Episode 59 - The rise and fall of the Leopold Method

Download and listen to this episode here.

Paul continues to lose the battle against so-called banter.

We begin with the menu at a welcoming dinner in Grahamstown (now Makhanda) in the Eastern Cape in South Africa, during Australia's tour of that country in 1950, where we discuss what goes into the dish known as camp pie. We also note Greg Stock's work with reformatting and updating the Socceroos archive on OzFootball, especially with regards to early 'B' internationals. We also discuss Mark Boric's successful attempt to revive files on his old Amiga.

We also look at Travis Faulks' (and friends) rescue of one of the oldest extant Australian match programs - a 1925 program for Illawarra vs the touring English FA side. Paul focuses on the program ads, naturally, but we also get some audience feedback on Bode's Oval, and only skim over the England players and personnel (John Lewis; Jack Elkes; Charlie Spencer; Billy Williams; Billy Caesar; Stan Charlton; Leonard Graham;)

(there's also mention of a new book on the Murray Bridge United Soccer Club, but hopefully something more substantial on that in a coming episode)

In a bloated 100 Years Ago Today, we begin in North Queensland, with another charity cup, and another team wearing sashes every which way, looking back to an earlier episode; then to Sydney for the Gardiner Cup final, where we look at the strength of the Balmain district in soccer; down to Wollongong (and Bode's Oval again) for 8-Hour Day sports, with football of course, but also coursing; then skipping ahead a few years to outrage over coursing, which seems to maybe falling out of favour; catching up with the Australian Trustee club championship; and time not permitting (maybe if there was less banter at the start of the show) we have to leave Western Australia out this week, though you can always look back at it on the blog post.

Cover art of Besart Berisha, intended for the unreleased
fourth issue of Leopold Method.
Credit: Jamie Osborne.

In our final segment this week we look at the short-lived Australian quarterly soccer journal Leopold Method, which ran from 2014-2015. Leipold Method, the brainchild of soccer fan and author Shaun Mooney, was originally a website, before Mooney decided to create a journal for long-form, incisive soccer writing. 

Key to the Leopold Method's (and Mooney's) particular outlook on Australian soccer was Leopold Baumgartner's autobiography from the late 1960s, which apart from discussing Baumgartner's own life in relation to soccer, also espoused a clear idea of what Australian soccer needed to do to progress: divest itself of petty, short-term politics, and invest its efforts into developing junior talent playing the right style of soccer.

Within that context, we look at:

• The move from website to print, at a time when it seemed riskier than ever to move into print publishing.
• The subscription based "kickstarter", which attracted support from many corners of Australian soccer - players and their union, ordinary supporters, and administrators. 
• The stable of young (and old) writers which came through the journal during its short run, including Vince Rugari, Kate Cohen, Ian Syson, Joe Gorman, Ian Syson.
• The fact that it paid writers for serious, long-form writing on history, tactical analysis, player development, and Australian soccer politics and business.
• The way that the goodwill that was built up by the subscription drive and the central ethic of the project, was undone by the non-appearance of the journal's fourth issue - and the lack of communication 
• The disappearance of not just the print edition of the journal, but also the website from which it sprung - which now exists only on the Wayback Machine - which speaks to the lack of permanence of the digital realm.
• But also the retreat of Mooney from public comment and participation in Australian soccer social media circles; and editor Joe Gorman's eventual retreat from Australian soccer writing as a whole.
• Ian's wry and pertinent observation that Leopold Method was like the Russian Revolution - in that there was only one  chance to get it right.
• The nature of Leopold Method's disappearance being in part a victim of its own success.
• What kind of legacy thee journal left in its wake - the talent it nurtured which was poached into various other media organisations; the opportunity it gave academics to write and promote their won work in history; the difficulty for future publishers in coming after Leopold Method had seemingly burned much of the goodwill for such an enterprise in such a short space of time, 

For access to digital copies to the three editions of Leopold Method, visit Mark Boric's site.