Having come across the blog, and having read The United Appeal For The Missing Issues, a top bloke called Steve Delmenico has loaned me 40 old issues of Soccer Action. These have all now been copied and scanned, and over the next month I will be adding the 10 new links for these issues every Friday to the Soccer Action Archive.
This now leaves just 8 issues of Soccer Action to be found to complete the online archive.
Those issues are:
1976 - February 4 March 31
1981 - July 22 (only need pages 3,4,13 and 14 of this one)
1985 - September 4
1986 - April 9 May 14 July 16 (only need pages 1,2,15 and 16 of this one) October 8
Hopefully there are some other legends out there and this mammoth project can soon be complete.
It may not have been his dream, but I'm sure Ratko would have liked to see this archive completed. I think he's still alive actually. Anyway, let's find those last 8 issues.
This is a collection of team photos of Australian club, state and representative teams.
Some come from websites, some come from Twitter. They were obtained by the old click the right mouse button and save file as method. Some came from the Goal! Weekly online archive. That involved pressing print screen, then opening MS Paint and pressing paste before cutting, cropping and minor editing. I took the Richmond ones with the Bitburger Beer advertising banner myself. The Richmond photos at AAMI Park for a friendly against Melbourne Heart were taken with my camera, by Gerd Steinborn. Other pics were scanned from newspapers, yearbooks and magazines. A few more were taken from newspapers on Trove via the print screen and MS Paint method. Some more of the Richmond ones involved taking photos off the walls, out of the frames and scanning before putting them back together.
I've been collecting football clip art since my programme editing days. Thanks to the Miles Maclagan programme scans I'm always adding to this, using the print screen button with MS Paint method.
Most of these are easily found on federation and club websites, or google. Some of the older ones were scanned from yearbooks, magazines, programmes or letterheads.
These emblems and logos are of football sponsors and governing bodies or competitions. As above, many available on the net with a few scanned from publications.
Feel free to save to your hard drive and share with anyone you think may get something out of them.
It is with great pleasure that I am able to share with you all the brilliant work of Sydney football historian Doug Butcher. Doug has produced several booklets based on his research into early Australian representative games and international teams that toured the country. The links to the booklets can be found below:
These expand in greater detail what can currently be found on OzFootball. They also contain searched and explanations for the issues behind various name discrepancies amongst touring players. In the early part of last century newspapers often had various spellings for simple British surnames, so it's no surprise that more exotic foreign names posed problems. Christian names were not always published, in fact sometimes even an initial didn't appear and Doug has endeavoured to uncover as much about these players as he can.
He also explains the make-up of the touring sides, in a time when match organisers were part-wrestling promotors, looking to add more lustre to their teams. This is when the public accepted Hajduk Split being billed as Yugoslavia, and Bohemians of Prague were advertised as a Czechoslovakian national team.
In the days when travel was more by boat than plane, we see how tours were longer as teams were made to make the most of having made long voyages. These were not one-off friendlies, but massive tours often with a series of test matches.
Thanks to Doug for sharing, hopefully a few more people get as much out of going through these booklets as I did.
Edited to add: The video has been blocked in some countries due to musical copyright claims by that prick Billy Joel's reps. I'll carry around a USB with it on me for those keen to get a copy. You just need to get in touch. markboric@bigpond.com
Predating the great Football Chaos, Moorabbin City had most of their games in 1994 filmed by former first team and then reserve team player Rob Mihalek. I now present that video in it's entirety, complete with some graphic I made up on the old Amiga 1200.
It was Moorabbin's first on field (there had been some league re-structures) promotion in almost 20 years. Initially coached by the late Billy Whiteside, it was Dave Christians who led the side into securing a place in Division Two. Stevie Irvine (Jackson's dad) was Billy's assistant.
The first team squad was:
Bertie Arlove, Ray Bryden, Paddy Cooper, Davie Fourna, Tony Hermus, Dom Iasenza, Gerry Lepkowski, Mickey Maguire, Craig Miller, Jimmy Nelson, Brian Smith, Jimmy Stewart, Iain Stirton, Brian Sweeney, Brendan Thomas, Rob Tobin, Stan Webster, John Whiteside and Troy Williams.
(Click on images to enlarge)
Promotion was secured on the final day of the season, in dramatic circumstances which is of course the highlight of the video, along with the reserve team celebrations after winning their championship under Sven Helbig on the same day. Other highlights (some may say lowlights) are Mickey Maguires knockout v Fitzroy City and the smart work to prevent Jimmy Nelson battering a referee. The home ground for the year was Gaelic Park, Keysborough. The best game there was the defeat of South Dandenong (now Dandenong Thunder).
If you it and want to keep it, use one of those video downloader thingies in case the use of music sees the sound taken from the video at some point in the future due to certain violations.
A few years ago Pave Jusup asked if I'd kept any records on junior leagues. I said no, as given the obscurity of finding some senior and reserves final tables I figured I would be on a hiding to nothing attempting to compile that data.
Well, like the glutton for punishment that I am, I've decided to have a crack. This preliminary attempt is based of what could be found in VSF Yearbooks, FFV Annual Reports and the current FFV website. I've yet to go through the Soccer Action era to fill in more of the 1970's and 1980's but most of that should be covered. I will make notes in the comments section below on my success in that area.
As usual, there is a void in the years 2002-2003 where official record keeping did not keep up with changes in the digital age. If anyone can help, please contact me at markboric@bigpond.com
That goes for any other of the gaps throughout time. Once again, I will be using the comments section to provide updates.
Compiling this list emphasised the growth of the game over the years, most especially the recent boom in female football. The changes in junior boundaries can also be observed. Then there are the experiments like dividing the 1996 season into Autumn and Winter Competitions.
I will soon go through the Soccer Action collection to update those years, but this project is very much on the backburner, down the list of my other historical searches. Unless there is a flood of information supplied (I'm happy to do the typing) further updates may be some time coming. There are the usual issues of VSF Yearbooks neglecting junior details in many years.
Things have been a little quiet on the blogging side recently, as I'm going through old notes to double check and reorganise my records as I try and track down what is missing to complete the seasons from 1910-1949. I've made a few State Library visits for very little reward.
If anyone wants some clip art, here is my current collection:
Thanks to some photos of clippings about soccer in Whyalla and the Northern Areas Soccer Association sent to me by Danny Wilson, a page on football in that area has been added to the History Documents page and can be found here.
They cover the career of Tommy Russell from his early days at Croatia then his veteran years with Wanderers in the local competition.
