Episode 62 - reviewing 100 Years Of Moreland City documentary, with Jason Gioldsmith

Download and listen to this episode here.

A reminder that the Football Writers Festival is happening on the 21st and 22nd of November in Sydney.

Mark Boric Express continues, with copies of Brisbane's Soccer News. George Cotsanis is wondering why a video of Indonesia vs Australia from 1980 is ratcheting up the views.

Oh, and a quick follow up on Dr Snowden Hay from last week, thanks to Paul Hunt,

A look at the Rainford Cup, which is in the United Kingdom for some reason, after being in Sydney,, after being in the UK.

Then some more on soccer in Murray Bridge, with more on GR Handley, a soccer administrator with many hands in many pots. Media, mutual respect between codes, Britishness, social events, and the rise and fall of soccer and other sports in the region all get an airing, 

We're joined this week by returning guest (and occasional co-host) Jason Goldsmith, to discuss the 2016 documentary Moreland City -100 Years Strong, which was produced by George Donikian. We discuss:

• Mythologies, origins, and the problems with making judgements with exceedingly scarce information, and the "1916 problem".
• Not much information on pre-1945.
• The doco's seeming emphasis on Moreland ahead of Park Rangers and Coburg (and Brunswick and Hakoah)
• The lack of chat about the grounds the various clubs used other than Campbell Reserve
• British migration stories, and the involvement of Ten Pound Poms (and Scots) in Melbourne soccer (and the lack of insight into the lack of broader involvement in local soccer by that group).
• Moreland's 1950s success (trophy and player-wise) accelerating that club's decline into irrelevance at the hands of the ethnic clubs.
• The difficulty in making mergers work, especially with a local rival.
• The feelings of loss and only gradual feeling of a new club being equal (or close to) in your heart as your fist club.
• Missing out on the journey up the leagues, and whether parts of the club ethos have changed in their rise up the leagues - including professionalism.
• The good archival content, especially photographic and artefact content.

If you are interested in viewing this documentary, please contact the Moreland City club.

(Paul reviewed this film upon first viewing it back in 2016 - you need to scroll down a bit)

In 100 Years Ago Today we head to Newcastle; some pointed commentary about the "Irish" national team from an Adelaide newspaper; A Brisbane report about an upcoming women's football international between Britain and France; and Sydney reports about other international games.

Episode 8 - Vanessa Lucchesi; Adelaide City archives; 100 year old clubs; AFRA

We received our first not-entirely solicited
 call-in during this episode.

Download and listen to episode 8 here.

This episode begins with cleanup and promotion of book launches, followed by discussion about the existence of extant 100-year-old clubs across the country, and the reasons why some areas are comparatively rich in centurion clubs compared to others.

Then we get our first ever unprompted call - from Vanessa Lucchesi - who has done an honours thesis on ethnic football clubs in post-war South Australia. Vanessa also looks after and researches the archives held by Adelaide City. The discussion expands to include segments on ethnicity; the history of Adelaide City; and the scale of the club's archives.

We then return to our discussion of 100-year-old clubs; the attempt to resuscitate the Dinmore Bushrats as a continuation of the tradition of the historical (but defunct) club; the messy attempts by South Melbourne to claim elements of its own history and the soccer history of the local area it has previously rejected; Moreland City's attempts to claim a cultural continuity back to 1916, through several splits and mergers; comparisons with the continuity at South Hobart; we ask the question why did pre-World War 2 clubs survive and thrive in some areas, despite the arrival of ethnic clubs; and that analysis which enables a dominant single narrative to emerge is impossible, because the experience and history of soccer varies significantly across Australia, and that even if there are administrative and financial centres, in cultural terms the application of a sense a hegemonic history is impossible to assert.

In the episode's very wide-ranging final segment, Ian brings up his idea of establishing the Association of Football Resources in Australia (AFRA), a proposed body which would oversee the protection and preservation of Australia's soccer resources and archives.

We run out of time during this episode to do a proper 100 Years Ago Today segment, but you can chase up what was meant to be on that week's segment here.