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Fan. Connoisseur. Disciple. These are the things I would consider myself to be before a football journalist. I wrote an article a month or so back where I called out the mainstream media on its inciting comments in the wake of an article which demonised those who called the sport soccer.

But if we were shown one thing in the last few days, it’s that ignorance is not always bliss, as in three cases over the last week.

The first involved Tom Elliot, a so called ‘afternoon expert’ on Melbourne radio station 3AW, who originally incited fans with this beauty:
The fact is, soccer is a dull, boring game. It is the only thing that explains why such bad behaviour doesn’t happen at AFL or NRL matches.

It’s just soccer, because it’s a dull game. That’s the explanation.
Like most football fans I sat there going “yeah, yeah” – we’ve seen it all before from the AFL boo boys. But then … Continue Reading

When the Hyundai A-League first launched, fans chastised the FFA for the shortsightedness of setting squad sizes at just a paltry 20 players within the salary cap. What was lauded however was the U-23 rule, in which three players under the age of 23 in the squad had to be signed on to a professional contract.

When you consider that with a starting line-up of 11 on the field and 4 on the bench, that left you with 5 possible replacements for any injured players. If none of your U-23′s were in the matchday squad, you had three out of five of your possible replacements being young players champing at the bit to be given a start.

But with the implementation of the National Youth League, extended 23 man squads and rules that allow for injury replacement players to come in from both Australia and overseas, unless your manager has a youth-oriented policy, the U-23 requirement becomes irrelevant in … Continue Reading

To the mainstream media: Quit the bigotry, it’s getting old.

I woke up Thursday morning to the article entitled ‘Soccer Shocker: Del Piero refuses to call it football’ on my Facebook news feed, and thought “Wow… really? Another stab at the football fraternity?” I guess the fact that it was published on a mainstream news site didn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm.

It was also no surprise that Anthony Sharwood, deputy editor on website ‘The Punch’ and the scribe behind this article, is in fact a writer who predominantly writes about ‘fair-dinkum aussie sports’ such as Cricket, Rugby and AFL, as well as the odd political or general interest story.

The article itself is a sensationalist piece that loosely ties the fact that Alessandro Del Piero uses the term ‘soccer’ instead of ‘football’ – a common colloquialism for the game, perhaps popularised by it’s use in United States to diferrentiate the sport from American Football – and pigeonhole all football … Continue Reading

Well it was bound to happen, wasn’t it – and they did give us fair warning.

With the nod of a few heads, Australia has been downgraded from a country with two-and-a-half places (two group stage, one qualifier) in the Asian Champions League to just one-and-a-half places.

But it seems that the FFA, despite sending a crack team of diplomats headed by new CEO David Gallop to Kuala Lumpur, are more focused on matters at home, as mentioned last night by Hyundai A-League head Damian De Bohun:

“Our real focus and that of our clubs this year is the Hyundai A-League, the consolidation of the 10 team competition and continuing to build on the exciting start to this season.”

Sure, you look after your own backyard, but if you know that a bulldozer is coming to take nearly half of your backyard away unless you make improvements to your property, you would do so post-haste, right?

Apparently not the FFA, and … Continue Reading

If the A-League was the mainstream media market, Jarred Gillett right now would be the Charlie Sheen of the A-League – in the news for all the wrong reasons.

But it puts a glaring spotlight on the A-League.

Where Charlie Sheen’s drug-induced binges place scrutiny on the Hollywood scene, and make people question the integrity of it, poor match refereeing puts scrutiny on the A-League. Whether he’s innocent of the claims that are made against him, is beside the point – the fact is, you do something controversial, it’ll come back to bite you.

Gillett’s crucial decision in the 2012 Grand Final has been hotly debated, perhaps fervently debated, and has drawn opinion from around the football hemisphere. And whilst many believe he made the right decision in the Adelaide vs Wellington match last weekend, it raises the magnifying glass on the practices of those around him.

On the same weekend, Rhyan Grant escaped the ire of the referee in the 92nd … Continue Reading

Put down your knives and pitchforks – this article is as much about Australian Rules Football as it is about the city of Wellington. It’s actually more about the growth of discarded players in an inclusive environment – something that the Hyundai A-League has never been very capable with.

The Sydney Swans in the AFL, on the other hand, are well known for picking up players in trade week who perhaps have underperformed – Sam Reid, Ted Richards, Mitch Morton – and moulding them into future premiership stars.

And, yes, the A-League has had its journeyman players such as Michael Beauchamp (Mariners, Heart, Sydney & Wanderers) or Nikolai Topor-Stanley (Sydney, Perth, Newcastle & Wanderers), but rarely do you hear of a player being dumped after being considered ‘not good enough’.

Wellington seems to be the new home for players like this – with Jeremy Brockie, Leo Bertos, James Downey and Vince Lia, to name a few, all with at least … Continue Reading

I wish to start this article with a disclaimer – I’m a Perth Glory fan, and i’m still hurting. This is a retrospective of the Grand Final through the eyes of a football journalist and a fan in one.

I was not one of the lucky ones who managed to attend the grand final, perhaps the most controversial of all time, and can only feel for the thousand strong who made the journey over.

The Grand Final this year provided us with the perfect story – Heroes, Villains, Controversy – it had it all, and this article is intended to take a look in more detail at some of these things.

Let’s start with the good.

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The Heroes – Perth Glory’s Fans, Shane Smeltz

“We’re gonna win the league, We’re gonna win the league, and no you don’t believe us, and no you don’t believe us, and no you don’t believe us, we’re going to win the league” – Perth Glory … Continue Reading

It ain’t over till the fat lady sings, or perhaps in this case, the fat man. This week, Gold Coast United Pty. Ltd. ceased to exist as an A-League franchise after what was dubbed ‘material’ breaches of their contract with the FFA.

This followed a media furore in a week where the club’s head coach was sacked, the owner came out and decried football not as good as Rugby League.

What a change this is from the heady heights of three years ago when owner Clive Palmer came out and said that his glamour club would have full stadiums, capture the championship in its first year, and complete the season undefeated.

So just three years after expansion clubs Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury joined the fold, the FFA, despite their insistence that they are still looking for options to field a Gold Coast team in next years A-League competition, are staring down the possibility of a … Continue Reading

No less than 15 years ago, the national footballing authority of Australia, then called Soccer Australia, ran a cup competition parallel to the National Soccer League – the NSL Cup – albeit to less fanfare than perhaps they may have liked.

The final iteration of the cup was won by one-season wonders and now defunct Collingwood Warriors SC – a joint venture between Australian Football League powerhouses Collingwood Football Club and former national league entity Heidelberg United – in a 1-0 win over competition favourites Marconi Fairfield in front of a meek 2,327 fans at Lakeside Stadium.

The goal that day was scored, perhaps fittingly, by one of the best players of the decade; free-kick maestro Con Boutsianis, whose career took him from the east coast of Australia with clubs such as South Melbourne and Heidelberg, to Kingz FC in New Zealand, and the Perth Glory.

But back to the point at hand – what they had was a … Continue Reading

The latest installment of advertising for the Hyundai A-League promotes the fan-based culture on a level that should strike a chord with any supporter that follows their team and attends their games on a semi-regular to regular basis.

The chill down the spine as you enter the ground, that sudden burst of adrenaline as the thousands around you jump at a near miss, the devastating weight on those hearts as the opposition scores – these feelings are what make football the sport we know and love, and those feelings are only further eccentuated when the ground that you enter is your own.

Further magnify that with the knockout pressure of finals football, and you have the unique end-season atmosphere that is so paralleled with A-League history, and it’s no wonder that finals games over the years have sold out like hot cakes.

Simply put, Australians, like Americans with their playoffs and conferences, love their finals football with the concept being utilised in all … Continue Reading