THAT Goal

Searching Youtube for early Socceroos footage, I stumbled across a great channel which contains classic 1960's through to 1980's British football games, including full episodes of The Big Match and Match of the Day.

One episode is well worth a look for Aussie fans, and it's The Big Match from December 1974. The video is incorrectly labelled as December 12 1979.

I'm old enough to recall having seen a few episodes of The Big Match as a kid in the late 1970's, though the usual late Saturday night timeslot was way beyond my bedtime. The theme tune is a cracker, and in this year's opening you get a few glimpses of cheeky future Socceroos manager Terry Venables.

The featured game is Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United from White Hart Lane on December 29, 1973. Two of the Spurs players, Martin Peters and Martin Chivers, would later play a few games for Frankston City in the Victorian State League. Winger Ralph Coates had a spell with St George in the NSL after leaving Spurs and before joining Leyton Orient in 1979.

The episode is full of highlights. There's the grim Northern English backdrop as Oldham Athletic host Watford in the Third Division. There's Coventry City visiting The Dell to meet Southampton. There's Muhammad Ali telling us he's had enough of Brian Clough. There's Poland eliminating England from World Cup qualification in a game which surely has the record for most missed sitters. There's Sunderland manager Bob Stokoe running amok. There's Franz Beckenbauer and Uli Hoeness!

Then, at 47:20 is THE goal from Jimmy Mackay against South Korea in Hong Kong that put Australia through to the 1974 World Cup. It is in glorious colour and what a strike it was. I'm not sure why this colour version hasn't been shown on tv over the years nearly enough. Most times I've seen the goal it has been a black and white version that was so dark you wondered if the game was played under training ground lights.

What a goal! What a player!

A Version of History

This is the blog post I've had the most difficulty in writing, and it's not just because the last time I did a book review was back at school in the late 1980's. I've struggled with how to deal with some things from a book which I largely admired and is clearly a work of great significance. 

Roy Hay and Bill Murray's A History of Football in Australia: A Game of Two Halves is certainly a grand undertaking. A game with a poorly recorded history (particularly from it's own governing bodies) clouded with so many diverging political issues, it was never going to be an easy task to sum it all up in a manner that would satisfy everyone.

The chapter on the women's game towards the conclusion is a strong one. It's a lighter read than the heavy opening to the book which deals with the how the various forms of football were codified in the late nineteenth century. Once over this necessary introduction, the book soon delves into the various struggles of the game as it spread across the colonies. The hindrance of financial depressions and World Wars give way to migrant boom times and the expulsion from FIFA. 

The book is tremendously well-researched, as one would expect from two fine academics. There are hundreds of notations. It touches on the "Code Wars" without becoming bogged down in them, which is no mean feat.

There are some great insights into the numerous breakaways from previous governing bodies and the early World Cup qualification campaigns. Throughout the book, there are some amazing photographs which really capture their time perfectly.   

A famous quote, most often attributed to Winston Churchill, is that "History is written by the victors". With that in mind it is noteworthy that the Foreword of this book is written by Frank Lowy AC, Chairman of Football Federation Australia.  

Does this mean there is a lack of balance and objectivity in sections of the book later on? One can certainly raise a few questions. In the chapter relating to the NSL it is noted that "The 1987 season began in controversy when Frank Lowy, who had been at loggerheads with the ASF about the direction the game was taking, pulled Sydney City Hakoah out of the league after the first round". It does not go on to expand on how destabilising the action was to the competition, or treat the act of spite (later it is written he "had learned and come to despise Australian soccer politics") in the same disdain later expressed at how Clive Palmer's ownership of Gold Coast United would come to an end.

Whilst much is written about the Crawford Report, no mention is made of critical elements to it yet to be implemented. Similarly whilst it is explained how the the voting structures for the State Federations were reformed to take power from top tier clubs and share it with bodies representing juniors, women's teams and refereeing bodies, little is mentioned of how the FFA no longer seems to have any elections.

The former Chairman of Soccer Australia, David Hill, though described as divisive is also portrayed rather favourably. In relation to the infamous draw with Iran which saw Australia fail to qualify for the 1998 World Cup, Terry Venables is labelled as being out-coached on several occasions. To be critical of the coach, should one be as critical of the man who appointed him? When Venables is described as erring in not bringing on Milan Ivanovic to try and hold the lead at 2-0, I can't help but think of Zoran Matic, Ivanovic's highly successful club coach at Adelaide City. The Serb Matic would have stood a better chance of being appointed Socceroos coach under any number of Croats that may have been Chairman than he did from getting the job from the famously Anglophile Hill.

Perhaps I'm making too much of these issues, but with this book likely to be the first foray into the extended history of the game in this country for many readers, it does need to be pointed out that it is just a version of history and that being definitive on such as subject is probably impossible.

Does it deserve to sit atop the pile of books about the game in Australia? It's a question, like many aspects of the sport here, that is a real political football.