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 20 - Darren Giancaspro; Spencer Gulf soccer; Como Cup

The Como Cup, the trophy for a defunct
Doiwn tournament hosted by defunct club Prahran City.

Download and listen to episode 20 here.

We begin with noting that Mark Boric's efforts this week have been augmented with match programs courtesy of Greg Stock and Graeme McGinty. During the week Tony Persoglia also launched his Vicsoccer project.

George Cross supporter and historian Victor Brincat had a question about the provenance of a trophy called the Como Cup - and through our wide ranging social media networks, we were able to establish that it was a pre-season tournament from the 1970s and 80s hosted by the now defunct Victorian club Prahran City. (see the tournament program from the 1978 edition)

Ian tries to float the idea of naming historical liars (regarding their own personal histories) in Australian soccer, starting off with Mark Bell, who claimed he was a Scotland international.

Then follows 100 Years Ago Today  covering Victorian Dockerty Cup results (including criticising the slackness of the local journalists); a good time had at the Spotswood Soccer-Football Club; moving to the Illawarra and the Gardiner Cup.

We then chat with Darren Giancaspro, who has uploaded films mostly from the early 1990s, but also some from eras before that - including priceless footage from the 1950s. In a wide-ranging discussion Darren explains the nature of the different towns within the Northern Areas competition; how he got access to the films; the history of the different clubs, and the various industries and migrant groups involved with them; the logistics of the competition with regards to travel; the struggle to gain local media coverage, despite the local popularity of the game; what's happened to that soccer since those films were made, especially once the Port Pirie clubs joined the Adelaide competition;

We finish off the show with Paul's foolish pledge to update the infamous Victorian-Italian club merger-de-merger flowchart.