Would South get more mainstream coverage if it was in the NSWPL?

Just killing time until Gus Tsolakis comes back from holidays.


With all due respect, both teams in the New South Wales Premier League grand final can go to hell. But what's more interesting is that apparently they have heaps more space to use in the Sydney Morning Herald, allowing for a sort of grand final preview, while The Age and Michael Lynch simply can't manage to scrounge up the requisite inches.

Old soccer still has a place in the new football world 

There’ll be more than a scent of past glories at Belmore Sports Ground tomorrow. And, no, we’re not talking Bulldogs.

It’s the grand final of the NSW Premier League between two of the game’s proudest clubs. Sydney Olympic, the minor premiers, and Sydney United. Both formed at the same time to represent the local Greek and Croatian communities respectively. Both formed in the same year, 1957, that newly-arrived immigrants precipitated the split between Newcastle and Sydney and created what was then known as the NSW first division, but is now known as the NSWPL. They’re as old as the competition itself - a semi-professional competition Sydney United have won five times, and Sydney Olympic just once. But it’s at national league level that these two clubs really made a name for themselves, helping to groom some of the finest players of the modern era. Brett Emerton. Graham Arnold. Robbie Slater. Zeljko Kalac. Ned Zelic. Jason Culina. And many more. Sydney Olympic won two NSL championships [1999, 2002] - one in front of nearly 50,000 fans in Perth. Sydney United, heartbreakingly, lost three grand finals - one in front of 40,000 fans in Brisbane. The bridesmaids but never the bride.

Times moved on, and these clubs didn’t move quick enough. The NSL closed down in 2004, and they were never likely to survive the transition to the fully-professional A-League. ‘Old soccer’ became ‘new football’, and there was less room for ethnicity. Besides, neither club had the money. It’s been a tough adjustment back to the ranks of part-time football for two clubs accustomed to being at the pointy end of the pyramid. Sydney United have done marginally better, winning the NSWPL title in 2006. This will be Sydney Olympic’s first grand final in the post-NSL era, and it will be the first time these two fallen giants have met to decide the title. There’s talk of a record NSWPL grand final crowd, upwards of 5,000. There’ll be the chants ‘Cro-at-zia, Cro-at-zia’ and ‘O-lym-pic, O-lym-pic’. Bet on a flare or two, and mindful of the usual braggadocio from would-be hooligans, officials have put plans in place to try prevent anything more serious than that. It’s old soccer, out and proud.

Mark Rudan and Ufuk Talay are as proud as anyone of their NSL heritage with Sydney United and Marconi Stallions respectively. After the match these best mates are heading into retirement, and there’s a big chance they’ll be reflecting on their achievements with a post-match smoke behind the grandstand. Two of the better players never to have played for Australia - and teammates when Sydney FC won the first A-League title - they’ll be aiming to go out as winners. Rudan, especially so, because he’s back where it all began.

It won’t be easy. Sydney Olympic are favourites, marginally. Like Sydney United, they’ve got a clutch of players [Chris Triantis, Paul Henderson, Brett Studman] with A-League experience. And they’re playing on their home ground.

For rivals coaches, Jean Paul de Marigny and Peter Tsekenis, there’s also the chance to put a stake in the ground. Tsekenis, 38, is a young coach with a growing pedigree. This is his fourth NSWPL grand final, and twice he emerged victorious with his former club, Bankstown City. Like Rudan, the shirt has special meaning. ‘‘I grew up supporting Olympic, I captained the club, and now I’m the coach,’’ he says. Where his coaching career takes him remains to be seen, but his apprenticeship is going nicely. ‘‘I definitely want to get involved in the A-League at some stage because I believe I’ve got something to offer,’’ he says. ‘‘But I’m not looking too far ahead because I know I’ve still got a lot to learn.’’

De Marigny, 47, is further down the road, and it’s a travesty he’s still waiting for his big opportunity. An assistant coach at Newcastle Jets, and shortlisted for the North Queensland Fury job, the former Socceroo keeps banging at the door. De Marigny guided Sydney United to their last NSWPL title five years ago, and is clever enough to do so again.

The waft from the souvlaki stands will tell us this is not A-League. But it’s the next best thing. With the new A-League season kicking-off next weekend it’s a timely reminder of the game’s heritage, but also of it’s potential. Rejuvenating, and respecting, second-tier football is an issue which despite six years of neglect from head office simply won’t go away. Next year, the FFA Cup will be launched in the first concrete step to mend the fences.

In the meantime those in the know appreciate where things stand. Robbie Slater will be there to present the medal for the man-of-the-match award named in his honour, and has promised to wear his old Sydney United shirt to the ground. Mark Bosnich will be there as a board member of Sydney Olympic. A-League coaches, and players, will be there in abundance. Fact is, despite plenty of propaganda to the contrary, the game does have a history and it’s not going away. ‘‘We are Football’ is the new slogan for the A-League. That, you’d assume, means everybody.

And to think there are some douchebags out there...

... yes, the relevant numpties on the Adelaide United forum, and probably a few yet to come on other bulletin boards - who think we should have been barred from participating in this tournament by the FFA. But being bored, and sorta by accident, I came across this piece, which shows that this offer or opportunity isn't new... and of course Sydney Olympic were allegedly offered an invitation in 2004, but with the end of the NSL, needed like the rest of us to get their shit together. But the point is, to get back to it, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, no?



Singapore Cup invitation seen as bridge to Asia
By Michael Cockerill
December 30, 2004

Four A-League clubs have been invited to participate in next year's expanded Singapore Cup, with Singaporean officials claiming the opportunity represents a gateway for closer ties with Asia.

Perth Glory, Sydney FC, Adelaide United and Melbourne Victory have all been asked to enter the knockout tournament, which carries $120,000 in prizemoney and begins in April. Perth have already rejected the approach, claiming their priority was to prepare for the World Club Championship qualifiers a month later, but the other three clubs are believed to be assessing the benefits.

Football Federation Australia officials, who have made it clear they want greater contacts between Australia and Asia, are known to support the move.

Singapore's 10-team S-League wants to expand its cup competition to 16 teams, and invitations have been sent to countries throughout South-East Asia as well as Australia. A team from Brunei and two local amateur teams have already been added to the 2005 draw, leaving three vacancies.
The S-League's chief executive, How Seen-Yong, said last night that Australian clubs would be a major attraction for local fans, and the competition would be a "good starting point" for developing closer ties with Asia. "We know from past experience [two defunct clubs, the Perth Kangaroos and the Darwin Cubs, competed in the S-League in the mid-1990s and dominated the competition] that the Australian teams would be strong, but we are not afraid to have a foreign team win the prizemoney," he said.

Michael Cockerill endores biffo - on and off field

Apparently Sydney and Melbourne are playing for the 50 millionth time this season. I only bring this to your attention because I want to have a cheap internet attack on various groups. I don't think there's any real point that I'm trying to make, and if I am, it's as poorly as per usual.

Mike Cockerill's article. The relevant part is below.

On the field, it's often been a war. Off the field, things can get even more heated. In cyberspace, and in open space, the fans bait each other incessantly. Sometimes they even hit each other. Pubs in Sydney, and in Melbourne, have borne the brunt. The long arm of the law usually gathers in the culprits. After a few hours in a paddy van, they're out and proud, their brief incarceration claimed as a badge of honour.

This is the way of football the world over. This is the character which defines the A-League's biggest rivalry. There was a time when Football Federation Australia tried to dampen down the fires. Heavy-handed security. Seating arrangements changed. CCTV cameras installed. It didn't work. It was never going to work. Now they have come to realise the emotion driven by the clubs, the players, and the fans, is a strength, not a weakness.

The boys will be boys line - again. Is anyone surprised? Maybe we as a sport, maybe just in this country, maybe a select part of it, but an important part, actually want there to be this kind of thing, just quietly. Reminiscences of violent incidents past - off field ones, unless you count pitch invasions as on field - there's often an unnerving twinkle and glaze in the eye of the storyteller. A sort of fondness for the taste of blood, whether it was experienced firsthand or merely observed and absorbed vicariously. The attachment to the danger and vitality of youth, and its neglect of middle aged common sense.

Of course, we shouldn't completely disregard or downplay our own failings. When people get into soccer fights, self identifying as members of one ethnic group fighting against another, it doesn't leave other people with much room to negotiate a different description - whether they want to or not. And while it may suit those who despise soccer and foreignness to pin the blame on foreigners and a foreign game - it may suit the patricians of our own sport to also pin the blame on ethnicity as the defining factor behind violent soccer incidents - and when it's gone, as it is now in the A-League, there is a layer removed, there is a certain level of clarity, and a wistfulness, and perhaps even an end to some of journalistic hibernation as the bears of the winter come out for the spring, and perhaps the sensing of an opportunity to, just quietly and very carefully, endorse what polite society and the PC Brigade don't want them to.

Personally, I think it's a stupid stance to take, no matter what beliefs I may have held, or irrelevant slogans I may have chanted as a lonely teenager back in 1996. The violence on the terraces and in the backstreets, whether ethnic or mainstream, drunk or sober, is just stupid - an easy statement to make from the safety of my ivory tower, I know. But that doesn't matter, really, if the turnstiles continue to click over at a decent rate, and fully grown men with respectable jobs and much more popular authority than I will ever be able to muster have the opposite opinion.

It does my head in / What happened to the bigger picture?

It's all rather typical and generic. Everyone hates the same things and people. Sometimes different people and things. And sometimes they can even be convinced to change a previously held opinion, all because someone all of a sudden agreed with them, or did enough agreeable things over a period of time to sway that opinion to the other side. Or they get caught up in the emotion and half-eloquence created by someone who washes and learned how to spell.

What I am talking about? Well, in the lesser sense, football fandom and the ongoing Bitter/New Dawner trench warfare, but in a larger sense perhaps, Planet Earth. But there's humour to be found in it, humour and irony and sadness. Les Murray and SBS are despised for being pro A-League and forgetful of the old migrant and other NSL clubs, those that gave them their livelihoods for so many years. They are also accused of being anti A-League and everything that the new regime has tried to make happen. Mike Cockerill has gone from hated to loved, and loved to hated. Michael Lynch from love to hated and hated to loved, and to writing essays defending his coverage and lack of coverage to angry letter writers.

There are those who love the game above all, because without the game there is nothing. And there are those who reluctantly and not love their club above the game, for without clubs, there would only be nations, exhibition matches and park football. There are those from both sides who hate indiscriminately, and from who don't care what the evidence is. And there are those who put forth faux intellectual spins, Hephaestus inspired word and truth smithery. And then there are those caught in the middle. Those who embraced the A-League as their first true footballing love but who can see the Bitter side... and those Bitters who still attend their first love club but have an appreciation of the need to change. And we are forever painted in blacks and whites, ethnics and anglos, Bitters and New Dawners, reactionaries and other reactionaries.

Oh, and everyone being Against Modern Football, even though it's an inconsistent and never the same to two different people mix of terrace romanticism and excuse to bash the fuck out of whoever they feel like, because that's what real soccer support is all about, maaaaaaaaaan.

The broader fantasy land that is Australia, or at least huge swathes of it, says there is only one type of Australia. It is meat pies, it is kangaroos, it is Holden cars. It is Bradman, it is Digger, Aussie, Digger, Aussie, Dinkum and a flag with four foreign nations represented on it and the mistaken belief that we own the Southern Cross, or some neo-Nazi group does, or worse, Melbourne Victory fans. It is asking Asian people how long they've lived in Australia even though they were born here. It's not nearly illiterate factory wogs learning to speak different languages while working. Or babies brought up by neighbours of different ethnicities while you worked. It's not 25,000 at Olympic Park when the VFL was actively trying to kill off VFA clubs.

The NSL was, in its own typically bumbling fashion, so Australian that it was not Australian. It had the broadest range of people, and experiences, and food, and style, and all that tree hugging multicultural crap that we were told was an essential part of being Australia, that after many backward years of racism, the multicultural shift that had made Australia great. No. It was too Australian. Too pluralist, too ramshackle, too independent, too anarchic, too representative of everything the beloved mainstream didn't stand for, neat cul-de-sacs and sunny beaches to send back to the old country which was wasn't (but really was).

I'm sick of the crap and the hypocrisy, but I'm more sick of how it all misses the greater issues that this stuff taps into. That so many in this country have been duped into thinking multiculturalism means everyone acting the same, just eating different food. Reminds me of a line in a song, 'The New World Order is like the EPL; same old shit, just more expensive'. And if you stand a up like a nail, then you will be knocked down. And the Commonwealth Ban has sent me several important messages about my account through email, which is great except for one thing. I don't bank with the Commonwealth. And maybe doing Working Class Writing was a lot of fun, but it also made me even more negative. And maybe I saw or maybe I just thought I saw an old teacher of mine today, who believed in me and encouraged me, but I couldn't be sure it was him so I didn't say anything, and then came to the conclusion that if it was him, he didn't recognise me because of my hat and the fact that I was wearing a band t-shirt.

Which doesn't make any sense of course. And it's really tiring. And that looking at pictures of deepest space, or remembering lessons from Epicurus and Seneca derived from pop-philosopher/entrepreneur Alain De Botton... and thinking about a silly photocopied sheet of paper passed on to me by Mike Baylis who I haven't spoken to in 7 years and will likely never speak to again even though tracking him down is not an impossible task, from Lyle Stebbing, the aforementioned teacher, whose class I wasn't even in anymore because I'd done it the previous year, about existentialism... it changed my life, probably for the better, but it's taken a while for that fruit to ripen on that tree.

Few things to pad out a Tuesday entry

• Item! Why is someone like Michael Cockerill of the Sydney Morning Herald calling us to ask and publish our opinions about B-Leagues and such - remember he's in Sydney - and Michael Lynch and The Age - remember, they're in Melbourne, like us - seem to have missed the boat entirely on this one? Maybe there's no real story and Cockerill was bored... I'd hope for Lynchy's sake, and that of his reputation that was the case.
  

• Item! I was made aware last Saturday of a bizarre local practice of certain ethnic minorities building entire kitchens and dining areas in their garages, so they wouldn't scuff up the inside of their house. Not that I disbelieved it, but I did find it odd. And then we took a wrong turn somewhere in Dandenong, ending up in a cul-de-sac, and as we maneuvered our way out of it, we spied an open garage... with a full on kitchen set up inside... crazy!

• Item! The online football game Hattrick! has its first ever South Melbourne Hellas Federation. The brainchild of the Hellas fan known as 'Gate 13' for some unknown reason, it's managed to get enough members within a week (five!) in order for it not to be shutdown by Hattrick's authorities! Excelsior!