It is 50 years since Sir Alex Ferguson pulled on his boots as a 16-year-old and made his debut for Queen’s Park in the Scottish Second Division against Stranraer at Stair Park, known locally as the Clayhole. The ‘Spiders’ lost two-one but the boy scored with ‘a smashing drive’, though a perceptive reporter noted he was ‘a bit slow’. He went on to play with St Johnstone, Dunfermline Athletic and then signed for Glasgow Rangers in 1967. Earlier that year he came to Australia with a Scotland squad denuded of the players of the Old Firm, Celtic and Rangers, and Leeds United.
Celtic was to win the European Cup on 25 May in Lisbon, the first British club to do so, while Rangers contested the Cup Winners final against Bayern Munich on 31 May, and Leeds United, which had Billy Bremner, Peter Lorimer and Eddie Gray in its side, was in the final of the European Fairs Cup, the predecessor of the UEFA Cup. Criticism in Australia of the omission of these players was understandable but somewhat myopic. When the tour was planned it could hardly have been predicted that three of the six finalists in the top European competitions would include two from Scotland and one from England, even though England had won the World Cup the previous year. But the Scottish Football Association downgraded the status of the tour, and refused to award full international caps to the players taking part, something that still rankles with Ferguson because that is the closest he got to a full international cap as a player.

Three games were played against Australia, all resulting in Scottish victories, with Ferguson scoring the only goal in the first match at the Sydney Showgrounds on 28 May and both goals in the two-nil win at Olympic Park on 3 June. The intervening match was played in Adelaide at Norwood Oval and Ray Baartz got Australia’s only goal of the games, but Jim Townsend and Willie Morgan scored for Scotland. Ferguson was playing for Dunfermline Athletic when he left on the tour which took in Israel, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Canada, but at the start of the next season he signed for Rangers. When he left Rangers in 1969 he joined Falkirk, after turning down a move to Nottingham Forest.

Ferguson’s last season as a player was in 1973–74 at Ayr United, where he played 18 games and six as a substitute, scoring nine league goals. At Ayr he came under the influence of the ebullient Ally MacLeod, later to manage Aberdeen and Scotland, a path Ferguson himself was to follow on Ally’s recommendation. MacLeod handled spiky characters splendidly and got the best out of a collection of players who lacked the brilliance of some previous Ayr United teams. George ‘Dandy’ Maclean and Ferguson were two of his entertainers with whom he had some immortal struggles. He and Ferguson—‘a real barrack-room lawyer’—had some blazing rows, but professional respect and slightly bizarre senses of humour kept them going.

Ferguson got his first taste of management at East Stirling, but within three months he had moved to St Mirren, where he won promotion to the Premier Division in 1977. He was sacked from that job in 1978, but when Billy McNeill returned to Celtic from Aberdeen that year, Ferguson became manager of Aberdeen. In eight years he won the Scottish Premier League three times, four Scottish Cups, the UEFA Cup against Real Madrid in the final in 1983 and the European Super Cup the following year. That record led to his joining Jock Stein as assistant manager of Scotland and taking over when the big man died of a heart attack after a match against Wales in 1985.

So Ferguson was in charge of Scotland against Australia in a two-legged qualifier for the World Cup. Scotland beat Australia by two goals to nil at Hampden Park on 20 November 1985 with goals by Davie Cooper and Frank McAvennie. Despite some shenanigans involving Mo Johnston and McAvennie, the Scots held on for a scoreless draw in Melbourne in the second leg on 4 December. Ferguson wrote in his autobiography, ‘The game was no triumph for us but the 0–0 result was perfectly satisfactory … the truth is that Jim Leighton ensured our passage to the finals with four outstanding saves.’ The day after the game, the CEO of the Scottish Football Association, Ernie Walker, told Ferguson that Mo Johnston had been banging on his door in the middle of the night, stark naked and with a similarly disrobed female in tow. Johnston did not go to Mexico with the Scottish team!

The next move for Ferguson was to secure his managerial status when he replaced Ron Atkinson at Manchester United in 1986. The initial years were not propitious for the then trophy-starved club. Many argue that had Mark Robbins not scored a critical winning goal against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup in 1990 Ferguson’s tenure would have been cut short. United won the Cup that year, and the first of ten Premier League titles in 1993. A Cup and League double followed in 1994, then the incredible treble of League, Cup and European Champions League with two goals in injury time in the final against Bayern Munich in 1999. That year Ferguson came back to Australia with a full strength United team though the matches were overshadowed from an Australian perspective by a severe injury suffered by Simon Colosimo in the second game at Stadium Australia in Sydney on 18 July. United striker, Andy Cole, was blamed for that by the locals, and Carlton’s plan to sell the young Colosimo for a large sum to a European club was aborted and the player’s career was blighted for the best part of two years.

After flirting with retirement in 2002, Ferguson rebuilt United to win back-to-back Premier League titles in 2007 and 2008 and a second Champions League title in 2008 on penalty kicks against Chelsea in Moscow. That was on the 50th anniversary of the Munich air crash which had destroyed Sir Matt Busby’s United ‘babes’. Fergie is still firmly in control at Old Trafford and once again is in the process of reconstructing a team to challenge for more silverware. Whether he is the greatest manager ever in British football is something that can be argued about, but for longevity and resilience and the capacity to change with the seismic shifts in the economics and culture of the modern game he has no peer. Beleaguered British prime minister Gordon Brown could do worse than put this long time Labour supporter in the House of Lords as Lord Ferguson of Govan, where he might sort out the nation as he has done football.

It may turn out to be a storm in a teacup but the proposed and then rescinded banning of Eureka flags at football matches involving Melbourne Victory was an own goal for the code. As the fans themselves point out, the Eureka flag was flown at the very first Melbourne Victory games and has been there ever since, even if now it is less evident than Victory and Blue and White Brigade and other banners. Questions arise about whether the Football Federation of Australia instructed security at Telstra Dome to announce a forthcoming ban or whether this was an interpretation placed by the security company on the Spectator Code of Conduct which the FFA has introduced.

Sometimes one wonders whether the FFA realises how lucky it has been to have Melbourne Victory and its exuberant, noisy and boisterous fans. Even the club sometimes gives the impression that they are a necessary evil. But when they are not there in force Telstra Dome is a morgue. So the problem is how does the code encourage the atmosphere without the occasional incidents of unacceptable behaviour which occur? Here the responsibility comes back to the fans themselves on the one hand and the media on the other.

Victory fans have always prided themselves on their passionate but independent support for the club. They have never become an official part of the club organisation though they expect to be consulted by the club when changes are proposed to the arrangements under which they watch matches. Because they consist of a number of separate groups this makes getting their co-operation on contentious matters very difficult, so one can sympathise with the FFA, the club and the security organisations when they describe the problems they have faced in evolving acceptable policies and having them implemented. The fan groups are reluctant to be seen to be policing the behaviour of their members but the more they can do to inhibit violent or provocative activities the more they can ensure that the majority will not be treated unfairly by the authorities.

At a National Youth League game at the weekend, the referee drew the attention of security to some foul-mouthed abuse from a group of fans on the terracing. A couple of security people went over to the group and spoke to them and from then on there was no further incident. Obviously it is more difficult to achieve similar results in a crowd of the size of that at Telstra Dome for the A-League game against Sydney when a season-high 31,546 were present. But here too proactive work by police and security in general defused a number of situations, though some fans were uneasy at what they saw as heavy-handed action by some officials.

As for the media it is about time it dropped its premise that football fans are just an explosion of ethnic tension about to happen. Victory fans are drawn from all groups in Australian society and they are very largely members of the domestic population, not migrants as was the case in previous soccer booms. They are just as likely to be seen at footy or cricket matches as at the round ball code. So the very few incidents of unacceptable behaviour which do occur need to be treated as such and not the harbinger of a breakdown in society.

It is only two years ago since Australia played in the World Cup in Germany in 2006, but already it seems like a significant part of our past. While the performances of the Socceroos were inspiring, the fans did their bit to make this an extraordinary occasion. There were roughly 60,000 Australians in Germany in June 2006, most without tickets, but there for the atmosphere and the off-field activities It was the largest outward movement of the Australian population since the Second World War. Books have already been written about the fans’ experiences by Tony Wilson and Jesse Fink.

It was fascinating to watch the ways individuals and families responded to the occasion. Most supported Australia, some barracked for the country of their heritage, others had a bob each way. Some of my Croatian friends cut up Australian and Croatian shirts and sewed half of each together to reflect that support.

At matches the Australian national anthem was sung with a fervour not seen and heard since previous World Cup qualifiers in Australia against Iran and twice against Uruguay in Sydney and Melbourne. Yet for the most part the fans were in enormous good humour and their chants reflected that. There was much less of the staple Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi that seemingly features at every major Australian sporting event. Instead there was more invention as when ‘You are red, you are white and you’re going home tonight,’ and ‘Your shirt looks like a tablecloth, da-da, da-da’, was sung at the Croatians, and ‘You only sing when you’re whaling’, at the Japanese.

In Kaiserslautern when a couple of fans tried to get those around them to join in offensive chants replete with crude language and racist overtones, one young coloured Aussie lad told them explicitly and clearly, ‘We are a multicultural society and don’t want any of that kind of thing here’. He clearly spoke on behalf of the surrounding Australian contingent, who collectively continued to ignore the drunken, would-be trouble makers who remained isolated throughout. Australian banners in the stadia showed that there was a clear mixture of old and new fans. Several were in non-English languages, particularly Greek, reinforcing the sense that Australia is a multicultural country, and many reflected the club loyalties of the various ethnic groups making up the diverse Australian fanbase.

In Australia the reception of the World Cup by the mass of the people was extraordinary. This was reflected in the media which seems to have underestimated the extent of popular enthusiasm. Large screens in major venues saw crowds of several thousands gather to watch matches. Federation Square in Melbourne was packed, with some people travelling from Geelong, 80 kilometres away, to watch matches on the big screen rather than at home or in a local hotel. Crowds in Federation Square for the four Australian matches ranged from 7000 to 12 000, with a similar number at Birrarung Marr. The games finished at anywhere between three and seven in the morning. After the Australia–Japan and Australia–Croatia games a significant number of those present at Federation Square, estimated at around 2000 on the former and 4000 on the latter occasion, marched to the steps of state parliament in Spring Street as if it were a political demonstration.

At the first march one man had a banner ‘Guus for PM’, and the parliament steps party lasted half an hour and included the singing of the national anthem. Sydney’s George Street was at a standstill in the mornings after games, with cars and pedestrians festooned with colours, shouting and celebrating.

Though the media had contributed to the build-up to the tournament and had done a great deal to promote interest and convey the extent to which the rest of the world had focused on it, the overwhelming impression is that members of the daily media were taken aback by the popular response. Many of those who had spent much of their lives denigrating ‘this foreign game’ admitted that they had not experienced anything, either in Germany or in Australia, to match what they saw and in which they became involved. Typical is the reaction of Gary Lyon, former Melbourne AFL player and now anchor of the Melbourne version of the Channel 9 Footy Show:

It has taken a trip to the other side of the world, to witness the most amazing sporting festival you could imagine, to see the true game of football through the eyes of those who have been championing it for decades as the biggest sport on the planet. … the World Cup is a seething mass of emotion where the passion generated by coaches, players and supporters is the closest thing to war without weapons that you are likely to find. The focus on the games reduces presidents and prime ministers to the same level as factory workers and school kids; that of the everyday sports fan.

This article draws on Roy Hay and Tony Joel, ‘Football’s World Cup and its fans—reflections on national styles: A photo essay on Germany 2006,’ Soccer and Society, 8, no. 1, January 2007, pp. 1–32.

Hakoah, one of two clubs which represented the Jewish community in Melbourne, was founded just after the First World War in 1924. It joined the Victorian Amateur British Football Association in 1926. In the following decade it became a powerhouse in the game, winning the first division of the league in 1934, 1935 and 1938. It also won its first Dockerty Cup in 1935.

1935 Dockerty Cup final

Saturday, September 14, 1935
Hakoah 4 (Forrest 2, McIver, Lewis) Caledonians 3 (Johnstone pen, P Young, Gray)
Olympic Park, Melbourne. Referee: J Parker.
HAKOAH: Aguilera, W Yaffe, A Mackey, J Bowman, A Roth, Wise, Tom McCluskey, P Lewis,

Frank McIver, Orr, Forrest. Reserves: Molinski, Shepherd.
CALEDONIANS: Bob Morgan, George Weir, H Beats, Andy Mayne, S Weir, Jim Young, Peter Young,

J Paulsen, B Gray, Johnstone, D Hughes, Sampson, Kirkwood, Lyons.

Hakoah always had a nucleus of Scottish players in its ranks and during the Second World War when the number of teams participating fell, Hakoah joined forces with Scottish backed club Moreland and won the attenuated league in 1943 and the Dockerty Cup in 1945.

After the war Hakoah became independent once again and after some early struggles it got back into the First Division in 1952 and remained there until the State League began in 1958. The team in 1955 included Doenges, Vesovic, McIntosh, Harburn, Tom Jack, Harry Sutherland, Ressler, Sid Thomas, Joe Gottesman, H Rice and Piercy. Hakoah stayed in the top division until 1983.

Hakoah Sports Club was never only a football club and it had basketball, ice hockey and table tennis teams among others. In the league Hakoah was always competitive but in the post war years its highest finish was as runner-up on goal difference to the all-conquering Juventus in 1956. But its cup form was outstanding, winning the Dockerty Cup again four times in succession from 1953 to 1956, and reaching the final from 1959 to 1962 where George Cross was its nemesis, as Hakoah lost three finals out of four to its Maltese rival. But in 1966 and 1973 Hakoah won the Dockerty Cup again. In 1968, in the last year of the Australia Cup, Hakoah Melbourne reached the final where it lost to Hakoah Sydney by 6–1 over two legs.

The Reserve team showed the strength in depth of the club taking out the Armstrong Cup six times in 1956, 1958, 1964, 1970, 1975 and 1980. John O’Neil won the Rothmans’ Medal while at Hakoah in 1969 and David Baker did so twice in 1975 and 1977.

In 1972 Hakoah amalgamated with the St Kilda Club and in 1982 it joined the other club playing on Middle Park, the Greek-backed Hellas. By then South Melbourne Hellas was playing in the National Soccer League, and the St Kilda-Hellas-Hakoah combination maintained a presence in the Victorian State League. In 1983 the club appears as South Melbourne in the fixtures with long time club stalwart Kurt Defris as Secretary.
Melbourne businessman Jack Skolnik was president of the club in the 1950s and its early driving force, but Kurt Defris was a most influential figure. Born in Vienna he played alongside Max Gold, who later coached Rapid Vienna on its tour of Australia in 1955. Defris got out of Vienna as Hitler’s Anschluss brought Austria under Nazi control. He escaped to China, organising 60 football teams and more than 200 table tennis teams in Shanghai. He survived the Japanese occupation and then came to Australia, where his parents had settled, in 1946.

He quickly became involved with Melbourne’s Hakoah and the stories about his enthusiasm and his management style would fill a book, not just a column. He was the first ‘New Australian’, as continental migrants were called in those days, to manage the Victorian and Australian teams which he did in 1955. He was a long-serving member of the Victorian Amateur Soccer Football Association and its successor the Victorian Soccer Federation.

Hakoah in the 1950s continued to have a spine of Scottish (and English) players in its ranks, notably Tom Jack who captained Australia and Victoria, winning 14 full caps for his adopted country. Others included Harry Sutherland, Pat Clarke, H Rice and Sid Thomas. Later Scots-born stars included Socceroo keeper Jack Reilly. Another Scot, Harry Mowbray, played with Hakoah in Sydney.

By the 1980s the Jewish support for football was waning and even Sydney City Hakoah, a founder member of the National Soccer League, was withdrawn by Frank Lowy in 1987, never to return. Maccabi football club in Melbourne had already gone. It played in the lower divisions from 1951 to 1963. In recent years there has been a revival with Maccabi clubs fielding teams in indoor and outdoor football in New South Wales.

At last there are signs that the Football Federation of Australia is beginning to recognise that the game in this country has a history, and that the custodian of the sport in 2008 has a duty to understand and appreciate that history. In the early days, following the Frank Lowy take-over, you could accept that he and his cohorts wanted to make a break, to promote new football, not old soccer. Now that they are firmly established, they have the self-confidence to look back and promote the heroes and heroines of the game, who helped make its history.

The FFA has recognised the contribution of the Australian Football Hall of Fame, which was the result of the tireless work of Melbourne Olympic games representative, Ted Smith, Morwell Falcons patron Dom di Fabrizio and journalist Ted Simmons among others. Now the Socceroo Club brings together all those who have worn the green and gold at senior level for Australia. Before Australia took on China in Sydney on 22 June, commemorative caps were presented to Socceroo icons, Ray Richards, Doug Utjesenovic, Ron Corry, Alan Maher, Gary Manuel, Murray Barnes and Charlie Yankos, by another of their number, Ray Baartz.

In his opening remarks, Ray Baartz said the Socceroo Club members were keen to assist the growth of the game. They would give advice to young players considering going overseas. But he pointed to gaps which exist in our football history, including the lack of tradition in the game. The FFA does not have photos of many of the older players who have represented Australia, for example.

The first Socceroo to be recognised was Dragan (Doug) Utjesenovic. He was born in Serbia in 1946 and played with OFK in Belgrade, then came to Australia at age 23 in 1969 He played with JUST and Melbourne Hungaria, then had 10 years with St George Budapest in Sydney. Ray Baartz got a laugh by saying Utjesenovic was his hero when he was growing up. Ray is one year younger than Doug! Doug played every minute of every match in the qualifying rounds and the World Cup finals in 1973–74. In all he had 61 caps and scored two goals between 1972 and 1976. He retired at 34 and went on to coach Apia-Leichardt, Parramatta Eagles and Bonnyrigg White Eagles.

Ray Richards was another born in 1946, in his case in England. He came to Queensland to play for Latrobe, then Hollandia before moving to Sydney Croatia for a season, followed by a decade at Marconi. A tough, all-action midfield enforcer he played in all three matches in Germany at the World Cup in 1974, getting sent off in the final match against Chile. He gained 60 caps and scored 10 goals for the Socceroos.

Gary Manuel is less well known. Born in 1950 he had six games in the green and gold including the matches against Uruguay, Indonesia and Israel in 1974. He played for Prague and Pan-Hellenic in Sydney.

Ron Corry, was born in Sydney in 1941 and played 33 times in goals for the Socceroos. From Canterbury, he moved via Pan Hellenic to Sydney Croatia, where he was keeper from 1966 till 1975. Later he kept for Manly and Marconi, then coached Croatia, Blacktown and Wollongong in the National Soccer League, plus stints as goalkeeping coach with the Socceroos.

Alan Maher was another Socceroo keeper, born in 1950, and racked up 39 games for his country. His club career was spent with Sutherland and Marconi in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Murray Barnes received 51 caps, and scored 9 goals. He skippered the Socceroos in 1980–81 including the World Cup qualifiers when New Zealand topped the Oceania group and went to Spain. He played with Hakoah and with Sydney City in the NSL.

The final honouree got perhaps the biggest cheer of the night, Charlie Yankos. He racked up 86 caps and scored 11 goals including the ferocious free kick against Argentina in the 1988 Gold Cup and another against Israel. Captain of Frank Arok’s ‘mad dogs’ Charlie epitomised the determination of that generation of players. He played with Heidelberg United, then moved to APIA before a stint in Greece with PAOK Salonika in 1988–89. When he returned to Australia he had spells at Blacktown and Wollongong in the NSL.

JUST, the Jugoslav United Soccer Team, was founded in Melbourne in March 1950 by Ivan Kuketz, a local hotelier and vice-president of the Brighton club where a number of recently-arrived Yugoslav players were playing. Kuketz had come to Australia from Europe in the 1930s and was of Croatian background. He was assisted by John Ivanovic. Harold Holt, then Minister for Immigration in the Menzies government, helped Kuketz to recruit players from Bonegilla and other migrant centres in Victoria, Canberra and New South Wales.

JUST had a swift climb to the top level in Victorian football. It won Division Three South in 1950. In 1951 JUST was the only unbeaten team in Victoria as it ran away with Division Two and won the Dockerty Cup for the first time. Inside forward Stevo Zakomarac was one of the stars of the early 1950s, representing Victoria against England in 1951 within a few months of his arrival. He had played with Radnicki in Belgrade before the war. Though there was always a strong core of Yugoslav players, JUST drew on talent from many countries. Spanish inside forward Jose ‘Pepe’ Cubero shared the Argus Medal with Bob Wemyss in 1956. Maltese recruits Lolly and Tony Vella also starred with JUST in the 1950s.

At the time Juventus was the dominant team in Victorian football and JUST became one of its main challengers. JUST reached the First Division for the 1952 season, playing at Yarra Park. Then it moved to Orrong Park, Como Park and the Melbourne Showgrounds before settling in Footscray at Schintler Reserve in 1961 following amalgamation with, or perhaps more accurately, a take-over of Footscray Capri. JUST won the Victorian Division One championship in 1957 by four points from Moreland, though it had the league sewn up much earlier and took its foot off the pedal in the last few rounds. This was the final season before the start of the State League in 1958.

JUST’s record was stunning. It won the State League in 1963, 1969, 1971 and 1973, the Dockerty Cup in 1951, 1963 and 1976, the Ampol Cup in 1955, 1956, 1957, 1960 and 1966 (1965 according to the VSF), the Australian Ampol Cup in 1960 and the State League Cup in 1973, 1974 and 1975. (or 1974,1975 and 1976 according to the VSF Yearbook 2000). It also won the reserves competition, the Armstrong Cup in 1968.

Rale Rasic arrived from Belgrade in 1962, thanks to the assistance of Tiko Jelisavcic who was player-coach at Yugal in Sydney. In his autobiography, Rasic describes the move as ‘going from living on the French Riviera to living in the Stone Age’. But JUST was welcoming and had a cadre of top class players including Frank Micic, Billy Rice, Jim Milisavljevic, Cec Dickson and later Tommy Stankovic. In 1963 JUST won the State League and the Dockerty Cup. In 1964 Rasic returned to Jugoslavia to do his national service, but also undertook a university degree, and came back to Australia when that was done in January 1966. He began his coaching career with JUST and then with the Victorian State team and in 1970 succeeded ‘Uncle’ Joe Vlasits as coach of the Socceroos.

In the 1970s the club continued to pile up championships and cups and Footscray JUST was a founder member of the National Soccer League in 1977 under its dynamic president Tony Kovac. In 1985 it finished in last place in the Southern Conference, when the NSL had been split in 1984. Saved from relegation, JUST bounced back in 1986 to record its best ever finish as runner-up to Brunswick United Juventus. In the finals series, JUST reached the Southern Division Grand Final going down by two goals to one against Adelaide City at Olympic Park. Jugoslav legend, Drago Sekularac was coach of the year in 1986. Ossie Latif was top scorer for JUST that year with 8 goals. But this proved to be JUST’s swansong. In the next two years it finished well down the table and in 1989 it came second last and was relegated.

JUST played in the Victorian State League as Melbourne City JUST in 1990. Ken Knight was Secretary. In 1991 it was down to State League Division One following the inception of the Victorian Premier League and it had been colonised by South Americans. Mr J Pacheco took over as Secretary and all connection with the Jugoslav/Serbian community was severed. In 1994 when in Division Three Melbourne City moved to Keilor Park Reserve, so the Footscray connection also disappeared.

Over the years JUST had many top class players including Ivan Pikl, Branko Buljevic, Slobodan Zoraja and Mendo Ristovski, while coach Pepe Dugina helped develop Socceroo stars including Oscar Crino and Alan Davidson.

My thanks to Milan Ninovic for assistance with this column.

Next month Australia will continue its attempt to reach the World Cup finals in South Africa with a series of qualifying matches against Iraq, China and Qatar. If it succeeds it will then go on to a second stage which will determine the four automatic places for the Asian Confederation, with the fifth placed team facing a play-off against the Oceania winner. So to get there Australia could face 18 matches in all.

In 1965 Australia had its first tilt at the World Cup and faced a very different scenario. Of the four countries in the Asia-Oceania qualifying group South Korea withdrew and South Africa was banned. So there was only one opponent, North Korea, and the two matches were played at a neutral venue in Cambodia (Kampuchea) in November.

The Australian preparation consisted of four weeks training in Cairns but only one practice match against local side Ingham. The last international match for the Australian team had been against Chelsea in May 1965. Meanwhile the North Koreans had played around 35 internationals in three years and the squad consisted of full time players and members of the services. Johnny Warren describes the culture shock faced by the Australians on their first visit to Asia and how much they underestimated their opponents. As he said, ‘it was like landing on another planet.’

The Australian squad of 20 players had 7 Scots, 5 English and 5 Australians, plus an Irishman, a German and Steve Herczeg from South Australia, whose birthplace I have been unable to establish. It is true that one of the English-born was John Watkiss who grew up in Botany alongside Johnny Warren. The coach was Tiko Jelisavcic from Jugoslavia who was player-coach at Hakoah in Sydney.

None of the players from overseas had established themselves at the highest level, though some had a little first team experience with good club sides. Both keepers, John Roberts and Bill Rorke were Australians and though Roberts was criticised for his performance in the first match against North Korea, he was the only one of that generation to go the other way and establish himself in English football with Blackburn Rovers, Chesterfield, Bradford City and Southend United.

Nigel Shepherd and Stan Ackerley were the full backs, with Pat Hughes, Billy Rice and Les Scheinflug at half-back, and the forwards were Geoff Sleight, John Anderson, Archie Blue, John Watkiss and David Todd. Les Scheinflug, who was to be Rale Rasic’s assistant in the successful 1974 campaign, was the skipper.

Several of the Australians had been affected by injuries or illness in the lead-up to the first game in the Olympic Stadium on 21 November 1965. A crowd of 60,000 packed the ground, cheering for the Koreans. The heat and the humidity were oppressive and the speed and physicality of their opponents took the Australians by surprise. An early goal to the marvellous Pak Do Ik was the only score in the first half, though Watkiss narrowly missed a chance just before the break. Then in a thirteen-minute spell, North Korea scored three times, before Scheinflug converted a penalty after Watkiss had been brought down. Two late goals to North Korea completed a 6–1 drubbing.

For the second match three days later, Jelisavcic made 5 changes bringing in Bill Rorke in goal, Billy Cook, Roy Blitz, Steve Herczeg and Jim Pearson. With more height in attack and a clear awareness of what they were up against, Australia took the game to the Koreans. After a quarter of an hour, the enterprise was rewarded when Blitz and Pearson set up Scheinflug for his second goal of the series. But the lead only lasted four minutes as Pak Seung Jin deceived Rorke with an effort from 20 metres. Just after half-time Korea went ahead though Kim Seung Il, and the same player completed the scoring late on.

There were several bizarre things about this whole episode. If Australia had won the second match, there would have been a play-off, because goal difference did not count in these matches. After the two qualifiers Australia went on to play a series of friendly matches against Asian countries and a Swedish team to help defray the cost of the World Cup expedition. Had these matches been played before, not after, it would have made sense and given the Australians much needed match practice and acclimatisation. So lessons were learned by from this disastrous effort, though it took another failed campaign before the success of 1974.

For North Korea qualification was just the stepping stone to its heroics in England where it defeated and thus helped eliminate Italy in its group and led Portugal by three goals to nil before Eusebio and his colleagues regained control to win by 5–3.

The mighty Juventus will play Melbourne Victory on 30 May bringing back memories of previous matches against Italian clubs on tour to Australia.

AS Roma was the first to arrive after the Second World War and it played two games at Olympic Park in 1966, setting the crowd attendance record for that venue variously put at 37,500 and 35,856 in the first of these. Either way it is the crowd record for Olympic Park. Roma won the first game by four goals to two after scoring in the first minute through Angelo Spanio, but when the Vics hit back with goals by Norm Gajda and Frank Micic, the crowd began singing ‘Arrivederci Roma’, before late efforts by Spanio again, Fulvio Francesconi and Victor Benitez swung the game back to the visitor. The second match attracted 15,694. Roma won by a goal to nil.

In 1976 Bologna arrived and played the Socceroos in Adelaide and Sydney. Australia beat Bologna by three goals to one at Hindmarsh in Adelaide, with goals by Richie Bell, Dave Harding and Atti Abonyi. The second match at the Sydney Cricket Ground was a scoreless draw. An Italian army team also visited in 1976 and it downed Australia 3–1 at the Sydney Sports Ground in front of 15,000 on 18 May.

Four years later AC Milan made the first of its two visits. Australia beat the Italian giant by two goals to one thanks to Gary Cole and Mark Jankovics at the Sydney Sports Ground on 18 May 1980. Tom Anderson described the Milan tackles and defensive methods as ‘crude, rude and downright dirty’. Jimmy Rooney captained the Australian team. ‘The wee man stood head and shoulders above them all’, according to the match report in Soccer Action. That year Milan was relegated to Serie B for its part in a match-fixing scandal.

Milan beat Western Australia 3–2, South Australia 3–1 and Victoria by 2–0 in front of 18,000 at Olympic Park.

It came back again in 1993 as Serie A champion and played two matches on successive nights in Sydney and Melbourne. Stunning displays by Mark Bosnich in goal could not prevent defeats through a Tony Vidmar own goal in the first match and strikes by Marco Simone and Gianluigi Lentini in the second at Princes Park. Referee John Fraser came in for criticism for carving nine minutes off the first half of the latter game, though some said it was done so Milan could catch the late night flight back to Italy.

Juventus has also been here before. In 1984 it arrived as the holder of the European Cup Winners Cup and played a three-match series against Australia. Iraklis, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest and Glasgow Rangers also took part in the month long tournament. Australia drew one-all with Juve at the MCG, thanks to a powerful David Ratcliffe header from a Joe Watson corner, only for Giovanni Koetting to equalise late in the game. Australia went down by four goals to two in Adelaide in the second match, but bounced back for a stunning 2–0 win in Sydney with goals from Steve O’Connor and Marshall Soper. Antonio Cabrini was sent off just before half-time, but coach Giovanni Trapattoni said Australia won because ‘it showed more heart and wanted to win more than we did’.

Udinese was next to appear in 1985 taking part in a four team tournament with Tottenham Hotspur, Vasco da Gama from Brazil and the Socceroos. Australia defeated the Italians at Football Park in Adelaide by two goals to one. The games were played as double-headers and Udinese drew with Vasco at the MCG and beat Spurs 2–0 in Sydney. One of my memories of that tournament is of locked gates on the upper deck of the MCG in the week after the Bradford fire in which many people perished when exits were barred to fleeing spectators.

Sampdoria toured the Far East in 1996, downing Perth Glory by 3 goals to nil on the Australian leg of its journey. Kris Trajanovski, Geelong-born Socceroo, turned out for Indonesia against Sampdoria in front of over 100,000 in Jakarta, and marked England captain David Platt, during that tour.
An Italian women’s team visited in January 1999, playing two matches and winning the first on penalties despite being down to 8 players after three were sent off. The second saw a one-nil win to the Matildas thanks to Cheryl Salisbury’s strike in 19 minutes at Bruce Stadium.

The most recent Italian team to play in Australia was the Under-23 team which took part in the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. In the opening match with the Olyroos at the MCG before 93,252 Italy grabbed a late winner after an error by Hayden Foxe. A win over Honduras, and a draw with Nigeria got Italy into the quarter final, where it went down in turn to a late goal by Spain.

Brunswick United Juventus, our local National Soccer League club, went the other way, meeting Roma in Rome in 1985. That trip came as a bonus from the president, Tony Schiavello, for winning the NSL championship that year.

I am indebted to Andrew Howe, Egilberto Martin, Russell Lea, Nick Guoth, Denis Harlow, Richard Kreider, John Punshon and the contributors to the Ozfootball website for information for this article. Photographs by permission of Les Shorrock and John Punshon.

Geelong lawyer and soccer writer John Didulica has just won a key post as Legal Counsel for the Football Federation of Australia. In that role he will have an influence on the way the game develops and is administered in Australia and internationally. ‘As a lawyer, the challenge of sport is very tricky. It is never purely a legal role, you must always be asking yourself, what is the sport trying to achieve? There is a balance between understanding and applying the law in an environment where passion and emotion are involved in the sport,’ he said.

A star with North Geelong and later a top class National League and Victorian Premier League player until a series of knee operations ended his career, Didulica completed his law degree at Deakin University. After completing his articles with local firm Coulter Roche he branched out on his own, while acting as manager to his brother, Joey Didulica now with AZ Alkmaar in Holland, and becoming the legal counsel and later chief executive of the Australian Professional Footballers Association. It was there that he gained an intimate knowledge of player contracts and the statutes and regulations which are the nuts and bolts of the professional game. He was appointed to its international tribunal by FIFA, the governing body of world football in 2005. As if that workload was not demanding enough he took over the soccer column of the Geelong Advertiser. This year he was recognised as the Geelong Soccer Personality for 2008 for his contributions to the game.

Having re-established his legal practice, Didulica Legal, in Geelong and married Olivia Baric, Didulica was unwilling to relocate full-time to Sydney where the FFA has its headquarters. So he has negotiated a contract that will see him spend 3 days at week in the harbour city at least until July.

He takes up his role at a particularly exciting time for the game in this country, with World Cup qualification already under way, links with Asia developing through the Asian Champions League and the Beijing Olympic Games, in which the Olyroos will take part, and the A-League becoming firmly established as a flagship competition. Then there is the commitment by the Federal Government to a bid to host the World Cup in 2018.

‘I know what I would like to achieve for the game. It is important that the game is run as a business, but that is the means to an end. The values which must shape the game are those of fair play and entertainment. I admire the egalitarianism of the AFL and the application of those values to the administration of our code will help make the FFA a better custodian of the game,’ he said. In his new role, John Didulica will have a significant influence on the growth of football in this country.

On Sunday the Newcastle Jets won the third A-League Grand Final at the same time as Geelong’s leading football (soccer) clubs were wrestling for a spot in the finals of the local competition which has replaced the long-running Geelong Advertiser Cup. The contrasts could not have been greater in terms of playing standard and local organisation of the world game. Yet the two cities are not dissimilar in a host of ways so a look at the reasons why Newcastle has been successful and Geelong has not is instructive.

First however the similarities betwen the two cities. Both draw on a region of around a quarter of a million people and are located almost equidistant from the state capital and metropolitan centre. Both have strong industrial and commercial bases with extensive educational and service supports. Newcastle used to be a major mining centre which helps explain its historical development as a centre of soccer, almost independent of Sydney in its own Northern New South Wales hinterland. Geelong had its western district wool growing, a very different demographic structure and one much less conducive to the emergence of what was for many years an immigrants’ game. This difference more or less disappeared after the Second World War, when Geelong attracted thousands of migrants from Britain and Europe, who brought their soccer with them, while the significance of the mines around Newcastle declined relative to iron and steel and engineering. Both cities are homes to major teams in other codes of football. Geelong has the Cats in the AFL and the Newcastle Knights have been a powerhouse in Rugby League.

So objectively the two cities have similar potential as far as soccer is concerned but the outcomes have been very different. Newcastle has had a single team which is the focus of the local interest and involvement, even though the name has changed several times. The Jets succeed Newcastle United, KB United, and several other iterations at National League level since the 1970s. Geelong is completely divided along what are largely ethnically-based lines and only North Geelong, backed by the Croatian migrant community, has reached the Victorian Premier League, a long way below the national league. Yet Geelong, and particularly North Geelong, has produced a string of international and national level players including Edi Krncevic, Steve Horvat, Kris Trajanovski, Josip Skoko, the Cervinski and Didulica brothers, Adrian Leijer, Matthew Spiranovic and many more. Certainly enough to form a quality national league team had they all been available at the same time.

In the 1960s, the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s serious attempts were made to form a combined Geelong soccer organisation capable of supporting a team at national league level, but each time the strongest of the local clubs helped scupper the initiative believing that it could go it alone. Each time that club had some initial success then equally quickly fell away and the game went backwards.

The message is clear. The window of opportunity for the formation of a top-level soccer organisation in Geelong is open now for a brief period. The A-League will see the successful Melbourne Victory franchise come to the end of its exclusive period in two years. If the league is going to expand to 12 teams, probably the maximum possible given the available talent pool, then Geelong needs to have a viable proposition available within that time. Government money and interest is likely to be available, given the acceptance by the Rudd government of a bid by Australia to host the World Cup in 2018. This implies a serious development of the game at the local and regional level. Interest in the game has never been higher. For the first time this is driven by the domestic population, not a wave of inward migration, though that is helping to support grass-roots growth at the moment.

My fear is that the local clubs do not have the capacity or the will to be part of such an exercise and hence it will require, as it has in Newcastle, the intervention of an individual or a corporation prepared to throw its support behind the concept of a regional organisation. This will have to bypass what exists now as Frank Lowy and his colleagues did, again with large scale government support, in setting up what is now the Football Federation of Australia and its A-League.