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."

ARTICLE: "How Kimon Taliadoros changed Australian football", by Con Stamocostas, 2/11/2017

ARTICLE: With a playing career spanning a decade, Kimon Taliadoros reached the heights for both club and country. But it was his efforts off the field where his legacy remains everlasting.

Between 1987 and 1992, Taliadoros played 100 games for South Melbourne in the former National Soccer League, including the 1990-91 Championship winning team coached by the legendary Ferenc Puskas.

His 45 goals, long hair, and exuberant playing style not only endeared him to the fans, but also saw the Greek Australian striker go on to play nine games for the Socceroos.

But with Puskas leaving South at the end of the 1991-1992 season, Taliadoros moved to South's major NSL rival Marconi and during the negotiation brought along his friend Brendan Schwab. It was here Taliadoros discovered that even though his contract with South Melbourne had ended, Marconi still had to pay a 'compensation fee' to his former club.

"Brendan was an industrial relations and employment lawyer by trade and I was being trained as an accountant and the circumstances governing employment relationships in football were quite different," he tells Neos Kosmos.

Brendan was a schoolmate of mine and also my advisor. It became apparent that the rules that regulated the movement of players between employers were highly inequitable and weren't fair, and reasonable, to the players.

"We came to understand that the problem was widespread and simply reflected the poor standards of employment conditions of players generally across the country. We also came to realise that many players had suffered [under] those rules and regulations unfairly and unless we sought to address that many more players would continue to do that."

In his book The Death and Life of Australian Soccer Joe Gorman revisits this moment which features Remo Nogarotto the soccer director at Marconi.

"I'd spent eight years negotiating contracts with players and Brendan Schwab was the first third-party, other than a wife or girlfriend, in the room negotiating," Nogarotto said.

By the time Taliadoros had hung up his boots, he had won two NSL Championships and scored over 80 goals in 244 games. But Gorman believes what Taliadoros did after moving to Marconi would became one of the seminal moments in Australian football history.

"In the book I write about how Kimon is perhaps the most influential player of his generation," he tells Neos Kosmos.

"That seems to be on the face of it quite a controversial statement. He wasn't a player who went overseas or scored a huge amount of goals although he did that in the early part of his career. But I say he is influential because in 1993 he and Brendan Schwab and some other players began the Players' Football Association (PFA)."

Taliadoros acted as the PFA's inaugural chief executive from 1994 to 1995 while he was still playing in the NSL. He then served as the PFA president from 1995 to 1998 and became the PFA's inaugural life member in 1999.

Through the work of Taliadoros and Schwab the PFA won a standardised contract for footballers, and through the then Australian Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) worked to abolish the transfer system. The timing of the ruling coincided with Europe implementing the Bosman ruling; this meant that players could move to a new club at the end of their contract without their old club receiving a fee.

Taliadoros says these changes allowed players in Australia to move freely and fairly from club to club and that it transpired with fate lending a helping hand.

"The issue that led to the formation of the players' association was serendipity more than anything," he says.

"It wasn't necessarily that it was deliberate, it was a circumstance that arose simply with working through my personal circumstance in transferring from South Melbourne to Marconi. For us it was an anathema to deal with the framework that was inconsistent with the common understanding of employment rights in Australia."

While Australian players were now able to move freely between clubs inside and outside Australia leading to greater pay, Gorman believes Taliadoros paid a price for forming the PFA.

"By doing so Kimon became the enemy number one of almost all the clubs involved in the game," he says.

"The PFA ended up becoming the most important organisation in the game because in the late 1990s and 2000s it forced the industry of soccer to become professional. A lot of people hated Kimon because he was pushing the clubs to become more professional so they could provide Australian-based players a domestic career path."

After Marconi, Taliadoros then moved to Sydney Olympic, Collingwood Warriors, Sydney Olympic again and then ended his career at Parramatta Power, and Gorman feels this period was a consequence of his PFA advocacy.

"The other thing you have to remember about Kimon is that his career suffered from this," he says.

When he was at South he was the top goal scorer in 1991 and then he moved to Marconi and started the PFA very soon after. Since then he jumped from club to club to club and his performances on the field suffered because he was basically fighting the good fight for the rest of his professional players.

Taliadoros doesn't fully agree with Gorman's assertion but the 48-year-old does admit that his time with the Australian national team did end abruptly.

"I still enjoyed a very successful career and clubs were still happy to sign me as a striker and pay me accordingly as a first choice striker in their squads for many years after," he says.

"Certainly, as far as the national team is concerned I didn't play any further part in that but it's impossible to know if it may or may not have been related. That will be the only comment I make."

Gorman believes there is a bitter irony of Taliadoros creating the PFA because he did not benefit from the changes that the players' union brought to the game.

"In the current era of professionalism there are A-League players who in most cases probably aren't as naturally talented as Kimon and who are getting paid five or 10 times what he was getting paid," he says.

"I write this in the book, that he actually didn't really benefit a hell of a lot from the conditions that he helped create. He never signed a full-time professional contract with any NSL club at any point of his career.

"He helped full-time professionalism come to the NSL and later to the A-League. That's why I classify him as one of the most, if not the most, important player in the that era. Because he helped other players become full-time professionals.

"The current era of Australian players don't quite understand just how much of a huge thing it is. These things just don't happen overnight, but because of years and years of hard work by people like Brendan Schwab, Kimon, Francis Awaritefe, Craig Foster, John Kosmina, and the list goes on."

However, Taliadoros struggles with the plaudits Gorman offers and believes there are many who have helped improve the game for the better.

"Perhaps my contribution has been more so off the field than on the field," he says

"I'm just one of many that also contributed to the game's greater good. You'll find them every weekend marking the lines or cutting the oranges and not for personal gain but for the great love of the sport and because of what the sport gives us as individuals and the community."

[This article was first published in Neos Kosmos on 2 November 2017 at the following link: http://neoskosmos.com/news/en/How-Kimon-Taliadoros-changed-Australian-football]