An Incomplete Wrap

So the weekly VPL wrap is a little incomplete, as there is still no resolution on the likely outcome of the abandoned game between Richmond and Green Gully on Friday night. In the era of emails and smart phones, waiting for the FFV to take possession of the referee's report seems somewhat inadequate. Maybe they need the time to work out how to handle the situation, given the current rules are written in shades of grey rather than black and white.

The other Friday night games saw two outcomes of 4-2 scorelines. Oakleigh Cannons went down at home, 2-4 to Hume City. If Miron Bleiberg had a towel, he'd be contemplating throwing it in already, with Oakleigh only sitting above Richmond and Southern Stars on the table. Not good enough considering you could combine and then double those club's wage budgets and still not be close to what Oakleigh pay. Turhan Sumbul was a hat trick hero for Hume, with the ever dangerous Nick Hegarty on the also score sheet once again.

Port Melbourne triumphed 4-2 at home to Southern Stars. Stars let an early lead slip before Port gained the upper hand, and there was no coming back after Andrew Viola was sent-off for two yellow cards in quick succession.

Pascoe Vale and South Melbourne engaged in a 0-0 draw, Paco holding on to claim a point after having Luca Santilli sent-off inside the first ten minutes. After a rocky start to the season, Pascoe Vale have become the new number one plucky little club mixing it with the big boys in the VPL.

The top of the table clash at John Cain Reserve saw Northcote City drop their first points of the season in a 1-1 draw with Bentleigh Greens. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade has been negligent in their duty, as Dean Piemonte is still on fire, notching his seventh goal for the season.

The celebrations for Melbourne Knights continued from the Australian Croatian Association (A.H.D.) Croatian House in Footscray on Saturday night to Knights Stadium in Sunshine on Sunday afternoon. The day after celebrating 60 years of Melbourne Croatia/Knights, the Knights twice came from behind to claim a dramatic 4-3 win over defending champions Dandenong Thunder with a goal from skipper Adam Zilic in stoppage time. Zilic features in the following video on the club's history, a fantastic tribute to a great club.

 

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.

A Weekend Wrap of the VPL

Time for a wrap of the weekend's action in the VPL. Only got to the one game, Richmond v Hume City on Friday night. Can't to any worse than The Football Sack's weekly VPL review that gets linked on the FFV website and it's simple rehashing of the round's results.

So on Friday night, Richmond threw away an early lead (again) to succumb to a seventh successive defeat. The drama for the Eagles had begun early in the week with senior keeper Rani Dowisha departing for South Springvale. An attempt to bring back Stuart Webster to the club was thwarted by the FFV on the grounds that only Griffin McMaster is allowed out of window transfer exemptions. So young Oscar Vonk was thrown into the deep end for his VPL debut.

When he spilled a free-kick from Naum Sekulovski it was Turhan Sumbul who was on hand to equalise, heavily collecting Vonk in the process. Hume took the lead in the fifty-third minute with a great counter attack seeing the ball played out to Ersin Kaya who broke down the right before crossing to an unmarked Jarryd Barnes to simply head the ball into the net.

With eighteen minutes left Richmond conceded another poor goal, a free-kick from Nick Hegarty wide out on the right eluded all those line up at the top of the box and then bouncing and curling in at the far post to make it 3-1 for Hume. A late Richmond rally saw them pull a goal back at the end of regular time, a neat chip over the defence by Sam Gallagher being well met and finished by Kliment Taseski. Richmond then had a couple of chances to snatch an equaliser, substitute Gideon Sweet blazing a shot onto Bastow Oval No.2 with some well placed passing options available, and then Nick Krousoratis volleying a free-kick that fell to him at the far post a little too hard back across goal for Timmy Purcell to be able to meet.

At the same time Bentleigh defeated Melbourne Knights 2-1with David Stirton and Like Sherborn scoring for the home side before Jacob Colosimo pulled a goal back for the Knights. It was not the best performance of the season from title contenders Bentleigh, and the Knights were certainly ruing the chance to grab all the points.

In the final closed doors game of their FFV Tribunal punishment, defending Champions Dandenong Thunder fell to a 0-2 defeat at the hands of Pascoe Vale. The experience and class of Michael Ferrante has lifted the youthful Paco squad, his return from injury leading to the club finally finding it's feet in their first ever season in the top flight. If the traffic on the Dandenong Bypass wasn't already doing it, the Dandenong crowd behind the fence on the way to Eastlink would have been silenced in the tenth minute when Marco Santilli opened the scoring. It was Ferrante who converted a second half penalty, as Pascoe Vale recorded their third win of the season.

A change of coach didn't fully bring about a change in fortunes at Green Gully, who drew 1-1 at home to Port Melbourne. Luke Bowen pounced on the rebound from a Daniel Visevic strike to give the Sharks the lead after twenty-four minutes. In the second-half it was Bowen who was the villain, his handball in the box to block a shot from Matthew Sanders leading to a penalty which was duly converted by Jason Hayne. Not sure if the draw gives the Gully powerbrokers enough to make a conclusion one way or the other on whether the interim appointment of Jeff Fleming as coach will be extended.

Northcote City have gotten off to a flying start in 2013, and made it seven in a row with what would have to be considered a reasonably comprehensive victory over Southern Stars. It was 4-0 in the end, with the in-form Dean Piemonte grabbing two goals. Stars sit only ahead of Richmond on the table, and it remains possible that by the time of their clash on June 22nd neither team may yet have won a game for the season.

I won't go into the final game of the round, South Melbourne defeating Oakleigh Cannons 2-1, as I'm sure South of the Border will give more detail in due course, complete with the Under 21's Match Report by Steve from Broady. The bigger news on Sunday evening will have come from Knights Stadium, where an Extraordinary General Meeting saw Knights members vote not to submit an Expression of Interest in joining the proposed NPLV in 2014.