Part 1 of Gala Ball interview compilation

Notes on the 50th anniversary gala ball

I don't think I will ever have an original thought, much less put down words that will inspire them. But here goes anyway.

The Casino

It's the final day of horse racing's spring carnival, which means that my rented tuxedo doesn't stand out as much it normally would. That's a good thing. Much as it may surprise some people, I'm not fond of seeking attention.

I've probably only been to Crown Casino five times, and never in the gaming room. After asking for directions to the Palladium, I'm instructed to walk through there until I get to the Atrium and then take the stairs up.

Walking through the gaming room is dispiriting and otherworldly experience. There is no day, no night. The casino must also be the most democratic institution there is. Its clientele, if we can call it that, crosses so many more borders of ethnicity, language, gender, age, class, sobriety and wearing of shoes than Athenian democracy could have ever dreamed of. Security and venue staff in dark clothing circle and hover. While there is the occasional cheer, the most common expression is blankness. The Casino calls itself a place of entertainment, but I've never seen so many people so bored.

Up stairs upon trying enter the function area, I was asked for which function I was entering. Turned out the room wasn't ready when I got there. I guess I should have said I was there for Trent and Tenille's wedding. Eventually we got let into the foyer, where I caught up with a few familiar faces, and Ted Smith, who I'd done the interview with Ian with some time ago.

Les Murray

Les Murray seemed to be in good spirits throughout the event, posing for photos, and chatting to pleb and household name alike. He suprisingly stumbled over many of the Greek names, especially those of the pre-NSL era, but he soldiered on, and generally did a good job. The man knew the crowd he was playing to; he referred to the importance of clubs like ours, and even cheekily mentioned the score from the Victory game - 4-0 to Central Coast - which got a polite cheer from sections of the crowd.

Players and Coaches
Several players got their chance to speak on the podium. Paul Fortomanos, who spoke on behalf of his late father Stefanos, was perhaps my favourite speaker. Concise, passionate, measured and efficient in the right way. Mike Mandalis was beaming. John Margaritis was to the point. Jimmy Armstrong was his usual amusing self. Ange Postecoglou recounted his trip to Brazil with George Vasilopoulos for the World Club Championship draw. Paul Trimboli talked of his 17 years at the club. Peter Laumets spoke on the 1984 title; Peter Tsolakis for 1991. The 2006 grand final side got a teensy bit of short shrift in my opinion, but John Anastasiadis got to speak about that era as well as the world club championship stuff.

Video interviews and photo montages peppered the evening. Amongst those on tape, who did not speak on stage, were Ulysses Kokkinos, Con Boutsianis, Takis Mantarakis, and even Kostas Nestoridis, hunted down by a fan on his travels in Greece. Also within those montages were board and fan interviews, including one with the notorious fan called Banger - even credited as such.

Presidents

Tribute was of course paid to those who have come and gone; those who were absent due to being deceased were represented by family, such as Marmaras and Papasavas. George Donikian sent a rather newsreaderly message via video Leo Athanasakis was surprisingly well spoken - the man is known more for his enthusiasm than public speaking.

The most dreaded, or perhaps most anticipated speeches of the evening though naturally came from George Vasilopoulos and Peter Mitrakas. George Vasilopoulos almost singlehandedly changed the tone of the evening with his speech. Everyone before had been relatively humble and brief, promoting the club above themselves, being lighthearted about the whole thing.

Vasilopoulos turned it into something altogether more solipsist. On one level, you can't blame him; so much of his life was spent around and dedicated to the club, and so much of the club's greatest successes were under his reign. But there was an anger that was fascinating and disappointing to see. What it was that he was railing against I'm not exactly sure; one would could probably safely guess though that he was sending out a message to all his detractors. This went on for some time, much longer than pretty much any other speaker. He did manage to inject some levity into it though, which is more than be said for the next speaker.

Peter Mitrakas outdid Vasilopoulos for most despised. Another self-serving speech, from another person who has vanished in the hard times, but who seemed to take little responsibility for where the club had ended up under his administration - rather crediting his time with actually saving the club. He was the only person to be heckled on the night, being accused of 'going to the Victory'. He denied it, and then the response came from the same source, 'bullshit'. He soldiered on though.

Within all these speeches, there were interesting anecdotes and insights into the culture of the club; some things have changed, some things have stayed the same. They'll all be on the DVD.

Ephemera

It's a good thing that the videos managed to work eventually, after the initial couple of attempts saw them freeze.

What is it with this club and people speaking over the top of speakers? Poor Nick Galatas in particular, who fought to be heard over the top of the chattering classes.

The pasta entree was very small. The chicken was delicious. The dessert was also delicious, but also very slight.

The staff were seemingly on a mission to get everyone ploughed. I would have preferred more food to be honest.

I pretty much skipped watching Cirque Mystique. They seemed boring so I left the room when they were on.

There are numerous things which occur and which are said at these events - especially by certain patrons who've had a little too much to drink - of which you can ethically say nothing on a public medium, as they were conducted in private discussions, not for public consumption. I feel a little bit sorry for Mehmet Durakovic though.

Well done to the organising team. A fantastic event. Even I enjoyed myself, and that's saying something.

Murney, Schwab, Nestoridis and International Jewry

So me and Ian Syson went out to Hugh Murney's place today, to talk about Max Sterne, the noted Australian stamp dealer and oldest registered soccer player in the state still going at 80 something (and not the Italian vet who developed an anthrax vaccine), but as sometimes happens we ended up going off on a few tangents, and we got to learn a fair a bit about Hugh's football story. And soccer-forum got a mention as well, for the North Caulfield on Sundays saga, whereby every team that plays against North Caulfield Maccabi must play even their home games on Sundays.

For those like myself, unfamiliar with Hugh Murney, he was a Scottish footballer who came out here to play for Hakoah in the mid 1960s after having played all over the place in Scotland, and then also played or coached at many places, and so I enjoyed having my knowledge of obscure and now defunct Melbourne soccer teams validated, as we talked about Albion Rovers (before the Turks took over), Kew Park Rangers, Sunshine City etc. One of those rare occasions where all that time spent working on OzFootball didn't go waste.

And we also talked about the great characters he's met along the way, Eddie McGuire tucking into a Scottish breakfast at Hugh's pub before the Scotland/Australia game in the 1980s, Manchester United, England and Scotland touring teams, with plenty of stories about drinking and tongue in cheek jokes about the meanness of the Scots and the Jews. And an unprompted bit about Kostas Nestoridis, and him scoring two goals from corners in one game, after having been drinking and playing cards the previous night until well into the next morning. Oh, and Footy Show (co)creator Harvey Silver's involvement in local Jewish football.

There's a hell of a story in there, or at least, hundreds of anecdotes worth collecting and preserving. But he gave us the name of one bloke writing a book, called Michael O'Hara, who's written this bizarre book about his time in MI6, of which the segment I've chosen talks about the great Hakoah side of the mid 1960s, and some other stuff. Fascinating game, Australian soccer.

A few digressions with Ted Smith

This was the third of my and Ian Syson's interviews/chats with former players and administrators... and this time we ended up with former Socceroo, Moreland, South Melbourne Hellas and Hakoah player and coach Ted Smith. So it's off to Caffe Sienna on Chapel Street. That's a regular haunt of his and a bit of a surprise to me, but it's an opportunity nevertheless for me to finally see this place that some smfcboarders like to frequent.

Now Ted at 74 is sharp as a tack - a phrase I will seek to avoid for awhile - but he does to love to digress a fair bit. So let me try and put in some sort of chronological order what went on in his career and involvement in the game. His first taste of senior football was with Moreland, one of the stronger teams prior to the migration influx, who even managed to hold their own briefly, winning the 1957 Dockerty Cup, the last major Victorian title won by one of the old Anglo teams before the utter dominance of the ethnics. During this time if I recall correctly, he also spent some time with the Victorian Colts, a sort of prototypical Victorian Institute of Sport, years ahead of its time and ultimately scuttled due to politics. Ted moved to Hellas midway through the 1961 season under Len Young, and left for Hakoah at the end of 1963 to join Hakoah.

I'd forgotten that Ted was amongst the people interviewed for Our Socceroos and so a little of what he had to say is already in that book, such as South's players receiving 70% of the gate takings after a win, 50% for a draw and 30% for a loss. Astounding and surely unsustainable numbers, but which in the vagaries of time and circumstance mean that these days they'd receive the princely sum of 4.75 each, as my friend Cuddles put it. It appears as if the long term was not something thought of too highly. which became a pattern repeated for far too long, to the demise of some clubs and to near the demise of others.

One thing that came through was the impression that soccer would find a foothold eventually in Australia, and not just minor one. Whether it would take over or simply peacefully co-exist with the local sporting culture - a point of view which neglects Australia's very long soccer history - was not elaborated upon, but it raised for some interesting questions about soccer's resilience even in the most hostile environments (and I'm counting both external hatred and internal mismanagement in that).

The issue of clubs and club loyalty came around as well - with so many players and even committee people jumping from club to club as they see fit, what does it do to the culture of our game? The effect is overstated perhaps, but it does potentially rob us of the feel good propaganda stories that other codes with more limited player movements might have - but this can just be a condition of having a multi-tied system, allowing for movement of talent upwards instead if just sideways as would happen in a suburban aussie rules competition.

The usual issues of the forgetting Australian soccer history came up as well. It was noted by myself and Ted that it's not only the current New Dawn movement which is involved with the process of forgetting, but rather it follows a pattern of historical forgetting, which goes back some time in the code but also crosses codes. The New Australian migrants didn't seem and don't seem too interested in remembering what came before them on the soccer field - and thus we have the whole 'wogs brought soccer to this country' argument. But we also have a lack of knowledge of players and clubs from other states - hardly surprising considering a wide range of factors - and it's a habit that's also intrinsic to the mythology of the AFL as well. Other competitions and their were not even sub-VFL - they don't even exist. But I digress.

But it wasn't all seriousness. Ted was happy to talk about some of the great players and coaches of the era. Manny Poulakakis was talked about in fairly glowing terms, in that he knew how to arrange a team on the park properly, but also as someone who once you found yourself on the outer, there was no way back. Con Nestoridis was described as someone who barely ran, and rather ambled, but who had excellent touch and control - his corner kicks were legendary in their time. Ted's experience of moving from one footballing culture to another was interesting too; from being just another bloke on the street while at Moreland, his time at Hellas saw his walks down Lonsdale Street garnering him minor celebrity status.

The best story perhaps was the tale of Slavia's match against a VFL combined side - at soccer. The 1963 Australian Cup champion Slavia won easily - hopefully we'll dig out the article one day - but what the VFL contingent thought they were doing at trying to play soccer against professional soccer players is anyone's guess. If they were trying to prove how easy the game was, they failed miserably. If they tried to prove how weak soccer players were, they also failed. Ron Barassi himself came off 2nd best in 50/50 challenge for the ball, injuring his knee. It's not the kind of thing that you'd hear much of the soccer knockers talking about though.