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."
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