Episode 69 - how soccer exists inside, outside, and nowhere in Australian culture

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Paul and Ian are back for another year of If You Know Your History, easing their way into things.. Ian went up to Queensland during the break, and caught up with North Queensland soccer legend Bob Kostic. Ian and Paul reminisce about an Australian soccer historians barbecue held late in December in Melbourne. 

We also not that Tony Persoglia has updated and cleaned up Football Victoria's Hall of Fame digital presence. The South Australians are trying to get a physical museum space open, and Paul and Ian will be keen to catch up with them at some point. Paul mentions that he added to his South Melbourne wiki, modeled after Demonwiki. This leads to chat about databases and how to start and maintain them, and hitting the edge of living memory, and the place (and lack of) mythology in Australian soccer to maintain a "race memory" (as per a discussion last year on Bruce Dawe's Australian Rules poem 'Life Cycle'). A digression, too, into some recent deaths of notable persons in Australian soccer.

Speaking of Greg Stock, we note that he's been working with Doug Butcher to update information on OzFootball, specifically with regard to Australian national men's youth and Olympic teams. And success! Mark Boric's Soccer Action archive is now complete, while also adding other things to his archive, including books and NSL programs. And will Ian ever figure out what happened in Mildura soccer 110 or years ago?

After the break Ian and Paul talk about movies, specifically Ian's having recently watched the Australian Rules film The Merger which to Ian explicably leaves out soccer - and the narrative and cultural ramifications when a movie like this, set in Australia and including migrants likely to have played soccer, leaves out soccer. Paul compares that film to Ali's Wedding, where while soccer is not much more than a background filler, it is still there as an explanatory mechanism. So what does the depiction of soccer in Australian film and television tell us about soccer's cultural place in Australia? And how does that differ with the way soccer might be typically (or atypically) depicted is US film and television? And yes, we also refer to Mustangs FC. So as always, the question remains, how aware are Australians (at various stages) of soccer? How much do they know, profess to know - and just as importantly - profess to not know? And how much of all of this becomes received wisdom that needs to be unlearned?

In the final segment, we do 100 Years Ago Today. The Corinthians in Queensland cancel a meeting, because they go the theatre; Kangaroo Point to set up a club? In South Australia, Mr. and Mrs. A. Maton depart for Adelaide, leaving behind the Murray Bridge soccer scene; in Sydney, St George are preparing for the new season; West Wallsend are getting their committee in order; an extended report from the Northern District British Football Association in Newcastle, and following on from the successful 1920 season; and tumbleweeds from elsewhere in Australian, but is there an anti-soccer conspiracy to not report on the code?