[yianni]

For once this cunt is spot on, usually he's full-on negative to our club trying to bring us down...this time I cannot argue with alot he has to say. I have underlined the bits I find fucking righteous:

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/com...5E2883,00.html

South's A-League bid doomed
Peter Desira
COMMENT
19apr05

SOUTH Melbourne's chances of ever being admitted to the A-League flew out the window with Sunday's crowd disturbance at Bob Jane Stadium.
Pictures

The unrest during and immediately after South's 1-0 loss to Preston Lions provided new ammunition for soccer knockers, but more significantly doomed South to suburban soccer and never returning to the national or international stage it once enjoyed.



Make no mistake, Sunday's disturbance has been blown out of all proportion.

There were flares thrown during the Victorian Premier League game, there were supporters baying at each other for most of the game and there was an attempt at a pitch invasion that turned the end of the match into an unpleasant situation.

But Melbourne television channels coloured their follow-up news items yesterday with footage from past games or overseas disturbances and tarred local soccer with sweeping hooliganism that does not exist.

Local soccer doesn't need incidents such as Sunday's and the two clubs have to work hard to identify the culprits and ban them for life. But Melbourne loves opportunities to kick soccer in the guts and, every so often, there are mindless minorities who provide the ammunition.


There are similar yobbos who do the same at the cricket but, with soccer, the ethnic associations provide immediate cheap shots for calling the sport un-Australian and incapable of going mainstream.


Few dig deep enough to realise how hard soccer is working at cutting the ethnic ties and how far it has come in recent years. What will be ignored is that most of the 9000 spectators at the ground on Sunday were well behaved and few at the stadium -- myself included -- would have felt threatened.

That is not to excuse the mob charging the barricades on the terracing side. That is not to try to sweep aside the fact there is bitterness between the clubs.

That is not to rule out heavy sanctions to force the two clubs and the real supporters to be more vigilant in exposing and weeding out the culprits.

But at some stage soccer needs to be given an even chance to succeed in this country, without being hounded out at every opportunity.

Fortunately the new A-League, which will start in August, will be free of any ethnic associations and will diminish the opportunities for the hooligans to hop on to a political cause to justify their behaviour.

But that gets back to South Melbourne being the prime victim from Sunday.

South has been one of the biggest clubs in Australia and has been harbouring ambitions of becoming the second Melbourne club when the A-League is expanded in 2010.

The A-League had its reservations about the baggage South would bring with it. All those fears were realised on Sunday. Frank Lowy and John O'Neill won't touch an existing club in Melbourne as long as they're running the game in this country.