Remembering Tommy Docherty, someone I don't remember

Former South Melbourne Hellas coach Tommy Docherty died on the last day of 2020, and while I don't usually do any sort of deep-dives (or even shallow dives) on the passing of former South people, Docherty's tenure at South has always intrigued me, as does that time in South's history.

I mean, even putting aside the decline of our collective Hellas and general soccer memory, that whole late 1970s and especially early 1980s period - at least the bit prior to Len McKendry turning up and sorting things out - seems to be glossed over by our supporters.

And that's understandable. because unlike our dominant 1970s state league performances, South's first few years in the NSL were hardly a runway success. After all, we did finish last in 1979, and only avoided relegation because of a certain degree of administrative shiftiness, for which Sydney Olympic has never forgiven us.

That loss of collective memory isn't helped by the acute lack of footage from those early NSL years, but that doesn't completely explain why that South era doesn't get remembered as well as other similarly unsuccessful eras. It's not helped either by 95% of our supporter base (give or take one or two percentage points) disappearing into the aether.  

Oh, sure, there are moments and players from that era that people like to bring up, like Malcolm 'Supermac' Macdonald's guest stint, and the extended presence up front of former Liverpool star Alun Evans. 

But in general it seems to have been a period of time when the club chased a lot of big name players, paid very big transfer fees, and got little reward for these endeavours. When that approach failed, the club continued to repeat the same process while wondering why the team wasn't improving. Stop me if you've heard this story before.

That's certainly a simplistic retelling from someone who wasn't even alive then. Nevertheless, from what I can tell, the signing of Tommy Docherty as South coach midway through 1982 was typical of the club's thinking at the time. Instead of pausing and perhaps trying to figure out the root problem, the committee would invariably try and throw more cash at the problem in the hope that money alone would solve the club's unbefitting lack of success.

Enter Tommy Docherty. The Scotsman was a former player of some accomplishment, and had coached a variety of teams in England, most notably Manchester United - whom he had gotten relegated, then promoted; then won the FA Cup with them in 1977, upsetting Liverpool; and then found himself sacked soon after, when his affair with the wife of United's physiotherapist came to light. 

After a couple of short stints at Derby County and Queens Park Rangers, Docherty coached Sydney Olympic in 1981, though he soon returned to the UK to help his former club Preston North End - for whom he had played over 300 games - get out of a relegation scrap. For whatever reason Docherty's coaching stint at Deepdale didn't last, and so he hit the road again looking for new opportunities. 

And that's how he ended up back in Australia. Docherty was in the country in May of 1982 to promote a soccer skills program or some such over a five week period. During this time, South approached him to take over the club for those five weeks in his spare time, with an option to coach out the rest of the year. 

Despite big spending on numerous "name" players, under incumbent coach John Margaritis, South had played disjointed, inconsistent football, was apparently suffering from poor player morale, and was entrenched in the bottom half of the table midway through the season.

Docherty took over the coaching reigns from round 14 onward, with Margaritis stepping aside from the position of head coach while remaining within the coaching structure; that was an arrangement that would last little more than a few hours, with Margaritis quitting soon after introducing the players to their new coach. 

It's a little bit odd to think that a well-credentialed senior coach like Margaritis would agree to such an arrangement in the first place, and sure enough the man himself must have realised quite quickly that it made no sense. Certainly several pundits at the time, including Rale Rasic (who in just a few months' time  would succeed Docherty as South coach), agreed with the unusualness of the affair.

With training at the time only three days a week, Docherty was able to live large to a certain degree, supplementing his soccer income with radio and television appearances, and one also assumes his regular newspaper columns. One report from The Guardian in 2000 suggests he was making more in Australia from his combined coaching and pundit work than he would've made as a manager at a top English club at the time.

Being an affable and gregarious walking quote-machine, Docherty was good for publicity, but it's arguable that he was much good for South on field. Some players, like Charlie Egan, seemed to relish his fellow Scots' style, but other veteran players soon found themselves on the transfer list. And it's not like the team's results improved all that much, although Docherty's preference for attacking football at least probably made things more interesting.

After five weeks of mixed results, Docherty returned to England to take care of pressing legal and financial matters - namely the matter of a court summons over maintenance arrears due to his first wife, Agnes. During that time, Mick Watson acted as caretaker coach. On his return, Docherty coached out the rest of the season, made tentative plans for 1983, but his contract was either not extended or was bought out by Olympic.

And it's his second stint at Olympic which is perhaps his most notable legacy in Australian soccer, as some of their fans tend to give him the credit for building the squad that would go on be a regular competitor for titles in the 1980s. 

As for South, even if we don't seem to remember his time here too much, he certainly remembered us. Interviewed on the eve of the South Melbourne vs Manchester United Club World Championship match, Docherty remembered his time at South as requiring more diplomacy in the changerooms than he was accustomed to; he also noted of South's fans that "they were the best winners in the world, and the worst losers"; and that when some supporters threw apples and oranges at him, Docherty would goad those fans by eating the apples and peeling the oranges.

Even a cursory look through the papers of the time (both the mainstream outlets and specialist soccer press like Soccer Action), reveal that Docherty loved football, and was happy to entertain the press and public. In the long-run, South probably would've been better off if he'd taken the job a bit more seriously; still, there's something to be said of his not taking the game and himself too seriously. After all, soccer is a game, and games are meant to be enjoyed, or so I'm told.

Tassie All-Stars stun the mighty South Melbourne Hellas in 1981 (via Walter Pless)

Photo of a pennant from the game between the Tassie All-Stars and South Melbourne
 Hellas, sent to Walter Pless by former Tasmanian player Craig Pitt. According to Pitt -
who played  against South for Tasmania in the early 1990s - the likely reason he has this
 pennant is that  he was a ballboy during the 1981 meeting between South and Tasmania.

During the coronavirus downtime, I've been mucking around with a collaborative project set up by Tony Persoglia to create and compile a database for interstate competition and tour matches, which will ultimately be uploaded to OzFootball. It's the kind of information which already exists in a piecemeal format on OzFootball - and in different, hard-to-find print almanacs - but which really needs a comprehensive clean-up so that we have a reliable one-stop shop for this kind of information. Here's a sample page of how this information will be presented once the collective effort is fully unleashed.

Meanwhile, unlike South of the Border, which has been slack with any sort of updating,
Tasmanian soccer journalist and historian Walter Pless has been spending the COVID-19 break putting up a series of fascinating posts on his blog on the olden days of Tasmanian soccer. Our lockdown interests met at the point where I needed info on a Tasmanian rep match from 1965 against an Auckland select in New Zealand.

While digging around for relevant info to help me out, Walter came across some South Melbourne Hellas archival materials, and kindly passed them along - and also managed to write about the Tasmanian state team beating our own South Melbourne Hellas in 1981. Here's the article originally posted by Walter on his blog - which he's kindly allowed me to reproduce on South of the Border. Naturally it's very much from the Tasmanian point of view. I'll have something more contemporary on the blog in the upcoming week.

Walter Pless' article in Soccer Action from October 21, 1981, covering Tasmania's win over South Melbourne.
The article above this one has then Hellas midfielder John Stevenson claiming that "it's Hellas' title in 1982".

Tasmanian coach Steve Darby really put his name, and that of Tasmanian football, on the map when he coached a Tasmanian All-Stars side to a 2-0 win over the highly-rated South Melbourne Hellas at South Hobart on 11 October 1981 before a crowd of 1,500.

South Melbourne Hellas had just finished second in the National Soccer League and their side included Alun Evans.

Evans began his career with Wolverhampton Wanderers and I had seen him play for Wolves in the United States against Stoke City in 1967.

Tasmanian coach Steve Darby. Photo: Walter Pless.

He joined Bill Shankly’s Liverpool in 1968 as a 19-year-old and played for The Reds for four seasons before losing his place to new signing Kevin Keegan.

Evans was the star of the South Melbourne side that came to Hobart but although he went close to scoring several times, the Tasmanian defenders kept him goalless.

Tasmania’s coach, Steve Darby, also had an impressive CV. He had been assistant national coach of Bahrain before coming to Tasmania to coach Devonport.

Darby also played for University and coached New Town Eagles, as well as the State team.

Darby went on to be the State Director of Coaching before leaving Tasmania and becoming a successful men’s and women’s coach in Australia and South-East Asia.

He coached the Matildas and the Vietnam women’s team, and was also assistant coach of the Thailand men’s national side.

The Tasmania All-Stars side was impressive and included former Middlesbrough First Division player Peter Brine in defence.

Photo: Peter Brine (rear at left) back in Hobart in 2018 to
 catch up with Craig Jones (front left), Nick Di Martino
 (rear right) and Denis Payne. Photo: Walter Pless.

The Tasmanian team was: Phil Kannegiesser - Alan Burton, Peter Brine, Darby Conlan, Chris Hey - Steve Kannegiesser, Eric Young, Willy Peters - Bruce Ward, Mark Oakes (Nick Cook 60), Ian Parker.

The South Melbourne Hellas line-up was: Laumets - Boon, Lutton, Xanthopoulos, Traficante - Stevenson, Shirra, Nicolaides, Campbell - Evans, Buljevic.

The Tasmanian side included other imports such as Eric Young (ex-Manchester United), Bruce Ward (one of the most lethal strikers ever to have played in Tasmania),Ian Parker (brilliant left-winger from the UK), Alan Burton (also from the UK) and Nicky Cook (was with Hull City).

The home-grown talent was impressive, too, with Chris Hey, Phil and Steve Kannegiesser, Darby Conlan, Willy Peters and Mark Oakes all playing from the start.

Eric Young (left) and Ian Parker catch up in Hobart in 2008.
 Photo: Walter Pless.

South Melbourne’s coach was former Greek international John Margaritis, who coached Olympia in Tasmania in the 1960s.

The referee was Tasmania’s Norm Johnston, a top-class official who had come to the State from Western Australia. He was here only a few years before returning interstate.

Goals by Ian Parker in the 11th minute and Bruce Ward in the 79th minute did the job for the home team.

I’d love to see the video of the game. It was filmed from the back of a ute parked on the grass at the side of the pitch near the present scoreboard. I know because David Martin and I were the commentators. David, Reg Tolputt and I used to host a half-hour football show on local radio station 7HT on Saturday mornings. Reg was one of the founders of new club Salvos (Salvation Army) and he was also the manager of one of Steve Darby's Tasmanian sides.

My match report in "Soccer Action" [see above] didn't appear until 10 days later because Steve Darby and I had been attending the semi-finals and final of the Under-20s World Cup in Sydney [won by West Germany 4-0 against Qatar].

Social club artefact Wednesday - Team of the Century team sheet

I found a small bunch of these during my social club clean out a few years back. Not being there on the team of the century night, I assume these were made available on all the tables. Of course, the team of the century concept has always been something that's baffled me slightly, not only because it was clearly influenced by both the AFL's centenary celebrations as well as the millenarianism that was in vogue at the time, but also because the club was barely 41 years old and well short of the century mark. Of course as with all such endeavours there was also controversy regarding the selections. George Donikian noted at the time (in an interview with the Four Diegos I believe; wherever the link to that transcript was, it's now gone) that Ulysses Kokkinos was left out due to character issues. But perhaps the most interesting decision was to have Michael Petkovic in as first choice goalkeeper, ahead of the very popular Peter Laumets. While Petkovic did have the runs on the board with two national championships, his tenure at South up until that time had been comparatively brief; then again, Oscar Crino's South stint was much shorter. Petkovic is also the only person in the team of the century to have begun his South career in the 1990s - his 1996 starting date coming in seven years after the other most recent inductees. More disturbing perhaps in hindsight, is that due to the circumstances we find ourselves in, there will probably never be another player that could be included in any future or revised team of the century affair.

Social Club Artefact Wednesday - Droughts

This plaque (click the photo to enlarge), commemorating our first league and Dockerty Cup double, achieved in 1974, was located in one of the glass cabinets in the social club museum.

The achievement saw the breaking of what must have been a very annoying drought for Hellas. Since its inception, despite being a very strong league side, South was a comparatively rotten cup team. Despite having won five league titles from 1962-1972, Dockerty Cup success had proved elusive. In the 1960s, South had a bad habit of getting beaten by cup specialists Slavia, whether in the semi finals or the 1967 final; this was followed by finals losses to Croatia (1968) and Juventus (1970). Even our Ampol Cup pre-season record wasn't crash hot, taking us until 1969 to break our duck in that tournament (sometimes seen as a turning point in our history after the struggles following the 1964-65-66 league trifecta, though we would have to wait until 1972 for another league title). The less said about our Australia Cup record, the better.

On the way to the 1974 Dockerty Cup final, South had beaten Prahran City 3-1, old cup nemesis Prahran Slavia 3-0 and Footscray JUST 1-0, before taking on Ringwood City Wilhelmina in the final. Four first half goals ended the game as a contest, with Wilhelmina adding a goal late to make it 4-1. (Wilhelmina, the 1958 winners, would make one more Dockerty Cup final before slipping into near oblivion, losing 3-2 to George Cross in 1978).

The last time we won the Dockerty Cup (under any of its guises) was in 1995, when a young team beat the more highly fancied Melbourne Knights 3-1. It was the first step on the road to our back to back NSL titles. The last time we won a league title was in 2006. 2014 sees us therefore tie the record of 1976-1984, when we struggled with the step up to the national stage. It's surely a record that none of us want to see this South side surpass. Considering that this season it's first past the post - and we haven't finished on top of the table since the 2000/01 NSL season - I'm not super confident about us snaring the title this year.

Incidentally in 1974, Jimmy Armstrong topped the league goalscoring charts with 22 goals - one per game. He was the last South player to win the state league goalscoring title; the last South player to win the goalscoring in any league competition was Francis Awaritefe in NSL season 1992/93, so on that front, too, it's been a long time between drinks.

Nevertheless, as we embark on another league campaign, I absolutely wish the team all the best this season, and hope they can at least take one trophy home this year. If we could somehow replicate the deeds of the 1974 team, even better.

Epilogue
Fun fact about 1974. We started that season with a 1-0 loss against Fitzroy United Alexander, and beat them 4-0 in round thirteen. Ulysses Kokkinos actually played in both winning sides!

Eddie Krncevic excited about bringing South to Tasmania

The scratch match that was scheduled for tonight between ourselves and South Hobart has been canceled or postponed due to the inclement weather down in Hobart. In the meantime, please enjoy this piece by Tasmanian football blogger and journalist Walter Pless, looking at a previous trip by South to the Apple Isle in 1986 - there's some nice photos in there as well.

There are so many interesting coincidences when one looks at football history.

This is even the case in Tasmania.

South Melbourne Hellas first visited Tasmania in 1986 to play Olympia at KGV Park. That was before the administration building was constructed at KGV Park. In one of the above photos taken at the time of that visit, one can see the skeleton of that building in its early stages.

Former Greek international John Margaritis had been appointed coach of South Melbourne in 1980 and again in 1986.

Margaritis had, in fact, coached Olympia for a season before moving to Victoria.

He was replaced at South Melbourne in 1982 by former Manchester United manager Tommy Docherty.

Docherty had actually played in Tasmania in 1965. He was manager of Chelsea when they toured Australia that year.

Chelsea beat Tasmania 12-0 at North Hobart and Docherty put himself on in the second half and scored a penalty.

The Olympia team that played South Melbourne in 1986 was coached by current South Hobart supremo Ken Morton.

Alan Davidson, the Australian international who had just returned from Nottingham Forest, was a member of the South Melbourne squad that met Olympia at KGV Park, but he did not play.

He had played for the Socceroos against Tasmania at KGV Park in about 1984.

Ange Postecoglu, the Brisbane Roar coach in the A-League, was also in the South Melbourne team against Olympia and he is shown in the team photos above.

South Melbourne coach Eddie Krncevic, 50, is looking forward to this week’s visit to Hobart and is hoping for good attendances at the games.

Krncevic, born in Geelong, played professionally in Croatia, Germany and Belgium and represented the Socceroos 35 times, scoring 17 goals for his country.

“I’m quite excited about the visit,” said Krncevic from Melbourne today. “The last time I was in Tasmania I was only 14.

“I haven’t been back since. I’m excited about it and I’m looking forward to having a look to see what’s available, to see what’s happening in Tasmania and to establish a good working relationship with the clubs and people in Tasmania.

“I think it’s important because I think Tasmania has been neglected.

“I look forward to seeing what sort of talent the boys have got to offer. Yes, I’m excited.

“It’s a preparation for my players. We’re bringing a mixture of young ones and senior ones in a squad of 19 players, with two goalkeepers.

“Some of my players will fly in on Saturday as they’ve got work commitments.

“It’s a fairly competitive team and it’s our pre-season so I’m looking to hopefully play my best team, especially on Sunday, but fielding a strong team in every game we play.”