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It is possible that, like the Newcastle soccer season of 1920, this year of If You Know Your History has gone on just a bit too long. But we soldier on!
First a quick look back at the things that Paul and/or Ian managed to listen to from the Football Writers Festival.
At some point there is a throwaway discussion about Football Federation Australia changing its name to Football Australia.
Seeing as this show was recorded just hours after it was announced that Diego Maradona had died, it was only fitting that Paul scrounged up what info he could from - where else - but books, about Diego's brief time in Australia, during the 1993 World Cup qualifier between the Socceroos and Australia. That focused on the recollections of Robbie Slater, Paul Wade, and Les Murray.
(For a more thorough account, including quotes from some of the above named sources, see Vince Rugari's excellent article about the two-week Diego mania; also his other piece about Maradona and the Argentina squad watching Sydney Olympic vs Morwell Falcons at Leichhardt Oval.)
Typical of the under-prepared nature of this episode, Paul offers some off the cuff remarks about the nature of folk heroes and whether soccer can still have those; also the way that Diego Maradona was the icon of 1980s soccer for Australian television audiences for the simple reason that SBS had access to reams of footage that no other broadcaster in Australia cared for or knew about, especially with the World Cup; that Maradona bridged the gap between a largely untelevised era of sport: one, where the feats and reputations of great players were heard through word of mouth, or read about, the other the era one of infinite content, cut up into bite sized pieces.
100 Years Ago Today is focused on reporting of overseas material in Australian newspapers, especially with regards to the violence in Ireland. What follows is an extended ramble on the politics of Irish sport - specifically Irish republican politicians and the Gaelic Athletic Association's attitude towards "British" or foreign sports (sometimes called "garrison sports"). How much did the reporting of Irish affairs and attitudes to soccer have within the Irish Catholic communities? Is it possible to suggest that it anything more than a complementary effect on already existing attitudes that Irish-Australians held towards soccer? Was there enough of a uniformity, or a sense of kinship that was strong enough within Irish-Catholic Australia that the sporting politics of the home country could have sweeping effect on ideas about sport in Australia?
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