Episode 46 - Rale Rasic; Copyright; Match programs

With apologies for Paul's apparent lagging in this episode which causes some distortion at times.

Download and listen to episode 46 here.

On this week's episode there's some interminable waffling at the start about pandemic restrictions being ramped up in Victoria.

Then to the Mark Boric Express. where this week Mark has been uploading match programs sent to him by George Cotsanis. It includes 1970s programs from Victorian club Croydon City, 1990s/2000s programs from fellow Victorian club Altona City, and National Soccer League programs from clubs like St George and Sydney City. This bit includes discussion on what the differences between these programs tell us about the clubs that produced them - ranging from Croydon's informative product, Altona's more homespun, humorous production, and the internal decline evident within Sydney City's mid-1980s single-sheet programs.

We also note Paul's uploading (finally) of St George's silver jubilee booklet from 1982.

We also look at two related matters which were raised separately on social media over the previous two weeks or so. The first related to a query made on the Australian Football Before the A-League page on Facebook, where one of that group's member asked how to get access to Mike Cockerill's early National Soccer League writing. Paul's answer to that question was as follows:

• If you are a member of a tertiary institution (or know someone who would be willing share their access), you can get access to Australian news databases - unfortunately, while these databases are usually excellent for material post-2000, before that date they steadily become less useful. 
• A subscription to newspapers.com (which is a part of the Ancestry group), which will set you back about $75 for six months for the subscription package which includes the site's two Australian newspapers - The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
• A subscription to something like the Sydney Morning Herald's archive service, which covers 1955-1995 - but which is very expensive, with a variety of plans ranging from $15 for 24 hours access, to $395 for a year's access. (a similar service exists for material after 2006 onward, with similarly a high cost)
• For the eras in which Cockerill was writing, the only free option is visiting your local State Library.

Linked to that question is why can't the public freely access archival news material after 1954? The answer lies in US legislation from the early 1990s which extended copyright terms. When Australia and the US signed a free-trade agreement in 2005, this effected copyright law in Australia, and effectively set the line at 1954 for material that was effectively protected by a grandfathering process; and that does not necessarily that once we hit the year 2026, that materials from 1955 will become copyright free en masse.

We finish off by reading from the sole known extant copy of a pre-World War 2 edition of Victoria's Soccer News, as examined and uploaded by Mark Boric. Released during the 1924 season, we focus in particular on the testy relationship between the editor of Soccer News, and a club press representative, arguing over who's responsible for the apparently parlous state of the Victorian soccer press.

After the break Paul reviews The Rale Rasic Story (as told to Ray Gatt). We look at the way the book (which was published in 2005) covers:

• Rasic's experience growing up in an orphanage in Yugoslavia, during and after World War 2.
• The progression and eventual stalling of his professional playing career.
• Rasic's arrival in Australia, and his transition to coaching, including his place in the world as just one of many expatriate coaches from Yugoslavia who end coaching in far-flung corners of the world.
• The ongoing subpar state of Australian soccer in terms of playing, training, and administrative qualities
• The intricacies of Australian soccer politics, including within the Australian Soccer Federation, between the various state federations, and among other interest groups.
• The book's emphasis on Rasic's psychological approach to coaching - in terms of player management, motivation, and preparation - as opposed to the tactical approaches he used.
• We also look at what the book skims over or leaves out entirely - which for Paul, unfortunately includes only brief mentions of the club scene in Australia (especially after Rasic loses the Socceroos job), as well as complete stonewalling on what happened during Rale's Canberra Cosmos tenure.

In this week's final segment we go to 100 Years Ago Today, where in Toowoomba there's a "town vs country" match involving places just three miles out of the aforementioned town; in Ipswich we marvel at the depth of the coverage; while in South Australia, we're surprised that there's any coverage at all, and why has it just seemingly appeared out of the blue? And we finish off the episode with the weekend Melbourne scores.

Episode 39 - Greg Stock and the future of Australian soccer history

Download and listen to episode 39 here.

On this week's episode we begin by catching up with the Mark Boric Express where, apart from his uploads, he's been attempting to improve upon the extant records from Victorian soccer's 1910s, 20s, and 30s - and looking especially at the many difficulties in reconciling obviously incorrect and/or competing archival narratives. We then move on trying to understand why Rale Rasic and Bob Marley are posing with a stuffed panda at Adelaide City in the late 1970s - including an answer from current member of the South Australian partliament, Frank Pangallo. And then a quick update on Paul's map, and some audience feedback on using the Ancestry.com database for Australian soccer research.

Then to 100 Years Ago Today, beginning in Western Australia and Ian's fascination with the perplexing change in writing style within the article; then to Sydney, where we look at the rugby league news, and the noting that soccer has established itself in one-time rugby league strongholds. Still in Sydney, and a discussion about amateurism in rugby league from an important Australian historical figure. Then to Melbourne's results, and looking forward to the Prince of Wales' tour. And finally, a note on so-called "Germanised sport", as opposed to proper English conduct on the sporting field - and the hypocrisies of an Australian writer discussing this within the context of the Australian spotting public's love of gambling, barracking, and win-at-all costs mentality.

After the break we talk to returning guest Greg Stock, to talk about how Australian soccer history and historians moves forward after the pandemic. We discuss the possibility of history being placed into the "too-hard basket" in amid the financial and logistical constraints brought upon by the pandemic; the placing of history within the need to be "valued adding", that is history not being valuable in and of itself; the different ways soccer historians and non-soccer historians value Australian soccer history; the historic trends of volunteers and enthusiastic entrepreneurs filling in gaps in mainstream and official soccer media infrastructures; the history of amateur collaborative work in spite of the lip-service paid by official bodies.

Paul seems particularly keen on just pushing ahead with the Australian soccer tradition of quasi-anarchic, decentralised historical work; the unlikely scenario where federations hire historians; Greg notes the fact that federations still handle their own current statistical records poorly, but Paul also adds the lack of interest from ordinary soccer participants in maintaining contemporary records, including of their own participation - this is the idea that if change is to come from anywhere, it must come from soccer's mainline participant base, not from niche historical busybodies. But how do we get those people interested? How do we convince them that they are living in history, and that their presence matters?

In the final segment, Ian revisits some earlier work on soccer in the regional Queensland town of Warwick.