Episode 57 - Religion and Australian soccer; looking into the Gazettes

Download and listen to this episode here.

We being by noting that the passing references Ian likes to make to the Kevin Borich Express (vis a vis Ian's play on words for the Mark Boric Express) turn out to have a soccer connection - the Kevin Borich Express' bassist from 1976-80, Tim Partridge (who recently passed away) had played for Caledonians in Tasmania, as noted by Walter Pless.

We then note, as we do, the efforts of folk like Mark Boric and George Cotsanis, and then quickly move on to some interesting minor progress on Paul's Internet Archive project.

Following on from last week's unearthing of a colour photograph of the champion 1960s Slavia team from Melbourne - as well the discussion on the state of Australian soccer articles on Wikipedia - Tony Persoglia has added a paragraph on Peter Aldis' Wikipedia page on Aldis' time in Australia. Some people may be surprised to know that a well-credentialed player like Aldis - who had won the FA Cup with Aston Villa in 1957 - could have played in Australia.

Ian finishes off the first segment by looking at a hitherto under-utilised resource - the Gazette section of Trove. Ian provides a sample of the kinds of things he's found with relation to soccer, including burglaries, and attempts at copyright. It's hard to know how much and what kind of material may be in the gazettes, but what is there includes names, trophies, and hidden historical details and lines of inquiry not covered by newspaper searches.

In 100 Years Ago Today, we begin in Melbourne, with a benefit match for a memorial for the late Walter Williams; then to Albany, where code co-operation seems to be the order of the day, but is soccer the sport in ascendancy? Over to Gosford, where a serious injury to (we assume) a rugby player leads to best wishes, but also a digression into the merits of the different football codes; in Geraldton it's the English-born vs the Australian-born; back in Sydney, a trophy gets re-named in honour of a soccer played who died during the war; and in Newcastle, Ian and Paul still can't make head or tails of the political machinations involved in selecting a Gardiner Cup venue.

The last segment is a bit of a rambling discussion on religion in Australian soccer, which somehow makes few to no references to the discussion on this theme which Paul and Ian had back in episode 9, or the look at Knox City back in episode 7. Anyway, it begins with Ian bringing up a story from 1913 of a Scots soccer playing, Catholic priest, who we don't know the identity of. Look, like Paul says religion seems to pay very little importance in pre-1945 soccer, and soccer participation is probably much more linked to ethnicity (specifically British), class (dependant on the place and time), and the part of Australia that one is playing soccer in; that there is a not enough of a critical mass pre-war in many soccer communities for there to be angst about religion at the expense of playing the game.

But what about post-war? Did the large influx of Catholic migrants create a new sense of feeling within Australian Catholicism as a whole for soccer? Paul thinks not, because Catholic educational institutions were probably still wedded to "traditional" Australian sports, and though the number of Catholics increased thanks to the emigration of Croatians, Italians, Maltese, Poles, and so forth, those communities would have established their own church communities apart from the then mainline Irish Catholic network. While these churches and their pastors would have been broadly supportive of efforts by thier community to establish soccer clubs, and may have been involved. Paul argues that the clubs were first and foremost set up around ethnicity and language, not religion, with the names of the clubs reflecting that.

(one also has to be careful in dealing with questions of ethnic and ethno-religious essentialism; that is, not every person who belongs to a particular ethnic community is a member of the dominant religious affiliation of that community)

Episode 36 - Footscray JUST and Schintler Reserve; A Letter From the Front

Download and listen to episode 36 here.

On this week's episode we welcome back Ian back from vertigo, and we look at the recent activity of some of our favourite local soccer historians.

In 100 Years Ago Today, it looks like the ground allocations in Albany aren't going so well; Toowoomba's soccer folk are looking forward to a promising season; in Brisbane, soccer has managed to secure the Gabba for its marquee matches in 1920; there's the usual flurry of activity in Newcastle and the Hunter; and in the Illawarra, attempts are being made to revive the Port Kembla club, which had disbanded due to the enlistment of its entire playing roster for the war effort.

Footscray JUST vs Fawkner at Schintler Reserve, in 1990.
Photo: Graeme McGinty.

 In our middle segment, we look at the demise of Footscray JUST via three prompts. First, beginning an preliminary examination of the various ways in which Australian soccer clubs perish. Second, what happens to the collective memory of an Australian club when it perishes. Third, looking specifically at the loss of Schintler Reserve as a soccer venue. In episode 16 we looked at the difficulties soccer had in securing a permanent (and preferably enclosed) venue in Footscray, which was an extension of the discussion in episode 15, where we looked at the contemporary attempt by Melbourne Victory to secure part of Footscray Park as a training base,

The shipping container lot on the current site of Schintler Reserve.
Photo: Les Street.

The ultimate loss of Schintler Reserve is examined through the lens of the July 1998 civil case Bulic vs Melbourne City Nominees Pty Ltd, whose details are accessible via the AustLII database we discussed in episode 35. The case shows the elongated and unusual demise of Footscray JUST, wherein it was split in two, with one part attempting to transform into a "broadbased" club; then having the football part taken over by an Argentine consortium, and the other becoming a lease holder of an inner city soccer venue without tenants, and with little apparent prospect of rejuvenating of said venue.

In our final segment Ian revisits a leftover item from last year - a rollicking report on the experience of the 34th Battalion from Maitland, and their experiences playing soccer against an English regiment on the war front in February 1918. Peter Coppock's report is both lively and modest, and an exemplary demonstration of how strongly soccer was embedded in Newcastle and its surrounds as a cultural force.

Episode 34 - Paul Hunt and early Tasmanian soccer; Weston Bears and Max Luchessi

Download and listen to episode 34 here.

In this episode we note that Mark Boric has a new secondhand A3 scanner, which as per Mark's nature, has already been to put good use.

Paul discusses some updates to his cultural map, including overseas additions, as well as the ultimate indication of mainstream acceptance of soccer - being asked to the grand opening of a Bunnings Warehouse store.

In 100 Years Ago Today, we visit Newcastle, Albany, and Ipswich, covering politics, grounds, reporters and the persistentence of the club vs district issue.

After the break we chat with Paul Hunt, who recently graduated with honours from Deakin. Hunt's honours thesis was on Tasmanian soccer before 1915, and throughout our chat we cover a number of the themes that Hunt's thesis covers. This includes:

• The difference between a moment (scattered games) vs a continuing culture (leagues and organisations) 
• The impossibility of knowing if there was any soccer played in between 1881 and 1897
• Methodological problems of having to challenge established texts and narratives, such as Chris Hudson's A Century of Soccer 1898-1998, especially when it comes to an era that's poorly documented.
• The space left behind in Tasmanian soccer in the 1890s, by Australian Rules' moral collapse due to gambling, violence and corruption, and the way it allowed other sports (including soccer) to briefly flourish.
• What kind of people played soccer in Tasmania before 1915, including the centrality of military, religious, and British participants.
• The effect of the Boer War on the 1898-1902 competition, in effect the first (known) time that a war had derailed the growth of Australian soccer.
• Emphasising that there were people other than the Honeysetts instrumental to the re-emergence of Tasmanian soccer.

In our final segment, Ian Syson talks about his trip late last year to Newcastle and Adelaide, where his focus ends up on storied Hunter club Weston Bears, and on its great coach (and Adelaide City playing great)  Max Lucchesi who Ian interviewed in Adelaide. Oh, and Ian finds pit village clubs and fields like the ones he grew up with in England.