OPINION ARTICLE: "The way forward for the state leagues", by K. James, 20 August 2018.

The way forward for the state leagues (written 2013 with minor updates here and there)

What is the way forward for the tier-two state leagues around the country? The two obvious paths forward, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive, are the “retro” approach of the WAFL and the expansion approach of the Queensland Cup rugby-league competition. A third, out-of-left-field approach would see clubs like Port Melbourne from the VFL apply for and join a competition in another state, for example the SANFL. Obviously this option applies to exceptional cases and not to the majority of clubs in a league. A new issue to have recently emerged (not covered in detail in this book) is the fielding of Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide Power reserves team in the SANFL and West Coast and Fremantle reserves teams in the WAFL. In the WAFL host clubs are presently (as at December 2016) East Perth for the West Coast reserves and Peel Thunder for the Fremantle reserves.

The Queensland Cup, the former Brisbane suburban rugby-league competition, has expanded to include teams in all of the major Queensland coastal cities, not presently servicing an NRL team, including Cairns (Northern Pride); Mackay (Mackay Cutters); Rockhampton-Yeppoon (CQ Capras); and Sunshine Coast (Sunshine Coast Falcons)[1]. The competition has also expanded south-east to the Gold Coast (Burleigh Bears and Tweed Heads Seagulls), south-west to Ipswich (Ipswich Jets), and overseas to Papua New Guinea (PNG Hunters). Toowoomba Clydesdales formerly played in the competition and hopes to re-enter.

On balance, the Queensland Cup has probably been right to follow the expansion course because the Queensland regional cities are of reasonable size (50,000 to 250,000 people) and rugby-league fans in those cities do not have a local NRL team. I recall once watching Central Comets (now CQ Capras) play a Saturday night game under lights within the cosy confines of Browne Park, Rockhampton, where everyone is within 20-metres of the pitch. The club does a wonderful presentation of the whole event there and, with a crowd of around 3,000 people in a cosy ground, the atmosphere is compelling. However, entry prices remain relatively cheap and there is always a vacant seat directly behind the fence for someone arriving a few minutes before kick-off.

Channel 9 televised Queensland Cup matches from 2012 (replacing the ABC) which has provided a further boost for this second-tier league. Television cameras appeared at the grounds of the three north-coast clubs, CQ Capras (Rockhampton, formerly Central Comets), Mackay Cutters, and Northern Pride (Cairns), for the first time in 2012.

Western Australia is a different proposition in that towns in Western Australia are much smaller than those in Queensland (10,000 or 20,000 people compared to 50,000 or 150,000 people) and any expansion club in the former state would probably follow the path of mediocrity followed by Peel Thunder. On balance, I believe that the WAFL competition should not further expand although clearly the Goldfields and Geraldton regions have appeal. Australian Rules football has a long and wonderful history in the Goldfields region in particular stretching back over a century. The WAFC/WAFL hierarchy should keenly study Queensland Cup developments as well as, more obviously, developments in the SANFL and VFL.

I now turn my attention to two interesting 2011 developments involving state league clubs in Hobart and Perth. Firstly, Jason “Aker” Akermanis’ turned out for Glenorchy versus Clarence in the Tasmanian State League (TSL) competition on Saturday night 2 April 2011 in Hobart. Because of the presence of Akermanis this game attracted a record crowd of 8,480 people.[2] It is certainly wonderful to see such an accomplished and decorated player give something back to second-tier football. It is probably because Hobart had and has no regular AFL team that Aker attracted larger average crowds at Glenorchy than he would have attracted had he signed on with a WAFL club.

Secondly, Swan Districts’ players were praised by letter writers to the Brisbane-based Courier-Mail newspaper, Wendy and Darren Schultz of Sherwood, as a result of 64 Swans players arriving via charter plane in Sherwood, Brisbane to assist in clean-up operations after the floods of January 2011.[3] Of course the letter-writers could not refrain from utilizing the expected poor pun of swans taking well to water! The great attitude of the players involved (there are far fewer unmanageable egos at this level of the game) and the fact that Swan Districts could mobilize as many as 64 players quickly suggests that the smaller WAFL club operations can respond more effectively to at least some emergencies than the AFL corporate behemoths. The actions of the Swans club and its players are consistent with the club’s modern (re-)branding as a community-based club with a community ethos. The cleaning efforts got the club some coverage in the Courier-Mail newspaper whereas it would be close to impossible for it to gain newspaper coverage in Brisbane for its actual on-field footballing exploits.

Swans’ act represents existential acting-out of a strategic re-branding which is really just a tinkering and a slight re-emphasis of attributes that the club has possessed throughout its life. The concept of a community-based club assisting a community on the other side of Australia is an interesting one and it suggests innovative ways and approaches for tier-two clubs to carve out niche markets and brand-names for themselves which do not involve fighting head-on the hegemonic AFL clubs. The Foxtel Cup (2011-14) also offered some hope and extra meaning for second-tier clubs around Australia as players and supporters got to test themselves out on the national stage. However, the games should have been played at the clubs’ traditional home grounds instead of as curtain-raisers to AFL matches. With the Foxtel Cup axed the only hope for forgotten traditional tier-two clubs now is a rebel competition outside the auspices and control of the AFL.

To return to the topic of ground redevelopment and rationalization, Subiaco Oval today is a fully corporatized ground, sold out to West Coast season-ticket holders for West Coast home games, and surrounded on all sides by homogeneous grandstands and the ubiquitous, horrible, plastic bucket seats. The once great traditional ground with the atmospheric, concrete terracing, so close to the play on the Roberts Road scoreboard wing, is now a hollow corporate shell and is completely distasteful for traditionalists. As the French philosopher Michel Foucault would have said, the corporate people aim to control, physically as well as psychologically, every aspect of a football supporter’s game-day environs and experiences. They cannot understand that some people like to watch games from grandstands but others prefer either grassed banks or concrete terracing.

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[1] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensland_Cup [accessed 4 November 2016]; http://www.qrl.com.au/intrust-super-cup/clubs.html [accessed 4 November 2016].

[2] Source: Anonymous (2011a), “Akermanis can still draw crowd”, The Courier-Mail [Brisbane, Australia], 4 April, p. 63.

[3] Source: Schultz, W. and D. Schultz (2011), “Swans arrived at right moment”, Talkingpoint [Letters to the Editor], The Courier-Mail [Brisbane, Australia], 26 January, p. 50.

OPINION ARTICLE: "The simple pleasures of lower-tier football", by K. James, 6 August 2018.

The simple pleasures of lower-tier football (written 2013 with minor updates here and there, FC United of Manchester still plays in the National League North)

The WAFL is now similar to non-league English soccer (and lower-tier Scottish leagues), far down what in the UK is termed “the pyramid”, where games are run professionally; the clubs have traditions; and the crowds are small but dedicated. The WAFL has lost, for the most part, its army of “fair-weather fans” that used to attach themselves especially to clubs like East Perth and South Fremantle back in the day. The club diehards have remained, by and large, with the clubs except perhaps for some previously staunch West Perth fans disillusioned by the move to Arena Joondalup. The VFL/AFL era has been a real existential test of people’s loyalties. In the WAFL’s Golden Era, people would declare and pretend that they were hardcore fans of this or that WAFL club but in those days the competition was glorious and people’s loyalties were not really tested. Existentially speaking, those 800-1,000 committed supporters of each WAFL club that continue to attend WAFL games weekly have proven themselves to be the most committed WAFL club supporters by their actions. The great, traditional, ex-NSL, ethnic soccer clubs, such as Adelaide City, Marconi Stallions, Melbourne Knights, Preston Lions, South Melbourne, and Sydney United, are now relegated to the Victorian Premier League (VPL) or the equivalent competitions in the other states, and are in exactly the same position as the WAFL clubs.

Montrose 2 Elgin City 0, lower-tier Scottish soccer.

WAFL football is now still very enjoyable, but in a different way, as these days you can spread yourself out, there are empty seats often to your right and left, and the queues for the toilets, food, and beer are small and manageable. The WAFL is now like the Western Australian premier league soccer, rugby, and rugby-league competitions have always been in that the atmospheres can be wonderful partly because you can assume that all of your fellow spectators are dedicated and knowledgeable insiders! If you do not allow your mind to wander into that place of comparing the new to the old WAFL you will find that attending WAFL games today is quite enjoyable.

Interestingly, disillusioned Manchester United fans set up in June 2005 a community-based club, FC United of Manchester, which plays to small but dedicated crowds in cosy, compact stadiums in a minor league (National League North) below and outside the Football League (sixth-tier of the pyramid, five tiers below the English Premier League)[1]. Each club financial member owns one share and gets one vote regardless of her / his financial contribution(s). With an average crowd of 1,969 for the 2008-09 season, up to and including 9 November[2], FC United was then drawing around five times as many people, on average, as the typical club in its division. After moving from Gigg Lane to Broadhurst Park in May 2015, the club averaged a gate of 3,394 in 2015-16, a season-on-season increase of over 57% and the fourth highest attendance in non-League football. The club’s record home crowd is 6,731 people at Gigg Lane, Bury versus Brighton & Hove Albion, FA Cup Second Round, on 8 December 2010[3] beating the previous record of 6,023 people versus Great Harwood Town on 22 April 2006[4].

United FC is an organic and authentic community-based response to the increasing corporatization of soccer and the alienation that now exists between fans and players and between fans and administrators at English Premier League (EPL) level. The grassroots WAFL clubs are the equivalent of FC United of Manchester whereas the West Coast Eagles are the equivalent of Manchester United.

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[1] Source: Fuell, T. (2009), “Fans doing it for themselves”, Non League [United Kingdom], December, p. 104; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_League_North [accessed 4 November 2016]; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.C._United_of_Manchester [accessed 4 November 2016].

[2] Source: Non League magazine, December 2009 issue, p. 102.

[3] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.C._United_of_Manchester [accessed 4 November 2016].

[4] Fuell, “Fans doing it for themselves”, p. 104.

Port Adelaide Magpies supporters, Foxtel Cup match versus Claremont, Subiaco Oval, Saturday, 16 July 2011 (attendance: 1,000).

Port Adelaide Magpies supporters, Foxtel Cup match versus Claremont, Subiaco Oval, Saturday, 16 July 2011 (attendance: 1,000).

North Adelaide supporters (SANFL).

South Fremantle Cheer Squad (WAFL) (formed 2002).

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: "Goodbye Leederville Oval" - More than an Oval, by Chris Egan, 12/9/2017

Chris Egan (left) and friend @ Dorrien Gardens Soccer Ground, North Perth. Neither Chris nor Kieran James have much time for code-wars.

Dr Kieran James’ book – Goodbye Leederville Oval is a unique and credible insight into Perth’s sporting culture. It covers three major themes – the fluidity of Perth’s sporting culture, the pain of transition in Australia of sports moving from semi-professional to professional pathways and one that is currently being further examined across the state. What is it to be a Western Australian?

James uses soccer to elicit his supporter group as part of an intimidatory force and uses the literature from the United Kingdom soccer scene to introduce his supporter group. It is the fluid connections that come through that are the highlight of the experiences of Kieran’s youth. There is a transient connection to the WAFL by boys of his generation, especially when compared to the intensity of support in the VFL.  This is challenged by the ‘parochialism’ at state level which superseded the interest in metropolitan clashes. 

Dedication came with the ‘cultural’ acceptance that kids would be ‘permissed’ to wag school to watch the WA state team play Victoria. That this was something that ‘everyone’ did. This is where the real heart of sporting culture comes alive, something that saw little ability to be transient. The pride of their Western Australian identity was at a peak, school was nowhere near as important and there was a ‘tactful’ acceptance of this by the Education Department with not cracking down on it.

For Kieran, there is ever-lasting pain from the transition as he has a strong engagement to the league and the game. But he is also part of the fluidity, he sees no difference between his love of Dorrien Gardens and Leederville Oval, the culture he critiques allows him to create a book with no code hostility. He crosses over League, Soccer and Australian Rules throughout this book, framed by a city which as a whole allows people to pick and choose what elements of Western Australian society that you engage with.

It doesn’t require you to stay with West Perth and the Eagles. It doesn’t require you to ignore academic literature from soccer to frame the experience of an Australian Rules cheer squad. There is a freedom of affiliation that is bound by the cultural and social freedom to interact in the many world’s of Perth – with no social, academic or economic punishment.

It is expertly sourced, referenced and memorialised. He transects a critical lense on Western Australian societies ‘either/or’ rather than ‘yes/and’ which he suggests is framed by the West Coast Eagles who were able to delineate the attachment to the Western Australian State of Origin side when it was created in 1987.  James challenges this with how Queenslanders supported their Rugby League club sides and their State of Origin heroes. That in Perth this eroded and the passion of the state was transferred to its club side.

The processes of the construction of this period is critical for future studies into the game, including my present book on Perth Glory which utilised the passion behind the WA state side which was then transferred into the ground-breaking records that Perth Glory attracted when it entered into the National Soccer League in 1996. It provides further understandings that sport in WA is fluid, it is about state pride at its heart – not the code of sport you play.  

Kieran James @ Leederville Oval

What is the highlight though is the insight into mid 80s supporter culture in Western Australia, the lack of class, political and social friction within James supporter group is similar to my experience when part of the home end at Perth Glory. The group I sung with was from all walks of life, but our connection was our united passion for the Glory, which is shaped by our shared strength of Western Australian identity.

If there is any critique of the book, is that it did not look at the clash points within Leederville Oval when Perth Glory tried to transfer the ground into a rectangular venue. With so much insight and academic theory being integrated from a soccer background, this would have been a valuable area to analyse by James.

The book is integral for anybody that is interested in Perth’s sporting and social history, it engages with the reader a mixture of memoir/analysis of the pain of reform. It crosses code boundaries and defines the characteristics of Western Australian society.

Dr Kieran James should be congratulated on a text that will have long-standing benefits to the study of sports history in Western Australia.

[This review was first published at Australianrules.com.au and is used here with the kind permission of Chris Egan.]

To buy paperback edition:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/kieran-james/goodbye-leederville-oval-history-of-west-perth-cheer-squad-1984-86/paperback/product-23296331.html

To buy hardcover edition:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/kieran-james/goodbye-leederville-oval-history-of-west-perth-cheer-squad-1984-86/hardcover/product-23511884.html

Also available on Amazon (type the book title into the search function). 

NEWS: West Australian Football Golden Era 1984-86 book published, 4 September 2017

Back cover of book (the can bar, Lathlain Park for Perth versus Swan Districts, 2 July 2011).

Paperback version

Message from the author Kieran James: "If you enjoyed this blog, the book is now finally available in paperback. Topic: West Australian Football Golden Era 1984-86. The book looks at the big games and main players in the Western Australian Football League (WAFL) over this period 1984-86".

SUMMARY: This book is the memoir of Kieran James, and details his experiences as co-founder of West Perth Football Club’s unofficial cheer squad from 1984 to 1986. The book shows how, because of neo-liberal ideologies and the corporatization of football, the new national league (the “expanded VFL” / AFL) relegated the WAFL to a second-tier league in 1987. This move took place over the heads of ordinary football supporters and two WAFL club presidents. Moves to bring the game closer to the people in 1984, such as holding the best-and-fairest award count night at Perth Entertainment Centre, should be seen in this light. This book will allow supporters to relive great teams, great players, and great matches from a wonderful era in WA football 1984-86 before West Coast Eagles joined the expanded VFL.

To buy paperback edition: http://www.lulu.com/shop/kieran-james/west-australian-football-golden-era-1984-86/paperback/product-23666857.html

To buy hardcover edition: http://www.lulu.com/shop/kieran-james/west-australian-football-golden-era-1984-86/hardcover/product-23428664.html

Hardcover version

AUTHOR BIO: Dr Kieran James is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting at the University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland.  He was formerly Accounting Professor at the University of Fiji from 2013-15. Alongside his high-school friend Michael Blewett, he was co-founder of the West Perth Cheer Squad (WAFL), 1984-86. He is the founder of the WAFL Golden Era website (established 18 December 2011) at http://waflgoldenera.blogspot.com which has had over 100,000 unique page-views as at 18/2/2017. Kieran is also a regular contributor to the Say NO to any AFL clubs in the WAFL Facebook group. He has published an academic journal article: “Where to now, Melbourne Croatia? Football Federation Australia’s use of accounting numbers to institute exclusion upon ethnic clubs” in Asian Review of Accounting (Vol. 19, No. 2, 2011). He is presently researching Fiji Soccer History 1980-89. His Fiji Soccer History website Nadi Legends Club can be viewed at the following URL: http://nadilegendsclub.blogspot.com. His email contact addresses are: Kieran.James@uws.ac.uk and Kieran.James99@yahoo.co.uk and his Facebook page is at: https://www.facebook.com/kieran.james.94 [Kieran James].