Coming full circle: Betting scandals then and now

Roy Hay

Betting scandals and corruption in sport are not new, nor are links between sport and organised crime. The scale and impact have increased and the widespread links between betting on sporting outcomes now promoted assiduously by sporting organisations and abetted by governments and the media must be held partly to blame for the current episode affecting Australian soccer. International security expert Chris Eaton may say that Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are the benchmarks for good governance of gambling but it is the insidious growth of a gambling culture in these countries, as elsewhere, which is at the root of the problems. It is easy and hypocritical to blame other countries for laxity in matching organised crime with an organised response. Soft targets abound in Australia as elsewhere and as long as there is a buck to be made by rigging a betting game, whether it is two up or World Cup football, fixing will go on. This time round we may see some exemplary punishments of low-level participants, but an end to match fixing in sport is not in sight.

In my own family, the story begins in late 1925 when our local club, then managed by my grandfather, was in danger of relegation from the top division of the Scottish Football League. My grandfather had been the captain of Glasgow Celtic, Newcastle United and Scotland before the First World War and he asserted that a director of the club had attempted to bribe a referee to secure a favourable result in a match against Third Lanark. When the issue became public and went before the Council of the Scottish Football Association my grandfather was told he had no evidence to support his allegation and that he should apologise. When he refused to do so he was suspended sine die (effectively a life time ban) from the game that had been his life to that point.

The man he had accused had been the Treasurer of the Scottish Football Association for 20 years and the SFA were not prepared to have him cross-examined about the issue. The next year he was voted off the SFA executive, the first time an incumbent had lost an election in more than two decades. My grandfather’s suspension was lifted a short time later. But he refused to have anything to do with the game thereafter, apart from acting as a scout for new players for Newcastle United. The impact of his suspension continued in the family for my father won a Scottish Schoolboys Cup medal in 1926 but never pursued a football career. Two lives had been changed irrevocably. Much later, in 1954, the future head of the Scottish Legal System, Donald (later Lord) Cameron told a Glasgow Rangers player Willie Woodburn that his sine die suspension was illegal, it being beyond the powers of a private body to suspend a member indefinitely, where it was depriving him of his livelihood. If that was the case then, it would have been so in 1926.

Talent skipped my generation, but I often used to reflect that when my son played for local clubs in the Third Division of the Victorian league, the matches would appear on the British football pools. So the fate of millions of devotees of the soccer pools run by the likes of Littlewoods and Vernons could rest on results in games in which my son took part.

There were several more high profile match fixing scandals in British football over the years and last month a leading Rangers player was suspended for betting on football matches, including, it is alleged, some games in which he played and bet against his own team. The manager director of Accrington Stanley has admitted on his own website that he made over 200 bets on his own side, including 37 when he had backed them to lose. Remember Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh when playing for cricket for Australia against England in 1981 or Shane Warne and Mark Waugh and ‘John the bookmaker’ or Hanse Cronje in South Africa. Some of these may be regarded as small beer compared with the millions wagered in betting coups in Asia, where the sums generated allow for the suborning of players all round the world, particularly in lower leagues. But the principles involved are exactly the same.

The first English tour in 1925

Roy Hay

Ever since organised Association football began in Australia in the nineteenth century one of the aims of those playing and administering the game was to have an Australian team go on tour to the United Kingdom or have a team from there tour Australia. Fund raising for such a tour began in the 1880s and the issue was on the agenda of state and national bodies until it finally happened in 1925. Distance, cost and the fact that a team would have to be away from the United Kingdom for several months ensured that it did not happen till then. In 1925 the Football Association in London sent a strong representative team to Australia which arrived at the beginning of May and played 25 games before leaving again in early August. Several of the matches were regarded as promotional exercises and even the internationals were deemed to be ‘B’ rather than ‘A’ games and hence are not included in the list of caps awarded to the Australian or English players who took part. This is a slight on members of both teams.

An Australian team against England at Thebarton Oval in South Australia in 1925. Players names on picture. Source: Richard Kreider, Paddocks to Pitches, p. 74.

The tour began and ended in Perth and included matches against state teams and five test matches against Australia. England won all 25 games and scored 139 goals and conceded only 14. Sometimes the Australian opposition were lucky to get nil! The squad was not a full England eleven but it did include some excellent players. Tom Whittaker of Arsenal was a superb full back and later a long term and successful manager of the club. Stan Seymour had a similar career on and off the field with Newcastle United.

Stan Seymour playing for Newcastle United. Source: Paul Joannou, The Black and White Alphabet: A Complete Who’s Who of Newcastle United, p. 364.

The full list was: Harry Hardy (Stockport County), Teddy Davison (Sheffield Wednesday), goalkeepers; Cecil Poynton (Tottenham Hotspur), Tom Whittaker (Arsenal), Stan Charlton (Exeter City, full backs; Charlie Spencer (Newcastle United), Joe Hannah (Norwich City), Len Graham (Milwall), Bill Caesar (Dulwich Hamlet, but joined Fulham on his return to England), Jimmy Hamilton (Crystal Palace), half-backs; Stan Seymour (Newcastle United), Billy Sage and Jack Elkes (Tottenham Hotspur), Bert Batten (Plymouth Argyle, but joined Everton on return), forwards; and Ernie Simms (Stockport County), Charlie Hannaford (Clapton Orient, but joined Manchester United on return), Jimmy Walsh (Liverpool), utilities. The team was managed by John Lewis and Mark Frowde and M Atherton of Blackburn Rovers was the trainer.

Bill Caesar was the only amateur in the team, and some wag said that explained why he was able to get away on tour, but he joined Fulham on his return, though he only recorded one first team game. Bert Batten was Irish, the only non-English player in the squad, and he scored 47 or 49 goals on the tour (sources differ) and joined Everton when he got back to England. He too only managed a single first team appearance. But if these were marginal players in England, others, as noted above, went on to significant careers in the game.

The closest Australia came to holding the English was in the test match at the Agricultural Showground in Sydney on 4 July. Australia had George Cartwright in goal, Frank Gallen, T Faulkner, Charlie O’Connor, A Edwards, Harry Spurway, Stan Bourke, Percy Lennard, J Smith, H J Sheringham and R McNaughton. W A Wright refereed. England won, but only by two goals to one. Ernie Simms opened for England and Stan Bourke equalised for Australia. It was one-all until Jack Elkes scored the winner. Both sides missed penalty kicks. Sheringham was injured and had to the leave the field. The Australians had sought to be able to introduce substitutes but this was turned down by the English as being against the rules of the game as they stood at the time. The attendance was given as 26,000. Takings at the game of around £1,400 suggests there were a lot of freebies. However that sum brought the aggregate for the tour to that point to around £16,000, leaving only another £2,000 required to ensure a profit overall. Sir Harry Lauder, the Scottish music hall singer and comedian, was among the spectators.

Incident in the Sydney test match between Australia and England on 4 July 1925. Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 1925, p. 12.

The results in the other tests were more one-sided in favour of the tourists. In Brisbane on 27 June, England won five-one, then eight-two in Maitland on 11 July, and five-nil in Sydney again on 18 July. The final test in Melbourne on 25 July was a two-nil win to the visitors. England was awarded three penalty kicks and missed two of them. Charlton scored with the second penalty after a foul by Aiken to put England ahead in the 25^th minute. Batten scored the other England goal deep in the second half with a shot which slipped through keeper Robison’s hands. Apart from that Robison and his full backs Mitchell and Aiken were excellent while Masters and O’Connor were the other Australians who stood out. The full Australian line-up was probably, S Robison, Mitchell, Aiken, Morrison, Eccles, Phillips, O’Connor, Judy Masters, A Edwards, Tom Thompson, R McNaughton. Harry Spurway was also mentioned in some reports.

Judy Masters. Source: Sid Grant, Jack Pollard’s Soccer Records, p. 173.

Australian teams in those days were selected by state officials and were seldom the strongest line-ups that could have taken part. Judy Masters, one of the stars of the Australian game between the wars, did not play in the Sydney July test for example, though he did turn out in three of the other test matches. Faulkner was the only non-New South Wales player in the Australian line-up on 4 July, and while NSW was by far the strongest state at the time, it is hard to believe that there were no other players worthy of selection.

The English manager, John Lewis, later criticised the Australians for bringing on substitutes and breaching the rules of amateurism by paying players £1 per day, a £5 bonus and compensation for time lost at work. He said he would report the Australian Soccer Association to the FA.

In the program for the match against West Australia on 9 May 1925 there were two pages devoted to “‘Off-side’ Simplified”. One wonders how long a full explanation might have gone on.

My thanks to Richard Kreider for assistance with this column.

Captions for pics:

Jack Elkes of England shoots for goal in the match against Western Australia at Fremantle Oval on 9 May 1925. The Western Australian players from the left are T Boyle, Richard Utting, the skipper, and Harold Boys. Source: Richard Kreider, Paddocks to Pitches, p. 453, courtesy of Harold Dale Boys.

Incident in the Sydney test match between Australia and England on 4 July 1925. Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 1925, p. 12.

Stan Seymour playing for Newcastle United. Source: Paul Joannou, The Black and White Alphabet: A Complete Who’s Who of Newcastle United, p. 364.

Judy Masters. Source: Sid Grant, Jack Pollard’s Soccer Records, p. 173.

Roy Hay

(This article appeared as a Blast from the Past in Goal Weekly, 7 December 2012, p. 19.)

Box Hill is one of Victoria’s oldest clubs. Or is it? The origins of many clubs are quite obscure and there is reason to doubt a number of the generally accepted notions about Box Hill. Until I started researching for this column I accepted the Victorian Soccer Federation’s statement that Box Hill was founded in 1922, but I can find no sign of it in the newspapers of that year. The one copy of Soccer News for 1924 in the State Library has no mention of Box Hill. It is possible that friendly and scratch games were being played in 1922 to 1924. Today’s Box Hill United’s website says the club began in 1925 and won Division Four of the Victorian league that year. (Incidentally the Brighton club website also claims that it won Division Four in 1925.) In fact there were two clubs in Box Hill in 1925, Box Hill and Box Hill United. It was the former which won the league and was promoted to Division Three, while United remained in Division Four in 1926. Both teams took part in the Dockerty Cup. So we can safely say that there was league and cup football being played in Box Hill by two teams in 1925, but that is about all.

In June 1926 there was a nasty accident when the players of Werribee Soccer Football Club were on their way to meet Box Hill. The truck in which they were travelling was struck by a car at the junction of Flinders and Queen Street and overturned and the players were thrown into the road. We know about this because the truck’s owner sought £40 from the driver of the car for the damage done to his truck and won the court case in September. There is no mention of any recompense for the players! Box Hill went on to win Division Three.

The following year there was a split in the organisation of the game in both Victoria and New South Wales. Box Hill joined the Metropolitan Districts, while Box Hill United was part of Section A of the Melbourne and District group. In 1928 Box Hill United became Camberwell City, leaving the Box Hill club as the sole representative of the area. It was as confusing to people at the time as it is to understand today. The split had no sooner been provisionally mended when the Great Depression struck Australia and the game received a serious set-back.

When things began to improve slightly in 1931 Box Hill won Division Two of the Victorian League and promotion to the top division, which was not automatic in those days. But this proved a step too far and in 1932 the club finished last in an eight-team league. Box Hill was not relegated however and came sixth in a ten-team league in 1933. The club rose to fourth the next year, but was back in last place in 1935. This time it was relegated. John Punshon has been unable to find a final table for Division Two in 1936 but with four games left Box Hill was safely in mid table. Nobels was the runaway Division Two champion in 1937 and Box Hill led the chasing group, while in 1938 it had dropped back to mid-league mediocrity.

The outbreak of war in 1939 may well have had an impact on the Box Hill club which did not win a game in Division Two finishing last. Nineteen-forty was little better with one win, and that was a walk-over, in an incomplete season. There was little continuity among the names on the team sheets that year. Eleven starters and four reserves were named for the away game at South Yarra in July, but the result was nine-nil against. There were only six teams in Division Two in 1941 and Box Hill was in the middle. The club probably gave up trying to compete in the attenuated competition for the rest of the war years, but in 1945 it appeared again in in a league of 13 teams which played each other once, then split into two groups of six who played each other once more.

From this rather ordinary performance, Box Hill was about to embark on one of its most successful periods, winning the Division One title for the first and only time in 1948. Led by Don Hutchinson the club won ten out of fourteen games and banged in 45 goals. Hutchinson got 17 of them including three hat-tricks. The Box Hill line-up in 1948 included Vic Warry, Brown, Jack Holborn, Bill Tester, Don Hutchinson, Keith Gravell, Lester Hutchinson, F Mountford, Davis, Bayley, W Chappell, Brown and A McKellar.

Until the influx of migrants from Europe the clubs which drew on British and Australian players held sway and Box Hill was in the top five positions in each season until 1952. Thereafter the competition became fiercer and the Hillmen would probably have been relegated in 1958, if the Victorian Amateur Soccer Football Association had not instituted a State League with twelve clubs that year. It only staved off the execution until 1961 when Box Hill dropped into Division One North where it remained until winning what was then Metropolitan Division One in 1968. The reserves won the Armstrong cup in 1960, 1963, 1984 and 1989.

For the next few years Box Hill yo-yoed between the State League and the First Division. It was too good for the lower division and not good enough to stay in the top tier. The later part of the 1970s saw Box Hill in Metropolitan Division One until 1982 when it climbed back into the State League before successive relegations saw it drop to State League Two at the end of 1991, when the Victorian Premier League began. That shock led to the club amalgamating with Clayton as Box Hill Inter and a rise to the VPL for the 1995 season. Two years later there was another amalgamation this time involving Bulleen Lions and Brunswick United Juventus, which resulted in two VPL championships in 1998 and 2004 after the combined side finished third in the home and away matches. However, Box Hill gradually disengaged itself from the merger becoming effectively a junior club with Richard Mensink and John Kennedy at the helm in 1999. The demerger was expensive but eventually finalised in 2007.

Meanwhile Box Hill fielded a women’s team which took the Victorian Women’s Premier League by storm winning the title six times by 2010. Back to back titles against Heidleberg United in 2009 and 2010 were highlights.

Box Hill women’s team in 2010 before the final against Heidelberg United. Photo: Roy Hay.

Many top class players have been involved with Box Hill over the years, as juniors coming through or as senior players and mentors. They include Scott Patterson (and his brother Kyle, who is now head of media at Football Federation Australia), Micky Valentine, Damian Mori, Peter Bedford and Curtis Good.

Micky Vaelntine playing for Heidelberg.

In 2011 Box Hill was involved in yet another merger, this time with Southern Suburbs. The new entity is known as Box Hill United with the nickname Pythagoras reflecting the Greek influence of what used to be Oakleigh Suburbs in the 1990s.

Box Hill 1985

Robert Harrison, Dave Brooks, Zdravko Basic, Andy McMillan, Alan Roodhouse, Darren White, David Azzopardi, Chris Taylor, Andy Hughes, Pedro Ramos, Peter Verechia, Andy Humble. Coach: Keith Webster.

Box Hill 1989

John McKinlay, Tom McMorrow, John Dimitrelos, Greg McLeod, Paddy Cooper, Tom Kennedy, A Ham, Mike Hanley, Gary Egan, Stuart McArthur, Gerry McAleer, Alex Christie, Julian Thomas. Coach: John Brown.

Roy Hay

(This story appeared as a Blast from the Past column in Goal Weekly on 2 March 2012, p. 19. Click on the photographs below to enlarge them. The headline picture is of Jim Fraser (left) and Lou Kastner, two superb keepers.  It is by Roy Hay, the next two in the column are from the Laurie Schwab collection at Deakin University Library).

Australia has had some wonderful goalkeepers over the years from George Cartwright and Jimmy McNabb who began the tradition in the 1920s and 1930s to Mark Schwarzer who holds the Socceroo position today. It is arguable that over his long career that Jim Fraser has had as much influence on the game as any of them. He helped Australia qualify for the World Cup for the first time in 1974, played at the top level for Budapest St George in its glory days in the 1970s and in recent years has coached many of the top keepers in the land at his International Goalkeepers’ Academy in Sydney. He has also been the specialist goalkeeping coach at Sydney FC in the A-League. His enthusiasm and professionalism have communicated themselves to a legion of young and not so young keepers including Clint Bolton at Melbourne Heart and Liam Reddy at Sydney FC.

Born in 1948 in Sydney, his dad was an ice hockey goaltender, but young Jim made his game football. He started at Polonia and his talent was recognised early as he was selected as a member of the Australian World Cup squad for the qualifiers in 1969, behind the incumbent Ron Corry. Fraser went to St George in 1970 where he broke his wrist in 1971 and spent some time at Canterbury on loan after he recovered. St George tried a couple of other keepers but when Jack Reilly decided to return to Melbourne, Jimmy Fraser regained his spot at St George. When World Cup qualification got under way in 1973, Ron Corry was still the number one keeper with Reilly pressing him close. Jim Fraser’s performances for St George could not be ignored and he got his first full cap at Olympic Park in Melbourne against Bulgaria on 18 February 1973. Though the Socceroos lost two-nil against what was their World Cup team, Fraser showed that he could handle the job.

Jim Fraser makes a finger-tip save against Iraq in 1973.

After Australia was held to a surprise three-all draw by New Zealand, Fraser was given the number one spot against Iraq on 18 March. He kept a clean sheet as the Socceroos held out Iraq in scoreless draw. A six-nil thrashing of Indonesia saw Australian through the first stage, a point and goal difference ahead of Iraq. The next opponent was Iran and Fraser once again denied the opposition as Australia ran away with a three-nil win. The second leg in Tehran was a different story as Iran scored twice through Parviz Ghelichkhani in just over half an hour. It was backs to the wall from then on, with Fraser putting up the shutters once again.

Jim Fraser and another flying save against Iran in 1973.

Then came home and away matches against South Korea. Both were drawn, the first scoreless, the second a fightback from a two-nil deficit. While Branko Buljevic and Ray Baartz got the credit for the goals, Fraser’s patience, skill and positioning ensured no further goals against and so the final place at the World cup had to be decided by a third match in Hong Kong. Everyone knows about Jimmy Mackay’s 70^th minute thunderbolt, but fewer appreciate the unflappable keeper’s performance. Les Murray thought it was the best goalkeeping performance he had ever seen. So Australia was all set for the trip of a lifetime to West Germany.

Unfortunately Jimmy Fraser found he could not abandon his security dog business and had to pull out of the squad, handing his place back to Jack Reilly. Virtually all of the Australians were part-timers in 1974 and Manfred Schaefer who ran a milk delivery service had missed one tour and threatened to leave another after his financial arrangements were not honoured by the Australian Soccer Federation.

Not the tallest of keepers, Jimmy Fraser punches clear in a match in Sydney. Source: Sid Grant, Jack Pollard’s Soccer Records, p. 268.

Jimmy Fraser amassed 10 caps for Australia, and represented New South Wales against several visiting teams and in interstate matches. When he hung up his boots in 1978 he began a long-running coaching career at a host of clubs and with the national and state teams and eventually set up the International Goalkeepers’ Academy in 2000 with the aid of a number of investors and supporters including that well known soccer nut, would-be keeper and film superstar Anthony La Paglia. Pierre Littbarski who coached Sydney FC to the A-League premiership in 2006 is a great fan. The last words on Jimmy Fraser should rest with him.

‘The work you did with the goalkeepers was outstanding. Clint Bolton became a real consistent player and real personality. With your help he developed his physical skills a lot, but more important for me was, that he went from a “one man show” to a real leader. This was especially in the final series a big factor and gave us the championship, because Clint Bolton played very good.

Our second keeper Justin Pasfield improved his basic skills a lot in one season. Also your work with the young keepers, who joined us regularly in our sessions with Sydney FC, was very effective. That proves, that you can coach players of all ages.

The most impressive point for me was, that you were capable to do some coaching beside your goalkeeper training. The daily training, especially with the defenders (passing, heading, kicking, throw in, tactical training for the 4-back line, etc.) was fantastic. The players loved it and for me it was a big help. Goalkeeper coaches should not focus only on the keepers.’

Says it all, really.

Roy Hay and David Hearder

(This story first appeared in Goal Weekly, 24 February 2012, pp. 1–3, and we are grateful to Costa Koutropoulos for giving it his support and exposure. It also appears on the Goal Weekly <

http://www.goalweekly.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2780:from-emus-to-socceroos-the-real-origins-of-national-team’s-name-at-last&Itemid=126>

and FFA websites <

http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/news-display/origins-of-the-socceroos/45734>

.)

On Wednesday the Socceroos take on Saudi Arabia in the final group match of the first Asian round of qualification for the FIFA World Cup in Brazil in 2014. Where did the name Socceroos come from and when? Two simple questions, you might think, but if you Google the term you will get umpteen versions of the same story, nearly all of which go back to Michael Cockerill’s Australian Soccer’s Long Road to the Top, published in 1998. ‘It was Sydney journalist Tony Horsted (sic) who coined the term “Socceroos” for the national team thirty years before. In 1967 the team, under coach Joe Vlasits, took the nickname away with it on a tour to Vietnam—a tour arranged at the height of the Vietnam war.’ [1]

There are three other published claims about the origins that sometimes crop up in discussion. In his autobiography Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters Johnny Warren says it was in 1971 prior to another tour to Vietnam in 1972 that Tony Horstead first used the term.[2] Sid Grant, whose collection of information was published in 1974, says the word was adopted in 1972–73: ‘The name and accompanying badge were the work of a leading Sydney sporting journalist and his colleague, a news photographer.’[3] Laurie Schwab asserts that the national team was dubbed the Socceroos during the successful 1973–74 World Cup mission.[4] By 1974 the word Socceroos is being used without explanation in Australian Women’s Weekly, so it was obviously in common usage by then.[5]

Tony Horstead did not accompany the team to Vietnam in November 1967. He wrote a soccer column in the Sydney Daily Mirror, under the byline of ‘Hotspur’. After the team came home on 1 December he asked his readers to send in suggestions for a name for the national team and offered a prize of a free pass to all matches the following season. A week later he reported that ‘Emus’ was the overwhelming favourite by almost four to one, next came Wattles, then Jackaroos, Wombats, Bandicoots, Boomerangs, Birubieds, Baddawalers, Walleroos, Merinos, Koalas, Woomeras, Sharks, but no Socceroos.[6]

In April 1970 the Australian team went back to Vietnam and played two matches and later in the year the Australian Soccer Federation (ASF) sent Rale Rasic and his team on a world tour with the long-term goal being qualification for the World Cup in West Germany in 1974. Hotspur’s columns just refer to the Australian soccer team or the national team and there is no mention of Socceroos or Emus.

Two years later the ASF launched its formal World Cup qualification bid on 3 May 1972. Backed by $100,000 in sponsorship from Pepsi Cola (Australia), Travelodge Australia, Philips Industries and News Limited, Sir Arthur George, President of the ASF, unveiled the Australian national team icon for the campaign.[7] The logo consisted of a kangaroo wearing football boots surrounded by the legend ‘World Cup 1974 Socceroo’.

Tony Horstead had probably never forgotten his attempt to get a punchy nickname for the national team and the next morning he had turned the logo into that name. A key sentence in his column reads: ‘The Socceroos will be the best prepared sporting team ever to represent Australia in a major event’.[8] The logo got its next public outing when Dundee from Scotland played an Australia XI in Adelaide on 17 May 1972. Matches against club sides were not regarded as full internationals and Horstead was keen to tie the name of the Socceroos to the national team. So later that year, when Australia returned to Vietnam in October 1972, he could focus on that connection.

On 29 September 1972 Horstead casually mentioned that he was accompanying the team as ‘Australia’s Socceroos set forth next Thursday on their Asian tour’.[9] It is clear from the context that this is a term that would already be familiar to his readers. Horstead used the term regularly thereafter.[10] Lou Gautier of Soccer World also accompanied the Australian team and while they were in Vietnam he wrote about the children who crowded around the players as they trained at Cong Hoa: ‘They were rewarded for their interest with Socceroo badges. The kangaroo emblem is a sensation and I think that Australia’s national team has now won its spurs to be known world-wide as the Socceroos, like the “Wallabies” in Rugby Union and the “Kangaroos” in League.’[11]

So in 1972 the Socceroos team name was coined by Horstead who continued to use it in the Daily Mirror and other News Limited papers. The dedicated soccer press began to use the name early in 1973, but it was towards the end of that year before the other metropolitan dailies adopted the usage and not without protest. The Sydney Morning Herald argued on its front page on 15 November 1973:

‘Now that the Australian Soccer team is basking in honour and glory after its World Cup victory over South Korea it can surely do without the name “Socceroos”which is increasingly being applied to it. Of course, the names ‘Wallabies’ and ‘Kangaroos’ have already been taken by national teams of other codes, but if the soccer team is to have a collective nickname what’s wrong with being known as the “Emus”. After all, that strong speedy—although not too bright—bird is so authentically Australian that it has a proud place on the Coat of Arms’.[12]

The mixture of poor humour and condescension was typical of the non-soccer press and in this case the Fairfax paper may have had its nose put out of joint by the Murdoch-owned Mirror. The tide of popular support for the Socceroos on and off the field following successful qualification for the World Cup assured that the name would stick. At the final tournament in West Germany in 1974 the name was ubiquitous.

When Football Federation Australia replaced Soccer Australia in 2005, the new CEO John O’Neill thought that the Socceroos name would disappear in time.[13] That did not happen. In 2012 it is so firmly engrained in people’s consciousness that it is just about the only survivor from old soccer into the brave new world of football under the FFA.

David Hearder has been researching this topic for several years and we are indebted to Louise Moran, who spent several hours ploughing through microfilm and hard copy newspapers on our behalf.

References

[1] Michael Cockerill, Australian Soccer’s Long Road to the Top, Lothian Books, Port Melbourne, 1998, p. 12.

[2] Johnny Warren with Andy Harper and Josh Whittington, Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters: An incomplete biography of Johnny Warren and Soccer in Australia, Random House, Sydney, 2002, p. 133.

[3] Sid Grant, Jack Pollard’s Soccer Records, Jack Pollard, North Sydney, 1974, p. 258.

[4] Laurie Schwab, The Socceroos and their Opponents, Newspress, Melbourne, n.d., [1979] p. 4.

[5] ‘Wonder how the Socceroos would take to girls getting in on their act?’, Australian Women’s Weekly, Wednesday 9 July 1975, p. 40; ‘They even sold the Australian Socceroos’ colors with a kangaroo-style tail sewed on. That one kept the fans on the hop.’ Australian Women’s Weekly, Wednesday 28 August 1974, p. 113.

[6] Tony Horstead, ‘Emus it is—they can run and kick,’ On the ball with Hotspur, Daily Mirror, 8 December 1967, p. 90; see also Tony Horstead, ‘Thanks to Tour Team’, On the ball with Hotspur, Daily Mirror, 1 December 1967, p. 73.

[7] Soccer World, 12 May 1972, p. 7; Daily Telegraph, 4 May 1972, p. 53; Sydney Morning Herald, 4 May 1972, pp. 15 & 16; Sun (Sydney), 4 May 1972, p. 69; Australian, 4 May 1972, p. 24; Daily Mirror, 4 May 1972, p. 65; Australian Soccer Federation, 11^th Annual Report for the period ending 31 August 1972, ASF, 1972, p. 4.

[8] Tony Horstead, ‘We’re after Soccer’s World Cup – Mirror Backing $100,000 Effort’, Daily Mirror, Thursday 4 May 1972, p. 65.

[9] Tony Horstead, ‘Short shrift for slackers on Asian tour’, On the ball with Hotspur, Daily Mirror, 29 September 1972, p. 79.

[10] For example, Tony Horstead, ‘Soccer stars face big cut,’ Daily Mirror, 3 October 1972, p. 58; ‘Socceroos eager for bright opener,’ Daily Mirror, 7 October 1972, p. 9. There are many subsequent examples that month.

[11] Lou Gautier, Soccer World, 27 October 1972, p. 3.

[12] Sydney Morning Herald, 15 November 1973, p. 1.

[13] Michael Cockerill, ‘O’Neill wants to lose Roos in the name of progress’, Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 14 January 2005, p. 36.

Unanswered questions

Finding out where the name Socceroos comes from has been an interesting quest for David Hearder over several years. As always in history, puzzles remain and new questions arise. Who was the cameraman who worked with Tony Horstead? Who actually designed the logo for the ASF? Did anyone else use the name in 1972 apart from Horstead and Gautier? Goal Weekly would be delighted to hear from readers and others who can add to or correct the story we have told here.

Sources which are now out of date

History never stands still and our research will not be the last word on the subject. We welcome corrections and additional information. Meantime, the following sources might be updated in the light of our research.

Wikipedia

Origin of “Socceroos”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_national_association_football_team#Origin_of_.22’Socceroos.22

The team’s nickname was coined by Sydney journalist, Tony Horstead, in 1967 in his coverage of a “goodwill” tour by the national team to South Vietnam.[44]

[44] Michael Cockerill, Australian Soccer’s Long Road to the Top, Lothian Books, Port Melbourne, Victoria, 1998, p. 12. ISBN 978-0850918928.

The Roar

Socceroos

http://www.theroar.com.au/football/socceroos/

The Socceroos’ history stems from the first Australian national football team which was convened in 1922. The nickname ‘Socceroos’ was coined by journalist Tony Horstead in 1967. But it wasn’t until reaching the 1974 World Cup finals that the Socceroos came to prominence. After switching to the Asian Football Confederation in 2005, the Socceroos confirmed their second World Cup finals appearance the same year.

One Fantastic Goal

Australia went on to play and win the Vietnam National Day tournament in Saigon in 1967… It was at that tournament that the nickname ‘Socceroos’ was coined by the News Limited journalist Tony Horstead. Although there was never any official baptism under that name for the national team, the term Socceroos was taken on by players and fans, became a standard piece of media shorthand and was ultimately adopted by the soccer hierarchy.

Trevor Thompson, One Fantastic Goal: A complete history of football in Australia, ABC Books, Sydney, 2006, p. 99.

Our Socceroos

…the next major tour organised by the ASF in 1967 – a trip to Asia during the heat of the Vietnam War. …It was on that tour that a journalist named Tony Hoystead [sic] first referred to the Australian national team as ‘The Socceroos’

[Ray Baartz:] “… (journalist) Tony Hoystead [sic] travelled with the team…It was Tony who coined the name “Socceroo” and began to write his articles referring to us by that name”

Neil Montagnana Wallace, Our Socceroos, Random House Australia, Milsons Point, NSW, 2004, pp. 2 & 56.

History of the Socceroos

Talking of FIFA World Cups, the Socceroos—as Daily Mirror football reporter Tony Horstead had dubbed them back in 1967—made their inaugural appearance at the 1974 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

Sue Behrent, History of the Socceroos, Penguin Books, Camberwell, Victoria, 2011, p. 4. This book uses the name Socceroos for its brief match reports from 1967 onwards.

FFA website

Australia’s campaign for the 1970 World Cup saw the Qantas Socceroos knock out Japan, South Korea and Rhodesia.

Australia in the FIFA World Cup: Official Socceroos History

FFA website, http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/socceroos/history

Accessed 18 February 2012.

This short history does not mention the origins of the name specifically, but it introduces a double anachronism by referring to the 1970 Australian team as Qantas Socceroos. The team did fly with Qantas, however, but naming rights were a thing of the future.

Roy Hay

(This article appeared in Goal Weekly on 23 December 2011, p. 19.)

Charles Perkins was a pioneering figure in the recognition of the Aboriginal people of Australia. In the 1960s he led the freedom rides which brought discrimination against Aborigines into Australian politics. He was the first male Aboriginal graduate of the University of Sydney. He became chair of the Aboriginal Development Commission and head of the Federal Government’s Department of Aboriginal Affairs. For four decades he was one of the most recognised figures across a range of issues affecting the indigenous peoples of Australia. Yet it was football where he first made his name and football which set him on the way to his later achievements. As he said ‘Football serves a three-fold purpose. The first was to provide me with finance for my study. Second, it enabled me to keep fit because I needed to study for such long hours., Third, it was the means whereby I could mix socially and enjoy myself comfortably.’

Born in 1936 near Alice Springs. His mother was of the Arunta people, a very inclusive group, and his father whom he only saw once, was of the Kalkadoon people from Mount Isa. Charles was taken to Adelaide at the age of ten along with several other children by a Church of England pastor. Among the Aboriginal children in the school at Marryatville was John Moriarty, another who made his way through football to an important career in Australian life. Life was very tough for the youngsters who had to cope with discrimination and abuse. In 1951 the state Under-18 was practising near the school. The boys from St Francis’s took them on and gave them the runaround. Perkins and Moriarty and some of the others joined the squad soon after. That started the love affair with football.

Charles Perkins rose through a number of junior clubs in Adelaide including  Port Thistle juniors, International United (Redskins), and Budapest which he joined in 1956. His speed, power and ferocious shooting skills were recognised and in 1957 when he was at Fiorentina a scout from Everton offered to pay half his fare for a trial with the club in England. Like other young Australians, including Craig Johnston and Tony Dorigo, Perkins found the gulf between the football he had been used to in Australia and that in United Kingdom was huge. Though he tried hard he could not break into the Everton team and though he was offered a part-time contract in the end, he decided instead to try his luck elsewhere. He had a spell with local team in Wigan and then joined Bishop Auckland. On the face of it this was a curious move, going from a top professional team to an amateur one, but as he pointed out the amateur players were getting just as much money at the professionals in those days of the maximum wage in England. A game against Oxford University opened his mind to the possibility of going to university himself one day. In the short run he turned down offers in England, including one from Manchester United, and returned to Australia.

Charles Perkins in action. Source: John Maynard, The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe, p. 51, from Australian Soccer Weekly via Paul and Colin Tatz.

Adelaide Croatia, presided over by the leading housebuilder, Branko Fillipi, agreed to pay his fare home as they wanted his drive and direction for their push for promotion. Within months of coming home, he was helping the club to win promotion and cups as player-coach and becoming vice-captain of the South Australian state team. His experience in England had sharpened his skills including his tactical awareness and organisational capacity. John Moriarty and Gordon Briscoe were two other Aboriginal members of the Croatia team in these years. Meeting the future premier of South Australia Don Dunstan helped to develop his interest in the politics of Aboriginal advancement and in 1961 he moved to Sydney. After a false start at Bankstown he was offered a contract at Pan Hellenic, where he was an immediate hit. Once he settled among the Greek community he combined success on the football field with study for matriculation and then at Sydney University. Under his leadership Pan Hellenic finished fourth in Division One in New South Wales in 1961 and 1963. He finished his career as a player at Bankstown in 1965, but he remained involved in the game off the field.

Perkins, Soltos Patrinos, Jan Bout, Brian Smith, Nilo Rasulin, Joe Vlasits (coach). Front row: Chris Ambros, Angelo Mavropoulos, Doug Logan, Jimmy Pearson, Can Gameras. Missing: Jim Hatzis. Source: Laurie Schwab collection, Deakin University Library.

When the National Soccer League started he was president of Canberra City and became a member of the Australian Soccer Federation and its vice-president in 1987. He also helped promote the indoor game in Canberra along with his long time friend Johnny Warren and was president of the Australian Indoor Soccer Federation for a decade. He never forgot what he owed to the game and his autobiography A Bastard like Me tells the story, warts and all. His influence persisted long after he died in 2000, because he paved the way by his example for the next generation of talent to come through. Harry Williams worked closely with Perkins in Aboriginal support services in Rockdale in Sydney and went on to play for Australia in the World Cup in Germany in 1974. The modern generation of Aboriginal players, men and women, owe a great deal to the pioneering career of Charles Perkins.

Charles Perkins, activist and administrator. The Assistant Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs protests along with Bob McLeod and Allan Sharpley. Two of Perkins’ children on his right. Source: Laurie Schwab collection, Deakin University Library

Roy Hay

(This article appeared as ‘Shootin’ it Stateside,’ in Goal Weekly, ( December 2011, p.19).

Bruce Arena, David Beckham’s coach at Los Angeles Galaxy, was very upbeat about the Major League Soccer in the United States claiming that it was going onwards and upwards when many of the other indices in that country were heading in the other direction. But Arena will remember that there were previous episodes in the long history of football in the United States when it seemed that it might make a significant impact on the sporting landscape.

In the nineteenth century there were various forms of football being played in that country as there were in the United Kingdom and Australia. There was an early flourish among some colleges in the north-east, but then working class immigrants with some business support took over the game in the 1880s. As with Australia the game tended to rise and fall with waves of migration, with distance a major handicap to the formation of real national competitions. The American Soccer League of the 1920s was a competitive and impressive body, but despite its title it was really a north-eastern regional competition. After the Second World War, the United States national team caused a major upset by defeating England one-nil in the World Cup in 1950 in Brazil, but it was not till the 1960s that interest in the game grew to the point that another national league could be attempted. Bill Cox attracted a number of top European teams to play matches during their summer off-season along with a domestic all-stars outfit.

Then in 1968 two competing leagues merged to form the North American Soccer League (NASL) and it flourished for a few years before coming to an end in 1984. This time the clubs were American but the players were attracted from round the world, including a number of the stars of the day, usually, though not always, when they were approaching the end of their careers. So Pele, George Best, Rodney Marsh, Charlie Cooke, Giorgio Chinaglia, Carlos Alberto, Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff, Eusebio, Gerd Müller, Denis Tueart and many lesser lights spent several years boosting the sport and enjoying rewards which were significantly better than they could have obtained in Europe and the United Kingdom. The popularity of the game peaked in 1977 when the New York Cosmos and Fort Lauderdale Strikers drew nearly 78,000 fans to Giants’ Stadium. But the league had major problems. It lacked national television exposure, it played fast and loose with FIFA regulations and it had little or no grass roots development. The American members of the rosters tended to be there to make up the numbers and the national team struggled to make an impact as a result. Nevertheless seeing the superstars in the flesh helped give many youngsters an idea of what was possible in the game.

George Best weaved his magic with Los Angeles Aztecs from 1976 through June 1978 with his great mate Bobby McAlinden, who did a lot of the midfield grafting for Charlie Cooke, Ron Davies and Best. They reached the play-offs that first season. Best scored 15 goals in 23 games. The Aztecs made the play-offs again in 1977 but then he was dropped and transferred to Fort Lauderdale Strikers. In his first match with the new club he scored as the Strikers beat Cosmos 5–3 their first victory over the NASL champions. It was while at the Aztecs that he and McAlinden bought a run down hotel called Hard Times and turned it into Bestie’s Bar, where my wife and I had a meal with Bobby McAlinden on a visit to the States in 1991. We also watched Australia beat England in the final of the rugby World Cup that year on one of the 47 television screens filling the walls of the establishment and serviced by huge satellite dishes on the flat roof.

The NASL folded but a relatively high quality indoor soccer league succeeded it and the women’s game began to grow into the dominant sport for females, something to which the male version could not even aspire. Title IX, a federal ordinance, which mandated equal provision for male and female athletes in the college system, underpinned the growth of the women’s game. Mothers seeing the horrendous rate of injury in the American code of football and ice hockey were keen for their children to play a less violent on-field game and so the phenomenon of the ‘soccer mom’ appeared.

In 1994 the United States hosted the World Cup for the first time. Great fears prior to the tournament that the USA would distort the game by trying to impose some of the innovations which had been adopted in the NASL days proved to be misplaced. The tournament drew huge attendances to excellent stadia and though the final was goal-less and had to be decided by a penalty shoot-out and Colombian player Andreas Escobar was murdered after conceding an own goal in the loss to the USA the experience was otherwise very positive. Pele returned to appear at the closing ceremony in Los Angeles with Whitney Houston and two Australian linesmen, Eugene Brazzale and Gordon Dunster officiated at the opening game in Chicago.

Roy Hay

(This article appeared in my Blast from the Past column in Goal Weekly, 25 November 2011, p. 19.)

John Gardiner was born in Dundee in 1947 and came to Australia in 1968 after playing with Peterborough and East Fife. He joined George Cross signing a contract that in those days was a yellow form which bound the player to the club for life. It was to be the source of much controversy nearly a decade later. Gardiner was one of a number of uncompromising but skillful Scottish and English midfielders and defenders who flourished in the game in this country. Always learning and teaching he was an on-field coach long before he gave up playing to coach full-time.

In 1971, Gardiner won the inaugural Rothmans Gold Medal, which succeeded the Argus Medal as the premier individual honour for a Victorian player. The following year he won it again and also took out the Bill Fleming Medal which continued as the media award. In 1974 he helped George Cross to win the Ampol Cup and to reach the Dockerty Cup final in 1972, where they went down to Juventus as the Italian powerhouse completed a hat-trick of victories. Gardiner represented Victoria in the 1970 and 1980s but never received the cap he deserved for Australia. By 1976 however, Gardiner and George Cross had fallen out and he threatened to take the club to court to challenge the legality of the contract which bound him to it. In the end he was released to join Essendon Lions, later Croatia, for $6,000, the highest fee to date paid by a Metropolitan club. Les Shorrock reported that Gardiner’s divorce from George Cross had come through and despite the long lay off he was Lions’ best player in a win over Green Gully in May. All three clubs were to figure largely in Gardiner’s subsequent career.

Gardiner spent a year at Lions’ then joined South Melbourne for $13,000 for the first season of the National Soccer League in 1977. Hellas struggled that year and the following season, Gardiner was back at Croatia leading the club to back-to-back State League titles in 1978 and 1979. Croatia also won the Dockerty Cup in 1979. Tommy Cumming won the Gold Medal in both these seasons.

In 1981, Bobby McLachlan, in his second year as coach at Green Gully, signed Gardiner and made him captain and assistant. Gully had never finished higher than third in the league, but the new squad swept through the season winning the league, the Dockerty Cup and the Ampol Cup. Two feisty Scots, McLachlan and Gardiner had some almighty spats but always made up quickly and both were thoroughly committed to the cause. Peter Desira’s Green Gully Soccer Club: 50 Years tells some great stories about their relationship and their effect on young players like David Hogben, who was just coming into the squad at that stage. The following year Gully won the league and the Dockerty Cup again but at the end of the season Croatia signed Gardiner as coach. Croatia finished as runner-up to Green Gully, and won the State League and Dockerty Cups, though by then Tommy Cumming had taken over as coach.

The circumstances of Gardiner’s sacking by Croatia tells much about the man. Though he did not feel up to playing at Croatia he agreed to turn out for Hamlyn Rangers in Geelong then playing in Metropolitan Division Four. He did not train with the club, changed in a separate room then took the field and led the club from there. So when the final match of the season was against Keysborough, Gardiner left Croatia at half-time to help Rangers win the league on goal difference from North Geelong.

In 1984 he coached Polonia to second place in the State league behind Morwell Falcons and by now he was ready to make his peace with Sunshine George Cross and took over as coach of the National League side in 1985. He was already a staff coach for the Australian Soccer Federation as well as turning out for Rangers as a player. As he said ‘I enjoy [coaching courses] because it brings me back to the grass roots, the fundamentals. When I’m there I’m putting something back into the game. I respect coaches who take on jobs with clubs, because every time they do they are putting their reputation on the line.’ Gardiner continued at George Cross until 1989, giving John Markovski his debut as a 15-year-old substitute in 1986 and Andrew Marth and helping to keep the club in the league. In 1988 George Cross missed the play-off on goal difference, but thereafter it struggled. Gardiner was succeeded by Ernie Merrick.

In the 1990s Gardiner coached a number of clubs including Thomastown and Springvale White Eagles and continued with his broader coaching role for state and national bodies. His contribution to the game as player and coach over thirty years is hard to match.

(Click on the image below to enlarge, click again to make it larger still.)

Goal Weekly 25 November 2011, p. 19.

Punching above its weight: No wonder we have trouble with Uruguay

(Originally published in Goal Weekly, 1 August 2011, p. 9.)

Roy Hay

Last week Uruguay won the Copa America for a record 15^th time. Last year they came third in the World Cup in South Africa, having won the competition twice in 1930 and 1950. Brazil will host the World Cup in 2014 and Brazilians be quaking in their collective shoes that there will be no repeat of the disaster of 1950, when the Selecao was upstaged on its own soil. So it is no wonder that Australia’s clashes with Uruguay have been the toughest of encounters involving pure skill and the black arts of cynical defence and football politics, by both sides.

The countries have met on nine occasions including four World Cup qualifiers in 2001 and 2005, but the first time they played was in preparation for the world Cup in West Germany in 1974, for which both nations had already qualified. The first game was played at Olympic Park in Melbourne on 25 April in front of 20,283 and ended as a tight goal-less draw. Two days later they met again in Sydney and Australia won by two goals to nil. Ray Baartz scored the opener after 59 minutes, but shortly thereafter he was felled by what is often described as a ‘karate chop to the throat’ by Luis Garisto. That ended Baartz’s World Cup participation as doctors concluded that a repetition could result in death or permanent injury. Peter Ollerton added a second goal with six minutes left to play and the visitors were not pleased with the result. They also put a lot of pressure on referee Don Campbell, but the Scot coped with it.

Juan Masnik of Uruguay outjumps Peter Wilson and Gary Manuel in the match between Australia and Uruguay at Olympic Park in Melbourne in 1974. Source: Laurie Schwab, The Socceroos and their Opponents.

In 1992 the Socceroos went on a three-match tour of South America the final one being against Uruguay in Montevideo. The home side reversed the previous scoreline with goals by Sergio Martinez and Alejandro Larrea late in the second half.

Five years later the countries met for the first time in a tournament at senior level in the Confederations Cup in Saudi Arabia. Australia got through its group stage including a scoreless draw with Brazil and met a very young Uruguay side in the semi final. There were no goals in normal time, but Harry Kewell scored a golden goal two minutes into extra-time in the days when sudden death goals counted.

The next four encounters were World Cup qualifiers not friendly matches. The first of these was in 2001, when Uruguay finished in fifth place in the South American group as a result of the last round of matches. The other possibilities would have been Brazil or Colombia. The first match was in Melbourne at the MCG with 84,656 fans in attendance and was settled by a Kevin Muscat penalty after Paul Agostino had been pushed over as he ran in on goal. That was not enough of a lead to take to Montevideo. Dario Silva scored after only 14 minutes and Australia had to chase the game. Even when substitute Richard Morales scored the first of his two goals in 70 minutes a goal to Australia would have put the Socceroos through on away goals, but in pressing hard for it they copped a third goal in the 90^th minute also by Morales.

In 2005 the two countries met again, this time with the first leg in Uruguay. Much skullduggery off the field involved the timing and conditions for the matches, but the Socceroos were lucky to have Qantas sponsorship and a chartered plane to fly home immediately after the first match. ‘Lucky Guus’ Hiddink was in charge and he and the Socceroos managed to restrict the Uruguayans to a single goal lead in the Montevideo leg. Dario Rodriguez got that goal after 35 minutes. The second leg began with Uruguay threatening in front of 82,698 at Homebush in Sydney. Tony Popovic was lucky only to be yellow carded for coat-hangering Alvaro Recoba. Hiddink pulled him off and sent on Harry Kewell in the 31^st minute. The talisman took only four minutes to make an impact, shanking an effort which fell into the path of Marco Bresciano who finished it off. There was no further score in normal or extra time and Hiddink was planning to bring on Zeljko Kalac if the game went to penalties. However, an injury to Brett Emerton meant that Josip Skoko came on for the last ten minutes as Australia’s third and final substitute. The other was one John Aloisi. So Mark Schwarzer had to repeat his Canadian heroics by saving two penalty kicks, Mark Viduka’s blushes and paving the way for Aloisi to do his Brandy Chastain impersonation, minus the bra.

In 2007 Uruguay came back to play a friendly match in Sydney which they won by two goals to one, the second being a header by Recoba after an error by Brad Jones, deputising for Schwarzer. Diego Forlan scored the first for Uruguay and Mile Sterjovski got Australia’s opener after only six minutes. Forlan only played in a couple of times against Australia, but he was the best player in the World Cup in South Africa and was the third member of his family to win the Copa America, as his father and grandfather had also done so.

So two countries with very different football pedigrees have shared honours (and dishonours) in head-to-head competition since 1974.

Mark Schwarzer saves a penalty against Uruguay at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney in 2005. Source: Mark Schwarzer’s World Cup Destiny. Getty Images/Cameron Spencer.

Matches between Australia and Uruguay

Australia 0 Uruguay 0, Olympic Park, Melbourne, 25 April 1974, friendly. Crowd: 20,283.

Australia: Jack Reilly, Doug Utjesenovic, Peter Wilson, Manfred Schaefer (Adrian Alston 37), Col Curran, Jim Mackay, Ray Richards, Jim Rooney, Ray Baartz, Gary Manuel (Peter Ollerton 62), Branko Buljevic. Coach: Rale Rasic.

Uruguay: Hector Santos, Mario Gonzalez, Walter Olivera (Gustavo De Simone 46), Juan Masnik, Mario Zoryez, Julio Jimenez, Denis Milar (Walter Mantegazza 62), Alberto Cardaccio, Juan Ramon Silva, Fernando Morena, Ruben Corbo. Coach: Roberto Porta.

Referee : Peter Rampley

Australia (Ray Baartz 59’, Peter Ollerton 84’) 2 Uruguay 0, Sydney Cricket Ground, 27 April 1974, friendly. Crowd: 25,708.

Australia: Jack Reilly, Doug Utjesenovic, Peter Wilson, Ray Richards, Col Curran, Jim Rooney, Dave Harding, Jim Mackay, Ray Baartz (Adrian Alston 76), Atti Abonyi, Peter Ollerton. Coach: Rale Rasic.

Uruguay: Gustavo Fernandez, Mario Gonzalez, Gustavo De Simone, Luis Garisto (sent off 76), Mario Zoryez (Juan Ramon Silva 83), Julio Jimenez, Walter Mantegazza, Alberto Cardaccio, Jose Gomez (Dennis Milar 68), Fernando Morena, Ruben Corbo. Coach: Roberto Porta.

Referee : Don Campbell (Australia)

Uruguay (Sergio Martinez 74’, Alejandro Larrea 84’) 2 Australia 0, Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, 21 June 1992, friendly. Crowd: 18,000.

Uruguay: Roberto Siboldi, Cecilio De Los Santos, Daniel Sanchez, Fernando Kanapkis, Nelson Cabrera, Jorge Barrios, Jose Luis Salazar, Marcelo Saralegui, Adrian Paz (Diego Dorta 78), Alejandro Larrea, Gerardo Miranda (Sergio Martinez 46). Coach: Luis Cabilla.

Australia: John Filan, Andrew Marth, Mehmet Durakovic, Milan Ivanovic, Alex Tobin, Paul Wade (c), Vlado Bozinoski, Ernie Tapai, Mike Petersen, Warren Spink (Alastair Edwards 71), Jason van Blerk. Coach: Eddie Thomson.

Referee : Juan Carlos Loustau (Argentina)

Australia (Harry Kewell 92’) 1 Uruguay 0, King Fahd Stadium, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 19 December 1997, Confederations Cup semi-final. Crowd: 22,000.

Australia: Mark Bosnich, Milan Ivanovic, Stan Laazridis, Alex Tobin (c), Tony Vidmar, Ned Zelic, Craig Foster, Aurelio Vidmar (Josip Skoko 81), Kevin Muscat, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell. Coach: Terry Venables.

Uruguay: Claudio Flores, Luis Lopez, Paolo Montero, Gustavo Mendez, Edgardo Adinolfi, De Los Santos, Pablo Garcia, Liber Vespa, Alvaro Recoba (Debray Silva 81), Marcelo Zalayeta, Andres Olivera. Coach: Victor Pua.

Referee : Nikolai Levnikov (Russia)

Australia (Kevin Muscat Penalty 79’) 1 Uruguay 0, MCG, 20 November 2001, World Cup qualifier, first leg. Crowd: 84,656.

Australia: Mark Schwarzer, Kevin Muscat, Shaun Murphy, Craig Moore, Tony Vidmar, Brett Emerton, Paul Okon (c), Josip Skoko, Stan Lazaridis (Paul Agostino 46), Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell. Coach: Frank Farina.

Uruguay: Fabian Carini, Washington Tais, Alejandro Lembo, Paolo Montero (c), Dario Rodgriguez, Gonzalo de los Santos, Pablo Garcia, Gianni Guigou, Alvaro Recoba, Federico Magallanes (Guillermo Giacomazzi 72), Javier Chevanton (Mario Reguiero 77)

Referee : Graziano Cesare (Italy)

Uruguay (Dario Silva 14’, Richard Morales 70’, 90’) 3 Australia 0, Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, 25 November 2001, World Cup qualifier, second leg,. Crowd: 62,000.

Uruguay: Fabian Carini, Washington Tais, Alejandro Lembo, Paolo Montero (c), Dario Rodgriguez, Pablo Garcia, Gianni Guigou, Mario Reguiero (Gonzalo de los Santos 74), Alvaro Recoba, Federico Magallanes (Richard Morales 65), Dario Silva (Gonzalo Sorondo 82). Coach: Victor Pua.

Australia: Mark Schwarzer, Kevin Muscat (Paul Agostino 73), Shaun Murphy (John Aloisi 81), Craig Moore, Tony Vidmar, Brett Emerton, Paul Okon (c), Josip Skoko, Stan Lazaridis, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell. Coach: Frank Farina.

Referee : Ali Bujsaim (United Arab Emirates)

Uruguay (Dario Rodriguez 35’) 1 Australia 0, Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, 12 November 2005, World Cup qualifier, first leg. Crowd: 55,000.

Uruguay: Fabian Carini, Diego Lopez (Guillermo Rodriguez 63), Paolo Montero, Dario Rodriguez, Carlos Diogo, Pablo Garcia, Diego Perez, Alvaro Recoba, Diego Forlan (Dario Silva 18), Marcelo Zalayeta (Fabian Estoyanof 63), Richard Morales. Coach: Jorge Fossati.

Australia: Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Scott Chipperfield, Tony Vidmar, Tony Popovic, Brett Emerton, Mark Viduka (John Aloisi 80), Harry Kewell, Vince Grella, Archie Thompson (Marco Bresciano 52), Jason Culina. Coach: Guus Hiddink.

Referee : Claus Bo Larson (Denmark)

Australia (Marco Bresciano 35’) 1 Uruguay 0, after extra-time, Olympic Stadium, Sydney, 16 November 2005, World Cup qualifier, second leg. Crowd: 82,698. Australia won on penalties by four goals to two. Australia: Kewell, Neill, Vidmar, Viduka (miss), Aloisi. Uruguay: D Rodriguez (saved), Varela, Estoyanoff, Zalayeta (saved).

Australia: Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Scott Chipperfield, Tim Cahill, Tony Vidmar, Tony Popovic (Harry Kewell 31), Brett Emerton (Josip Skoko 110), Mark Viduka, Vince Grella, Jason Culina, Marco Bresciano (John Aloisi 96). Coach Guus Hiddink.

Uruguay: Fabian Carini, Diego Lugano, Dario Rodriguez, Paolo Montero (Marcelo Sosa 81), Perez Pablo Garcia, Guillermo Rodriguez, Gustavo Varela, Carlos Diogo, Alvaro Recoba (Marcelo Zalayeta 73), Mario Regueiro (Fabian Estoyanoff 97), Richard Morales. Coach: Jorge Fossati.

Referee : Luis Medina Cantalejo (Spain)

Australia (Mile Sterjovski 6’) 1 Uruguay (Diego Forlan 40’, Alvaro Recoba 77’) 2, Olympic Stadium, Sydney, 2 June 2007, friendly. Crowd: 61,795.

Australia: Brad Jones, Lucas Neill, Patrick Kisnorbo (Danny Allsopp 84), Michael Thwaite, Brett Emerton, Carl Valeri, Jason Culina (Nick Carle 70), Luke Wilkshire, Mile Sterjovski (Ryan Griffiths 55), Brett Holman (Archie Thompson 62), Scott McDonald. Coach: Graham Arnold.

Uruguay: Fabian Carini, Diego Lugano, Pablo Garcia, Dario Rodriguez, Cristian Rodriguez, Carlos Diogo, Alvaro Recoba (Fabian Cannobio 83), Diego Perez (Guillermo Giacomazzi 46), Andres Scotti (Jorge Fucile 26), Diego Forlan (Fabian Estoyanoff), Vicente Sanchez. Coach: Oscar Tabarez.

Referee : Roberto Rosetti (Italy)

Data from Ozfootball website, Laurie Schwab, The Socceroos and their Opponents, Rothman’s Football Yearbooks.

Cheryl Salisbury, Australia’s most-capped player

(Originally published in Goal Weekly, 21 March 2011, p. 9.)

By Roy Hay

Who is Australia’s most capped footballer? Ask around and you will get many different answers because the Football Federation Australia has a list which only includes full ‘A’ internationals against overseas countries, while many games in the early days were played against club sides. Even if you find the man with the greatest number of appearances for Australia you will still not have the right answer, for Cheryl Salisbury has more caps than any of them, 151 in all when she retired in 2009. Yet she still does not have an entry in the Australian player data-base on the Ozfootball site.

Born in Newcastle in 1974, Cheryl took up football as a highly active seven year old, playing in a boys’ team. She played with the Lambton Jaffas as a junior, coached by Brian Stephenson. She was a regular with the team from the Under-10s through to the Under-16s. In 1988 she was selected for the Australian schoolgirls team. By 1990 she was in the senior side at Lambton, but continued to play with the youth team winning the Newcastle grand final in 1992. She also had seasons with Adamstown in the New South Wales Women’s State League and Stirling Macedonia. The Adamstown experience was unique in her early club career—the rest of it was spent playing in boy’s or men’s teams.

In April 1994 she began her extraordinary senior international journey when she was selected to play against Russia, scoring on debut in a two-one loss. Later that year she scored twice against Papua New Guinea in a seven-nil rout, which helped Australia qualify for the 1995 World Cup in Sweden where she started in two of three matches. She took part in the World Cup in the United States in 1999 and scored against China. Salisbury proved to be strong versatile player, being used by coaches in attack, midfield and defence. In the match against China, Australia was down to ten players early on after Alicia Ferguson was sent off. Salisbury kept pounding up and down the field and was rewarded with a goal after 66 minutes as the Matildas lost by three goals to one.

She was part of the Matildas team which played in the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000. In 2003 the World Cup was back in the United States and Australia lost to Russia and Ghana and drew with China with Salisbury ever present. From 2003 on she captained the Matildas, leading by example. In the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004 the Matildas lost to Brazil by a single goal by the superstar Marta, then beat Greece and drew with the Unites States, but this was not enough to qualify for the next stage.

In 2007 Salisbury scored for a FIFA World eleven against China, the first Australian to do so. She had a superb tournament as Australia reached the knock-out stages for the first time in the World Cup in China. A four-one win over Ghana and draws with Norway and Canada saw the Matildas through to meet the mighty Brazil. An injury to Salisbury saw her replaced by Kate McShea after only 20 minutes as the Matildas ran the Brazilians close only to go down by the odd goal in five. Cheryl Salisbury had played in four World Cups for Australia, a record which is never likely to be equaled.

To extend her knowledge of the game and to help pay the bills she played for three seasons in Japan’s L-League and in the United States W-League with Memphis Mercury and New York Power. She played with Newcastle Jets in the A-League from its inception in 2007 and did a great deal to promote the game at all levels.

She retired on 31 January 2009 coming off the field to a standing ovation after scoring in with a penalty kick against Italy at Parramatta Stadium in Sydney in her final match, bookending her career with goals. She earned the respect of all who played with her.

Matilda’s coach Tom Sermanni told Mike Cockerill. ‘Having Shezza around, you know when the team goes out on the field, the leadership is there. Her sheer presence gives you that sense of comfort. That’s what we’ll miss the most. There’s not another Cheryl Salisbury, and there won’t be for some time to come. But it’s not just about the stature she brings. We talk about her reputation, but she’s also been an outstanding player. She can play midfield, defence, or attack. The respect she’s got is worldwide. When she played for the FIFA-All Stars, the coach, Hope Powell, said to me, ‘I never realised how good a footballer she was.’ It’s on the field that Shezza is going to be almost impossible to replace.’

In 2009 she became a member of the Football Hall of Fame. She continued her involvement as coach of Broadmeadow Magic, taking the team to a championship in the Northern New South Wales Premier League.

She has a horse race named after her at Newcastle, as is the medal for the women’s player of the year in the W-League. In 2010 her son Nate was born and for the first time football had to take a back seat to family for Cheryl Salisbury, a genuine star of the game and its most capped Australian.