Episode 16 - Footscray, Footscray, it's a hell of a town!; Preston Makedonia match programs

Download and listen to episode 16 here.

Albury kicks off at night, or so Paul has been told. (you can also hear Paul shuffling papers like he's channeling his inner Birchabald T. Barlow)

We get an answer from Mark Boric as to why Victorian clubs took so long to start their season in 1919.

Thanks to Travis Faulks, we finally get some Illawarra content, including historical nicknames!

(also we get promised an intern, a promise which fails to materialise)

Thanks to Garry McKenzie, we get an overview of Brisbane church soccer.

Then 100 Years Ago Today with Victorian scores, and no news... a West Australian team misses its train... then to Newcastle and code-harmony...  a Brisbane story tickles Ian's code-war and class-war yearnings... in Goobumgee, there's some games being played, where Ian takes on the legitimacy of "dance committees" to Paul's displeasure...

After the break, it's back to talking about Footscray, providing a historical overview of soccer in the area, including clubs and grounds across the decades. Footscray City, Footscray United (two kinds), Footscray Capri, Footscray JUST... more Footscray content than you can poke a stick at. Plus all the usual digressions into public space, suburbia, works teams, etc.

In the final segment, Paul looks at some old Preston Makedonia match day programs from the late 1980s - they're rather good, with a lot of interesting content spanning supporter etiquette, advertisements, politics, nationalism, overseas soccer, news, player profiles, battles with local councils, even some poetry,  - but most importantly about what the editorial style says about the balance the struggle to exist between two cultures.

Episode 15 - Soccer club nicknames; Newcastle (looking for foundations); battle over public spaces

Download and listen to episode 15.

In this episode Ian falls down the wormhole of Sid Grant and Harry Hetherington's 17 volume History of Soccer in New South Wales on Mark Boric's site.

We also quickly covered the uploading by some pseudonymous character of footage from the 1982 Coppa Italia final in Melbourne - as broadcast on SBS, and commentated by Laurie Schwab - and the value of these items, and the difficulty in finding them and preserving them.

Ian notes that he and Roy Hay have each contributed a chapter to the scholarly text The Early Development of Football.

Then comes 100 Years Ago Today, which includes some discussion of the phrase "soccer rules".

After the break is a discussion of certain Australian soccer nicknames (especially in New South Wales), which followed on from a discussion a couple of weeks prior. Listener Graeme McGinty wrote in to explain why certain flowery names were chosen, and Ian read this letter out on air. McGinty's letter suggests the "pretty" names were chosen to disassociate themselves from either (Protestant/Catholic) sectarianism, or from the harshness of the industrial work many soccer players would have been involved with in the late 1800s or early 1900s.

Ian segues into looking at the foundations of Newcastle soccer.

Then in the final segment we wade dangerously into contemporary issues by looking at Melbourne Victory's attempt to acquire a lease for land at Footscray Park, by trying to steer the conversation towards the historic difficulty that soccer has had in obtaining grounds at the margins of councils, or on the worst public land. Paul refers to in particular to Schintler Reserve chapter (in other words, the struggle for soccer to access land in Footscray) in John Kallinikios' Soccer Boom. 

But we also look at the concept of passive recreation; and then taking that further by looking at the comparable historic situation at Middle Park and Albert Park, using Jill Barnard and Jenny Keating's People's Playground as a guide for how people interested in this topic should broaden their ideas of us and them when it comes to public space in Melbourne.

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.