Episode 78 - School soccer in Victoria in the 1950s and 60s

Download and listen to this episode here.

Another week, another episode. Ian's semi-incapacitated, but able to do the show via Zoom - but could this be the end? Then the clean-up, usual shoutout to Mark Boric and Greg Stock. Oh, and the problems with trying to fill in upload forms online for both Blogger and YouTube. Ian's being chasing up leads at the Footscray Historical Society. Tony Persoglia has updated and fixed the 1980s Victorian State League page. 

Then to Adam Muyt's continued research on Dutch-Australian soccer, which has taken him into the Snowy Mountains and the Snowy Hydro Project - this leads to a discussion of "dreaming trails", and the way in which in dissipating or declining culture might continue in the dispersal of its personnel across the years. For example, what happens when the soccer playing migrants working on Snowy Hydro move on at the project's conclusion? Do they take the game with them? Where do they end up?

We finish the segment with Paul talking about his early stage's of reading of George Megalogenis' The Football Solution... let's see if Paul actually finishes it at any point of time so he can talk about it on the show.

After the break, Ian talks about his next seam of research at Footscray Historical Society, which takes him into the condition of school soccer in Melbourne in the 1950s and 60s - seen through the lens of Footscray Technical School yearbooks. We look at the research possibilities opened up by this; what the yearbooks looked like and what kind of they contained; the demographic changes revealed by the yearbooks; soccer's positioning within this school with other sports; and the influence of the institutional push by Victorian soccer bodies to get into schools and improve coaching, including hiring a director of coaching from overseas (which turns out to be Len Young).

(stick around for some dissection of competing contemporary views of the battle for schoolboy hearts and minds)

Ian talks about calling former Socceroo Ted Smith, who played in this competition in his youth. Hakoah's absorption of Swinburne's junior teams, and did this happen more often?

Also, a bit related to this issue of competing for resources, that Collingwood Football Club tried to secure the lease of Northcote Football Club's ground, to maintain it for Australian rules, in the event that Northcote folded. Then then familiar story of fighting of for grounds, and trying to woo future generations (especially of migrants), instead of current generations already wedded to their sport. 

Then 100 Years Ago Today we start off in Portland in western Victoria, where the crew of the Cupid will provide an example of the English game of soccer football; then to the Celebes and Macassar, and Singapore and Malay where soccer rules, where our correspondent observes the sporting practices of the locals; the interstate Australian Rules tournament for railwaymen sees the New South Wales is using soccer tactics; still in Adelaide, a meeting for a soccer practice match; an Adelaide commentator on Australian rules notes the lack of quality in his sport in Queensland and New South Wales, where the existence of rugby and soccer players means that there's not enough quality for Australian rules representative sides - also a show of literary fairness obscuring probably really unfair attitudes towards non-Aussie Rules football codes; and in Newcastle, the season is about to begin, with suspicious transfers between clubs - is it down to professionalism or shifting district boundaries?

Episode 41 - a potted history of coaching; Darwin soccer in 1941

Download and listen to episode 41 here.

This week sees us still broadcasting from remote locations. We begin the call asking if anyone can help us get in contact with Geoff Huxley, who is responsible for compiling this dossier on soccer in Murwillumbah. Likewise, we ask if someone who knows Rocco Di Zio could possibly give him a nudge in terms of getting back to Paul's messages looking for help with the ongoing Victorian Italian merger flowchart - some subsequent updates of which are provided in this week's episode.

Ian then follows up on his work on 1920s Mildura soccer, and the surprising strength of the game in the area being revealed as more material becomes available on Trove.

Following from last week's passing note of the 200 odd soccer references in the Army News (1940-1946) in Darwin, Paul looks into what was going on there in 1941, and some of the difficulties in making sense of the research. There are no mentions of soccer in 1940, though there does appear to have been soccer played, as there is mention of a previous armed forces league champion. The coverage begins some time into the 1941 season, which is played during the north Australian wet season.

There's a steep learning curve in looking at this material for those unfamiliar with military jargon, slang, and ranks. This includes references to ranks as abbreviations, which may sometimes look like initials preceding a surname.

Table from the Army soccer league in Darwin, from 11th December 1941.

Most of the articles seem to be written by members of the relevant battalions, as part of their coverage of the social life of the armed forces in Darwin during World War 2. Soccer is, of course, just one of a number of sports being played in Darwin by members of the armed forces. There are about 8-10 teams in the competition, although it is difficult to figure out fixtures, which are generally played midweek and on weekends. Each team also seems to have a variety of names - a battalion or company name, the battalion's nickname, a nickname such as Wanderers or Wombats, and sometimes a locale. This makes things more difficult to discern what's what.

Most players are unnamed, except for goalscorers, and even there it is usually only a surname, sometimes preceded by a generic nickname. It is generally difficult at this early part of the research to find whether players in this competition had also played in civilian soccer beforehand. One person who did play civilian soccer, and who is mentioned in these articles - but who was not involved with Darwin soccer - was Wally Magee, who represented Australia in the B Internationals against the visiting Chinese team in 1941. Magee, who had played for the strong Metters side in New South Wales, had most most recently played and dominated for Moreland in the less competitive Melbourne competition. Magee is noteworthy here for having died while on service in Port Moresby.

In this week's Mark Boric Express we note that Mark has uploaded some annual reports from New South Wales, while continuing to work in his Victorian season files - in this case 1932. We also note fellow Football Nation Radio presenter Joey Lynch having written a good little piece on Ferenc Puskas' time in Australia, on the ESPN site.

In our middle segment, we take a meandering look at the history of coaching in Australia, inspired by Vince Rugari's story on Roberto Venturato, an Australian-born coach on the cusp of taking a minnow club in the form of Cittadella to Serie A. It's essentially a rambling look at the history of coaching in Australian soccer. It begins with looking at some of the Australian coaches who have tried their hand at coaching in overseas competitions. Paul notes that a lot of the Australian coaches who have coached overseas have probably done so in the Pacific and South-East Asia - like Scott O'Donnell, Darren Stewart, and Mehmet Durakovic - and thus are not in competition which Australian soccer fans pay much attention to. Then follows some off the cuff comments on 'name' overseas coaches imported to Australia.

Ian then moves the discussion to trying to research soccer and coaching on Trove. There's the catch of "coach" often referring to travelling by coach, rather than the meaning of coach as instruction or training. Ian also expounds on the way the term "coach" means different things in different places and contexts - that in some times and places in means only the coaching of children, as opposed to being someone mostly responsible for fitness and team selection of men's teams. There are also the intermittent bouts of Australians attempting to improve and refine the nature of quality of coaching, from the 1920s through to the 1950s. Often times this is in the form of ambitious clubs and governing bodies seeking to import coaches from Britain.

Then Ian's doorbell rings and Paul and Ian try to hold the show together for dear life.

In 100 Years Ago Today, we travel to Brisbane for a civic reception for the visiting New South Wales state team, and the general joy in having soccer back after the war. Then we go to Melbourne for some quick results; we stay in Melbourne for what appears to be on the surface another sign of goodwill between Australian rules and soccer, as per last week's occurrence in Hobart - though one of regular correspondents, Paul Hunt, noted during the week that perhaps the Australian Rules people were on their best behaviour because the Prince of Wales was in town on both occasions. And finally to Newcastle, where a visiting Australian Navy ship will play against Adamstown - it is worth that he crew of this ship is predominantly English.