Scattered thoughts on something I skimmed through, in order to pass the time until Monday's game

This isn't here to be coherent. This is filler to make up for the fact that I didn't get to finish the thing that I wanted to put up in this space, which was in itself not going to be remarkable in any meaningful way. I haven't even read the whole or even the majority of this book, because that's how thesis work happens sometimes - you hit the index or chapter list, and set your heart for you think the most valuable quotes and most relevant insights are likely to be. Thus this should not be considered a book review; it should not even be considered anything more than moderately typical evidence of my note taking processes. Neither are these positions meant to be taken as final - even if you like them. Yes, there are bits of this book which are not about Melbourne, but you can search these out for yourselves if you are that way inclined.

Steve Georgakis, Sport and the Australian Greek:
 an historical study of ethnicity, gender and youth,
 Rozelle, N.S.W. Standard Publishing House.

Those who have the vaguest idea (or concern) of what it is that I do in my 'day job', know that I think that despite their mutual hostility in Australian culture, sport and literature (and the arts) have much to say to and about each other. That's why I was encouraged when I saw that in Steve Georgakis' book - one of those things I should have picked up much earlier than I did, but which only re-occurred to me once I came across a reference to this or another work of Georgakis in something else - refers to several films when discussing Greek consciousness.

Georgakis begins his book by referring to the films Zorba the Greek and Head On, both of which use dancing a key way of asserting certain aspects of Greek culture and sense of self. More importantly however, Georgakis goes on to discuss how soccer is used in The Heartbreak Kid and Never On Sunday. Aside from the specific ways in which Georgakis uses these creative works to illustrate his broader points, it’s reassuring to me that there is the scope to use these flights of creative fancy/creative works as evidence within a historical or sociological space.

Of course my main interest is literature, but both Christos Tsiolkas - the writer of Loaded, which was turned into Head On, and The Heartbreak Kid in both its play and later film adaptation have a significant role to play in my 'one day I hope to finish this thesis'. The former, for his seeming lack of interest in soccer, the latter because of its oft forgotten soccer sub-plot, lost in among the collective of the film being mostly about Alex Dimitriades

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Georgakis makes an interesting note on the scholarly attention – or rather the lack of – paid to Australian Greeks and sport. The assertion then is that more attention is paid to apparently traditional tropes – church, family, food, and dance – than modern novelties. Could this explain why there is this ease in non-Greeks (read Anglos) in going to Greek restaurants as opposed to Greek soccer clubs? Yes, the sport itself has something to do with it, but there is also something to the notion that soccer and soccer clubs are modern inventions, not associated with Greekness in Australia except as a point of difference to the mainstream modern interest (which are characterised as traditional). People like their wogs to be compliant, quaint and rustic. To be fair, some of those same wogs like to think of themselves in the terms of assumed hyper-authenticity as well, even if they resent outsiders thinking these things. Returning from that tangent, Georgakis makes the point, that in the literature about Australian Greeks - which could refer to either creative or scholarly literature - there is an oversight: writers and scholars do see the Greeks out here playing sport and they do hear them talking soccer results in the cafes. But sport does not figure in their writings.

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Georgakis makes the point that to outsiders, the ethnic identity of individuals is often considered to be the same as their nation-state identity. Thus, in Georgakis’ example, there is no differentiation between Calabrese identity and Italian identity. Those who have read Peter Goldsworthy's novel Keep It Simple, Stupid, or David Martin's novel The Young Wife (and why haven't I reviewed that here yet?), can see how this becomes manifest. Nor is there necessary consideration or understanding of the differences between first and second generation migrants (or why the second generation is even called migrant despite being born here. Geoffrey Blainey gets part of the blame here, especially for his use of ‘our’).

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Some things worth noting – there are, apart from gender concerns, also issues of class and education which often go unremarked upon. There are nouveau riche and petit bourgeois Greeks and other migrants. There are those who can speak better English than others. There are those who are uncomfortable in their new surroundings and those who are uncomfortable within the confines of an insular migrant culture. Within the apparent monolith of an ethnic community, there are innumerable hybridities and fissures. No different to anyone else, really. And yet the depictions of us, and especially the most recent migrant groups, remains broad and vague.

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Georgakis asserts that the creation of Pan-Hellenic soccer clubs was seen as a means of uniting Greeks across a range of demographic and political strata. In addition to this, he notes that as the majority of Greek migrants to Australia came from rural and agricultural environments, their adjustment to the (limited) leisure options in the urban setting of (let's say) Melbourne was difficult. This would have been compounded by the lack of familiar family and social structures influenced by the absence of women. Thus notions of conformity, removal from gambling spheres and other bad influences formed part of the rationale for forming these soccer clubs - in other words, creating a moral tether. How much this could be expected to work considering the limited match times - two hours a week and whatever time it took reach the ground and return home is not answered, and is probably unanswerable.

The apparent motivating factors – an apolitical unifier, a moral modifier – clash with the accounts of Martin, who sees ingrained political intent, and soccer attendance being just one of the (limited) social outlets for Greek migrants. More importantly, Georgakis doesn’t flesh out the differences between the pre-mass migration clubs (Melbourne Olympic) and the post-mass migration clubs (Hellas, et al); that the former were based around participation (and could be done as such because of the small population needing to be managed) and the spectator orientation of the latter.

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It may be that the soccer organisations were in fact the only Anglo public space that was ever appropriated by immigrants; (Georgakis 2000, p. 189)

Georgakis seems to suggest that the ethnic Greek soccer club re-created, in its own fashion, the agora/public sphere space that the migrants had left behind. That this space was also an overwhelmingly male domain fits in with this trope - the soccer match becomes an extension of the public square left behind, and the cafes of the Greek precincts.This seems to accord with Martin but does not so much with Dina Dounis; then again, Dounis is writing of the end of the 1960s and a time when women and families have begun to arrive en masse; Martin is writing from the start of the 1960s, perhaps even of the late 1950s, where the recently arrived Greeks were mainly single men. Dounis, in the relative brevity of her poem, is almost wistful in her vague recollection of the crowd violence; Martin always sees it as a contemporary, barely controllable issue - he can sympathise with the pressures incurred by the migrants which exist fuel for the powder keg, but understanding is not justification. One wonders what those who hoped the formation of these clubs would act as moralising forces made of violent scenes.

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Georgakis talks about the difference in the class system between the Greek migrants and their Anglo-Australian counterparts. He notes for the Greek community that wealth was only one factor, and one which was not always as important as networks, patronage, etc. We are talking here of the parallel world, of what happens when a migrant community (a problematic term, because how one chooses to define such an entity is riven with imprecisions and qualifiers) both chooses and is compelled by mainstream society to exist outside of the main political and social system – unless it chooses to assimilate completely.

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I have the same photo in a different context in another article.
Check the this tag for that. 

Georgakis spends much of the early parts of the book discussing the sporting interests of those pre-World War II Greeks. Wrestling captures their fascination more than anything. While teams sports such as cricket and Australian Rules take their interest, it is a small community, and one which is unable to create long lasting entities. There is also the matter of many of these people being involved as small business people, working six or seven day weeks and thus not allowing them much time for leisure activities such as sport. The relatively cosmopolitan Egyptian, Cypriot and Smyrniot elements seem to be the forefront of things, at least in the 1920s and 30s, and with regards the short lived Apollo Athletic. How much the other Greeks knew of soccer though is questionable.

This becomes obvious by the 1940s, when the Olympic Club is set up for participation by Melbourne Greeks in almost every other sport except soccer. Even Greek women, who have generally little role to play in the Olympic and related clubs other than fundraising, have a netball team. The creation of Olympic's soccer wing in the mid to late 1940s comes through the exposure of some members of the Greek community to soccer while on overseas duty with the Australian army, or while on holidays in Greece. It's almost like a Greek version of an Ian Syson World War I scholarly article.

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It is according to an old tradition that a rich man should take a soccer team under his patronage and that others should admire his magnanimity. (Georgakis 2000, p. 187)

How does ethnic community patronage work for the Greek community now? Is the money of wealthy Greeks now spent on better things? The Greeks who arrive after the war are so much more different from the Greeks who have been here. There is a difference in class, education, regional origin, gender. Those here from before knew something of the local customs; many of them would have grown up in Australia, or had spent the better part of their lives in the country. Melbourne Olympic club newsletters increasingly had English language articles in them.

Those who cam hereafter had no use of such a club, which was for better or worse half-assimilated in form, and whose preferred games were those which were popular locally. And thus one of the great distinguishing marks between pre-war and post-war migrant Greeks seems to have a love and/or familiarity with soccer. By the late 1050s, the Melbourne Olympic Club, which no longer has a soccer wing, is on its knees. Its newsletter (an edition of which was used by David Martin as part of his research for The Young Wife) is entirely in English; that in itself is no crime. But it is evidence of the cultural gulf between the old and the new Greeks. But there are members of the old guard who manage to get organised enough to form South Melbourne Hellas, if not primarily for their own entertainment, then for the benefit of others...

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The book was published in 2000. It was, for South Melbourne Hellas at least, the peak of everything; and thus Georgakis is optimistic about the club's future. Had this been published now, it would in all likelihood be a very different book.

Medium Density Nightmare (Australia 3 Kyrgyzstan 0)

Or, conversations with Canberran taxi drivers

Or, does Canberra deserve an A-League licence? No, of course they don't.

Or, three or so mostly wasted days in the nation's capital due to cutbacks to the National Library

The driver of the Greyhound coach leaving Melbourne for Canberra in Thursday morning runs through the list of essentials: what to do with your rubbish, where to go to the toilet, and not to use deodorants as it gets into the air conditioning. Seeing as there's only five blokes on the thing, spread out across the bus, that shouldn't be an issue.

Steve from Broady had asked if I wanted to join him on this trip - no budget airlines fly to Canberra, remember - and I said yes, thinking I could also double up by doing some research up there. Apart from a dodgy roadside cafe cheeseburger somewhere Albury, the bus ride up is uneventful, even as it stops to pick up no one on at least half a dozen occasions.

Our first cab driver of the trip, taking us from the Jolimont Centre towards our budget hotel in some suburban outpost, takes up the soccer theme. He himself was a player he says, for Olympic in Canberra and Canberra Deakin, as well as some Spanish mob I didn't quite get the name of. He also takes credit for introducing Tom Rogic to football, which is the kind of claim that’s impossible to verify under those circumstances.

If, as in my day job, I was marking someone’s paper at uni, I could go back and check the reference, or mark them down for not including it. In this case that’s impossible to do. He also asks us if we know about Johnny Warren, which is like asking a Christian do you know about Jesus. Even if I’m not one of those who has beatified Johnny, I can’t help but get offended at the question. Still, he gives us the good advice of making sure to get to the ground early before the traffic builds up.

Another Socceroo fan staying at the hotel (the Ibis Budget out in Watson - don't go there, just pay the extra bucks for something closer to town) ends up inadvertently stealing our cab to the ground, and while there are also a couple of guys from Wollongong waiting fort an Uber service, we get another taxi instead and make it to the ground well in time. That's more than can be said for many of those attending the game, who get caught up in traffic on the way to Bruce Canberra Stadium, apparently even leaving the shuttle buses early to get to the ground.

The match seems to play second fiddle to everything else. There is some sort of carnival atmosphere here. I suppose you take it for granted in Melbourne or Sydney that you’ll see the Socceroos play at least some sort of upper lower middle class team on a reasonably frequent basis. In the outposts, you take what you can get and make the most of it. The merchandise stand is making a killing, several local radio stations are in place, and there are two brass bands. Ordinarily that would be overkill, even one would be overkill, especially when they start playing AC/DC covers, but in a stadium with a bowl shape, that sense of Americana is not entirely misplaced.

Adjacent to the home end, we have a prime seat – that is near enough to the worst seats – to view the antics of the home end crew. A megalomaniac of sorts has a megaphone, and as the night goes on starts abandoning chants in favour of taunting the families of the western stand (who initially won't respond to his spit roast chant) as much he taunts the Krygyz players with comments about Russia and the USSR. Worse, there are even people wearing onesies, a fad which passed by my metropolis years ago.

One deadbeat in front of us offers to go buy some beers for his mates during the first half, but after going up three steps, realises that he doesn't have any money and comes back down to take some out of his partner's purse. Another group go off to buy beers before Australia has even scored, at the a moment where the ball is desperately pining around the Kyrgyz goal. That's something I've never quite understood, this inability to at least time your run to the beverages or have the patience to wait until the end of the relevant play at least.

Others watching the game both in the stadium and at home seem impressed with what the Australians are trying to do, even if they aren't quite up to doing it yet. Me, I think we're playing like donkey balls, but that's a matter of taste, no? In this case it's also a matter of perspective, because the view from right behind the goals in row R (in a part of the ground that for some reason skips rows O and Q) is kinda crappy. And who the hell built a stadium in a wet city without almost any roofing? It's a good thing the rain paused for the duration of the game. All things considered - the weather, the opponent, the weeknight fixture, the crowd number, at a touch under 20,000, was excellent.

Exiting the ground has the vibe of less muddy Waverley Park. Those on shuttle buses do OK; goodness knows how long it took to get out of the car park for those who drove there. The bus driver on the shuttle bus back to the city loses his cool when someone presses a button they shouldn't have, and then goes on to deny it. The bus lights are blue, which makes me wonder if Canberra has a night time bus riding junkie problem, but it turns out the real reason for the blue lights is for reducing glare for the driver at night.

The next day, trying to measure the impact of what had happened is almost pointless. My goal here in Canberra is to delve in the past. On the way to the National Library, the cab driver has the local commercial talk radio station on, and the presenter muses about whether Canberra could ever host an A-League team, before moving into an aimless discussion with the resident meteorologist about how much it had actually rained in various Canberra suburbs and the peripheral Yass.

I'm in Canberra to look at the archives of David Martin, and to confirm the existence of properly record materials to do with 1962 novel The Young Wife, which includes several soccer passages within his fictionalised Greek-Australian milieu. A magnifying glass helps sort out some of the handwritten details - I'll feature this as an artefact someday - but the thing I thought I had once perceived in this collection, an extended opening where Martin muses on the nature of sport in Australia turns out to be a mirage. That disappointment is compounded by the cutbacks to the library meaning the library not only does not open its special collections room on Sundays, but doesn't even make any deliveries on Saturdays at all. It's a terrible disadvantage for interstate scholars, both professional and amateur.

I turn up dutifully on the Saturday anyway, and having started on Martin's autobiography back at the hotel, I am able to at least get closer to what it was Martin was trying to do in this novel - and how, contrary to the praise he received for his work at the time of its publication, actually produced at best a fascinating failure of a novel. I also come closer to understanding his connection to soccer, but not close enough for my liking.

On the Sunday, the taxi driver taking me from my hotel to the National Portrait Gallery notes how he misses the EPL. Back in Cambodia, he could watch to his heart’s delight on dirt cheap subscription packages, and at reasonable times. Work now rules that out. How many Cambodians in Canberra? I ask. About 100 families he says, not like Springvale eh? He grins, and mentions his shock and delight at tne memory of hearing voices in his native tongue on the streets of Melbourne. It turns out the guy plays as well, socially at least in open parks with other taxi drivers and local uni students, but he rushed to play one day after getting off work, didn't bother stretching and did his back. Every time he comes back after a two week layoff, he ends up hurting it again, but he loves playing the game.

The National Portrait Gallery is worth a visit. It opens up with a room that's a sort of pantheon of mostly eminent scientists and the odd celebrity, before moving through history. Sketches of Indigenous peoples, explorers, and an endless series of black clad Australian petit bourgeoisie men, and their mostly pasty skinned wives. As time goes on, the works become more daring and more colourful, and their subjects more diverse, even if there's still way too many of the Fairfax family in there. Many of the subjects are either leaders of commerce and governance, or friends of the relevant artist. That makes sense - the former have both the desire and ability to afford their portraits being painted, while the latter are the persons the artist will most like to paint. I preferred the more adventurous and diverse subject matter - both the lefties out there, the huge Bob Brown portrait really has to be seen in the flesh, even though the subject himself is uncomfortable with the implied notions of sainthood bestowed upon him in the photo, as well as the disproportionate credit allotted to him.

The main gallery section finishes off with portraits of women. Unlike most of what has come before, many of these are photographs instead of paintings. I'm not sure of the reasons for this, and while I'm not generally not a fan of this kind of photographic work, the Lee Lin Chin portrait is stunning. Sports people get short shrift in the main selection. There are three fluoro images of famous cyclists (Cadel Evans, Robbie McEwan and Stuart O'Grady) and a stern Margaret Court. The seasonal gallery, which was in its last day, was called 'Bare' and was about various figures in different states of dress and undress. The Les Patterson on the toilet is a corker to see in the (too much) flesh, but other than that, it's not a particularly impressive collection. Sports persons get more time here, but too often its hackneyed, the photographers (most often its photographers) being unable to find the balance between the certainty and doubt, the athletic and the vulnerable. The only soccer man is a bare chested Harry Kewell, Liverpool era.

Some of the things I liked were Dave Graney's deliberately hilarious pose of dangerous sexuality; the frightening Robert Hughes; Les Murray attempting to sprawl, but coming across as timid in trying to do so; Arthur Boyd's portrait of his friend Carl Cooper on the edge of madness; and astronomer and physicist Penny Sackett, in a modernised renaissance pose, complete with screwdriver in hand. Someone in the gallery's guestbook grumbled about Rolf Harris' portrait of the Queen being removed, putting it down to political correctness. There were enough lords and ladies in there anyway, and a huge Queen Mary of Denmark.

The next day, my last cab driver in Canberra, in between grumblings about the apparent waste that is the planned light rail line and the pointlessness of the existence of an ACT government, asks me why I’m here. I tell him I came up with a friend to see the Socceroos, and he notes that he started watching it at home on SBS, not realising it was delayed, before his wife told him the final score – he’d forgotten that it’d also be on Foxtel. The circus, scaled down as it was for the provinces, came to town and left just as quickly. Anyone trying to weasel some sort of meaningful metrics out of that as a measure of what an A-League Canberra should probably find something else to do with their time.