Episode 77 - Athas Zafiris on soccer-soldier Joseph Bilbie; Andrew Howe on NSL promotion and relegation

Download and listen to this episode here.

Ian is back in the studio, and has an explanation for why he wasn't available the previous week. His reasons don't impress Paul. But there's a bit of Adelaide content here to make amends for failing to keep up South Australian quotas. Ian also reminisces about listening to Paul's hosting the previous week.

Then the clean up, with due acknowledgment of the wonderful archival work being done by Mark Boric and Greg Stock. Paul goes on with his fascination with the menus of Australian soccer gala dinners of days of yore. Then a digression into one time professional golfer and golf announcer Jack Newton, and the soccer content in Newton autobiography, including oppressive attitudes to soccer from some Sydney schoolmasters when Newton when was growing up.

We're also joined by Athas Zafiris of the Shoot Farken website, to discuss a piece he's written about Joseph Bilbie, early 20th Century soccer start in Minmi, and World War 1 soldier. We talk about the background to this research; Bilbie's story; the impact of Bilbie's death on the local community in both civic and soccer senses; and the wider stories and lessons which can be drawn from the involvement of soccer personnel in World War 1. We also look at the way in which we don't always acknowledge the way soccer was embedded in certain Australian communities at the time, being overwhelmed by the media presence and propaganda of other football codes.

In our second (and as it turns our, final segment for this week), we're joined by Australian soccer's statistician-in-chief Andrew Howe to talk about how promotion and relegation worked in the National Soccer League. Right away we clear up one of the biggest misconceptions (yes, there was pro-rel in the NSL) - but we also get into the nuances of how the NSL's promotion and relegation protocols worked; its similarities to the re-election process in England's Football League prior to 1986, which included evaluating teams coming in and out based on financial and other criteria; how the lack of nationwide second division made promotion and relegation that much more complicated, including the complicated playoff systems of the late 1980s; the teams which rejected the chance to move into the NSL; and the eventual reasons why the NSL abandoned promotion and relegation in any form.

Episode 43 - Paul Hunt and the Australian Trustees Soccer Football Association

An example of Mark Taylor's sketchbooks, this one
being from Stratford United vs Edge Hill from a Far
North Queensland competition in 1992.  

Download and listen to episode 43 here.

We begin this episode by recommending people go to the Australian Football Before the A-League Facebook page, where a poster named Mark Taylor has been uploading pages from his sketchbooks. These extracts document Mark's journeys to an assortment of Australian soccer matches up and down the eastern coast and Tasmania. The sketchbooks include details such as lineups, kits, results, and stadium layouts for games Mark saw while doing seasonal farm work along the eastern seaboard

We canvass the potential archival situation from the fallout from the seeming breakdown in relations between FFA and Fox Sports - namely, what happens to the 15 years worth of Australian soccer archives if the relationship between FFA and Fox Sports ends? We look at the likely outcomes based upon precedent - that is, that FFA would still be allowed to use archival footage for marketing, promotional, and special or limited purposes. But we also broaden the discussion - like who owns and who should own this broadcast product, which is also in effect a public cultural product?

We also look at the difficulty at currently being able to access Australian soccer archival footage from various broadcasters, even and especially when those broadcaster show little regard for its value - including commercial, cultural, and social value.  We look at the problem that even when an organisation becomes defunct, its copyright over cultural products remains present long aftet its demise.

After that, Ian quickly raises the matter of 1922 and the centenary of Australia's soccer first men's 'A' international against New Zealand, and nascent plans to visit such a game (should it be held) in Dunedin.

The Tasmanian soccer phrase 'slice of cheese'
 made  it into this global football glossary. 

After the break we talk with returning guest, Tasmanian soccer historian Paul Hunt, who has found evidence of what may be Australia's first interstate club soccer competition. But before that we discuss with him the fact that Tasmanian soccer has managed a degree of international notoriety by being included in Tom Williams' global football glossary Do You Speak Football, thanks to the phrase "slice of cheese" (for a yellow card) making Williams' list. "Slice of cheese"/ is joined in the Australian section of the book by "shoot farken", and Ned Zelic's trademark phrase "individual brilliance" - though surprisingly one of Australian soccer's best known items of football vernacular, "wogball", failed to get a jersey.

After the introductory formalities, we look at how Paul Hunt found what appeared to be interstate fixtures in Tasmania in 1920, played under the auspices of a body called the Australian Trustees Soccer Football Association. Ian, Paul, and Paul discuss how we watched the results of Paul Hunt's and Garry Mackenzie's Trove searches unfold in real time on social media, revealing the ATSFA not be a renegade soccer body, but rather a Sydney based organisation which facilitated something akin to a works competition for middle class employees in the banking and insurance industries. Sydney appears to have operated a six team competition - first under company names, later district names - from about 1917 to 1920.

We ask Paul who these players were, where did they come from, and where did they go one the league folded? Were they predominantly English and Scots? We discuss the nature of the Sydney competition, and the what its existence suggests about the strength of soccer as a sport in Sydney. We also look at the interstate competition held between various state trustee league champions, including teams from Adelaide and Ipswich - the latter interesting in light of it being a sign of middle class soccer amid a strong working class soccer culture. And we look at the interstate trustees competition final, played in Bathurst of all places so that the game would be held at an appropriately neutral venue.

In 100 Years Ago Today, we first visit Maitland for a Marist brothers game; Armidale playing against a team from Glen Innes; strange quasi-poetry from Fremantle; returning soldiers in Toowoomba coming back and reforming their clubs; and of course, the results of the previous week's games in Melbourne.

We finish off the show with a quick look by Paul at an FFA hosted webinar on Andrew Howe's work charting the origins of Socceroos and Matildas players, hosted by Ann Odong, and including Joe Gorman to add some colour. Howe's data rich work on this front - which has been presented in a number of formats and conferences in the past, and which has been the basis of both his Socceroos and Matildas (along with Greg Werner) encyclopaedias, is impressive. Paul discusses the nature of attempting to run a webinar on historical topics and how it played out here; the need for more time for audience questions and participation; and the need for the Australian soccer public to take the hard data of Howe's work and create meaning from it, drawing out stories, trends, narratives.

Episode 29 - Greg Stock & Studs Up; average ages; free dinners

Download and listen to episode 29 here.

On this week's episode Paul brings the show back from someone's unilateral declaration of a hiatus by bringing in local soccer historian, one time If You Know Your History guest, and former host of the Daily Football Show podcast Tony Persoglia to share hosting duties.

We begin the show with the usual catch up/clean up. We also out the call for anyone who might have the following episodes of Brogan Renshaw's Behind the Game podcast, with the interview subject listed where known:

7 (Ian Syson), 25, 26, 28, 43 and 54

Renshaw's podcast, dating from around 2015/2016, was a series of 60 long form interviews with a variety of Australian soccer personalities - historians, players, academics, writers, fans, volunteers, etc. It is a unique snapshot of Australian soccer fandom, and elements of some of the interviews were also used by Joe Gorman in his Death and Life of Australian Soccer. 

If you have any of these missing episodes please get in contact with us at the show, or contact Brogan Renshaw.

After that, we make the announcement that Fiona Crawford and Lee McGowan are launching their new book Never Say Die, about the history of Australian women's soccer, at the following two locations.

• BRISBANE: Friday November 29th, 6:30pm, at Riverbend Books, 193 Oxford Street, Bulimba.
• MELBOURNE: Monday December 2nd, at Heidelberg United Soccer Club, Catalina Street

During the previous week Australian soccer's stats guru Andrew Howe made the observation that the top five games in Australian top-flight soccer in terms of average age of a starting XI had all been made in the last couple of years. (for the record, the youngest average for a match was back in 1984) Tony and Paul look at some of the complicating factors in making broad brushstroke claims on what the available data can tell us about historical (and ongoing trends) about the nature of players and squad selection in the Australian top-flight.

Our interview guest this week is Australian soccer historian and stats man Greg Stock. Greg tells us about how he became involved with soccer, a story with many similarities to fellow stats man Andrew Howe's story. We then move on to talking about Greg's time at the storied Australian soccer fanzine Studs Up, talking about the nature of the magazine - its grassroots activist, progressive political edge, and its historical elements.

We also focus on Greg's 'Interview with a Formeroo' segment from Studs Up, where Greg would track down former Socceroos both well-remembered and long-forgotten, including a special focus during the interview on Joe Marston and Ken Vairy. We finish up with a discussion about the gradual snowballing in collaboration between local soccer historians centred on Mark Boric's projects.

In the final segment we do 100 Years Ago Today, where we look at Sydney Middleton, master athlete; then to Brisbane, where the Brisbane City club is coming back from its war enforced recess; to Newcastle, where various New South Wales soccer bodies are trying to create an overarching, state-wide structure of junior (and eventually senior) soccer; then Geraldton, where the local club is going to play a cricket match; and finally to Toowoomba, where the local soccer writer is miffed and not getting an invitation for dinner party.

And Paul ruins an otherwise perfect show by making the massive cock-up by stating that Victorian referee Perry Mur has a heavy Scottish accent. Ignore that, Mur has a bona fide Aussie accent, and who knows what Paul was thinking when he blurted out that line on the air.