Wednesday 14 January 2009

Not that I was aiming for one, but it's about freaken time!

On September 14th, 2005, I joined smfcboard. I was a nobody then; no job, no school, no friends, no life. Thanks to that forum, and because of my getting re-connected to South, whom I'd lost touch with since the end of the NSL, I was able to put myself back together again; I made heaps of friends, or least acquaintances; got involved with the club; got back to school; in essence got my life back after years of self pity and stagnation.

But something was missing. Sure I got myself a reputation amongst some forumites was waffling on and getting on my high horse far too often, and amongst others for clarity, objectivity and cutting through the krap. But today, the missing piece was finally filled in. And all it took was the resuscitation of a three year old thread about mainstreaming the club, and a prompt from a fellow fan to correct a mistake I had made in reference a Dr Katz episode, to finally get me that yellow sticker above my avatar, which signified that I am just a little bit badass after all.

Hello, a secret history

You account on smfcboard.com has received a warning.
You have now a total of 1 warnings, if you somehow receive more than 5 your account will be blocked.

The reasons for this are numerous, this warning is received because of this post:
http://www.smfcboard.com//viewtopic.php?p=437944#437944
that you made.

Here are a reminder of some of the terms you accepted when you registered, we kindly ask you to respect them in the future

Quote:
"You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any applicable laws. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned"

If you don't see why you've received this warning you could try contact thrylos7, who gave the warning, explaining your post,
and that you don't understand why this warning is given.


--
Thanks, The Management


But maybe it wasn't the unnecessary dredging up of the thread for mine and Southpole's amusement that finally made moderator Thigh Rolls crack. After all, we'd been doing it to amuse ourselves all summer, and while Southpole got banned outright for it, that wasn't such an irregular occurrence. No, maybe what did it was the bringing up of that particular topic, containing replies, opinions and persons which are unfashionable now but were safer to admit to liking and agreeing with back then. When the fury was stronger and more evident, and there was still a misguided ambition of a kind to revive what had, in it's own way, failed.

Those who argued against mainstreaming most fervently, because of their nationalist bent which would come to fruition in the Hellas Fan Club and its various adventures, are largely long gone. The argument itself about mainstreaming is mostly dead... certain agitators persist with trying to reverse the trends of time and assimilation, but those things will don't care about feelings, as in the riddle in The Hobbit;


This thing all things devours;
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers,
Moulds iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to mill,
Slays king, destroys town,
And beats the highest mountain down.


And yet the argument, or perhaps more accurately one of the things that fueled it, is still unresolved. What should South do now? The knee jerk reaction has always been to go back, or hold on to what the club has now; which while holding the club back from whatever possibilitites may exist in trying something new, is preferable because it is familiar, and at the same time reassuring because it allows people to believe that they are being loyal to the cause. The point here being that not that change or no change are good or bad within themselves; but the attittudes attached to taking either of those stances, and what they say about loyalties and views of the club are important. While we like to think that we're all one happy family, each of us has had a differenct experience of the club, which in turn gives us a dufferent idea of South, and different ideas of where we want it to go; forward, back, upwards, sideways, nowhere.

Anyway, the thread that was dredged was not utterly useless; it contained one of the most clear and concise arguments on the matter, from someone deeply involved with the club, who could see its potential, but like most of us, unable to do much about it, because the receptive and half receptive audiences, as small as they were in comparison to these days of plenty for soccer, are gone for us. We had our great chance, and we didn't take it. Now we scrape and struggle for piecemeal gain. Such is life.


By Kartsi

To be Greek or not be Greek, that has been the question for as long as I can remember. It has sparked as much debate as any other issue over the last 10 years or so and at times, I have been dragged into it.

One thing people seem to forget is that the club will always be known as a club of Greek migrant origins. No matter what you do in the future, you can never take away the clubs history and the core of the support base will inevitably come from the Greek-Australian community. So what do many feel so sensitive about it?

What I see as mainstreaming, is about marketing the club as a football club, with passionate supporters, with great history that plays attractive football and makes people of all races feel welcome. This feeling that somehow the club will lose its traditions, history and identity by doing as such, is nothing short of nonsense. And I honestly feel this strange insecurity has held the club back for years and is continuing to do as such.

Let’s build on what we have and build in all directions. Do you honestly think going back to the days of the past will keep the club afloat and take the club forward? Dare I say it, people’s perceptions of the ‘good old days’ are nothing short of perceptions. I can remember many a days at Middle Park where there were a handful of people at the games, but people only seem to remember the 1 or 2 big gates we had against teams like Heidelberg or Olympic. If you look at the stats, I’m sure you’ll find our best period of crowd attendances have been at BJS, during periods of marketing (limited as they have been). Our Greek community has let the club down over the years, if the 300,000 Greeks in Melbourne haven’t got behind the club in the last 46 years, why will they suddenly do as such by somehow making the club more Greek. In any case, how do you make the club ‘more Greek’?

Note: more Greeks are probably members of Carlton, Richmond or Collingwood than they are of South!

The club must look to the future and most will agree there really is no long term future in the VPL, quite frankly the thought of spending the next 50 odd years following SMFC in the VPL makes me feel sick. Every club’s ambition is to play at the highest level and winning National Championships. Plain and simple SMFC is a football club 1st and foremost. If it is a Greek social club, then I have been grossly mistaken for the last 26 years.

Do you honestly think investors will get behind a club that markets itself to 5-10 % of Melbourne’s population? Do you think the FFA will look at us twice if we are not being proactive in marketing the club to the wider community whilst we are in the VPL? What strange thoughts do people have that suddenly we’ll change our spots if the FFA come calling? We need the A-League more than the A-League needs us and we should be doing everything to get in!

At the end of the day, what better way to preserve the clubs traditions, than to be playing at the highest level in front of the masses. I’ll use the usual line about the Boston Celtics, A massive club for all Bostonians with Irish background.

Keep the existing fans, keep the souvlakia, keep the passion and history. But build on it, as our great club deserves nothing less.


Of course, one of the usual subjects couldn't be bothered reading it. So mods, go ahead and hand out your yellow cards; they can only stifle your guilt for so long; the ghost of South Melbourne Hellas past lingers on. The damage has been done; only thing to do now is get your shovel out so we can try and dig our way out of this mess. Happy 50th anniversary everyone.

6 comments:

  1. Hi,
    I would just like to say what a fabulous post and an extremely well put argument about South Melbourne FC moving forward.

    I am an Englishman who moved to Melbourne a couple of years ago, I decided to live in St Kilda and wanted to watch some local football to feed my fix for missing being at Newcastle United matches. Since moving to OZ I have created Aussie Mags a website for all Newcastle United supporters living in Australia, and this is helping with missing the Toon!

    I decided to go and watch South Melbourne FC over Melbourne Victory FC, for two main reasons, the location of Bob Jane stadium to St Kilda and the clubs history.

    I knew South Melbourne was a Greek based club, and the fact that I wasn't Greek didn't bother me, passionate football fans are the same the world over regardless of what language or culture they have.

    I have enjoyed going to home games for the past couple of seasons and again I am looking forward to some live football this year. The crowds may be small (compared to NUFC and Victory games) but that doesn't spoil the atmosphere, which at times has been great, and the fact you can get so close to the pitch is really exciting.

    However, the "in fighting" that I have seen and read about at South Melbourne is a great shame. I haven't been able to register at the smfcboard for about a year now, why not, how bad a problem do they have with new users?

    This club could go places and should embrace it's Greek roots but at the same time be prepared to except new fans who want to join in with the passion.

    See you all at Lakeside on the 1st March.

    Howay The Hellas Lads!!

    Cheers.
    Andrew

    ReplyDelete
  2. Send me your email address to

    blackmissionary@hotmail.com

    and I'll see if I can get you signed up. It's not a great situation that the forum is seemingly permanently locked.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Paul

    Me also.
    The "exclusive club" attitude of the place in general is sickening.

    Even in Afghanistan they hold elections these days!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's a shame that the premier SMFC board (as far as I can tell anyway) is closed. I have been wanting to sign up for ages, but won't bother you to get me registration. As silly as it sounds, I actually wanted to get acquainted with the support and the general discussion taking place before feeling comfortable heading to some games. I really don't want to go to a game without getting a general feel for the club.

    ReplyDelete
  5. James,

    While I disagree with the reasons for smfcboard being closed, in their own way they are based on actual legitimate reasons. I just don't agree with them. This blog is but a taste of what South Melbourne's all about. Still it'd be a shame if that's what put you off... I'd love to see all my non-South readers come down for a look at least once in their lives.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "The club must look to the future and most will agree there really is no long term future in the VPL, quite frankly the thought of spending the next 50 odd years following SMFC in the VPL makes me feel sick. Every club’s ambition is to play at the highest level and winning National Championships"

    This got me thinking about the price we would have to pay to get into A League. And, yet, I think losing our 'Greekness' is the least of our problems. I think we would lose other more important but intangible things if we were to be part of the A League. I was never a really big Pro/Rel person, but hell, isn't that one of the key elements of the World Game? At least in the NPL, it exists.

    ReplyDelete

A few notes on comments.

We've had a lot of fun over the years with my freewheeling comments policy, but all good things must come to an end. Therefore I will no longer be approving comments that contain personal abuse of any sort.

Still, if your post doesn't get approved straight away, it's probably because I haven't seen it yet.

As usual, publication of a comment does not mean endorsement of its content.