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  This is challenged by the ‘parochialism’ at state level which superseded the interest in metropolitan clashes.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). 

GOODBYE LEEDERVILLE OVAL: New book published about WAFL Golden Era, 1984-86, by Kieran James

Message from the author Kieran James: "My new book is now available for purchase. Topic: West Perth unofficial cheer squad 1984-86. Also looks at the big games and main players in the Western Australian Football League (WAFL) over this period 1984-86".

Hardcover version

SYNOPSIS: This book is the memoir of Kieran James, and details his experiences as co-founder of West Perth Football Club’s unofficial cheer squad (hardcore support) from 1984 to 1986 (Western Australian Football League / WAFL). Using Marsh’s theory of the “illusion of violence”, the author links the cheer squad to the academic literature on British soccer hooligans, Italian ultras, and other soccer supporter groups from around the world. The book details “traditional”, “hot” support for West Perth Football Club among teenaged supporters from middle-class and working-class backgrounds. The findings conform to Armstrong and Hughson’s idea of fluid “post-modern” “neo-tribes” where affiliations are very loose and people can easily adjust their degree of commitment to a group and / or leave the group when their personal priorities change. The book also allows the reader to relive great WAFL matches and meet again key players from the era.

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

To buy large-print paperback edition: http://www.lulu.com/shop/kieran-james/goodbye-leederville-oval-history-of-west-perth-cheer-squad-1984-86-large-print/paperback/product-23408672.html

Paperback 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]. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dr Sean Gorman (left) and Dr Kieran James

I would like to thank: Mr. Brian Atkinson (official historian of the West Perth Football Club and the author of It’s a Grand Old Flag); Michael “Mike” Blewett (co-founder of the WPFC cheer squad 1984-86); Caveman (leader of the Footscray not Western Bulldogs lobby group based in Melbourne); John Devaney of Full Points Footy website and Full Points Publications; Chris Egan (Australian Society for Sports History Perth chapter member, Perth Glory historian, and Peel Thunder supporter); Professor Lionel Frost (Monash University and editor of Sporting Traditions); Dr. Sean Gorman (Curtin University academic and the author of BrotherBoys); Professor Chris Hallinan (Monash University); Pave Jusup, Kova, and Sime (MCF hooligan firm at Melbourne Knights Soccer Club); Patrick Mirosevich (present-day South Fremantle cheer squad member); Mark Whiting (East Fremantle supporter); members of the Lost WAFL Facebook group; and members of the Say NO to any AFL clubs in the WAFL Facebook group.

FOREWORD, by Brian Atkinson

This is a book with a difference. It recounts primarily the memories and reflections of a then 15-year-old school boy who jointly founded a cheer squad for the West Perth Football Club (WPFC) in 1984 to succeed the previous one that was disbanding. These memories and reflections cover the 1984-1986 period. The nature of social relations within the group is also examined.

Dr Kieran James (left) and Mr Brian Atkinson

The book commences with a review of the extensive literature covering “hooliganism” associated with soccer “cheer groups” in the United Kingdom and Europe in those times and up until the hooligan scene wound itself up in the late-1980s. It examines the intersection between punk rock music and soccer hooliganism.

The author recalls commencing to follow West Perth in 1976 at the age of seven, and describes some of his early memories. The performances of the West Perth team and of many of the players from 1984 to 1986 are then recounted. Readers will enjoy recalling many team and individual highlights from that period in particular. Some interesting exchanges with cheer squads from the other Western Australian Football League (WAFL) clubs are described.

Tin shed with Technical School behind it, 6 July 2011.

This book will appeal to WAFL traditionalists who mourn the demise of the then elite suburban based tribal football competitions, as they were, within the states. The author expresses some very strong views about the evolution of the national Australian Football League (AFL) competition in 1987, and the impact that the creation of the West Coast Eagles, and subsequently the Fremantle Dockers, had on the WAFL competition. He deplores the corporatization of football. He has similarly strong views on the relocation of the West Perth Football Club from Leederville Oval to Arena Joondalup in 1994. These developments impacted heavily on his enthusiasm for football.

The book will assist to preserve the memories and part of the history of the transition period of the middle- and late-1980s when Australian Rules Football was changed forever, and the impact that this change had on the WAFL.

This book is very well researched, extensively referenced, and very well written. It will create controversy amongst readers. Many will strongly agree with the views of the author. Many will strongly disagree. But all West Perth supporters will enjoy their recollections of the players and the times of the mid-1980s.

Mr. Brian A. Atkinson,

West Perth FC official historian,

Perth, 19 November 2011.

Book Extract (from Chapter 4, page 153):

South Fremantle versus West Perth, Fremantle Oval, Round 19 (9 August), 1986

I once talked to Pete C. and spent the game with him on the scoreboard bank’s concrete terracing at Fremantle Oval (at around the half-forward flank position closest to the northern-end goals) for a match against South Fremantle late in the 1986 season. The flags had vanished and there was only the two of us left at this juncture in time. Pete C. and I hadn’t even arranged in advance to meet; it was a chance meeting. I would have to say that the cheer squad no longer existed at this point. However, Pete’s charming, quiet, and thoughtful manner had not changed.

After the game Pete C. and I walked through the Fremantle city streets together and I think Pete took a Number 106 bus or a train back to Perth while I took a different bus to Booragoon. We probably parted at Fremantle train station. I originally wrote this paragraph 26 years later, on 9 January 2013, and I still haven’t seen Pete again since that day at Fremantle Oval near to the close of the 1986 season. As we walked through the Fremantle city streets together, as the dark and the chill started drifting in from the ocean (minimum temperatures were 4.5 and 4.0 degrees Celsius on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th August 1986), we were both fairly subdued and disappointed as it looked like our team’s season was over (the team probably could not make the final-four) and all the hope of the past two years had come to nothing. I think that another reason for my anxious and melancholic mood was the realization, pushed to the back of my mind, that my life was changing and it would never be the same again. I was 17-years-old, in the first year of university, and the adult world of responsibilities, choices, careers, and consequences was fast closing in, whilst childhood was at an end. In football terms, there was also massive change at work behind the scenes as the powerbrokers were putting together and planning for the new as yet unnamed super-team which would play in the VFL in 1987. Every genuine football person in Perth knew that the WAFL would never be the same again no matter how upbeat the newspapers were. Like my childhood, the old WAFL was slipping away. The days of 14,000 plus crowds at the match-of-the-round were never coming back.

West Perth unofficial cheer squad (1984-86) co-founders Mike Blewett (left) and Kieran James, Exchange Hotel, Kalgoorlie, 14 July 2011.

Laurie James @ Leederville Oval, looking south towards the city-centre, 6 July 2011. On fine winter days like this one in the eighties West Perth could be devastating at home with the roar of the crowd behind them. However, with no grand-final appearances between 1976 and 1994, it was also a case of potential unfulfilled. Supporter group the Grandstand Falcons used to sing the England 1982 World Cup song "This Time (We'll Get it Right)" which summed up the frustration of West Perth fans in the mid-eighties just as well as it had reflected the mindset of English soccer fans in 1982.

Kieran James back behind the northern-end goals at the Technical School end of the ground where the West Perth cheer squad congregated from 1984-86. The wooden benches behind the goals are now gone but the tin shed (see earlier picture) in the north-west corner of the ground looks much like it did in the eighties, and the wooden benches still go down from the tin shed to the playing arena fence. Picture date: 6 July 2011.

PICTURE GALLERY: Fat Pam's West Perth cheer squad, northern end, East Fremantle Oval, 8 August 1981

This cheer squad stopped operations at the end of the 1983 season but continued to make the banners for players to run through in 1984 and following years. Although I never met her, the leader of this group was allegedly a legendary figure known as "Fat Pam".