[South Melbourne Hellas]

My dad is a Heidelberg supporter, he says by about the late 70s/early 80s most of the dodgy people had already shifted over to preston, my dad is from Southern Greece as are most of his mates that go for Heidelberg, on the flip side I know heaps of hellas supporters who are from the Macedonia region, after a while the fan bases just became mixed. A lot of older Heidelberg supporters could/can speak that other language, but most likely choose not to at the soccer, if anything they try too hard to be greek these days. Apparently the skop team Heidelberg played in the FFA cup last week are from florina. The Heidelberg derbies with Preston were probably the most brutal I've seen in terms of genuine hatred and violence even if some of them are related. It's strange seeing john markovski part of the current coaching staff Heidelberg.

Fortunately being someone that just loved soccer, my dad would take me to middle park as a kid, I also attended Heidelberg games regularly as well, for me if was a no contest, hellas had the bigger crowds, the better players, and just in general seemed like a more genuine club, this was around 1990 for me just before puskas went to south, Heidelberg were on the decline by then and I found them boring to watch, hellas was a pretty easy decision.

[South Melbourne Hellas]

South Melbourne really doesn't even belong in the same sentence with these other clubs, the history and success shows that hellas was all about on field success and winning trophies, it was always about the sport, yes occasionally the club got dragged into political showdowns with peasant clubs, but the club existed to win and to actually be a proper football club unlike the skop and Croatian clubs who basically used the sport to galvanise their respective communities behind political causes, you can even put Heidelberg in that group as well, south melbourne on the other hand basically said you can all F off irrespective of ethnicity. The glory days of south melbourne were playing against world giants at the maracana, winning Nsl grand finals, playing to packed stadiums against teams like Perth glory. As I said sure sometimes the club got dragged down by the skops provoking things and the occasional Croatian trouble makers, but overall you can't deny south melbourne is a different beast to these clubs, it's one of the chief reasons why the club desperately wants to get back to the top flight where it once was, the club is built for that stage, not playing on cow paddocks. We also have the highest % of non greek fans by far! that's a testament to what the club stands for, on top of that it's not your typical local club. the supporters come from all over melbourne, this is why oakleigh failed in trying to become the "new hellas", why on earth would south fans that live In Northcote, Preston, Doncaster altona etc support those pricks. The match last week on foxtel rated very highly as well which shows the clubs brand is still very strong, despite the fact we lost a heartbreaking penalty shootout in a game we dominated, the standard of play was about as good as you would see from the lower half of the A league, and these guys aren't professionals.

[Giorgos Samaras ‒ (retired)]

Is Raul at New York cosmos still? This would be a horrible move, mls I can understand as the league is getting better and gaining a lot of attention, but 2nd tier?

[South Melbourne Hellas]

I never knew much about oakleigh, when hellas was in the Nsl I use to attend a few oakleigh derbies against Heidelberg when they were both in the local league, I was always neutral but they had a real heavy pro hellas stance, for what it was worth I still respected Heidelberg more because they were lone rangers, they never wanted sympathy from anyone and were just in it for themselves, where as the whole oakleigh trying to be local version of hellas never sat well with me, trying to latch onto hellas made them look like a bunch of skops trying to steal others history, they thought because they signed boutsianis, Damianos, panopoulos etc that everyone should go for them and forget south because they were the real link to the hellas of old, it was sickening really. Overall they are a nothing club, to beat them today so comprehensively was sweet.

[South Melbourne Hellas]

Basically when south dropped out of the Nsl, oakleigh tried to be "hellas lite", in addition of having a transfer policy which was basically sign anyone that had played for hellas in the Nsl, they also tried to poach south players year in year out, see back in 2005/2006/2007 etc south were still in a precarious position financially, and oakleigh tried to run us into the ground every off season, apparently the 2 clubs had made a gentlemens agreement that the 2 clubs would not try and sign the others players, oakleigh broke that deal and would basically target any of our decent players and in many cases succeeded, add the fact that a lot of oakleighs board were south backers in the Nsl and the people who claim to follow them were hellatzides in the Nsl, hatred started to naturally grow and we would always be subjected to taunts of "hellas is dead" etc from them. In 2006 oakleigh would finish top of the table with a records point tally, only for hellas to win the grand final, and then it just became an obsession for them, when they beat us last year they had a pitch invasion like they won the title, the funny thing is they have never won anything, south yet again pipped them to the title last year, and once again today we put them in their place. Today they had ex a league players like kofi danning (Brisbane roar) matthew foschini ( victory), sean Rooney (newcastle jets) and Mirjan Pavlovic (Wellington phoenix) in their starting 11 and we still thumped them, the burn that club continues to feel every time we lift silverware is hilarious.

As far as the rest go Heidelberg is the Nsl rival, they don't like us, we don't like them, but a mutual respect does exist, it's the only true rivalry that means something, bentleigh is a small rivalry but nothing major I wouldn't say theirs a hatred between the clubs, they have a bit of oakleigh about them but aren't as vocal, western suburbs is like a sister club to south melbourne and the clubs have always been on good terms, in fact I think south tends to get along most with the greek clubs from melbourne's west, where as from the south east it's more your ex hellas types turned melb victory that just want south to lose.

This is why Sydney Olympic is so lucky that they have the greek market just for themselves, we go head to head with greek clubs almost every fortnight and for them it's treated like a grand final, honestly not even the Turks kill themselves to try and beat us like the greek clubs do, this is why when south win cups and titles it shouldn't be taken for granted, it's harder to win stuff now then what it was in the Nsl days!

[South Melbourne Hellas]

We didn't get what we deserved on Wednesday, we got what we deserved today, an emphatic 3-0 win over oakleigh to win the Victorian dockerty cup for the first time since 1995, an attacking masterclass in the 2nd half killed off the opposition within 15 minutes and easily could have been 5-6, some players who weren't available on Wednesday came into the side and made a huge difference. Great to see some really slick and attacking football despite the difficult conditions. Goal machine milos lujic with 2 goals and Leigh minopoulos with the 3rd to seal the game.

[South Melbourne Hellas]

It was good up until they equalised as the match was effectively played on half of the field for the remainder of the game, our goal was beautifully worked and I think we would have put on a clinic if our keeper didn't have a brain explosion. The 2nd half was a little boring as they had 11 behind the ball and were playing for penalties, but yeh 1st half was like watching a couple of the lower teams in the A league, also south have a few players that can play A league ( jawadi, epifano and Norton) lujic is also a quality striker but had an average game, that's on top of our best player andy Brennan who was unfortunately poached by the newcastle jets last month, he would have beaten this team on his own. Problem was both teams ran out of gas by extra time, these players aren't conditioned to play midweek games backing up from the weekend. Every player bar souths left back looked dead by the end.

The most noticeable thing for me was how comfortable the south players were on the ball playing inside a stadium on a good surface, I went and watched this same team and players on Saturday night in a little suburban ground where the wind was insane, I kid you not the south players could not hit a pass or control the ball for 90 minutes, we shouldn't take for granted the advantages that top flight clubs have as they too would struggle with the winter elements in suburbia.

Big praise for the travelling contingent of 400-500 that went up, when Gold Coast had an a league team the most travelling supporters you would get was around 50.

Dockerty cup final v oakleigh on Sunday is another huge game, we haven't won the dockerty cup since 1995, expecting a crowd of around 2-3k, don't like our chances, combination of low morale and fatigue might get us here. Fingers crossed we can at least get one trophy,

[South Melbourne Hellas]

Heartbreaking result, dominated the game, so much possession, so many chances, think the corner count reached 20, but we had no cutting edge to finish them off, the keeping error killed us as it not only got them level but allowed them to park the bus and play for penalties, had we held onto the lead until half time I think the floodgates would have opened in the 2nd half, as it turned out we ended up with a half field match. We were never gonna win the shoutout, the team that hangs on for penalties gets such a confidence boost and usually wins, the extra time period was basically Greece v Costa Rica, we couldn't take our chances and lost the lottery, the big chance in the 120th minute that was chested wide from right in front was gut wrenching. I also believe south should have had a clear cut hand ball penalty awarded in the 2nd half, so frustrating to lose to a team that's well below our quality level.

Now we somehow gotta back up for a cup final against oakleigh at lakeside on Sunday, not sure how you pick the players up after the heartbreak of last night.

[South Melbourne Hellas]

South melbourne 6-1 Frankston pines

Team qualifies for the FFA cup, was looking a bit dodgy first half hour but got a couple of goals just before half time to settle the nerves, 2nd half was a training run where south could literally have scored a dozen.

Oakleigh also got through tonight after beating last years surprise packers springvale aris 2-1

If Heidelberg beat goulburn valley ( very likely) and Kingston can beat Hume ( reasonable outside chance) it could be 4 greek clubs from victoria into the 32.

[South Melbourne Hellas]

We have drawn Frankston pines in the next round of the cup at home, barring something insane occuring it looks like our hellas will be back on the big stage finally :)

It also looks like alexandros will be joining us.

Oakleigh have a south eastern suburbs greek derby against one of last years giant killers south springvale aris.

Is west Adelaide still in with a chance? Looks like all the major greek clubs of the Nsl era will be in the round of 32.

[South Melbourne Hellas]

Epic 3-1 win for hellas over the melbourne knights in FFA cup qualifier last night, we were down 0-1 going into the last 5 minutes and turned the game within minutes, the stadium erupted, the knights players started an all in brawl at the end and a few red cards were dished out, the idiot ref also sent off the south ball boy for delaying the game...madness! Probably the clubs best win post Nsl. 1 more win needed to qualify for the cup proper, hopefully we get an easier fixture. Nice to see a big write up of the game in herald sun, amazing night and great atmosphere.

[A New Day - A New Home]

Nice to see many of the greeksoccer posters move across so quickly, well done to everyone who helped spread the word.