Book Review, The Little Professor of Soccer - Leo Baumgartner

Among Australian soccer history aficionados, Leopold Baumgartner's The Little Professor of Soccer holds a special place as being the first notable published biography of an Australian soccer player, even if Baumgartner was an Austrian first, and only later an Australian.

Well, they either know it for that reason, or because of its distinct green and black cover.

Either way, even those familiar with the book likely haven't read it. Published in the late 1960s, the book is long out of print, and available only in a scant few libraries in Australia; in other words, you really will have to have gone out of your way in order to have read the book.

When finally accessing a copy, you'll find that the book is rather short (just over 100 pages), making it the kind of thing you'll zip through - although I am curious about the book's provenance. Who decided that an autobiography of a foreign, but not-world famous soccer player - one who spent about half his career in Australia - was a worthwhile venture? And who helped Baumgartner write the book, considering Baumgartner's self-admitted not exactly exemplary knowledge of the English language?

Anyway, the book covers Baumgartner's life from his early days in Austria, until near the end of his playing career in the late 1960s. The first half or so of the book focuses on Baumgartner's youth and pathway to professional soccer in Austria - which was still a semi-professional pursuit. So even before you get to the commentary on 1960s Australian soccer, you get some good information on what it was like to become a professional player in Austria in the 1950s. Baumgartner covers training, internal politics, transfers, and the hard yards - including securing a job outside your semi-pro football gig - that had to be put in while rising through the ranks of youth and regional football, until Baumgartner makes it to FK Austria.

What's interesting about this part of the book is its relative naivete. Just about everyone in 1950s Austrian football seems good-natured and easy-going, and Baumgartner's narrative has almost a childlike wonder about it - the post-war poverty, the joy of watching the crack teams of Austrian football on a weekend as a kid, and the sheer fun of being involved with football. The combination of all these are factors make the book come *this* close to being cloying, were it not for Baumgartner's sincerity.

Perhaps the best example is when Baumgartner represents Austria in a youth tournament in The Netherlands. The team travels by train, stays in a nice hotel, and has a lovely time mixing with the players from the other nations, even if they can't understand each other. It doesn't even matter too much that the Austrians get knocked out of the tournament early by England - the experience was worthwhile for its novelty, and for the opportunity of pitting yourself against Europe's best, and finding out that you still have a long way to go to improve. Baumgartner is clearly appreciative of the opportunity to experience what he has.

(as an aside, I'm reminded here of Danny Kelly from Christos Tsiolkas' novel Barracuda, who when competing at an international swimming meet in Japan, feels a palpable sense of awe and wonder at the experience of international travel that his wealthier, yet more insular teammates, do not)

Later when he's secured a senior team position at FK Austria, there are also tours of South America, where cross-national bonhomie and the exoticism of touring compete with the very obvious signs of grinding poverty he encounters in Latin America.

But there's also the Australian tours, and it's these which eventually lead to Baumgartner and players of his ilk migrating to Australia permanently, in order to play for clubs like Sydney's Prague and Hakoah clubs. This leads to the mess of Australia being kicked out of FIFA for not paying transfers to the European clubs, an issue which Baumgartner largely ignores in this book. But the imports at least bring advanced tactics, better preparation (to a degree) and skill to Australia, as well as boosting crowds.

Baumgartner plays for a variety of clubs and undertakes a variety of roles, though he never settles at one club for too long even if they've had success. When playing for Prague, Baumgartner notes the lack of overall professionalism from his mostly European teammates. At Canterbury, he manages to elevate and guide a young, Australian-born/raised cohort (including players such as Johnny Warren) to unexpected success, but he doesn't stay for long here either, moving to South Coast for what turns out to be a short stint due to pressing personal money problems. (it's annoying that he doesn't talk much about his and his family's life - and their adjustment to Australia - away from football)

Moving back to Sydney to play for APIA - with whose fans he's had a combative relationship - the fun times don't last long here either. Baumgartner once more unwillingly gets drawn into board squabbles. Indeed, Baumgartner doesn't think very much of the supposed soccer knowledge of club administrators, especially from the ethnic clubs; but he doesn't spare the shambling incompetence of federation officials either, especially when it comes to organising the basics such as competent youth training.

In amid the banquets, the barbecues, and the assorted social gatherings, it may well be that Baumgartner himself is not quite the easy going character he likes to portray himself as. He clearly has a low patience threshold for the various characters involved in Australian soccer, perhaps with good reason, but it's also clear that at some point people cease to listen to him. Like a smattering of voices of the time, Baumgartner believes that the late 1950s/early 1960s standard in Sydney was much better than that of the late 1960s, suggesting already that there was a downturn in Australian soccer - but also that no one seemed particularly keen to take the necessary action to arrest that decline.

Thus a book that begins so full of naivety and hope, ends with the sobering warning that Australian soccer in the late 1960s is already on the brink of difficult times. It's a bit of a let-down then that the book doesn't go beyond the 1960s, as Baumgartner remained engaged in soccer in various guises for the rest of his life, especially coaching junior soccer, and it would've been interesting to see him explain.

The lasting impact of this book is a strange one - the cultural memory of the culture that this book talks about is gone. Many of the clubs are dead; even the strongest of those that remain are a mere shadow of what they were. It's not even a matter of immediate relevance - but if a modern Australian soccer fan was asked about this time in Australian soccer (and specifically in Sydney), there will be little to no knowledge of this era. Baumgartner is not just an ancient figure in Australian soccer terms, but also an increasingly obscure one.

It's incongruous to an extent because soccer in this era – especially important games – was very well attended. Thousands packed suburban grounds and chaired off winning teams; and now, it’s like it never happened. Even between this period and the start of the A-League, it’s arguable that something culturally important was already lost. But did that short-lived period of optimism and ascendancy in Australian soccer last long enough? Or was it the fact that much of the experience remains sequestered what are now redundant languages and cultures?

It's possible to argue that had two Baumgartner admirers - Johnny Warren and Les Murray - not been at the forefront of Australia's soccer media for as long as they were, that the cultural memory of Baumgartner and what he brought to Australian soccer may have faded even earlier than it did.

While I have noted that the book is long out of print, you can download a sneaky scanned copy here.