BOOK REVIEW: "The Death & Life of Australian Soccer (Joe Gorman)", by Kieran James, 23 August 2018.

BOOK REVIEW: The Death & Life of Australian Soccer (Joe Gorman), by Kieran James, 23 August 2018.

According to the book’s front cover, Tracey Holmes says that this is a “remarkable book”. For me, I would not call it “remarkable” but I would call it interesting, important, colourful, detailed, thoughtful, and complete. It basically traces the history of Australian soccer from the post-war migrant boom through the National Soccer League (NSL) (1977-2004) era and on to the A-League and FFA Cup; as well as various matches involving the Socceroos at various stages in their history. It looks at soccer through the dual lens of economics and ethnicity, refusing to bow down to the dominant ideology promulgated around 2003-2005 that ethnic clubs and the NSL were uniformly and unambiguously terrible and that all soccer history before the A-League should be removed from consciousness.  This ideology can be termed “ground zero” or “scorched earth” ideology and the term “ethnic cleansing” has even been used by various people at various times to describe the fact that the A-League refused to accept traditional ethnic soccer clubs (Melbourne Croatia, South Melbourne Hellas, et al.).

A strength of the book is its almost dialectical (to describe the philosophical way of argumentation aimed at by Karl Marx, V. I. Lenin, and other communists over the years) writing style where two facts or aspects or perspectives of a situation, which appear to be almost or even completely contradictory, are presented side by side; and often there is no attempt made to harmonize or integrate the opposites which leads to an unresolved but informative tension. For example, the formation of the A-League and the fate of the ethnic clubs is told from different perspectives side by side, one pro-the A-League or seemingly so, and then the next bemoaning the destruction of the ethnic clubs’ cultures (e.g. pages 273-274, 338-339, 353-354). (The dialectical style is also used effectively in the Iron Maiden songs “22 Acacia Avenue” and “Run to the Hills” where, respectively, the perspective of a prostitute’s mentor / parent and client (first song) and Native Americans and White settlers (second song) are presented back to back.)

Usually this writing style is effectively used but there are times in the book when the contradictions become almost too much to bear and the reader cries out for at least an insertion of opinion from the author. Although the writing is colourful and descriptions detailed (of people and events), we get very few actual real personal opinions offered by the author. Is he on the “side” of the ethnic clubs? Or is he “against” the ethnic clubs? Is he “pro” the ethnic clubs as long as they play in the state leagues only? Is he “pro” the ethnic clubs but only if they can pay their own way? Is he “pro” the ethnic clubs but against ethnic names? Narrowing it down to key events, Gorman discusses Collingwood Warriors and Carlton Blues but we don’t get his heartfelt opinion on either these two interesting ventures. All we get are histories and descriptions which could have come from earlier books on Australian soccer or even from Wikipedia. What does he think of Lowy pulling Sydney City Slickers (Hakoah) out of the NSL after one round (page 140)? What does he think of St George Budapest’s axing from the NSL (pages 169-170)? He may feel he was too young to have experienced these events first-hand and so does not want to comment; but I would have loved to have heard his opinions. To me, Lowy was totally unethical as the basic ethical rule of even junior football is that your team must complete the season. Why not withdraw before the season began? His decision showed zero regard for the other clubs, players, and supporters, and angered even some Hakoah people. Yet this was the person who people were begging to take over management of the game again around 2003.

Another reviewer sees Kimon Taliadoros as one of the themes holding the book together in the sense that he started his playing career with a semi-professional ethnic club, South Melbourne Hellas, but was involved in the efforts of the players’ association to gain improved wages at national-league level; he annoyed many administrators of the game and his career ended without fanfare. He failed to share in the benefits he later obtained for others through his efforts, making him an almost priest-like figure in Gorman’s book which is strangely appropriate given the Greek Orthodox Church heritage and background of most people associated with South Melbourne and other Greek clubs. I respect this view of Taliadoros but I choose to read Gorman’s book through another lens. To me, Taliadoros is not as interesting as some other characters in the book; in most industries it is commonplace for union organisers, shop stewards, and workers to strive for improved wages and better working conditions; it is not interesting or different in and of itself; rugby-league and Aussie Rules also moved from semi-professionalism to full professionalism over the same period as soccer (just without the ethnic club factor and the NSL / A-League distinction).

To me, the most interesting figure in the book is Andrew Howe (pages 164ff.); and he is the answer to the principle dilemma of Australian soccer which Gorman grapples with: even when the ethnic clubs tried to become more “mainstream”, Anglo supporters still would not support them (e.g. pages 103, 165, 198). Because of this, the A-League had to be formed (although other solutions were possible, e.g. an A-League of eight plastic franchises plus the biggest four ethnic clubs). Howe was the exception: a 19-year-old Anglo-Australian from the Sutherland Shire who supported Cronulla Sharks in the National Rugby League (NRL). One day, he and his mates (for reasons that seem to be lost in the mists of time) decided to go to Italian club APIA Leichardt to watch a game of ethnic soccer in the NSL. He was completely hooked as I was in 1990 when (aged 22) I started watching Perth Italia games at Dorrien Gardens. Here was something unique and, in some ways, totally foreign but, in other ways, tied up forever with the immigrant experience and hence completely Australian. Rugby-league and Aussie Rules could not replicate such atmospheres. There were few Anglos like Howe unfortunately (exactly how many is unclear). If there had been thousands of Howe-type figures, the NSL would not have had to die. I know Melbourne Knights still has non-Croatian supporters. Vice-President, Pave Jusup, told me in 2011 of the Melbourne Croatia Fans (MCF) group member who stood, in his West Ham United shirt, for two years on the terraces at Knights’ Stadium before people found out that he was not ethnically Croatian!

Howe is hilarious and took the ethnic soccer aspect to extremes not even imagined by the ethnic people themselves: one wonders if a Steel Panther-type irony was intended or whether Howe was in fact just “taking the mickey”; his total passion for ethnic soccer makes the latter possibility seem unlikely. The book tells of Howe starting a Croatian soccer club in the Southern Sydney Churches competition (page 166), wearing red, white, and blue, despite the fact that there were no ethnic Croatians involved (apparently). He informally renamed the clubs in his competition to take on ethnic names (“St Philips was ‘Filipino’[;] St Giles became ‘Macedonian’” etc. (page 166)). Although this is all hilarious, one serious question remains: Why did Australia have so few Andrew Howe-types back in the NSL era? I used to love entering the world of ethnic soccer for an afternoon back in the early-1990s. Three memorable matches were: Perth Italia versus North Perth Croatia at Perry Lakes around 1991 (great atmosphere); a thrilling 0-0 draw between Perth Italia and Sorrento Gulls at Dorrien Gardens around 1990; and a 3-3 cliff-hanger between Italia and Croatia (then called Western Knights) in 2003 or 2004 also at Dorrien Gardens. I knew that I could retreat to Aussie Rules if I wanted an Anglo-atmosphere. I could come and go as I chose. Ethnic clubs were no threat to me, I revelled in them. I broke one “rule” of ethnic soccer which I could as an Anglo-Australian: my teams were Perth Italia and Melbourne Croatia. I recall watching the Melbourne Croatia team of 1990 on SBS on a Sunday evening, when Francis Awaritefe was up front and Alan Davidson was marshalling the mid-field.

There are certain other weaknesses of the book. The author expresses the modern left-wing views about the European colonization of Australia as being an “invasion” and the White Australia Policy being disgraceful. However, he fails to condemn (although here and there he does despair at the narrow-mindedness of Anglos who run a mile from any club perceived as ethnic) the banning of ethnic clubs from the A-League when this can be viewed as similar in spirit to the White Australia Policy. It banned clubs purely because of the ethnic origins of the clubs’ founders and it is very hard to see how this constitutes anything other than racism or discrimination. All are welcome as individuals, Gorman points out, but you can’t bring your clubs with you into the closely policed world of Modern Football.

The best parts of the book to me are about ethnicity and the NSL. I loved the season-by-season history of the NSL which has not been done before with this level of rigour. However, I feel that the author probably tries to do too much. I think everything about the Socceroos could have been left out for example. The Socceroos’ campaigns are not covered as rigorously as the NSL seasons; the 1990 World Cup is ignored, and Fiji’s shock 1-0 win over Australia in Nadi in 1988 is not mentioned (nor the 5-1 return game back in Australia). (Fiji is not even in the book index.) Gorman seems to have subconsciously adopted the current worldview that only Asia matters and that Oceania’s history (which included Australia) and its present are to be ignored (for more on Fiji soccer see my blog “Nadi Legends Club” at http://nadilegendsclub.blogspot.com). It was also not really interesting to me to hear how Ayr United fan Roy Hay switched from supporting Scotland to supporting Australia in the middle of a World Cup match. It might be important to Hay but, sociologically, I don’t view it as being as important as the killing off of the NSL.

I would have also liked to have read a bit more on Western Sydney Wanderers and the FFA Cup, but we can’t have it all and space limitations are always an issue. Perth domestic soccer is also totally ignored when Richard Kreider has written history books on this topic which could have been consulted (Kreider, 1996, 2012); club football history post-1945 is not all about Sydney and Melbourne. The Perth Kangaroos’ venture could have had a longer treatment as this interesting and bold venture was 20 years ahead of its time. (It is a pity that the administrators realized only too late that it is the Malaysian league that gets the crowds, not the Singapore league.) Gorman talks about spending time with Melbourne Knights’ Pave Jusup, but that treasure-trove of wisdom and information about his club is not quoted in the actual book (unlike in my two published articles).

Nowadays, we have mostly plastic franchises in all national-leagues in all codes and the ethnic atmosphere of soccer has been destroyed. Yes, we have the same clubs playing at state-league level in front of a few hundred fans but atmosphere is based on crowd size and the old Croatia-versus-Hellas-in-front-of-8,000-people type atmosphere is, sadly, gone forever (unless, as Knights’ president, Ange Cimera, has said, they decide to stop ethnic cleansing). Perth Glory versus Melbourne Knights in the A-League? I would like to see that!

On page 143, Gorman calls Hakoah’s new Sydney City name “utterly meaningless”; in fact, I would argue that the name is overloaded with unintended meaning; Mr. Lowy himself was and is the “Sydney City Slicker” personified, surely?

Despite the criticisms, this is a worthwhile and important book which refuses to ignore or suppress or repress the ethnic history of Australian soccer. More historical work should follow, from fan, journalist, and academic perspectives [by Kieran James, 23 August 2018].

References cited in this review:

Kreider, R. (1996), A Soccer Century: A Chronicle of Western Australian Soccer from 1896 to 1996 (Leederville: SportsWest Media).

Kreider, R. (2012), Paddock to Pitches: The Definitive History of Western Australian Football (Leederville: SportsWest Media).

My published articles on Australian soccer:

James, K., Tolliday, C. and Walsh, R. (2011), Where to now, Melbourne Croatia? Football Federation Australia’s use of accounting numbers to institute exclusion upon ethnic clubs, Asian Review of Accounting, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 112-124. 

James, K. and Walsh, R. (2018), The expropriation of goodwill and migrant labour in the transition to Australian football’s A-League, International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 430-452 [to be published soon].

Book review author contact details:

Kieran.James@uws.ac.uk

Kieran.James99@yahoo.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/kieran.james.94 (Kieran James).

Henry Dyer (left) and Lote Delai @ Fiji Football Veterans' Dinner, Nadi, Saturday, 4 October 2014. Henry Dyer was dropped from the Fiji team for the first 1988 game (versus Australia) due to an alleged connection with a motor vehicle which was involved in a robbery in Suva. Lote Delai set up the goal in the first game and scored the only Fiji goal in the second game.

Perth Glory historian Chris Egan and friend Reuben @ Dorrien Gardens, home of Perth Italia Soccer Club.

BOOK REVIEW: "The Death & Life of Australian Soccer (Joe Gorman)", by Billy Diakos, 6 September 2017.

A new book chronicles the rise and fall of the National Soccer League competition and highlights the journey of one of the main characters - Socceroos boss Ange Postecoglou. The day after iconic SBS broadcaster Les Murray's funeral, Joe Gorman's book The Death and Life of Australian Soccer was launched at a café in Sydney's Leichhardt. The publication is an impressive look at the 1950s and 60s and beyond, when the European migrant communities inspired a football boom and the creation of what would become Australia's first national sporting competition – the NSL.

Through archival research and interviews Gorman highlights how Greek and other migrant-backed soccer clubs influenced the round ball game in Australia. 

    'The amount of money and time and energy that Greek-Australians have put into the game is unbelievably enormous and that effort will probably never be recognised and truly be appreciated as it should be," he says.

"Sydney Olympic, South Melbourne, and Heidelberg are the major ones from the NSL who produced a great number of Socceroos, and not just from a Greek background but from all walks of life. But the question is, what role will those clubs have in the future? Maybe South Melbourne Hellas will be an A-League franchise one day and I hope they are. I hope they do succeed in doing that as Greek Australians have always been a part of Australian soccer and always will be."

Postecoglou's journey from Greek migrant ball boy to Australian national team coach is examined, and one chapter features an excerpt from an article that the then South Melbourne coach wrote in a 1997 match day programme. It's a call to arms to South supporters that came during one of the most tumultuous period of the NSL, when teams like Heidelberg and Parramatta Melita had been axed in favour of non-ethnic backed teams. 

"When I watch the (Victorian) Premier League and see Heidelberg and Preston play in front of 500 supporters, it makes me sick to my stomach," Postecoglou wrote at the time. "It is then I realise that I don't want one day to be talking to my children about a club that no longer exists, or is a pale shadow of its former self. I remember those clubs that no longer exist and they were all great clubs. I'm sure they felt as indestructible as we do now. Yes, we've managed to survive whilst others have fallen, but survival is no longer enough. We must prosper and stay ahead of everyone else in order to ensure our future."

Postecoglou left South Melbourne in 2000 but not before he guided the club to two successive NSL championships. His subsequent coaching career in the A-League and for the Socceroos also yielded silverware. 

However, Gorman believes that despite all that success, Postecoglou has suffered an existential crisis caused by the demise of the NSL in 2004, which saw his beloved South Melbourne consigned to the Victorian State League.

"So, in the space of 20 years after he wrote that article in the match programme and, I'm not having a go at him here, he has essentially given up the fight for his club and I think part of the reason was because times had changed around him," Gorman says.

"He had to change with the times. He had to move, he won't say it publicly but I think the demise of South Melbourne has hurt Ange and I think it has hurt him in a place he won't talk about publicly. 

"He has seen the NSL and the journey of soccer as a supporter, as a ball boy, as a player, as a captain of a NSL club, as a Socceroo, as an A-League coach and as a Socceroos coach."

In writing the book, Gorman feels that Postecoglou's story also is also the story of the first ten years of the A-League; the message the competition sends is that as an ethnic person you can succeed but your community will no longer come with you.

"When Ange had success in the 80s and 90s, South Melbourne rode his coat-tails and came along with him," he says. "The same happened with Mark Viduka and the Croatians. Mark Viduka succeeded and the entire Croatian community rode that success with him. In the A-League now the individual person can succeed but their community no longer goes on the ride with them and that I think is a real shame but it's also the inevitable result of a highly corporatized, privatised sport.

"So, Ange's story embodies the modern era of the A-League in a lot of ways. The A-League is just not a positive story, it's also quite heartbreaking as you realise what we've lost, we've lost that community spirit and that real ethnic community spirit which we all love, we've lost that now and it's became much more mainstream if you want to use that word."

Gorman added," So, Ange has literally seen everything. He has been at the coalface of the game since he got here in 1971. That is why he is important. He articulates the journey of the game better than anyone else. He talks about the game so beautifully and the reason he's so good at that is because he has lived and worked in Australia football almost the whole of his life."

Also featured in Gorman's book is Peter Filopoulos who was only 25 when he became the club's first general manager. In 1996, he appointed Postecoglou as senior coach, and Gorman highlights how as general manager he attempted to broaden South Melbourne's supporter base. Filopoulos left the club in 1999 to pursue opportunities at various sporting organisations and like Postecoglou, South provided a springboard to future success. Looking back on the demise of the NSL, Filopoulos believes the formation of the A-League was inevitable.

"The game had to be corporatised," he tells Neos Kosmos. "We didn't have big sponsors in the NSL; we didn't have a Hyundai that is pouring in millions and millions of dollars like we do today. We didn't have a broadcast deal that was pouring in tens of millions of dollars, and in order for that to happen the game had to be corporatised."

After 10 years away from football, Filopoulos returned to his main passion when he joined Perth Glory in 2015 as its CEO and he feels it's time that some aspects of the NSL be adopted by the A-League.

"Football's shopfront window is much glossier than it has ever been," he says. "But as part of that corporatisation, yes, we have lost that bit of community feel as a collective that the NSL clubs had with that deep rich connection with their community.

"The other thing we don't see as much as we did back then is Ange Postecoglou played under-8s for South Melbourne and he played right up and represented the senior teams and then the country. It was a different era.

"When the A-League was formed we really didn't worry about any of that; it was more about corporatising the game and making it a glossy league attracting the corporate and TV dollars and building a product. I think we have managed to do that quite well but now is the time to build those other elements that the NSL had and have it come across to the A-League."

OPINION ARTICLE: "The forgotten story of … Brunswick Juventus’ 1985 NSL championship", by Joe Gorman.

The forgotten story of … Brunswick Juventus’ 1985 NSL championship, by Joe Gorman.

Strewn across Melbourne’s northern suburbs are the remnants of a once-great football club. Juventus, one of the most successful Victorian sides during the 1950s and 1960s, has gradually been whittled away to nothing. Thirty years ago to the day Juventus lifted their one and only National Soccer League trophy, yet within three seasons the club was relegated from the NSL, and by 1996 they were kicked out; this time for good.

A few years ago, a family tree of the Italian clubs in Victoria was published online. Trying to follow the maze of splinters, mergers and breakaways makes for head-spinning reading. Triestina, for example, became Essendon Royals by virtue of mergers with Fiorentina, Moonee Ponds, East Brunswick Reggina and a host of other clubs.

Formed out of the predecessor club Savoia in 1949, Juventus was supposed to be the great unifier. According to the official history book, Juve! Juve!, the name “Juventus” was chosen for its neutrality, and because black and white striped shirts were “always easy to find in Melbourne”.

Published in 1990, the club history book – half in English, half in Italian – is out of print, out of date and long forgotten. The little poem on the inside cover – “To the fans of yesteryear, those of today, and to the ones of the future” – is both beautiful and haunting in the current context. These days the trophies, pennants and memorabilia are housed at Whittlesea Ranges; Moreland Zebras have the photos, host the anniversary events and officially trade under the name Juventus International Soccer Club; while Brunswick Zebras play at Juventus’ junior ground at Sumner Park, Northcote. All the clubs claim a link to the original Juventus, based either on colours, history and shared memory.

Fabio Incantalupo, 51, was the favourite son of Juventus. His father Greg was the mayor of Brunswick, served on the club committee in the late seventies, and helped Juventus secure a training base. He took Fabio to see Juve play from a young age, and at 10 years old, Fabio started his career with the club. Although he had the chance to trial for Australian rules side Collingwood in his late-teens, he always loved football, and it was from this platform that he represented the national team at youth level, and in 1989 was named Italo-Australian Sports Personality of the Year.

“It got ripped apart,” he says of his childhood club. “They went from Juventus to being the Bulleen Inter Kings, then the Thomastown Zebras, then Whittlesea… everyone claimed a little bit of nostalgia of the club. The ones that play in the black and white are still a little bit connected, but it’s symbolic. It’s sad.”

The solitary success story of Brunswick Juventus in 1985 can only be understood within the context of football in the mid-eighties – the lost years of the NSL. The original, commercially oriented ideals of the competition, which began in 1977, had been forgotten or simply ignored. The league’s main sponsor, Philips Industries, withdrew in 1982, while Channel 10 stopped broadcasting games after just two seasons. No crowds, no money and no exposure forced the league to revert to a ridiculous conference system in order to survive. In 1984 the league expanded from 16 teams to 24, split into a so-called “Australian” or “Northern” Conference and the “National” or “Southern’ Conference”.

The conference system was a cost-cutter. The idea was that less interstate travel for clubs would save money and more local derbies would draw in the crowds. In reality it was total anarchy. Both conference had sub-sections relating to the city the teams came from, and there were occasional inter-conference challenge rounds. The Australian or Northern conference was basically the teams from NSW, the National or Southern conference was the rest, including Brisbane, who of course were geographically the furthest team in the north.

The much-vaunted “local derbies” between Blacktown City and Penrith City at Cook Park, for example, drew less than 1,000 people, while the first ACT derby between Canberra City and Inter Monaro in Queanbeyan was played in front of just 2,100 people. There was promotion and relegation, but it didn’t extend to Newcastle, Canberra or Wollongong, who were were granted development status by the NSL. In the latter half of the 1985 season, Fairy Meadow, a tiny club from the sleepy coastal town in the Illawarra, looked to be a real possibility for promotion to the national league.

The striker was one of the game’s first stars, a legendary goalscorer for club and country whose international career ended abruptly and in controversy

Looking back, even the names of the teams that entered in 1984 seem to forecast the impending downward spiral: there was the Croatias of Melbourne and Sydney, the most difficult of all the ethnic communities in Australian football; the Maltese teams Sunshine George Cross, Green Gully and Melita Eagles; Blacktown City and Penrith City from Sydney’s outer-western suburbs; and Inter Monaro, who were backed by the Italian Marco Polo Club. And, of course, Brunswick Juventus, the third-placed team from the 1983 Victorian State League season.

The clubs held sway over the federation, and after Melbourne and Sydney Croatia resolutely refused to change their nationalistic names, the labels Hellas, APIA, Juventus and Makedonia crept back. While Australian rules and rugby league were looking to expand beyond their traditional geographic boundaries, football was doing the reverse.

In a sense, this was reflective of the times – it was the European migrants and their children that gave Australian football its unique character. SBS, the multicultural television station, began screening the games, while in Melbourne, the premier football newspaper Soccer Action dedicated space every week for foreign-language columns. The author of Juve! Juve!, Egilberto Martin, wrote: “For the European migrant the code of soccer, besides its essentiality as a sport, represents also a piece of that gigantic mosaic which makes up his socio-cultural structure and has retained it in spite of the mockery, the popular derision, and the powerful hold of other football codes, and in Victoria, by Aussie Rules.”

Brunswick Juventus entered the 1985 season led by the well-connected Italian-Australian triumvirate of Tony Schiavello, Sam Manenti and Vince Verducci. The team manager was Joe Caruso, a colourful local identity who owned an espresso bar in Coburg and a travel agency in Sunshine. Rocco Di Zio, a journalist, administrator, volunteer and raconteur was, as usual, omnipresent in the club operations.

They were coached by the late, great John Margaritis. A former South Melbourne Hellas player, Margaritis had been sacked and re-hired several times by South Melbourne and West Adelaide Hellas in the early years of the NSL, and returned to Juventus in characteristically chaotic circumstances. He led Brunswick Juventus to the National League in 1983, stayed on in 1984, left at the end of the season, but when Tommy Traynor was fired after just three pre-season games, returned in time for the 1985 campaign.

It was an argument with Incantalupo that sealed Traynor’s fate. He told the team he was under pressure from the press to pick Incantalupo because he was Italian. “It wasn’t like I instigated it,” remembers Incantalupo, “I just think it was supporters who were upset because we weren’t winning. I was sitting on the bench, things started to get a bit heated. They said to me, ‘why aren’t you playing’, you know? I said go and ask him… he’s the coach. It just snowballed from there and he got the sack. The vibes weren’t good from the start.”

Aside from the dressing-room dramas, Caruso had signed well in the off-season. At the time, Lou Sticca, the man responsible for bringing Alessandro Del Piero to the A-League in 2012, was a 25-year old fan. “Led by a good committee, [Caruso] was able to build a football structure and team and attracted the right players and coaches,” he remembers. Soccer Action’s Lawrie Schwab wrote that without Caruso, Margaritis “would be like a man with one arm”.

Signing a contact with Caruso was an experience in itself. Incantalupo remembers going to his cafe, hopping in his white, beat-up Mercedes and being taken to the races, the customary cigar always hanging out the side of Caruso’s mouth. “Friday night at Moonee Valley, just to negotiate my contract for the following year,” laughs Incantalupo.

The big name recruits of Peter Lewis, Paul Wade and Yakka Banovic, complemented the solid core of Brian Brown, Mike Petersen, Joe Sweeney and Eddie Campbell. The young starlets were Reno Minichello, Mehmet Durakovic, Andrew Zinni and Incantalupo. Sticca says the captain, Brown, was “the main reason Juventus had any success at all”, while Incantalupo was the “love child” and the “flagship” of the club. Yet at the beginning of the season, Margaritis told the press: “we are not saying we will win the championship this year”.

Juventus’ first win came over Green Gully at Olympic Park in March, and in April Incantalupo scored his first goal of the season in a 2-2 draw with South Melbourne. Elsewhere, a two-game stint by England international Kevin Keegan at Blacktown City drew large crowds and media attention, and a scintillating 3-1 Juventus victory over South Melbourne drew rave reviews as “the game of the season”.

But things took a turn for the worse in July. Incantalupo got into a heated argument with team-mate Richard Miranda during a match against Brisbane Lions, and was sent off. Things escalated quickly after the pair started arguing over whether to press high or drop off while defending a throw-in. “It was just one of those things in the heat of the moment,” says Incantalupo now, “I might be the first time a player has been sent off for swearing at his own player!”

A week later in Sydney, the infamous Pratten Park riot saw the referee punched, kicked and spat on by unruly fans in a match between Sydney Olympic and Sydney City. “At long last, soccer has grabbed public attention,” lamented Andrew Dettre in Soccer Action. “True, it needed the prodding of an ugly riot, the mindless savagery of a few dozen or perhaps hundred lunatics – but we’ve made it.”

Indeed the crowds just would not show. By 1985 the clubs barely attracted fans outside the various ethnic groups, and furthermore, they didn’t even have full support from their own communities. Consider the “game of the season” between South Melbourne and Juventus in June – held at the best football stadium, Middle Park, between two of the best Victorian sides who purported to represent the state’s largest and most vibrant ethnic communities. Only 5,000 people turned up.

Fernando Spano is illustrative of this dilemma. His father arrived from Calabria in 1956 and became a Juventus fan, his cousin played for the club, but Fernando’s first sporting memories are of watching Australian Rules side Collingwood. Spano followed his father to Australia in 1965, and although he followed Juventus through the Italian newspaper Il Globo, he was instantly attracted to the roar of Australian Rules football at Victoria Park. Without much English, he says Collingwood helped him fit in to a new society, and that the violence and hatred at the football put him off. “You couldn’t go and not be taunted,” he says. “It’s not in the spirit of the sport.”

Sticca also had an affection for both football and Australian rules. “I’d go and watch Carlton play in front of 30-35,000 people at Princes Park, and then I’d go and watch Juventus play in front of 2,000 at Olympic Park,” he says. “To me, I loved it. Same same.” Still, by the early nineties, Sticca also realised that football needed drastic reform. “There was only one way I could see soccer progressing in this country, and that was to break away from the little ethnic club model,” he says.

The only thing that remains of Juventus is memory, and the best memory is the 1985 grand final victory. After defeating South Melbourne in the major semi-final and Preston Makedonia in the conference grand final, Juventus faced Sydney City in the national grand final. Sydney City, known by most as Hakoah, were run by current FFA chairman Frank Lowy and were the best team in the NSL, having won four national titles in eight seasons. But Juventus had an extra incentive – Schiavello had promised an all-expenses-paid end of season trip to Italy to play Roma if they players brought the title home.

Brunswick Juventus won 2-0 on aggregate over the two legs, with one goal in Sydney and one in Melbourne. After just two minutes of play in the second leg at Olympic Park, Juventus player Robbie Cullen received a head-knock and was taken to hospital with concussion. In the reshuffle, Incantalupo was moved into the forward-line. When Cullen woke up, he immediately asked: “did we win?” and “who scored?”

The answer, of course, was Fabio Incantalupo. After missing the entire 1984 season after a knee reconstruction, an argument with the coach in pre-season, an on-field skirmish with his team-mate in round 18 and having scored just three goals all season, it was Incantalupo who scored the winner in both legs. The first, in Sydney, was a shot from outside the box; the second in Melbourne a tap-in from a corner. In the crowd, his father watched on proudly, and his girlfriend cheered for the man she would later marry. “They looked after me,” says Incantalupo, who had his knee operation paid for by the club. “Maybe because of that I had to repay them, and that was the best way I could do it.”

Later this month the 30-year anniversary dinner will be held at the Casa D’Abruzzo Club in Melbourne. The playing group will reminisce about the good old days, the colourful characters like Caruso, as well the hard-working volunteers like Di Zio and Joe Castelli who would fork out their own money to help players settle, or mortgage their family home in order for the club to have financial security. Sticca, who remains one of the most influential figures in the Australian game, still credits Di Zio as a central reason he got involved in the administration of the game. He learned a great deal watching the older guys, “their love of their sport, their community and their love of their club”.

But apart from the memories, there is little else to hold on to. Incantalupo believes the failure to set down firm roots with a social club and a home ground is the cause for the demise. Juventus’ plans for a $3 million sports complex at Clifton Park never eventuated, and the site is now home to a council-owned synthetic field. “If they had owned a club, a home ground, and a club room,” says Incantalupo, “I think Juventus would still be going.”

Others, however, believe that the Italians assimilated quicker than the other ethnic groups, and thus no longer needed their club as a social lubricant. In 1990, Victorian Soccer Federation president, John Dimtsis, wrote: “The story of Juventus in Victoria tells us a great deal not only about a successful soccer club; it tells us much about Italian life in Victoria. Juventus was for many years… one of the main foci of Melbourne and Victoria’s Italian community.”

Those days are long gone, for the Italians and increasingly also for the other European migrant groups and their once-mighty football clubs. With the A-League and its non-denominational clubs now firmly entrenched, perhaps Juventus are the canary in the coal mine for the ethnic clubs. “Juventus,” says Sticca, “is a club that lost its community.”

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...-brunswick-juventus-1985-nsl?CMP=share_btn_tw

Source:

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/national-soccer-league-nsl.1043161/page-3