Showing posts with label Chris Egan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Egan. Show all posts

Saturday, 14 May 2016

Frustration - South Melbourne 0 Pascoe Vale 1

Even if I had said that according to the laws of probabilities we were due for a loss, and it doesn't negate the fact that losing still sucks, no matter how mcuh you psychologically prepare for it. Losses being comparatively rare nowadays compared to some of our worst periods during the post-NSL era doesn't make things any easier; on the contrary, it stings even more.

Are there good times to lose? Probably not, but there are better times to lose than any others, and most would take a loss here if it meant that mistakes were learned from for the important games coming up. Are there good ways to lose? Again, probably not, but one would probably prefer a side to go down fighting, against adversity or through sheer bad luck than have to put up with such a mediocre attempt to achieve what was expected of you when the situation was so much in our favour.

We had it all laid out for us. The indirect free kick for a back pass (which I maintain was a good call though I'm willing to allow for a different interpretation); the red card, which saw Pascoe Vale play with ten men for 70 minutes; and the penalty which had we scored would have likely seen us take all the points.

Instead the People's Champ run of penalty scores came to an end, and we spent the game reminiscing about how great the Palm Beach game was, sending in poor cross after poor cross, wasting corner after corner, and refusing to adjust tactically - especially not seeking to support the tightly marked Milos Lujic.

Even after that, there was the Pascoe Vale keeper dropping even innocuous efforts on goal, and yet we were seldom there to make the most of those opportunities. Indeed the longer the game went on, the less likely we looked like scoring.

Credit to Pascoe Vale, who played for a win even with only ten men, who looked more dangerous than we did and not just because they were counter attacking, but because their shots had some sort of venom and purpose to them. They also managed the clock brilliantly, using up as much time as the referee would allow.

For South only Nikola Roganovic in goal could be said to have had a good game, even if he didn't probably know much about how he made some of those saves. Every other outfielder, even those who came off the bench, generally failed to make an impact on the game. Whether it was just one of those days or the sign of a deeper malaise we'll see in the next month or so.

Next week
Green Gully away on Saturday, to complete the first half of the home and away season.

Stretched at the back 
Defender Luke Adams has been called up into the New Zealand squad for the upcoming OFC Nations Cup, which spans from late May until mid-June. One assumes he will be present at a pre-tournament camp before that, which could see him miss as many as three or four weeks. With Kristian Konstantinidis suffering from some sort of injury, it will be interesting to see how the side gets re-shuffled - especially in that crowded part of the schedule where we have cup matches to play as well.

Nick Maikoussis farewelling the NPL, as South prepares to enter A-League
Willing and able (so long Stinktown!)
South Melbourne director Nick Maikoussis was a guest on the Mark van Aken hosted Daily Football podcast, making the case for South 's ambitions to the enter the A-League. Now before anybody gets upset (just wait a second, you'll get your chance), this was not as I understand it a South initiated burst of attention seeking, but rather part of a weekly series where this podcast looks at those who may be interested in putting their hand up for A-League licences should the opportunity to apply for them ever come up again.

For those who listened in (not me), the things that stood out from this discussion were the claim we would get an average crowd of 12,000(!), calling ourselves a franchise (which lead to the chant on Friday 'we're just another franchise'), and describing the NPL as a lifeless competition - which while certainly arguable, is interesting to hear from a director of the club who has to sell the league and our club's role in it to sponsors and such. Still, credit to Maikoussis for taking off some of the PR filters I suppose.

Anger is a gift (but keep the receipt just in case)
So the one-time capo of the one-time leading Melbourne Victory terrace group Blue and White Brigade - one Adam 'Tunna' Tennenini - earned the ire of South fans and assorted well-wishers (and he'll note that not all of them were Greek) on Friday by unleashing a pretty full on tirade on Facebook in response to the latest bout of discussion on South's A-League ambitions.

(And before we continue, I'd like to say that I understand where he's coming from even if I disagree with his reasoning, but he's really going about this the wrong way by giving into base emotion, instead of attempting to rise above it all)

The tirade - displayed here - was eventually deleted, but the internet being what it is, there was little chance that the screen-grab was going to disappear into the aether (update/correction - it has come to my attention that the post was made on Tennenini's 'private' Facebook, and that the post still exists there - nevertheless, the point that once something has been published on the net, it never really dies, still stands - something which we should all keep in mind. Tennenini has also claimed since that it was a private joke intended to wind up some of his Greek mates, a claim which had begun circulating several days ago, but one which people are rightly skeptical of, including myself.)

Now unlike some others who displayed genuine outrage, faux outrage, fauxrage and 'I can't believe it's not outrage!', I was neither surprised nor disappointed by Tennenini's comments, as they are in line with his beliefs on these matters stretching back a number of years - though I've always wondered if there's been some sort of personal slight he's suffered at the hands of South to come up with nonsense about us being an unrepentant mono-ethnic club hiding in plain sight, with only people like him being able to see the 'lizard people' interior beneath our human skin.

Because of that, I decided instead to provide a series of increasingly monotonous and unfunny tweets on the matter while killing time on the train on the way to a hipster burger joint on Clarendon Street.
Your correspondent did (eventually) manage to note the irony of Tennenini actually having participated in the self-evidently mono-ethnic Hellenic Cup for Essendon United back in 2010, including having played against that The Great Satan of Australian Soccer. Seems like his principles have their limits, or perhaps he reasoned that being a team-player was more important that night.

Still, in amid the mostly pointless mud-slinging of both sides, it was well spotted (by SMFCMike) that Tennenini is a currently serving referee, even having recently refereed NPL under 18s matches; meaning that Tennenini could be in contention to officiate games involving clubs that he believes, if we are to take the relevant post as reflecting his most honest opinion, shouldn't exist in Australian soccer.

While one would be very reticent to allege these views would ever find their way into being enacted into his refereeing duties - and having marshaled at matches Tennenini has played in at the Corporate Games several years ago, his teams were among the best behaved and organised - it's still an astounding thing to say for a referee, especially one with the profile he has gained over the past decade.

Many of the protestations fell into the usual tropes of bitter vs new dawn, although some were more sensible and flavoured with the personal touch of those involved with South who are not Greek, and at least got closer to the heart of the matter (even if indirectly); that just because some people have an idea that clubs like South still act like they're in 1959, the reality is far from that; and besides which, shouldn't clubs be allowed to change and evolved over time anyway? (and isn't that inevitable?)
Though Umberto Eco notes in his essay on 'inventing the enemy' that these ways of understanding are ‘the prerogative of poets, saints or traitors’.

To be honest, rather than the broad thrust of Tennenini's argument, I'm most interested in just one of his remarks - that on his being willing to abandon the A-League should 'Hellas or any mono-ethnic club' return to the A-League, with the further assertion that many others would also do the same.

This is an argument which I have not seen made, and certainly not so vociferously, for a long time - and even back then it was my perception that it was never that widespread even in its heyday of the earliest years of the A-League. What's strangest about making such a boast is that in all likelihood there will never be a time where we will be able test this theory out in a practical sense. (those of you who think South's entry to the A-League is as good as imminent or inevitable can just skip along a few paragraphs).

Through various practical machinations and ideological mutterings, it has been made fairly clear by FFA that South Melbourne is not destined to ever be an A-League team. Because of this near irrefutable fact - prove me wrong, uncaring universe - bleatings like Tennenini's promising to abandon the A-League and Australian soccer are at best postured idle threats, and at worst postured caricatures of forum discussions from 2005. One could of course be tempted to wade in and take down each argument one by one, but the arguments have so little relevance to the way most people go about following and talking about Australian soccer that they come across as quaint.

It does say something though for the insecurity which still persists among some followers of the A-League, that even eleven years down the track and with all that's passed, there are people who still think it's worthwhile to get angry at this stuff! Still, it would be interesting to find out how widespread this point of view is - and how willing those who hold this belief would be willing to act upon it. Indeed I noted, only half-joking that,
Though the internet's own 'jgrb' did make the salient point that,
Now the question then becomes how would one go about enacting this experiment? Suggestions are most welcome, as the best that I could come up with was an idea so ludicrous you'd need another set of A-League franchise owners as well as another Australian soccer TV deal to make it happen.

As to the consequences, well, one could only hypothesise as to how these things may turn out. My preference would be for someone much more more talented than me to write some speculative fiction on the matter; I'd do it, but I'd be too torn between writing something vaguely plausible, and something that would see Australian soccer suffer the same fate as the Montsou mine after Emile Zola's anarchist Souvarine blows it up because he thinks that only by starting from scratch (and by that I mean really starting from scratch, not the comparative half-asred A-League re-boot) can we have any chance of setting up a proper and just society.

Don't mind me, I've just been reading some work by that nihilist romantic Chuck Pahlaniuk.

The eternal battle for street cred (let's not end up back at Kappa snap pants)
Old chum Chris Egan wrote a piece on last week's ROY HAY'S ORIGINAL MELBOURNE DERBY, which sent the blood flowing to the groinal area of Knights fans and upset some South people. But what was the main point of discontent? Egan's description of South fans being middle class by virtue of being snappier dressers. Some people thought that broadly speaking we were just as scungy as Knights fans. Not that I want to start a bad fashion arms race or anything.

Attention Lou Z! (re: match programmes)
You sent me an email a couple of weeks back about lending me some match programmes for the purposes of scanning. Unfortunately, when I tried to reply, I got a 'postmaster fail' message. If you could either send me the same email from a different email address, or come see me at a game, I'm sure we could arrange something. Cheers.

Moreland vs Hakoah, Dockerty Cup, 1956 (a historical digression)
I went to ACMI on Wednesday to see a short archival film, called 'Australian Notebook No. 3'. The first part of this newsreel (which had no sound, even on the original film), contained a demonstration of fly fishing; the second part contained a segment on a pilot returning to Essendon Airport having flown non-stop from Fiji; and the third part contained footage of a soccer match.

The soccer match was between Moreland and Hakoah, playing in the semi-finals of the 1956 Dockerty Cup. The game finished 1-1, with Hakoah winning the replay. The footage of the soccer match, which went for about two minutes, showed the two teams entering the stadium, with action mostly from one end (mostly scrappy play and lofted balls) and some crowd shots. The footage was of surprisingly good quality - it had been digitised from degraded 16mm stock, but there are also other better copies from which one could get even better quality conversion.

Unfortunately getting the film out to the wider public, especially online, is very unlikely. While anyone can access the film at ACMI's Mediatheque facility, the copyright of the film is such that there's very little chance of it being put online on either ACMI's or the National Film and Sound Archive's online channels. In copyright terms, the film is classified as an 'orphan' - there are no details about how the film was sourced, let alone which company could possibly be classed as owning the rights to the film.

The best we could probably hope for is to get a limited licence on behalf of the FFV Historical Committee (of which I am a member), which would allow us to use the film for private use. Nevertheless it was a delight to see the film, especially because the game was played at the Showgrounds, and I can't imagine there'd be much footage from soccer matches played there; there is also the novelty of seeing Victorian soccer of that era on film in any capacity.

Final thought
I lost my USB key - here's hoping that someone has handed it in to my university's lost and found, because it has most of my work on it. :(

First update - I think I remember now where I saw it last.

Second update - found with the help of an Adelaide City supporting security guard.

Post-script
Several people noted on Friday night that Kosta and Blue Thunder security were no longer in charge of security at Lakeside. While some folks noted that perhaps our poor performance was due to some sort of curse was placed on the club by Kosta, it's only on this Sunday morning that this writer remembers that Kosta was a former Pascoe Vale player...

Sunday, 7 February 2016

The 3/4 serious stuff starts this week

So, South played two games in Sydney over the weekend. We drew 0-0 with Olympic on Friday, and because there was some sort of cup on the line, we had a penalty shoot-out which we lost. Matthew Foschini and Philtzgerald Mbaka missed and/or had their shots saved. This afternoon, we played on a synthetic pitch against Sutherland Sharks, and lost 2-0. No Milos Lujic on this trip, which may or may not back up the claims of those who think that we're going to be a one trick monkey when it comes to scoring goals this season. I think Friday night's Community Shield game against Bentleigh will be more indicative of the season to come.

Player movement news
Jake Barker-Daish is officially no longer a South player. Though he was not at South at all during pre-season, no had bothered to make note of his exact status. He's ended up signing for Richmond it seems.

AGM news but not really, we'll see I guess
More historical artefact goodness than you can a poke stick at
Super thanks to The Agitator, with whose help we've added heaps more match programmes spanning the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, almost completing several 1990s seasons. The seasons from 1977 onwards in which we have no match programmes at all uploaded on the blog are:
  • 1977
  • 1978
  • 1982
  • 1987
  • 1989/90
  • 2009
  • 2012
  • 2013
Which I am sure we will rectify as time goes on, especially once I start meeting up with people during the season proper.

Thanks to a combination of The Agitator's efforts, as well as a visit by Chris Egan, we've been able to upload every match programme where Perth Glory hosted South Melbourne, Though South had a rotten record in Perth, these programmes are worth a look for their density, professional presentation and overall glossiness, especially in the latter years. There's also some new stuff under the 'library' tab, including:

  • Two Melbourne Knights programmes from their 1995 Japan tour.
  • 1977 and 1978 VSF yearbooks,
  • A companion to The Score fanzine from the Iran game.
  • An ASF newsletter from May 1995.
  • 1994/95 NSL preview booklet put out by the ASF.
  • Eastern Lions 40th anniversary booklet (via Mark Boric)
In time, I hope to add the Studs Up collection we're hosting here - which is currently limited to what's available from OzFootball's sources - as well add match programmes from Australian national team matches. I also still have four VSF yearbooks to scan and upload.

Wednesday, 10 June 2015

Six years since my last 'old' Classico

This is a guest post by Perth Glory fan Chris Egan, who was at the game last week. Six years ago, Chris wrote this piece after seeing this game.

There was Mark Viduka, lines that stretched back to Clarendon Street for souvlakis and a game that continues to hold traction for a sad and dejected lover of Perth Glory.

The images and sounds were heightened, the same 'against modern football' signs I saw in '09 were back. The men behind them saw the purple scarf of my fellow Glory fan and expressed a somewhat passionate outrage for modern football, which is defined within our colours. Our club brought modern football and it remains a source of antagonism to wear our colours in their vicinity. 'What are you doing wearing a Glory scarf, they are not even playing'. As we were in the souvlaki line, Victory and Western Bulldogs fans mentioned the special attention that purple scarf had over their fellow 'modern' football compatriots.

Our name and club has not been forgotten, nor have we forgotten the Knights. Part of the problem of the 2001 elimination final at Sunshine is that it blocks the other remits of our rivalry. The signing of Vinko Buljubasic as the Glory's first full time player before the 96/97 season was a sign that new football as private enterprises had the cash to splash that a members run club couldn't compete with. There are many elements of the rivalry, not just those three fingers of Bobby Despotovski.

I still see the envy in my mates eyes when I can recount our dominance in Perth over Hellas, which stops it being a rivalry of any significance. However it remains the largest 'official' crowd to be played at Perth Oval in 1998 when 18,067 pack into the ground. There are credible murmurs that some games in the late 90s were pushing crowds into the 20-25,000. Even with a tantalising match up with Perth Glory to think of, this game had no other team I could barrack for. In a rivalry that goes back to December 1996 when the WA media excitedly declared the Glory 'WA's' team with a last minute goal against Melbourne Croatia or the outrage the Knights had over Tana calling Sunshine a 'cow paddock' before the last game of the 1996/97 season. I was South Melbourne for a night. It had nothing to do with anti-Croatian sentiment.

Now I have defined my support of South Melbourne as not about being anti-Croatian, the game was of top standard and reminded me of the old Freo derby. No longer the most dominant and biggest teams in town, but it still holds meaning. Beating the other team is more than just three points. This was about pride and history of being the biggest and best team in Melbourne a rivalry that etches along from the period of history. Four red cards, an all in punch up, reports of flares prior to the game. The clubs are pariahs of Australian football. Not modern or corporate enough for the Lowy machine that brought in the Glory in 1996.

I have seen a drastic transformation in culture of the 'old Classico'. The crowd on Friday night was double what I saw on a cold Sunday in June '09, the rivalry much more fierce. Indeed, as the second goal fired in off the post the man in the next row excitedly pronounced 'That is South Melbourne' to his younger colleagues as he leaped with excitement. Four words said in passion which define the resistance and power of the club in 2015. Words that were not heard of in '09 as the struggles of adjusting to a new league was heartfelt.

However, tonight in 2015 I see a club finding its identity, accepting its path forward and seeking out national representation in the FFA Cup. For myself, the six years have past and my club is still in crisis, still direction-less and still unable to process its movement away from the top dog status it used to have. The passion and culture of the 'old' Classico is drastically different to the feeling of hopelessness of our situation out west. An owner who doesn't care contrasts sharply with these community clubs that so many people still care about and if they had not they would no longer exist. 

My fellow football fans, the six years have shown that the old Classico has grown in prestige and passion. The pessimism of the past has been driven to acceptance. For my club, the six years have driven more fans away, caused more anguish and it was only a few months ago our club had the blackest day in its history. We are now the problem child of modern football...

Sunday, 19 October 2014

Off-season digressions - WNBL: Dandenong Rangers vs Melbourne Boomers

Towards the beginning of the year, or maybe some time in March, a friend of a friend's grandfather had died, and thus a discounted general admission ticket became available for a Melbourne Tigers game against the Adelaide 36ers, which I was able to take advantage of. Now the usual thing for me to do following attendance at such an event would be to write about it, especially because it was my first time at the basketball - but because of the hectic approach of the 2014 season, that never came to pass, though quite why I never wrote about the experience at all, with the intention of putting up in the following off-season I'm not sure. It still might happen at some point, though I can't really remember any of it too clearly. Maybe a eulogistic piece on the death of the Tigers is needed.

All of which is a roundabout of saying that my attendance at yesterday's WNBL fixture between the Dandenong Rangers and Melbourne Boomers was not the first time I'd ever been to the basketball, though it wasof course the first time I'd been to a women's basketball match. How did I end up at this game? Because fellow Australia soccer historian Chris Egan was in Melbourne for business, and as usual the thing to do was to find a 'random' Melbourne sporting event to go to. With the baseball not in town until next month, and Chris not wanting to go to the national volleyball league fixture being played out at St Albans, because it would clash with the A-League, we decided on women's basketball.

So after a trip to Laverton Market, because Chris wanted to see the real Melbourne and venture as far as away as possible from the World's Most Liveable City garbage, we made it to Dandenong Stadium, the home of the Rangers.
The stadium complex is fairly impressive, including the main arena itself - though I did find it curious that as the Rangers game was taking place, there were several simultaneous games taking place on the many other courts in the building. Also strange to see that the pennants for the Rangers' men's team seemed to be larger than women's WNBL titles at the opposite end of the arena. After initially entering via the side of the arena with the cheap seats, we made our way to the other side, with the proper fold out seating. These were located above small corporate booths, mostly filled out by Jayco employees and/or franchisees, the Rangers' major sponsor.

The game itself - part of the Michelle Timms Cup, played between the two teams over the course of the season - was a bit of a disappointment. The Boomers were appalling defensively, and while they managed to get the early deficit back to six points, the lack of an inside presence in particular (but what would I know?) seeing them fall further and further behind. For their part Dandenong weren't that crash hot, but did what they needed to do. Some of their shooting could have been better, but the US import Cappie_Pondexter was impressive, as was the range of scoring options at the Rangers' disposal.

All things considered, the actual match day presentation of the game was of a very high standard. There was a mascot, and the volunteers, announcer, scoreboards and court presentation were all of a good standard, and even though I find the entire concept of a 'matchday experience' anathema - just let the game be the centrepiece and all that - this was less offensive to me than usual. The national anthem being played before the game reminded of the NSL - I'm not sure if they do this for every game, or just for this, the opening home game of the Rangers' season.

The crowd itself was into the game, but there was a definite lack of nutjob, over the top style supporters, maybe two or three for the home team and one for the visitors. Chris noted that the gender balance of the crowd was fairly even, which would be an interesting phenomenon to analyse alongside the probably very female dominated netball crowds, which in Melbourne at least seem to be very healthy nowadays compared to the small crowd at Dandenong Stadium. Perhaps a comparison with the demographics of W-League crowds would be more useful? Hell, maybe just a study of why some women and girls choose to play basketball over netball would be interesting.

What was most fascinating was simply this: the experience of watching how a second tier sporting club by the standards of women's sport - if one counts swimming and netball as top tier in comparison - operates a national league team of any sort, ostensibly out of the working class outer south eastern suburbs. Something interesting going on there.

A better apology than the one Phil Moss dished up/South of the Border public transport saga nos. 562 and 563
Then this happened, and there was really nothing more that needed to be said about yesterday's adventures.
Though people did of course keep saying things - but that's democracy for ya.

Monday, 11 February 2013

Bourgeois Anthropology - Middle Class Handwringing Edition

It's funny, you live in the universe, but you never do these things until someone comes to visit
Still waiting for South action, and thus I made my debut appearances at the water polo and international cricket in the one weekend. My old Perth Glory supporting mate Chris Egan was in town last week. So that meant taking a chance that the world hadn't succumbed to nuclear apocalypse since the end of the last VPL season, and actually going outside and doing things. I managed to live to tell the tale - but only just. So think of this entry as a variation of last year's tennis escapade.

Water Polo at Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre
The UWA Torpedoes (men's and women's teams) were in town to take on the Victoria Tigers. I'm not quite sure what person thought that a tiger would be the best mascot for an aquatic sports team. The Tigers won both matches, the men's game a little more comfortably then the women's, but neither match was a blowout.

Anyway, it's quite a nice little set up they have going there at MSAC. Shot clocks, sponsor boards, scoreboard. I could have done without the continuous commentary though. I wouldn't have minded elaboration on scorers and ejections, but the rest seemed superfluous. They had a match program, and in retrospect I should have picked one up. Gold coin donation seemed fair. The team and player intros included bizarre clapping ceremony.

As for the sport of water polo itself, I'm sure it's a hell of a lot of fun to play for the participants, but like my opinion of field hockey, I reckon it's just another inferior version of soccer. There's a very limited range of scoring methods, and limited ways of moving the ball. Still, the fast breaks and bounced shots were exciting to watch, the constant minor fouls not so much.

Perhaps it would have been more exciting with some flares and ethnic tension. But then again, wouldn't everything?

I also learned that former Fremantle Dockers coach Gerard Neesham - and his water polo background - is the progenitor of flooding in Australian rules football. There's something for Steven Alomes to follow up on.

Paisley Park Prattle
Trundled over to see Altona East's seniors and ressies in their first friendlies for the season. Ressie lost to Melbourne University 9-0, so some work to do there. The seniors won 2 or 3 nil, I wasn't paying that much attention. Found out how Andrew Nabbout got the call up to Melbourne Victory ahead of several other possible. No disrespect to Nabbout, but it appears there's serious issues with talent identification in Australian soccer.

Prior To Yesterday
My only experiences of watching cricket live in the flesh - apart from seeing the odd ball bowled while my train was stopped was at South Kensington station on a summer Saturday - was at some regional junior representative match, and one day's play of Carlton's fourths against Footscray fourths at Tony Dodemaide Oval. So even though I know rules, histories, players and all the other hoopla, this experience was new to me.

Embracing Your Inner Billboard
Mike Hussey cardboard sheets sponsored by a bank. A tea break on field dance session sponsored by a brewer. Faux watermelon hats sponsored by a telecommunications company. And best of all, said telco handing out free clip on radios which were able to access either the ABC's and Channel Nine's commentary. Which was hilarious considering that outside the ground another variation of said radio was being sold at $20 a pop.

Future NFL Hall of Famers
Commiserations to New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who almost made it to the end of the match without getting kicked out. After having thrown an American football three times from the bottom of M10 - including one which smashed into the signage on the second deck - he wandered back to his seat as if nothing had happened. A little bit later on, it looked like he'd been escorted out, only to return a few minutes later.

As blokes were being thrown out left, right and centre, our group was wondering how the hell Brady was still in the venue. Later on during the evening, he moved around to the bottom of section M8 or M9 and threw the ball again, after posing with the ball for about half a minute. Eventually, his luck ran out, somewhat amazingly after he had taken off his jersey and tried to go incognito. It took until 10:15 for the Old Bill to finally get rid of him for good - perhaps they were waiting for Brady's mate Brian Urlacher to get out of the picture.

Fat Kid Messenger Services
One of the two off-field highlights was the use of a fat kid for the purposes of picking up chicks. Some blokes from the front row sent this kid to pass on a message to an attractive woman about 20 rows back. Kid became an instant legend.

Footy's Almost Back!
The roll call of footy jumpers I saw.
  • 1x St Kilda
  • 1x Footscray
  • 1x Collingwood, heading back towards Flinders Street before the match.
  • 1x Geelong, with matching shorts.
  • 1x Essendon - as soon as he appeared in M11, the 'Essendon are drug cheats' chant started.
  • 1x Sydney, dressed as Warwick Capper, including shorts which left nothing to the imagination.
Kostume Kapers
For some reason the marketing gurus at Cricket Australia thought it would be a good idea to encourage people to dress up in costumes, because goodness knows it's not the like actual game matters in any way. There were some good efforts, but where I was sitting, it seemed like an extra reason to get drunk for most of those people. Some of the more notable efforts in our vicinity included:
  • Warwick Capper - see above.
  • Spiderman - when not drinking, he spent a good portion of the match performing an incredibly annoying dance, trying ever so hard to get on camera. He succeeded.
  • A wizard, but not Gandalf or Harry Potter related.
  • About 5-6 blokes dressed in Jamaican bobsled outfits ala the film Cool Runnings, but sadly without anyone in the role of John Candy.
  • Some bloke wearing a pretty crap wedding dress.
  • Wonder Woman - perhaps unusually (considering the usual demographic of nerd dress up shenanigans), she was actually a woman.
  • Bananas in Pyjamas
  • The bloke in an obviously very hot and sweaty panda suit, on whose face one could read a ton of regret about wearing that suit on such a warm day.
Sneaky Sound System
Still going, still crap.

Pitch Invasions
Just the one individual. Tried to take on security, did not get far.

Strippers!
One bloke stripped down to nothing. He got turfed out. Later on, one bloke thought he'd be a bit of smartarse, and started having a go at two of the female coppers as they were going back up the stairs, by beginning a slow and sleazy striptease routine. Unfortunately for him, the most veteran police offer on duty came up from behind and grabbed his arms as he was about to lose his jacket - and the beauty of it was that everyone saw it coming but him. Even I had to laugh at that.

Western Australians
Along with Chris, I was with several other Perth Glory fans at this match. I hope no one mistook me for a Western Australian while they went off their nut every time a Western Australian player did anything. They were quite excited by Adam Voges' maiden international century. I liked Johnson Charles' equivalent effort a little better, but at that stage not many people were watching.

The Actual Match
In the sections we were in, the on field contest seemed incidental. You read newspaper reports about the bad behaviour, but it's worth getting a look at it first hand. As a newbie from a soccer background, several things struck me as significant.

I never realised how boring this game is.
Firstly, the way the rowdy patrons actually put some effort into getting thrown out was fascinating, like they were actually aiming for that result. They drink a lot and drink quickly (one group enjoyed smashing the empty plastic cups against each other's faces). The attempt to curtail the drinking culture by not opening the bars (or food) outlets on the bottom of the lower deck did not work at all. One bloke near me (whose mates had already been thrown out) threw an empty Pringles cylinder, and then followed it up with an empty Coke bottle. He tried to feign ignorance but it was no use, and he didn't put up much of a fight when he got spotted and asked to leave. I wonder if he and others like him will get charged the $563 on the spot fine for throwing items.

The second thing was how little fight most people - including bystanders - put up in trying to avoid being evicted. If that happened in a soccer crowd, I can easily imagine other people quickly becoming involved out of a sense of camaraderie. Here, while not dobbing in their fellow supporters, most seemed perfectly willing to let them be evicted. Indeed the well known chant 'you're going home in the back of a divvy van' seemed to undermine the notion that someone tried to put forward yesterday, that the performance of disobedience was an indicator of Australians' natural distrust and dislike of authority.

Thirdly, the different reactions of the police and security. The police seemed to laugh a lot of the incidents off. The security seemed to take more of an interest in trying to control matters, though that may have been because they tended to be targeted more by the antics of the fans. As the night wore on, so did the frequency of people getting booted out, with scarcely a ten minute period going by without one or more people being escorted out.

I can see why certain people want to get rid of this format of the game. Eight hours of meaningless play, low crowds, attracting mostly people who see it as an opportunity to get tanked. But it was good to get to a game. Unfortunately, cricket is a game in the wrong era. It's not suited to a culture that lacks patience and has no time for it anyway. Attempts to convince its constituents otherwise, by speeding up the game and taking every semblance of nuance out of it, just seem pathetic to me. They might as well convert to baseball.

Thursday, 29 November 2012

Worlds of Football Conference 2012

Here it is, finally, a little late, no pictures (I'm sorry, I just couldn't be bothered), but finished.

The conference's theme this time around was 'Heritage, Communities and Cultures'. Of course, within the scope of that topic there was much wriggle room, but the narrowness of some of the papers, principally the AFL club related selections, left me cold. However, there were several worthwhile papers also given, and some good rapport had with the other delegates. My handwritten, notes, where I took them, are pretty crappy, and thus this rundown will not be as good as my notes on the previous conference. The further on you go, the more likely these notes will also suffer from the exhaustion of the long and crowded schedule.

 

DAY 1 - MCG / Hans Ebeling Room
First up was the keynote address by Kevin Moore, from England's National Football Museum. How do you create a museum for the entirety of the game, in a nation that has such fervour for the game? It's not easy. But Kevin Moore says you start off by not targeting it at die hard football fans, because they'll turn up anyway.

Because you see football as part of broader society, you don't try and gloss over all the negatives in the game's history, including the stadium tragedies, the violence, racism, misogyny and homophobia, no matter how distasteful these issues are to some. You provide an outlet for people to create and provide their own memories, within reason.

You do not make yourself the be all and end all of historical preservation. You work with local communities to find ways of preserving local history locally, and only step in to preserve history as a last resort. You try and tell stories, not just provide facts and figures. You recognise the importance of topophilia, but you do not become a slave to it, in part because football topophilia can be expressed in several ways.

In summary, Kevin Moore provided a very interesting look at the development of the National Football Museum, from its beginnings in Preston to its move to Manchester. Moore talked about the difficulties in securing funding, the fact that there is no national sports museum in England, and that the museum in some ways has to compete against Premier League club museums, which seek to tell a very different, hagiographic story, and which are often not standalone enterprises, but part of the 'stadium experience'.

An Aside
One of the people attending the conference, though he wasn't presenting a paper, was Ian Kerr. Kerr is trying to start a new higher-brow football journal called The Thin White Line- think The Blizzard, but with an Australian bias. He's currently trying to get edition zero up and going. Kerr has a background of working in trade magazines and publishing, and he seems to have a pretty good grasp on the kind of content he wants. So if you're interested in contributing something to this publication, do give him a buzz. I might end up doing something for it, if I can deviate from my decidedly middle of the road approach.


DAY 2 - MCG / Jim Stynes Room
Day 2 began with a panel discussion, featuring Helen Walpole from the National Sports Museum, Gregor McCaskie from the Essendon Football Club Hall of Fame, and the aforementioned Kevin Moore.

Walpole talked about the National Sports Museum's collection, which told us something we could probably guess by ourselves - that cricket, Australian Rules and the Olympics are at the forefront of their collections. That's understandable, but I think it presents a particular problem to that museum in that it will then struggle to deal with the other stories that Australian sport has. As someone who likes to talk about the parallel existence of soccer in Australia, this concerns me. Then again, the game itself has to learn to take better care of its own history.

I think Essendon Hall of Fame curator McCaskie talked about the difference (as did Kevin Moore) between Hall of Fame setups and museums, in that the latter term should be a protected one, to avoid confusion between educational efforts and self-promoting ones. McCaskie also reflected on how people are fallible. Memory is faulty, reputations whitewashed.

Then it was time to move into some of the papers.

Deb Agnew looked at the issues the SANFL had with youth retention. She was mostly focusing on boys participation, and the reasons behind the stable but unchanging participation numbers. Surveys were conducted across several clubs, both country and city, about what lead to players staying or dropping out. While players often responded that umpiring was a major bugbear, injuries were far more important in seeing players leave the game, especially as they made the transition from junior football to senior football.

I was interested to learn that Australian rules clubs in South Australia are restricted to having 28 players on their list, at every competitive age group. It was also interesting to see that the AFL youth program Auskick had almost zero impact on influencing South Australian participants from taking up the sport at older age levels. The fact that the numbers were stagnant was not elaborated on to a great degree.

Part of the problem with state specific football papers, is that each state is different enough historically and culturally, that it is difficult to conduct meaningful comparative work, let alone decide which state should be used a 'control' sample. How we as Australian sports academics get around this is something that needs to be worked on.

Ian Cunningham's presentation was on communication and sports officiating - 'developing a feel for the game'. That kind of thing is a pretty nebulous concept as far as I'm concerned. Cunningham looked at officiating and player reactions to officiating in several different sports. Nor surprisingly, there seemed to be a general trend among player respondents that they preferred a free flowing contest. There was analysis of hand gestures, body language and use of verbal language - apparently six word explanations of decisions work best in that environment.

I thought there could have been greater depth to the presentation. While Cunningham managed to answer most of the questions thrown at him adequately, he didn't have an answer for my question about whether there was a difference in player views between sports like rugby union, where only the captain can speak to the official, and sports like soccer, where every man and his dog feel like they have a license to harass the referee.To his credit, Cunningham acknowledged that was something he should probably follow up on.

While having a chat with him during a break in proceedings, neither of us was able to find an answer as to why players felt that referees needed to have played the game to understand it, while players who had never officiated a match felt they had enough authority to judge referees. One of those mysteries of life, I suppose, to be put alongside while male sports reporters who have no high level experience are more qualified to cover sport than their female equivalents.

Deb Agnew presented a paper that was very much a follow up to her presentation at the previous conference, on the difficulties faced by AFL footballers upon retirement. In that sense, there was little new information that was provided, but the vox pops from the player interviews were still interesting.

Peter Ochieng presented one of the more surprising papers at the previous conference, in attempting to rescue the bad reputation of player agents and managers, by emphasising how important good agents were to a healthy footballer marketplace, especially for African players. This time around he sought to find a method of identifying what separates African Cup of Nations winners, from African Cup of Nations losers. Using data based around resources allocated to football - professional players, clubs, stadiums etc - he used statistical techniques beyond my understanding to try and find impartial rationales for why some countries were successful, and why some weren't.

While not initially being super impressed by the outcomes and methodology, I at least was able to see that his data was important, and that his use of that data was probably sound. But now I'm not so sure. I'm not satisfied with how he couldn't really find a way to accommodate Egypt into the frame, considering their relatively low level of achievement on the resources scaled compared with their very highly successful tournament participation. Nor was I happy with his explanation of why South Africa had failed so miserably as a footballing nation over the last decade or so. And there was no correlation given to the difference in results (if they exist) for World Cup qualifying as compared to African Cup of Nations qualifying, complicated as that is by them being often lumped in together as part of the same process.

Shane Pill provided one of the more curious presentations, on Australian rules football in the USA from 1910-13. What could have been another out and out propaganda piece was actually rooted in solid scholarship, and told an interesting story to boot. It seems that Australian rules had gained some sort of traction among a segment of the private school system in parts of the United States, but that World War 1 and the rise of college football (of the American variety) put a stop to it. I think Pill overestimates how much traction Australian rules had actually made in the US (I'm not sure if that was his intention, but that's how it came across to me), but it was an interesting presentation nonetheless.

Matthew Klugman presented a paper he had worked on with Francesco Ricatti, who was absent from the conference. The fancy name for the paper was Connected to Something: Soccer as a Site of Transnational Passions, Memories, Communities for Italian Migrants. The actual presentation focused on Sydney's Italian soccer community, and their relationships to their major clubs, APIA Leichhardt and Marconi Fairfield.

This was one of the standout papers, not just because it was right up my alley thematically, but also because it tackled a lot of the myths and assumptions about Italian soccer in Australia, as well the myths of the transition from NSL to A-League.

The Italian politics of North vs South did not feature heavily in the presentation - if anything, the Sydney issues of inner city (APIA) vs outer suburbs (Marconi) were more important to the way the supporters of these two clubs viewed themselves and each other.

The paper looked at what many 'bitter' Australian soccer fans still refuse to acknowledge - that the affinity people had for these clubs was situational, and bound to be temporary at the first sign of trouble. Australian soccer is not unique in this regard, but the ethnic question serves to a provide a simultaneously dominant and obscuring narrative - one could easily make similar observations about the VFA, for example.

Despite the obvious passion and nostalgia of the interviewees, personal experience demanded that I ask two obvious questions:
  • How many of the people interviewed still attended APIA or Marconi matches?
  • If they didn't still attend matches, how did they reconcile their nostalgia and their view of themselves as supporters of those clubs, with their current lack of support by means of attendance?
The answer to the first question was, mostly no. That question was extraordinarily loaded (how partisan of me), but unavoidable. The answer to that second question was interesting, and revealing. The respondents seemed to think there was no conflict in their present attitudes with their previous behaviour.

What they disliked most was how the A-League and FFA had branded all of that era as either unimportant, or something to be wiped off the historical map. The respondents felt disrespected. Coming back to the state vs state issue, there were questions about Italian soccer supporters from Victoria and the fate of Brunswick Juventus, but not being within the scope of this presentation, it was an issue that remained unresolved.

One can easily project a similar study on Greek-Australian soccer fans bearing similar results, but there would have to be some divergence. After all, APIA dropped out of the NSL in the early 1990s, and Marconi crawled to the end of the NSL in terms of supporter numbers. In comparison, if you believe the data from that time, South Melbourne was apparently maintaining and increasing its spectator numbers

One would also have to analyse not just those supporters who left South because they made a distinction between 'Old NSL South' and 'Newborn VPL South', but also those who turned ideologically on the club.

Brian Moroney's paper on 'The UltraS of modern football' was interesting, if disconcerting. I'll admit that when it comes to the crunch, I don't really know squat about football ultras, let alone the one with a capital 'U' and a capital 'S'. Academic work on this more extreme faction of football support is thin on the ground, in large part because the UltraS are rightly wary of academics and journalists. So it was a fair effort for Moroney to be able to get the trust of members of Lazio's 'Irriducibili', especially considering he doesn't speak Italian.

It just so happens to be that the UltraS aren't just a football movement - they also have charitable and social wings. Moroney struggled to accommodate those noble causes against the driving ideological force behind these movements - violent fascism. Nor was he able to answer the question about how Livorno's left-wing supporters fit into this scene. But perhaps I'm the wrong person to be looking at this topic, since I abhor violence and fascism, and think that neither of these two things has any place at the football.

If you want to have a read of a version of Ian Syson's presentation, entitled 'The Calm and The Storm', just hit the link, and make up your own mind. He'll appreciate the hits, too. I will say however, that as with my earlier musings on Deb Agnew's paper on SANFL youth retention, the differences between states is something that will come up repeatedly for Syson as he continues this work. I think Syson is aware of this, but how to deal with the different stages of Australian (nee Victorian) rules expansion across the colonies? Was it undertaken as an evangelical crusade? Or was it more akin to a form colonisation? Does it have more of a sense of empire building? And how much do the code wars of our times get in the way of accurately assessing the equivalent issues from 100, 120 or 140 years ago? Something to ponder

Stephen Alomes is a bit of a lunatic - not that there's anything wrong with that. Given his reputation of being one of the AFL's/Aussie rules' most shameless propagandists, at least in academic circles, I was expecting the worst. Somewhat surprisingly, it took him a while to plumb those depths this time.

His presentation topic was on the aesthetic merits of Australian Rules football, and what to do about the rolling maul that threatens to suffocate the game. There were interesting points that Alomes (whose academic career seems to specialise in explorations of Australian nationalism) made about the notions of play, art and the agon, but all the potentially fascinating insights that could come out of such a discussion were undone by Alomes' starting point - that Australian Rules football is the best game in the world - and working back from there.

Alomes also heavily and unashamedly tried to plug his new book, which made the actual interesting parts of his presentation even more isolated. I'm still confused as to what purpose he thought there was in showing the audience his rather mediocre paintings of Australian rules football scenes were. The highlight came when academic and former 1960s Melbourne player Bob Stewart, asked Alomes when the 'golden age' of Australian Rules was supposed to have been, considering that Stewart had played in his fair share of games out there (pointing out to the MCG arena) where the ball struggled to leave the centre square, and had 36 blokes surrounding it.

It's fair to say that when Alomes says that Australian rules is the greatest game in the world, he's not on the same wavelength as many of the game's lay supporters who make that claim. The contradiction of Aussie rules is that, in its own mythology, it is and always has been the greatest game on earth; yet its rules have changed frequently, while at the same time these rule changes are bemoaned by the common man. Alomes suggests that the game needs more changes - restrictions on how many players can be around the ball, numbers on the field, no marks for kicks that go backwards. For someone who loathes the offside rule, these seem to be inherent contradictions in this change manifesto - and yet he seems entirely unaware of this.

As best as I can recall, Roy Hay and Les Murray provided an interesting look at why the Hungarian football team didn't turn up to the 1956 Olympics, especially since other Hungarian teams, like the water polo side, did turn up. Since I don't watch much of SBS football broadcasting anymore, it was good to see Les doing something a bit different, and dare I say meaningful. Hay set up the presentation, and Murray took it from there, including relaying details of meetings he had with former players and officials of that era. Most evocative were Murray's descriptions of life under the communist regimes of that era, and the important role he perceived that Hungary's successful football side had in maintaining communist rule.

The panel on 'the future of football', consisting of Richard Baka, Les Murray, Steven Alomes was, as expected, mostly a waste of time. However, it was almost made worthwhile by one old bloke in the audience who asked Murray what kind of future soccer had in Asia, when Asians don't really like soccer? Yes, someone actually asked that question.


DAY 3 - WHITTEN OVAL
Chris Egan presented a paper on the founding of Perth Glory, with the premise that rather than being the 'English/British Wonderland' it was often portrayed as being, the Glory was actually more influenced by Western Australian parochialism (which Egan called 'nationalism'). In that sense, he was arguing against Tara Brabazon's assertions from over a decade ago, that Perth Glory's 'Englishness' was its defining characteristic, making it out of synch with both Australian sport in general and the NSL in particular.

If I got it right, Egan argued that he wasn't saying that Brabazon was wrong, but rather that her more contemporary analysis, as well her as her particular academic background lead almost inevitably to those conclusions. Roy Hay, one of the audience members, was more forthright in claiming that this paper was overturning Brabazon's understanding of Perth Glory.

Egan also talked briefly about Perth Glory's victory over then A-League boss Matt Carroll and the FFA in being able to celebrate its entire history, and not just the A-League parts. Egan argued this was important, in that it would help make sure that recent Australian soccer history was seen as part of a continuum, and not as something which appeared out of and was connected to nothing.

While I admire the sentiment, I think Egan perhaps is too optimistic in seeing this win by Glory being replicated for use by ex-NSL clubs, especially the ethnic ones. I talked about the assault on South's continuity in this post, something which comes not just from the FFA, but from our former supporters. Egan has left a comment there, and I'd be interested to see if more of my audience has something to say on the matter.

Egan's paper is part of a larger effort, that of writing a book on the first 15 years of Perth Glory. It was one of the best papers of the conference, especially for the great primary sources Egan was able to obtain, which saw various figures disagreeing about the rationale and political implications of Perth Glory's entry into the NSL. We look forward to seeing the end result, in a few years time hopefully.

Because of a changed schedule (Mark Pennings, who was meant to be first up in his session, but turned up late), I missed MCC librarian Trevor Ruddell's presentation on the uniforms of Australian national teams. And because Chris Egan's presentation started late, I only got to see the tail end of Tim Hogan's presentation on a bibliography of Australian Rules football.

Hogan was looking at every single type of written material, and the ways of categorising and collecting them. In some ways, this topic is in line with my own, albeit mine (as you'll see later) has a much narrower focus. I did get to have a good discussion with Hogan about my work, all of which made me disappointed not to have seen more of his presentation.

Mark Pennings was there to talk about his new book (the first of four volumes) about the early history of Australian rules football,  and the issues around researching that topic. Veracity is at the top of that list. Even when you think you have all the scores down accurately, something comes up to annihilate the validity of your data. Likewise, most amateur chroniclers of that era did not have an eye for posterity, and their information is provided with large gaps, as if the missing details should be taken for granted.

This then leads to massive misconceptions about what rules were being used, who was organising games and how, all of which influences the propaganda battles of the present. And while the presentation was entertaining and informed, one also got the feeling that while Pennings is at the cutting edge of Australian rules historical work, he's still at best halfway to where Ian Syson has ended up. That doesn't really mean that one is right to the exclusion of the other, but it's interesting to see how two different writers coming from two very different places, at times using some of the same material, can come to such different conclusions.

Following the morning sessions, there was a panel discussion of sorts on 'Football in the West'. Brett Daniher, Western Bulldogs' community liaison I think was his title, went first. He talked about all the community work that the Bulldogs do, and the attempts by some other clubs to mimic it. I suppose rather by necessity, Daniher fell into the trap of trying to sell the work as integral to the Bulldogs' efforts to mark out their territory in the western suburbs, in order to maintain supporter levels and find new supporters. And yet, he never seemed to touch upon the fact,that  even though the western suburbs are growing very quickly, that unless these new arrivals were from non-Australian rules backgrounds, most would likely bring their AFL allegiances with them.

As far as I can remember, Scott Munn, Melbourne Heart's CEO, didn't talk so much about the western suburbs. He talked about how the future challenges in getting people, especially young families, involved with sport (focusing mostly on his own elite level) will not be related to costs as much as it will be related to time. It struck me as quite a middle class sort of argument. That is, not that the argument was invalid, but that the argument was narrow, and therefore prone to negating the importance of getting working class people involved with soccer. It strikes me only now, a week or two on from the conference, how easily such a comment could be allowed to pass - it doesn't say good things about what the authorities (and clubs) think about the place of the working class in local soccer.

As an aside, one of the more curious things that was said by Munn, was that one off attempts at trying to convert people to your cause like school clinics were almost doomed to fail (he used some clever analogy about pissing on your own leg - I can't remember how it went, but it was quite funny). All of which puts another attempt by Heart to give away free tickets into a whole different perspective.

Tim Shellcot from the Western Region Football League was the best of the three speakers in this session, in part because he didn't suffer from a proliferation of marketing speak. He put forward the challenges faced by the organisation, which fell broadly into two main areas. The first challenge was obtaining new facilities in growth areas of the outer western suburbs. The second was trying to find ways of bolstering the survival chances of older clubs from the Footscray/Sunshine areas, where demographic changes have wreaked havoc on clubs who have failed to keep up with the times.

Sound familiar? Those growth areas will be fought over by every sport. Those clubs in the traditional Footscray District Football League (the league's former name) areas are going to face the same issue many of the head in the sand soccer clubs will face. Lack of diversity will not see them viewed favourably by councils who are seeking to have their facilities used by the broadest range of their constituents.

Shellcot's one failure was in not considering soccer as his organisation's number one competitor. Instead, he singled out cricket as a threat, as that sport, traditionally part of the Victorian Anglo-Celtic winter-summer nexus with footy, is according to him now competing for monopolisation of talent. It is an interesting phenomenon of recent times, that talented young athletes are being asked to commit to a single sport at a younger age.

There is also the issue of grounds being shared with cricket. Shellcot did not seem to be able to the see the cricket side's argument on these matters. Nor did he elaborate on the strong place soccer has in the western suburbs, and what influence that may have had in the areas like Sunshine and surrounds where Aussie rules is apparently struggling at suburban level.

Laura Hale gave one of the few explicitly new media related papers, on using Wikipedia and Wikinews as a way of promoting African women's soccer. As a one time semi-prolific wikipedian myself, it was interesting to hear about many of the trials and tribulations I had also gone through: needing to use foreign language sources, fights with other editors, avoiding original research etc.

In addition to that area of her presentation, Hale also discussed her involvement, via her online work, of creating improved media kits for some of the Paralympic sports as well as for able bodied Olympic athletes. Even simple things like having a photo and bio for every athlete! It was interesting and impressive stuff, with lessons to be learned for many smaller scale sports organisations who think that this kind of stuff is inherently beyond their abilities.

Then it was time for my own presentation. Based upon my honours thesis, which I finished last year, I gave a very stripped back look at the history of Australian soccer literature. No time for quoting from the texts, or getting into any sort of depth with regards to the major texts, nor for analysing the parallels between the academic work and the creative work. What I decided to cover then was a brief history of this niche (and in some ways artificial) genre; a look at my research methodology; the varied themes of the texts; what doesn't quite fit; and the future directions this area of research should take.

Despite having a small attendance at my presentation, the questions from the audience were quite good. I was asked about whether I had covered similar texts from overseas, to which I had to reply that, no, I hadn't, but that I had some intention of doing so. A common response I had to give was that, within the scope of the thesis, there just wasn't enough room to cover all the areas of this genre that I wanted to, especially the area of children's and young adult texts - that would hopefully come in the next phase of researching and writing on this topic.  One of the audience members had apparently attempted similar work with the theme of swimming, and could identify with the difficulties of a pre-database era in terms of research.

Because I was scheduled directly against him, I unfortunately missed Les Street's presentation, looking at Sydney's NSL venues, work which was based on his masters thesis looking at (I think) the history of NSL venues. It was the presentation I was most looking forward to, and I was really disappointed that I didn't get to see it.

Paul Kennedy, of ABC News 24 fame, gave a presentation about a short documentary he made, which was broadcast on his Contact Sport program. The documentary (which you can watch here) looked at the 1892 boat accident which wiped out a majority of the Mornington Football Club's playing list. Worthy material perhaps, but it didn't do much for me. Part of that was due to the documentary itself, which felt a little like one of those earnest films made in a university documentary class (and I should know, I was a student in such a class), with the same sort of production values. The use of music, title cards, hokey narrative devices and the most obvious 'serious/poignant' camera angles was just so amateur that good community television making has left them behind. Perhaps others will get something more out of it.

Rachel Murphy is the Western Bulldogs' liaison person for their relationship with Victoria University. She went through the ways in which students get access and work experience through an obviously mutually beneficial arrangement. But like Brett Daniher's earlier presentation, it all felt a bit too much about the hard sell to me. It's the perennial plight of the cynic.

Peter Haby of the Hawthorn Museum, provided an an overview of that institution, mainly its role and its history. Haby was obviously knowledgeable and passionate about his topic, but the presentation was unfocused and unwieldy, and felt like it went on forever. Now I know that's not a very academic way of looking at things, but there's no way of dressing it up.

Still, it was interesting to hear one version of how some sporting anoraks, trainspotters and assorted weirdo collectors have been able to re-cast their obsessive hoarding and statistical obsessions into respectable pursuits. And not just respectable - but also marketable. Not that these sorts of museums are self-funding, not a by a long shot. But within the scope of selling a club, history. as approved by the clubs themselves, is suddenly worth looking after.

Of course, the aforementioned anoraks just want to carry on doing what they've always done, with the bonus of sharing their life's work with the general public.

Helen Walpole from the National Sports Museum gave a very practical demonstration of everything you need to look out for when attempting to preserve and display archival material. Wood, acids, oils, air, dirty hands are all just waiting to devour metal, cloth, paper - in fact any material you can think of. The importance of selecting tools and devices that cause the least amount of damage and risk  to artifacts is crucial, and the novel use of fishing line, mannequins, gloves etc, were fascinating.

It put a lot of things into perspective, seeing as South itself will be creating its own museum when the social club gets redeveloped. Are we going to go down the same route of every local club, just cramming everything into a bunch of trophy cabinets? Or are we going to use this opportunity to tell a story, both of our club and of the objects themselves?

Complaints
Call me petty, but I preferred the previous conference's location at Victoria University's Flinders Street campus, if only because the lecture theatres and clasrooms used actually had tables where someone could take notes properly. The notes I made on this conference suffer greatly in comparison to their predecessor, because about halfway through day two I just gave up trying to write on a notepad on my lap.

And while the aesthetics of looking over the MCG from the privileged areas of the MCC were pleasant enough, it reinforced the fact that these areas are off limits for the vast majority of the public. Which would be fine if it was during the cricket season, but the fact that access is also granted during the AFL season always strikes me as hypocritical. No doubt that there are bound to be those who have an MCC membership who will say that they have every right to have access to AFL matches. I'd hazard to guess that if AFL access was removed, we'd see a massive decline in the membership base of this so called 'cricket' club.

There was also a distinct lack of rugby league and union presentations, just one presentation between the two sports. Add to this the tunnel vision/myopia of some of the Australian rules papers, and it all got a bit too samey at times.

And finally, in no particular order of importance:
  • Powerpoint must die.
  • Flowcharts must die.
  • What's with trying to give us all this Western Bulldogs crap? And especially with trying to get conference attendants to contribute to the Western Bulldogs museum? I came here to see interesting papers, not for being bombarded with Bulldog propaganda.
  • The people who packed away the scones before half the people could get to them must die.

Positives
The good papers - the ones with new insights, those which overthrew old assumptions, and who were engaged with the questions of methodology - were worth the effort. Those attendees who were also willing to cross code boundaries made the experience worthwhile.

The next conference, scheduled for some time in 2014, will apparently be at least loosely based around the theme of soccer's 2015 Asian Cup, which Australia will of course be hosting. Expecting some really interesting papers then, especially in seeing what sort of 'Asians love Aussie Rules' propaganda pieces come out of it.

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Worlds of Football Conference begins tonight

Really looking forward to this, partly because I'll be presenting my first ever academic paper on Australian soccer in literature, and soccer in Australian literature.


This will be the second time Victorian University is hosting its Worlds of Football Conference. Last time was back in 2010. It's meant to cover all football codes, but I'm most interested in the soccer articles. Here are my notes from the previous conference.

This year's program looks reasonably promising, Dr Kevin Moore from the National Football Museum in England is giving the keynote address tonight at the MCG.

Les Street will be giving a paper based on his masters thesis on NSL venues, with the paper focusing on Sydney venues. Sadly, he's scheduled to be directly against my paper - I was looking forward to his presentation the most.

Chris Egan is giving a paper on the founding of Perth Glory - it's part of his efforts to write a book on the first 15 years of Perth Glory.


Some of the other Aussie soccer papers:
  • Francesco Ricatti, University of the Sunshine Coast, and Matthew Klugman, Victoria University ‘“Connected to Something”: Soccer as a Site of Transnational Passions, Memories, and Communities forItalian Migrants’
  • Ian Syson, Victoria University, ‘The Calm and the Storm: Soccer Reporting in Melbourne, 1908-14’
  • Roy Hay, Sports and Editorial Services Australia, and Les Murray, SBS Sport, ‘Proving a Negative in History: The Non-Appearance of the Hungarian Football Team at the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956’
  • Trevor Ruddell, MCC Library, David Studham, MCC Library, and Helen Walpole, National Sports Museum ‘Representing a Divided Australia: Uniforms of Australia’s National Football Teams
In terms of non-Australian content the details are as follows:
  • Peter Ochieng, Victoria University, ‘Rule of Three: How Resources Separate Winners from Losers at the Africa Cup of Nations’
  • Brian Moroney, Victoria University ‘The UltraS of Italian Football: A Justified Violence?’
Les Murray will also be on a panel session on 'the future of football', with Steven Alomes, which I know Syson is really looking forward to. Melbourne Heart's Scott Munn will be on a panel discussing 'football in the West'.

I'll be providing a rundown after the conference of how everything went.

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Plumbing the depths of upper lower middle class pursuits

So bored during this extended off-season. There's things I could be doing I suppose, but instead I took up friend and once off contributor Chris Egan's suggestion of going with him to the Australian Open tennis. The other suggestions were Melbourne Museum (which I've done to relative death) and Melbourne Heart vs Perth Glory (I think you see the problem there).

I'm not a fan of tennis. I know the names, reputations, basic tactics and approaches taken, some of the controversies, but since I abandoned the clumsy television endorsed nationalism of my long gone youth, I've felt little connection to the players, especially those to whom the media attaches a greater cause. And besides, most of the tour takes place in another place and at godforsaken hours.

I'd never been to the tennis before. And on this hot, clear skied day, I felt most sorry for the little red headed child with the pale skin who was with his mum. Like us they couldn't get in to the court Casey Dellacqua was playing on. On a day like that, it was quite possible that someone of his complexion could spontaneously combust.

So we instead traipsed over to the next court where eighth seed Agnieszka Radwańska was taking on American journeywoman Bethanie Mattek-Sands. The first two sets were all about the American who racked up huge numbers of winners and unforced errors. Eventually the Pole came through in the third set to win.

Then we watched Stanislas Wawrinka against Benoît Paire. Wawrinka swept through the first two sets, we got bored and moved over to the Dolgopolov vs Jones match. Also an anti-climax. The gits starting the Mexican wave seemed to be having fun though.

Discussions on Australian soccer history and the cultural place of Perth Glory in Western Australia were more interesting to me. I wished I could have talked further about American football with the Packer supporting tourists sitting in front of me.

Was able to avoid for the most part those decked in Cronulla Capes, as well as their swarthier brethren in blue and white and those in red and white checks. Couldn't avoid some dreadful line calling however. One was so bad that even I saw it from the other side of the court. Also, apparently Tommy Haas is still playing.

It's also a lot noisier at a tennis match than what you see on television. Don't think I'll make it a habit of going to this event. There's not enough blood in this sport. Players get cramp, pull muscles, get tired, dispute line calls, but there's no sense of risk or danger, no genuine edge. At least the ticket didn't cost me anything.

Something vaguely to do with South tomorrow, hopefully.

Friday, 26 June 2009

The re-awakening of Perth Glory

For those of you who saw the post title and had a bit of a panic attack, thinking 'am I in the right place?', just take a deep breath and relax. South of the Border recently received an unsolicited piece from our Perth Glory correspondent Chris Egan (hey, you're on the payroll now), looking at the divergent paths these once upon a time heavyweights of Australian soccer have taken in the wake of the New Dawn Apocalypse. Or as it's called on smfcboard, the 'Australian Soccer Super Happy Fun Smile Time Adventure Show'.

Ok that was a lie. Anyway, over to Chris now. I'll be posting a response to it eventually within the comments section, and as usual, if you would like to send something in, send it to me, at blackmissionary@hotmail.com .




The Trials and Tribulations of the Post-NSL Era

As I read Paul's blog, I realise the differing paths of our respective football clubs. I as an old NSL supporter still able to support my team in a plastic, franchise style league where attendance means more than the quality of support. The cataclysmic journey of the pathways two giants of the world game in the late 1990's is one to record for future generations, here is my take on South Melbourne and Perth Glory's post NSL history.

There were three big clubs in the NSL Perth Glory, Sydney Olympic and South Melbourne. These three seemed to have that added impetus in terms of a culture that bred success as compulsory not an option. Winning a right, not a privilege. Only one of these clubs remain in the A-League.

Forget Adelaide United and Newcastle United, they have little to celebrate from the NSL, we do. South Melbourne supporters also have much to celebrate.

Indeed my fondest memories come from the NSL days. Other than a few last minute goals against clubs such as Sydney FC and the ever annoying Newcastle Unite.

Both fans seem to be dissatisfied of what we don't have. The matchday experience, success, not being the top dog in the pack, our whole club culture neatly being packed into the A-League. Matt Carroll trying to strangle the values and culture that had been established by Glory, not being in the elite competition, dwindling crowds and finances.

South Melbourne fans seem to decry incompetent league administrators, the pitfalls of participating in a league that doesn't have the TV rights, sponsorship that would sustain better standards of football. However they are fiercely proud of their heritage and culture which has not been forced to change or challenged by new age football. They can act and do what they like without the glare or control from the governing body. They have freedom to express and continue the same match day experience they have had for 30 years. They have not had to fight for their clubs very identity, colours and history.

I watch the MCF crew who are from another world that I grew up in, completely foreign to my Anglo-Saxon community on the urban fringe of Perth. I see the Knights and I hate them more than any A-League club. I don't want them to win, fuck em, let them die. I miss this, I have honestly no club I could name that I have this sort of passion for hatred due to our poor performance restricting any decent club rivalry. The Newcastle United one is building up, especially with a thinly veiled insult by a Newcastle fan at the Socceroos pre-match regarding how many championships we have won? Bastards, we have one more title than you...

South Melbourne still has this.

I click, Perth and South Melbourne fans are both dissatisified. Glory had gone through the last four years were in all honesty many times it was a chore to go to the games. The venue, atmosphere and culture during the FFA era had been trampled on and life support was the strongest imagery I had of the club. Up until this off-season me and my friend a few years younger than me were jealous of what South Melbourne had?

Unthinkable?

Only to an A-League supporter...

I have deep suspicion for the FFA, as do most Glory fans. Sage has made a habit for mostly positive publicity purposes to attack the FFA. Indeed as a Western Australian if you don't attack the national body or Federal Government you do not gain popularity. It works well, Sage is a masterful businessma.

We have a club however that has divisions within the home end, wristbands, chanting and GSSC governance major themes that never resolve themselves. Just underlying tensions that involve official comments attacking other fans on websites when the infighting goes overboard. We also have a desire that our history must be protected - at all costs. Public outrage at colour change, name change and the Carrol inspired declaration that ruined Glory's 10th birthday.

This is our NSL culture that had run head on with an FFA that declared a national policy of newness, excitement and anti-NSL at the beginning. We are a club stuck in the wrong league. But a club too big to die. We have to compromise.

South Melbourne have nothing culturally to impede their culture, their fans are much more content because they have not had the fights against FFA and club administration to maintain our values and colours. Nothing at a Glory home game is the same, except the fans and the culture within the venue. As much as Carroll would have liked, he never could change that.

Indeed you strip out the spanky new stadiums on the Gold Coast and the new bubble dome as its been affectionately called by the folks at Austadiums and you wonder what is there? How could I ever be involved in a club that has been told who it is rivals with, has home end supporter culture sanctioned and controlled by the club. Look at the impediments of the Roar Supporters clu.

Welcome to the A-League.

We now have no club song, no longer the team everybody wants to beat, we have failure, misery and for the most part of our A-League history off-field incompetence.

I go to South Melbourne v Melbourne Knights at the humble Knights Stadium and I hear stories of corruption, hardly any clubs in profit and despair that this proud club has been reduced to this level.

Am I any better off than a South Melbourne fan?

No, the era post-NSL has been very difficult for both of us. But we probably should have seen it coming, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I think in the long run we both have the same culture, the same passion. We are brothers in kind, Glory despite being a new club at the end of the NSL embraced its history because the so called ethnic clubs did, we are a product of the league we were created in. The club itself was the lifeblood of the community, the politics would mean that you did not talk to another fan for weeks on end...three months later when it died down you had a beer with them until the next time hell broke loose.

We have both made sacrifices in the post NSL era, Glory are now associated with ineptitude and failure from both their old fans and those from opposing fans. Both clubs will have to deal with unsavoury situations as we have been transported into a league that is not our domain. Not ours to bitch about, we are a club in a foreign league fighting to maintain our clubs identity in a league that neither respects or in many cases cares of what we have previously done for Australian Football. We are nobodies...

South Melbourne will win the VPL and hopefully look at an FFA Cup into the future to present itself to the nation. It may never get back to the top league, but by god despite the 'Greek' slur being put on them, their fans and the club essentially have the same desires as Perth Glory fans.

The re-awakening of Glory has come about with understandings of our past and the positivity we view it in. I do hope in 100 years time Football historians understand this and reflect accurately the NSL and not forget about it like many within the FFA headquarters wished at the beginning of the A-League.

Indeed, South Melbourne and Perth Glory fans united in challenges will both have similar joys when success returns, regardless of whether they are in the A-League or Victorian Premier League.

We just both happen to play in a foreign league, that in one way or another is not really to our liking.

Chris Egan