Welcome!

By registering with us, you'll be able to discuss, share and private message with other members of our community.

Sign Up Now!

Oz Football Podcasts 🎙️

We would sometimes return the favour here, if it didnt clash with a South match...
Likewise Sydney united fans for Melbourne knights. Sometimes still Sydney united supporters will go down for those big games and vice versa etc.

I’ve heard the names South Melbourne Hellas and Heidelberg Alexander be uttered at Sydney Olympic Games in conversation, so they’re clearly still relevant in peoples minds
 
Again, not to harp on about it, but therein lies one of the key differences re Italians in Melbourne v Italians in Sydney. The part of the story about being brought to princess park/Victoria park at a young age as an act of attempted assimilation into the culture/to fit in simply didn’t happen here to anywhere near the same degree. There’s nowhere near the level of force feeding/indoctrination from the nrl in Sydney as there is the afl in Melbourne. It’s very easy to ignore the nrl in Sydney if you’re not interested, not so the afl in Melbourne. Afl in Melbourne is conflated with Australian identity, especially back then. If you don’t have a team you’re not one of us
Community choice thing in the end... some nationalities were/are tighter, prouder and more loyal to history (or stubborn if your orefer) than others it seemed!
 
Community choice thing in the end... some nationalities were/are tighter, prouder and more loyal to history (or stubborn if your orefer) than others it seemed!
Well as I say, imo it played out slightly differently in different cities as is evidenced by the fact there are 2 strong Italian clubs in Sydney and none in Melbourne, getting off soccer and onto afl wasn’t tied to assimilation in Sydney as it was in Melbourne.

But there’s no doubt truth to your statement, there’s levels to how assimilated various communities are, I’m biased but imo Italians have shown an ability to strike a good balance between retaining their identity and contribute to the local culture whilst also seemlessly integrating wherever they’ve gone, be it here or North America. The Greeks too, but maybe slightly less so as you say, more Greeks are sent to Greek school for example than Italians are to Italian school. Then I would argue the Croatians/Macedonians/Serbs etc even less so again, lots of national pride in those communities for obvious reasons and it’s not uncommon for the 3rd gen in the country to speak the language fluently and consider themselves Croatian etc etc first and foremost. But then you have communities like the Germans etc which you’d barely know they exist the degree to which they’ve assimilated despite being in larger numbers than the Greeks nationally
 
Last edited:


guy who brought del piero
said you can't have ethnic clubs because it is like mixing dirty and clean water
said we should scrap academies

apart from the del piero coup a bit of a voldemort of australian footy


i just listened to this podcast and the bloke is a tool, just another commercial businessman, who failed with Carlton SC.

does he seriously think a stand alone 8 team league, 1 team per city was going to entertain the australian public, year in year out lol.

that's over 1 hour of my life i'll never get back listening to that garbage.
 
i just listened to this podcast and the bloke is a tool, just another commercial businessman, who failed with Carlton SC.

does he seriously think a stand alone 8 team league, 1 team per city was going to entertain the australian public, year in year out lol.

that's over 1 hour of my life i'll never get back listening to that garbage.
It was like listening to Leon from #DeathToTheNsl
 
Rocklea United's (nowadays known as Brisbane Knights) bombastic fans always went along to support Sydney United or Melbourne Knights whenever they were playing Brisbane Strikers in the NSL.

As did Gold Coast Knights fans.

Certainly added to the atmosphere which would normally have been non-existent at a dreary Strikers game in the old NSL.

As an outsider who came to Australia I honestly feel from a footballing culture point of view killing off the NSL's ethnic club culture was a massive fuck up on the part of the Soccer Australia and later the FFA....

People will probably disagree but that ethnic club culture, whilst not without it's issues was undeniably Australian football's beating heart passionate, tribal, community-driven support which was never replicated with the A-League franchise licence systems.

Australia's strength is its multiculturalism. Soccer should have leaned into that heritage more smartly when they tried to re-invent the game.

Trying to engineer popularity to families and general sports fans at the expense of what already existed is never a great idea when it comes to football.

Awaiting a backlash!! 🤣🤣
 
Rocklea United's (nowadays known as Brisbane Knights) bombastic fans always went along to support Sydney United or Melbourne Knights whenever they were playing Brisbane Strikers in the NSL.

As did Gold Coast Knights fans.

Certainly added to the atmosphere which would normally have been non-existent at a dreary Strikers game in the old NSL.

As an outsider who came to Australia I honestly feel from a footballing culture point of view killing off the NSL's ethnic club culture was a massive fuck up on the part of the Soccer Australia and later the FFA....

People will probably disagree but that ethnic club culture, whilst not without it's issues was undeniably Australian football's beating heart passionate, tribal, community-driven support which was never replicated with the A-League franchise licence systems.

Australia's strength is its multiculturalism. Soccer should have leaned into that heritage more smartly when they tried to re-invent the game.

Trying to engineer popularity to families and general sports fans at the expense of what already existed is never a great idea when it comes to football.

Awaiting a backlash!! 🤣🤣
I suspect that if that "heritage" hadn't sent Frank Lowy packing with his tail between his legs when he was trying to sieze control of Soccer Australia, then it may very well HAVE been built that way.

Oh and just to bring you "up to speed" for some reason, In soccer circles "multiculturalism" means everyone having to pretend to be Anglo for some reason, not sure why?
 
I suspect that if that "heritage" hadn't sent Frank Lowy packing with his tail between his legs when he was trying to sieze control of Soccer Australia, then it may very well HAVE been built that way.

I've got a little mate....Partick Thistle fan, nice middle class accountant guy from the upper crust West End of Glasgow....

The other week when Rangers and Celtic were beating the crap out of each other for 8 hours before, during and after the Scottish Cup tie, he makes the comment that Scottish football would be better off without Celtic and Rangers and the 'Old Firm Scum'(the fans) and their sectarian bullshit.....

I told him Scottish football would be dead and burried without Celtic and Rangers. The loss of intensity and atmosphere across the game in Scotland would render it a footballong cultural wasteland!
 
I've got a little mate....Partick Thistle fan, nice middle class accountant guy from the upper crust West End of Glasgow....

The other week when Rangers and Celtic were beating the crap out of each other for 8 hours before, during and after the Scottish Cup tie, he makes the comment that Scottish football would be better off without Celtic and Rangers and the 'Old Firm Scum'(the fans) and their sectarian bullshit.....

I told him Scottish football would be dead and burried without Celtic and Rangers. The loss of intensity and atmosphere across the game in Scotland would render it a footballong cultural wasteland!
Beware those middle class accountant types mate, not all of them handed back their machetes... :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 
i just listened to this podcast and the bloke is a tool, just another commercial businessman, who failed with Carlton SC.

does he seriously think a stand alone 8 team league, 1 team per city was going to entertain the australian public, year in year out lol.

that's over 1 hour of my life i'll never get back listening to that garbage.
I didn't bother listening.. seeing a few quotes here and there was enough to tell me this guy isn't worth listening to.
 
Again, not to harp on about it, but therein lies one of the key differences re Italians in Melbourne v Italians in Sydney. The part of the story about being brought to princess park/Victoria park at a young age as an act of attempted assimilation into the culture/to fit in simply didn’t happen here to anywhere near the same degree. There’s nowhere near the level of force feeding/indoctrination from the nrl in Sydney as there is the afl in Melbourne. It’s very easy to ignore the nrl in Sydney if you’re not interested, not so the afl in Melbourne. Afl in Melbourne is conflated with Australian identity, especially back then. If you don’t have a team you’re not one of us
As has been pointed out in prior threads, it's why Flogari and Sticca are so hellbent on riding this "assimilation or bust" pale-horse re. ⚽ in 🇦🇺; growing up effnik(Italian specifically in their case) in AFL-heartland, esp. back in the day..that's what it does to ya. And bc Italian culture is as prevalent as it is worldwide, it wasn't as dependent on football-fandom to keep alive as it was w/the other nashos(in particular the Cros)
 
As has been pointed out in prior threads, it's why Flogari and Sticca are so hellbent on riding this "assimilation or bust" pale-horse re. ⚽ in 🇦🇺; growing up effnik(Italian specifically in their case) in AFL-heartland, esp. back in the day..that's what it does to ya. And bc Italian culture is as prevalent as it is worldwide, it wasn't as dependent on football-fandom to keep alive as it was w/the other nashos(in particular the Cros)
It would be an interesting experiment if one state started embracing greek food and greek orthodoxy on mass as well as teaching a lot of greek mythology in school.
Would we see a greek lou sticca arise from that state?
 
It would be an interesting experiment if one state started embracing greek food and greek orthodoxy on mass as well as teaching a lot of greek mythology in school.
Would we see a greek lou sticca arise from that state?
In one of the threads from a while back about this topic, it was also posited that the relative prominence of Catholicism in Australia definitely helped w/the Italians' assimilation process(institutional Australia's then-continuous prejudices against Catholicism notwithstanding)
 
It would be an interesting experiment if one state started embracing greek food and greek orthodoxy on mass as well as teaching a lot of greek mythology in school.
Would we see a greek lou sticca arise from that state?
Look I appreciate good banter as much as the next man but thats borderline obscene.
 
Back
Top