How I feel about South Melbourne

A couple of days ago someone commented on my last write up about the Knights 2015 NPLV season. Rather than trying to cram everything into a small reply, I thought it would be easier and more fulfilling to just do a whole write up on the matter. The comment read..

Considering how rich the Knight's history is and how well you write your posts (westofthequarry) - I am confused as to why there is so much mention of South Melbourne and no mention of Bentleigh Greens who were the stand out team in terms of you "not rathering be them".

Would be good to get some insight on your feelings towards other teams.

Firstly, thank you for the compliment on how well I write my posts, I sometimes think I can write half decent stuff so it's good to know that others may think that as well..

Now to make it clear, at the time of that write up South Melbourne had won the Charity Shield, the Dockerty Cup and the Minor Premiership, had qualified for the FFA Cup (making a quit exit like us in 2014) and still had the NPL Victoria and Australia Championships up for grabs. Bentleigh on the other hand had won nothing at all, with their only chance of a title being against South Melbourne for the NPL Victoria Championship. So I would have to strongly disagree that Bentleigh were the standout team when quite clearly it was South Melbourne, even though I am in no doubt that Bentleigh had the best quality team throughout the year.

Still excited about that extension?

Now that the first reason South Melbourne was the team I would 'rather not be' is out of the way, I'll get started on the second. Despite their success this season (as winning the NPLV is a success) as far as I am aware Bentleigh went about their business this year as most teams do, there isn't anything major I can think of where I thought to myself, Jesus Christ that kind of thing would never happen at my club, if it did bla bla bla. But with South Melbourne however, there was more than enough of those. We can begin with the Epifano incident(s). Had Mr Epifano been playing at my club, after the first offence he would probably have been told to leave the club and if not would have been disciplined appropriately. After the second offence, he definitely would have been told to leave the club, and would have received more than a few unkind words from supporters. After the third offence, he would have endured some physical harm at the hands of supporters, who would then question the competancy of the current administration. After the club announced it's excitement of the resigning of Mr Epifano for the 2016 season, a mob armed with torches and pitchforks would have gathered at the Knights head office wanting blood. Now you could just say that we are a bunch of savages, which we very well may be, but we are savages with morals, savages that won't just sit back and watch as the club throws away it's self respect and allows someone to just walk all over it. And for what reason? Because you might have a better chance of winning some stuff with him in the team?

Anyway, one incident (or four) don't make a club what it is. That's why the club went out and announced a make believe partnership with European giants Real Madrid. For those of you who aren't familiar with the story, I'll fill quickly fill you in. A few rounds before the end of the home and away NPLV season, South Melbourne announced the postponement of one of it's fixtures (home match against Hume City), that same day South Melbourne announced it's partnership with Real Madrid with a photo from a few years ago and how the club will have the opportunity to host them over the next few weeks for the money making fan boy tournament. Anyone with half a brain would have put two and two together and figured out that they postponed the match so Real Madrid could use the venue. Right? Wrong! Because it wasn't Real Madrid that was using the venue, it was Roma. And because the club were/are yet to sign off on their lease and social club, there's not too much they could do about the venue being snatched from them by the Victorian Government. I do believe that it would be an honour to have a European giant use your venue as a training base while in Australia, but when it's at the expense of your own fixture and you need to make up a fake cover up story then I think I would pass. And how did the supporters react to this? They thought it was good for the club because the announcement got a lot of impressions on their Facebook page. 

Though I could go on for a lot longer about the shady dealings of the club, I will turn to the final chapter, the supporters. While there is a handful (and as far as I know it's only a handful) of decent supporters, the majority of them are not. I won't go labeling them 'Obsessed Maco's" where they apparently can't see because all Croats have been 'banned', but I will say that they don't deserve any better than their club dishes out to them. After five years of no social club, no stadium lease, Epifano and fake partnerships (that's just this year) they haven't done shit. The decent handful will speak their mind, but it is constantly smeared by people blowing fairy dust over anything and everything the club does.

So there you have it, I hope it's enough of a reason for me to have South Melbourne as the club I would rather not be. If it's not, then you'll just have to accept that they are our main rivals and have hated them ever since I can remember.

Another season goes by

With the NPLV Grand Final coming up on Sunday and us playing no part in it, we take the time to look back and reflect on what was the 2015 NPLV season.

Our 11th season post NSL saw us in the more favorable of the two familiar places we have been in since re-joining the state leagues. Rather than the excitement of a relegation battle which our good friends down in Geelong are now enjoying, we got to have another crack at something we haven't done in a pretty long time, be crowned champions.

Going into the season there wasn't too much faith from Knights supporters as poor results in practice matches and a 5-0 drubbing by Sydney United in the Friendship Cup a week before the season didn't allow for much of a positive outlook. However with the players at our disposal, I knew that with a bit of time we would be well prepared to kick some ass. Luckily for us we were dealt a more favorable start to our season which allowed us to find out feet (quite quickly it seemed) as we got off to a 5 and 0 start.

The return of star striker Andrew Barisic worked as well as previous years with the striker finding the back of the net most weeks, before moving on to play in Hong Kong. Working just as well was the decision to bring back former junior Josh Brekalo after impressive performances at the Croatian Soccer Tournament in Wollongong, where he enjoyed a stint with his state league side Strathmore Split. The youngster didn't take long to get his name out there after opening the scoring account with an equaliser in Round 1 against the newly promoted Avondale. The same however cannot be said about the return of another former player Adrian Zahra, who struggled to make an impact resulting in his departure in the mid season transfer window, with his poor form likely the result of a horrendous tackle at the hands of Kevin Muscat a few years ago. His replacement Robbie Zadworny comfortably stepped into the role managing to contribute a number of goals and assists almost immediately.

Whilst Zadworny was satisfying Knights fans in the league, previous appearances for North Geelong left him cup tied and with no choice but to sit out the Knights 2015 FFA Cup campaign. A campaign which unfortunately did not reach the heights of the 2014 campaign, as South Melbourne got their revenge after eliminating us with three late goals at Lakeside Stadium. With other fixtures for NPL sides looking fairly 'easier' for that round, one may question whether fixturing the two sides against each other at that stage of the competition was a deliberate attempt at ensuring one of our clubs would not reach the national stage, perhaps even both with one round still remaining before entry to the round of 32 of the FFA Cup.

No Dockerty Cup for the Knights in 2015

Our simultaneous exits from both the Dockerty and FFA Cup allowed us to concentrate solely on the league, something which was done quite well. With Hume and Pascoe Vale at our tails and first place looking well out of reach it appeared to be a battle for 4th place. However favorable results saw us reaching as high as 2nd place with a slight chance of still lifting the premiers plate. But it wasn't meant to be, as a surging South Melbourne picked up the required amount of points to beat us and the rest to it.

With 3rd place a real possibility but no real advantage over finishing 4th, we had the chance to rest a number of senior players allowing some of the youth to prove themselves on the big stage. Whether finishing 3rd or 4th would have made a difference to our finals exit is something that we will never know.

After making the finals twice in a row (with a year in between due to no finals being played in 2014), we also managed to bow out in straight sets twice in a row. Perhaps those three finals matches being played at home and the fact that we haven't one a home finals match in around 20 years has something to do with it? Not sure, but I do hope it's something that will change very soon.

So where does that leave us? Are we happy with the end result? Was the season a success? Was it a failure? To be honest I'm not too sure. I wouldn't call it a success but at the same time I think it was far from a failure. We reached our target of making the finals but fell short of making a return to the national stage in the FFA Cup, something which is probably a little more difficult to achieve now that all the clubs have seen how big of a carrot it can be. Considering we have one of if not the lowest budget out of the clubs that made the finals, and more than likely in the bottom half of the league, I guess we can say that overall we did ok. Perhaps not as ok as South Melbourne who could very well go on to win everything there is to win in Victoria this Sunday, but I wouldn't rather be them. Yeah it's great to win everything, but when it's at the expense of allowing players to walk all over your club, the board lying to members and supporters without them even bothering to question it and not having a social club with the constant question of when you will be evicted, I would rather be us. We are a proud club with proud supporters, and there will always be next year!

Until next time, Captain!

Earlier this week the club announced the departure of captain and life long supporter of the club Tomislav Uskok to the NSW NPL. While a NSW NPL club is yet to claim him, you can bet your bottom dollar it won't be going anywhere other than Edensor Park.

Putting South in their place

In the face of Mark Rudan rubbishing the game in Victoria after his sides exit from the FFA Cup at the hands of Heidelberg last week, he will be rubbing his hands with glee with the arrival of Uskok. But who wouldn't be? Although South fans cry foul when it comes to Uskoks 'aggression' (I like to call it passion) whenever our two sides meet, they (and any other club for that matter) would kill for that type of player in their line-up. 

Rarely do you see someone bleed for a club like that. And like many players in recent times at the Knights, Uskok grow up with the club. Like plenty before him, he dreamed of one day playing for the club he had a deep passion for. Had he not made the cut he would be on the terraces every week supporting the club, something he even did while playing for another club in the same league! 

As unfortunate as it is that he felt the need to leave the club to further himself (as many young players do at the club), it was probably justified considering where our club was at the point in time. Staying put would have seen him in the Knights first team perhaps a year earlier than his return, but no one was to know the turn of events that were about to take place at the club. 

I don't really have a problem with players leaving the club at the age Uskok left, I actually think it's good for a players development. The gap between U20 football and first team football is just too big. What I do have a problem with is players leaving the club and forever holding a grudge. Either because they simply weren't good enough, or they were good enough but felt that they should have been in the starting line-up by the age of 15, or the U20s by 14. Thankfully for us Uskok had his heart in the right place and came full circle.

His return came at a time when he needed us and we needed him. After a transitional season the club found it's feet and saw Uskok become a vital piece to the puzzle. Perhaps with a bit more luck we would have seen Uskok lifting more than just the Dockerty Cup, or finally landing that A-league contract that has been dangled in front of him time and time again.

While his departure makes things a little more difficult for us in 2016 not only needing to replace a key player but also a captain, I wish him nothing but the best up North and look forward to his return in 2017. Until next time, Captain!

The evolution of West of the Quarry

A couple of years ago there was an idea to have a place where we could all talk about our one true love - Melbourne Knights and all things related. You could say this was a mixture of wanting something like what South fans have at smfcboard, and what we once had with KnightsArmy (which still seems to get an odd post here and there). Although forums seem to be a thing of the past and are pretty much dead in the water when it comes to our club, we decided to give it a crack and evidently failed fairly miserably.

Living in the past

A year or so later, we tossed up the idea of a rip off/piss take of South of the Border which found it's way to the bloggers ears and eventually onto the blog itself. Not only could you use this as a tool to troll people on twitter, but as a means of bringing people to our failure of a forum with things that people might actually be interested in reading. 

This led to the first 'opinion piece' Back in the limelight, which by the forums standard reached a quite an impressive 1000 or so views within a week, eventually reaching over 2500. We quickly realised that we might be onto something where we could have all the fun we wanted on twitter, while still having half decent write ups that people might bother to read. But rather than concentrating on that, it was used as a tool to try and grow the forum.

No matter how desperate I was personally to have a functioning forum to satisfy my own needs of talking about my club all the time, it was destined to fail. The times had changed and it was time to accept it and move on. Luckily for me certain events in the past 12 months have prevented me from continuing, allowing it finally fade away without me trying to force it's existence any longer.

After thinking about it quite a bit since then, I have finally got off my ass and 'converted' to a blog. It's what should have been done from the beginning as the end result is the same. I get the chance to talk about my club whenever I want, and if people feel like it they will join in the discussion.

As tech savy as I am, I'm not quite comfortable with this whole blog setup yet so the layout is likely to change over the coming weeks and/or months and while I make up my mind about a few things.

And finally for the record, West of the Quarry is more than one person.