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NOTES FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE A LIFE IN COLOURS STADIO OLIMPICOGEORGE BEST IN TASMANIA FOOTBALL ON FILM LIBERI NANTES

PLIGHT OF AFRICAN FOOTBALL HACKNEY LACES BEER AT ESTADIO AZTECA

FOOTBALL CULTURE MAGAZINE ISSUE ZERO MAY 2013

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Contents

4A Life in ColoursOne life, many shirts.

6Hackney LacesA football club for girls in East London.

12Fabiruchis, Teacup and MotorfaceMatch day in Mexico City means more than just football for the locals.

16A Truer Love of the GameWho were the pioneers of the women’s game in Australia?

22Of Shadow and SubstanceA match held in the twilight zone.

26The New FanzineAre podcasts the new fanzines?

30The Best of DaysA global football icon plays an exhibition match in Tasmania.

36The Pragmatist and the PuristThe story behind independent feature film Total Football.

40Liberi NantesRefugees unite under the Liberi Nantes banner in the 3rd division in Rome.

48The Americanization of Australian FootballThe influence of the NASL on the formative years of the NSL.

56It Ain’t Love Unless It HurtsHow does a new arrival in town find and connect with a local team?

58My Stadio OlimpicoAustralian TV icon George Donikian recalls the 1990 World Cup Final.

62Arlington Recreation ReserveIts journey from National Soccer League venue to dog walkers’ paradise.

66The 3Ps of African FootballThe three major problems afflicting African football - and how to fix them.

70The PostThey played football every day, every afternoon on the crumbling city streets.

THIN WHITE LINEFOOTBALL CULTURE MAGAZINEISSUE ZEROMAY 2013

Cover photoGeroge Best, Manchester United (AAP Image/

Sporting Pictures UK/Sport the Library)

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CONTRIBUTOR PROFILES

Benjamin de BuenBen lives, writes and plays football in Melbourne. He has written for the sports section of the Mexican

National News Agency, Notimex, and freelanced for Los Angeles based Hispanic newspaper, La Opinión.

Farid Barquet Climent Farid is a native of Mexico City. He graduated from Law School and has worked in the Supreme Court as well

as other public offices. He has written for a number of magazines in Mexico, such as Nexos, Letras Libres and the National University’s Magazine. Farid is a skilled footballer that could start a match as a goalkeeper then often played midfielder in the second half. He has been one of the few to have worn the number 1

as a field player. These days he can be found on Sundays in the stands of the Olímpico Universitario.

Greg DownesGreg is a PhD student with Victoria University researching an oral history of women’s football in Australia,

and a sessional lecturer in sport management with Southern Cross University. Greg has consulted widely in the area of sport management and local government recreational planning. He has a keen interest in sport generally and women’s football in particular, and has been heavily involved in local and regional sport as a

competitor, manager and administrator in Football (soccer), Swimming, Surf Lifesaving and Triathlon.

Greg resides in Lennox Head on the far north coast of NSW.

Joe GormanJoe is a football writer and researcher who enjoys studying the relationship between football, politics and history.

A park footballer and journalism student, Joe recently completed his Honours thesis on Australian football at Sydney University. In 2013 he will cover the Women’s Super League for Football NSW (Australia). He also writes for news and

opinion website The Roar and football analysis website The Leopold Method.

You can follow Joe on Twitter @JoeGorman_89

Ludovica JonaLudovica is a journalist and press officer based in Rome who specialises in humanitarian, environmental and social issues. She has worked with non-government organisations such as Oxfam International and

INTERSOS, and is currently working on an international campaign for Italian NGO Ricerca e Cooperazione.

Laura MontanariLaura is an Italian photographer based in Rome. She has a strong interest in social issues. Her work has been featured in numerous publications and exhibitions, both solo and in

collaboration with groups such as Amnesty International and Peacereporter.

Her work has taken her to India, Palestine, Israel, Iran, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana, Benin, Lebanon, Egypt, Peru and Angola. She is currently working on themes involving gypsies,

immigrants and refugees as part of a long-term project entitled “Restlessness”.

You can see more of Laura’s work at her website: www.lauramontanari.itPREV

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Dr Peter OchiengDr Ochieng lectures in sports economics, finance, law, management, media and research

methods for the College of Sport & Exercise Science at Victoria University, Australia.

In his native Kenya he coached various sports at both primary and secondary school level. Prior to joining Victoria University, he was the coordinator of recreation/fitness and Adjunct Professor at North Shore College in Boston, USA.

He may be reached at peter.ochieng@vu.edu.au

Jenny SimmonsJenny is a London-based photographer and videographer. On Tuesdays you’ll mostly find her coaching

at Hackney Laces football club and searching for new ways to score on the half-volley.

More of Jenny’s work can be viewed at www.jennysimmons.co.uk

Les StreetLes is affiliated with the Management Discipline Group at University of Technology Sydney. His key

areas of research are football in Australia and its stadiums with a particular focus on the National Soccer League (NSL). He has visited the locations of all 100 NSL grounds in Australia and New Zealand.

Jim WebsterJim is an emerging Melbourne-based photographer, known for his sports photography and his beard. Armed with a telephoto lens and a rock ‘n roll attitude, Jim has worked for media

outlets including breathingfootball.com, osaussies.com and Goal! Weekly, covering the National Youth League, the Melbourne A-League teams and the Victorian Premier League.

With a background in music as a writer, performer and everything else in between, Jim seeks to convey the emotion of sport – as though it were a performance – through his photography. Jim is a proud member of the Football

Media Association. Some of Jim’s work can be found online at www.flickr.com/photos/jwphotographyau/

Cam Colson Art Director

Cam is founder and creative director of Melbourne based design studio, Microcosm. When not pushing pixels about he enjoys honing his coaching technique with his two boys or reffing at the local junior league games.

www.microcosmdesign.com.au

Ian KerrEditor

Ian has written for cult travel, sporting and music websites since the web was young. His more sensible work has been published in international trade magazines. A glittering career as a

professional footballer beckoned but was over before it began due to a lack of talent. Now that his ankle-kicking, shirt-tugging days are over, he watches matches with a zen-like calm, thanks

in no small part to the pasty and Cherry Ripe he demolishes prior to each kick-off.PREV

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A FOOTBALLER’S MANIFESTOPlay with conviction.

Win your tackles and your headers. Protect the ball and make good passes. Take risks often. Creativity can go a long way. You won’t know if you can do something until you try it. Confidence can both make and break you. Trust in your ability but know your limitations. Always be one step ahead. Dominate the call. Be in control. Think with your feet and find the space. Be passionate, not precious. Share your experiences, skills and talents with others. Football can change lives. Work hard for yourself and for your team. Never stop moving. Love the game. Have fun. Play your heart out.

Images by Jenny Simmons

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Founded: 2011Home ground: Petchey Academy,

Hackney, LondonTeams: U12s, U14s, U16s

and seniorsColours: Dark blue with light

blue trim

Hackney Laces was founded in 2011 as a football club for girls aged 12-17, where girls can develop new skills both on and off the pitch. Regardless of their skill level or ambition, Hackney Laces acts a springboard to encourage the girls in other areas. It teaches them the importance of discipline and punctuality. But most of all, it builds their confidence.

For more information on the club visit www.hackneylaces.co.uk or follow on twitter @hackneylaces.

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It was a journey into the twilight zone. A strange yet striking realm created by the collision of separate and disparate worlds; it is neither here nor there, it is not in the past yet it is not in the present. It is in the city but not of the city.

Its name is Kevin Bartlett Reserve.

There is only one way to voyage into the twilight zone: in an ageing Volvo. It conveys an air of otherworldliness – a boxy, indestructible machine, mixing it with modern, flimsy sardine cans.

I found myself on a desolate road, with darkness on every side. I was no longer on the map – somehow

I’d fallen between the pages of the street directory. The headlights were on high beam, but I was only a goal kick or two from the city centre. The map had promised a football ground nearby, but there was naught but the night.

But then, a glow, shimmering in the dark, caught my eye. A pool of light when all around was pitch black. Floodlights beating down on a rectangle of turf. The journey’s end was in sight.

It was not a perfect night for football. The cold wind sliced through me as I stepped out of the Volvo, mocking my high-tech jacket. Mother Nature was in a mocking mood, as

I discovered a solidified stream of bird poop on the passenger door.

Undeterred, I put on my best stiff upper lip (it may have just been frozen) and marched to the ticket booth, where I was relieved of $12.

“Just grab a programme from the box,” the security guard said, his hands never threatening to leave his pockets.

The programme (volume 11, number 11, according to the cover) promised a match between Richmond and Melbourne Knights. It was a game without meaning – neither team could reach the finals, and relegation was not even

OF SHADOW AND SUBSTANCEWords by Ian Kerr

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a mathematical possibility. Nothing to play for except “pride in the jumper”. Or match bonuses.

Kevin Bartlett Reserve is a patch of grass wedged between an arterial road and the river. It is a place where fragments of the past linger on.

A dirt path led from the ticket booth to the brick club house. Following the smell of Deep Heat, I somehow managed to enter via the toilets, and eventually found myself in a fine example of the classic soccer club clubroom. Men in tracksuits were clumped around the bar and the tuck shop, while a couple of families wearing club scarves sat at tables underneath a wide screen TV showing an Australian Rules football match. Photos of club champions adorned the walls, while a banner over the door proclaimed Richmond as Champions 2010.

In one corner sat an older lady with golden hair who served tea, coffee and cake. But more on the cake later.

Unsettled by the incongruous and inexplicable presence of a bearded hipster near the bar, I took my hot chips and potato cake outside for the closing stages of the Under 21s game.

The crowd was divided into two groups: those who had an emotional investment in the outcome of the game, and those who were

eating fried food. My investment in chips had been poor – they lacked crispness – and the potato cake purchase wasn’t prudent either. Perhaps those watching from the VIP suite were given the best chips.

The VIP suite, a forbidden land of unknown pleasures, was guarded by a vigilant security guard. “Are you a sponsor?” he asked, as a spotty youth made to climb the stairs. “Club sponsors only upstairs,” the security guard said.

The players’ race was completely covered by chain-link fencing. A necessary precaution if any of the dozen or so supporters turned violent. The violence that troubles local junior Australian Rules football seemed a remote possibility when most of the crowd was on first-name terms.

The grim weather soon forced me back inside the clubrooms. I turned down the opportunity to indulge in more fried food, and instead studied the team photos and framed articles on the walls. The preponderance of German names and photos of the deutsche Fußballnationalmannschaft illustrated the club’s German roots.

Herein lies one of the problems faced by clubs stuck between the world of “old football” and “new football”. It is a German club but it is not allowed to be German. Their opponents are no longer allowed to be Croatian.

But clubs’ identities continue to be intertwined with their origins.

At this point I noticed that the hipsters had multiplied. The bearded hipster had been joined by a bespectacled beer drinker with mutton chops. Was there something ironic about the clubrooms that I’d missed? This thought troubled me as I returned to the sidelines to wait for the seniors to start.

The teams jogged onto the ground without the benefit of music or the urgings of a demented ground announcer. The players shook hands, and the match started. As did the rain.

A football game is an opportunity to immerse ourselves in 90 minutes away from the world. We can forget about the bird poop that needs to be cleaned from our car, or Monday morning’s mountain of paperwork on our desk, or the diet that should start, must start, as soon as we finish this deep-fried dim sim. We worry only about the contest, and the outside world can go to hell.

At Kevin Bartlett Reserve, reminders of the outside world’s existence are constant. Passenger trains cross a diagonal bridge near one corner of the pitch, while the far wing is bounded by the south-eastern arterial road. The constant flow of traffic and the endless glissando of trucks changing gear had a hypnotic effect,

A FOOTBALL GAME IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO IMMERSE OURSELVES IN 90 MINUTES AWAY FROM THE WORLD.

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such that when a club volunteer asked me to buy a ticket in a raffle I found I had no choice but to say yes, yes my master. The prize on offer was a bottle of schnapps, but my three tickets for $5 proved to be another investment in folly.

When the referee put a goalless first half out of its misery, I retreated to the clubrooms to seek out new ways to part with my money. The lady with the golden hair had on offer an irresistible selection of desserts and cakes, and $3.50 bought me a slab of poppy seed cake (with whipped cream), which could have caused me trouble on the drive home if I had been pulled over by the police for a random drug test.

As the second half started, I stood near a man wearing shorts. Perhaps he had his own micro climate, or perhaps he had lost a bet. There was no sensible reason for shorts when it’s ten degrees, wet and windy.

As we counted down the minutes to oblivion, or full time, whichever came first, there were small highlights to keep us entertained. The police pulled over a car on the arterial road (perhaps the driver had been eating poppy seed cake), and later the ball was stuck on top of the players’ race, requiring intervention in the form of a broom handle.

These moments seldom arrive if a match in a stadium descends

into tedium. We’re held hostage, suspended in the stands, cut off from the true, full sensory experience of the game.

In some ways, the modern match day experience is a sanitised one. We are reduced to theatre-goers, or worse still mere props who pay for the privilege to provide atmosphere to be pumped through television sets across the land or around the world.

But such cynicism is not becoming of the passionate football supporter. Instead we must hold on to hope, even in the most futile of circumstances, that our team can win, or, at the very least, that we can find our car in the car park after the game.

Sometimes salvation comes in the form of a long-range strike, as it did this frigid Friday. Roused, Richmond lifted, and put away a second goal as full time drew near. Knights supporters were rewarded with effort, and perhaps a slice of poppy seed cake if they got a wriggle on, but little more.

Three blasts of the whistle marked the end of this voyage to the twilight zone, and a return to reality beckoned. I looked back over my shoulder as I hustled back to the poop-encrusted Volvo, and saw little kids hopping the fence and running onto the ground.

AS THE SECOND HALF STARTED, I STOOD NEAR A MAN WEARING SHORTS. PERHAPS HE HAD HIS OWN MICRO CLIMATE, OR PERHAPS HE HAD LOST A BET. THERE WAS NO SENSIBLE REASON FOR SHORTS WHEN IT’S TEN DEGREES, WET AND WINDY.

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EditorIan Kerr

Art directionCameron Colson

Assistant to Mr ColsonSuzie Chadwick

TranslationsBen de Buen, Maria Teresa Tombini and Ian Kerr

IllustrationsJenny Simmons

Additional photo creditsPages 5, 22, 56/57 and rear cover: Ian Kerr

Page 13: Archives of Carlos Villasana and Raúl Torres

Pages 18, 20 and 21: Nell Perry’s personal collection

Pages 62 and 65: Les Street

Thanks toCam and Suzie for rocking so hard. Ben de Buen for brainstorming, proof-reading and liaising with our Spanish-speaking friends. Elia Santoro and Ray Gatt for opening your contact books. George Donikian. Ian Syson. Walter Pless. Male model and part-time musician Alastair Kerr and his personal assistant Leanda. All the writers and photographers from around the world who gave their time and talent. Everyone we interviewed to create these stories. All the internetters who gave us a follow, a like, a share or a retweet. My parents for driving us kids to training and matches near and far for so many years. Rachel and Mia. MT for immeasurable patience and support.

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