It's Wednesday night, it's Box Hill Indoor Soccer Night

Not amateur Hammond organ recital night. After more than a decade, I have made a return to playing indoor soccer, with Blue Steel in the Wednesday Night Division Three competition at the Box Hill Indoor Sports Centre. Last night saw the second-placed Steel notch up a comfortable 11-4 win over last-placed Unatletico Madrid to pretty much seal a place in the top four Finals series (with only six teams in the competition, it's a bit like the A-League in that regard). Scored twice and did not further injure myself, so good result all round.

http://boxhillindoorsports.com.au/results-fixtures.html

It meant not keeping up to date with the rapidly changing NPLV landscape. We've now had Hume City, Preston Lions, Cairnlea and Altona Magic declare they will not submit EOI's. Dandenong Thunder will submit an EOI, but seem lukewarm on making a final submission, perhaps sensing they are about as welcome as Eddie Maguire at a corroboree.

http://humecityfc.com/

https://twitter.com/AltonaMagic

https://twitter.com/BreatheF00tball

https://twitter.com/CairnleaFC

http://www.mfootball.com.au/thunder-submit-npl-interest-amid-indecision/

Not much has been mentioned about the involvement of Melbourne Heart Youth and Melbourne Victory Youth in the NPLV. It has widely been assumed they will play in the senior competition, but will they have to meet all the other criteria other licensees must meet? Maybe more will be revealed when the list of clubs to have put in the EOI's is announced.

I notice the FFV VPL website still has a link to the long departed VPL Live TV to the right of the links to the club websites. Sure it is nice to have a link to the videos of games from previous years, but perhaps a bit disingenuous to keep the link there when there is no longer any more actual VPL Live TV broadcasts. It was interesting to note on the VPL Facebook page earlier in the season whenever anyone posed the question which was to be the VPL Live TV game that round, or if the current match being updated was on VPL Live TV, there would be no response from the FFV. Whilst it may be embarrassing for the FFV to admit they could no longer afford to service, and therefore admit they were reducing their service to the clubs and league in promoting the competition, it was downright rude not to make a statement and answer poster's questions.

Whilst on the VPL Facebook page, you can almost set your watch to the weekly "South Melbourne for relegation" post from Chris Margaritis and Michael Italiano coming on to pump up the tyres of his son Lewis in the Oakleigh goal. I've heard of club's having to "please explain" comments posted by their players, a bit rich coming from the organisation which failed to answer enquiries from the public. At least we get an idea on how the staff of over 60 at FFV HQ are spending their time.

Another matter to arise on the discussion on the NPLV on the various forums and Facebook pages is the number of times someone argues that the NPL has already been implemented across the country. The FFV's criteria means the NPLV is a vastly different beast to the versions currently underway in other states. Once again, to claim otherwise is ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst.

If you think things are getting absurd, then check out this beauty:

http://www.goalweekly.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=6894%3Apre-adult-teenagers-continue-to-pay-the-price-for-ffv

I would love to hear more about this. I'll assume two yearly increments in those age brackets up until the Veteran's League begins at Under 35's. So that could be Under 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32 and 34's. Someone start making some more pitches, I'll try and round up enough referees.