With round four of the Football Federation Victoria men’s State Knockout Cup already underway, 11 Victorian Premier League and five State League One teams will be battling it out.

The only all-VPL match supposed to be all-Greek derby won’t be played as Oakleigh Cannons decide not to enter this weekend’s FFV competition.

South Melbourne won’t take on the Cannons at their ground at Lakeside Stadium, as the committee of the club from Oakleigh has decided not to compete due to Greek Orhodox Easter celebrations this weekend.

With Oakleigh Cannons players being predominantly Greek and the club being sponsored by Greeks, club president Sten Papayianneris told Neos Kosmos that committee decision comes after no effort was made by South Melbourne FC to alter the fixture and avoid playing on Easter Saturday evening.

“We are not playing because the club is predominantly Greek club, and it was a hard thing to organise. South Melbourne made no effort at all to alter the fixture. All our players are supportive of the fact that the entire committee is Greek based committee and they don’t want to disadvantage us. The player forum is supportive of the committee, and has unanimously said they don’t want to play. So we may congratulate South Melbourne on another outstanding win. That’s our position and we are not wavering from it,” Sten Papayianneris told Neos Kosmos.

“I would have thought that being a Greek based club, South Melbourne would have been a bit more congenial in trying to find an alternative day,” Papayianneris said.

However, as Cannons’ head coach Bill Theodoropoulos told Neos Kosmos, the team is ready to fight forward in the round five of Victorian Premier League next weekend, although the start of the 2013 season was unexpectedly “slow” for a last year’s grand finalist.

“We didn’t start the season the way we wanted it to be, in a position we wanted to be. It’s still early days, but nevertheless we’ll start fighting forward. It has been a slow start, but the spirits are up for upcoming encounters,” Theodoropoulos told Neos Kosmos.
South Melbourne club director Tom Kalas expressed his disappointment with Oakleigh Cannons’ decision, but said the club will proceed with their Family Day, planned for today at their Lakeside stadium.

“We are disappointed that they are not going to show up, unfortunately. We had a Family Day planned for today, and we are proceeding with it. We scheduled a lot of things ideally with Oakleigh Cannons there today. We didn’t think the date was an issue, however we did try to accomodate another day and time, but couldn’t fit it anywhere else,” Kalas told Neos Kosmos.

With the Cannons decision to forfeit the match, South Melbourne will be awarded a 3-0 win and progress to the next round of the FFV State Knockout Cup.

With the only all-VPL match being cancelled, several State League teams will have a hard task to try and upset their VPL opponents in round four of Knockout Cup.

With four of the Greek sponsored teams finishing the last round on top of the ladder – Northcote City, Bentleigh Greens, South Melbourne and Port Melbourne Sharks – the State League teams will be fighting for survival.

This week, first on the ladder Northcote City travels to Reddish Reserve for its State Knockout Cup game against Moreland Zebras.
In VPL last weekend, Hercules boys of Northcote carved out an easy win (7-2) over Richmond, continuing their remarkable start to the 2013.

Dandenong Thunder overplayed South Melbourne 3-0, while Bentleigh Greens won Hume City away from home (1-4). Second on the ladder, Anastasiadis’ boys from Bentleigh will host Springvale White Eagles in round four of Knockout Cup this Saturday.
Port Melbourne Sharks and Box Hill United will meet in the Australia’s largest senior state-wide knockout tournament on Saturday. Last weekend, Sharks played 0-0 with Melbourne Knights.

Greek sponsored Heidelberg United, that is competing in State League One this season, will host Moreland City.
The draw for the next round of FFV State Knockout Cup will be held on Monday, 6 May.