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

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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 74 - The epistolary scheming of Willem Siebenhaar; NSL video tranche

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We begin this episode by reminiscing about MySpace, but not for long, and read some fan-mail, and celebrate South Melbourne and Melbourne Knights being 1st and 2nd on the ladder.

Eventually Pauls gets to discussing a tranche he's been given of mostly South Melbourne Hellas related videos spanning 1983-1994 or thereabouts (which he's been uploading on his YouTube channel) - clips people may not have seen before, and clips from otherwise poor eras in South Melbourne's history. We talk about the reaction of then Brisbane City player Paul Schiavo to one of the early 1980s clips, and his further recollections on the differences between Brisbane and Melbourne crowds of that era, especially in regards to temperament. Paul also goes on to discuss what the videos as a collective reveal in the form of evidence - of game styles, of stadiums, supporters and the limited amenities, and the resemblances to a lower league English quality of the same time. And the effects on the class makeup of the crowd when amenities are improved.

After the break we look at the brief Australian soccer involvement of the eccentric Dutch anarchist Willem Siebenhaar, in particular Siebenhaar's attempts to get soccer going in Perth and Fremantle in the 1890s. Ian takes great delight in the epistolary scheming of Siebenhaar at trying to encourage discussion and debate about the merits of soccer. Paul wonders if this is more evidence of a cohort of eligible bachelors (and bounders), usually professionals belonging to the middle and upper-middle classes trying to promote soccer. For more on Siebenhaar's life and interests aside from soccer, see his ADB entry.

The last segment is 100 Years Ago Today, where we start with fire brigade soccer in Wagga and Sydney; then to Albury for more Corinthians and Thistles; in Brisbane, the Wynnum players miss the train for their match against Corinthians; then to Weston where there's a meeting for various presentation, and Ian marvels how well organised these meetings are; then down to the South Coast where they thank the ladies in their auxiliary role; and after a brief stop in Rockhampton (see also Joe Gorman's old article on soccer in Nerimbera); the exotic oriented story of the HMS Malaya playing against the Singapore Chinese Football Association; and the attempted revival of rugby union in Victoria.