatening and South proved too hard to break down.

It’s a good early result for South to start the season, remembering that Knights are coming off a finals appearance last year. I am hoping to see some more fluid play from the boys as the season progresses, this performance had pre-season cobwebs in a few too many places.

NPL on Youtube again

After the collapse of ClutchTV, the NPLVIC’s former streaming provider, the league is again being broadcast on YouTube, and may I say, thank-you! I did have the old NPLTV app, but found myself watching less football last season, mostly because the app would freeze or I would forget my password.

The accessibility of YouTube is unmatched, no log in, quality streaming and easy search. I do wonder how this will impact crowds throughout the season but if the numbers last night are any indication (12k views) than the league is better placed for a further reach and better sponsor exposure value. That said, one of the reasons I nearly didn’t go was because I would have been able to watch the game at home on TV easily.

Youth League

Interesting development too the other day. It looks like there has been a last minute change to Football Victoria rules which would allow NST teams to compete in the VPL2.

I guess the one club one team principle doesn’t hold Australia is firming on the Spanish Style system of reserve teams in the lower leagues. Does this mean the Y-League is also actually dead? I suppose there’s a chance to run some sort of Frankenstein A-League / NST youth league but this wouldn’t run in line with both seasons. Seems like there will be a bit of administrative movement until the NST starts.

NST News

Brisbane United is officially out of the race. The partnership was between a a number of Brisbane clubs and was always going to be tough to manage. It also faced administrative questions from Football Queensland, about its multiple senior teams, promotion and relegation. After Brisbane Strikers removed themselves from the partnership, United effectively lost their planned ground access which was pivotal to their bid.

With no real alternative in Brisbane, that’s effectively lights out for the bid. There is a chance now that Australia could have two professional leagues in 2025 and only one team from its Olympic city. A farce at all levels.

So long, Stinktown!

It began like this: I was 24 years old, having just fumbled my way through the first year of a second attempt at an arts degree focusing on professional writing. I came across the defunct Park Life blog, thought I could give blogging a go by taking it over, and ended up creating this site instead. I wanted to practise writing, and I wanted to offer a South fan's perspective on Australian soccer matters that wasn't just foaming at the mouth. Both noble goals, with a self-righteous quality already in place.

When I started South of the Border, blogs as a medium were already on the way out, and Blogger as a platform was looked down upon compared to things like Wordpress. I was slow to adapt to social media, and I wasn't into self-promotion; worse, the content on the blog was lousy, because I had no idea what I was doing. In time, I figured out what I was doing, how to do it well, and this project became worthwhile not only for me, but for other people as well. Eventually this blog and myself with it were set in stone as a niche Australian soccer cultural touchstone by Joe Gorman's Death and Life of Australian Soccer, which I consider an honour.

Sixteen years is a long time to be doing something like this. While running a blog on a once relatively important club often floundering for relevance and survival, I moved house, got a doctorate, lost my dad, survived a pandemic, and hosted over 90 episodes of an Australian soccer history podcast. I guested on other podcasts, wrote sleepy stream of consciousness World Cup match reports, and got to do a couple of stints as a special comments man on NPL live streams. So many opportunities opened up because of this blog to talk about South, and what it was like to be a follower of this club.

I wrote my posts mostly on whatever PC I had access to at uni, and at home on two woefully out of date laptops running various iterations of Linux. I did it for no money, and under no pretence that it would lead to something more lucrative. Materially, the best thing that came out of it was access to a media pass, which I was able to use to make going to soccer matches much more affordable. Occasionally someone would shout me a drink, or lunch, but more often than I assumed that's because they liked me enough in spite of the blog.

Psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, however you want to frame it, the rewards were numerous. I felt like I was doing my bit for the cause, in the only way that I really could. I met a lot of terrific people both at South and outside the club because of the blog; sometimes the reaction from people outside the club was more positive than that from within, which only served to nourish my writerly ego. Right from the start I attached my name to this project; for better or worse, the buck stopped with me. 

I always tried to maintain an arms length relationship to anything official with regards to the club. I had little interest in talking to current or even former players. Only one now former coach and his assistant ever stopped for a semi-regular chat, but I didn't resent any of the others for not talking to me, and I never sought them out. I didn't want to be anybody's mouthpiece, and I tried never to claim that my view was the view of a majority of the remaining South fans; often enough, my point of view was quite clearly a minority one. 

South of the Border has covered two senior men's championships and three grand final losses, a Dockerty Cup win, hundreds of South games, and I have no idea how many other matches not involving South. There were women's matches, and so many appearances at pre-season games, sometimes as far away as  Wodonga and Hobart. There were two formal A-League bids, and several failed takeover attempts of floundering A-League teams. South of the Border outlasted two other South blogs, and lived through two unofficial longstanding South supporter forums. Riots, pitch invasions, court cases, Northcote exile, countless crises we always somehow survived. The whole People's Champ saga. Public transport trips that no sane person would make, two interstate trips, and trips that I wish that I could've gone on. That damn social club clock.

And let's not forget, writing up reports on many AGMs; within some circles, they were the most anticipated posts of the year. Again, the goal there was never notoriety - it was primarily a way of trying to get South supporters to engage with the membership side of the club. We brag that we are not merely customers, and we brag that our club has no owners; rather, we belong to the club. Membership is a devalued term when members don't engage with actually being a member beyond match day attendance. I wanted people to engage more meaningfully with the club. Sometimes that took forms that I didn't agree with or approve of, but that wasn't the point.

I tried to cram in as much variety as I could on here. News, opinions, historical materials, even poetry. The history angle is something I've pottered about with on other sites, as I stretched myself thin; a flailing wiki, a promising library site, a YouTube channel that is always hoping for someone to send me new material to upload, and the many match programs I've been sent to put up online in order to try and keep our history alive.

But I am now 40 years old, with about as steady and normie a job as I'm ever likely to have, and more responsibility on my shoulders than when I was able to gallivant around Melbourne's soccer grounds almost at will, typing up reams of prose in my ample spare time. That's what it was like for me for a long time; a career student who didn't study as much he could or should have, with access to more recreational computer time than was healthy for anyone.

That era of free time is gone. As I studied and later taught in Victoria University's Working Class Writing class, writing requires leisure time, as well as time to think. It's one of the most undersold things about undertaking a PhD, that while you're expected to research and you're expected to write, you also find yourself with plenty of time to just sit and think. Within a humanities context, there is a monastic quality to the experience of writing a doctoral thesis that you just don't get as an undergraduate. It was a rewarding experience, but it also drained a good deal of my mental reserves, which I haven't been able to replenish in the ensuing five years.

Self-diagnostic digressions aside, there's no point in shying away from the fact that the blog has been on the slide for a long time. Thus, with some regret, I am wrapping up South of the Border as a regular news and opinion source. I will not be deleting the site, and I will perform maintenance on certain pages. I intend to pop up from time to time with commentary and observations if I feel I can add something worthwhile, but as far as regular updates go, I am done. I just don't have much more left to give, and creating content just for the sake of it doesn't appeal to me. Consider it a form of semi-retirement.

There were always things I could've done better (women's soccer, definitely), times where I could've been more tactful, and other moments where I should have been more fearless. My ethics when it came to moderating comments sometimes let not just me down, but the people who were the subject of those comments. Trust and goodwill is hard to develop, and easy to squander.

I am appreciative of those who chipped in with guest articles, whether regularly or otherwise. My proudest moment for this blog was when I had Steve from Broady, Manny, and the Kiss of Death contributing material regularly at the same time. I can point to many articles of my own that I still think are worthwhile, but I was always at my happiest when there were others in the South community that wanted to do something more creative and permanent than prattling away on social media. That was my loftiest goal, and for a short time circa 2013, I had achieved it. The fact that supporters of others teams started a couple of similar blogs I took as a compliment. 

I've thanked a lot of people in my annual thank you posts, and I'm reluctant to single anyone out now in case I leave anyone out. Suffice to say, if you wrote for South of the Border, left a comment, read, shared, or showed any degree of interest, I'm grateful to you. So, that's it for now. I will still be my sardonic self in Row H. Here's to the season ahead, and the ones after that. Thank you for sharing this journey with me on here, and whatever comes next.

Paul

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

Another trademark Australian soccer worldwide search which ends up with the hiring of someone's mate or relative; or so some people are implying
And boy, didn't our president have something to say about that. 

Football Victoria responded with its own missive, hinting at possible disciplinary action, and I see their point. Rules is rules, and even if Maikousis' remarks weren't intended to be disseminated beyond the social club gathering, one must always be careful about who's listening. Here's hoping there are no repercussions for the club which, even once its senior men's team leaves for the NSD, will still have women's and junior teams participating in Football Victoria competitions.

It's the funniest thing; I used to get warned by well-meaning people, and have been chewed out by others who were not so well-meaning, not to post things on here that were confidential, or which were negative, or which would make the club look bad. And then someone with much more authority than I blurts out something more than bit inflammatory in front of a few dozen people, including members of the press, at an official club function. And I wasn't even there to witness it first hand!

Also, just because he shouldn't have said, doesn't mean he's wrong.

It's like that bit in Pleasantville where colours start seeping through the monochrome world.
So, after all that, we are on our way, slowly. There were rumours about ten teams, twelve teams, not enough teams; a Monday announcement, an April start, a summer comp; and somewhere in the middle of all this, one particularly belligerent-verging-on-vengeful state federation. 

Wait, didn't we do this a few weeks ago? Perhaps. Well, we were told that the second division is coming in 2025, and now we have been told of eight teams that will be in it, seven of them exceedingly familiar (ourselves, Preston, Marconi, APIA, Sydney United, Sydney Olympic, Wollongong), and also Avondale. 

I mean, why not Avondale? This is a league for aspirational clubs, no? Avondale's inclusion does add a touch of novelty to a list that otherwise doesn't exactly scream broad-based and compelling. While "compelling" is in the eye of the beholder, it's hard not have a massive dose of déjà rêvé; seven ex-NSL teams which have achieved little meaningful demographic renewal over the past 20 years suggests not enough people have been compelled. But they very well could be, and indeed they must be for the National Second Division to work.

This map conveniently covers the ethnic
background of every NSD team. Handy!

As for "broad-based", you can rinse-repeat much of the above, but the geography question also poked its head above water among the hoi polloi. While we await possible news of more teams being added, for the time being we must rationalise the "national" component by acknowledging that it covers the Sydney Nation State, the Democratic People's Republic of Victoria, and Wollongong. Minus Adelaide City, it's a pretty 1987 vibe, and what's wrong with that? Don't answer that.

Another semi-good point that was made somewhere was "where are the non-Anglo/non-efffnik clubs?", to which one can answer, well, South Hobart were classed as not quite good enough, and the Queensland bids have trouble with the Queensland fed, and of course Newcastle is weak, and Blacktown thought they should be in, and... well, all those people who have an A-League team don't really need an NSD team now, do they? Let us not ignore that this is our vain attempt at making ourselves relevant again by raising ourselves just above the rest of the stagnation. 

Meanwhile, closer to home, two clubs (Melbourne Knights and Heidelberg United) made if not quite pointed public statements, then at least self-justifying ones about why they won't be participating in the NSD, at least not immediately. And really, why not self-justify? Ain't nobody else going to do it for you. Each to their own, to look after their own. If they don't feel comfortable charging headlong into a new oblivion, preferring the oblivion they're in now, then they shouldn't be compelled to do so. But oh man, when this thing takes off, they're going to look pretty stupid that they didn't take that chance.

2024 memberships available
Pricey and lacking in tangible extras compared to what's available from some other clubs, but you get 10% off the regular price if you buy before 2024, which is what I did.

2024 NPL fixtures 
Fixtures have been released for the 2024 season. Frank Holohan Soccer Complex returns as an away match venue, and we'll be visiting Petty's Reserve in Templestowe for the first time. Well, by "we", I mean other people; I ain't taking public transport to that public transport desert. The most inexplicable senior men's away fixture goes to Green Gully, which will be on at 1:00pm on a Saturday afternoon, followed by the under 21s at 3:30.

Home match wise, we're mostly Friday nights, with the odd Sunday. Sunday just didn't work in 2023, no matter how much people allegedly preferred it. Once again we've an Orthodox Easter Saturday home match. Our under 21s home venues are almost completely "TBC", except for the final round. There are also three NPLM/NPLW double-headers. Here's to having all our home matches at Lakeside, and here's to people making all sorts of excuses for why they won't go to any of our home matches, no matter what day or time they're played.

Public transport guide

I've updated it. Out goes one inconvenient ground, and one impossible ground, and in come two impossible grounds. Gully and the Bergers moving away from Fridays means two more grounds become more accessible by public transport. Also learned this year that you can get off a stop earlier on the tram than what I was used to for Avondale away - also, there might even be a bus to there from Royal Park.

But where will we watch them?
At the grounds, duh. But what if we're not at the grounds for some reason? Cluch, the company which operated the NPL streams (and streams for many other sports operating at a similar level) has gone into administration. Even funnier, an article in the Courier Mail noted that:

According to a statutory report the administrator lodged with the corporate regulator, Cluch had been trading insolvent since at least November 2021 and incurred debts of $1.9 million after this date. No action has been taken against any individuals involved with the company.

So, we probably shouldn't have even been able to watch NPL streams on Cluch for the past two years! I'm sure someone's working on a backup plan as we speak, otherwise we might have to attend games in person - and who'd want to do that?

Pre-season friendlies
We've knocked up three of them already (Springvale White Eagles, Werribee, Kingston), mostly on short notice and/or in accessible (to me) locations and/or behind closed doors. Wouldn't read much into any of these matches of course. We've also lined up an away friendly in January against Sydney Olympic, the first time we'll have played each other in a similar fixture since 2016.

2024 ins
So many new ins, it's hard to keep track, unless you try. I'm not going to try, because apparently there's even more signings to come. Whether you rationalise it as trying to build a team for 2025, or doing whatever it takes to get Old Mate over the line, we have splashed the cash for 2024. The pendulum constantly swings between cutting costs and blooding youth, and then panicking and spending up and bringing in the name brand players. One thing I will say based on the club's little Christmas video (which I fancy was half-created just to get an Efi Thodi song up on our socials), is that we're going to have a lot more people who can say Feliz Navidad than Καλά Χριστούγεννα; nothing wrong with that of course, but certainly a sign of how times have changed.

Ruthless outs
And the club goes bang! Ben Djiba, Perry Lambropoulos, Josh Wallen, Lirim Elmazi, Patrick Langlois and Alun Webb, all gone. Probably some others, too, that weren't worth a press release. I could say good and bad things about all of them, but I'm not necessarily shocked by most of these, except for Djiba - that's a surprise because of how much game time he got in a position where we had a lot of options. 

Going their own way outs
Ajak Riak has signed with Indonesian side PSS Sleman, avoiding the question of whether we should discard him. Good luck to him.

All Good Things Must End outs
After 300 odd games, captain Brad Norton gets to go out on his own terms, instead of being pushed out. Would we have wanted a happier ending? Sure, but back-to-back grand final disasters aside, we had some good times. And it was time. Brad's joined Essendon Royals, recent layover for several South players as they wind down their playing careers. I wish him all the best, and expect to see him around the traps at Lakeside from time to time. For whatever reason, there doesn't seem to be a testimonial event on he horizon.

Meanwhile after 180 games or so, vice-captain Marcus Schroen doesn't quite get to go out on his own terms. Would we have wanted a happier ending? Sure, but we had some good times. No one can take his double in the 2016 grand final away from him. But it was time. Maybe Marcus didn't think so, and that's fair, but few are those who get to choose the time of their departure; we once got rid of the Socceroo captain, don't forget. Marcus has linked up with Preston for 2024, which... look, they wouldn't be my first choice for anything, but it's not completely without antecedent for a former South player to end up there.

He Won't Be Missed (Because He Was Never Really Here) outs
Nathaniel Hancock has signed at Port. 

But the man remains
Confirmation that Old Mate will still be senior men's head coach for another season. Former South coach Johnny Anastasiadis had been rumoured to have been under some sort of consideration for the job, a fact which emerged from Johnny A's own mouth in a Neos Kosmos article; an article which doesn't exactly articulate why he chose (his word) the Bergers over South. It's a curious detail to omit. 

Vale McKendry, Xanthopoulos, Nestoridis
Speaking of people who have coached both South and the Bergers, Len McKendty, the coach of our first NSL championship winning side, passed away recently. He gave Ange his first start, which is what seems to have caught the most attention in the posthumous social media angles, but he was a formidable coach in his own right, at least from a Victorian perspective. I'm not necessarily going to say he was a players' coach, but he certainly wasn't a spectator's coach - check out Paul Wade's book for insights into McKendry's attitude to winning and who he was beholden to.

Early 1960s player Takis Xanthopoulos also passed away recently; apparently he was still at least a semi-regular attendee at Lakeside. And Con Nestoridis, the legend of AEK and Greek football who spent two seasons with us in the twilight of his career in 1966 and 1967, also passed away. Which brings to mind this question: where are football's folk heroes today? Where are the players that would inspire a crowd to such a feeling of tears and emotion, that they would be chaired off a ground? (and I wonder if anyone wrote any poems for Nestoridis in Melbourne's Greek papers?) Back then, so much of what people would have known about any given footballer not within their immediate locale would have been second or third hand knowledge. Footage was rare; glory had to be transmitted via print or word of mouth.

So many Greek migrants to Melbourne, even those who knew football, likely would have never seen Nestoridis play in Greece. But they would have known a name, a story, a legend. And all of a sudden, here he was, well past his peak, but nevertheless all of a sudden in the flesh and tangible; and what's more, not just competent, but clearly superior to so much of what was around him. How blessed was the local game, and our club specifically, to have someone like that? The old timers tell the story of him scoring two corners in a row, the first of which was disallowed. But speaking with former players of his era, they remember not just the skill, but also a gentleman off the field, who could stay up late playing cards, and still run rings around younger opponents.

2023 South of the Border awards

Player of the year: Javier Diaz Lopez. Probably should have given it to him last year.

Under 21 player of the year: The Cliff Hussey Memorial Trophy has been retired. Token appearances by youth team players doesn't do it for me anymore.

Goal of the year: Jake Marshall turn and volley away against Bentleigh. Shame I wasn't there to see it in person.

Best performance: The 3-0 against Avondale at home. The 5-2 against Port was more viscerally thrilling, but the Avondale game was a more complete performance.

Best away game: Altona Magic away. Missed a few of these this year, but it was a very weak field overall. 

Call of the year: It was the Port home game I think, and I don't know what he was saying to me, but the stuff some random old man was yelling while pointing at me from the concourse at Lakeside must've sounded good to him at least. 

Chant of the year: Probably that stupid chant I started about how we're "going to the NSD, the league for you and me".

Best pre-match/after match dinner location: Pondok Nasi Bakar on Clarendon St, while the grand prix was on, and before I watched the Oakleigh away game on Gains' TV. Again, not much 

Friends we lost along the way: Another umbrella.

Barely related to anything stupidity highlight of the year: Copping the snub/silent treatment throughout the year from old mate. Bloke doesn't realise I've had a past president do this to me repeatedly. I'm too jaded to consider it a badge of honour, but not mature enough not to laugh at how preposterous it is.

Here's to more of the same, for a little bit longer

It's like that bit in Pleasantville where Tobey McGuire and Reese Witherspoon find out that if you go past the end of Main Street, you only end up back at the start of Main Street 
So, after all that, we're back more or less where we started from. There were rumours about ten teams, twelve teams, not enough teams; a Monday announcement, an April start, a summer comp; and somewhere in the middle of all this, one particularly belligerent-verging-on-vengeful state federation. 

In a past life, it would have been exhausting trying to keep up with all the gossip. Nowadays, I no longer have time to dedicate anywhere near as much effort keeping tabs on the old socials. When I'm in court, my phone is on silent, and I don't have reason to touch it for hours at a time. Sometimes at lunch, I might even read a book instead; I will get through Ulysses one day.

A good thing that Football Australia were kind enough to provide official clarity - while the successful bidders would be informed and/or announced soon, the commencement of the National Second Division would be delayed until 2025. Cue then what I assume was a degree of frothing at the mouth by who I assume are still the usual suspects, and maybe among some others a degree of relief. Feel what you want to feel I suppose.

For mine, insofar as I'm not engaged with this like I was with our last A-League bid, the delay to the commencement of the NSD is both a letdown, and also probably the right thing to do. Clearly there are still some significant organisational and political obstacles to overcome, some of which could not be ignored while charging headfirst into a very novel enterprise. But whether you are for or against the NSD concept, especially as it relates to South's participation in it, the fact that the question still hasn't got a definitive resolution means that we are due for another season of everybody marking time.

I am a long-term sceptic when it comes to the NSD, but I have also gradually come to the accelerationist position that for our club, the NSD has to happen, and that we have to be in it. With participation in an NSD, we will at last get the answer that I think many South fans have in the back of their mind, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not: can this club if not the force it once was, can it at least be something more than it is right now?

If the club can function in a more professional format, that's terrific; all the years of post-NSL struggle will have been worth something more than the stoic glory of the self-righteous martyr. If we can't do it, than at least we know where we stand once and for all - that we are a spent force at anything above this state league level, and that so far as the senior men's team is concerned, we might as well pack it in.

They say that familiarity breeds contempt, and boy, is there a lot of familiarity about the place at the moment
There have been several coaching changes about the NPL, including one with quite the salacious story, but so far as South Melbourne senior men's team goes, it appears as if we will be making no change at the very top. Would a 2024 NSD have caused a shift? We will never know. 

One thing which has been confirmed has been the addition of ex-South NSL player (season 199519-96) Agim Sherifovski as an assistant coach. According to his LinkedIn page - where the news of his appointment was found - Sherifovski has spent the past five and a half years in coaching roles at Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City, which implies he's not joining us on a part time basis. LinkedIn also tells us that before taking the plunge into full time soccer coaching, Sherifovski worked at a bank, much like some other former coach of us - you know who I'm talking about.

As for players, ins and outs are being thrown about; Sawyer, Bonada, Cuba, some Wollongong keeper in; Elmazi out. But we have to wait for the club's social media guy to come back from overseas and get over his jet lag before we can actually start getting some proper, official announcements.

Now how are we supposed to watch this cesspool? In person?
Cluch TV, the company which provided streaming services for many community sporting organisations, has gone into administration. It remains to be seen how this effects the broadcasting of the NPL Victoria competition, and what consequences (if any) it has for the broadcasting of the National Second Division.

When's the next AGM?
Well?

A short lived Flame

The situation is something like this. 

Australian soccer record keeping, regardless of era or area, is generally garbage. I'm not even talking about minutes of board meetings, or narrative histories, or of collective memory. I'm talking about the most basic and fundamental aspect of the sport: records of who played, who scored, who won, and where everyone finished up at the end of the season. 

Clubs, federations, referees, fans, players, and journalists are all to blame. Few people in the game have ever wanted to do the hard yards, and fewer still have wanted to support them. A handful of anoraks potter around the edges, filling in gaps in the past, and trying to make sure that what's happening now doesn't become another gap to be filled in the future.

It's no less a problem at South Melbourne Hellas than it is at any other club. The senior men's team has played 64 seasons of football, and yet probably only the seasons from 2000-2001 onward have anything like the desired combination of completeness and accuracy in terms of appearances and goalscorers. The less said reserves and women's teams records, the better.

At various times, records from the NSL years are mired by lacunae to do with the poor record keeping associated with NSL Cups, Oceania Championships, Dockerty Cups, and officially sanctioned pre-season cups; and then there's such basics as not listing unused subs in the NSL proper, and sometimes not having details of subs making appearances at all. Go further back, and it gets even worse, with the crowning glory being the 1960 season, the club's first. It was a fantastic season: promotion to the State League with an almost perfect record, Dockerty Cup semi-finalists, and yet the match details of that season are a mess. 

The amateur (and now one professional) historians of Victorian soccer have done their best to piece together the match and season records not just of our past, but also of any other Victorian team they come into contact with. But with so much archival material missing, probably for good, and with so much of the necessary record keeping likely never existing in the first place, one has to acknowledge the fact that there's just going to be some information that we'll never get our hands on.

So, on to South. Wading into this mess a few years ago the club's historian John Kyrou started with a basic premise - creating spreadsheets trying to compile the foundational statistical of every senior men's season, and of every person who ever pulled the boots on for us in a senior game. Match details needing to be filled include date, kickoff time, venue, competition, round, score, crowd, South scorers, South team, coach. (no room for refs...) Then trying to fill in competition details for that season, and finally grand totals of games and goals.  

Some of the sources Kyrou relies upon are solid, some of them less so. OzFootball, the various newspapers like Soccer Action, Soccer World, ABSW... all are reliable, until they aren't; mistakes and omissions are made, and sometimes all you get is a couple of paragraphs. The same goes for the still kicking socceraust.co.uk, the labour of love of the late Alan Morley, whose data was based on the UK soccer pools. So what do you do? The only thing you can do, really. Keep looking over old sources, and hope that new old things turn up. For example, there are so many missing copies of Victoria's Soccer News which could help fill in gaps. There are also newspapers in the State Library, which might have a result or two.

The work of people like John Punshon and Mark Boric has pushed this approach to its extremes. The State Library has some great material, but microfilm is a terrible medium to work with, archaic and fiddly. Physical newspapers are better, but also have their limits; fragility, missing issues, limits on access. Then there are the language barriers; while the ethnic press isn't as helpful as you'd like to think (you'd be surprised how non-prominent sport is in early editions of Neos Kosmos), at least the stuff using Latin scripts is decipherable to anyone whose first language is English, with a bit of a patience.

But what about non-Latin scripts like Greek or Cyrillic? At least for the former, this is where the Greek readers have to step up, and it's an area where I admit I have been much slacker than I would have liked. Sure, there was COVID, and before that a thesis, but still. I've tried to make some amends in recent weeks by accessing first the Athletic Echo, the long running (1961?-1996) Melbourne based Greek-Australian sports newspaper, focusing on trying to confirm some specific 1990s details, and generally trying to get a feel for what the paper was like.

But then I recalled that there was another paper, the Athletic Flame (Athlitiki Floga). Remembering it from citations in Petros Kosmopoulos' thesis covering the first 30 years of the club, I had no idea how long that newspaper had been around for, only that it had been around in the 1960s. Well, I had nothing to do last Sunday afternoon, so I managed to book the paper in - you need to provide at least two days notice to get access to something like that - and went to the State Library to check it out.

Would it be chock full of ads? How much detail would there be? Would I be able to understand it? Would it be any good? No; heaps; yes; and yes. 
 

The masthead and part of the front page from the first edition of Athlitiki Floga, featuring the squads from South Melbourne Hellas and Alexander which had played a pre-season match on Greek national day.

I was impressed from the get-go. The Athletic Flame was, for the most part, an eight-page weekly sports newspaper, at first published on Fridays, and later on Wednesdays. It was mostly soccer, but included some coverage of other sports like boxing and professional wrestling.

For the soccer content, it contained thorough, blow-by-blow match reports for South matches, including starting lineups and player evaluations for everyone who took the field for Hellas. This is important, because I was able to correct a listed Hellas lineup on OzFootball (and in Kyrou's files - probably from the same source) that was otherwise complete; it's hard to think that a writer would compile such detail, only to then confuse George Papadopoulos for Takis Xanthopoulos.

Most weeks there were even Hellas reserves results, with goal scorers. That's how you know that youngster Mike Mandalis spent most of the year in the twos alongside the veteran striker Antonis Karagiannis. There were gossip columns, a generic round up of the rest of the State League, match reports and (often) team lists for Alexander and Athena, some coverage of small Sunday league teams, news on the big interstate Greek clubs,  profiles of big name overseas players, and a couple of pages dedicated to the Greek and Cypriot leagues.  

So far, so good. But there's also a downside. The quality of the photo reproductions isn't the best. Detailed information on the opponents of the Greek clubs is often negligible. But worst, the typeface used is pretty small. Here was me worrying about diacritics and how "educated" the language would be, but the clearly demotic language was little bother. But my poor, weak eyes, squinting at the small text! There was also a missing issue (no. 08), and worst of all, the State Library's collection seems to stop in late July at no. 18.

So incredibly frustrating. Here we are, having a great time, and then it just stops. Is that because that's all the State Library had, or because that was as far as the paper got? Methinks the latter, and that's a real shame, because apart from usefulness up to that point in filling in and confirming details for several Hellas matches (probably a dozen, and a pre-season friendly) in our first state league title year, it was such a good paper! It was passionate, and biased, and fickle, and played favourites, and it was a real ride.

While mostly just skimming through, I was able to tell that the match reporter was a huge fan of some players, and not others. For instance, he was harsh on John Bedford, and mainly wrote backhanded compliments about Ted Smith as someone who ran a lot. Other players, like John Margaritis, were geniuses. There was a bias toward the Greek players, but when they failed, the criticism was magnified; ineffective, ill-disciplined (especially said of Savvas Salapasidis), and greedy - not teamwork oriented.

The paper had forthright opinions about a lot of things, including the standard of referees, the fickleness of South supporters, and the poor standard of some of the grounds. For example, the extract on the right gives as one reason why Hellas could only draw 1-1 with the struggling Melbourne Hungaria, the state of the tiny McDonald Reserve in Gardiner:

"A paddock unsuitable for football. The murderers of football, all those who make up the Federation, not looking to create or find grounds, only taking money from clubs, technical teams getting murdered on unsuitable fields, because they are unable to perform."

Remarkably, the front page would even have an English column, with its own bullish opinions. Sadly, that column disappeared about two thirds of the way through the available issues. When the Greek and Cypriot leagues moved into their off-seasons, the paper came with fewer pages. And then it was over, or so it seems. I know that there is a copy of issue no. 08 at La Trobe University, in the Dardalis Collection. Not quite an impenetrable fortress, but they don't get close to rolling out the welcome mat for you like they do in the History and Heritage room at the State Library. But there are also scattered Greek-Australian sports papers in there from the late 1950s and 1960 which could be interesting...

So what did we learn? That the Athletic Flame is a paper worth revisiting, because its coverage of South Melbourne Hellas is outstanding. It'll also need revisiting because it has lineups for Alexander and Athena which likely exist nowhere else. It has details, or at least acknowledgement, of new teams (like the short lived Doxa Richmond), and the demise of others (Florina). It even has a fan writing in (see right) with suggestions for songs to sing at the matches. (these would have been handy to find about five years ago...)

One also remembered some research basics that one knew back in his student days, but which he had forgotten since. Chief among those - focusing on the task at hand, and not getting distracted by all the fun stuff. Never underestimating how long it can take to through a source. Getting familiar with an unfamiliar source can take time. But I also remembered the thrill of research. it's been a while.

Interstate soccer came back... but did anyone notice? (yes, sorta)

So last Saturday Victoria played its first interstate match since 2009. Back then, Victoria's men's team defeated Northern New South Wales 3-2 up in Newcastle. Joseph Youssef, Ramazan Tavsancioglu, and Steven O'Dor were part of the men's squad, and Laura Spiranovic was in the women's team. Records of the whole event, played as part of shared 125th anniversaries of the two federations, are sketchy though, which is a funny thing to say about a game played not even 15 years ago. 

Yes, interstate football is not what it was back in the 1950s, when state pride was something serious, or the 1960s and 70s when playing for the state against touring teams also had a degree of cachet. The introduction of national league soccer, the declining quality of touring teams, the women's feds merging into the men's sphere, and even some A-League teams adopting state colours as their own has made the whole thing near redundant. All that, and there's just so many better ways nowadays to assess talent for national team squads, which was one of the primary functions of interstate competition.

But someone out there still thinks there's a place for state matches, and so a couple of years ago we had Queensland host New South Wales in men's and women's matches, and last weekend we had Queensland visit us for a double-header. I decided to go all the way out to the Home of the Matildas, so I could sit in the grandstand this time, and at the very least check out the South boys and girls who were selected. I wouldn't have gone if the Pies had lost the night before in the prelim - I'd have been in too foul of a mood - but they'd won, so it was something to do, even if neither of the two persons I'd asked to come with me were able to join me.

It's a fair hike by public transport from Sunshine out to this new soccer venue, but not altogether too bad - the worst bit is the rideshare drivers parking in the bus lanes in the city, and the walk across from the La Trobe Uni bus stop to the complex. Apparently there's a tram stop that's closer, but since the complex surrounds are not quite finished yet, it's hard to know which paths are open and which aren't. Unfortunately I missed the first half hour of the women's match, where Victoria was already 2-0 up, in part thanks to a goal from South's Danielle Wise. In that part of the second half that I did see, they should have gone 3-0 up, except for the kind of hesitant finishing from close up which was a feature of the South men in the recent grand final.

Queensland were the better team in the second half, and observers who'd watched the entire match said they were the better team through most of the game, but they could only pull the one goal back, and thus Victoria won the first match of the double-header. I think South co-captain Akeisha Sandhu won the player of match. Quite a good quality match and reasonable attendance (though I think the grand final had a much better turnout), which would ordinarily make me curious enough to check out the standard of the A-League Women's comp, but you know...

Then it was time for the men. Victoria was missing Melbourne Knights players, because the Knights had an Australia Cup game the next day, and so the squad seemed to be mostly Avondale, Oakleigh, and South players. Can't say for certain how many of them were ex-Queenslanders. All four South selections - Javi Diaz Lopez, Brad Norton, Marco Jankovic, and Pat Langlois  - started the match for Victoria. 

It was a pretty flat atmosphere, until (I think) Xander Guy came off and his Yusef Ahmed was subbed on in the first half. Then the Yusef Ahmed fan club (some South fans may remember them from the grand final) lifted the mood with cheering for their man who, to his credit, also helped restore the balance of the game, as Queensland had had the better of the opening twenty minutes by some way. A cracking finish to open the scoring didn't do any harm either.

It was not a balls to the wall kind of game. There weren't any stupid tackles or aggro, and the players had licence to play a bit fancy, with quite a few nice dribbling moves you don't normally see. It was enjoyable for what it was - something a bit more serious and meaningful than a friendly, and a good chance for players to have a bit of fun as well. It was very high tempo at times though; you'd like to think it was a taste of what a second division could look like from a talent point of view.

Played on the hybrid turf-synthetic pitch, the aesthetics of the game felt a bit like a NSW NPL match - quite a bit more futsal-like, and not much of the hard-man stuff you get in Victoria. Having said that, I don't know much of what typical Queensland soccer looks like, so it's hard to make sweeping statements. Players from both sides at times had difficulty keeping their footing on the surface.

Jankovic got subbed out at half time I think, and Langlois was OK, Lopez was solid apart from one bad pass which almost cost Victoria a goal. Norton, who was captain of Victoria, coughed up the ball which lead to Queensland's equaliser, and looked by far the least comfortable defender on the field from either side in playing the ball out from the back. At times it looked like his teammates didn't really want to pass it to him, but part of that was because of a team tactic of aggressively trying to play through the middle. There was a clear instruction also not to play any long balls out of defence, which must have disoriented the South players at least a little.

Norton and Langlois both scored in the penalty shootout, and Lopez made the winning save. I'd like to think that regular post-season interstate soccer could become a thing again, even if the high costs and struggle for interest work against it. Twenty bucks seemed steeped for entry, but I'm not sure that making it cheaper would have increased the appeal to the fickle general soccer public. Not many South people there, apart from friends and family of the players - I think the only person I saw was senior men's team manager Kris Peladarinos. Anyway, fun time had by all, which was it's all about.

A feeling of hollowness - Avondale 4 South Melbourne 0

- Oh, come on. You complain about them more than anyone.
- Maybe! But I still love them. And I don't think you understand that...

Spent a lot of time this past week and a bit not thinking about this match. 

Started writing something yesterday or the day before. Scrubbed parts of it. Or rather, moved those few parts to an offsite location, where they will fester away until this laptop dies, which seeing as it's a Linux setup, could be forever. 

The question is, of course, where do we go from here? The answer remains unclear. It's all very much complicated by what may happen with the National Second Division. If that gets up and if we're a part of it, we probably saw 90% of the senior men's squad play its last game in this most recent grand final disaster. Up to you to ponder who'd warrant keeping, and who wouldn't be. I had my say on that at Olympic Village late on Sunday evening, long after the game had been won, the medals and trophy had been awarded, and most people had gone home. I think I sacked a lot of people, banished others, and regretfully kept a few because you can't get rid of everyone all at once, at least in theory. And that's just assuming there is no NSD, and we're back in this backwater of a backwater.

But it's not up to me and my reactions based on very sudden post-season blues. I'm just a guy who cares, but not one with any say or influence, and caring without influence is a feeble kind of impotence. Pitiable, really, and the only person more pitiable would be someone with influence and day-to-day involvement who put too much stock into what I thought.

And as for the coach... again, it's not my call. I didn't like the style and have never done so, even if it was more watchable this year on the whole, and even if results were good. But he managed to get us this far two seasons in a row, and was undone, in part, by having his leading striker absent for a second year in a row on the biggest day of the year. What a mess. I knew that the grand final would clash with the final round of this part of African Cup of Nations qualifying, and yet somehow I didn't think Ajak Riak would get the call up this time, if only because South Sudan were out of the running for the next stage, and surely he could be excused for this one club match.

But then while speaking to some knowledgeable non-South people after the women's grand final, they alerted me to the fact that Riak had indeed pulled a 90 minute shift for South Sudan against Mali that morning our time. Blame the club if you must (though some of you don't need prodding on that front) for putting Harrison Sawyer's professional career prospects ahead of the club's immediate goals during last year's finals series. But this time they were stuck - international football takes precedence over club football, and had the club kicked up a stink, South Sudan could have easily barred Riak from playing for us anyway. Who knows if Ajak even asked South Sudan if he could sit this game out to play in the final. Others are suggesting he didn't even inform the club that he was leaving to play in that game against Mali.

At any rate, much as I had us pegged as the underdogs anyway, I thought we were in deep trouble once I learned that news. Say what you will about Ajak as a forward, but he caused Avondale some problems this year, especially in the game at Lakeside. Without him we would have to put in Luka Ninkovic; not quite fit enough, and not quite up to Riak's standard, but at least he was a striker. Last year we had no back-up strikers at all, and resorted to playing an unfit and disinterested Jai Ingham. This year we did have a striker, also unfit, but surely better than the alternatives? But we put together a makeshift forward line made up of midfielders instead. And yet despite this could have had a couple of goals within the first twenty minutes. And then things started falling apart, and once more having the best goalkeeper in the league only meant keeping the score to single digits, rather than getting close.

Copping the first goal didn't help, and neither did copping the second, You're all of a sudden chasing the game, and we are not a good chasing the game team. But the signs were there of a pending defeat, if you looked closely enough. Even before the talent and personnel differences became clear, you could see that we were being outdone tactically. We had no overlapping fullback play. We had no answer and seemingly made no adjustment to Yusef Ahmed dropping from his striker's role into the gap between the midfield and forward lines. The hit and hope tactic which worked well against a shaky Oakleigh defence the week before was not so good this time around without anyone to make a nuisance of themselves the way that Riak did.

But the thing which annoys me most, even now, a week and a bit later, is the difference in method. Avondale moved the ball beautifully, switching play, getting up the field, every chance they created looking like it was planned. For us, though we created chances and squandered so many - unusually so, given our outsized efficiency the past couple of seasons - so much of what we produced still looked dependent on where the ball would fall, and not what we were doing with it. We had a go, but were outplayed by the best team in the league. Sure we were the only team to beat them in the league this year, but when push came to shove, we clearly weren't good enough to hope for anything more than a bit of luck on the day to get a positive result.

Maybe that's a tad pessimistic for a team which finished second, with only four league losses. But the signs were there at different times during the season, and none more so then on the league awards night when our best players (as decided by non-South people) were our keeper and one of our central defenders. We've won titles in this competition with far worse goalkeepers and even worse defences, because we had midfields and attacks that could hold their own, that other teams were wary of. That might just be me being wistful, and forgetting some of the crappier times. 

If the manner of the defeat on the field was fitting and familiar in its own right, so too was its setting - a perfect pitch surrounded by neglect. Rust, cigarette smoke, and more pigeon shit in that grandstand than the stairs leading into Sunshine station - and even Sunshine station has cleaned up some of that bird mess in recent weeks. Unless you happened to be one of those people fortunate enough to be on green grass, Olympic Village was barely fit for human habitation. Oh, it was nice to be allowed into the ground via the gate on Southern Road instead of having to walk all the way around to the Catalina Street entrance, but could people have at least cleaned up the broken glass?

And then, because this is soccer, and because this is soccer in Victoria, multiple people decided to be stupid and/or incompetent. Having doubled their lead, Avondale's players decided to celebrate in front of the stand with all the South fans; they did this despite having considerable support of their own at the ground, including within the vicinity of the goal. Of course a couple of South fans then thought that something should be done about this affront to common decency by confronting those Avondale players, which only made things worse.

At half time, one of our supporter marshals, alert to the possibility of more stupidity, told the hired security that it would not be a good idea to let the Avondale supporters behind the goals walk in front of the grandstand lest more nonsense ensue; so security, instead of telling those guys behind the goal to go around the ground the other way, gave them an escort in front of the stand instead. Cue a small brawl which I still cannot believe did not blow up into something much worse.

By the end of the game, my faith in the club, local soccer, and humanity as a whole was pretty drained. I go to South games to support my team, watch it play some attacking soccer, get some good results, and have a laugh with some people to break up the monotony of my otherwise humdrum existence. What happens when there's no joy on the field or on the terrace? You end up copping it both ways, and start looking forward to the off-season instead of dreading it. It's been nearly twenty years since we were where we were, and even with the NSD being nominally around the corner, it still feels like we're as far away as ever from being in a better place. Deserved or not, probably delusional, but back then it felt like we were halfway to putting some distance between ourselves and the scene we'd grown up in. Now we're stuck in it more than ever.

Next game
Who knows when, where, and perhaps just as importantly, in what competition this will be.

On the other hand
The senior women were very good value for their grand final win. Not perfect, maybe a touch fortunate, but deserved winners nevertheless of their grand final. Most satisfying, is that they did it while playing a pleasing brand of soccer. A bit too counter-attack dependent for my taste, but it was ball on the ground, fluid passing oriented play that made me happy, not just for the result, but also for its method. As successful as our previous championship winning teams were, they also had more than a whiff of brute force about them: an overpowered team, and the get out of jail strength and power of players like Melina Ayers and Lisa De Vanna; from design to implementation, it lacked a certain subtlety.

(to a degree, they were kind of like the senior men's teams of the same time; get the best players, put them in their right spots, and storm over your opposition).

It's a long trek by bus (or tram) to the new Home of the Matildas. I did it by bus from the city, after a brief stop to try and find confirmation of something from early 1990 in the Athletic Echo. I didn't find it. But the Home of the Matildas! It's quite nice, actually. The lighting could be better. They could put more bins out around the place - it's a bit Southern Cross station in that regard. And I didn't go up into the stand to watch the game (because of... reasons), but otherwise what a great little venue. Huge scoreboard, good surface.

Scoring two goals direct from corners helped a lot, even if one of those was a cock-up by the Bulleen goalkeeper. Still, our keeper stuffed up late in the game too, so pretend that it was 3-1 instead of 4-2. Really happy for everyone involved with the women's program, because it's been a rough few years. I didn't watch as many games as I would have liked to this year, and there were times when we were hard to watch. But when it all came together, and when we didn't play against nemesis Calder, it was pleasing to see that an attacking ethos could pay off.

In the mean time
State team football returns this Saturday at the Home of the Matildas, with Victoria taking on Queensland in men's and women's matches. Four of our senior men's players Javi Lopez, Marco Jankovic, Brad Norton, and Patrick Langlois have been selected in the Victorian squad. I might go. 

Brad Norton testimonial, when?
There was some talk of this early in the year. Is it going to happen? I know it needs someone to organise it and round up people. Hope we can do something, not just to celebrate Brad, but also to have a gathering at our club that ordinary punters can attend, something that isn't just about the sponsors.

Final thought
Don't expect much action here during the off-season. I'll hand out some awards at some point and comment on news if there is any, but otherwise I'll be working on some side-projects. 

Grand finals galore!

Let's get the important stuff out of the way first.

Next games
Four grand finals this week, in the following order:

Saturday, September 9th, at the Home of the Matildas

• Under 21 men, vs Port Melbourne, 3pm (Pitch 5)
• Under 19 women, vs Heidelberg United, 4pm (Main Pitch)
• Senior women, vs Bulleen Lions, 7:30 pm (Main Pitch)

Sunday, September 10th, at Olympic Village

• Senior men, vs Avondale, 3:00pm

Ticketing
Home of the Matildas matches 

• Free entry
  

Olympic Village match

• Adults, $20
• Concession, $15 
• Kids 14 and under, free
  

Tickets available for pre-purchase at this link.

Back in the big dance - South Melbourne 2 Oakleigh Cannons 1
The size of the crowd will never aain be as big as you'd like it to be. It doesn't matter whether there is or isn't footy on at the same time, or what day it is, or what the weather's like. We have atrophied, and those who are left have aged. But for those atrophied aged there were still nerves and anticipation, and it still mattered.

It's not like we haven't beaten Oakleigh in recent times, but some of those wins have been ugly as sin. Sometimes that's been out of necessity - half a team out earlier this year for the smash and grab, for example. But sometimes it's just a feature of the way we currently play. It is what it is, some like it, some don't, but for the time being I guess we've just got to support the method that has got us this far for the second year running.

Think of everything that has happened to South on the field this season, and this game was it in condensed form. Extended pressure from long throws and corners? Grabbing the lead and then being able to play on the counter? Midfield disappearing for a huge stretch of the game? Our formerly best player (see below) Max Mikkola getting a yellow card and then becoming a potential liability? It was all there.

But again, I refer back to the old maxim: when you do good, I use the green pen; when you do bad, I use the red pen. In this game, I can say that we did most things right, and enough things wrong that the only thing I'm surprised by is that we managed to get the job done in normal time. The good included probably the best round of team selection so far this season, which unfortunately for Morgan Evans meant a third consecutive game out of the match day squad. It also meant Lirim Elmazi on the bench which, considering that Chris Taylor clearly likes his side to attack him, made sense.

I am sometimes critical, more often merely bemused by Esteban Quintas' team selections, but as far as last Friday went, I have no gripes. Neither do I have gripes with the subs that he made, as compared to Chris Taylor who made no subs. It just might have been the thing that got us over the line in the end. That, and not falling behind. It's hard to think that we would have been well equipped to overcome a deficit had we trailed at any point. I'm negative like that, yes. but thank goodness for the early lead.

Prior to this match, we had not score more than one goal in a match against Oakleigh in 15 matches, going all the way back to the 2016 grand final (and we know who scored a double for us in that game). That's a horrendous record, and what's worse, is that in a lot of those matches we struggled to even get that one goal. This time though, we were on the front foot, and we squandered several chances. Layoffs not given, shots going high that should have gone low to exploit an injured keeper's restricted mobility. 

Oh, and Pat Langlois' missed header early in the second half to make it 2-0 from very close in. It was bread and butter stuff for Pat, the kind of goal he specialises in - a free kick sent in, and him running in unmarked, and making good contact. Alas it didn't go in, and that was kind of the turning point for me. Our midfield got tired, and our mentality of sitting back and giving up too much territory made us vulnerable.

The best set piece team in the league scored from a set piece, and things looked bad. But then Marcus Schroen did what I've been waiting eight years for him to do - hit a sweet left volley from distance - and he made everything OK. Marcus continues to be an enigma. Been around a long time, sometimes does very good things in short bursts, and then vanishes for a while. Injuries over the journey haven't helped, but this year... I think he's been better than I've seen him for a long time. Not just with the ball, but also without it, showing a bit more leadership.

He seems to have a thing for playing against Oakleigh, a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. Even when it doesn't work out, he seems to put in a little extra effort. Seems to happen against Altona Magic and Avondale, too, so here's hoping he's got something special in store for tomorrow. It's been a long journey - two appearances for us as a 17 year old in 2010, a few years away, then back with us and the 2016 grand final brace, and then the injuries and coaching turmoil. But all I ask from him, and from everyone else out there for us tomorrow, is one more effort, one more upset.

On the streams
Who's next?
Got caught out by the fact that the Avondale vs Knights match started at 2:30 and not at 3:00. Oh, well. I still caught the last hour or so of this meh game. Maybe they did some stuff in that first half hour that was worthwhile, but in the last hour Knights didn't do too much. In the second half Avondale started opening them up like they did to us a few weeks back, but failed to make the most of it. Then the Knights gifted the home side the winning goal, in the way that's become a cliche for them in 2023, playing out the back at all times, regardless of the situation. There's such a thing as picking your battles, and your moments. 

Junior soccer is not real soccer, and yet
On the train on the way to the city, I chucked it on our under 21 boys (men?) against Oakleigh, and found that I'd missed most of the good stuff. 3-3, two injury times goals, a red card. Yet when I tuned in, it was only to see a very tepid, tired extra time period. But our boys (men?) came good in the penalty shoot out, so like their under 19 girls (women?) counterparts, they're through to their grand final on Saturday.

Senior women also into the big one - Boroondara Eagles 1 South Melbourne 2

While we're on the topic of pedestrianism and walkable cities, Saturday was the first time since the pandemic started that I visited the Veneto Club in Bulleen for a soccer match. In the past it was always a bit of a hassle walking from the Sandra St bus stop just off the freeway to the venue because there's no footpath, no safe crossing point near the venue, and no pedestrian access into the car park area itself.

And because I live in the west and rarely visit the north-east, I didn't know about all the roadworks and blocked paths, so I was climbing over and around things and hoping that cars wouldn't veer into the sometimes closed/sometimes not closed bike lane in the dark. Then there's the need to enter the complex via the car park itself to get to the stadium. Made me realise that unless you drive or you're a passenger in a car, you cannot be a member of the Bulleen Lions soccer club, unless there's some kind of riverside access I'm not aware of.

Someone was kind enough to give me a lift to Heidelberg station after that match so that I didn't have to go through all that on the way back to the bus stop on the freeway. Not sure that I'm young and dumb enough anymore to take public transport to the Veneto Club ever again.

Anyway, it was great to see the women play well enough to win, especially as our nemesis Calder was knocked out earlier in the day. That's not to say that minor premier Bulleen will be easy, but I know who I'd rather play against just for the sense of knowing that even if we threw everything we had at Calder, fate would prevent us from winning. 

Well, blow me down with a feather
Having fully embraced the decrepit geriatric stage of my life, I fell asleep on the couch at about 9:00pm on Tuesday, woke up in a daze two hours later, and checked my phone to see whether the world had ended during that time. As it turns out, it almost had! Our very own Jake Marshall had been awarded the Gold Medal for Victoria's player of the year. A defender winning the Gold Medal, and a central defender at that! What is this, the early to mid-2000s? Anyway, Jake's win makes him the third South Melbourne senior men's player to win the award, following in the footsteps of Fernando De Moraes (2010) and Milos Lujic (2014).

Much less surprising was the winner of the competition's goalkeeper of the year prize, which went to Javier Diaz Lopez for the second season in a row. He joins Dean Anastasiadis (2005 and 2006) as a two-time winner of the award while at South. Some might say having the best goalkeeper in the league in the same team as the league's best and fairest in the form of a centre-back says something quite obvious about the aesthetic qualities of your team. I could not possibly comment on that.

Me, I'd rather know who Esteban Quintas voted for in the coach of the year award, which was split between Avondale's Zoran Markovski, and Melbourne Knights' Ben Cahn. I don't need to know, mind you, and what with it likely being a confidential affair, that's fine. Just curious of course.

Final thought

It used to be that you would get the news about a Football Victoria CEO, president, or general manager resigning from soccer-forum.net - the fact that I didn't probably means we should just shut it down, put it out of its misery.