Green Gully Soccer Club: 50 Years - Book Review (reprise)

This review of mine originally appeared on the now defunct Das Libero site, probably some time around 2007? Who can remember now. Here it is for posterity's sake.

A Tale of Two Gullys

Peter Desira with Richard Curmi, Green Gully Soccer Club: 50 Years, Sports and Editorial Services Australia in association with the Green Gully Soccer Club, Teesdale, Victoria, 2006, 258 pages including 16 in colour.

When you beg, borrow, steal or even possibly buy Peter Desira and Richard Curmi's Green Gully Soccer Club: 50 Years, you don't just get the history of one club, you get the history of two. Of all the many themes running through the narrative - the early struggles, their steady rise through the divisions, their National Soccer League stint, and the overcoming of its great rival George Cross - one theme stands out: how a club founded and run for 35-odd years on a shoestring is almost instantly transformed by the introduction of poker machines, thereby ensuring financial stability for years to come. Yet in this book, it is perhaps the most overlooked moment of the club's history.

The most fascinating part of the book for Gully and non-Gully fan alike is the club's early struggle in the literal nowhere of 1950s St Albans, a condition that defies the modern Gully stereotype of stability and plenty. That Gully has been run professionally for many years is without doubt; but to read of the early days when they had no running water, electricity or sewage is quite a shock. This isn't just for ‘new football’ noobs to digest: it is also important for the supporters of the once (and in some cases still) bigger clubs who were founded with the assumption that their particular ethnic community would fund them to the hilt and for perpetuity. There were few such luxuries for Gully in the early days, and the particular efforts of the club's founder Henry Moakes and volunteer Frank Kolbl are inspiring. This is the book's greatest achievement. It reminds everyone of Gully's other side, away from the club’s brilliant facilities and consistent success of recent years.

The club's rise through the league divisions is a story within itself. When they finally come face to face with their de facto biggest rival George Cross after 22 years of living in their shadow, they not only match the efforts of that one-time giant of Victorian football, but they surpass them. Yet I found something irritating about the way the authors told this particular tale. Occasionally they seem almost apologetic about the club having a support base comprised largely of people of Maltese background. I don't know whether this is a particularly Green Gully trait, or whether it's a reaction to the 'ethnics under the bed' campaign waged over recent times, but it comes across as quite jarring at times.

The club's rise into National Soccer League ranks is also fascinating not least for it being the scene of Socceroo captain Paul Wade's national league debut and simultaneously that of semi-famous actor Costas Mandylor. While some love to reminisce about the good old days, they like to neglect the teams at the bottom of the heap. Conversely, those who disparage the old days based on the sometimes massive gulfs in class between the top and bottom often do not pay enough respect to the difficulty poorly supported and funded clubs had in surving not just in the NSL, but also the sometimes terminal struggle after relegation. The promotion, demotion and in some cases extinction of clubs across the country due to their participation in the national league is a neglected part of the Australian soccer story. Gully managed the difficult job of survival, when other supposedly better-supported clubs such as Footscray JUST and Brunswick Juventus folded. Crucially, Green Gully accepted that they would never again reach national league ranks. Here lies a topical lesson for some other clubs.

And yet the yin to that yang, the introduction of pokie machines, is not discussed with the same vigour. The authors avoid the negative side of gaming machines. They fail to acknowledge how some other clubs rejected pokies on wider social grounds – or through keeping in mind that they were a soccer club first and foremost and that the introduction of pokies would mean becoming the sort of club that exists north of the Victorian border: high on memberships but low on actual attendances at games. Perhaps I'm being harsh here, but it is part of Gully’s stereotype among supporters of rival clubs.

The result for the neutral or non-Gully reader is that the story of the club's recent success doesn't quite have the same feel good vibe as that of the earlier triumphs, even taking into account the long wait between drinks and the post-NSL struggle to survive. Perhaps this is an inherent problem with club histories. Written or informed by insiders or fans, they almost always see the club's story as an overwhelmingly positive one, not through any deliberate bias but mainly because their story is viewed through the supporters’ prism. This book can't avoid that pitfall and is probably never meant to. Books of this sort are first and foremost for the initiated. Any outsiders who pick it up will of course already have their bias detectors on. That is the the nature of the game and its supporters’ culture after all.

It's a sad fact of Australian football historiography that apart from the odd unpublished thesis or pet project of some club obsessive, there aren't many books dealing with Australian soccer clubs. Apart from Juve! Juve!, Gilberto Martin's look at Brunswick Juventus published all the way back in 1990, and rumours of unfinished or in progress works on South Melbourne, Melbourne Hakoah and the Melbourne Knights it's slim pickings – especially in comparison with works based on the Socceroos or Australian players. Which is why Green Gully Soccer Club: 50 Years is a more than welcome addition to the Australian club genre. While the book has its inevitable flaws, it is an impressive and much needed work. Hopefully one of its effects is to inspire the production of works written about other clubs, so that the fullest picture of soccer in this country can be presented.

Soccer Boom: The Transformation of Victorian Soccer Culture 1945-1963 - Book Review (reprise)

This review of mine originally appeared on the now defunct Das Libero site, probably some time around 2007? Who can remember now. Here it is for posterity's sake, sloppy typos and grammar included.

When Push Comes to Boom

Association football in this country has been viewed as a foreign game for as far back as anyone can remember. For those opposed to the sport, this foreignness is amongst the game's chief evils. It's played by people who aren't from here; many of its customs are seemingly borrowed wholesale from overseas; when we do have decent players they are taken to foreign leagues and lands; when we have decent national teams, rules dictated by foreigners make the task of our team compiled of players playing in foreign lands all the more difficult. Those who love the game often lament Australians’ lack of appreciation of the sport, attaching to it a lack of worldliness; they denigrate the standard and players found here; or they complain that people in this country don't understand 'real' football culture, which can only be found overseas or – in an opinion held by some people in the more recent era of the game's boom – only among those who looked after the sport before it was cleansed and made mainstream.

Thus the immigrant influence has also become the dominant way in which the game has been viewed academically. John Kallinikios' Soccer Boom: The Transformation of Victorian Soccer Culture 1945-1963 is an important book because it diverts from that view. It attempts to cover soccer's change by minimising the 'ethnic' factor and instead focusing on the processes by which an amateur participant sport became a (semi) professional and spectator-orientated sport.

At the beginning of the era the book seeks to cover, the local game is in stasis. It is strictly amateur (to the point where even player transfers between clubs are rare) and most clubs play on open parklands. Tactics used are perhaps 20 years behind the rest of the world and the game’s Anglo-centric administration only has eyes for the English FA and the very occasional favours bestowed from the Old Dart. And then a sea change, primarily driven by immigrant clubs and administrators. New playing styles are adopted, spectators who demand victory necessitate enclosed venues, and players are being paid good money – sometimes more than their Rugby League and VFL contemporaries; Australian football after hibernating for 20-odd years suddenly has an ambition to be part of the world football community.

This narrative is not a major revelation. However, the originality of Kallinikios' argument lies in the contention that this wasn't done as part of some deliberate and exclusively 'ethnic' takeover. Rather the changes were necessary and occurred as part of a push to bring the game up to speed with the rest of the world, to professionalise it. Almost overnight clubs, players and administrators with the experience of participating in professional and semi-professional setups, who felt they could do a much better job than the incumbent administration, had arrived on our shores.

To demonstrate his overall point, Kallinikios delves into the varied problems of soccer's expansion. One of these is the issue of crowds. Following the post-war influx of soccer-loving migrants, match attendances rise rapidly; through this process Victorian soccer inverts from a participant-based sport to a spectator-oriented one. This generates immediate needs: identifiable boundaries between fans and players, spectator comfort, the means to collect money from spectators to facilitate these developments. Ground availability is another problem, particularly with regards to the infringement on local sporting traditions. Kallinikios elaborates on the search for a venue in Footscray, showing that the councils' reluctance to give soccer access to enclosed grounds was not solely a product of attitudes towards the ‘New Australian’ character of the clubs and the game, but also a reflection of the self-interest of Australian Rules officials (sometimes as members of the council making the decision) and fear of the backlash from the community – despite the financial benefits and the logic of making better use of council facilities.

Among the things Kallinikios does very well is put soccer in its place. The game was not merely an island enclave but part of society as well. When he draws parallels between the changes in Victorian soccer in the 1950s and the VFL breakaway of 1897, the realisation is that change is not merely that of an ethnicisation – though that is one its net results – but one of professionalisation. The administration of the time and a great number (though not all) of the traditional clubs were often unwilling, slow and sometimes simply unable to move with the times, to their eventual everlasting detriment. The fact that no winner of the league prior to 1952 won it afterwards is ample evidence of the speed and thoroughness of the old regime's decimation. The last time an 'old' club won a major trophy was in 1957 when Moreland took the Dockerty Cup.

Particularly noticeable were Kallinikios’ frequent self-references to how this work was shifting the debate, part of a new revisionist trend amongst soccer historians in this country. The suggestion is that academic soccer writers in seeking to understand the game's local history via the immigrant lens have overlooked and pushed to the margins other ways of looking at the game. Unfortunately, because the migrant influence is presented as a main theme in soccer histories the game gets further tied to that post. This argument taps into wider community notions of soccer as a foreign game. Kallinikios demonstrates this point by citing examples of soccer journalists who feared the game's takeover by migrants would be viewed negatively by the wider Anglo-Celtic population thereby reducing the game's appeal. Interestingly, their solution was for migrants to assimiliate into the existing clubs – one which bought into the broader contemporary ideology of assimilation and presaged much of the justifying rhetoric surrounding the ethnic cleansing of the A League.

While the book does a fairly good job of covering the era from a different view point of view – especially in the way it parallels the past with the present – it is not without its problems. One of these was the omission of facts which might contradict some of the key arguments. For instance, Kallinikios claims that Camberwell had no soccer tradition when there was in fact a Camberwell club in the 1930s (whether they played in Camberwell is another matter).

More significant is the minimising of the ethnic factor in regards to violent incidents and the understating of notions of national pride, avoiding such examples as George Cross only allowing members of Maltese background to join and Greek-Australian newspapers advocating the separate Greek clubs should unite for the 'glory of Hellenism'. (This eventually happened when Yarra Park merged with Hellenic, with the new entity taking over South Melbourne United soon after primarily to gain access to their Middle Park ground.) Kallinikios' assertion that this sort of thing mainly came about in a later era is where his argument falters, as there appears to be sufficient evidence to the contrary. This is partly because even though the book claims to cover the era up until 1963, in reality it falters well short, leading to the book's other main drawback, its lack of a post-script. I was disappointed that is no mention was made that Schintler Reserve, the long sought after ground in Footscray, is now gone and on its long-since faded line-markings sit shipping containers. And with so much of the book’s focus being on Juventus and Hakoah, the former's decline is ignored even as it was surpassed by South Melbourne Hellas, George Cross and Polonia. In Juve's case in particular, failure to mention their eventual demise 30 years on largely through their lack of a home should be considered an oversight.

Despite these shortcomings, Soccer Boom is still an essential read for anyone interested in the game's history in this country, especially for those looking for a different perspective. Its clarity and accessibility also make it more than suitable for someone not completely familiar with the game's past. It will be interesting to see what responses it will generate from the more traditional historians challenged by Kallinikios, as well as what will follow in its wake from among the revisionists. And as added bonus, you get an Australian soccer book not obsessed with New South Wales. Surely that makes it all the more worthwhile.

Some nonsense I whittled two years ago

Neos Kosmos English Weekly used to do this thing where they profile a local Greek-Australian soccer personality. I don't know if they do it anymore, because my folks don't buy the Saturday edition, and I don't buy it unless I've written for it, which hasn't happened for a long time. Anyway, I offered James Belias, the editor of the sports section, the opportunity to take up my profile, even though I don't play or coach or ref or administer - in the real world anyway. He declined to make use of a Hattrick profile answering the same questions. Pity. Well, I have a blog which is sitting idly here doing squat, may as well use it for shameless self-promotion.

Name : Paul Mavroudis
Club : Juniper Hill
Position : Club owner/chairman
Occupation : Associate Editor of Das Libero
Last season : 5th of 8 teams in our division 4 series. Lost relegation playoff 3-0.
Greek clubs played at : None.
Ambition : Get my club as high as possible. Not suck.
Career Highlight : Against all odds finishing fourth in division V.150, even knocking off the top team. A round six cup run two or three season back.
Football heroes : Robbie Fowler, Paul Trimboli
Current favourite local player : Julius Stoker
Current favourite international player: Timothy Dahl
Fav Aus Soccer Moment : 3rd South goal in '99 grand final
Team in Greece : I'd be lying if I said I took Greek football seriously.
Other sports : Aussie Rules and Gaelic football
Away from footy : Reading, writing, blogging, arguing, music, surfing web, collecting enemies
Fave cafe : none
Fave night club/bar : None.
Fave music : Elbow, Eels, The Autumns, Lift To Experience, Manic Street Preachers, Faith No More, Weird Al Yankovic
Holidayed in Greece : Back when I was 12.
Favourite Movie : Millennium Actress
Best thing about being Greek Australian : The incredible achievements completed several thousand years ago by a minority of people that I can attach myself to. And supporting South Melbourne Hellas.
Worst thing : Being associated with Acropolis Now.
Hidden Talent : Ability to tell the truth and not be believed.

To verb the adjective noun!

Just posting some random and not so random crap, some off smfcboardm which most of you can't see - and it is nearing to AGM time after all - more on that on a later issue.


Item! Already received one private message, from my good buddy Gains, wishing that my review of the Tony Squires book had come out earlier so he wouldn't have bought the abomination. Ah well.

Item! At last year's AGM, I brought along a printed list of questions, some spare paper and a clipboard (and a training jersey from 2001 that I bought off ebay for some guy, but that's not really relevant) and for my efforts received this question on the forum

PS Does anyone know who was the dude near the front with the glasses who asked many questions????

12 months on, and one senile poster has forgotten my awesomeness, so much so that I had to sorta ask someone to mention it. We'll see how this turns out.

Item! It was fucking funny last year when the old bloke known to me only as Karantoni walked out of the meeting and everyone thought it was because he was pissed off, when he actually just went for a smoke.

Item! First it was the 1980 championship. Now the Bergers have moved another step closer to booking a bed in Ward 7. With thanks to Psile, as this is verbatim off his post.

On the bergers facebook page they have the neos kosmos article of the 1-2 at middle park when MM got the double for them, anyhow underneath it says:

ΕΛΛΑΣ/ΜΕΓΑΣ 1-2 93-94,SEASON LAST GAME AT THE PARK FOR HELLAS BEFORE IT CAME DOWN WHAT A DAY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS IS FOR THE OLD MEGA FANS WHAT CAN I SAY NEOS KOSMOS SAYS IT ALL

No you clowns...we thumped you 4-1 and it was round 1 of 94/95.

Overdue and out of date Tony Squires book review

This review was originally commissioned by Ian Syson to appear in Das Libero 2. It took me far too long to get around to writing it, but after I'd finished it Ian said he liked it, and that he'd put it up soon. He didn't, and it's been sitting on my USB stick for months now. I shudder to think how many people have gone out and bought this book without first reading the genius that is this review.

There are many things wrong with Tony Squires' Cracking The Footy Codes: A Beginner's Guide To AFL, League, Union and Football. First of all, it's written by Tony Squires. The reasons for his longstanding and continuing popularity of any sort elude me. So, if you happen to be a Tony Squires fan, you can skip the rest of this review. You're probably already enamoured with near everything he does, and likely already have a signed copy of this tome.

Cracking The Footy Codes seeks to take a general look at the four major football codes in Australia, in an attempt to provide a useful primer to those wishing to brush up on unfamiliar sports and possibly become some sort of convert. It contains relatively thorough overviews of the rules of soccer, league, union and Australian rules. It also throws in some trivia and cultural observations which are intended to prepare the neophyte follower for their early experiences, done with what I presume is Squires' trademark humour.

What works well in this book are the clear rules and regulations, together with diagrams. The problem with this is that all this information is also available, for free, online and has been for quite some time. Therefore the book’s strongest characteristic – and perhaps its only one – is technologically defunct. There is no real point acquiring this book if all you want to do is read up on the rules. The book in that sense is fundamentally a 19th century product. It ignores the existence of video games, the internet, television – especially Pay TV which lets us watch so many sports. I learnt most of what I know about American football through these means, often by osmosis rather than careful study.

Which leaves us with what remains. The humour was lost on me. I found it lazy, generic and outdated. AFL – not the name of the sport, but hey, he's from New South Wales and that's what they call it up there for some reason - gets some of its club theme songs mulled over. Rugby League has some of its teams mentioned – Manly are rich, no one can remember South Sydney’s last flag even though they've won so many, haha. Soccer though misses this. We get the 'Hand of God', diving, references to Posh and Becks and that mysterious gap between 1974 and 2005 that no one can penetrate. The skirting of local soccer issues is obviously because Squires is not fluent in that language – or he does not want to impose new and strange knowledge on soccer noobs of the alternate reality that was Australian soccer before it began its Cultural Revolution a few years back.

The presumption of sports generality – the ability to become a fan of multiple sports – also left me feeling cold. Who are these people that have so much time that they can become experts or dedicated to more than 1-2 sports simultaneously? I, and I assume most sports fans, have the time and emotional capacity to dedicate themselves to only that many sports. So what kind of person who is already interested in one or two of these sports with any sort of dedication, would have the time and inclination to pick two or three more? This book is therefore firmly directed towards the sports generalist. The one for whom sport is a pastime and not a duty, for whom the spectacle and the occasion is just as important if not more so than the result. An oversimplification? Perhaps, but I think the point is valid.

But seeing as this is a soccer/football publication, we should take some time out to review that particular section in a little more depth. It doesn't start well. In the opening pitch for the game, Squires refers somewhat obliquely to the difficulty of choosing a team in Australia until recently, and how many Australian fans have fallen for English clubs. There are also elementary factual errors. The A-League choosing to play in summer is a furphy. It merely followed on from the NSL's practice since 1989. Johnny Warren was not the captain of the Socceroos in the 1974 World Cup – that was Peter Wilson. Craig Johnston was not the first Australian to play in the FA Cup Final – that was Joe Marston. Someone using this book as a reference for a trivia night is going to get a nasty surprise.

Yes, I understand that this book is meant to be light-hearted, though it failed to raise chuckles at this end. And yes I understand it's not meant to be a hard hitting sociological piece on the where, why, how etc of football fandom in Australia – though if it does contribute to that debate, it doesn't paint a very positive picture of Australian sports fans and their supposed loyalty. But most of all, it doesn't perform any of its purported instructional functions any better than a quick web search would. One day some of these people who are still insisting on top down modes of communicating to the masses will come to realise that the masses just aren't listening. One for the Squires fans, people with a pathological fear of computers – who won’t see this review anyway – and no one else.

Will wonders never cease

Das Libero... it's back. With new stuff. Yeah, I can't believe it either.  Maybe I'll write something for it. 

South still top of the league standings

All time NSL/A-League table on Das Libero has been updated. It's got the usual suspects - who don't hate South it should be remembered, in spite of all the, um, well, hatred, they display - in a bit of a spin, but man, come on. It's just a simple set of stats. Just a tally of sorts. Not purposely designed to further any political ambitions, nor to be viewed as some sort of anti A-League social commentary. Maybe I'm just naive.

DAS LIBERO looking for contributions

A message from your friendly neighbourhood Das Libero editor in chief.


The second issue will be out before the A League season begins and we're looking for contributions, book reviews etc.

Here's the site http://vulgar.com.au/libero/das.html

email contributions to vulgar@vulgar.com.au


Did you heed the words of last week's call to submit to the 84th Minute? No? Then maybe you should go highbrow and think about submitting to Das Libero? As associate editor and provider of that site's best work, I'm here to help you get your work published, as long it's coherent, sensible, and well thought through.

I can't promise you fame and fortune in writing for Das Libero. I don't know who specifically reads it. I do know that South of the Border is read by governments, opposition fans, the South board, interstate and international readers. So even if you think that your little piece may not make an impact, give it a go anyway. You may be pleasantly surprised at the feedback your receive.

Your request could not be processed. Please try again.

Okay, the following is not from me, it's from Neil Zimmerman who runs the Victory In Melbourne blog. Don't roll your eyes at me like that, he's got something important to say, so pay attention.


Looking for contributions

I’m currently in the process of putting together an online magazine covering all aspects of Australian football - its fans, players, stadia, teams, etc from every level of the game. It is be called “the 84th minute” in honour of the Socceroos’ first ever goal at a World Cup.

As part of putting together the 84th minute I am looking for contributors. I am looking for writers with perspectives missed in the mainstream football media.

Areas that are to be covered in the 84th minute include:

- Analysis
- Opinion
- Reviews
- Local Game
- Femme Futbol
- My Favourite Ground
- Fan Culture

To sign up as a regular contributer or to send any one-off pieces, email the84thminute@gmail.com. Please note that not all submissions will be accepted and all are subject to editing.


Ok, back to me again. I know you folks aren't the best contributors in the universe. My many appeals for you submit anything to South of the Border have gone almost completely unheeded - thanks again by the way to Jim for his FFV correspondance, George for his logo, and everyone who has left a comment in the, er, comments section - so maybe this whole entry was rather pointless. But it seems like a sincere enterprise, and when I find some time after my assignments and exams, my doomed Neos Kosmos English Weekly stint, Canberra trip and visits to the Melbourne International Animation Festival and Game On exhibition, I too plan to submit stuff. 

Also, don't forget, if you don't want to contribute to Neil's enterprise for whatever reason, there's always the good old Das Libero which is always looking for quality contributions. Don't be shy.

Finally, adequate recognition of a meaningless title

After last week's diatribe against the carelessness of making a promotion and then not making it known to the entire universe (beautifully captured in the piece 'Where's my fucking t-shirt'), it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the deed finally done. As can be seen here, I have now publicly been crowned as an associate editor of Das Libero. Contrary to the promises made to me however about lack of added responsibilities, Ian Syson has attempted to burden me with such concerns as the philosophical direction of the magazine, but since this mostly amounts to Monday morning meetings with the editor most of which is centred around bagging people off two certain Internet forums and general railings against 'the Man' , it's more like acknowledgment of the hard metres I've already done in this area.

It's like it didn't even happen

As you may be aware, I have recently been contributing to the soon-to-be prestigious soccer journal Das Libero. At this moment this consists of a couple of reviews and a look at Tony Ising's departure from his creation, but hopefully more soon, including a letter I wrote in reply to Gweeds' reply to my Ising piece, yesterday's worthy rant - which unlike most of my work I still like 24 hours after I finished it, not to mention the rave review it received - and a couple of other pieces which will likely be of a more significant length, ie. longer, therefore containing even more creamy goodness.

All this after being nagged for months to get stuff written, to read the books I was meant to review, to actually write said reviews, and even creating this blog partly as a way of avoiding all that effort. So anyway, for some reason and without asking, I was made associate editor. After making sure it entailed no actual responsibility, I reluctantly accepted. Wait, reluctantly is not the right word. Gladly accepted. And yet, despite the upgrade in rank, all the trappings that come with your typical promotion have failed to materialise. The swish new office, the extravagant business lunches, the company car, the generous travel allowance, the all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas to research beach football culture in the Caribbean. But it gets worse. Not even any acknowledgement on the site itself of this promotion.

So here's the deal. I'll let all that other stuff go, if I can get a Das Libero t-shirt. They look like shit, but there's not many of them in existence, and if I can get 'associate editor' on there somehow, I'll even try to be less cynical while I'm wearing it. And by the way, I only appear cynical because I'm such an idealist that whenever something fails to reach my lofty ideals I react with a wry, withering or despondent disposition. That's what this young woman who used to find me annoyingly cynical told me, and I'm thankful everyday that she did. Anyway, when I googled myself, my reference on Das Libero came up first, and South of the Border on the 2nd page. See everyone at the game.

A couple of book reviews

I'm guessing most of the people that have read this blog have done so either because they are amongst the few who have been told personally by me of its existence, or because they got redirected here because of my work on Das Libero, where I sorta insisted that this blog be linked under every piece that I do. Smart, no? Anyway, here are two reviews that I wrote for that site, both of which mention South occasionally. The books that is, not the reviews.

The first book is on the history of Green Gully. It's pretty good, and it let's you know what all the little clubs were doing while we were kings of the world. A Tale of Two Gullys is a fairly appropriate title for it, so enjoy the review and enjoy the book, and don't just skip to the index to look for mentions of South.

The other book is called Soccer Boom, basically looking at Victorian soccer's changes primarily in the 1950s from a revisionist viewpoint. It's also good, but don't get completely sucked in to his stance, because as When Push Comes to Boom explains, there are a few inconvenient facts ignored to make it work. Once again though, a worthwhile read.