Wednesday 22 June 2016

'Even yeeros has been homogenised', by Savvas Tzionis

As a South Melbourne fan I have always been curious how the NSW NPL compares to Victoria. I always watch the highlights and follow the online commentary of our erstwhile rivals across the Murray (or perhaps more correctly, the Barassi line). The past long weekend offered me the opportunity to see for myself, as I was travelling to Sydney for a break over the Queens Birthday weekend.

It was only natural, as a Hellas fan, that the game I selected to view was Sydney Olympic vs Blacktown City. Two teams from the past who have adapted to their new situation with varying degrees of ‘success’. Olympic is part of 'Old Soccer' and their situation, together with so many other similar clubs, has been discussed ad nauseum. Blacktown however, were in many ways a precursor to 'New Football' with their lack of NESB immigrant background. I wonder, if FFA had from the very start decided to go with the two team strategy in Sydney, whether or not Blacktown would have put their hand up for the Western Sydney licence?

While the history of the NSW and Victorian leagues were, in many respects a mirror of each other insofar as the type of clubs that were dominant in the NSL, their current situation has some quirky differences. Both leagues do have a similar geographical spread of clubs; however the NSW league has a higher representation of non-ethnically formed clubs representing key areas like the North Shore (Manly) and the Shire (Sutherland). Victoria's key difference is the proliferation of Greek backed clubs (6!).

I do prefer the more 'democratic' and diverse NSW league. It does in fact remind me of the late 1990s in the NSL, when Perth Glory and Northern Spirit added a new and much needed dimension to the game. As an aside back to the late 1990s, I wonder if that blasted Iran game helped destroy any chance that the NSL may harness that new diversity and strengthen as a league? Or was it terminal?

As you can imagine with Sydney, the weather was typically milder than Melbourne (the previous week’s record breaking downpour already forgotten). And my stay was very pleasant and quirky at times. I stayed in Glebe ('that suburb has αλήτηδες'), which will always be remembered by me due to the darkly humorous reference Graham Kennedy made on Blankety Blanks, to the murders of young boys that occurred at the time in that suburb (circa 1978).

We had some funny experiences with clean trains, finding a Greek café in Earlwood that was a poor man’s Oakleigh, and experiencing the Olympia Milk bar in Stanmore!

So, on Sunday, after departing from the sunny Opera Bar where minor celebrities such as Ada Nicodemou and Jessica Mauboy were spotted (and in Mauboy’s case, spoken to by a member of our traveling troupe), it was time to switch to soccer mode. A quick trip back to Glebe to freshen up and then consult google maps which informed me that the quickest way to get to Belmore from Glebe included taking the light rail to Dulwich Hill. And then a connecting train to Belmore. That was unexpected joy for a rail fan such as myself. The trip was in darkness except, aptly, for the moment the tram passed Lambert Park where a ladies match was in progress.

A ten minute walk from Belmore station via the local shops and I was at the ground. The first evidence that the game would have a low attendance was the lack of any automobiles parked nor any pedestrians in the vicinity of the ground. The ticketing booth consisted of a table at the front gate attended by a solitary man who may or may not have been off the boat.

I reached the main grandstand via the side where the increasingly maligned smokers of the new millennium were seen to lurk in the shadows. Everything that I witnessed was South Melbourne Hellas but on a tighter budget, such as the souvlaki stand and coffee bar run from the back of a van by a group of Asians (not that there is anything wrong with that!).

I decided to plonk myself close to the epicentre of the fans (which included their own version of Mullet Man from Bentleigh), who were generally spread around the grandstand but tended towards the main entrance. Virtually no one sat in the lower deck near the fence.

Sitting centrally was a fortuitous decision as I ended up sitting very close to the famous Andrea, who really is how he is presented on TV, a loud, energetic but positive influence on the team. He sat with his old Greek mates for the first half but for some reason they moved to a higher spot for the second half. A second half that was no better than the first.

Yes, the game turned out to be a frustratingly tight affair that Blacktown should have won except for some profligate finishing and some great keeping by the incredibly durable Paul Henderson (of Northern Spirit) fame*. How little happened in this game is evidenced by the match highlights being the smallest youtube clip that NSWNPL have released for any game this year!

As has been evidenced by the comparable FFA Cup runs by the NSW and VIC teams, the standard did appear of a lesser quality. Olympic players made some NPL2 type clangers (this was written after South’s abysmal Dockerty Cup match against Bentleigh, but the point remains), but were certainly a more mobile team than Blacktown. But Blacktown were very professional and consistently snuffed out any potential Olympic forays forward. Due to the game being a nil-all draw I never got a chance to gauge if Blacktown had any supporters present. The substitutions elicited a few claps but I think the away support was lower than even in the Victorian NPL. Then again, South does attract a lot of away supporters due to our position as the premier club in the competition. Olympic cannot claim that title in NSW, especially now. The lack of a crowd cannot be blamed on the weather, as Sydney’s winters are so much easier to bear than in Melbourne. I know that many times my friends refuse to attend due to the bitter cold we experience.

Finally, the game petered away to a tame end and I trundled off to the local Belmore souvlaki spot to meet some friends (including one person who was proud to be still living in the 80s! It helps that he was a Parramatta Eels supporter). Good food, yes, but the next day I realised that the Sydney centric term of Yeeros is slowly disappearing. The eatery was known as ‘Yiro Yiro’. Everything must be the same in the New Dawn era.

My last visit to Belmore Oval was in 1999 (when I lived in Sydney) and Hendo played that day!

Epilogue
Any romantic notions I had that the NSW NPL was better or perhaps something more than the Victorian version were extinguished to a large extent. The ‘diversity’ I mentioned earlier is pointless if no one actually attends. I think I was looking for hope in NSW for ‘Old Soccer’, or maybe I was simply hoping that there would be more people who were willing not to drink the FFA koolaid, but it looks as if it might be worse in Sydney.

An NRL postscript
The following day I ventured out to ANZ stadium to witness my first ever NRL game in Sydney (my only previous game was a ‘New Dawn’ game featuring the Storm). There really is not much to say about this experience. The train trip to the ground was very much a scene from Pizza (even the WASP guy said ‘I swear to god’). The ground is far too big for the 20,000 people who attended, the game itself featured two middle of the road teams, and they played accordingly I felt, yet prices were not cheap. I was willing to pay 'silver grade' prices but they were sold out (yet there appeared to be many empty seats in those sections). So I had to make do with just behind the touch line. Not a great view. But then again, most viewing points are not that great for this sport. Its status as a tv game was really accentuated on this day.

15 comments:

  1. Great read Savvas.

    Its interesting to observe how our northern neighbours fare with their version of the NPL.

    It's interesting to see that there are a number of 'non-traditional clubs' in their NPL competition, as opposed to our much maligned 'souvlaki league'.

    What is the general standard like up there? Does their federation work with their clubs?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In terms of 'does the Federation there work with their clubs', I have always found this to be a 'grass is greener' topic. Each side thinks that administrators from other states are better; the reality is that most people have very little idea of how the admins of states other than their own work.

      Delete
    2. It's debatable to what extent, but it's definitely not the same. They had their grand final advertised up on billboards just a few years ago, here it's on the FFV office whiteboard and thats it.

      VSF/FFV would have to be the worst organisation I've ever experienced.

      Delete
    3. We had our grand final advertised on billboards as well a few years back (2010 - unfortunately, they had us and Knights on the ad, after which we both failed to make any impact, with Gully and Richmond reaching the final instead). FFV also used AAMI Park for three grand finals and a cup final, which I can't imagine would have been cheap, even as two of those grand finals were run in conjunction with Heart games.

      Delete
  2. George Grosios23 June 2016 at 16:16

    Fantastic article, Savvas. It will be interesting to see how the former NSL clubs fare once their 'old guard' supporters pass away. It was this generation of supporters, contemptuously known as 'new Australians' for they were immigrants of the 1960s and 1970s, who were the mainstay of the old NSL. In recent times the likes of South Melbourne Hellas have experienced a renaissance of sorts.

    I still remember the NSL's ill-conceived attempts to Anglicise the competition; Hellas for a brief time were known as the 'Cannons'! This is precisely the masterplan of the brainstrust behind the A-league: bring the sport into the mainstream and relegate the 'ethnic' clubs to the dross of the local leagues. It could be argued decades of history and tradition have been trashed in the name of 'progress', 'commercialisation'. I miss the parochial nature of the old NSL but am glad that the mediaeval ethnic rivalries that plagued the sport are a relic of the past.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi George,

      Ironically the advent of the A League has seen those rivalries morph into something much healthier.

      Maybe the remaining supporters realise that they were at fault to some extent for their clubs current situation.

      Having said that, those 'Medieval' rivalries are more than matched by some of the disgraceful scenes at A Keague games, and truly highlighted when Victory supporters attacked South fans. Remember during the NSL there was NO security. Nowadays it is full on!

      Delete
    2. Another point you raised in regard to 'old guard' was quite pertinent.

      The Olympic fan base appeared to me to be an older demographic as compared to South Melbourne which still attracts the 3rd generation of fans.

      Delete
  3. To be honest, I am not a student of the game. Soccer was my second sport growing up and although I enjoy the aesthetic appeal, judging what is or isn't quality is not my forte.

    But, as I said in the article, at times, Olympic player's made some schoolboy error's.

    It was a frustrating match. Here are the minimal highlights!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IBhrgXCYFc

    As for the Federation's relationship with it's clubs, that was not something I have ever really looked into.

    Speaking of the comparison you have highlighted in regard to NSW's 'non-traditional' clubs and our 'Souvlaki' league, the QLD NPL brings another dimension to this sense of variety, in that they include clubs from all over the state, including 2 clubs from the north, and I believe a club from the Gold Coast.

    The travel costs that must be incurred are very interesting to delve into.

    If they can afford it, surely a National Second Division can easily be accommodated?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Not sure how you can say Blacktown are a precursor to new football. They were founded in 1953 ffs, makes them older than South Melbourne. And a club like Sutherland was founded in 1930. This is the same as Victorian clubs like Croydon City that used to be strong clubs in the 1980s, those types of traditional Anglo clubs are still here in Victoria they just stopped having success. So I think you are way overstating the differences.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Agree with a bit of what MelbCro says in reference to Blacktown and Sutherland, they are old Historic clubs in NSW. Blacktown played several seasons in the NSL and Sutherland were unlucky to be knocked back for the NSL in 1984.

    As for Olympic, they are not in a good period purely in terms of football, they have cut back huge on their budget and would be in the bottom 3 of money spent on wages for this year in NSW. So you're not experiencing a very good Olympic side this season.

    And as you stated South are the perennial ladder leaders in VIC, where as Olympic are not. Teams like Blacktown and Bonnyrigg are and have been the most consistent clubs the last 7-8 years in NSW. In terms of the crowd, you would be hard pressed finding any other club that gets what Olympic gets for its crowds, and since most of them play in smaller suburban grounds, Belmore has a capacity of 22,000 so it has the tendency of looking like there is hardly anyone in the ground.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From what I see on the highlights packages, NSW have the better grounds. Our worst ground vis a vis its position in the league would have to be Heidelberg's. But I believe they are due to announce a major investment by the council.

      Delete
    2. I think that was announced yesterday. I think venues at the top level in Victoria are improving with regards to spectator amenities, and even playing surfaces, but NSW is a long way ahead not just because of history, but also because they adopted the installation of synthetic pitches much earlier and with more enthusiasm than we have.

      Of course, synthetic pitches their own set of problems along with them, too. And in Tasmania, the main synthetic field at FFT's base in Hobart, after being touted as a solution to many of their problems with ground availability in the winter, is now purportedly in a dangerous state of disrepair.

      Delete
    3. I personally do not like synthetic pitches, but its useful given we are a Winter sport and in Sydney when it rains, it pours, so you can play in any conditions with synthetic.

      The RL/RU influence helps in Sydney with the better stadia I feel as well. There are so many nice boutique grounds in Sydney, many are rarely used.

      Since VIC has no RL/RU culture this explains the lack of rectangle fields. Also RL/RU yeah they might not like soccer, but they do not actively work at hindering the sport in NSW, unlike the AFL in VIC

      Delete
  6. Great read Saavas. I have felt similarly at Belmore Sports Ground

    While it is a different model, Perth Glory was formed from the momentum brought by the Italian-Australian community of Perth which had been working on a license since 1987. Northern Spirit, Carlton and Collingwood were thought to work based on the Glory model.

    Just wanted to clarify that the Glory are very much created by the passion of the post war migration from Eastern Europe. They are just in a different model to those clubs because they meshed themselves into Western Australian parochialism by the time the club is formed in 1996.

    The other clubs were created with no grounding or unyielding passion that was behind the Glory bid. A critical difference when you want to compare the other 'non ethnic' clubs of this era.

    Chris Egan

    ReplyDelete
  7. The Olympic Milk Bar may be no more! https://www.commercialrealestate.com.au/news/council-forces-stanmores-iconic-olympia-milk-bar-to-close/

    ReplyDelete

A few notes on comments.

We've had a lot of fun over the years with my freewheeling comments policy, but all good things must come to an end. Therefore I will no longer be approving comments that contain personal abuse of any sort.

Still, if your post doesn't get approved straight away, it's probably because I haven't seen it yet.

As usual, publication of a comment does not mean endorsement of its content.