Episode 20 - Darren Giancaspro; Spencer Gulf soccer; Como Cup

The Como Cup, the trophy for a defunct
Doiwn tournament hosted by defunct club Prahran City.

Download and listen to episode 20 here.

We begin with noting that Mark Boric's efforts this week have been augmented with match programs courtesy of Greg Stock and Graeme McGinty. During the week Tony Persoglia also launched his Vicsoccer project.

George Cross supporter and historian Victor Brincat had a question about the provenance of a trophy called the Como Cup - and through our wide ranging social media networks, we were able to establish that it was a pre-season tournament from the 1970s and 80s hosted by the now defunct Victorian club Prahran City. (see the tournament program from the 1978 edition)

Ian tries to float the idea of naming historical liars (regarding their own personal histories) in Australian soccer, starting off with Mark Bell, who claimed he was a Scotland international.

Then follows 100 Years Ago Today  covering Victorian Dockerty Cup results (including criticising the slackness of the local journalists); a good time had at the Spotswood Soccer-Football Club; moving to the Illawarra and the Gardiner Cup.

We then chat with Darren Giancaspro, who has uploaded films mostly from the early 1990s, but also some from eras before that - including priceless footage from the 1950s. In a wide-ranging discussion Darren explains the nature of the different towns within the Northern Areas competition; how he got access to the films; the history of the different clubs, and the various industries and migrant groups involved with them; the logistics of the competition with regards to travel; the struggle to gain local media coverage, despite the local popularity of the game; what's happened to that soccer since those films were made, especially once the Port Pirie clubs joined the Adelaide competition;

We finish off the show with Paul's foolish pledge to update the infamous Victorian-Italian club merger-de-merger flowchart.