NUMBER 38 SEPTEMBER 2012

OF SPORT AND CULTURE

IN THIS ISSUE Football Heritage Conference Abstracts

ISSN 1328-8997 Book Reviews PAGE 12 b SEPTEMBER 2012

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

THE WORLDS OF FOOTBALL II An international, multi-disciplinary, multi-code conference hosted by Victoria University’s Football Studies Unit.

The Football Studies Unit is part of the Sport and Culture Group, a collaborative group of scholars based in the School of Sport and Exercise Science at Victoria University. The unifying aim of the Group is to advance critical understanding of sport through individual and collaborative research and writings that explore the role of sport in local and global communities from a multi- and cross-disciplinary framework. The Group is renowned not only for hosting international conferences and local seminars, but for engagement in media presentations to promote informed and public debate on sport issues and policies, and the publication of the Bulletin of Sport and Culture. CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS 38 PAGE 13

ABSTRACTS EDITED BY BRIAN MORONEY AND MELISSA WALSH

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE, 13–15 NOVEMBER 2012 HE RI TAGE, COMMUNI T IES& CULT URES

Keynote Speaker

DR KEVIN MOORE, Director, National Football Museum, England Dr Moore has been the National Footbll Museum Director since the beginning of the project in 1997. The Museum initially opened in Preston in 2001, and a new National Football Museum was launched in Manchester in July 2012. Kevin has published widely in museum studies and cultural studies, including the books Museums and Popular Culture, and Museum Management. He is also one of the editors of the forthcoming book, Sport, History and Heritage: An Investigation into the Public Representation of Sport. From 2004 to 2007 Kevin was the first Director of the International Football Institute at the University of Central Lancashire. He is currently the Chair of the Sports Heritage Network, the professional organization of the United Kingdom’s sports museums. PAGE 14 b SEPTEMBER 2012

KEVIN MOORE DEB AGNEW National Football Museum, Flinders University Manchester, England The ‘Perfect Life’: The Future of the Past: THE AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL FOOTBALL HERITAGE IN A NEW CULTURE, RETIREMENT AND THE MILLENNIUM RECONSTRUCTION OF MASCULINE ‘Football’ in all its codes is an increasingly IDENTITY key part of global popular culture yet The Australian football culture has been museums have until recently largely argued as being a key area through ignored it. Sport, as part of popular culture, which fundamental aspects of masculine was (and to a significant extent is still) identity such as competitiveness, strength, regarded as ‘other’ in terms of the dominant toughness and emotional neutrality are ideological position of museums, which, developed. Football requires significant despite some democratisation in recent commitment in terms of time, diet, years, remain ‘temples’ of high culture. sleeping, discipline and social practices. This is of course culturally relative, in The camaraderie between team mates the way that sport is. Just as the codes of leads to the perception that the football club football have developed in very different is a ‘second’ family due to the close bonds ways around the world, so the heritage of that are formed. Footballers spend much of these codes has not developed uniformly. their time with team mates. How else are we to explain that the Upon retiring from the sport a sense of American Pro Football Hall of Fame opened loss is common. Retiring footballers must in 1963 and the US Soccer Museum and Hall rebuild a sense of community away from of Fame in 1979 but the National Football the sport as well as reconstruct a masculine Museum for England only in 2001? While identity. Given that the hero status of museums and archives may have only footballers allows social opportunities relatively recently become interested in that many not have otherwise been ‘football’ many of those involved in the offered, loneliness is another concern codes — fans, clubs, media — have long for retired footballers once they are no been engaged in preserving and reflecting longer part of the football community. its history. There is a sense in which This research was an investigation into the every fan is a walking, talking archive of retirement experiences of elite Australian their team and almost every sports club Rules footballers. It was a qualitative has a form of ‘community museum’, with research project which utilized a social displays and archives, reflecting a strong constructionist and life history perspective. sense of tradition, history and belonging. The 20 retired footballers who took part Who does the heritage of the football codes in this study had retired from Australian belong to? Football for between three months and This paper will explore how those with over fifteen years. This presentation will a stake in the heritage of football can focus on the meaning of football in the lives best work together to preserve and of elite Australian Rules footballers, the interpret this. This includes fans, private difficulties that are faced upon leaving the collectors, clubs, museums and archives, football community and the reconstruction academics, campaigning groups, specialist of masculinity following retirement organisations and governing bodies. What from football. It will aim to identify the of the ‘hidden’ aspects of the heritage importance of sport in the development of football, from those who have been of masculine identity and what happens marginalised through discrimination? The to this identity when football is no longer newly opened National Football Museum prominent in the men’s lives. in Manchester, England, will be used as a case study. CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS 38 PAGE 15

STEPHEN ALOMES IAN CUNNINGHAM Globalism Research Centre, RMIT University Charles Sturt University PETER SIMMONS and Australian Football: Charles Sturt University A SUPERIOR ART FORM OR A ROLLING DUNCAN MASCARENAHAS MAUL? Glyndŵr University In the study of sport there are questions of art and philosophy as well as those of Sport Officiating community and physical exercise. The Communication: meeting point is the idea of play. This ‘DEVELOPING A FEEL FOR THE GAME’ paper explores the changing character of Australian Football over time, from Sport officiating requires reflexivity and the initial matches in Yarra Park and flexibility in interactions with players beyond. It notes changes through several and coaches to both influence and obtain different eras and in different forms of the cooperation and compliance. It is important indigenous game, from junior to local and that officials enforce the laws of the game from older patterns of play to those which and communicate in ways that establish have been emerging. expectations of player behaviour, encourage safe and free-flowing play, and maintain The paper argues that at its best Australian social control. There is limited research Football is a superior art form to other available for understanding sport official sports, for reasons of its multiplicity, its communication and player management, potential for 360 degrees play, its lack of or evidence to support the training and an offside rule, and its opportunities for development of these skill areas in officials. different body sizes. But, as in the ways that the sport can be coached in terms of the Sport officials traditionally develop old game of stone, scissors, paper, at times communication skills through a ‘hidden the game has gone in different ways. At its curriculum’, comprising personal best, it values speed and creativity as well experience and advice from peers, assessors as endeavour and strength. At certain times and mentors. Most of the published and in certain forms, it can prioritise the studies that explore communication physical over the creative. in sports officials have focused on the communication of decisions as discreet Disfiguring moments have happened, techniques or behaviours. Limited attention on and off the field, as in all sports. In has been given to understanding ‘skilled’ community and culture, and even nature, communication as interactive and adaptive the game has varied. From muddy grounds to the context of the game or the moment. to perfect surfaces, from Queenstown gravel to tropical humidity, it has been One review of sport official communication influenced by its physical environment. studies argues for an approach that treats Community, culture and time and place communication as holistic, and better have all influenced its character on the integrates communication in the training sacred ground of the footy oval. of officials. This paper will report a study of national governing sport body attitudes to the training of communication and player management skills for officials. It will address three main research questions: (a) How do sport bodies conceptualize official communication and player management? (b) How do sport bodies believe that officials improve communication and player management skills? (c) What do they feel is the role of the sport body in helping PAGE 16 b SEPTEMBER 2012

officials to improve communication and as the several encouraging unintended player management skills? Eight semi- outcomes associated with developing structured interviews were conducted positive attitudes towards education and with development manag ers across seven specifically, higher education. sports (including four football codes) from These findings are significant in terms of national and state-levels in Australia. this collaboration with a high profile football Thematic analysis was used to code and club and a local University potentially classify interview data. becoming a model to positively influence a range of educational outcomes for other MURRAY DRUMMOND collaborative programs in low SES areas. CLAIRE DRUMMOND and SAM ELLIOTT MURRAY DRUMMOND Flinders University DEB AGNEW SHANE PILL and Nutrition and JIM DOLLMAN Physical Activity in Flinders University Low Socioeconomic SANFL Football Schools: Youth Retention A FLINDERS UNIVERSITY AND SOUTH ADELAIDE FOOTBALL CLUB Project COLLABORATIVE HEALTH-BASED MODEL This presentation will report on an Australian football and sport more investigation into the reasons why broadly, plays a unique role in galvanising junior South Australian footballers are low socioeconomic (SES) communities disengaging with Australian football. It will while increasing social inclusion. This attempt to understand the reasons why presentation provides an overview of junior footballers continue to register to a community based initiative between play Australian football in South Australia, Flinders University and the South Adelaide and the reasons why others do not continue Football Club in the southern regions of their participation in the sport. metropolitan Adelaide where low SES According to the Australian Bureau of communities exist. The program, funded Statistics (2009) over one third of Australian through a Commonwealth Knowledge children do not participate in organized Exchange Grant was designed to implement sport. One of the highest proportions of a nine-week physical activity and nutrition non-participants in organized sports is in program in schools in low SES communities. the age group 14–18. Therefore two key age The importance of focusing on physical groups will be investigated; under 14 and activity and nutrition in low SES under 18, as these are crucial stages in the communities is crucial to develop health development of youth and young adults literacy with a view to impacting long term where there are many factors that influence health based decision making. Utilising continuing participation in junior sport. Flinders University Health and Physical Questionnaires, focus groups and in-depth Education students together with the South interviews with children, adolescents, Adelaide Football Club players the ‘Perfect parents, coaches and key stakeholders have Life’ project was designed to enhance the been utilized to gain an understanding of overall perception and legitimacy of the the reasons surrounding participation and program in the eyes of the participants. disengagement in Australian football. This The presentation reports on the qualitative research has not previously been conducted evaluation and highlights the positive nature in South Australia and therefore provides in which the program was received as well crucial insight into South Australian football CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS 38 PAGE 17 participation rates and adds to the body of the end of the Second World War, 1946–51, literature on junior sport development and Essendon would play in seven successive participation in Australian football. More Grand Finals, which included three broadly this research will lead to an in premierships and the first drawn decider. depth understanding of the reasons why This paper, which is part of a larger project, Australian children participate in organized aims to explore the rapid rize of Reynolds sport and the factors that influence from a promising junior footballer, through withdrawal from sport. This will enable to him becoming the youngest winner of strategies to be developed in order to retain League football’s highest individual honour, participants in one of the most popular the Brownlow Medal, in just his second sports for children as well as encouraging season. those who have withdrawn from Australian football to reengage with the sport. CHRIS EGAN Independent Scholar DANIEL EDDY Victoria University 4 Votes for Glory This paper presents the history of Perth The Rise of a Hero: Glory’s foundation years as part of a broader DICK REYNOLDS AND THE ESSENDON fifteen year history book that is currently FOOTBALL CLUB, 1929–34 being worked on. This paper explores the According to some commentators, Dick reasons the club caused such an impact in Reynolds was to the Essendon Football both the state and nation’s culture. Club what Don Bradman was to On 1 December 1995, Perth Glory was and Phar Lap was to horse racing. A launched by Richard Court, the Premier footballer without peer, he captured the of Western Australia at the Burswood imagination of a generation and became Casino. By 13 October 1996, the sports an icon at Windy Hill In the early 1930s, editor of the West Australian was heralding when Australia was mired in the midst of the new arrival of the State’s ‘most multi- a Great Depression, the importance of and cultural team’. By the end of the season the reverence for sporting heroes was perhaps Sunday Times declared it the State’s ‘most at a peak. Dick Reynolds was one of those loved’ sporting team while Terry Venables figures around whom the code of Australian declared it a ‘success story unlike we have Rules football seemed to turn, yet he has ever seen before’. This paper will explore rarely featured prominently in the corpus the establishment of Perth Glory FC into of literature on the history of the code. an entity that moved Australian football Reynolds played through some of the most towards professionalism. significant periods of social stress and It will also look broadly at the juxtaposition upheaval that the city of Melbourne, and of a conservative society battling race municipality of Essendon, experienced in issues, but embracing a team designed to the twentieth century. From a struggling harness ‘multi-culturalism’. The crowd club during the Depression years of the became the central story in the inaugural 1930s, Reynolds won a record-equalling season and leads the author to consider three Brownlow medals; then, through his the consequences for Perth’s sporting own stellar performances on the field, he landscape due to the unprecedented led Essendon into one of the most dominant success of the club. eras in the history of the Victorian Football League/Australian Football League during the 1940s. His standout display in the 1942 Grand Final ensured Essendon would break an eighteen-year premiership drought, and at their peak, in the years directly following PAGE 18 b SEPTEMBER 2012

SAM ELLIOTT STEPHEN FRAWLEY Flinders University Australian Centre for Olympic Studies, UTS Business School The Ugly-Parent Syndrome: Rugby Participation A QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION INTO Legacy and the PARENTAL INFLUENCE IN JUNIOR Hosting of the 2003 AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL ACROSS SOUTH AUSTRALIA Rugby World Cup According to the contemporary Australian For many years now governments from media, there is a growing concern that around the world have been spending large parental behaviour in children’s sport sums of money on the hosting of major may be problematic. Although Australian sport events. Governments decide to stage football continues to be a popular sporting these events for many varied reasons. One preference for boys and girls across the rationale often provided by them to justify national landscape, it also comprises the this investment is that the hosting of the chief backdrop for reports around the ‘ugly event will encourage their population to parent syndrome’. play more sport and therefore to become Beyond anecdotal accounts and recent more physically active. media reports however, there remains a This precise agenda has been central to the limited understanding of parental influence organisation of the London 2012 Olympic in the junior Australian football experience, Games. The purpose of this research is presenting an understudied, yet culturally to explore the impact hosting major sport significant lacuna in the parent-sport events has on sport participation for a host literature. This research draws on rich, nation. To address this question an event descriptive interview data obtained from hosted nearly a decade ago in Australia, focus groups with over 80 children, parents namely the 2003 Rugby World Cup, is and coaches across remote, regional and investigated. The findings from the study metropolitan South Australia. show that rugby participation in Australia Based on a preliminary analysis of the increased following the hosting of the 2003 data, this paper will attempt to illuminate event. The collected data suggests that the a better perspective around this socio- recorded increases post-event followed a cultural problem. positive trend that started in 2000. Over the 2003–04 period junior registrations increased by 20 per cent, while senior registrations increased by five per cent. However, while there were increases across both categories only in the junior age cohort did Australian Rugby Union meet its target of increasing participation by fifteen per cent in 2004. Over the longer period from 2000 to 2008, junior participation also outperformed the senior category. Across this time frame, junior registrations increased by 68 per cent while senior registrations increased by just eleven per cent. While junior rugby grew across most parts of Australia including Australian Football League states, the growth of senior rugby was concentrated in traditional rugby playing states such New South Wales and Queensland. CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS 38 PAGE 19

ABDEL HALABI LAURA HALE Monash University University of Canberra MARGARET LIGHTBODY and University of South Australia Filling an LIONEL FROST Monash University Information Void: USING WIKIPEDIA TO DOCUMENT AND PROMOTE THE STATE OF WOMEN’S Player Payments SOCCER IN AFRICA and the Accounting In many parts of Africa, the development Reports of Victorian of women’s national soccer teams has been limited by a variety of local conditions Football League including political instability, historic societal discrimination against women, Clubs Before 1910 sport institutions focus on the men’s Payments to players were not allowed game, and economic issues. For English under Victorian Football League (VFL) language researchers based outside of regulations until the end of the 1910 season, Africa, researching African women’s soccer but anecdotal evidence suggests that many is difficult because of language issues, the clubs paid their players before this. Player lack of Internet sport infrastructure inside payments were hidden in club accounting Africa, and other factors that create source reports as items such as ‘Training, limitations. Travelling or Entertainment Expenses’. By Drawing attention to women’s sport, and inflating these reimbursements clubs could, women’s soccer in particular, is important in effect, pay their players. because sport reflects on broader women’s These ‘secret payments’ were an outcome health, human rights and education issues. of the increasing level of club ownership by One of the most visible public spaces to non-playing members who saw their clubs address this topic with sustained attention as sources of civic pride and insisted that and longevity is Wikipedia. Efforts were their committees put competitive teams made to systematically improve the on the field. This was at the expense of quality of African national team articles club founders and original owners who on Wikipedia. This paper will explore were amateur playing members. The the issues of using Wikipedia to promote appointment of coaches to train, select and women’s soccer in Africa by working to motivate players was also a reflection of the document the above issues in articles about ‘win at all costs’ notion which prevailed at national team. nearly all VFL clubs. In this paper the accounting reports of a number of VFL clubs for the 1908-12 seasons MATT HARVEY are analysed to assess whether players Victoria University were paid and to identify the various ways in which player payments were hidden. Having the Blues The authors also consider whether these As a lifelong Carlton supporter, the author payments kept pace with club revenue and explores the role of Carlton Football Club whether a link between payment levels and in his life, and in his professional fields on-field success can be established. of law and politics. Although apparently a club of the Anglican ascendancy (navy and white are also the colours of the Anglican Church and the State of Victoria), Carlton successfully attracted the waves of immigrants, especially Italians, Greeks and Jews. It has also attracted politicians PAGE 20 b SEPTEMBER 2012

and academics. From the earliest years of competition at the Melbourne Olympic the Victorian Football League, it developed Games. At the tail end of one contribution a winning culture and a sound financial it was pointed out that the most important base and in the 1960s led the greater ‘silence in the record’ of the 1956 Games professionalization of football by buying the was the absence of the Hungarian football best players and coaches. team, then the best national team in the After Barassi, the success continued world, and the first author canvassed very under colourful president George Harris. briefly why it did not appear. Carlton tasted success again in 1979, but Since then more evidence bearing on then Harris was deposed. The recruitment the matter has come to light with the of David Parkin as coach again showed partial opening up of the Soviet archives Carlton’s professionalism and consolidated and academic research therein, and the its success; however the 1980s belonged second author recently interviewed one to Hawthorn. Carlton won in 1987 under of two survivors of the 1956 team. While Robert Walls and John Elliott, but Elliott’s it will probably never be known beyond reign reflected the corporate excesses of doubt why the Hungarians did not defend the 1980s. He dragged Carlton into debt their Olympic Games title in 1956 there and disaster after success in 1995. As a is now sufficient warrant for another look leftish academic, I bitterly resented Carlton at the matter. The second author will being identified with Elliott. I welcomed contextualize the Hungarian ‘Golden Team’ the ‘socialism’ of the draft and salary cap, and its place in and outline but Carlton has been notably unsuccessful the broader political context in which it was under the new regime and indeed has been operating in the 1950s. punished for salary cap violation. The acquisition of Chris Judd suggests Carlton still has a ‘buy a messiah’ complex, TIM HOGAN and the presidency of Stephen Kernahan, State Library of Victoria a former messiah, may contribute to this. Carlton has lost part of its soul for it no Reading the Game: longer plays at Princes Park and looks like AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR tasting a seventeenth season without a flag. AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL It is time for a new era of developing talent Reading the Game: An Annotated Guide in-house, perhaps even an academic model. to the Literature and Films of Australian That would please this academic Blue! Rules Football, the first comprehensive bibliography of Australian Rules football, was published in 2005. Work to complete a ROY HAY and new edition is almost complete. Sports and Editorial Services Australia This paper will provide an overview of works in the new edition, and the array of Editorial Supervisor, SBS Sport resources used to prepare a new edition. The impact of new publishing and research Proving a Negative in trends since 2005 will be considered, as History: well as the growth of social media and THE NON-APPEARANCE OF THE digital platforms for the creation and HUNGARIAN FOOTBALL TEAM AT THE dissemination of football writing and MELBOURNE OLYMPIC GAMES IN 1956 commentary. Some of the challenges for libraries, museums and other collecting Several years ago three members of institutions in identifying, collecting and the society did a combined paper to the preserving born digital material will also Australian Society for Sports History be explored. conference in Adelaide on the celebrated ‘Red water match’ in the water polo CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS 38 PAGE 21

CHRIS KANDUNIAS and long-term viability. This paper will University of South Australia examine the extent to which the Task Force report drove the formation of what is now The Impact of the acknowledged as a financially healthy and 1985 VFL Task Force vibrant National Football Competition. Report and its Role in BRUCE KENNEDY Driving the Creation Independent Scholar of a National Football Geelong Football Competition in Club’s Recovery from Australia World War II: The release of the 1985 VFL Task Force NEW RESEARCH YIELDS NEW LIGHT report into the parlous financial state of the The Geelong Cats withdrew from the Victorian Football League (VFL) culminated then Victorian Football League (VFL) in much internal reflection by the VFL, both competition in 1942–43, returned in 1944 in the future direction and operation of the and endured their worst-ever season, VFL. The report’s findings were ultimately before building steadily to win consecutive seen as the formative steps driving the premierships in 1951–52. That journey had creation of a national football competition. many twists and turns, from the general History revealed that the underwhelming belief that the team pulled out of the VFL financial performance of the VFL in the ‘due to transport restrictions’, through 1980s accelerated the introduction of the its non-unanimous readmission to the interstate teams (namely, the West Coast competition and on to the construction of a Eagles and Brisbane Bears in 1987 and brilliant, well-coached outfit that were two- Adelaide Crows in 1991). time premiers and played 26 games without Their introduction was seen as a means defeat over the 1952–53 seasons. A of generating much needed cash-flow for number of giants of Australian football, the VFL, through the issuing of licenses including Bernie Smith, Bob Davis and (for significant fees) to the interstate clubs. Fred Flanagan were the products of that The impetus for the Task Force report lay era. Two years of research and writing in the perception that the majority of VFL by Bruce Kennedy and Michael Rogers clubs focused their resources on achieving have led to the publication of Classic Cats: on-field success in the belief that this The Story of Geelong’s Premiership Years, underpinned perceptions of the overall 1951–52. Through the use of a range of ‘success´ of a VFL club. This emphasis source materials, including on-line issues on on-field performance, largely to the of the VFL Football Record, the authors detriment of off-field performance (the unearthed many facts and details that have financial health of the club), reached its long been forgotten. They have challenged zenith in 1985 by which time the VFL was some of the views that have become firmly underwriting seven of the twelve VFL clubs established in the interim. to the total of $2,531,654, including one club which was operating under a Scheme of Arrangement. Given the precarious financial state of the VFL in the 1980s and the resultant need for a significant cash injection, these factors brought into sharp focus the importance of financially underpinning the VFL competition to ensure both its short-term PAGE 22 b SEPTEMBER 2012

PAUL KENNEDY and the difficulties encountered in trying ABC News 24 to find this often obscure material. It also suggests that analysis of the many Ghosts of Australian children’s and young adults’ texts dealing with soccer could add to the understanding Football: of the popularity of soccer among young THE MAKING OF A FOOTBALL people in Australia. While noting the DOCUMENTARY apparent isolation between the various This presentation explores the making of works of Australian soccer literature, this a documentary about a significant event paper notes the broader trends to which the in Australian colonial football history. The majority of the works contribute. drowning of the Mornington Football Club team (fifteen men and boys) is a little known CHRIS MCCONVILLE and tragedy, and the author, an ABC journalist, ROB HESS wanted to raise awareness of the incident Victoria University for the accident’s 120th anniversary. In researching the film he discovered writings Australian Rules from regional newspapers that spoke of the origins of ‘country football’, which included Football in New controversy and passion that would not be out of place today. These findings also Zealand Prior to the portray the lives of the ‘sons of pioneers’, Great War searching for fun and adventure in an Preliminary studies of the diffusion of increasingly depressed Victoria. Australian Rules football to New Zealand, South Africa, Great Britain and the United PAUL MAVROUDIS States, indicate that the game exhibited Victoria University considerable growth in those countries during the Federation period. In effect, Against the Run of ‘Aussie Rules’ achieved its zenith at the first national championship for the game in Play: August 1908, an event where teams from all THE EMERGENCE OF AUSTRALIAN Australian states and New Zealand competed SOCCER LITERATURE together for the first time. In examining the The creative writing thermalizing soccer reasons for the initial flowering of the code in Australia (Australian soccer literature) outside its cultural origins in Melbourne, this though a marginal literary genre, is not paper traces the power and influence of the as marginal as previous bibliographical Australasian Football Council, an institution works have suggested. There are several formed in 1906. There are no general studies literary texts dealing mainly or in large of the code that adequately explain how part with Australian soccer. The texts span trade relations, economic imperatives, and from the early twentieth century until the expatriate Victorians all played some part present. These encompass three broad eras: in fostering the international expansion of ‘Pommyball’, ‘Wogball’ and ‘Individual Ball’. the Australian game. In particular, there While few works portray club soccer in a are no football histories that contextualize ‘naturalized’ Australian state, recent works the expansionist agenda of the Council at have emphasized the ability of individual this time. An analysis of the documents participants to write about their own of the Council, which indicates how its experiences in a naturalized setting. financial support was crucial to the health The paper discusses the similarities and of the code in so-called ‘enemy territory’, differences between the literary and critical is a major contribution to knowledge of the representations of Australian soccer. The development of Australian Rules football paper discusses the methodologies used outside of Victoria during this period. CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS 38 PAGE 23

BRENT MCDONALD BRIAN MORONEY Victoria University Victoria University Getting on the Field: The UltraS of Italian PARTICIPATION IN FOOTBALL Football: In the past decade, government at all levels A JUSTIFIED VIOLENCE? has attempted to utilize sport as a vehicle for achieving a range of social ends including The Italian UltraS have been associated improved public health, intervention for ‘at with a number of violent events in recent risk’ youth, and inclusion and integration times. In 2007, Serie A matches accounted of various migrant groups. A key premise for 104 police and 62 civilians injured, behind the belief in the power of sport 129 people arrested, 409 people cautioned is its capacity to create social capital for by magistrates, and 38 matches in which those who play it. Pacific Island and Maori people were injured. Over the years men are grossly over-represented at most there have been 74 deaths. Some of these levels of rugby in Australia suggesting the incidents occurred outside stadia. Rome sport’s enormous success at achieving its UltraS threw explosives at the local police aforementioned aims. station in 2009, whilst in the same year Cagliari F.C. UltraS attacked the city prison Drawing on life histories, this paper and threatened prison officers. It has been investigates the stories of these migrant estimated there are currently 63 UltraS men and their experiences of rugby groups in Italy. union in Australia. Specifically the author examines how they account for their own Despite the UltraS representing an and other Pacific Islanders’ involvement impressive, sustained, some would say and success. It is found that the central dangerous force in Italian society there theme of ‘blood’ is variously utilized either has been very little research conducted. in terms of biological determinism or Vital questions relating to the origin, cultural history to make sense of Pacific history, development, values, reputation Islanders’ performance in rugby. As bodies for violence, political ideology, and claims inscribed from a variety of contexts, we of racism, ethnocentrism and misanthropy, suggest that rugby reproduces a relatively together with police and State attempts at narrow and short term species of capital control and a myriad others have remained, from the perspective of Australian society until very recently, unanswered. No doubt whilst simultaneously producing more the perceived danger of approaching the enduring power and identity within the UltraS with a research or investigative field of Pacific Island Diaspora. agenda in mind has contributed to the neglect of research. When performance in sport is underpinned by a bio-racist logic and specific cultural The present author has made numerous history the overwhelming common sense unsuccessful attempts to talk to UtraS that ensues is experienced at an embodied groups over the years and was regularly level. cautioned that the likely result of any such approach would be criminal assault. This changed in July of this year when admission to the private club of the Romas UltraS, the Boys (approached via Via Machiavelli) was granted. This paper comprises a very tentative attempt to address some of the questions raised above. The analysis of interviews, fanzines, web sites, and literature review led to, at the very least, unexpected, indeed startling, results. PAGE 24 b SEPTEMBER 2012

DAVE NADEL PETER OCHIENG Monash University Victoria University The On-Going Story Rule of Three: HOW RESOURCES SEPARATE WINNERS of Victoria Park FROM LOSERS AT THE AFRICA CUP OF Victoria Park was built on an indigenous NATIONS corroboree site that became known as Dight’s Paddock in the second half of the A growing number of studies from USA and nineteenth century. It has been a recreation United Kingdom now attest to the positive and sporting facility for over 140 years and and significant link between strategic was the home of the Collingwood Football use and application of resources to sports Club from 1892 to 2000. performance. However, there has been a serious lack of studies from Africa even During the final decades of the 20th though African nations such as Cameroon century it became the subject of some and Nigeria are now world ranked. This dispute between the then Collingwood study attempts to explore the link between Council and the Football Club with different football resources and football performance groups of residents split between the two at the African Cup of Nations. organisations. Subsequently Collingwood Football Club moved its matches to Using Resource-based theory, the study the and its aims to: (a) evaluate the impact of human administrative and training facilities to resources (measured as the number East Melbourne. Victoria Park decayed of professional players and agents) on during the first decade of the 21st century performance at the Africa Cup of Nations but in recent years the ground has been (b) explore the impact of physical resources revived as both as a community centre and (measured as the number of stadiums) and as the venue for the Collingwood Victorian (c) evaluate the impact of organizational Football League (i.e. Seconds) team. resources (measured as the number of clubs and teams) on performance. Both the Club and the Yarra Council have been involved in this project although there The study uses archival data from is some dispute as to who should be credited newspapers and websites. Football with the revival of Victoria Park. This paper performance was measured as high will attempt to canvas all the issues referred achievement from 1996–2012 indicated to in this abstract although the major by the number of qualifiers at the African emphasis will be on the recent revival of Cup of Nations while low achievement was Victoria Park. Disclosure: The author has indicated by the number of non-qualifying been a supporter of Collingwood Football attempts. Using non-parametric statistics Club since 1950 and a Member since 1989. the results indicated that high achieving African nations do possess a significantly higher number of football resources and have also hosted more football tournaments as compared to the low achievers. To accomplish a football performance strategy, African nations which seek to succeed at the Africa Cup of Nations or the FIFA World Cup, may need to first invest in adequate football resources such as stadiums, qualified staff and then organize themselves into leagues, teams and clubs. CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS 38 PAGE 25

GARY OSMOND and MARK PENNINGS University of Queensland Queensland University of Technology MATTHEW KLUGMAN Victoria University Researching the The Histories of a Origins of Australian Transformative Football This paper will address my four-volume Racial Image: book series, Origins of Australian Football. MEMORY, METHODOLOGY AND FORM This covers the history of football in In April 1993 the Indigenous Australian Victoria between 1858–96 and represents Rules football player Nicky Winmar a wide-ranging assessment of this period responded to racial abuse by lifting his in Australian sports history. It presents jumper and pointing with pride to his black material about seasonal football contests skin. It is Australia’s most important popular and the cultural context that surrounded image of recent times. It helped facilitate the the game, as well as an extensive statistical transformation of attitudes towards racism account. During the twelve-year research within the Australian Football League. period that went into its development many It quickly became an enduring symbol lessons were learned about researching of Australia’s problematic race-relations sport in this period, and was undertaken beyond the sporting field; and it continues during a time when new research sources to be reprinted again and again, as well as became available. inspiring countless reproductions. This paper will address these experiences We are currently working on a book tracing by explaining the landscape of football the history of this image along with a 2013 history when research into this era was exhibition marking its 20th anniversary. begun. It will describe the processes and This paper will chart the challenges and detective work involved in working through contrasts in writing a history of a now-iconic existing resources, and the measures taken image and curating an exhibition on that to secure new and previously overlooked history. At issue are matters of methodology sources. The impacts of digital on-line and form, and the different ways that words resources on research directions and the and images may, and may not, be twined advantages and disadvantages they offered together. Underlying this are questions of will also be examined. The paper will representation, memory, and the complex also relate how my research approach to social and cultural impact of specific sources can be applied to other sports such sporting moments captured in visual form. as cricket during this period, and how it can An emerging body of literature points to assist in locating new stories and statistics the power of sports images, in particular that provide fresh insights into the nature racial images. But the affective dimension of nineteenth century sport. of these images remains underexplored, as does the windows these images provide into the social and cultural practice of sport, and race relations more generally. Like many other iconic images of race, the photographs of Nicky Winmar’s gesture revealed something entrenched but rarely discussed. The unveiling of this football racism had a transformative effect. And yet the image retains a demand for change that points beyond sport to Australia’s still problematic racerelations. How, we want to ask, do we tell and exhibit this story. PAGE 26 b SEPTEMBER 2012

SHANE PILL FRANCESCO RICATTI and Flinders University Sport, Health and University of the Sunshine Coast Physical Education Research Group MATTHEW KLUGMAN Richard Nowell Victoria University Twopenny: ‘Connected to SHOULD HE BE RECOGNIZED AS ONE Something’: OF THE ‘FATHERS’ OF AUSTRALIAN SOCCER AS A SITE OF TRANSNATIONAL FOOTBALL? PASSIONS, MEMORIES, AND Devaney (2010) suggested Richard Nowell COMMUNITIES FOR ITALIAN MIGRANTS Twopenny might well be considered the This paper draws on 32 oral history father of Australian Football, while Pill interviews conducted with Italians who (2011) claimed Richard Nowell Twopenny settled in Sydney in the 1950s and 1960s to was worthy of similar status in the history explores the importance soccer can play of Australian football as Victorians Tom in the lives, identities and memories of Wills and William Hammersley and should migrants. similarly be included in the Australian Sport can provide an illuminating Football League Hall of Fame. Richard lens for analysing the experience of Nowell Twopenny’s prominent role leading migrants, because not only are sports Adelaide Football Club endeavours to sites of individual, regional, national and achieve a single code of football in South transnational identities, they can also Australia and its involvement in the first facilitate social inclusion or, conversely, official matches between teams from become sites of exclusion. Soccer in different colonies at the end of inaugural Australia is often celebrated as a supposedly SAFA and VFA seasons, are central to these multicultural game. At the same time, the claims. This paper considers the evidence of expressions of the complex histories of Twopenny’s historical role in establishing migration, colonialism, exploitation and Australian football through document racial and ethnic discrimination that have review (newspaper reports) and secondary shaped the game have often been silenced. sources indicating his game development influence in and beyond South Australia. Our interviews show that soccer has been a key site of negotiation, agency and at times resistance for first and second SHANE PILL generation migrants. We also argue that, Flinders University Sport, Health and while is the de-ethinicisation of soccer Physical Education Research Group that understandably dominated media, political and academic debate, the concern New Football of these migrants in recent years has been mostly with the loss of memory and Given a Tryout: with the removal of an important history AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL IN THE USA, made of shared relationships and bonding 1910–13 experiences. The San Francisco Call, 20 February 1910, suggested Australian football might replace the ‘old game’ as locals took to the ‘new game’ introduced to California by Columbia Park Amateur Athletics Club. This paper will present the results of a preliminary document search of the newspaper reporting of this first entry of Australian football into North America. CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS 38 PAGE 27

TREVOR RUDDELL KATHRYN SINCLAIR Melbourne Cricket Club Library Monash University DAVID STUDHAM Melbourne Cricket Club Library Examining the AND HELEN WALPOLE Relationship National Sports Museum Between Mentoring, Representing a Networking and Work Divided Australia: UNIFORMS OF AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL Identity for Women FOOTBALL TEAMS in Male-Dominated The major exhibition at the National Sports Museum (NSM) from August 2013 to April Organizations 2014 is ‘Green and Gold: Australia’s Sporting This paper will explore the impact that Colours.’ The Melbourne Cricket Club mentoring and networking has on the Library is assisting the NSM’s curatorial formation of work-identity for women who staff research the development and use occupy or aspire to occupy leadership of Australia’s national colour scheme in a positions in traditionally male-dominated variety of sports, including the uniforms of environments. It will report preliminary Australia’s national football teams. findings based on interviews with men and women occupying senior and middle No one football game can claim to dominate management positions in the Australian Australia’s national landscape in the same Football League (AFL). way as soccer does in Brazil or gridiron in the United States. A football code may be The AFL was chosen for this case study said to hold sway within a city or a segment because it is generally thought to typify a of the community, but Australia’s football traditionally male-dominated environment. passions have been divided among a variety Findings will be analysed through the of codes since the colonial era. Although application of theoretical elements of some national football teams have not work-identity, social identity, networking, captured the hearts of many Australians, role congruity and power relationship the administrators of Australia’s football frameworks. In the literature several codes created and promoted football teams benefits are claimed for the use of mentoring to represent the entire nation. and networking, but little explanation is offered of how and why these processes This paper will discuss the early work. Mentoring is intended to facilitate development of green and gold as Australia’s the professional and personal growth of ‘sporting colours’ and then examine the employees at various stages of their careers. scheme’s historical application (or lack of application) in the uniforms of Australia’s By determining and understanding how national rugby union, , soccer, work-identity, mentoring and networking Australian rules (international rules), and are linked the research will add to our gridiron teams. knowledge of what makes mentoring and networking successful. Women might not have full access to the benefits associated with mentoring due to the impact of gender- based barriers to career development. An application of the research may lie in informing and improving the design of mentoring programs that allow women in senior and middle management complete access to any associated benefits. PAGE 28 b SEPTEMBER 2012

BOB STEWART LES STREET Victoria University University of Technology Sydney Drug Control Polices Soccer in the Suburbs: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF NINE in Australian Football: FORMER A CRITICAL RE-VISIT GROUNDS IN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA This paper examines the drug control Academic research on football (soccer) policies of Australia’s four professional in Australia has developed alongside the football codes, which are Australian-rules game over the last 30 years with particular football, rugby league, rugby union, and attention on ethnicity and governance. world football. They have, in the first place, Whilst scholarship has grown, certain all adopted the World Anti-Doping Agency aspects such as physical environment have (WADA) template, which provides for a been neglected. Stadiums, in particularly long list of banned substances, provision venues in Australia used for the National for therapeutic exemption, a distinction Soccer League (NSL) — Australia’s first between performance enhancing drug use national sporting competition — are an area and illicit drug use, a further distinction which has not had the attention it deserves. between in-competition drug testing and out-of-competition drug testing, the Football revolves around stadiums, imposition of a player-whereabouts rule, without them there is no game. Whilst and the creation of a biological passport for internationally there has been work on this all players. topic by scholars such as Bale and Gaffney, to date there has been no comprehensive Their drug controls also mimic the WADA social study on the history and development arrangements in having a graded bundle of of football stadiums in Australia. Unlike penalties that begin with a caution, and end other local football codes, the NSL had no with a lifetime suspension. The assumptions consistency with the number of competing that underpin the controls are also based on teams or grounds used. WADA’s template, which says that its goal is ‘drug free sport’ because drug use is not fair, Between 1977 and 2004, the years in which it corrupts athlete values and beliefs, it goes the competition ran, 100 recorded venues against the spirit of sport, and it endangers had been used for regular season games the health and well-being of its participants. or finals adding to the rich tapestry and For many — and, maybe even most — complexity of the league. This paper by people who engage with sport as officials, way of a comparative analysis of nine commentators fans, and casual observers, former NSL venues in Sydney provides a these controls are legitimate, since they snapshot of selected grounds detailing their send out the very strong signal that anyone growth using a primary and secondary who uses, and having thereby undermined data approach. The key findings highlight sport’s good-name, will be punished to a contrast and change in the evolution within an inch of their sporting lives. and expansion of stadiums with an aim to provide the core evidence as a base for However, a deeper analysis of footballs’ future research. drug controls suggest that they come with a hefty price-tag attached, which includes the Since the commencement of the A-League, restriction of player’s civil liberties, the loss the NSL has often been portrayed in a of personal benefit arising from allowable negative light and relegated to a football use, the additional resources needed to afterthought. The path taken here is that the make the controls work, and reliance on NSL and its stadia are worthy of awareness heavily coercive rules, and a dangerously in the current football climate. Whether paternalistic ideology, to secure compliance. the audience is ‘old soccer’, ‘new football’ or somewhere in between, without the NSL the sport would not be in the shape it is today. CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS 38 PAGE 29

IAN SYSON TONY WARD Victoria University Independent Scholar The Calm and Who Watches the the Storm: Australian Football SOCCER REPORTING IN MELBOURNE, 1908–14 League Grand Final? TV RATINGS PATTERNS ACROSS When soccer reformed in Melbourne in AUSTRALIA 1908, after its long hiatus, the Australian football environment had changed. An The last Saturday of September 2012, some age of relative innocence was over and 3 million people across our five major competitive, professionalized football codes cities watched on TV as the Hawks and had emerged from the mists of amateurism. Swans battled it out for the Australian The rhetoric of nation and nationalism Football League (AFL) flag. However, TV had changed the way football codes were ratings in each city across the country perceived and reported. The promotion vary considerably. This paper discusses of Australian rules in Melbourne and the patterns over the past thirteen Grand beyond shifted from being a simple cultural Finals, since 2000. Viewer strength differs preference to an act of political duty, a between cities. Since 2000, 1.25 million duty that some journalists started to take Melburnians have typically watched the seriously. Grand Final each year — well ahead of the 400,000+ Sydneysiders. A series of nasty inter-code battles in Perth added a layer of ideological and political The other three major cities have each objections to the previously aesthetic or averaged around 350,000 viewers, though taste-based journalistic judgments of soccer that is a smaller share of Brisbane’s that predominated in Melbourne football population than for Adelaide or Perth. The coverage. This paper traces the reporting weather has an effect — but not always of soccer in Melbourne from 1908 to 1914, a the expected one. While many fans prefer period in which the journalism transforms an open running game rather than a dour from brief reports to feature articles struggle in the mud, TV viewer numbers noticing the awakening of a sleeping giant. climb as clouds gather and the temperature drops — and outdoor pursuits away from the TV become less attractive. Contested HELEN WALPOLE struggles generally rate much better than National Sports Museum one-way traffic. Many viewers switch off after half time in one-sided Grand Finals. Displaying Football But by far the biggest influence on the numbers is whether or not a home town Heritage team is in the Grand Final. This is especially In this session a number of display methods so away from the AFL’s heartland, with big for common types of football heritage numbers in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth items are discussed and demonstrated, when the local team is playing. But even in showing ways to safely and securely exhibit Melbourne and Adelaide, the crowds grow guernseys, balls and medals. for home teams.