Episode 70 - Greg Stock on the late Frank Parsons

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Ian's incapacitated this week, so he's doing the show from home. In what Paul complains is an over-long opening segment, we take a quick look at the initial effect of Facebook's ban on Australian news sites from an Australian soccer perspective.

Then - was Melbourne's 1920s Preston club a district club, or was it based on ethnicity, namely Lancashire identity? Then after a bit more dawdling around promoting upcoming Fairplay Publishing books and an incident with an exhausted player in Perth in 1952, and look forward to Queensland's Wynnum club looking forward to celebrating its 100th anniversary. Ian gets excited about a possible revolutionary discovery about the origins of football as we know it( Australia. Then some thoughts on a tennis manuscript Ian's been reading.

The finally it's time for 100 Years Ago Today, where we start in Newcastle and West Wallsend; the South Australians being challenged to a soccer match by the touring English cricketers; a meeting of ships in Tasmania; the Victorians are reporting on overseas football; new clubs are sporting in Brisbane; and preparations are being made for the new soccer season in Perth.

In our middle segment we chat with regular guest Greg Stock on the passing of Frank Parsons, former player and administrator. Little remembered today, Parsons was a leading striker in New South Wales in the 1940s and 50s, and later an important administrator in the transition from the old NSW regime to the new Federation setup. Greg talks about Parsons scoring proficiency - perhaps second only to Reg Date at the time - which led to both state and national representation, but also  controversy with how that representative career ended. We discuss Parson's later life, and the reasons for his current obscurity compared to some of his contemporaries, and the cultural forces which have made it more difficult fo know about pioneers like Parsons. 

We finish this segment with a quick word about the passing of former Socceroos coach Joe Venglos, whose long coaching career began in Australia in the 1960s, where he managed Sydney Prague, New South Wales, and the national team, where he introduced tactical innovations to Australian football that otherwise passed the local game by. We note that the central European influence of coaches and players like Venglos has largely been been forgotten in the 50 years since the peak of Hungarian, Czech, and Austrian influence on Australian soccer.

For Greg's interview with Parsons from 2008, see this link.

We close off the show with Paul talking about a book he read on the day of the show, the Archie Thompson biography What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger. Seemingly pretty much consigned to the bargain bins soon after its release, Thompson's biography is a mix of his life story (up until 2010) and his motivational life and playing philosophy. Paul notes that while some of Thompson's views on modern medicine, as well as his performance as a current special comments man for the A-League have led to contemporary soccer audiences dismissing his points of view - it's worthwhile digging into this book for its historical coverage. Thompson's career spans the later NSL and early A-League eras. In the former, he plays with a ra discard egional team, a fully-professional team, and a leading ethnic team; in the latter, he is one of the first totem players for Melbourne Victory and the A-League, around which that club and competition builds its identity.

Ian observes that Paul seems to be increasingly obsessed with stories like Thompson's (and Tim Cahill's)  which include unusual origin stories, which diverge from more familiar pathways to professional football in Australia. Thompson's cultural background (New Zealand/Papua New Guinea), his childhood in regional centres like Lithgow and Bathurst, not known for being soccer hotbeds, and the fact that Thompson gave up soccer in his teens all provide material for an unusual and important story. One can skim over the more "philosophy" Thompson's attention to detail on various teammates, and the process of climbing the long-ladder to success makes for a worthwhile addition to the Australian soccer biography canon.