Episode 33 - Paul Nicholls, Eadie Fraser, and creative non-fiction

Download and listen to episode 33 here.

If You Know Your History returns for its first episode of 2020 in the most creaky way possible, coughing, spluttering, and wheezing our way through the show. Also we ended up with dead air at one point and no Josh to help us - very frightening.

We ease our way back into things by looking at some of what's gone on over the preceding few months, including:

• Mark Boric's continued adventures in scanning.
• George Cotsanis' video uploading.
• John Punshon's continuing difficulties in getting access to Football Victoria teamsheets.
• Noting the small trend of clubs reverting to old names and logos, or incorporating such into new names and/logos, following the end of the old version of the National Club Identity Policy.
• Brief musings on point deductions.
• A quick look at the Daily Tribune's praise for North Korea circa 1965.

Then in 100 Years Ago Today, we travel to Newcastle to inquire after the reluctant Mr Tamlyn, and the men who won't allow him to quit his post; to Ipswich, where we see the seeds of future club vs district squabbles; and to Spotswood and Footscray, where the differences between the annual general meetings of the local soccer and Australian Rules clubs are quite noticeable.

Our guest for this week is Australian soccer Paul Nicholls. Paul's work has been featured a number of times on the show, but his appearance on this episode was prompted by this excellent creative non-fiction piece on the fate of champion 19th century Scottish footballer Eadie Fraser, and the search for his final resting place in New South Wales. We talk to Paul about he got into soccer, and why he's chosen the use of creative non-fiction as his medium of choice for exploring Australian soccer history; and of course talk about the tragic end of Eadie Fraser.

(for more of Paul's work on a variety of sports, including soccer, check out his profile on The Roar site)

We finish the show (without taking our second break) by looking at the recent passing of Paul Mavroudis' father - with the soccer angle of that written up in this piece - and the depressing thought that not only do we not have a unified soccer story in Australia (even a pretend one), but that there's no hope of any cultural continuity being created in the future either.

Episode 11 - Tony Persoglia & OzFootball

Download and listen to episode 11.

We begin this episode arguing or not arguing about whether there was any tension on the show the previous week.

Then a nod to the nascent scanning and uploading collaboration between Greg Stock and Mark Boric, which initially at least beefed up the NSW related contents on Mark's blog.

We segue into a discussion on the eminent football historian Tony Collins, and a particular episode of his own Rugby Reloaded podcast series (don't let the name fool you - the series contains material on a wider variety of football codes), which discusses the problems of trying to claim "historic firsts". 

Ian moves on to talking about his love-affair with Queensland soccer historian Garry McKenzie, and a piece written by sports writer John Harms about soccer in Goombungee.

Then the birth of the 100 Years Ago Today sting. Oh, and the relevant segment continues as normal, including having to read the paper to find out which train to take in Perth to get to a game.

Aussie soccer stats nerd Tony Persoglia could talk the leg off a chair
 - which is fine by us if he's talking about Australian soccer history.

We then interview Tony Persoglia, a statistician and historian who's mostly based around OzFootball. Tony has worked on OzFootball for a long time, and he takes us through the process of OzFootball's earliest days, the technical obstacles, and the nature of the gradually mainstreaming of the internet. 

Tony has also been working on a revamped version of the Victorian club database, a revamped version of Victorian league results and tables, Victorian players, and a new project detailing every player - men and women - who have played a topflight game in Australian. 

The discussion also covers the logistical and ideological issues with collecting stats and recording history in Australian soccer, especially with regards to the paucity of federation help at either state or national level - and the difficulty of sourcing women's national league stats. We also pay credit to John Punshon, one of Australian soccer history's most unsung heroes.

We finish off the show with a quick chat about Ian's "First Kicks" project.