Not much going on, but we'll keep an eye and an ear out for anything if it does happen. I think pre-season training starts tomorrow? Anyway,iIn the mean time...
FFA's NCIP survey
For who knows what reason - cheap populism, desire to watch the world burn, sudden appreciation for the Star of Vergina - FFA is holding a survey to gauge thew views of Australian soccer supporters with regards to the National Club Identity Policy. Up to you whether you complete the survey or not. I'm not going to pressure you. Enjoy the loaded questions if you do decide to fill out the form.
I'm on the radio, for now
So Football Nation Radio have commissioned Ian Syson for what at this stage is a pilot run for an Australian soccer history radio show. And of course I've been roped in to help out. We did our first episode last week for Armistice Day, so we talked about soccer Anzacs and such, but we also covered some other stuff. If you've been missing the sound of my dulcet tones, or if you want to learn something about soccer history in this country you can listen here. Or not. No arm-twisting from me.
Well, that's finally sorted then
I'll keep this relatively brief.
Yesterday I received the news that the corrections for my doctoral thesis have been passed.
I'm not going to go into too much detail about the entire process of the thesis, and its extended examination period, except to say that I was relieved and overwhelmed by the news.
I thanked a whole bunch of people in the acknowledgements section in the thesis itself, and I will thank more of those needing to be thanked when I see them. But it would be remiss of me not to thank again my supervisors Ian Syson and Matthew Klugman, for their support across the five years of this project, and in Ian's case, far longer than that.
It would also be negligent however not to thank the South of the Border readership and the broader South Melbourne Hellas community. The blog has hindered my ability to finish this thesis earlier, but without it, I'm not sure I would've finished it at all.
It was through the combination of South and smfcboard.com (RIP) and Ian that I got back into the game, even if it was the only game I'd ever known - career student. Since then in my own slow way, I've made my way through the uni system, culminating in something that only towards the end did I think I would actually achieve - and even then, it was rarely straightforward.
And while it's slightly naff to say it out loud, I dedicated the thesis to South Melbourne Hellas, because it felt like the right thing to do.
Showing posts with label Ian Syson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ian Syson. Show all posts
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
Tuesday, 21 August 2018
In the slash - Heidelberg United 4 South Melbourne 2
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| Unlike Cosmo Kramer, it's unlikely that we'll run out of gas and wake up in a ditch to find the tank full. |
The previous week, an indeterminate amount of supporters were suddenly banned by the club for less than clear reasons. There was some talk that those people would also be banned from the away game against Heidelberg, but that did not seem to come to pass. Clarendon Corner arrived, situated itself in south-east corner of Olympic Village as opposed to its usual spot underneath shed roof, and chanted their usual repertoire as well countless adaptations of those familiar tunes substituted with the words "sack the board".
The club has since put up a notice on its website acknowledging the bans - clumsily noted as "up to eight supporters", as if they don't know the exact numbers.
It is impossible to make out from that post what exactly constituted the anti-social behaviour. In the past there have been attempts to clamp down on swearing in chants, but if that was the case here, then even your correspondent would be banned. If it was for the "sack the board" chants, those have been a serious and non-serious staple of South Melbourne matches for 20 years. If it was for the "sack the board" banner, that seems incredibly petty. If it was because of the events following our last home game against Heidelberg, I wasn't in the vicinity of that action, so I can't say with any authority whether the club has the moral right to do what it has done. If it's something else apart from that, I'd love to know what it is.
All that will be answered in good time, one way or another, but back to the immediate concern at hand. I don't think anyone seriously expected us to get a point at the Village, and the state of the substitutes bench said a bit too. Marcus Schroen started there, I would assume because he was still suffering from the effects of his injury the previous week; but talk around the ground was that he'd been dropped because he'd missed a training session due to new work commitments. As it was, Schroen came on during the second half and made a noticeable difference, and you wonder what would've happened had he played the whole game?
Milos Lujic started, even as rumours began circulating around the possibility that he's already come to a verbal agreement to play at Oakleigh next year. I don't know how much stock to put into rumours like that, which seem to gain momentum mostly when he has a bad game for us. He didn't have a great game on Sunday, but to be honest, the service he received from our almost completely poxy midfield in the first half was very poor. Ndumba Makeche came off the bench, and seemed to do a lot better, being more mobile and more willing to throw himself into the fray.
Disregarding for a moment the post-season chaos that could engulf the club, I waver between thinking that there are at least a handful of players from this squad that could be retained, and then thinking that just about everyone is likely to bail and that we could be seeing an entirely new squad next year. Leigh Minopoulos played his heart out, but will his persistent injuries finally see him move on? Matthew Foschini sometimes shows proper leadership qualities and determination, but he's just as prone on his worst days to playing lazy football, hitting blind passes to nobody.
I could go on, but there really isn't any point just yet, because we still have to survive this season. With no other teams playing this weekend, it was our nominal chance to get a point or even a very unlikely win, or at the very least lose minimally and keep our goal difference advantage over Green Gully. Instead we found ourselves 4-0 down at halftime, our goal difference lead nearly evaporated, and the likelihood that it would disappearing over the subsequent 45 minutes. Somehow that didn't come to pass, which I put down to Makeche and Schroen's intervention. Back at 4-2, at least something from the day had been salvaged, and for some even the possibility that had we just got that third goal that we could've stormed our way to an unlikely draw.
But that's people getting way too optimistic for my tastes. All we can take out of the game is that Heidelberg didn't put away any of their numerous second half chances, that we clawed back a couple of goals and maybe something positive to take into next week.
Next week
Avondale away on Saturday afternoon at the Reggio Calabria Club. By Saturday night we'll have a good idea of what it is we'll need from the final round.
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| MCC Library on Wednesday, with the panel for the launch of Ian Syson's The Game That Never Happened. In the far distance, Ian Syson, John Harms, John Didulica, and Roy Hay. Photo: Les Street. |
Last Wednesday, soccer journalists, football academics, Twitter elite, and assorted other people found themselves at the MCC Library for the launch of Ian Syson's new book The Game That Never Happened: The Vanishing History of Soccer in Australia.
The launch party was in the form of a panel, as seems to be the trend of these things - well, this is the second book in a row that I've seen launched in this way at least. Joining Syson on the panel were Australian Rules and general sports writer John Harms, and PFA CEO John Didulica, with the book's publisher Roy Hay being the compere of sorts. Sadly, noted sportswriter Gideon Haigh was unable to attend due to a competing engagement, but he did send in a short summary of his thoughts which was read out during the launch, I think noting the way the book overturns the illusion of Australian sporting meritocracy.
Harms proceeded to discuss the ways in which the book fills a gap in its intersection of sport and culture, as well as noting its combination of two intellectual streams - narrative history and classic cultural studies. Harms also reflected on the book's touching on an aspect of his history, when it mentions the south-east Queensland town of Oakey, where Harms grew up. Asked whether Syson's book had changed his views on the development of Australian sporting cultures, with particular reference to his Queensland experience, Harms answered that it had actually solidified his opinions that as worthwhile and vibrant as soccer was, it had nevertheless failed to establish itself at the apex or centre of the local or national sporting cultures. The book's discussion of the spread of British miners however did illuminate why some towns had more vibrant soccer scenes than nearby towns.
For his part, Didulica noted that his reaction to the book was an aggrieved, visceral reaction, centred on the injustices faced by the sport in eras prior to those of the ethnic game. The book reveals layers of history, to my mind kind of a series of Troys, each one built on top of the ruins of the previous city. Didulica connected in particular with page 60, and the ways in which the Australian Rules fraternity was able to embed itself (within its dominant states) as being authentically British and Australian, while the commitment of the soccer people was seen as only towards Britain. It's an issue of perceived separateness which has persisted in the portrayals of Australian soccer and its adherents as having a lesser commitment to Australia, despite the fact that the formation of those clubs was in itself a commitment to a permanent existence in this country. But we return again to the idea that soccer, existing outside the official institutions and cultural mainstream of Australian life, finds itself forever battling for a way in against entrenched and defensive competitors.
Syson sees this soccerphobia beginning in Perth, where the Edwardian ideals of sporting amateurism and pluralism are shown to be an illusion, as the choice of which football code to pursue becomes more than just an aesthetic choice; morality and values exhibited through sport become important, and a sort of footy nationalism begins to take hold. There was some follow up discussion after that discussing the public debates of system of chaos vs scientific play, differing depictions of the violence of play, the militarisation of sport then and now, and the danger of people working on these histories having their work become part of what I consider to be pissing contests between codes about who sacrificed more for various war efforts. It's certainly not Syson's intention to contribute to that kind of discourse - his intention is show how the growth of early 20th Australian soccer was devastated by players volunteering for war - but it is something that could certainly happen, and probably already has.
If I were to summarise the point of both the book and the launch discussion in a sentence, I would say that soccer is popular in the wrong places, then popular with the wrong people. Where it becomes the mainstream game in its early days, it is too far away from the centres of economic and social power to become a game embedded within the broader culture. Later, of course, it becomes associated so much with foreignness that even though the game has been revived in metropolitan centres, there is a stigma that cannot be overcome.
Knowing the author for so long, and having discussed elements of this work with Ian for many years now, I can't really go out of my way to review the book as such. What I can say is that for various reasons the book had a protracted and difficult gestation period, and I'm glad and relieved that it's finally seen the light of day. Like many Australian soccer books, this one hardly sets out to provide the definitive take on the game's history. What it does do is scratch the surface of hitherto under-researched areas, breaking down assumptions about the origins of the game in Australia and its relationship to other football codes. It flies across the country, to both urban and rural areas, taking what on the surface seem like random formations of often short-lived clubs and soccer scenes, into what could be classed as broader trends. (One day Syson will have to follow through on his interactive historical map idea).
To that end I would've liked to have seen perhaps an appendix dealing with the research methodology, and especially its use of the National Library of Australian newspaper database Trove. It's an interesting point because during the panel discussions Syson did go into a bit of detail into his use of Trove, finding issues of nomenclature, articles where it was unclear what code of football was being played, and moments where soccer disappears so suddenly from the public record, that people believe themselves to be founding "inaugural" soccer clubs in their towns, oblivious to the fact that soccer had been there before; in some cases, very recently.
History is forgotten then; now it's flattened, so that mythologies about the game (and its counterpart games) have taken firm hold, and that cultural assumptions also obscure how those deciding which sports to play in colonial and early Federation Australia came to their decisions. So much of what we claim to understand about how that all happened is informed by the present, not the past; for instance, the matter of low scoring being used as justification for Australian Rules' popularity over soccer, when in its early decades Australian Rules had scoring that was comparable to that of soccer.
Within the book, too, one gets the idea that as much as Syson has done well to unearth hitherto forgotten and neglected materials, still was is often found is viewed through the lens of people who are not from the soccer fraternity. That causes its own problems, but that correspondence is still better than nothing and especially the assumed absence of writing about soccer from that era. The contemporary reports Syson looks at may be spotty, biased, dismissive, curious, and any number of other things, including an often frustrating penchant for having no eye to posterity, a trait common to news reports on both proto-football and codified football. But these articles are there, and they provide their own clues to what Syson argues is a much more complicated situation than has been given credit for.
What Syson seeks to make clear is that soccer is often there physically, even in its ebbs and flows of popularity, but that its cultural and historical status is made much smaller than it actually is, or rendered entirely non-existent. That's not to argue that soccer is akin to the mainstream codes in its centrality to Australian culture, only that the ledger leans too much one way. How it got to that stage is part of what the book begins to answer. There is scope then to discuss in future work - should it ever come to pass - ideas of Victorian (as in the state/colony, not the era) nationalism and cultural imperialism, alongside the self-inflicted wounds.
Syson is also careful though; while acknowledging the debates being had in Australia in the 1800s about what game of football is best and which to play, that we need to avoid elevating those advocating for soccer into higher positions of cultural prominence than they probably/possibly had. There book is also informed by the centrality of Victoria to these matters, and sometimes you can see glimpses of Syson's anti-Victorian leanings become evident throughout the book. It often does read like something written by a cultural outsider, and one wonders if there's scope for work on the cultural history of early Australian Rules to be written by someone from the outside.
(James Coventry's book on the evolution of Australian Rules tactics, Time and Space, does this to a degree - it helps reclaim the role in the development of Australian Rules from a hegemonic Victorian point of view - but Coventry is a still a fo0ty person, albeit one from South Australia.)
As for how to purchase this book, while sales have gone well, there is an issue with the book's distributor, which has gone into liquidation. That will be rectified soon I'm told. For those hoping for an ebook edition, I am told that this is also being worked on.
Final thought
The funniest thing to happen this week was seeing fellow South fan Dave's reaction at the book launch, as he saw me in my element of quasi Australian soccer writing celebrity. In that regard, it was nice to meet sometime poet Alan Whykes, and writer/coach/fan George Ploumidis at the game itself, and to have a casual chat. If it was only about watching the game, and not being able to share our joy and misery with other people, it'd be a much lesser experience.
Syson is also careful though; while acknowledging the debates being had in Australia in the 1800s about what game of football is best and which to play, that we need to avoid elevating those advocating for soccer into higher positions of cultural prominence than they probably/possibly had. There book is also informed by the centrality of Victoria to these matters, and sometimes you can see glimpses of Syson's anti-Victorian leanings become evident throughout the book. It often does read like something written by a cultural outsider, and one wonders if there's scope for work on the cultural history of early Australian Rules to be written by someone from the outside.
(James Coventry's book on the evolution of Australian Rules tactics, Time and Space, does this to a degree - it helps reclaim the role in the development of Australian Rules from a hegemonic Victorian point of view - but Coventry is a still a fo0ty person, albeit one from South Australia.)
As for how to purchase this book, while sales have gone well, there is an issue with the book's distributor, which has gone into liquidation. That will be rectified soon I'm told. For those hoping for an ebook edition, I am told that this is also being worked on.
Final thought
The funniest thing to happen this week was seeing fellow South fan Dave's reaction at the book launch, as he saw me in my element of quasi Australian soccer writing celebrity. In that regard, it was nice to meet sometime poet Alan Whykes, and writer/coach/fan George Ploumidis at the game itself, and to have a casual chat. If it was only about watching the game, and not being able to share our joy and misery with other people, it'd be a much lesser experience.
Tuesday, 24 July 2018
Luck's a fortune - South Melbourne 2 Hume City 1
We had our bit of luck the other week against Bentleigh, the but the good fortune was coming out of our ears on Sunday. Of course it didn't quite seem like that at first what with not having turned up for the first half or hour or so, and giving away what looked like either a very soft or very avoidable penalty in just the kind of position where there's no life or death need to do so.
But then we managed to wake up a bit and for the last 15 minutes of the first half at least we created some chances and such. Still, Pep Marafioti's goal, while admittedly well placed, relied as much upon the good fortune that such flick headers rely on, as well Hume keeper Michael Weier getting himself into a bit of a tangle trying to figure out which direction he was meant to be heading in. It was probably a touch fortunate as well that Leigh Minopoulos wasn't called for offside at the point Marafioti headed the ball. Maybe the linesman didn't see it, maybe he didn't think Minopoulos was interfering, either way it counted, and we were in with a chance of doing something we'd not done yet in 2018: win a game after going a goal behind.
Speaking of real and imagined offsides, the first half had what looked like two of the worst offside calls I've ever seen, one where Minopoulos was called offside when he was about three of metres onside, and one where he was called onside despite being two metres on the wrong side of the ledger. Anyway, such is life, but geez they looked like terrible calls at the time.
Now some people are saying that that 15 minute patch in the first half was all the quality that we were really able to produce during the game, but I think that's a bit harsh myself. I agree that we were outplayed, but I don't agree with the idea that we did nothing at all in the second half. Having said that, throughout the game Hume squandered about four or five clear cut chances that should've consigned us a to a loss. Our defending was not up to scratch, in particular knowing when to press, and even more in particular being able to track the runs off the ball that Hume's attacking players were making. They were excellent on that front, perhaps the best of any team I've seen this season, but unfortunately for them, they didn't have a striker up front to make the most of any of the chances they created. Nikola Roganovic didn't have to make a save off any of them, so wayward were Hume's shots on goal from otherwise point-blank range.
While we were bumbling about when in defence and sending balls forward trying to find a goal, we made a whole bunch of subs, one of which included a tanned Milos Lujic. Standing next to me, Dave - who is becoming quite the terrace wit of late - posited that it would be about 33 seconds before Milos took a dive. Well, Dave's estimation was about 15 seconds too generous. Now, maybe when the replay comes out, the EPL assistant calibre English referee here to teach us many things will be proven right and that Milos was indeed bundled over illegally by a Hume defender. Anyway, Milos stepped up and scored it, we survived the remaining 20 odd minutes one way or another, and got three very valuable points. It wasn't particularly convincing, but so what? We're getting back toward having all of our senior players available, and the team more often than not now looks up for the fight.
Next game
Heidelberg United at home on Sunday afternoon. The men's match will be preceded by the NPLW senior match, also a South Melbourne vs Heidelberg affair. How convenient is that? The women's game kicks off at 1:30.
Tribunal shenanigans
So apparently we are going to the tribunal after all for that brawl against Northcote. I'm told it's not because Northcote pushed for it, and it's not based on any extant footage, so who knows what the hearing is going to be based on.
Bad taste chants
Bad George, bad George, what you gonna do?
What you gonna do, when he stomps on you?
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| I'm happy to lay off my persistent desire for a pom-pom South Melbourne Hellas beanie, if we can get branded accountant visors instead. Surely South has enough accountants on the board and in the stands to make this worthwhile. |
In regards to our chances of survival, the past week was a bit of a mixed bag. First, the good. Just in case you skipped ahead to this section: we won! And we beat a fellow relegation battler! That's three points we've got that they don't, and thus three points ahead of Hume with a much better goal difference. The other good news is that Bulleen lost, meaning that we are now ten points and significant goal difference ahead of the last placed Lions. Realistically, with five games to go, they ain't catching us.
In slightly less good news, Kingston beat Northcote last night in a match we would've preferred had ended up in a draw. That result means that Northcote are now in second last, seven points behind us, and again with a significantly inferior goal difference compared to us. You can't write them off though - after all, they have Bulleen yet to play - but you'd rather be where we are than where they are. Sadly, because Kingston got the win, they're still only four points behind us, making the game between us in a few weeks even more important.
Throwing a curve-ball into the works of all things relegation is the steep decline of Green Gully over the past two and a bit months. Our recent good run of results - ten points from a possible twelve over the past four weeks - means we have overtaken Gully, whom we play in a couple of weeks, on goal difference. Gully also have Hume and Kingston to play in their remaining games, completely upturning whatever half-arsed musings I made on this relegation situation a couple of weeks ago.
For those of us more inclined to be of a positive frame of mind - and let me make it clear that I am not one of you - our good run of form, if you want to call it that, has seen us keep up with the top six, maintaining the four point gap between ourselves and the current sixth placed side, which is Melbourne Knights. But that's for others to dream about. I'm only so bold as to say that we won't finish last, that we probably won't finish second last, and everything after that in this horror show of a season is a bonus. Quite obviously, we are not safe yet.
Vale Jim Postecoglou
Sad news this week that Ange Postecoglou's father has passed away. Ange has written a moving piece on what his father meant to him, which is well worth the read. The details for the funeral are below.
A-League meetingOn behalf of the Postecoglou family, we would like to thank you for all of the messages of support for Ange. They would also like to confirm that the funeral for Jim will be held at 1.30pm on Wednesday July 25th at Box Hill Greek Orthodox Church, 1 Hopetoun Parade, Box Hill.— South Melbourne FC (@smfc) July 24, 2018
A reminder that the club is hosting an information session for members and season ticket holders this Thursday evening on the club's A-League bid. The all-you-can-eat buffet meal service will also be running, along with I assume the half-price drinks.
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| "I can't believe a convicted felon would get so many votes and another convicted felon would get so few.". |
Speaking of the A-League bid, in their clickbait wisdom the good folk of FourFourTwo conducted a poll the other week, asking their readers which of the ten remaining A-League bidders they would like to see be included as part of the A-League's imminent expansion phase. This robust and unequivocally scientific poll was narrowly won by our very own South Melbourne Hellas over the Wollongong bid, both some distance ahead of the next best Canberra bid, and all three a very long way in front of the other land and property development firms masquerading as Australian top-flight soccer operations.
Anyway this result sent some of the very small amount of people who care and put value into these things into a bit of a spin. mostly those who hate South Melbourne, ethnic soccer, etc. "The result changed once South Melbourne shared the poll on social media!". Well, what did you expect them to do, sit there and let another pointless yet easy to exploit positive media opportunity go to waste? "The poll must have been corrupted!". Well, look, you know what? It probably was. Internet polls are an enormous waste of time, not least because of their easy corruptibility. But - and here's the kicker - if that was the case, still the only people who could be bothered to corrupt the poll apparently did so in favour of South Melbourne, and probably the other two vote winning bids. Why? Because they're the only bids with enough people that care, yet.
For all the talk about groundswells of untapped interest from the more nebulously conceived consortia, the only groups who have come out in support of them are local councils and assorted state politicians, and to a lesser extent some clubs - though these last are usually grouped together in an amorphous mass. Not that any of that matters of course, because this is just a playground optics game, but my word it is fun to watch the cat among the pigeons.
Here's something a few of us - OK, maybe just me - thought might never happen. Ian Syson, one of South of the Border's dearest friends, is holding a launch party for his new book, The Game That Never Happened: The Vanishing History of Soccer in Australia. This has been a work long in the making, and we'll be talking about that a bit on the blog at some point in the near future I hope, when I do a kind of overview of what this is all about.
The details for the launch are as per the flyer on the right. Understandably, being held in the middle of the working week in the middle of the working day isn't convenient for those outside the layabout university and professional sectors, but for those who can spare the time, it'd be great to see you there. If you do intend to show up, please RSVP to the MCC Library, because they need to put your name down so that security will allow you inside the building.
The book should be available in the usual online and bricks and mortar locations. If it isn't, you can contact the publisher or distributor directly, or give me a bell and I should be able to arrange something.
Final thought
Can we sign Bolt? At least we have a running track! 😂— Foti Stavrakis (@FotiStavrakis) July 17, 2018
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Some thoughts on Joe Gorman's 'The Death and Life of Australian Soccer'
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| The book is out now, and is widely available at chain and independent booksellers. It's also available as an ebook. The paperback retails at about $32 in stores |
Before I begin there are two clarifications that I need to make about this review. The first of these is for those of you who have not read yet the book, to keep in mind that your reviewer and an element of his writings and ideology is a part of this book, used as a vehicle for explaining Gorman’s thesis. The second point is that I have read this book before; not only in the discussions over several years with Joe which have helped inform and influence it – though to be absolutely clear, what is presented here is very much Gorman’s own argument, based on his own thorough research – but especially its draft form which was a little longer but otherwise near enough to the finished product.
The point of that preface is to say the following: I admit that I was almost in tears reading what would become this book the first time around, and having read it in its completed form now, I grieve again for what has been lost so far and for what will likely be lost soon enough. I also felt that it would upset people, especially on our side of the bitter/new dawn ledger, because unlike in his journalism Gorman does not go out of his way to appease our sensitivities especially regarding our future prosperity and relevance. As for the people on the new dawn side, if they get upset at anything in this book, they always have the comfort of being able to revel in Australian soccer now being designed in their image.
For whatever optimism a follower of one of the 'old' clubs might hope to elicit from this book, it is quickly dashed by its opening gambit. Yes, the book’s title tells us this will be the case. Yes, we know the National Soccer League is already doomed, having seen it die (or be murdered) first-hand. But the opening section, in illustrating the before and after of Marconi’s rise and fall in as stark a form as possible – the classic documentarian’s technique of juxtaposing images of a paradise turned into a ruin – there is no getting away from the pall which will only darken over the course of The Death and Life of Australian Soccer’s 375 pages.
The book covers much more than the NSL, by looking at what came both before and after it. Rather than seeking to confine itself to the 27 year window of the NSL in isolation, the book seeks to tackle much bigger fish. Gorman’s main questions are the perennial ones. First, how did ‘ethnic’ become a dirty word in Australian soccer? Second, why has Australian soccer internalised its hatred of ethnicity in this way? These are the nagging questions for both soccer and Australian society at large. They are important for what happened after 2004 in Australian soccer, and the rhetoric put out that the 'problem' of ethnicity was meant to have been solved once and for all. For Australian society at large, the question is at what point should the rights of migrant communities (especially non-English speaking ones) to have self-determination and control of their own affairs be curtailed.
Though ethnicity has been the perennial question in Australian soccer, and by extension in academic analyses of the game, in recent times new ideas have been pushed toward the middle (especially by Roy Hay) about how the structural flaws of the game's governance were as important as ethnicity to the game's historical woes, and that these structural flaws are an under-appreciated element of the Australian soccer story. Gorman’s book then tilts the scales back to the ethnic question, but in a more sophisticated way than has often been done before. Previous discussions have often been superficial, couched in terms of the self-interested politics of the game itself. Gorman seeks to address the matter of ethnicity as it manifests in Australian public culture independent of soccer, at the same time as it becomes a dirty word within soccer.
We arrive then at the core problem of ethnicity and how Australian society should be organised. Should different ethnic communities be allowed a measure of self-determination, or should they be expected to assimilate? If it is the former, how much freedom should they be allowed? Can they have a presence in national affairs in a scheme and style which does not acknowledge the assumed cultural, economic, and political centrality of Anglo-Celtic Australians, and perhaps even seeks to challenge that dominance? In no other sphere of Australian life has the dominance of Anglo-Celtic culture been challenged in quite the same way as it has been in Australian soccer thanks to its often unrepentant ‘ethnic’ quality. For a game already considered to be foreign to Australia, the ethnic takeover of the game – within the governing bodies, but especially in just sheer numbers on the hills and terraces – doomed the sport to a unique kind of obscurity, one where it was simultaneously popular among its constituent communities and yet invisible to mainstream Australia.
(And in that regard, I am only interested in discussing Australian soccer from after 1945, and if Ian Syson wants his pre-1945 stuff to be included in this debate he should hurry up and publish his book on the matter.)
There is no way Australian soccer can fight back from this position under an overtly ethnic format: not in its early 1960s glory days, not by the late 1970s when the NSL was formed out of fear, not hope, and certainly not through the withering and erratic decline of the 1980s and 1990s. While the formation of ethnic soccer clubs could have been seen as migrants making a commitment to Australia in a different way, instead it was seen as an anti-Australian maneuver. This is an understandable view to take from people outside the game, but the problem was that people within the game also saw it this way.
In some respects this story can only be told by an Anglo who was not a follower of the NSL. Everyone else is too close, and likely being ‘ethnic’, only able to see the issue from the inside. Gorman’s point in the early part of the book that he and his dad, otherwise committed soccer people, only went to one NSL game is the perfect (or near enough to perfect) vehicle for exploring this issue. It presents a change from Gorman’s usual work in his journalism on soccer. There he was obliged to obliterate or obscure himself as a narrator in the great journalistic tradition, giving off the vibe of neutrality and getting his politics across by choosing which quotes to use and from whom. That gave Gorman an always plausible get-out clause should any interview subject say anything particularly egregious or objectionable or outright insane – an unusually plausible possibility in Australian soccer. Here instead we have a reassertion of Gorman’s own character, playing the role of the de facto Anglo representative.
Goodness knows that putting it like that reveals the situation's deep seated problems of anthropological neutrality, but I've never done any undergrad sociology units, and the sociology books (both pro and anti sociology) I've scavenged over the years have mostly remained on my shelves.
What balances out Gorman's Anglo-outsider perspective more than anything is his framing much of the early analysis through the experience of Andrew Dettre, a man more or less the opposite of Gorman. Where Gorman is young, Anglo and situated firmly in the role of a journalist, Dettre is (by the end) very experienced, foreign-born, and not merely a journalist but also an activist. It is an activism not limited to soccer either; Dettre had grand schemes for Australian society as a whole, and a hope that soccer could be a vehicle for driving that social change. This is an important aspect of the work. Dettre had grand and sometimes contradictory ideas about soccer, but these were tied to grander ideas about what the nation could be. They reflected his own political feelings but also his experience as a refugee and migrant. This intellectual outpouring spanned several decades, pseudonyms, publications, and literary styles. Much as Gorman would wish he could write a biography of Dettre’s incredible life, such a book would never sell. Setting a quasi-biography of Dettre within a biography of Australian soccer therefore makes sense.
But as unique as Dettre is as an Australian soccer intellectual, he did not emerge or write from within a cultural vacuum. One of the things Gorman does here is rescue the Hungarians and their contribution as a collective to Australian soccer from under the weight of the more visible Italians, Croatians and Greeks. (It also takes, or rather I hope it will take, at least some of the heat off those latter groups who often get the entire blame for the failure of the NSL and the 'holding back' of Australian soccer). The Hungarians differ from many of their more well-known rival and contemporary ethnic groups. Their immigration numbers were smaller and centred on two very short bursts of migration. They were also more likely to have been educated, less prone to forming ghettoes, and through St George Budapest, made the sincerest attempts of all the ethnic clubs to broaden their fan base.
But even though they provide much of the intellectual and conceptual heft for soccer and the NSL to move forward, Dettre is not exactly like the other Hungarians. His intellectualism crosses over into an elitism that creates a distance between himself and his audience, including other journalists. The broadness of his thinking, the depth of his feeling, and the scope of his ambition is at times overwhelming. The social marginalisation of soccer further curtails his ability to transform Australian society, and it is no great accident that he has his greatest (albeit qualified) successes when he works for the Whitlam government.
There may be those while reading this book who will attempt to trace what effect if any that Gorman's reading of Dettre's work and speaking with the man himself has had on this book. Gorman may think otherwise, but I don’t see much if any stylistic influence resembling Dettre’s in Gorman’s work. That is unavoidable in a sense, not just for the length and dedication of Dettre’s career to this cause, his intellectualism, and Dettre’s learning English as a second language; but it is also because Dettre was never only looking back but also always looking forward. When Dettre ceases looking forward with any optimism, it effectively marks the end of his involvement with the game. To that end the most visible influence Dettre has on Gorman is in declaring an end to things. In the 1980s Dettre writes obituaries for the game, for the soccer press, and for the hope that ethnicity and soccer might create a pluralist Australia. Here, Gorman writes the obituary to end all obituaries, seeing a sort of end of Australian soccer history. What else is there to write about in Australian soccer, especially in terms of the present anodyne, Anglicised arrangement?
As the book comes to a close, Gorman becomes outwardly sentimental. Not that he has treated everything that has come before as simply a matter of facts, but there is a further disintegration in the veneer of objectivity. Among the tragedies for Gorman is that individuals initially left behind by new football could be reintegrated into the new world, but not the cultural and organising structures that created those individuals. This affects not only those who were affiliated with those past structures, but also those who currently belong to groups which resemble in their self-organisation – mostly accidentally – the structures of the past. If Gorman writes an elegiac 'end of history' for ethnic soccer in Australia, knowing that the Anglo establishment and those who have joined them have quashed any hope for even a minor revival from new migrant communities, he does not fall far from Dettre's late era manifesto.
But it is worth remembering that many of those who ran and followed the ethnic clubs were in some important ways not so different from their mainstream Australian sporting counterparts, in that they were bound to a safe and conformist conservatism, something which must have frustrated Dettre immensely. Because for all the praise (if that's the right word) you can give to the NSL for its diversity compared to other sports, for large periods of time the NSL itself was at best only a narrow multicultural experiment, limited mostly to clubs formed by migrants from central and southern Europe. While on the field it had a truly global diversity, off the field it had limited interest to people not directly connected to the scene. While there were enough people from those constituent ethnic communities to sustain them, this was not an issue; but soon enough those communities started drifting away.
In time the greatest betrayal of the ethnic clubs, if one can use such a provocative term, comes not from their own or the governing bodies' incompetences, nor the disinterest of the general public who had no obligation to follow them, but from those younger supporters who turned their back on their fathers’ clubs. It is a provocative assertion, and I do not believe Gorman is making it as strongly as I am, but there is more than the suggestion that without the intervention of ethnics inside the game towards change, things may not have ended up in the direction they did. The sons of the immigrants left the old edifice to die, either by leaving the game completely or joining in the new world.
This is the most profound demographic shift of them all, and it is my assertion based upon reading this book that it is more important than the hordes of juniors and their parents, the midweek indoor and futsal players, and the silent majority who even now show no interest in local top-flight soccer, preferring instead late nights and highlights packages from overseas leagues. For all the failure of the ethnic clubs to tap into new audiences - including the spectacular failure of St George, who tried harder than anyone to branch outwards - the inability of the ethnic clubs to hold on to their core support is what ultimately dooms them; growth for most of them is non-existent, and even for the best of them only incremental.
Gorman doesn't put all the blame for this on the ethnic clubs - there is much in Australian soccer and Australian society that they cannot control, and the self-loathing of those governing the game also drives people away - but nevertheless the crowd numbers speak for themselves. Without the ethnic communities growing out of their clubs and the ethnic scene, without those supporters jumping across to new broadbased franchises or moving towards mainstream Australian sports (or leaving the game entirely), it would not have been so easy to dislodge the pre-eminence of the ethnic clubs. The desire of soccer to mainstream itself was tied to the desire of migrants to mainstream themselves, a funny thing in itself considering persistent political and media fearmongering about ethnic ghettoes.
(As an aside, one observance and one unrequited desire. The observance is that perhaps summer soccer was the greatest mistake ever made by Australian soccer authorities, because whereas when the various football seasons overlapped people were forced to choose which one they would attend, when there was no overlap it became easy to have one's cake and eat it too. The unrequited desire is for someone to write a book on the cultural history of Saturday morning foreign language schools, which would include reference to being hotbeds of street soccer.)
The arrival of Perth Glory showed what was possible in a previously unrepresented market; Adelaide United cemented the idea, because it sprouted from the topflight corpse of Adelaide City Juventus; Melbourne Victory colonised its market in a way no other team has; and Western Sydney Wanderers finished off the job, bringing Australian soccer's migrant heartland over en masse to the A-League. Some would interpret this as evidence of the migrant soccer fans evolving to the next stage of becoming Australians, but it can also be interpreted as them assimilating and subsuming their differences into a larger amorphous whole.
It also does not take into full account those examples where broadbased clubs fail, with my thoughts on this usually going toward Brisbane Strikers. Some of the blame is put onto the notion that it was wrong to expect a league with any ethnic representation to succeed, the comparison being made by Lou Sticca of the ethnic clubs being dirty water that only serves to pollute the clean water of the broadbased clubs. I guess he only came up with this analogy after the clean water of broadbased Carlton SC got dirtied by its association with the dirty water of the footy club. But if there's one thing which comes through, is that as rubbish as the management of most of the clubs ethnic and non-ethnic was in the NSL, it was the ethnic ones which survived and still survive, whereas most of the non-ethnic ones carked it quick smart.
Oh Joe, why not something about Morwell Falcons? There's so many nooks and crannies to discover about Australian soccer, and you talk about Australian soccer moving away from a democratic and meritocratic paradigm, but the Falcons only get passing mention in your book! They came from a town of fewer than 20,000, built a nice boutique stadium and social club, earning their way through the league system while other people - you know who you are - were and still are banging on about some dump called Geelong and when it will get its act together. But I digress.
Then there is the intervention of the players. Many of them were born and raised within the ethnic club system at the game’s most prestigious clubs, and thus they understand intimately the cultural framework of the game. The players become militant after being exploited for too long, and quickly become the best organised, the most professional, and the most ideologically consistent faction in Australian soccer. If there is an argument to be made about structure predominating over ethnicity as a means of examining the fortunes of Australian soccer, it is via the players becoming a new force which disrupts the decades long tug of war between the governing bodies and clubs.
There are plenty of moments in this book which will generate debate. Among them is Gorman’s belief of the sheer folly of promotion and relegation and a second division, asserting them to be anathema to Australian sporting culture. Gorman also says, more or less, that promotion-relegation cannot happen because the A-League was not just an attempt to make a successful sporting competition, but about overturning an entire system of being. Gorman argues that before the A-League was even formed that it existed as a ‘state of mind’, with the idea being that it would transcend, but not reflect Australian soccer; that all the rough edges would be smoothed out, and that the game would be gentrified. For a sport which had spent so long not doing what it was told, this is the ultimate victory or betrayal depending on which side of the side of the debate you come from.
And has not South of the Border talked about the wilful embourgeoisement of the game in Australia? Some of it has been done on an individual level (fees, extra coaching, making little Johnny/Johnette feel special), and some of it has been done on a macro level, for example moving to modern stadiums that the teams cannot afford but which look good. And always linked to that, the attempt to shed any links to the past, including the self-loathing of soccer governing bodies' past and present and their revulsion of being linked with SBS. Not that SBS is an ideal commercial partner for any sport except those like the Tour de France, but much of the commercial limitations come from them being associated with ethnicity and the game's past by sponsors, the 'mainstream' and worst of all, Australian soccer fans.
Under such a framework, finances and commercial viability are almost of secondary concern. Those arguing for promotion and relegation have to not only successfully argue that the idea stacks up financially, they also have to argue convincingly that the current system as it has been set up can and must be overthrown, and that soccer need not follow what the other Australian sports do. Considering how hard so many people have worked to make Australian soccer as much like the other 'traditional' Australian sports as possible, this will be no mean feat. It would be, as Gorman argues here, a case of soccer returning to its old guise of trying to change Australian culture instead of fitting in.
Another lesson to be learnt is that soccer in Australia expects the momentum of goodwill to sustain it, and when it does not, it starts acting reactively. Bursts of interest due to World Cup qualification (now considered a fait accompli process rather than a do-or-die event) or cream of the crop touring teams disguise longer bouts of stagnation. Spurts of heightened interest and engagement do not have the same value as consistency of interest, the kind which sustains the two major codes of football. And while the NSL was certainly not immune to acting haphazardly to its rotting stagnation, neither is the A-League and the current FFA regime safe from its own inability to truly entrench itself among the likes of the NRL or AFL, as opposed to transient competitions like the NBL or Super Rugby, whose teams have little to no local connection and no consistency of feeling, and more precipitously, no communal corporeality. Gorman raises doubts about the meanings of many of the current A-League franchises, implying a soft underbelly which would not be able to survive truly testing times.
I have long argued however that this vagueness can actually be a strength and an appealing quality for many. There is just enough clarity about who these A-League franchises are – usually the team from ‘here’ – and more than enough ambiguity so that ideological and emotional connections are free to be construed in any which way different supporters like. People are free to adopt a level of commitment that for the most part is theirs and theirs alone, and not dependent on a greater whole. And while one could point out the fact that should these entities run into trouble that they would cease existing rather than carry on in a lower league, even though the ethnic clubs have often continued, for most people who care to think about these things they too have stopped existing.
Gorman is right to suggest that the ability to decide for oneself how committed one is to a cause means that at any moment one may simply choose not to be as committed. A book such as this by its nature is interested in those who are engaged with the game in ways aside from its recreational aspects. Thus you have among the many players, administrators and journalists people like the statistician Andrew Howe, and the late zine editor and agitator Kevin Christopher, whose presence also plays at adding colour to the Anglo spectrum. But it is missing the great mass of people, the silent majority, those who make home economics style decisions - insofar as their decision making is based around the allocation of their limited leisure time and money - about how they will follow the game. While those people are essential to the success of any mass sporting entertainment product, those people do not spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing about what Gorman has long considered the most niche of topics in Australian soccer, discussions which take place in equally niche environments: the abandoned terraces of state league clubs, and the dank corners of #sokkahtwitter.
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| Me having lunch with Joe Gorman somewhere in Ballarat earlier this year One of the things which will probably go unremarked about this book is Joe's use of literary depictions of Australian soccer. While I can't take credit for anything else which appears in this book (except the bits where I get quoted or paraphrased, which is mostly stuff from here anyway) I will take credit for introducing Joe to that literary material. Even better though was Joe using other stuff that he found in Soccer World, including work by Dettre, former Socceroo Ray Richards, and children's writer David Bateson. I do hope it prompts people to read that kind of work, especially David Martin's The Young Wife. Photo: Ian Syson. |
In that sense my inclusion in this narrative is validation of two things; that I have thought deeply about the game and written about it in that way; and that I have felt deeply about the game, and that whether I am right or wrong on the matters which I discuss, there is a purity to whatever agenda I may have. That purity of feeling is not exclusive to me though. Still, seeing yourself in print in any format, let alone what is likely to be praised as a landmark book on Australian soccer history, is enough to make one feel a little anxious. It is an anxiety based not just around what strangers will think of you, but also what those who know you will think of you. In my case, the worry is that I will be interpreted (through no fault of Joe's, really) as being the definitive voice of old soccer in its current guise.
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| The bit where I come into the book has largely gone unremarked upon so far, except for a friendly bit of banter relating to my resembling one of those guys who loses interest in a band he likes when the band becomes too popular. Without arguing too vociferously against such a portrayal, because there's probably some latent truth to it, it did remind me of a bit in Simon Price's biography of the Manic Street Preachers. When the Manics break through commercially with their fourth album Everything Must Go, their concerts start attracting boorish Oasis and Britpop listening types in addition to their then loyal and very alternative audience. Basically the two types can't stand each other, and eventually the feather boa wearing, zine writing original fans, who had supported the band through thick and thin up to that point, start drifting away. It's a great book by the way, I highly recommend it. |
Problematic then for me within this analysis is that amid Gorman’s gentle evisceration of Anglo-Celtic Australians (especially those of a pro-multicultural bent) for their refusal to engage with ethnic soccer, the absence of the British migrant is perplexing. It is all the more confusing because of oblique references made to the Englishness of Perth Glory’s Shed – the acceptable kind of ethnicity for many of those in Australian soccer who otherwise wanted to purge ethnicity – as well as noting the flood of British players who were involved in the early parts of the NSL. But British migrants and especially the English, whose numbers collectively outnumbered every other migrant group combined after the war, are otherwise nowhere to be seen.
Likewise those people who ran the clubs and especially those first generation migrants who followed those clubs are also greatly under-represented. Indeed one of my fellow South Melbourne supporters noted upon purchasing the book that I was in the index far more than long time South Melbourne Hellas president George Vasilopoulos. Though it fits in with the way Gorman has decided to tackle his subject, it feels like a massive lacuna that will never be filled. Players, younger supporters, journalists, administrators are all there, as are those who went on to found the ‘broadbased’ clubs during the NSL, but not those who were there at the beginning of the ethnic soccer club phenomenon. Some of these guys are dead, and I suppose that's a reasonable enough excuse.
But there are still guys who are alive and kicking who probably should have been included in this. For a book that was going to end up with narrative and thematic gaps no matter how much was included, this is a major omission. Ironically, this fits in with Gorman's thesis of the Anglo rejection of non-Anglo culture, in that non-English language news sources and interview subjects are mostly absent from the book. One can't blame that on the author's monolingualism, because one would need reading proficiency in several languages to get across the thousands of column inches; either that, or a well paid research team to sift through the ethnic papers of record.
There are unavoidable issues in the book, based around treating each state and region fairly, the experience of Indigenous Australians, and the story of women’s participation, or just as often, non-participation. As much as there is an ethnic vs non-ethnic issue which dominates our thinking on Australian soccer’s past, there is also a state vs state issue; the experience of the game varies so much between regions, and it is difficult if not impossible for people to feel they have a shared connection. Some of the sojourns Gorman takes to cover this stuff works well – I am thinking here in particular of the Queensland State League section – but others seem occasionally to be tacked on, or not to fit exactly, as if Gorman is trying to cram in as many things as possible.
To an extent Gorman agrees with this, arguing early on that there is no possibility of writing a point-to-point history of Australian soccer, and he does well to include as many parts of the national soccer experience as he does; but one cannot help but feel that there were times when some states or regions or experiences which were not covered in depth or at all. And since most of the NSL was based around Melbourne and Sydney, it makes sense if more time is spent there.
Even though they are of value and worth including, the parts dealing with women's soccer can only hope to provide a taste of that experience. This is frustrating, because women's soccer, like other women's sports both in Australia and overseas, deals with many of the same issues of assimilation and self-determination; should women's sport work with or separately to men's sport? Does women's sport lose the chance to forge its own identity if its proximity is too close to men's sport? These are questions however for another writer to confront more fully.
The book is as much about what came before and what happened after as it is about what happened during. Therefore it scoots along at some points, while being more detailed in others. There are lacunas which will frustrate people, especially those who feel that their experience or their region is not covered in enough depth. Some people will want more of the specific car crash details of bad soccer governance and outrageous incidents, but the risk is that those will be seen as the main point of the story with the bigger issue of soccer's cultural positioning being lost. Focusing too much on these risks turning any analysis of Australian soccer into a freak show, which is fine for idle internet banter but less suitable for a serious book of history.
Of course the book could be twice as long, even more formidably detailed, and better for it in my opinion. But there is also the advice Stephen Hawking's editor gave him prior to publishing his bestselling A Brief History of Time: namely, that for every equation Hawking would put in, the potential audience would be halved. Thus a book written this way is also more accessible, written not only for the initiated and already interested, but for those for whom the NSL and the world which sustained it mean little more than folklore.
Dealing largely with documentary evidence and interviews, the book does not engage much with academic debates. It helps with the book's accessibility, but there were moments when an engagement with other books, such as Ross Solly's imperfect but important Shoot Out would have been welcome, if for no other reason than more explicitly tracing different political party relationships to the game; from Dettre and Whitlam's progressivism, to the NSW Labor Right faction's ethnic bloc backing Tony Labbozzetta (which vanishes when ethnic clubs need the most support), to the Liberals changing the game and its ethnic character into something more like their own ideal of the national character.
But the book does most things very well. It nails soccer's contradictory nature; its tendency for being both ahead of the curve (Dettre/St George/Canberra City/Newcastle KB) but also behind the curve (pretty much everyone in the game at some point). It gets that the conflict of sport has never been just business, especially not in Australian soccer, whose raison d'être was one of primarily self-proclamation and actualisation. It gets the conservatism of the ethnic clubs, and their reluctance to cede the one major bit of power and cultural influence they have in Australian culture, but mostly their desire to be left alone.
Its selection of quotes is very good, from Mark Rudan’s 'it was their job to fit in with us'; the description of David Hill as being to the right of Genghis Khan; the lead up to the 1997 grand final being like 'the wogs against Brisbane'; and Jesse Fink's denouncement of Ange Postecoglou when the latter became Brisbane Roar coach as offering nothing because Postecoglou is 'old soccer'. But even within the structure of the book, there will be quibbles about who was interviewed and why, and I think many of those quibbles could be justified. Remo Nogarotto gets much more time than Tony Labbozzetta. Kimon Taliadoros gets interviewed in his guise as the vanguard for the establishment of the player union movement, but he does not get asked about his later time as South Melbourne general manager, which would have yielded interesting information about South's late struggles to move between its past and an uncertain future. There is almost no mention of Tony Ising, which whether you consider him one of the great prophets or the most unnecessarily bitter man in Australian soccer, seems like a large oversight.
The early reviews have been positive about the book, albeit largely thin on detail. Australia’s most noteworthy soccer historian, Roy Hay, writing his first impression of the book has largely lauded it, with his necessary caveat about the lack of emphasis on the organising structures put in place in the early 1960s. Others have focused on Gorman’s belief that the idea of promotion-relegation and second division is folly, and that there are lessons to be learned from the NSL’s haphazard attempt to implement the former. Adam Howard has gone into much greater depth on that particular matter, arguing the point that while history can provide a guide and a warning, on this matter Gorman has misappropriated the details for his own defeatist narrative.
My stance being well enough known on the promotion/relegation issue, it is not for me to continue a debate I have little interest in, preferring to let that run its own course. But Howard's point about Gorman's apparent defeatist tone is worth picking up on. Because of its sense of finality, and its desire to declare a definitive end to the past, this book leaves the reader without any sense of how things might change for Australian soccer in the future. The history of Australian soccer has been one of constant upheaval, and yet there is an assumption made in this book that that process has ended, at least in ways that we are familiar with.
Recent events in the form of wrangling for control over the game and its future direction have shown us this is not quite the case; and while I do not think that the ethnic clubs are or could be the main drivers of any future change, to present them as likely having no meaningful future is too forceful of an assertion. But that is also very much a personal take, as I would like to think there is hope, however outrageous that hope may seem, and that our resilience in the face of all obstacles could one day yield a new direction. Maybe Gorman refuses to speculate for the sake of speculation, but the lack of optimism in the book rather than creating an empathy (the feeling that we are suffering together) for soccer migrants old and new will likely only engender a hopeless sense of sympathy (feeling bad for someone's plight, but not feeling that their burden is yours as well) .
It is the kind of thing which makes me wonder who is going to read this book, and what wider impact it will have. After all, how many reviewed and discussed the Hay/Murray magnum opus? The discussion on matters of books and history among the soccer community seems intermittent at best, and for the most part these discussions are reflective rather than inspiring a call to arms. It is unfair to demand something else from Gorman here, because while he is at pains to not try and diminish the ongoing survival of the old clubs, he cannot lie and say that they have a thriving existence. The dwindling few followers of the 'prominent' ex-NSL clubs who will read this book will be able to change little about the situation.
To be clear, no one doubts the sincerity of their - our - passion; after all, it takes a certain kind of moral hard-headedness to keep following a state league club in the way that we do. In the epilogue in particular, which finishes with a rewriting of a blog post I made - a post that I know back then struck Gorman as extraordinarily poignant - there is little hope. For those with the intestinal fortitude to keep following the old clubs, that moral certainty is also matched up with what is also a rare sense of duty. While I tend to think in the book Gorman’s tone is more realist than defeatist, those two adjectives when deployed in the way they have been here are not so far from each other. The fields have been sown with salt. There will be people who will rail against that view, possibly ignoring the argument’s nuances, but Gorman is at pains to point out the violent excision of one of Australian soccer's core attributes, its ability to harbour new migrants who bring their numbers, playing talent and novel organisational attributes. Neither is there any hope that another Dettre could emerge. From which community? From which medium? To say what, exactly, and to whom? It is remarkable that an Andrew Dettre even existed in the first place.
Those picking up the book who never experienced the NSL or ethnic soccer in full flight might better understand how we got to now, but soon enough they will probably be back at the A-League, that competition dreamt up not just to rehabilitate soccer in a benign sense, but to cleanse it. If the idea of ‘cleansing’ has potentially volatile and incendiary overtones – especially within an Australian soccer context! - it is hard to argue that this is not what has happened. Damnatio memoriae it may not be, but it is as close as we can get.
My chief concern with the book then is not with its content, which I broadly agree with and which I think has been written very well. Rather it is with what will follow it? Will people merely praise the book, cherry pick certain sections out of it, and then discard its lessons and deeper message about using soccer as a means of understanding Australian society? After all, while it is a book about Australian soccer it is also a book about ‘us’ as a nation. Gorman throws down the challenge to the current generation of soft-headed multiculturalists, but will they engage with this book in the way I believe they should?
The Death and Life of Australian Soccer is not a hagiography of the NSL or ethnic soccer. For those hoping for a celebratory tome about the NSL, its great matches, players and clubs, this is not that book. Gorman writes that he hopes that in time those stories will be written – but in the meantime he emphasises that something has been lost, and there is some empathy in that emphasis. It is hard to pin down what exactly may have been lost – perhaps it is the large scale generosity of spirit from the true believers, those who literally built their clubs from scratch, not dependent on wealthy benefactors; perhaps it is the chance for a different Australia to be promoted. If Gorman is not exactly channelling the grief of those left behind, he is at least channelling Dettre's disappointment.
Monday, 11 April 2016
Horror start to the season continues - South Melbourne 2 Bentleigh Greens 1
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, we won again.
Eternal optimists, merchants of doom, Johnny A: everyone came out of this match with something to hold on to, which when you think about it, is just good business by South Melbourne - I mean, why limit yourself to pleasing just one demographic? It's all about metrics and leverage these days, and leaving out people just won't do. Best of all, we left everyone wanting more - repeat customers!
But Johnny A though. Devastated by the loss, and claiming in his post-match interview that 'we are so far ahead of South Melbourne as a football team, it's not funny' - this from the coach of a team that spent most of the game just bombing it long. Where was the patented Bentleigh Greens sexy-time football? Man, if I want to get played off the park by the best in the business I don't want it to be by a team passing the ball around the back, then hoofing it long to the forwards.
Still, one had to admit that we didn't always handle the aforementioned long bombs with, er, aplomb. The goal we conceded in particular, I mean, come on! Loose men everywhere in front of goal in that most dangerous of situations? That's state league one reserves stuff. And the lack of pressure on those defenders hoofing it long, we clearly gave them too much respect and time on the ball. Nikola Roganovic certainly thought so in his post-match interview, making the case that after we went ahead, we again fell back to the habit of falling back as it were.
And it was then, and really only then, that Bentleigh started actually playing the way they purportedly play every week. And while, yes, we had the man advantage for the second week running, and often looked like we were the man down for the second week running, it is also important to remember that we also had the lead going into the final twenty minutes for the second week running. Maybe it's a fitness thing? Maybe we're behind the eight ball on that front, still, two months into the season proper? If so, that's a big concern, but we were somehow good enough to get into the right position to win the game.
And as important as it is to focus on the negatives and what needs to be improved - and there is so much that needs to be improved, but remember the majority of these players are at this level for good reasons - how about enjoying the win? Yes, we shouldn't have been in a position where we had to rely on Roganovic making two penalty saves, but what about those saves! Huge! So we only got one shot on target in the first half? So did Bentleigh, with their other attempt hitting the post. Was our first goal offside? I thought so at the time, but the video footage is less clear on the matter, and none of the Bentleigh players called for it. Was our second goal lucky to be bundled in? Sure, you can see it that way - but what about Bentleigh's failure to clear the ball from their own area?
But back to the concerns for just a moment. The wing backs are out of form, and out of touch. Crappy crosses aside, calling for the offside and letting opposition players glide by? Criminal. Being nowhere near being in the game for the first 25 minutes? Awful. Bombing it long to Milos Lujic while he was being marked by three players, without anyone being at the fall of the ball? Really? The fact that we managed to get into the game despite our deficiencies, the usual appalling refereeing performance by Bruno, and get on top even before the dismissal of Dion Kirk? Encouraging.
And aside from his clumsy effort with regards to the second penalty, Kristian Konstantinidis has been huge in his two appearances this season, and he's making it very hard for Michael Eagar to get back in the squad. Of course there'll be a door opening with a busier schedule coming up and Luke Adams going off on national duty, but how great is it that we can bring in someone like Konstantinidis for the struggling Eagar and have him be near man of the match across two games? Pretty good. OK, I suppose.
Even the People's Champ put in a killer slide tackle near the end of the game. Somewhere out there, there's a scientist working furiously on solving the riddle of how we can both suck so hard, and be top of the table. The secret of cold fusion will probably be in there somewhere, too, like Homer Simpson accidentally proving that there is no God while working on his flat tax proposal.
Next week
At home against Oakleigh Cannons. The return of Gus Tsolakis. Going to be batter flying all over the place.
Over and over, we flatten the clover (with apologies to XTC)
One thing that Johnny A decided was worth complaining about was the state of the Lakeside pitch. His complaint? That it had too much grass. That the grass was too long. Now, to be fair - and when have I ever not been fair? Don't answer that question - he did also say that it was a pity for Chris Taylor and his team that they also had to play on that surface, but one can still damn well appreciate the irony of the coach of Bentleigh Greens complaining about a field that was too lush - after all, this was the team that actually painted the dirt on its field to make it look as if it was grass! Still. there is a part of me that actually hopes that it was a deliberate ploy on our behalf to get the State Sports Centres Trust to leave the grass a bit longer, in homage to that episode of King of the Hill where Hank cuts the turf on the high school football field to combat the opposition's strengths, i,e, longer grass on the edges for teams with good wide receivers. Please don't interpret this quasi-random pop-culture recollection as an endorsement of King of the Hill, it really was a very dull show.
Not quite the fourth official
Let's be honest - the implementation of a fourth official at NPL matches in 2016 is like being eight years old and getting a pair of grown up slacks with a 'smart' woollen pullover, after you specifically asked Father Christmas for an XBox. But just as everyone was somewhat getting used to the fourth officials being there, we had the bloke yesterday who almost flat out refused to turn his electronic board around so the paying public could see who was being subbed and how much added time was going to be played. The most horrific outcome of his failure to point the board towards anyone but the one person sitting in the opposite grandstand, was an attempt by some in Clarendon Corner to chant 'turn the board around' to the tune of this disco classic.
Lists for the sake of lists
Since Bentleigh have returned to the VPL/NPL, the following players have been sent off in games hosted by South Melbourne against Bentleigh Greens:
Apologies for the lack of a video montage.
It's now six years since we left the old Lakeside, and for all intents and purposes left the social club behind. Anyone else notice the clock on this blog going wayward by a few hours? I think it might be due to the cumulative effects of daylight savings over the years. That, or they're not linked to the atomic clocks like they should be.
Apparel sponsorship turning into a nightmare
So the deal with apparel supplier BLK, which was going to cost us a lot less money and cause us to have fewer problems than what we had with Adidas, has turned pear shaped. Problems with the online store, problems with the supply and quality of the merchandise, and problems with the women's team even getting a kit. It's not been a good start to this relationship, which is due to run for three years. I suppose that at least they have time to sort out the problems.
On the plus side
The hooped socks were back, baby! Did they help us win the match? Let's not get too excited, but they did look good out there.
Further FFA Cup news
Our next match in Shaun Mooney's patented crap-shoot tournament, against Altona Magic, has been scheduled for Wednesday April 20th, kickoff at 7:30, at Paisley Park Soccer Complex in Altona North.
Jersey presentation night 2016
A mostly dull and underwhelming night. One could handle the increased price ($50 to $70), but the $5 booking fee per ticket seems like someone's (at this point unidentified) just trying to gouge someone (me, and others as well I suppose). The food, which arrived very, very late - in fact the whole evening seemed to start about an hour late - was serviceable (Greek mezze and Italian antipasti combination), mediocre (steak so overcooked and dry that even I cringed), and OK I suppose (desserts fished out from the storeroom and cut into bite size pieces, though a better selection than last year, in that half the items weren't rock-hard and over-sweet cherry ripe slices).
At least this time, either due to more judicious use of space or due to a reduced number of attendees, we - that is the povo fans that weren't going to sponsor anyone, and therefore needed to be kept out of sight - managed to get seated indoors, and on the couches no less. That I was seated with Internet Celebrity SMFCMike is not as horrible as it sounds, because this seems to be the usual arrangement at South Melbourne jersey nights, and besides which, he and the others on the table were good company.
After last year having Tara Rushton perform the hosting duties, this year we had Stephanie Brantz, who really didn't do very much and wasn't very interesting when she was up there, though El Presidente did note that she was the first host in years to pronounce his name right, which I suppose is money well spent. More interesting was who was there and who wasn't. Yes, it's true. the People's Champ was actually there! Philzgerald Mbaka was not! Is Mbaka putting in his own bid to be the new People's Champ? He's got a long way to go to be honest. Mbaka, despite his non appearance, managed to rank up one of the highest auction bids, as Andrew Mesourouni ended up performing an elaborate gimmick with president Leo Athanasakis to raise the bidding. On the other hand, it was good to see that each player started off with a minimum guaranteed bid, avoiding the embarrassing moments of previous jersey nights where the auctioneer would have to beg the audience to bid for less popular players. This tactic also helped speed up the whole auction process somewhat.
Perhaps most tragicomic of all, standing in for Mbaka and consequently being more involved as part of the senior team than he has been on the field in recent times, was captain Michael Eagar. He also managed to pull in a good bid in his own right, as did everyone's new favourite 'need more Greeks' player, Kristian Konstantinidis. Mbaka, Eagar and Konstantinidis all hit the $5,000 mark. Unfortunately, the women's team were auctioned off as a collective, dashing my slim hopes of buying a woman. They were bought for about $10,000.
The highlight of the evening was on the tram on the way up to Beachcomber, overhearing a conversation between some kid and his dad about the classic arcade shooter Time Pilot. What a relief to know that there are kids out there who still search for, and appreciate, quality video games.
For the record, SMFCMike won the raffle's major prize, a thousand dollar voucher for tyres, which he passed on to his dad. People are harder to hate when they're not being dickheads.
International Year of the Fence
Owing to the segment going walkabout last week, here's something from the archives where you can sort of see a fence.
Final thought
On February 26th, 2006, as Gianni De Nittis celebrated scoring what would be winning the goal against Preston, I high fived some random kid sitting next to me in the grandstand. The kid belonged to one Ian Syson, and over the course of that season Ian and I became friends. Eventually he convinced me to go back to university, after eight months of persistent nagging and a comment on smfcboard (since long gone) taunting me with 'and you say you can't write' after I had posted something or other. I got a degree, I worked on books, he rescued my honours thesis, I've been published as a bona fide academic, I've presented at conferences, and I've taught and tried to pass on the lessons in self-belief that I've learned in my time as a student, to the next generation of a demographic that hasn't been taught that it belongs at a university. At the very least, without Ian, I likely never would have ever thought about starting a blog, which has now run for over eight years. Sure, my grammar is still stuffed, but nevertheless here's to the next ten years of a quality friendship.
Eternal optimists, merchants of doom, Johnny A: everyone came out of this match with something to hold on to, which when you think about it, is just good business by South Melbourne - I mean, why limit yourself to pleasing just one demographic? It's all about metrics and leverage these days, and leaving out people just won't do. Best of all, we left everyone wanting more - repeat customers!
But Johnny A though. Devastated by the loss, and claiming in his post-match interview that 'we are so far ahead of South Melbourne as a football team, it's not funny' - this from the coach of a team that spent most of the game just bombing it long. Where was the patented Bentleigh Greens sexy-time football? Man, if I want to get played off the park by the best in the business I don't want it to be by a team passing the ball around the back, then hoofing it long to the forwards.
Still, one had to admit that we didn't always handle the aforementioned long bombs with, er, aplomb. The goal we conceded in particular, I mean, come on! Loose men everywhere in front of goal in that most dangerous of situations? That's state league one reserves stuff. And the lack of pressure on those defenders hoofing it long, we clearly gave them too much respect and time on the ball. Nikola Roganovic certainly thought so in his post-match interview, making the case that after we went ahead, we again fell back to the habit of falling back as it were.
And it was then, and really only then, that Bentleigh started actually playing the way they purportedly play every week. And while, yes, we had the man advantage for the second week running, and often looked like we were the man down for the second week running, it is also important to remember that we also had the lead going into the final twenty minutes for the second week running. Maybe it's a fitness thing? Maybe we're behind the eight ball on that front, still, two months into the season proper? If so, that's a big concern, but we were somehow good enough to get into the right position to win the game.
And as important as it is to focus on the negatives and what needs to be improved - and there is so much that needs to be improved, but remember the majority of these players are at this level for good reasons - how about enjoying the win? Yes, we shouldn't have been in a position where we had to rely on Roganovic making two penalty saves, but what about those saves! Huge! So we only got one shot on target in the first half? So did Bentleigh, with their other attempt hitting the post. Was our first goal offside? I thought so at the time, but the video footage is less clear on the matter, and none of the Bentleigh players called for it. Was our second goal lucky to be bundled in? Sure, you can see it that way - but what about Bentleigh's failure to clear the ball from their own area?
But back to the concerns for just a moment. The wing backs are out of form, and out of touch. Crappy crosses aside, calling for the offside and letting opposition players glide by? Criminal. Being nowhere near being in the game for the first 25 minutes? Awful. Bombing it long to Milos Lujic while he was being marked by three players, without anyone being at the fall of the ball? Really? The fact that we managed to get into the game despite our deficiencies, the usual appalling refereeing performance by Bruno, and get on top even before the dismissal of Dion Kirk? Encouraging.
And aside from his clumsy effort with regards to the second penalty, Kristian Konstantinidis has been huge in his two appearances this season, and he's making it very hard for Michael Eagar to get back in the squad. Of course there'll be a door opening with a busier schedule coming up and Luke Adams going off on national duty, but how great is it that we can bring in someone like Konstantinidis for the struggling Eagar and have him be near man of the match across two games? Pretty good. OK, I suppose.
Even the People's Champ put in a killer slide tackle near the end of the game. Somewhere out there, there's a scientist working furiously on solving the riddle of how we can both suck so hard, and be top of the table. The secret of cold fusion will probably be in there somewhere, too, like Homer Simpson accidentally proving that there is no God while working on his flat tax proposal.Next week
At home against Oakleigh Cannons. The return of Gus Tsolakis. Going to be batter flying all over the place.
One thing that Johnny A decided was worth complaining about was the state of the Lakeside pitch. His complaint? That it had too much grass. That the grass was too long. Now, to be fair - and when have I ever not been fair? Don't answer that question - he did also say that it was a pity for Chris Taylor and his team that they also had to play on that surface, but one can still damn well appreciate the irony of the coach of Bentleigh Greens complaining about a field that was too lush - after all, this was the team that actually painted the dirt on its field to make it look as if it was grass! Still. there is a part of me that actually hopes that it was a deliberate ploy on our behalf to get the State Sports Centres Trust to leave the grass a bit longer, in homage to that episode of King of the Hill where Hank cuts the turf on the high school football field to combat the opposition's strengths, i,e, longer grass on the edges for teams with good wide receivers. Please don't interpret this quasi-random pop-culture recollection as an endorsement of King of the Hill, it really was a very dull show.
Not quite the fourth official
Let's be honest - the implementation of a fourth official at NPL matches in 2016 is like being eight years old and getting a pair of grown up slacks with a 'smart' woollen pullover, after you specifically asked Father Christmas for an XBox. But just as everyone was somewhat getting used to the fourth officials being there, we had the bloke yesterday who almost flat out refused to turn his electronic board around so the paying public could see who was being subbed and how much added time was going to be played. The most horrific outcome of his failure to point the board towards anyone but the one person sitting in the opposite grandstand, was an attempt by some in Clarendon Corner to chant 'turn the board around' to the tune of this disco classic.
Lists for the sake of lists
Since Bentleigh have returned to the VPL/NPL, the following players have been sent off in games hosted by South Melbourne against Bentleigh Greens:
- George Goutzioulis (2010)
- Kliment Taseski (2011, at John Cain Memorial Park)
- Dimi Tsiaras (2012)
- Peter Gavalas and Iqi Jawadi (2013)
- Iqi Jawadi (2015, grand final)
- Dion Kirk (2016)
Apologies for the lack of a video montage. It's now six years since we left the old Lakeside, and for all intents and purposes left the social club behind. Anyone else notice the clock on this blog going wayward by a few hours? I think it might be due to the cumulative effects of daylight savings over the years. That, or they're not linked to the atomic clocks like they should be.
Apparel sponsorship turning into a nightmare
So the deal with apparel supplier BLK, which was going to cost us a lot less money and cause us to have fewer problems than what we had with Adidas, has turned pear shaped. Problems with the online store, problems with the supply and quality of the merchandise, and problems with the women's team even getting a kit. It's not been a good start to this relationship, which is due to run for three years. I suppose that at least they have time to sort out the problems.
On the plus side
The hooped socks were back, baby! Did they help us win the match? Let's not get too excited, but they did look good out there.
Further FFA Cup news
Our next match in Shaun Mooney's patented crap-shoot tournament, against Altona Magic, has been scheduled for Wednesday April 20th, kickoff at 7:30, at Paisley Park Soccer Complex in Altona North.
Jersey presentation night 2016
A mostly dull and underwhelming night. One could handle the increased price ($50 to $70), but the $5 booking fee per ticket seems like someone's (at this point unidentified) just trying to gouge someone (me, and others as well I suppose). The food, which arrived very, very late - in fact the whole evening seemed to start about an hour late - was serviceable (Greek mezze and Italian antipasti combination), mediocre (steak so overcooked and dry that even I cringed), and OK I suppose (desserts fished out from the storeroom and cut into bite size pieces, though a better selection than last year, in that half the items weren't rock-hard and over-sweet cherry ripe slices).
At least this time, either due to more judicious use of space or due to a reduced number of attendees, we - that is the povo fans that weren't going to sponsor anyone, and therefore needed to be kept out of sight - managed to get seated indoors, and on the couches no less. That I was seated with Internet Celebrity SMFCMike is not as horrible as it sounds, because this seems to be the usual arrangement at South Melbourne jersey nights, and besides which, he and the others on the table were good company.
After last year having Tara Rushton perform the hosting duties, this year we had Stephanie Brantz, who really didn't do very much and wasn't very interesting when she was up there, though El Presidente did note that she was the first host in years to pronounce his name right, which I suppose is money well spent. More interesting was who was there and who wasn't. Yes, it's true. the People's Champ was actually there! Philzgerald Mbaka was not! Is Mbaka putting in his own bid to be the new People's Champ? He's got a long way to go to be honest. Mbaka, despite his non appearance, managed to rank up one of the highest auction bids, as Andrew Mesourouni ended up performing an elaborate gimmick with president Leo Athanasakis to raise the bidding. On the other hand, it was good to see that each player started off with a minimum guaranteed bid, avoiding the embarrassing moments of previous jersey nights where the auctioneer would have to beg the audience to bid for less popular players. This tactic also helped speed up the whole auction process somewhat.
Perhaps most tragicomic of all, standing in for Mbaka and consequently being more involved as part of the senior team than he has been on the field in recent times, was captain Michael Eagar. He also managed to pull in a good bid in his own right, as did everyone's new favourite 'need more Greeks' player, Kristian Konstantinidis. Mbaka, Eagar and Konstantinidis all hit the $5,000 mark. Unfortunately, the women's team were auctioned off as a collective, dashing my slim hopes of buying a woman. They were bought for about $10,000.The highlight of the evening was on the tram on the way up to Beachcomber, overhearing a conversation between some kid and his dad about the classic arcade shooter Time Pilot. What a relief to know that there are kids out there who still search for, and appreciate, quality video games.
For the record, SMFCMike won the raffle's major prize, a thousand dollar voucher for tyres, which he passed on to his dad. People are harder to hate when they're not being dickheads.
International Year of the Fence
Owing to the segment going walkabout last week, here's something from the archives where you can sort of see a fence.
This is part of a collection belonging to Mrs Weinstein, lent to me by Ted Smith. More photos from this collection will be uploaded eventually, but the uni scanner hates black and white photos for some reason.Theo Marmaras and I think Michael Weinstein, at Sunshine for a Channel 9 broadcast in 1975. pic.twitter.com/Z7qfNBsC4B— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) April 11, 2016
Final thought
On February 26th, 2006, as Gianni De Nittis celebrated scoring what would be winning the goal against Preston, I high fived some random kid sitting next to me in the grandstand. The kid belonged to one Ian Syson, and over the course of that season Ian and I became friends. Eventually he convinced me to go back to university, after eight months of persistent nagging and a comment on smfcboard (since long gone) taunting me with 'and you say you can't write' after I had posted something or other. I got a degree, I worked on books, he rescued my honours thesis, I've been published as a bona fide academic, I've presented at conferences, and I've taught and tried to pass on the lessons in self-belief that I've learned in my time as a student, to the next generation of a demographic that hasn't been taught that it belongs at a university. At the very least, without Ian, I likely never would have ever thought about starting a blog, which has now run for over eight years. Sure, my grammar is still stuffed, but nevertheless here's to the next ten years of a quality friendship.
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