Roy Hay

(This article was publsihed on the Goal Weekly website at www.goalweklly.com.au on Thursday 26 April 2012. The photograph of Hakan Anaz appears by courtesy of Anita Milas, FFV photographer of the year and winner of the Les Shorrock award in 2010 and 2011).

Australia will be represented at the Olympic Games football tournament even though neither the men’s or women’s teams has qualified.

Hakan Anaz from Melbourne along with Ben Williams and Matthew Cream will officiate in the United Kingdom when games are played all over the country in July and early August.

It is another highlight in the career of one of our best and most enthusiastic referees whose parents came from Turkey in 1968.

Hakan was born in 1969 and played the game from an early age.

When he got into his early twenties he decided he was not going to make it as top-class player, but was very keen to continue to be involved in football.

He was dissuaded from coaching by a friend who said you will finish up being a bus driver, so chose to try refereeing and found he enjoyed it.

He graduated through the lower divisions to the National Youth League, where I first encountered him, and the Victorian Premier League.

It was obvious he had the talent for refereeing.

He is firm and decisive in his decision-making, is sensitive to the flow of a game and is able to relate to players and what they are experiencing.

He benefited from the decision of the Australian Referees’ Association to fast-track talented young officials and joined the A-League panel when the competition started.

His primary role there is as Assistant Referee, formerly linesman, where his judgment is continually tested by critical decisions on offside and whether a ball has crossed the goal-line.

He received his FIFA badge and has refereed 18 international matches and 20 games in the Asian Champions League, which he describes as the highlight of his career so far.

As part of that elite panel he has just returned from Myanmar (Burma) where he was struck by the friendliness of the people he met despite the widespread poverty in the country.

“It certainly puts things in perspective,” he said, and “You realise how very lucky you are that your parents made the decision to come to Australia and allow you to have these opportunities.”

Married with two children, he appreciates how they have supported him as he has pursued his refereeing career.

His employer is also supportive allowing him the flexibility to continue his other profession, though this means using his long service leave this year to appear at the Olympic Games.

You get the sense that this is not a sacrifice on Hakan’s part!

He and his colleagues have one great advantage going into this tournament.

Since the Australian teams are not taking part they will be judged solely on performance and will not be ruled out of the final stages simply because their country is taking part.

In 1994 I watched Eugene Brazzale and Gordon Dunster take charge of the opening game in the World Cup in the United States and they got several more games on the basis of their performance.

It would be wonderful if Hakan and his colleagues could emulate their predecessors or even go all the way to the final at Wembley Stadium in London on 11 August.

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.

Melbourne Victory Youth squad versus Queensland Roar at Green Gully Reserve on 26 September 2008. Back row, left to right: Mehmet Durkaovic (Coach), Robert Wynne, Mijo Marinovic, Nathan Elasi, Steven Pace, Milos Lujic, Daniel Vasilevski, Steve Mautone (Assistant Coach). Front row: Matthew Foschini, Mathew Theodore, Aziz Behich, Steve Pantelidis, Ante Cicak. Photo: Milan Ninovic.

Melbourne Victory Youth 0 Queensland Roar Youth 2

On a dry, bumpy and windswept pitch at Green Gully Reserve, Melbourne Victory went down by two goals to nil in the opening match of the new National Youth League on Friday, 26 September 2008.
The Victory squad was only finalised this week and though the players had been together for the best part of a month, the home team was clearly struggling to find cohesion.
In the first half Victory looked reasonably sound in defence but could not create much in attack and it was the 38th minute before Nathan Elasi had a shot which came back off the post with Roar keeper Griffin McMaster saving Steven Pace’s attempt to put away the rebound.
The Roar was more adventurous particularly on the flanks but crosses were often overhit in the blustery conditions and the first half ended scoreless.
Queensland coach Rado Vidosic brought on Josh McVey for Michael Angus at half-time and the move paid off five minutes later when Mitch Nicholls, the man of the match, worked his way along the bye line and found the substitute on the edge of the area. McVey thrashed a shot into the top corner.
Two minutes later only a great one-on-one save by Victory keeper Mijo Marinovic prevented the Roar going further ahead, but the big custodian, who had looked extremely sound up to that point, then tried to dribble round Nicholls. He lost the ball and Nicholls walked it into the empty net.
Victory raised its game in the last ten minutes and Elasi drove narrowly over, while Queensland was reduced to ten men after Ben Griffin pushed Milos Lujic in the face.
Victory coach Mehmet Durakovic said afterwards, ‘The players will learn from their mistakes. The pitch and the wind were difficult. We did well in the first half but the mistakes cost us in the second.’
Rado Vidosic was pleased with the three points and the overall performance of the whole squad. An interesting difference in approaches emerged from the remarks of the two coaches. While both are concentrating on the development of their young players, Durakovic said he was trying to get his charges to play in the same style and structure as the senior team so that young players could move up knowing what was required. Vidosic on the other hand was emphasising adaptability and getting players to take on different roles so that they could appreciate what was needed in other positions on the field.
Also Roar Youth will play a number of their games as curtain raisers at Suncorp Stadium, while Victory Youth will rotate around a number of Victorian Premier League venues. If the Youth League is to get the exposure it deserves and the youngsters are to have the best possible conditions and atmosphere to play in, the Roar approach is much preferable.

On Sunday evening at Telstra Stadium, Melbourne Victory Chief Executive Officer, Geoff Miles said, ‘We wanted to take the game to the clubs, which is why we are playing at Green Gully, Anderson Reserve, Port Melbourne, Epping and Bentley Greens. If we were to play at Telstra we would have to start three hours before the seniors; players could not take part in the youth and the senior game; crowds would not turn up; and there would be problems with the overuse of the pitch.’

Date Round Home Team Goals Away Team Goals

26-Sep-08 1 Melbourne Victory 0 Queensland Roar 2
26-Sep-08 1 Central Coast Mariners 0 Perth Glory 1

27-Sep-08 1 Adelaide United 0 Newcastle Jets 0
1 Sydney FC Bye

Adelaide United 3 Central Coast Mariners 0
Sydney FC 2 Queensland Roar 1
Newcastle Jets v Bye

League ladder

Team P W D L F A GD Pts

Perth Glory FC 2 2 0 0 3 0 3 6
Adelaide United FC 2 1 1 0 3 0 3 4
Sydney FC 1 1 0 0 2 1 1 3
Queensland Roar FC 2 1 0 1 3 2 1 3
Newcastle Jets 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
Central Coast Mariners FC 2 0 0 2 0 4 -4 0
Melbourne Victory FC 2 0 0 2 0 4 -4 0

After a hiatus of four years the new National Youth League kicked off again yesterday at Green Gully Reserve when Melbourne Victory went down by two goals to nil to Queensland Roar. The Victory squad was only finalised this week and played like a team which had not practised together.
While it made entire sense for the Football Federation of Australia to concentrate on its A-League and the Socceroos in the first years of its existence, a consequence has been that the career path for young Australian players has been truncated during that time.

Those who were not selected for the Australian Institute of Sport and the equivalent state bodies had no other outlet for their development apart from State league competitions where coaching support and selection in senior teams could be problematical.

Now the ladder of opportunity has been restored.

FFA CEO Ben Buckley said, ‘For more than a decade football has been the sport of first choice for boys from 5-14 years and, now with the establishment of the National Youth League, there is substantial and regular high-level competition in place for talented, male athletes.’
FFA National Technical Director, Dutchman Robert Baan added, ‘The key to improving the technical skills, proficiency and tactical maturity of players is playing games—and as many games as possible. The National Youth League provides players aged between 17-21 years of age a clear pathway from youth leagues to senior level and then on to professional level. When combined with existing State-based competitions, players in the national youth league will play between 35-40 games each year.’

Victory had two Geelong players, Ante Cicak and keeper Mijo Marinovic in the starting line-up. Cicak looked solid in defence but his passing was often awry, while Marinovic had a nonsense [meltdown in Addy] when he tried to dribble around Mitch Nicholls and lost the ball and the goal. Substitute Josh McVey scored the other for Queensland only five minutes after coming on.

Melbourne Victory Youth played Perth Glory Youth at Green Gully Reserve on Sunday 5 October and looked much better in the first half than they had in the opening game against Queensland Roar. Nick Ward, the marquee youth player, started and looked a different class. He had only played about five minutes the night before at the end of the senior game and needed the run. Mathew Theodore and Michael Foschini also stood out, though Foschini was unlucky to be booked for a foot-up challenge by a somewhat fussy young referee, Lucien Laverdure. But Perth got the first goal when an inswinging corner was raffled by Mijo Marinovic and Adrian Trinidad bundled it in at the far post. Then in the second half, Steve Pantelidis was sent off after the Assistant Referee on the far side spotted a push on Trinidad who was booked. At the airport afterwards David Mitchell said that there was little in it and that referees should be looking out for violent tackles not that sort of incident. I left about ten minutes before the end, and David told me that Trinidad scored again in injury time to make it two-nil at the end.