Melbourne Soccer: I'm Not A Racist, But....
Melbourne Soccer: I'm Not A Racist, But....: During the week an item on the FFA Cup website heralded the arrival of a new club called Shamrock Rovers Darwin. Quite how this club formed...
View ArticleThe ‘Chimera’ of Origins: Association Football in Australia before 1880
In the July of 1880, a movement in Sydney seemed to crystallise.1A number of letters to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald were published, advocating the playing of football under the English...
View ArticleJW Harrison, Melbourne's First Named Soccer Writer
JW Harrison: Mark Boric and I have been wondering what happened to him and why his reports dried up in the Winner. Sadly, I've found the answer. He died on June 3 1918. As Mark suggests that means he...
View ArticleAnzac Day, by John Forbes
I think this is now my yearly Anzac Day ritual."Anzac Day" is one of John's final poems, written in the year before his death in 1998. He didn't care much for soccer, being a rugby league follower....
View ArticleThe Week that Was
Last week was my busiest for a while: marking, lecturing and watching a veritable churn of my work going out into the public via various sources.My work on Soccer Anzacs in Victoria had reached a...
View ArticleAnzac forgetting and remembering
For Scott McIntyreAnzac Day continues to move us,& grow, despite attempts to make it a media event (left to them we’d attend‘The Foxtel Dawn Service’). But The March isproof we got at least one...
View ArticleSoccer on Albert Park 1953
This article from the Sporting Globe in 1953 is an important one. Written by J.O. (Owen) Wilshaw it points to a number of problems bedevilling soccer in Melbourne. It also reveals some interesting...
View ArticleSouth of the Border - a South Melbourne Hellas blog: Assorted reactions to...
South of the Border - a South Melbourne Hellas blog: Assorted reactions to FFA's Whole of Football Plan...: Now I
View ArticleSouth of the Border - a South Melbourne Hellas blog: Assorted reactions to...
South of the Border - a South Melbourne Hellas blog: Assorted reactions to FFA's Whole of Football Plan...: Paul Mavroudis responds to WOFP. Still the best commentator on Australian soccer. But are we...
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Assorted reactions to FFA's Whole of Football Plan
Paul Mavroudisthe unofficial voice conscience of South Melbourne FCFirst published on Paul's South of the Border Blog Now I'm not going to go into too much detail about a document whose contents were...
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Falling in Love Again
I guess a Sunderland supporter is bound to keep falling in love, as per the Elvis song our fans have been singing for years.Ask Paul Mavroudis. I do keep falling in football love. And it's a long...
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Our Man in London
James Hothersall sent me these remarkable documents from London. They are copies from English football yearbooks in the 1880s. They give details I haven't yet found from Australian sources about...
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The violence that dare not speak its name
Adelaide fan helped out of Adeliade Oval by cheerful officers after spilling red cordial on himself early in season 2015Violence in Australian Rules Football Crowds3rd Update. Previously updated May...
View Article"Are they at war with Soccer?"
JJ Liston, powerbroker and diplomatJJ Liston is a curious figure. Well known in VFA circles, his soccer commitment is much less known. He was president of the VSFA from the mid thirties until his death...
View ArticleKarmichael Hunt Revisited
Here's a piece I published on the Roar 4 years ago. While I think I was generally right about the risks he posed to the AFL, I missed completely the central dilemma his defection would introduce. While...
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4 Melbourne soccer teams from 1909
Below are some very high quality photographs of four (or perhaps only three or even two) of the six teams to play soccer in Melbourne in 1909. The 6 teams can be seen in the fixture below for the first...
View ArticleFrom Detente to Distrust
These are the first two pages of my latest piece in the The International Journal of the History of Sport. Copyright prevents me sharing any more than the taster below. The whole article can be...
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Next goal the winner
Village football in Ayrshire, 1947 to the 1960sRoy HayOur family moved to the tiny little village of Straiton, in Carrick, the southern third of the county of Ayrshire in Scotland in 1947. It lies on...
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Multicultural Round, or "Spot the Wog"
This article appeared first in the Age as "A multicultural AFL? Not quite"13 July 2013. A year on and it was just as fresh. A year ago I tweaked it to reflect 2014 figures published by the AFL. Two...
View ArticleVictorian Soccer Fixtures and Results 1890
The teams in 1890 wereSouth MelbourneCarltonRoversWanderersSaturday 12 AprilPlayers 3 Spectators 1 at Middle ParkSaturday 5 July South Melbourne 4 Carlton 0 (George and George Cup) at Middle Park...
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