Episode 73 - Paul Nicholls' 20 matches for the 20th century

Download and listen to this episode here.

This begins with banter encompassing Paul being sick the week before, a scam that Ian and Paul during their time working at uni, and Ian's look at Patrick Skene's new book n rugby league player Olsen Filipaina. Oh, and a comment by Skene that the soccer community is not supportive of people taking the plunge writing important soccer books. That's followed by a promotion for Dylan Arvela's new book about Woonona's 2021 championship success. 

Then more on Footscray Thistle, including updates on a previous post by Ian, including information sent to him by descendants of some of the players in the photo, including leading Victorian player of the 1920s and 30s George Macauley. Some chat also about "lost 'insert suburb/locality/town'" pages on Facebook, which inevitably have little soccer content.

Then Footscray Park bingo and shenanigans with 'footy' posts. And some chat about a heinously mythmaking plaque in Ararat honouring the 'founder' of Australian Rules football, Tom Wills. Paul lets the audience know about how a recently established club in Port Fairy was educated about the history of soccer in the region by a former player from the 1950s Port Fairy.

After the break it's time for 100 Years Ago Today, beginning in Melbourne, and musings about Caledonian society involvement in the game; then across to Albany, with more Thistles and Corinthians... is there something in the existence of clubs named Thistle and Corinthians across the country? Then into a James George Beaney digression, with nothing to do with the segment. 

Back to the segment - in Brisbane, there's a huge increase in numbers and Brisbane and Ipswich, leading to the formation of a second division, and the barest hints of an unnamed professionalism and its effects on recruitment. 

Finally, we get to this week's guest is Paul Nicholls, who wrote an article for Fairplay's Play On magazine's December edition, picking 20 games for the 20th Century. To avoid contemporary biases, Paul limited himself to two games per decade, and this we scamper through his list to look for how he came up with his list. We look at:

• trying to look at the history of the game in Australia as an outsider
• important pre-NSL games, and the importance of pre-NSL era as a whole
• women's games
• the obsession with England
• district vs club debates
• novelty matches like Western Australia vs England cricketers
• Iran '97
• Paul Mavroudis' quibbles with certain selections
• the problems with trying to sort out any list from the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of soccer matches played during the 20th century in Australia.
• Trying to look forward and back at the same time.
• the lack of obvious legacies for many of the selections
• balancing the obvious with the obscure

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 21 - Jason Goldsmith and Surfing for England; Paul Nicholls; Mt Isa

Download and listen to episode 21 here.

Oh, nuffies and public libraries.

And we recount the famous soccer people we overlooked from the previous week's Spencer Gulf discussion.

Ian thanks Garry McKenzie for wrecking his life, having found soccer references and photos in Mimag, the official publication of Mount Isa Mines. What are the ramifications for how Ian (and the rest of us, I suppose) understand Mt Isa's soccer history? Listen also to the weary bitterness creep into Ian's voice as he talks about the overwhelming isolation of living in Mt Isa...

And then opines about his upcoming Newcastle trip, and what he hopes to achieve while touring the Hunter.

Then Ian reads out an extract from 'The Bonds of Empire: Sydney 1925', a creative non-fiction piece sent in by Paul Nicholls - an attempt to create a mythology for Australian soccer.

After the break, we talk to Jason Goldsmith, the author of Surfing for England a book about the best players never to have played for the Socceroos. We cover the following:

• Craig Johnston, the originator of the term 'surfing for England' - a term that's become infamous and unfairly so.
• Tony Dorigo, and why he didn't get the stick that Johnston did for not playing for Australia.
• Andrew Durante and interesting decisions about citizenship, where the convergence of career progression and other motivations meet.
• The different international football situation in the 1980s - no international breaks.
• The Serbs and the Croatians, and the questions about loyalty asked of some and not of others.
• The Tim Cahill story - and the story of how his eligibility became a cause celebre for Australian (and later worldwide) soccer.
• The irony of trying to exploit the existence of players with multiple eligibilities, whereas once we railed against it.
• The idea that Christian Vieri could've so easily become a concreter in Sydney's western suburbs.
• The incredible story of Sasa Ilic, and an ambush of Ian Syson.
• How many Western Australians should make the cut for the revised edition?

I don't know why, but Ian's microphone isn't working during early parts of the segment with Jason.

We finish the episode with 100 Years Ago Today - Victorian results; Toowoomba and the tensions of returned servicemen not wanting to play for services teams after the war; and finally to Newcastle.

Episode 18 - Victor Brincat, George Cross and the Australia Cup

Download and listen to episode 18 here.

A little bit on listener Paul Nicholls' father Don reuniting with an old teammate Bruce from their days playing together Gladesville Methodists 70 years ago.

Garry McKenzie finds the original source for an 1870 game of soccer mentioned in Peter Kunz's Chronicles of Soccer in Australia - and the problems of figuring out where the 19th century and early 20th century Australian press sourced their stories from.

Then on to a TV clip that came up on Twitter discussion, about the time the 1970s American cop drama McLeod filmed an episode in Australia, which included a game with APIA as part of their story.

Following is a quick digression about what soccer films exist in Australia, including ex-NSL player Leigh Tsoumerkas' recollections of the VIS team's cameo in The Heartbreak Kid.

And for some reason some chat about Craig Johnston and comments he made about political correctness.

After the break we chat with Victor Brincat, soccer historian interested in the club now known as Caroline Springs George Cross. We cover:

• The difficulty of getting any information from the early days of clubs like George Cross.
• The practical priorities of club committees ignoring the importance of the proper maintenance of historical records.
• George Cross' bridesmaid's role during the 1960s and 70s in Victorian soccer, and the hollowness of the eventual title breakthrough in 1977.
• The 1964 Australia Cup, and the permanent donation of the Australia Cup to George Cross, after its rescue from the rubbish and its subsequent restoration.
• The assumption by many that Sydney clubs, with their superior financial backing would dominate the Australia Cup.
• The habit of Australia Cup winners - Yugal, Slavia, Melbourne Hungaria - of eventually going defunct.
• The decline of clubs soccer alongside the demise of the Australia Cup.
• Victor's recollections of the 1964 Australia Cup final.
• George Cross' excellent presentation of history in their social club.
• The mini-documentary made by Ben Coonan for Fox Sports, of the Australia Cup being presented to George Cross including footage of the 1964 Australia Cup final.
• The story of how that footage came to light.

Then 100 Years Ago Today where we being with Dockerty Cup results, and where does Preston play? Next we go to Bowral, aka the middle of nowhere; then to Lithgow, and what else is there to do there? And accusations of sabotage! 

Episode 14 - Adam Winkel & Copa del Rey; club nicknames; Reg Rapley

Download and listen to episode 14 here.

In this episode Ian is outed as an Adamstown shill. Then more chat on Reg Rapley, Broken Hill, and patterns of migration. And Ian comes to realise that there may be something in the "great man of history" approach after all.

Then a very broad question... when does the game become "soccer" instead of "soccerish"; that is, resembling soccer. And who gets to claim games of disputed or vague description as belonging to their code? Then follows a digression into false or wonky cultural memory, about the state of a game being better or worse - in standard or in popularity - than it actually was. And then looking at some of our favourite Australian club nicknames.

Visiting football scholar Adam Winkel spoke with us about
the history of changing fan reactions to the Copa del Rey

Then we chat with Adam Winkel, an academic visiting from the United States, to discuss the Spain Copa del Rey, and the ways in which fan reactions to the tournament have changed. Among the things we cover in this discussion:

• The popularity of the Copa del Rey across the decades, and its recent resurgence.
• How different fan groups have used the Copa del Rey as a stage for political purposes, as examples of regional tensions.
• Reactions for and against the national anthem.
• The kinds of sources used for Adam's research.
• Changes over time in terms of the kinds of dissent that were allowed - the role of the stadium within that scope of being able to dissent.
• Soccer as a propaganda tool of the Spanish state.
• Soccer's potential threat to bullfighting for popularity - and the phrase "bread and bullfighting". 
• The Copa del Rey's function as one of the few soccer matches in Spain where the national anthem is played, and also where away fans also make a 
• The points at which jeering the national anthem becomes performative (and counter-jeering) and expected.
• The scope for punishing clubs like Barcelona for its fans jeering the anthem, when Barcelona has so much financial and popular clout.

Then 100 Years Ago Today starting with Peace Day and Melbourne's upcoming fixtures. Then to Toowoomba, Adelaide, Ipswich, Brisbane, and soldiers returning to the game after the war.

And we finish with a poem by Paul Nicholls on club nicknames, in the style of old-timey Australian poetry.

Episode 12 - Les Street; Dapto Dogs; Sydney Football Stadium

The recently demolished Sydney Football Stadium. 

Download and listen to episode 12.

Ian gets corrected about the historic location of Ball's Paddock in Bulli.

Mark Boric has been updating stuff he's received - finally - from Ian. Greg Stock has also been giving Mark stuff, but the real prize this week is Mark uploading 1980s Australian women's state championship videos provided by former Matilda, Deb Nichols. See Mark's YouTube Channel for these and other videos.

We also give props to Dimitri Peppas for working on South Australian stats.

NSW soccer historian Paul Nicholls sent us a small piece on soccer overreach in 1885.

Then 100 Years Ago Today rounds up news from Melbourne, Ipswich, Adelaide, Sydney, and Newcastle.

Classy banner from the 1993 Australia vs Argentina World Cup
qualifying match at the Sydney Football Stadium.

Then we catch up with Les Street (our first repeat guest) who is at the Dapto Showground - including greyhound racing sound effects - doing research on the few National Soccer League games played there. We also chat to Les about the recently demolished Sydney Football Stadium, and its predecessor stadium, the Sydney Sports Ground. Includes the sliding doors moment of Sydney FC choosing the Sydney Football Stadium, when apparently they were mulling selecting Parramatta Stadium.

(see here for a document which includes recollections of Bay 23 antics at the Sydney Football Stadium)

After getting upset at a VAR handball decision in the Women's World Cup, Ian takes a historical look at the handball rule.